This post could be described as “wordy.” You have been warned.
So I know fractals is kind of supposed to be the elite zone, with higher lvls being harder, but the “elite” zones of GW1 (yes I count fissure and underworld even though anet doesn’t) I find were more fun. I’ve examined a few things that I believe made them more interesting:
1) Combatively simple, yet tactically difficult. I’ll explain this as there is a recurring theme in GW2 that I believe could be improved. Each individual monster in UW, FOW, Deeps, Urgoz, or DOA were fairly straightforward. They didn’t really have THAT much more health than the player, their attacks didn’t hit THAT much harder, and they didn’t even have a massive skill set to choose from. Individually, they were simple. The reason many teams wipe before they even get off the start pad is because of their tactics. There were patrols that could overwhelm a team that wasn’t watching their position, there were mobs that were very focused on killing certain people and there were mobs that were more general, and several of each type were between the team and victory. There were mobs that were supposed to be avoided altogether. The skills that made up their teams worked well together. In GW2, difficulty is increased by adding health and damage. By extrapolating the GW2 definition of challenge and fun, the most awesome monster to fight would take 37 hours of continuous pounding from 500 characters in order to kill. It would also, in one unblockable shot after another, permanently punt 5 players at a time into an alternate dimension completely out of existence from which there was no return. This doesn’t sound like fun to me, this sounds like a cheap way to make a game.
2) Rewards that require skill. Case in point: the Fissure of Woe armor crafter. First of all, the materials to craft the armor were very expensive, mostly because they were desired in order to make this armor. I’m kind of on the fence about super expensive armor sets, but I mention the FOW armor crafter because he was actually located IN the FOW. Not in some safe place, oh no, you had to be successful at several difficult challenges before he even showed up. Then you had to do a couple things before he would craft for you. This is awesome, because every time you wanted something, you felt like you earned it. Your armor came with the knowledge that experience and good play was required to get it, not grinding or a gem store. Unless your team flopped of course, then you get kicked out which leads me to point #3.
3) Team centric goals vs. Self centric goals. This is difficult to explain. In GW2, your frame of reference is your character, you are fighting out of your character and all you need to know is what your character knows. If your character survives, the goal succeeds. Your mind is centered in your character, and that’s good enough. In GW1, its often not good enough. This is forced because often your goal was not your own personal survival, rather the survival of something else, or the completion of a goal outside and away from your character. A player was forced to know how their actions were affecting their team, the allies of their team, and their opponent’s team. Your mind was tied in with your team, there was a part of your minds eye that knew where your team mates were and what they were doing without actually seeing them. There was a sense if the strategy that was being employed was running smoothly, stagnating, or falling apart. In GW2, the closest thing to this is combo fields and calling targets, both of which can be employed with moderate success from a self centric frame as they are employed with the goal of promoting ones self, not something else. A single goal of survival. Quite simply, in UW and FOW, if the terms of any quest were not met, the whole team was immediately ejected from the realm, forcing team centric play. Another example, In GVG, team survival was insignificant compared to the survival of the guild lord NPC, whose life is a far more complex and difficult to define idea than a circle on the ground. Such complexity invites variety.
Anyway, I am very sure the anet team is looking into building elite zones, mostly because we haven’t heard anything, which is usually a dead give away that they’re working on it right now. So before the designs of these zones get fixed, I wanted to get my two cents in. Oh, and if you’re going to put a difficult jumping puzzle in, maybe make sure that only 1 or 2 players actually have to do it while the rest hold out as not everyone is good at these things and I can see that being a single point of failure for such a zone for those who have trouble.