Guild Wars 2

ANet really messed things up with Fractals. The content is GOOD, but the way it was handled down to players is so poor that completely destroys a core aspect of GW2: socialization. To put it bluntly, I think the people who created the paths are great designers and have all my respect, while the ones who ideated the level system are incompetents who don’t even seem to understand the key selling points of GW2, and should be removed immediately from their position. There are a lot of problems tied to Fractals that negatively impact the rest of the game making it unfun for many, and should be addressed asap!

Let’s quickly list the key problems with the Fractals:
- Extremely wide spread of difficulty levels (over 30), with no real incentive to play at lower levels. So players will seek only other people of their exact level… we already know the consequences. Just a couple of weeks after the update finding a party for Fractals is more challenging and time-consuming than the Fractals themselves.
- Higher Fractals levels require ascended items, which require grind, which can’t be done by people who don’t have a lot of time. So I could be the best Fractals player around and know everything about it, but can’t play above lv15 because I don’t have time to farm ascended.
- Rewards in Fractals are much superior than in any other activity: this basically attracts most people to Fractals, completely taking away people from normal PvE maps and above all from other dungeons. Mid-level area are even empier than before, and finding parties for explorable dungeons is becoming harder, not to mention for story mode.
- Lion’s Arch constantly in overflow. Brilliant move putting the entrance of a heavily sought activity in the most crowded place of GW2. This of course makes all other cities even more desolated that already were, not to mention the additional difficulties in searching a party in LA to run any other dungeon. People began to spam lfg for AC in Bloodtide Coast… just telling.

And now some possible solutions and advices for these insane design faults:
- Global LFG interface, accessible from anywhere in the world, or at least from all major cities, to remove all chat spam and making ten times easier to find a party. This is CRITICAL for socialization! Want to do AC but today you’ve already done path 2? Create a party search with “AC, paths 1/3” that will be visible from anywhere on your server. Likewise, any player may open the LFG interface and immediately see which groups are preparing for which dungeon, and ask to join them. This feature could be available even intra-server, but this aspect needs a bit more consideration.
- For Dwayna’s sake, remove or fix the acended tier. It’s an incredibly bad idea to begin with, being basically an artificial way to prolong the game’s life for no reason (Agony mechanic? What’s the point?), and goes aganist any form of socialization. Gear check was already happening with exotics, and when people begin to acquire ascended it will become much much worse. Since only ascended accessory items are currently in the game, it’s not too late to at fix it, if removal is not possible. A good idea to fix it without removing the tier completely would be to put stats back to exotic levels, remove rune/sigil slot, and keep the infusion slot: this way it becomes a different type of item (horizontal growth) instead of a better one (vertical growth, BAD).
- Merge Fractals difficulty levels: for example, 5-10 current levels could be merged into one, and progression would be possible by playing it on current level and the previous one. For example, you may need to run Fractals on lv1 five times to get to lv2, and then five times on lv2 or ten times on lv1 to progress to lv3 (the two things can be combined ofc, such as running it four times on lv2 and two times on lv1 to reach lv3). While it still won’t be the best socializing content, it will become much better than it currently is.
- Restore drops in PvE, to encourage players to return to non-Fractal activities. With drops from PvE monsters basically nonexistent there is no reason to go to PvE, except for zone completion and resource gathering. Make sure to improve rewards expecially for champions, that usually need a decent effort even with 2-3 people. Unrelated to the Fractals problem, the excessive raise in price of dyes is also due to the reduction of drops.
- Balance rewards between Fractals and other dungeons, and improve rewards for completion of story mode (also adding dungeon tokens) to increase replayability and consequently the ammount of players running it. Being generally easier than explorable, rewards should be lower in story mode (30 tokens against the 60 from explorable), and still affected by the DR system. Right now story mode is usually played one-time only, which is without doubts a waste.

- Implement diminshing returns in Fractals, like it was done with dungeons. Why farming was prevented in dungeons with this system (which I’m ok with), but Fractals have been introduced without this feature? Sure, they are supposed to be more difficult contents, but that doesn’t justify the absence of some anti-farm measure. These kind of limits may seem a restriction to gameplay, but in truth they prompt players to try different contents, instead of repeatedly grinding the same. With this system in action even on other contents, like events, thinks like Plinx farm wouldn’t have been a problem at all from the beginning.
- Move Fractals entrance away from LA. Seriously, stop with this obsession about this kitten city! It isn’t even that great, compared to other major cities. Simply put, move the entrance in one of the underpopulated zones and give a break to LA. Pick any zone in the lv30-70 range with no dragon events nor other dungeons, since they are already ghost places; no need to worry too much about minimum level, since non-80 are already ostracized when trying to join any Fractal above lv1.

Let me know if I missed some key problems created by the introduction of Fractals (which, I repeat, is very funny despite the problems), or if you have other suggestions!
And most of all, let ANet hear your voice, or they will never realize their mistakes!

I love your suggestions. I agree that the socialization aspect took another hit. I’ve been trying to find a group for Arah for three days now, but everyone seems obsessed with the fractals because they have better drops.

And I’m getting SICK of being dumped in overflow and have that silly pop up box on my screen constantly. I’m pretty sure I joined a server… I’d like to stay on it.

And about the drops in PvE, the last major update apparently should have addressed drops in PvE and champions. But I have yet to notice it.

I don’t enjoy the fractal difficulty levels, for the same reason you mentioned. I was especially bummed after finding out level progression is character bound. And I think most people don’t realize this, because 80% of groups are asking for level 25 and up now. It’s nearly impossible to find a lower level group.
For this reason, I would LOVE a global party search feature. I’m still very surprised this wasn’t a feature since release. Party search is a must if you implement dungeons and other group activities.

A simple solution would be the complete removal of dungeons. They are so much like all MMOs out there. IF you really want some instanced content, fine, do it, but make it so that it will have less important gears in it OR make the same gears achievable throughout other activities.
People farmed dungeons in GW1 for ectos, obsidian shards, etc, but you COULD buy them too from merchants. So in that way people who couldn’t do dungeons, they could get the materials for same gears in time and paying for a SINGLE run through the dungeon to get it. Also, the weapons were trade-able, so people could have the same cool looking weapon skins and not be over-powered

I completelly agree with this post!! I personally never have enough time to finish 6 fractals in a row. It takes too much time. I’m still at lvl 2 and i’m tired of repeating them and not finding any group. Maybe i’ve done the colossus 6 times. I have moved to other content.

At least if the round sistem could be changed, i could level up different.

I’m sure they will add more reasonable ways to get ascended gear and i’m going to wait for it.

Yes, fractal sistem is a bad idea

Updated 2nd post with some new solutions for the Fractals problem.

Strangely enough, I realized the only things that currently keeps people away from Fractals are the huge technical problems with disconnection and the hadships in finding a party. If those were solved without fixing the reward issue, even more people would swarm to Fractals, leaving the rest of the game even emptier. ANet, you don’t want that, I assure you.

Up!
And, I agree with most of what you said.
I must say ANET Team also that a possible fix about the problem of crash during Fractals would be very very VERY appreciated by all fractals players (and we know they’re MANY, actually) cause it’s impossible that, if your internet line crashes for like 5 seconds you got disconnected and you cannot return in that dungeon, maybe you were at Jade Maw after 1.30h of hard playing with some noobs and used also a repair canister. That is not correct for your players, Anet, and you should know it because it’s disrespectful for people that bought games, gems and keep talk with friends that GW2 is a really good game. And it is, but you cannot simply “evade” with “V” key this Bug; it’s a big part of the entire production you made with Fractals and makes people unhappy because maybe they can only spend 2 hours per day of their free time and they want to do, at least, that Daily bonus chest and they can’t. They simply can’t. And you know what’s the problem? That people don’t blame internet connection for a 1min crash because we all know that can happen, but blame the Company that, knowing that the problem EXIST doesn’t do anything to help their players.
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I also want to agree with the LFG system, it’s totally useless, not even in level 5 events I would use it first of all cause people don’t know how to use it, second we cannot write anywhere what we’re searching party for. If you see a person running in Lion’s Arch with a LFG GW2’s system activated, would you stop by, whisper him and ask him what he’s looking for or you just go afk watching your facebook page? Please be sincere. In fact, many people started using a non-official site for making party but the fact is that only 30% of gw2 population knows about it otherwise all will be so much easy! That site saved us all (and our free time, remember?), especially for dungeons and fractals parties.
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Another thing, about levels. I appreciate ascended gears and all the farm around it. It’s normal that we cannot have all in a little time and I personally don’t like rushing too much cause I have a work, a family to cook for and my hobbies. But unfortunately GW2 is one of them so I’m not lv 50+ on Fractals like others but I only achieved the 24 and I’m pretty satisfied of that. Otherwise I see many people looking for low levels 1-10 parties that cannot find anyone cause they’re already 10+,20+30+, or maybe you know 10- parties usually don’t know many “how to do” in dungeons and they spend 2hours for something that, for a lv 24 like me, it’s really easy, and they get frustrated and it’s normal. Otherwise guildies cannot always help other guildies with lv 1-2-3-4-5-2-4-3-5-1-4-6-1-2 cause someone is on now, later he’s offline and so on..so they MUST be able to afford those dungeon alone with a good LFG system (first), a non crashing dungeon (unacceptable, for me) and a way to simplify things like Darkever said before, maybe for 1-5 lvl and 5-10 lvl then STOP. From 10+ ALL stays normal. So you’ll have more people at higher level that have a little chance to enjoy fractals and not suffer the ugly thing that happens when you’re alone, noob at first level and with some crash on the back and you maybe can be more appreciated too. You can also, in my opinion, put the first ascended gears ( and also agony too of course) after lv 20 in this case, so people don’t easy farm lv 10, but at least they start know how to play those Fractals and form teams, know people etc..

In conclusion, I know I maybe was a bit rude but it was a thought choice to write here and I really hope someone from our Anet Team will read this really important thread and maybe gives us an answer.

Please, also a " Okay" would be great. Just don’t ignore =)
Thank you really much for patience, especially with my english.

Chiara

It’d really be nice if there was a repair anvil and waypoint at the start of each Fractal (like dungeons).

I’ve occasionally gone into fractals without remembering to repair gear first.

There’s also the issue of occasionally falling to your death. It’s happened to me in the volcano/grawl fractal.

If this happened in a dungeon, I could simply click on the waypoint and be back in the action.

Granted, this might eat into repair canister sales…