Guild Wars 2

Proposal Overview
Agregar nuevas versiones de fractales a medida que se aumenta el nivel de dificultad, incluyendo más fractales como bonus.

Add new versions of fractals as you increase the difficulty level, including bonus fractals.

Goal of Proposal
Hacer más interesante el progreso en el sistema de fractales, más allá de los premios, apelar al sentido de exploración que muchos jugadores de GW2 compartimos.

Make the progress in the Fractals system more interesting, beyond the rewards, to appeal to the sense of exploration many GW2 players share.

Proposal Functionality

A medida que aumenta el nivel de los fractales, nuevas versiones de los mismos se pueden acceder, versiones más interesantes, o con mecánicas más complejas. Al mismo tiempo, la lista de fractales disponibles aumenta, ofreciendo fractales como bonus, sólo por diversión, como un mapa lleno de tesoros de skritt, o lugares donde se relate la historia oculta de Tyria, que no necesariamente significa obtener más premios.

As you rise the difficulty level of your fractals, new versions of the same maps are unlocked, more interesting versions, or with more complex mechanics. At the same time, you can access special fractal levels, made just for fun, like a map full of treasures from skritt, or mythical places that tell secrets about Tyrian history, which doesn’t necesarilly means extra rewards. (mainly for immersion purposes)

Associated Risks

Mayores costos de desarrollo, y podría afectar a aquellos que buscan completar los dungeons de forma acelerada.

Higher development costs, and also could affect dungeon speedrunners.

sidenote: you may have noticed, not native english speaker, sorry if any mistakes were made.

Proposal Overview

Use Fractals to expand on three stories which exist in both GW1 and GW2: the White Mantle (yes, they are in GW2!), Glint, and the Titans. This can also be a stepping stone toward more content dealing with the Elder Dragons.

Goal of Proposal

Bring more existing lore into Fractals as well as bringing back some memorable experiences from the original Prophecies franchise.

Proposal Functionality

Three new Fractals. I’ll keep these slightly vague, so use your imagination to fill in the details. And discuss!

In Henge Fractal, a re-imagining of the Aurora Glade mission from GW1, players must simultaneously hold three thorn pedestals while being assaulted by White Mantle. Once the pedestals have been held, players must fight Saul D’Alessio and his Mursaat guards.

In Crystal Fractal, a re-imagining of the Dragon’s Lair mission, players must choose one of three paths, each with different sets of debuffs, on their way to battle the dragon Glint.

In Fire Island Fractal, players must navigate through the core of a volcano while battling back Titans to a dangerous battle with the Undead Lich and his captive Prince Rurik.

I think ArenaNet can come up with details better than I can. What I would like to suggest is that each of these Fractals can integrate with expanded story about an Elder Dragon: Henge can tie into more about the Maguuma jungle and Mordremoth. Crystal ties in with Kralkatorrik. Fire Island ties in with the Titans and Primordius.

It gives a way to tie Fractals together with developments in the Living World.

Associated Risks

For those who want new lore, this could be seen as a disappointment. ArenaNet would have to be careful to tie these Fractals in with new stories. A simple replay of GW1 missions wouldn’t be particularly exciting.

Balt, I like the idea of sort of an explorable fractals. I think it would be a really interesting addition to pve in a non stressful way (I guess, really, this would be more of a “story” fractal, what I’m thinking of). I like your ideas for progression, but it might be just, so much of a change to the current system that they might be better creating a whole new thing, rather than so drastically changing what is there.

timmyf.1490:

Proposal Overview

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Now that we have the new fractal and the new bosses you can actually make a nice tutorial for the fractals! You can tell Dessa’s story a bit with the Reactor fractal and generally make your first visit to the fractals a story driven experience. All it really takes is a bit of dialog.

In regard to your request I would like to see more discussion/proposal around rewards as well as ideation about how we could evolve the whole Fractal experience from ideas around new types of fractals, new lore and info on your favorite encounters in the current fractals.

On top of this it would also be cool to hear about people’s favorite instabilities and ideas for new ones.

Chris

I would really like to see a Fractal that is set in the future of GW2, but that deals with the fall out of something that happened in the current time. It could have offspring from current NPCs in it. This could open up really cool stuff in terms of advancements in technology (the weapons used by NPCs the players fight) to also having new Fractal instabilities that wouldn’t make sense in the current time line, but would make sense in the future because of said advancements in tech.

I have always said that it would be good to see stuff that didn’t get resolved in GW1 get resolved in Fractals. There are myriad stories that never got finished and it’s disappointing as a player that it didn’t get finished. Shoring up loose ends is great.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Topic Title: Potential Fractals (Replay Value)

snip

I like your thinking Mustafa!

Chris

One Reason, why I think its crucial important to improve the Fractals with new Features over like, like my suggested “Heroic Fractals” that would work as external Solo/Group Fractals outside of the Standard Fractals, so that there is also some content to do in the FotM for new rewards, if you have already reached for example Rank 50 and there would be normally nothing anymore, that interests you in doing Fractals, other than gettign the Daily for a run.

Its also something, that you could use as new Gemstore Items to make some profit out of that Idea. People bought for GW1 also the Bonus Mission Pack, which is the source of inspiration of my idea, because Fractals are so extremely similar to that Gameplay/Reward Concept of the BMP.

They would make it possible so that Anet could tell us many new interestign small scaled stories.
I’d freaking love it to play the Stories of Ghosts of Ascalon, Destinies Edge and Sea of Sorrows, the three novel books as historical replayable Fractals.

Or other awesome things, liek the Flameseeker prophecies, that could lead to the point, that we could replay the Searing of Ascalon, the Sinking of Orr and the Battle agaisnt the Lich/the Mursaat/the Titans , which are some creatures, I’d love to see back somehow in GW2 as they were so iconic lorewise.

But also other stories would be awesome to replay this way as a Heroic Fractal, like the War of Kryta, like the Fall of Abaddon.

the Tomes of histories would be a great option to give Fractals via the Heroic Fractals an awesome new reward option, which could work similar in an improved version of the Dungeon Reward Books of GW1, where you unlocked with every thing you did new Verses/Chapters of the Lore – and here it could work like unlocking new playable parts of the whole History about the Tome.

Example:

Tome of History – Ghosts of Ascalon – 1000 Gems
Double Click to unlock the First Chapter of the Heroic Fractal of Ascalon for fractals of the Mist.

You play this Heroic Fractal, to more you play it, so more Essences of Memories do you earn. Essences of Memories will be consumeable items, that you can use to increas your Memory Level of the chosen Tome of History in your Inventory.
Everytime you increase the Memory Level of a Tome, you will remove one of its Locks to open up more and more playable Chapters of the Tome to unlock more Areas in the corresponding Heroic Fractal to be explored and to become able to replay more of the History of the Tome.

This would be in my opinion very awesome for Lore Fans, it would improve Fractals alot and you would get something new for the Gemstore.

Win Win 4 All

Chris, what is the current plan (if there even is one) of improving the time commitment to reward ratio??

I often PUG because I have a hectic work schedule and I can’t always make the runs when the guild does.

But with the string of bad luck (get dredge so many times in a row…), fractals can take me upto two hours if not more… thats quite a bit of time for such a measily award…wouldn’t you agree?

Is there any plans on changing this? Right now I’m only doing it because I’m close to getting the ascended back… and thats it, i never want to do this chore again… it just doesn’t seem rewarding AT ALL for the amount of time and effort I put into this mode…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

Hmm, I like this idea. As of right now my main char has about 90 AR so I mainly bring him into fotm, I’d like to play different professions in fotm but since I only play high level fotm and my other toons have low ARs so it’s hard to do.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I sort of feel bad for Chris already. I tried to keep my posts short, but every time I come back to the thread I see walls of text that are “formatted”. It’s still difficult to get through.

I really wish people could be more concise, use more lists, and less walls of text.

Anyway, I like a lot of the ideas so far. But it does seem the playerbase is all on the same page here. It would be beneficial to get some developer interaction to see what page they’re on. (But I can’t imagine trying to soak in this many words at once, so I suspect that’s why we aren’t getting too much red yet).

Things are much much more accessible already and whilst we can still improve I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for giving it a try.

Loads of devs have commented to me about the topics being much easier to consume and think about.

So thanks everyone.

Chris

That’s good to hear, your eyes must be better than mine. Glad it’s working out

What if you could convert Pristine Fractal Relics into account-bound AR?

lnguy.5127:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

Hmm, I like this idea. How about making it similar to how we level Magic Find. We can level up AR with the AR drop from playing fractals, and it gets progressively harder to level up AR the higher it gets. As of right now my main char has about 90 AR so I mainly bring him into fotm, I’d like to play different professions in fotm but since I only play high level fotm and my other toons have low ARs so it’s hard to do.

I agree… I just think it’s really really important they don’t get rid of the AR we have already accumulated. That would open up a can of wurms we wouldn’t be able to decapitate.

Proposal Overview
Underworld fractal (Rise of Grenth)

Goal of Proposal
To introduce a fractal taking place during the deposing of Dhuum by Grenth, players could take the role of the seven reapers.

Proposal Functionality
Essentially just a new fractal , taking place during the far past when the half-god Grenth and his seven reapers overthrow Dhuum.
The players could either take the role of the Reapers, or act as agents of the reapers.

First part: Destroy the statue of Dhuum to weaken his power
A statue of Dhuum in the underworld, that generates a de-buff which corrupts buffs must be destroyed , protected by some of Dhuums army.

Second part: Breach the sanctum/Hall of judgement (not sure where the final battle takes place), could be a Magg style defend/distract the enemies for a while event as a ritual is completed.

Third Part: Seal Dhuum, could be fought alongside Grenth, he could generate a buff that counters a debuff Dhuums attacks inflict, also a really good chance to introduce the first physical fight between two gods.

Other considerations: opens the oppertunity for some really nice theme weapons if fractal specific rewards are added.
Expands upon the lore of a pretty major event in history.

Associated Risks
-Requires development resources.
-Not really innovative.
-I’m fairly sure some gw2 players don’t even know who Grenth is so may not care.

Quick question for Chris or any other dev that is watching.

Is it enough for me to hit the red +1 button or do I need to specifically quote the proposal and add my comments to show agreement?

A lot of what I would personally propose has been proposed already. I’ve been +1’ing those posts but I would just like to know that it’s the right way to throw my support behind various ideas.

Thanks

Me personally, I never liked Agony (and in particular AR) as a gating mechanic. Especially with the automatic application of Agony for the boss fractals…it’s essentially the worst kind of a flat gear check/time invested check.

I would prefer to play Fractals, even those of higher scales with my friends, with the knowledge that it’s possible for me to fully succeed, provided I perform well. (Dodging Agony attacks, maximizing DPS potential, and group composition for various encounters).

Since your think about making AR accountbound… is there any Chance you give us some insight if you are planing on still keeping an AR barrier to advance instead of a skillgate?…

I really loved to go to 80 without big ar because you could dodge all attacks and I honestly think this is a better implementation. Than letting People WoWstyle grind AR so they can move on. even if they actually have the skill to beat the Content. I think it was discussed under fake difficulty in the Progression thread. And I am really afraid on having an AR System that is similar to MF were you Need to grind your way up to go further. I hope all Levels will be completable again with 0 AR if you have nice Teamwork:)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

lnguy.5127:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

Hmm, I like this idea. How about making it similar to how we level Magic Find. We can level up AR with the AR drop from playing fractals, and it gets progressively harder to level up AR the higher it gets. As of right now my main char has about 90 AR so I mainly bring him into fotm, I’d like to play different professions in fotm but since I only play high level fotm and my other toons have low ARs so it’s hard to do.

I agree… I just think it’s really really important they don’t get rid of the AR we have already accumulated. That would open up a can of wurms we wouldn’t be able to decapitate.

I agree with these thoughts. I would be bummed because I spent a lot of time getting enough AR on 5 of my toons to be doing the Fractals at a whim, but it makes too much sense to ignore. Account based AR in some form or other would be fantastic.

Proposal Overview
Make all tier 3 fractals as lengthy and potentially rewarding as dredge AND/OR allow groups to vote on which fracs they get and award gold at the boss based on the difficulty of the fractals chosen

Goal of Proposal
People won’t complain about the length of dredge anymore and the looting spree that is the dredge clowncar on a frac50 will remain!

—
[AXIS]Praetorian Scipio on Borlis Pass

Do something with the underwater fractal (Aquatic Ruins). After the Fractured patch I haven’t played this fractal anymore because everyone is rerolling to the swamp fractal to start with. Make it possible to get this as second fractal?

Definitely agree that any Account-Wide Agony Resistance should be in addition to and not a replacement of existing AR.

Also agree that Agony should be avoidable through skilled play and “it’s going to hit you no matter what” AR-gating is a bad thing.

Proposal overview
Change to Dredge Fractal

Goal of Proposal
Making it more fun and less tedious and less hated

Proposal Functionality
First, let’s look at the plate pressures needed to open the gates. Currently, the best way of doing this is stealth because killing dredge is so tedious, takes so much time and frustrating because of the insane rate of respawn. Since we need to stand on the plates, why not create mechanics around that. Dredges only have knockback, pulls, push. Dredges are blind and they use their sonics to detect where things are (banging on their shields), how about give players sonic guns that can cancel out their sonic waves and making them unable to detect players while they’re on the plates? How about having a “Strong-man” Dredge that does “tug-of-war” with the player that is on the plate.

Second, the bomb room. So again, the dredge respawn rate is ridiculously high and at the same time, dredges are able to steal bombs. Make this less frustrating and tedious by allowing players to use their knockback, pull, push skills on the dredges that are holding bombs. If players are successful at getting those dredges with bombs back to the gate, the bombs would go off and damage the gate.

Third, the clown room. Get rid of the clown cart. Just have the boss and his trash. Fun idea would be have the boss and his trash guard a “human” cannon, (and no press F to fire) have the firing and targeting mechanic similar to that of catapults/treb in WvW (excellent way to introducing some WvW mechanics in PvE). They have to aim it and power it correctly at the gate or the player “human cannonball” will down/die if they hit anything else. This would be fun, we already have a human cannon ball concept in game.

Iason Evan.3806:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

lnguy.5127:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

Hmm, I like this idea. How about making it similar to how we level Magic Find. We can level up AR with the AR drop from playing fractals, and it gets progressively harder to level up AR the higher it gets. As of right now my main char has about 90 AR so I mainly bring him into fotm, I’d like to play different professions in fotm but since I only play high level fotm and my other toons have low ARs so it’s hard to do.

I agree… I just think it’s really really important they don’t get rid of the AR we have already accumulated. That would open up a can of wurms we wouldn’t be able to decapitate.

I agree with these thoughts. I would be bummed because I spent a lot of time getting enough AR on 5 of my toons to be doing the Fractals at a whim, but it makes too much sense to ignore. Account based AR in some form or other would be fantastic.

Hmm I don’t know. In one way I like this idea, playing with multiple characters in fractals. But I don’t like the idea of changing from class while doing fractals. Like; ‘lets switch all to thief now because we have dredge fractal and hide in shadows on platforms’

I have a question here: Isn’t unique loot/ Skins bragging rights? or titles? Speaking of rewards I Need to say somthing that bothers me tbh.

Skins are not bragging rights, they are visuals. People want to look good for their own reasons. Titles are more bragging rights," but really all Fractal people should need as a specific reward is to know what tier they’ve reached.

Basically, if there’s anything that people would want to have, even if they have absolutely no interest in playing the content of the Fractals, then it should be something that they can get without having to be ridiculously good. If there’s something that people wouldn’t care about unless they were interested in being particularly good, then that can be unique to those who are particularly good.

Even the SAB rewards are a bit bad in this respect, since anyone can get the blue ones easily enough, but the green and yellow ones are trickier to get, which is fine, unless the green or yellow ones better suit your style, in which case you’re kittened if you don’t have the skills to beat Trib mode regularly. Gaining a title that says “you achieved this” is fine, but character gear should not be locked up behind difficult content.

There should be no expectation in a game for an individual player to obtain all the items they want, it is acceptable to lock some items away for “elite” players to give them rewards for displays of skill.

No. “Elite” players should not be rewarded over the average player of the game through any more than just some recognition that they are elite. This should not come in the form of any kind of gear that any non-elite would ever want or need. I would be fine with non-elites getting the same visual appearance as the elite version, but with slightly lesser stats, so long as the stat difference was only in something like AR, which is useless outside of Fractals. If the stat difference made any difference in outside content then no, not acceptable.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

I will discuss this proposal with Izzy and have him respond.

Chris

If you are going for this it would be nice if you could implement a System that Awards accountwide AR for each instability completed:

Pros: – People can only skip a certain ammount of instabilities while going up the leaderbaords / the scales
- You have accoundwind ar where People have always enough AR to advance given they completet all instabilities before ( So you get rid of the gearcheck /geargrind )

cons: -I’m sure the People here are able to deliver some cons I can’t think of any atm:)

Proposal Overview
Remove stacking

Goal of Proposal
With stacking gone, developers can actually continue to give fractal/dungeons depth. Nothing is trivalized anymore because of an easy tactic.

Proposal Functionality
First, make stacking in the long term a unviable tactic. Let players stack once in a while for boons, res or whatever, but after that if players continue to stack, they will wipe hard.

Associated Risks
None.

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
Remove stacking

Goal of Proposal
With stacking gone, developers can actually continue to give fractal/dungeons depth. Nothing is trivalized anymore because of an easy tactic.

Proposal Functionality
First, make stacking in the long term a unviable tactic. Let players stack once in a while for boons, res or whatever, but after that if players continue to stack, they will wipe hard.

Associated Risks
None.

And here’s where the conversation becomes ruined and people’s biases start causing arguments. I’m not going to bother arguing but I really think you should think a little harder about “risks” before saying that there are none.

Edit: “This is outside the scope of this CDI, as it involves much more than just Fractals. In addition, since Fractals is the least affected by this tactic, it is not really relevant to the task at hand.”

I don’t think making stacking “unviable” is a great plan, but it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for gameplay if ranged mobs would occasionally create more space. At the very least, it would force the stack to move.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
Remove stacking

Goal of Proposal
With stacking gone, developers can actually continue to give fractal/dungeons depth. Nothing is trivalized anymore because of an easy tactic.

Proposal Functionality
First, make stacking in the long term a unviable tactic. Let players stack once in a while for boons, res or whatever, but after that if players continue to stack, they will wipe hard.

Associated Risks
None.

And here’s where the conversation becomes ruined and people’s biases start causing arguments. I’m not going to bother arguing but I really think you should think a little harder about “risks” before saying that there are none.

IMO, people like runeblade have a right to express their opinion, but it’s lack of experience with software design/development that lead to unrelated proposals or the inability to analyze risk.

I usually try to sense out any bias by use of vocabulary (how may times can one count the word “kitten”) to see if a player’s opinion stems from anger, or just concern.

Just to be clear here, the proposal of making stacking unviable is a global game concern, that is likely far beyond scope to the current discussion of elements/proposals to just the Fractals experience.

And now, back on-topic, before Nike ruins us all with his 4th dimension mod powers.

In an nearby parallel universe where you must all endure the hellish notion that I have moderator powers, I’d be typing up a standardized response to cut and paste from to the effect~

Sorry, but your recent post was found to not fall sufficiently within the current topic and has been removed to preserve the focus of the discussion. Please consider re-posting your thoughts as a separate thread where it will be directly topical.
This is not an infraction.

So count your blessing you live in this universe. I’d be a dreadful tyrant .

Proposal Overview

Selectable number of fractals to run before getting the final boss fractal.

Goal of Proposal

Making rewards rise exponentially with the amount of time spent running fractals. Because, let’s face it, current rewards are a bad joke.

Proposal Functionality

You select the number of fractals you want to run. Let’s say 6. The system divides the number to the three tiers of fractals. You get 1 tier 1, 3 tier 2 and 2 tier 3. After which you get the boss fractal as always. Each fractal beyond the 3’rd increases rewards given at the end of the run. Increased ascended armor/weapon drop rate, increased tonic drop rate, more relics, more gold etc.

Difficulty should scale too on runs with more than 3 fractals. If you want to run 20 fractals to seriously increase those ascended chest chances, you should work for it.

Associated Risks

Might make 1 fractal runs easy to abuse though you could easily set the minimum number to 3.

Proposal overview
While many people despise difficult content like how tequatl was, the great jungle wurm is and maybe high level fractals there is still a lot of players who love being challanged. Make fractal the place for the most coordinated of groups. Where the task would look close to impossible at first glance. (ie. Wurm content for 5 players)

Goal of Proposal
Continue Fractals hard content by adding much more challanging content to create a place for the dedicated players and keep them interested.

Proposal Functionality
I believe the instabilities are steps towards the right direction, higher health pools and damage isn’t adding to the difficulty.
Add more crazy and interesting instabilities, such as:

1. Hardcore: You cannot resurrect or be revived.
2. Weak Link : If one party member dies, all dies. No down state.
3. Rushed for time: Timer begins to count when a player gets in combat. You have XX amount of time to get out of combat, if failed the fractal is reseted.

Take inspiration from GW1 elite areas, also make it as unforgiving.
For this to work a system that make it impossible to skip levels would have to be implemented.

Associated Risks

• Many people complain about difficult content, which would make a part of the game inaccessible for the casual player.
  Solution: Let no unique item or achievement point be given towards completion. A title or similar would suffice.
• If players can’t skip levels it will make it harder to find groups.
  Solution: Make it possible for players to join their friends in any level, but the title would not be given until all levels have been completed.

Snowball.3497:

Proposal overview
While many people despise difficult content like how tequatl was, the great jungle wurm is and maybe high level fractals there is still a lot of players who love being challanged. Make fractal the place for the most coordinated of groups. Where the task would look close to impossible at first glance. (ie. Wurm content for 5 players)
.

Yes please. I love the idea of content like the wurm, teq and the marionette on a scale for 5 people to do. Something other than a dps check. I love that you have to get eaten and grab the thing inside the wurm and then drain its stacks of armor. I would like to see something intricate like this in a 5 man instance.

Snowball.3497:

I believe the instabilities are steps towards the right direction, higher health pools and damage isn’t adding to the difficulty.

again yes please. “fake difficulty” is more annoying. Mechanics difficulty is far more interesting.

Seems like some other people had the same idea that I thought of at work to add an environmental weapon to the dredge fractal. Anyway to go into more specifics:

Proposal Overview
Adding an environmental weapon to the dredge fractal

Goal of Proposal
To keep dredge fractal as a fractal requiring a high amount of coordination, while adding a unique mechanic and lowering the frustration and time requirements.

Allowing groups without stealth or reflects to survive.

Proposal Functionality
At the start of the fractal there will be a dead npc with environmental weapons beside him. The environmental weapon shoots out (1200) ranged sanctuary bubble AoEs (absorbs projectiles and provides a knockback when entering AoE). The sanctuary bubble lasts 3 seconds and the spell itself has a 5 second cooldown.

This would make it so you can mitigate the damage during the pressure plate phase, potentially keeping almost everyone surrounded by a bubble if coordinated enough. During the bomb/door phase 2 people could play bubble hopscotch while the other 3 grab the bombs or burn the door. Make sure there are extra weapons placed at the checkpoints.

Associated Risks
Some people don’t like to use environmental weapons so to them the run would essentially be what it is now.

Fractal is still very long, but this sets it up so rather than feeling forced to kill everything and deal with infinite respawns you can strategically bypass constant fighting.

timmyf.1490:

Proposal Overview

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Associated Risks

Loot is my primary concern. If Practice Fractals have the same drops and rewards as regular Fractals, I could see them being farmed. I therefore propose that no loot drop AT ALL in Practice Mode Fractals so they are ONLY used for their intended purpose: learning the encounters so you can play regular Fractals with a group.

I like this suggestion but I think it would be better to offer XP and some loot to encourage more people to do the practice runs. Perhaps the loot tables could remove the Fractal Relics and Essence of the Mists drops or just use open world loot tables.

Ohoni.6057:

Proposal Overview
Make Fractals shorter from entry to exit.

Goal of Proposal
I do not enjoy spending an hour or more running a single type of content, in which leaving prematurely would result in abandoning my rewards and disappointing other people. I want some sort of change that would allow me to get in and out in under a half hour, while still progressing meaningfully towards Fractal goals.

This would certainly help encourage me to take part more in Fractals. Challenging content does not have to equate to a mandatory time sink.

Proposal Overview

• Metrics-driven dynamic Fractal rewards which update daily or weekly.
• Increase the rewards for completing each Fractal and difficulty level based on objective, live metrics about real playthroughs, instead of using a subjective reward scale
• The rewards for the “easiest” Fractals and difficulty levels should be the same as today.

Goal of Proposal

• Right now, although each of the Fractals are wildly different (as they should be!), the rewards for completing them are identical. By scaling the rewards based on live play metrics, those fractals which are more frequently skipped or which take most groups a long time to complete will have boosted rewards.
• This will also keep the Fractal meta from stagnating. As one Fractal rises the list and is worth more and more rewards, the player community will find more efficient ways to run those Fractals. As they are completed more often their rewards will decrease and other Fractals will get time to shine.

Proposal Functionality

• Every day at reset time, produce a report taking into account the following variables:
  >>> How long each Fractal takes on average to be completed at each Level
  >>> How many times each Fractal is skipped (ended without being completed)
  >>> How many rewards have been given out from each Fractal
  >>> At 30+, how often a Fractal Instability is skipped

• Using the above 3 variables, rank the Fractals and Instabilities in order from “Highest Rewards” to “Least Rewards”.
• At the “Least Rewards” level (the easiest Fractal/Instability), give the same rewards that are given today.
• At each Fractal ranked higher than the easiest Fractal, scale the rewards up.
• If one single Fractal remains in the “Highest Rewards” tier for multiple consecutive days, continue scaling that Fractal’s rewards each day until it is knocked from its tier.
• Publish the daily list clearly to the community, or at least publish the “Highest Reward” fractal each day. If this can be done in game (for example, an NPC who shares the current Reward Ranking)

Associated Risks

• Players can’t choose Fractals, so if Dredge becomes very rewarding as a result of this change, players won’t be able to choose it directly. This may not be a bad thing.
• Possibly subject to player manipulation of the metrics (dying on purpose, going AFK in Fractals) — though with the total playerbase it is expected the actions of a few manipulative players wouldn’t nudge the average. Would need to develop some counter-manipulation measures (Booting AFK players, excluding excessive times/skips, etc)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Galen Grey.4709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I would like us to start of by listing the top three things we would like to see evolved in Fractal Design. Idea proposals can come after this stage.

Chris

1. Procedural Generation
it would be nice if at least some elements found in a fractal were a bit randomize so that every run has variety
2 rewards
making rewards not entirely dependable on RNG
3 User generated content
This is perhaps a bit too ambitious but perhaps if the mists can be found to dwell in alternate realities not just the past, it would be interesting to allow players to design their own fractals and share them with the community.

Personal opinion: It would be really cool to have number 3. Rewards would be an interesting problem in regard to this idea though.

Chris

Hello Chris.

Similar to what the Anet team has done several times in GW1, the Design-A-Weapon contest, or the Design-A-Boss-Name contest. Would it be too far fetched to have a GW2 Design-A-Fractal, or Design-A-Fractal-Boss contest?

I would really love if the community could get the chance to carve in their own stuff they like into the game. A contest, per say, during 2 monthes. At the end of that, the top three community designed fractals would be reviewed and iteracted upon by Anet and we would retrive some feedback of what would change if they were to go foward.

Result:
Community-made fractals, the best of the best get picked; or atleast
Heavy community-influenced fractals, both in theme, difficulty, encounters and/or mechanics.

Proposal Overview:

Allow Fractals to play more to their strengths: variable difficulty randomized dungeon with unique rewards based on difficulty.

Goal of Proposal:

Incentivize players to try more difficult content or content which they attempt to avoid.

Proposal Functionality:

At the beginning of the fractal add tiered difficulties:

First for Fractal level which will affect Agony and mob strength

Second for Mistlock instability level either selected or randomized with an intensity dependant on Fractal level

Third for Fractal shards randomization: Either lock the fractal lineup into the three that are rolled upon entry or allow players to choose their fractals.

Increase rewards in the daily based on selected difficulty, perhaps up to 3 rolls for Fractal Weapons/Ascended Gear or remove undesirable rewards from the table, i.e. ascended rings are replaced with a better chance at fractal weapons/ascended boxes.

Give a chance for a new prestige reward or a currency towards one (or both) when completing all three “hard modes”

Associated Risks

Would likely not stop rerolling for swamp completely, but perhaps make 5 people roll seperately, depending on how it’s coded.

Could potentially fracture some of the playerbase depending on how challenging the content their friends attempt is.

Malchior.5042:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
Remove stacking

Goal of Proposal
With stacking gone, developers can actually continue to give fractal/dungeons depth. Nothing is trivalized anymore because of an easy tactic.

Proposal Functionality
First, make stacking in the long term a unviable tactic. Let players stack once in a while for boons, res or whatever, but after that if players continue to stack, they will wipe hard.

Associated Risks
None.

And here’s where the conversation becomes ruined and people’s biases start causing arguments. I’m not going to bother arguing but I really think you should think a little harder about “risks” before saying that there are none.

IMO, people like runeblade have a right to express their opinion, but it’s lack of experience with software design/development that lead to unrelated proposals or the inability to analyze risk.

I usually try to sense out any bias by use of vocabulary (how may times can one count the word “kitten”) to see if a player’s opinion stems from anger, or just concern.

Just to be clear here, the proposal of making stacking unviable is a global game concern, that is likely far beyond scope to the current discussion of elements/proposals to just the Fractals experience.

And now, back on-topic, before Nike ruins us all with his 4th dimension mod powers.

Sure, okay. I edited my post.

I was feeling so good about this thread, until that was posted and all of my fears on this were realized.

We’re good. Deep Breaths Guuusssfraba……

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

I will discuss this proposal with Izzy and have him respond.

Chris

Thanks. I feel there are many ways around this idea and I am not sure which one would be best. It could potentially allow for unlimited AR stacking which might not be desired at the moment. So a limit could be applied or AR infusion slots could be moved to the hero panel. Then we would still need to get the AR infusions and the market remains for the craftable +1 infusions. But I am sure there are over a dozen other ways around it.

This was just a rough sketch to have the AR moved from character to account in order to increase the replayability.

Proposal Overview
To make fractals bonus chest rewards recyclable. Bonus chest reward changes to lvl 40 + fractals.

Goal of Proposal
Currently much higher drop rate of ascended rings than ascended armor/weapons leading to clutter (see screenshot of my bank).

1. To make ascended rings salvageable(? dark matter ? ecto ? ascended mats).
2. To have a “trinket chest” from which you can choose the ring you want.
3. To reduce ascended trinket drop rate and increase ascended armor/weapon rate in 40+ fractals.

Proposal Functionality
As above.

Associated Risks
Clutter is a huge problem now with every update bringing in atleast 5 new items. Players are often left wondering what to do with the items. There is no clear idea as to whether to save them or destroy them. With the new update, guild chat was filled with people asking “should i save those power cores from last update ?” etc. Living story rewards aside, fractals rewards imo should be recyclable cos you spend a decent chunk of time playing them and the last thing you want is another stubborn ascended ring with undesirable stats.

Proposal Overview Dredge as a double shard.

Goal of Proposal To make players feel adequately rewarded for the time spent in the dredge fractal. My anecdotal experience tells me that dredge takes as long as two standard shards.

Proposal Functionality At the end of the first shard the group has a chance to receive a double shard, in this case dredge, and finishing the shard counts as the 2nd and 3rd levels, taking the group to the boss shard.

Associated Risks It’s a new concept, it will take time to inform players about double shards. Also, research should be done to see if dredge really takes as long as two shards for a standard group, I have a feeling it does.

Ohoni.6057:

No. “Elite” players should not be rewarded over the average player of the game through any more than just some recognition that they are elite. This should not come in the form of any kind of gear that any non-elite would ever want or need. I would be fine with non-elites getting the same visual appearance as the elite version, but with slightly lesser stats, so long as the stat difference was only in something like AR, which is useless outside of Fractals. If the stat difference made any difference in outside content then no, not acceptable.

What you suggest is gear progression which is not the form used in this game, there are three main types of progression,

Gear progression, “Due to this ultra hardcore armor I obtained that you can’t get I have progressed in power and can 1 hit kill you”.
Stat/Skill progession, “Due to the extensive use of my skills and training of my character I can punch you without any weapons and armor and kill you in 1 hit.”
Visual progression (The type used in GW2 technically): Due to my playing competent playing of advanced content both by myself and with a group I look better than you do visually but have no statistical difference.

As Visual progression is the progression used an “elite” player should look visually more impressive than an average player, this can be through unobtainable items, as long as they give no additional stats (I realise that is nearly the exact opposite of your opinion).

(Last post on the matter as I’m dragging the topic off course, I’ll just stick up a few more proposals on elite items later).

Ramiel.4931:

Proposal Overview

Selectable number of fractals to run before getting the final boss fractal.

Goal of Proposal

Making rewards rise exponentially with the amount of time spent running fractals. Because, let’s face it, current rewards are a bad joke.

Proposal Functionality

You select the number of fractals you want to run. Let’s say 6. The system divides the number to the three tiers of fractals. You get 1 tier 1, 3 tier 2 and 2 tier 3. After which you get the boss fractal as always. Each fractal beyond the 3’rd increases rewards given at the end of the run. Increased ascended armor/weapon drop rate, increased tonic drop rate, more relics, more gold etc.

Difficulty should scale too on runs with more than 3 fractals. If you want to run 20 fractals to seriously increase those ascended chest chances, you should work for it.

Associated Risks

Might make 1 fractal runs easy to abuse though you could easily set the minimum number to 3.

Dude, I was just about the post the same thing:

Proposal Overview
<A short description of the proposal that is being put forward>

Allow parties to select how many fractals to play through at once.

Goal of Proposal
<What problem are you trying to solve with your proposal>

This is an attempt to address an aspect of fractal length issues. Three to four hours for a fractal run is a very large amount of time to schedule in between work, family and other obligations. It requires all the energy and time investment of an Arah path with little of the reward (the reward element has been addressed well elsewhere, as have suggestions on making fractal levels more roughly equivalent in length). I find that I literally can not even contemplate forming a group for fractals during the week after work due to this time length.

Proposal Functionality
<How does your proposal work in regard in relation to the current design of GW2>

Much like choosing which explore path to take in a dungeon, you can choose initially how many fractals from which tier your group wants to attempt, with scaling rewards for fairness. While a “do you want to continue or go to the boss fractal?” type prompt at the end of each successful fractal could work similarly, I imagine the “continue prompt” could cause room for griefing if a few members suddenly decide to deviate from what the group initially agreed upon.

Associated Risks
<What risks or problems can you foresee with this proposal which you would like to have assistance on from other members of the CDI>

It could be disheartening if someone’s schedule suddenly clears up and they’re stuck in a “2 fractals only” group. It would also lead to more splintered LFG advertisements, which could make finding enough to fill a party a little trickier — or it actually might encourage more people to do fractals more frequently and thus fill up the shorter groups faster. I could see it going either way. And if the rewards are lesser in shorter runs without addressing the issues with the current overall rewards that are in place, there might be even less incentive.

Proposal Overview

I propose adding elite Fractals designed for two to three groups to queue for and run together through an expansion of the squad system.

Goal of Proposal

My guild runs fractals regularly, but we often have people who are left out because the content is locked at five players. I would like to see a new set of fractals assessable through new, individual portals that scale for two to three groups. By using the scaling technology that is already in game and enhancing the squad system, elite fractals would provide access to challenging zones for large, organized groups of players.

Proposal Functionality

The elite fractals would be non-linear zones with several bosses and dynamic events with packs of dangerous enemies scattered between. When you enter the zone the players kick off a dynamic event chain that will lead to several branching event chains. The players complete the dynamic event branches in any order each one ending in a difficult boss battle. Once all the chains are complete the zone boss will spawn.
Potential stories that can be explored

• The realm of the Owl spirit. With the owl spirit dead a new one must be named help one of several potential spirits take the throne.
• The elemental realm of Air, a zone where you help Zomorros resolve an ancient conflict between him and his brother. Player guided Airships and floating islands!
• The exile of humanity, Lead a group of human refugees to a new world! The gods have prepared the way now you must battle through the servants of the evil god Menzies to the portal that will lead to your salvation. Choices for the group to vote on throughout that change the difficulty and how many refugees survive.
• The death and rebirth of Quorra Sum (not in current lore). Long before humans arrived on Tyria a plague of unknown origins swept through the subterranean city of Quorra sum. Battle your way through demons attracted by the incredible suffering to find a cure and maintain the quarantine. Explore the backstreets to find hidden labs and build powerful environmental weapons to aid you against the demons.
• A Wealth of Blood. A flame legion prisoner tells the blood legion of a molten alliance mine that exploits the infinite nature of the fractals to constantly mine rare resources thereby fueling scarlet’s war machine. With Scarlet defeated it could be a valuable asset to the Charr. Help the blood legion prelate capture the realm after it resets. Battle both molten alliance and the fractal locked denizens for control. Resource based battle. Collect more resources than the other sides to win.
• A New Leaf. The Pale Tree hears herself calling for help in a dream. A team of Sylvari Valiants follow the call to the fractals where they open a portal to another instance of Tyria where the pale tree is under assault from the steam realms army. Save the pale tree and push back the encroaching steam creature army.

Associated Risks

The main risk is a reduction in focus on large scale open world events and encounters.

Title: fractured environment

Introduction

How can the Devs make the entire mini-dungeon interesting? A boss with huge hp who can oneshot you is not fun at all. What will become of fractals at higher levels? Are the instabilities enough to make a name for fotm, for gw2 endgame, for the future of mmos as a whole?

Proposal overview

Make the fractals more fractured at 50+ by:
1) having mobs from another fractal B appear in fractal A.
2) more randomised branches in the dungeon path (eg Mossman / tree)
3) randomly switch to fractal B while completing fractal A.

Goal of the proposal

From the players point of view, this adds more variety and challenge to fractals. Bonds made through overcoming the unexpected are one of the most positive experiences the game can offer.

Devs will be happy to note that the randomness of the environment will further increase the importance of support roles, promoting build diversity. Player to player interaction is also likely to increase.

Proposal mechanism

1) and 2) should work in a similar way to Mossman in level 30.

With regards to 3), the problem is that most bosses cannot evolve in difficulty in the way that increasing fractal levels requires of them. All we are seeing is bigger health bars and bigger numbers on the screen.

Suggested Mechanic for 3)

Increase difficulty additively (through mistlock instabilities and ‘fractured environment’) , rather than along the hp/damage plane.

• Instead of clearing trash and wailing on the mini boss, players enter a mini boss room only for the environment to flicker and shift into a half state between two fractals.
• Fractal A’s mini boss must be killed after a mechanic from fractal B is completed.
• Eg the clown car dredge boss (fractal A) has been relocated to old tom’s poison room (fractal.
• This mechanic randomly selects Fractal B’s environment.

Why is this proposal necessary?

Gw2 combat, without the ‘holy trinity’, requires the environment to give an impetus to party support and control. Mistlock instabilities are a step in the right direction, but they are hardly felt at some levels. This means the problem is still not being properly addressed.

Risks

• not balanced
• too long
• bugs

Conclusion

• A fractured environment using 1), 2) and especially 3) as proposed is what mistlock instabilities strive to be, but so much better.
• Note: Instabilities and fractured environment are not mutually exclusive.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I sort of feel bad for Chris already. I tried to keep my posts short, but every time I come back to the thread I see walls of text that are “formatted”. It’s still difficult to get through.

I really wish people could be more concise, use more lists, and less walls of text.

Anyway, I like a lot of the ideas so far. But it does seem the playerbase is all on the same page here. It would be beneficial to get some developer interaction to see what page they’re on. (But I can’t imagine trying to soak in this many words at once, so I suspect that’s why we aren’t getting too much red yet).

Things are much much more accessible already and whilst we can still improve I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for giving it a try.

Loads of devs have commented to me about the topics being much easier to consume and think about.

So thanks everyone.

Chris

If she feels bad for you, she should go check out the Ranger Thread. I feel so sorry for poor Allie. =(

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I sort of feel bad for Chris already. I tried to keep my posts short, but every time I come back to the thread I see walls of text that are “formatted”. It’s still difficult to get through.

I really wish people could be more concise, use more lists, and less walls of text.

Anyway, I like a lot of the ideas so far. But it does seem the playerbase is all on the same page here. It would be beneficial to get some developer interaction to see what page they’re on. (But I can’t imagine trying to soak in this many words at once, so I suspect that’s why we aren’t getting too much red yet).

Things are much much more accessible already and whilst we can still improve I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for giving it a try.

Loads of devs have commented to me about the topics being much easier to consume and think about.

So thanks everyone.

Chris

If she feels bad for you, she should go check out the Ranger Thread. I feel so sorry for poor Allie. =(

Yeah… I checked it out. Oof.

Shinki.8045:

One topic I’m not sure if someone has brought up or not, but would solve some of the rewards/currency issues players are having:

A vendor that gets unlocked after completion of the final Fractal. This vendor has things that can be bought based on the difficulty that has been completed, and bought using fractals currency primarily (depending on the value of the item.) As an added way to make it interesting, have the available wares vary depending on what fractals people ran through especially the first one.

Pie in the sky idea: Sell stat infusions from these vendors, or dye kits to color existing fractal weapons, or some other way to show prestige from completing difficult content.

I like this idea, or something like it. An alternative would be to have vendors that sell items to you only if you’re already at a certain personal reward level (like they did briefly with gifts of battle at the wvw vendor).

Iason Evan.3806:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

lnguy.5127:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Esya.3427:

I already posted this in the dungeon forum yesterday, as I was unaware of a fractal CDI coming up. I am sorry for the double post, but I feel it is best to have this suggestion here as well for completeness.

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

Goal of Proposal
Fractals become much more repeatable/replayable if we can bring any character. It makes it a different experience. The fractal levels are account wide, but I find myself bringing the same character because she is the only one who is equiped with AR.

Proposal Functionality
Similar to the change that was made for magic find in the past, where it was removed from the gear and made account wide, the same could be done for AR.

Associated Risks
- People who already build up their AR should have this transferred to their account somehow in order to not lose progress.
- Balancing the acquirement of AR.
- Balancing power creep from infusion slots that can now slot other attributes.

Hmm, I like this idea. How about making it similar to how we level Magic Find. We can level up AR with the AR drop from playing fractals, and it gets progressively harder to level up AR the higher it gets. As of right now my main char has about 90 AR so I mainly bring him into fotm, I’d like to play different professions in fotm but since I only play high level fotm and my other toons have low ARs so it’s hard to do.

I agree… I just think it’s really really important they don’t get rid of the AR we have already accumulated. That would open up a can of wurms we wouldn’t be able to decapitate.

I agree with these thoughts. I would be bummed because I spent a lot of time getting enough AR on 5 of my toons to be doing the Fractals at a whim, but it makes too much sense to ignore. Account based AR in some form or other would be fantastic.

Oh I agree totally with that. Having to start over after work put in is not fun! I think the cons I have seen in the discussions so far are:

1. Possibility of losing progress
2. Having to bring the fotm profession
3. The handful of players that already geared 5 characters and put in a lot of hard work that feels that goes to waste now

I think number 1 can be countered by implementing it in a good way.
Number 2 is a community issue which is already happening and something you can regulate yourself (play with friends/your guild).
Number 3, I think this is a valid concern, but I think that with any major change like this a few get hurt where the majority gains something. I think this can also be partly countered when it would be implemented in a way that the AR on all your characters gets somehow transfered to your account.