Guild Wars 2

What used to be the preferred combo before Fractured? Swamp, water, snowblind? Yeah that would be “fun” to only ever do those. People technically have a choice on their first fractal and you see how the majority only go with swamp.

Tree.3916:

KyleMcLaw.8974:

Problems:

No foreseeable problems other than people insisting that fractals are “longer” now; however, fractals are the end-game pve dungeon. They should require more time than ac, cof, arah and the rest.

That’s a huge problem. And if Fractals are “end game” why is Fractal 50 easier than Ascalonian Catacombs p2? I see tons of outrageously bad players and teams managing to finish fractal level 50 on Twitch every day, and I know for a fact those same teams and players would take over an hour to finish Ascalonian Catacombs p2. I disagree that it’s not a problem, and I disagree that Fractals are the hardest content in the game.

I agree which is why FoM 50-59 should be 2 mistlocks mixed from FoM 31-40 and FoM 60-69 should be 2 mistlocks from 40-49. Then what? 3 mistlocks 70-79 and so forth. Ramp this dungeon up!

KyleMcLaw.8974:

Issue:

Swamp fractal being consistently “rolled” as first fractal.

This isn’t really an issue though. If you don’t like rolling, you don’t have to do it. I said it earlier in the thread, but, if the major problems behind fractals were fixed (dredge, rewards), you’d probably see less rolling. If you’re a coin flip away from 2 hours of dredge, you are going to try and save time on the first fractal, that just makes sense. Also, ever since fractured, fractals have been a lot less enjoyable, and the attitude when my group starts a run is “lets just get this over with”. We never had that before fractured, and we also didn’t roll as much as we do now.

Honestly, I do not understand this thread. We were told to not talk about the single biggest problem in fractals (dredge), and we aren’t talking about the second biggest (rewards), and now we’re talking about a complete non-issue. What’s the point? We are wasting time on this.

JohnnySupernova.9182:

KyleMcLaw.8974:

Issue:

Swamp fractal being consistently “rolled” as first fractal.

This isn’t really an issue though. If you don’t like rolling, you don’t have to do it. I said it earlier in the thread, but, if the major problems behind fractals were fixed (dredge, rewards), you’d probably see less rolling. If you’re a coin flip away from 2 hours of dredge, you are going to try and save time on the first fractal, that just makes sense. Also, ever since fractured, fractals have been a lot less enjoyable, and the attitude when my group starts a run is “lets just get this over with”. We never had that before fractured, and we also didn’t roll as much as we do now.

Honestly, I do not understand this thread. We were told to not talk about the single biggest problem in fractals (dredge), and we aren’t talking about the second biggest (rewards), and now we’re talking about a complete non-issue. What’s the point? We are wasting time on this.

And I fully disagree. Issues by importance: 1) swamp so it isn’t always first, 2) reward, 3) dredge revamp to be similar in length to grawl. Sorry if you think dredge most, but doing swamp every pug is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

KyleMcLaw.8974:

JohnnySupernova.9182:

KyleMcLaw.8974:

Issue:

Swamp fractal being consistently “rolled” as first fractal.

This isn’t really an issue though. If you don’t like rolling, you don’t have to do it. I said it earlier in the thread, but, if the major problems behind fractals were fixed (dredge, rewards), you’d probably see less rolling. If you’re a coin flip away from 2 hours of dredge, you are going to try and save time on the first fractal, that just makes sense. Also, ever since fractured, fractals have been a lot less enjoyable, and the attitude when my group starts a run is “lets just get this over with”. We never had that before fractured, and we also didn’t roll as much as we do now.

Honestly, I do not understand this thread. We were told to not talk about the single biggest problem in fractals (dredge), and we aren’t talking about the second biggest (rewards), and now we’re talking about a complete non-issue. What’s the point? We are wasting time on this.

And I fully disagree. Issues by importance: 1) swamp so it isn’t always first, 2) reward, 3) dredge revamp to be similar in length to grawl. Sorry if you think dredge most, but doing swamp every pug is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Start party finder and state you won’t be rolling. Problem solved. Now can we talk about the actual problems with fractals?

It is an actual problem and belittling it doesn’t change the issue to be addressed. Lets just have 10 more pages on dredge since that’s the only issue you allow us to discuss.

KyleMcLaw.8974:

It is an actual problem and belittling it doesn’t change the issue to be addressed. Lets just have 10 more pages on dredge since that’s the only issue you allow us to discuss.

Honestly, if anet would say something about dredge I’d be happy about talking about ANYTHING else. Hell, I don’t WANT to talk about dredge. It’s nuts that we still have to say it because Anet wont come out and admit the fractal is seriously flawed.

If the CDI started with “We’re fixing dredge so lets talk about something else” it would be different, but it’s not, so as far as we know, the biggest thing stopping people from doing fractals is going to stay in this game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

Keep leaderboards by clear time. Individual fractals, and then for all possible combinations. Like http://gwscr.com/ , but official and for fractals.

Time to clear is the only reliable metric on how “good” a run is, and is the best way to display mastery and leadership in the area.

If you wanted room for more challenge, you could make categories for duos, triples, etc. as well.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but personally I think PvE leaderboards are kind of silly and pointless.

This game in its current state does not offer any high skill cap raid type content that warrants a leaderboard, and even if it did the leaderboard would still be sort of out of place.

A different approach would be to add weekly challenges at level 50 that if completed would award additional weekly awards.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

Issues:
Leader board and leader board ranking

Solution:
Increase mistlock stability count after 20 levels. Make 50-69 a mix of 2 mistlocks already used, 70-89 3 mistlocks used, 90-109 4 mistlocks used, 110-129 5 mistlocks and so forth.

Problems:
Movement among the leader boards seems difficult, and impossible, if it is first done methodology. However, if we make the the leader boards descend from highest fractal followed by completions in that fractal, then we might see a shake-up outside the “first done” methodology.

maxinion.8396:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

Keep leaderboards by clear time. Individual fractals, and then for all possible combinations. Like http://gwscr.com/ , but official and for fractals.

Time to clear is the only reliable metric on how “good” a run is, and is the best way to display mastery and leadership in the area.

If you wanted room for more challenge, you could make categories for duos, triples, etc. as well.

I agree with this. I would also suggest allowing players to select a specific fractal for less reward. Much like the practise mode previous posters have suggested. This way a team can try and top the leaderboard on a specific fractal shard and instability combo. It allows competition and limits the rng nature.

As someone in the speedclear community, we have a category for fractals but its not viable to compete for tier 2 or tier 3 fractals because we cant just restart if we mess up. At the moment only one record is posted in that category and that was done in a casual fractal run. Giving us a proper leaderboard and the ability to select fractals purely for minor reward and leaderboard status attempts is something the speedclear community would be overjoyed to see. It will also encourage other players to improve their skill by aspiring to those who have cleared certain fractals in record times.

Nike.2631:

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.

Better “fix” dungeons too. Just make that whenever you try to enter a dungeon it randomly teleports you to any dungeon and locks the path selection. Only way to get rid of it is to completely the dungeon without stacking or skipping. Also remove grouping and just party people randomly. Imagine the soul-crushing monotony of playing with same set of friends all the time. We can’t have that.

Seriously, fix root of the problem. If people roll Swamp, make it longer. Like make people spawn at Mossman hut and move Mossman to trap area. Then require players to kill both bosses.

But no, let’s add some weird system which just makes everything more complicated and restricts stuff.

Why are none of the devs discussing the over abundance of ascended rings. There have been several proposals around these but not any comments by the devs on those proposals. Are they not helpful?

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals…. snip

We could do something like this, but when ends up happening is the work involved ends up being a lot of additional work to basically build something people play one or two times and then are done with it. In that time, we could have probably half built another real fractal, which I think probably would be better for the game over-all. Maybe the real question would be -> How do we try and get across better lore and stories with the current fractal system?

Reading this and remembering back on the CDI about Horizontal Progression makes me sad and disappointed somehow, when I think about it, how much more organized and coordinated the last CDI was compared to the current stuff.
By seeing what happens everywhere in the forum, I thing it was by now a very very bad decision to start up 3 CDI’s at the same time, instead of making 1 focused one.

You clearly see directly what is missing mostly everywhere – constant summaries are missing. In the last CDI we as community did the the biggest job mostly, so that basically nothing was overseen by you Devs and everything was quickly findable.

Now seeign this here, I must ask myself, if my suggestion regarding exactly this topic several pages before of your post has been even read at all by one single dev.
I find it even more irritating, thatseveral pages later after that post starts a whole disccusion around a topic, that is lored based fractals, which I have made already alot of pages earlier before and that also detailed, where your question also gets answered.

But I think, its normal that alot of ideas seem to land quickly in threads like these into oblivion, if nobody makes constant summaries and summarizes similar ideas together, so that they all can be taken into consideration for further discussions.
—-

So from this point on, I’d like to know from you, by asking you Devs directly, what your standport of view is about lore fractals (I did name the idea Heroic Fractals as a project name for the idea) to add to the game as new Gemstore Content new Tomes of History, that would work exactly like the Bonus Mission Pack.

That way it would allow you to let us play ingame some epic moments of GW1 lore and history as also GW2 lore/history in regard of the 3 novel books, what happened in the 250 years between both games or alot ealier.
I’d absolutely love to replay especially the 3 novel books, Ghosts of Ascalon, Destinies’s Edge and Sea of Sorrows in the game as Heroic Fractals, where players can slowly unlock more and more access to the content of those history tomes to explore more and more of those special Heroic Fractals’s Chapters and and verses of the History Tomes, that would be locked by Memories which players would have to unlock through using Essences of Memories

These completed Tomes of Histories could be used at the end then as rewards, just like the Dungeon Books of GW1, which were a great way to earn large amounts of experience, reputation and especially naturally gold and they were lovely to completely for all of the lore lovers, because you could read also in the books and change like readign a real book between the pages – that was awesome I want this back in GW2!!

Fractals need to be improved and that also with new features, to keep Fractals fresh and interestign for everyone, not only groups, but also Solo players.
These lore based Heroic Fractals could be designed t be played either just solo, or as a group.
If you play a Heroic Fractal, like Ghosts of Ascalon solo, that would anble for example the player to choose ou,t which character you want to play in that Fractal.
Do you want to play as Riona, or do you want to play as the main protagonist of the book, or do you rather play as the Norn or Charr or Asura of the story??

These Heroic Fractals could be also used to expand the original stories and show us maybe new things, that the novel books were just unable to tell.

There are easy ways to bring people to keep on playing these Heroic Fractals and not just stop dong it after one or two times:

Part 2 follows.

Link: Part 1: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Part-1-of-an-Idea/first#post3698026

1) Rewards, just like the BMP, players should collect some kind of Reward Token, that could be used at a Historian NPC in the FotMist to trade in for special Rewards.
Lets just take here Essences of Memories for example as a general reward currency to keep it simply.
These could be either used to unlock slowly more content, new chapters and verses of the tome to history to become playable for you for their Solo Mode that has to be done Solo the first time, before you unlock Exploration Mode, so that you can do the missions in the Heroic Fractals also with all other players that have unlocked that part of the lore too with their Essences of Memories by gaining a high enough Memory Rank for the used Tome of History (see it the same way like raising Luck Ranks by using Essences of Luck)

Tradable rewards could be special Weapon Sets, special Armor Sets that are only receivable through this Historian for Essences of Memories.
Special Rewards could be a unique Finisher – the Memorial Finisher
Special rewards in form of a new Back Items – based on the Tome of History. For Ghosts of Ascalon for example a player should get something like a Will’o Wisp that floats aroudn the player, for Destinies Edge it could be something related to the Elder Dragon Minions or Glint, like a Large Glimmering Scale of Glint that could be worn as a Back Item.

Special Rewards in form of unique Minipets – i would so freaking love to get this way a Mini Glint – its still one of the by far most wished minipets I can think of

What do you believe, what for a guge profit you’d make, if you would see these special tomes of History, just like the Bonius Mission Pack as special Account Upgrades in the Gemstory. Heroic Fractals realyl would feel like this as like Accoutn Upgradres, as long as the Rewards are only of optical value, so are just only skins, minipets and the like, so just simply nothing that could give players that down own these upgrades, would give any advantage over others.

2) Achievements would be the next big step that could lead to the point, that players would keep on playing these Fractals.
people, who own this account upgrade for example could get as additional Daily Rewards the option of doing a specific Heroic Fractal, instead of doing a normal Fractal Run.

Each Heroic Fractal itself could get its own Achievement Tab with a pile of own achievements and meta achievements to reward further players for doing repeated runs of those Heroic Fractals to earn the Meta Achievements.

its just a matter of the quality of a Heroic fractal. If its well thought out, provides alot of interesting visual rewards and a lot of long term based achievements around them, so nothing that can be done in just 1 run, then will people stick on doing them constantly.
Especially if they could be also used to do the Daily Achievements or even also the Monthly to have there some new options.

Also if you design these fractals, like i suggest, that you can’t fully play everything of them instantly, but more like a real book, where you have to unlock step by step chapter for chapter, until you become able to play through the whole lore of the fractal, then this is also something, that will heavily incentivize players to play these fractals often enough to unlock all of the chapters.

If you want Colin, I will write a full detailed example on a reward list, on chapters, ect. pp just for a Ghosts of Ascalon-Heroic Fractal

Re: fractal lore: I think there’s an opportunity to contextualise fractal scale.

Proposal Overview: Introduce lore events into fractals that activate randomly, to tell a story players piece together over multiple runs

Proposal Goal: To give background to each fractal in a non-scheduled, non-intrusive way, and to provide meaning to fractal scaling beyond rewards.

Proposal Functionality: Each fractal has several (at least 6) events – announcements from Dessa, announcements/PA broadcasts from within the fractal, NPC and enemy dialogue, renamed bosses and NPCs, NPC animations – that provide details of the history of each fractal location. They are triggered randomly based on fractal scale, with the intention that players should start hearing them around mid-level (so 10+) and that at high levels players should see two or three per run. Each is written to make sense, or at least a kind of sense, independent of the others – they are clues being unearthed, not story beats. All events should happen without interrupting players, even at risk of players missing the event. Events presented inside fractals should be presented as distortions, to imply that what players see normally in each fractal is fabricated.

Risks: Players may not be able to remember details already uncovered in each fractal, so despite repetition, they may not ever understand the history. Some fractal stories may not lend themselves to a forensic approach. Players may come to find certain events annoying. Too many events may trigger per run when higher scales are introduced.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Folks,

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

Cheers

Chris

I don’t think that fractals are well designed for a leaderboard.

Their random nature makes it difficult to really work towards a certain goal.

If we were to have the ‘quickest overall time’ then we need to get lucky with the fractals we get.

If we were to have the ‘quickest individual fractal time’ then we can’t reliably prepare for an individual fractal (except those in tier 1),

If the limit is set to ‘whoever reaches level or rank x the fastest.’ I think we may be stimulating a bad gaming habit. (Gaming for a few days straight when the new update comes out) And it wouldn’t be decided so much by skill as by the amount of time a person has available.

But! You already know that, and are asking for a good suggestion to make leaderboards work.

So… I’ll mention my idea again:

Challenge missions similar to those in GW1.

They were awesome, though too easy to exploit for a solid leaderboard. Close the exploits and you have a brilliant recipe for a PvE leaderboard.

Fractals may not be the place for this. Unless the randomness goes away, or we develop a seperate set of fractals with this competitive goal in mind.

I think Mistlock instabilities, rather than being locked to a level, should be globally applied to levels 30-50, and change daily at reset. That way you can’t skip a level, and thus never see an instability.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Good discussion. I am enjoying it. The discussion about re rolling is very insightful.

I would appreciate it if you could put some ideas forward for Leader-board mechanics.

Specifically in regard to the fact that I was unhappy with us putting out Leader-boards in their previous functionality (having lots of folks sitting at lvl 50 was not ideal) and therefore the feature was held back.

Obviously we have given Level 50 Leader diversification a lot of thought but it would be awesome to hear your proposals. Note there are a lot of logic problems in the solutions in this area so please do think about associated risks.

I see the problem with your current boards as two-fold:

There are far too few dimensions to the “slots of recognition” – the only question asked is “can you reach 50?” and you created a competition in which 1st place is unassailable… Forever. First is first. The end. Race over.

What I would do is create a leaderboard that tracks “Time to Clear” from instance created to End-boss down. It tracks best clear time for every fractal separately, at every single difficulty level from 30 to 50. When looking at it you could sort by fractal (e.g. see all Cliffside clear times from 30 to 50 on one page) or by difficulty (e.g. see clear times for all possible fractals at difficulty 44 on one page).

This gives you a competitive landscape with almost 250 separate arenas. And rather than first is first forever, there is ALWAYS the possibility enticing you with the prospect of “You know? Our guys could shave a second or two off of the current title holder’s time if we really try…”

Then I’d sit back and giggle as slayer potion prices ticked up a point because if you’re going for a focused accomplishment like that, tactical selection of consumables is a MUST.

The immediate stumbling block is I don’t know if the game CAN run a visible or invisible timer like that.

Edit: I would also consider a Player based sorting scheme allowing you to see who has the most individual best times. Some folks might only have 2-3. The true gods of fractal stabilization might have close to 200…

I’d like fractals to evolve into instanced content that doesn’t have the dredge fractal.

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

This single-handedly would be the evolution of Fractals that I would like to see. As a long-time NWN 1&2 builder I know first hand the strength of a passionate community that is given the right tools to tell stories.

You are correct however that rewards is something that has to be figured out as the current NWO version of the Foundry is a perfect exploiters tool that the game company has yet to figure out how to implement correctly.

Actually, if there’s reward discussion…

Proposal Overview: Introduce a wider variety of items into fractal loot tables, biasing it in favour of karma, crafting materials, and items with high resale value.

Proposal Goal: Make fractal drops weirder, differentiate fractal rewards from dungeons and the open world, and create a source of T6 materials that is more efficient than farming gold from dungeons and buying them on the TP.

Functionality: Instead of the normal, blue and green weapon-heavy loot tables, fractal enemies would be more likely to drop retired living world items (e.g. ballot papers, molten scrap), Set 1 miniatures, karma and luck items, and consumables that can be bought for karma (e.g. rocks, Ogre Pet Whistles). They would also drop Mist-Infused Bags, which would contain T6 (and sometimes T5) crafting materials (including inscriptions), living world materials (quartz, sprockets, spores) and ectoplasms. They would never contain rare crafting materials (i.e. lodestones).

A player’s fractal reward scale would determine how likely they are to get the more unusual drops, and how likely they are to find a Mist-Infused Bag instead of the bag that enemy type normally drops.

Sub Proposal: In addition, very rarely, players may find a Mist Crystal of Valor, which when consumed awards a repeatable achievement worth 1 point.

Risks: Increasing the variety of dropped items may make bag space much more of an issue. Introducing a source for some items (Set 1 miniatures) may cause the price to plummet, making them unrewarding as drops. Increasing the supply of T6 mats also increases the efficiency of farming up gold and then buying them on the TP. The algorithm that decides drops may, in practice, prevent many of the drops unique to fractals from appearing.

I also would like Fractals (and to a lesser extent, Dungeons) to evolve to allow for 2-5 player scaling. I know they are currently designed for 5 people, but I’d like to see the balance code reworked in such a way that 2 people could run through a fractal and be rewarded for that level scale. Obviously 5-man fractals would reward more, but I personally just want to run through them with my wife…currently that isn’t possible.

Call it “Casual-mode” for Fractals.

Nike.2631:

What I would do is create a leaderboard that tracks “Time to Clear” from instance created to End-boss down. It tracks best clear time for every fractal separately, at every single difficulty level from 30 to 50. When looking at it you could sort by fractal (e.g. see all Cliffside clear times from 30 to 50 on one page) or by difficulty (e.g. see clear times for all possible fractals at difficulty 44 on one page).

This gives you a competitive landscape with almost 250 separate arenas. And rather than first is first forever, there is ALWAYS the possibility enticing you with the prospect of “You know? Our guys could shave a second or two off of the current title holder’s time if we really try…”

Then I’d sit back and giggle as slayer potion prices ticked up a point because if you’re going for a focused accomplishment like that, tactical selection of consumables is a MUST.

I like the idea of having a leaderboard per fractal level, but I see two problems:

1) as someone mentioned earlier, you can’t prepare for any individual fractal, so if you’re trying to set a record time you may need to run several fractals to get the one you want. Any solution to this, making it more predictable, would also take away from the chaotic aspect of fractals.

2) some fractals, like the Molten fractal, don’t lend themselves well to speed runs as they’re mostly on rails. You’d need to use a more meaningful criteria. ‘Least damage taken’ for Molten is appealing, but the leaderboard is over once a party gets through it with no damage. Perhaps damage dealt minus damage taken as percentage of party health or something – but then it’s starting to get maybe too complex.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Absolutely we can discuss rewards.

Chris

So my thoughts about rewards is that just increasing the amount of gold people get from fractals is a mug’s game. Players playing for rewards are going to try to optimise for the best reward per time spent; players won’t really be satisfied unless fractals give better gold than dungeons, and then they won’t run dungeons because fractals have better rewards. Any kind of discussion about the reward for fractals needs to take into account the rest of the PvE reward structure, to ensure we’re not just proposing to introduce a new problem down the line.

I think the solution to this might be to introduce multiple axes for rewards, so that if players optimise for one particular type of reward they’re going to miss out on the other types. We saw how well this worked with the ascended crafting materials – you could get them from lots of places, but you couldn’t get all of them from the same place. The game already has something very close to this in gold and karma, and fractals are a great source for karma already. Problem is, players mostly just want gold because it’s a more fungible currency; karma’s only really useful for a few things that only specific players want, and you never lose karma as a penalty the way you lose gold. Dealing with that is well beyond the scope of this CDI.

So maybe put some of the things players try and buy with gold into fractals? It’d make the drops a lot more diverse, but honestly we’re smashing through time and space here. The big risk with that is that when the supply goes up, the price goes down so you get more for your dungeon farming than you would have; hopefully it settles into an equilibrium, but if it doesn’t then you’ve ruined the value of an item for no gain.

@ Colin/Chris
Updated my last posting with a relinking to a part of my posting, that sadly god deleted by a Mod due to some kind of Player Report I guess, who didn’t liked that posting and wanted to see it gettign deleted by a Mod, which didn’t read the whole posting.

So in regard of the ongoing discussion about the topic of Lore Fractals, or how i do name it, Heroic Fractals, I’m still very interesting to hear your opinions about doing this kind of new content similar to the Bonus Mission Pack Content of GW1, because i think, thats some kind of content, where you also need to profitate from, because such kind of Fractals would require alot of effort and due to this I think its alot more realistical to implement such a kind of Feature for Freatures as some kind of Account Upgrade from the Gemstore.

I’d also like to know, what the others do think about that?

Chris I have a major problem that keeps me from wanting to do Fractals.

Problem:

While alts can participate at any level you have achieved with another character due to the changes ANET has made.

They are limited due to the agony resistance, Thus lets say my ranger is at level 40, My Gaurdian cannot just jump into 40 without grinding and getting AR.

This is an issue becomes you cannot jump on an alt to help team composition.

GOAL:

Allow alts to better participate in higher level fractals when you want them too. Make it more accessible to them.

Solution.

Make agony resistance account bound like magic find.

Risks

Might make some players angry as they have put a lot of work into getting different characters AR. Perhaps they can be compensated somehow.

any ideas?

Proposal Overview
Unique rewards for completion of each individual fractal.
Goal of Proposal
Due to the overwhelming majority of all players on this game obsessing over how much time everything takes, it is accepted by those that do fractals to always “roll for swamp.” This is problematic by design in more aspects of the game than just FotM (this could branch off into a whole separate topic out of the scope of my post), and I believe a wonderful solution to it would be to provide actual incentives to do more than what the typical fractal runner expects, which is to do swamp and hope they don’t get cliffside, dredge and mai trin for the other fractals.
Proposal Functionality
What I expect and/or hope for could be achieved with a plethora of ways. Unique weapon/armor skins that are only found from each particular fractal and aren’t tradable, directly impacting the daily reward chest at the end based off of which fractals were completed, extra fractal relics, unique nourishment/utility consumables, possibly unique minis… plenty of things that can be done.
Associated Risks
Right off the bat I’m aware of the fact that depending on what’s implemented, it might stir conflict in parties forming based off of which fractal people want/need to do and cause difficulty forming groups. However at the same time, I believe that with these added incentives there would be a considerably higher number of players doing FotM and it would more than likely nullify the issue.

Not sure if it has been said already, but:

One of the things I like the most, in theory, is the mistlock instabilities.

However, they only start being available from level 30, and I’m still at 10 and don’t feel like “grinding” 20 runs for the sake of them.

Is there any possibility for mistlocks to be added at lower levels?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

MokahTGS.7850:

I also would like Fractals (and to a lesser extent, Dungeons) to evolve to allow for 2-5 player scaling. I know they are currently designed for 5 people, but I’d like to see the balance code reworked in such a way that 2 people could run through a fractal and be rewarded for that level scale. Obviously 5-man fractals would reward more, but I personally just want to run through them with my wife…currently that isn’t possible.

Call it “Casual-mode” for Fractals.

Personally I would like to see Fractals be able to be 5+ as well with associated risk/reward mechanics.

Chris

Agreed, but please work on some of the scaling. No one likes being 1shot by an npc regardless of whether it is a solo or group fight.

Wethospu.6437:

Nike.2631:

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.

Better “fix” dungeons too. Just make that whenever you try to enter a dungeon it randomly teleports you to any dungeon and locks the path selection. Only way to get rid of it is to completely the dungeon without stacking or skipping. Also remove grouping and just party people randomly. Imagine the soul-crushing monotony of playing with same set of friends all the time. We can’t have that.

Seriously, fix root of the problem. If people roll Swamp, make it longer. Like make people spawn at Mossman hut and move Mossman to trap area. Then require players to kill both bosses.

But no, let’s add some weird system which just makes everything more complicated and restricts stuff.

taking things to an extent that is illogical, is illogical.
random elements increase variability and test more different types of skill sets. Its pretty hard to make something incredibly replayable without adding uncertainty. Dealing with the unknown, or having every playthrough be different does more for replayability than just having the same thing again and again.

Solving the same problem 100 times is not more of a challenge, or more entertaining than solving 100 different problems.

I am a proponent of more random elements, and unpredictability in fractals. It doesnt have to impede progress, adding random extra goals, events, and very different levels will make it a lot more entertaining and replayable. And fractals is definately the place for it.

Player created Fractals?

. . . anyone remember CoX’s mission creation system and how that was really abused? There would need to be some authority from ANet vetting these things and giving them the seal of approval rather than just rubber-stamping anything with certain criteria met.

Just food for thought there.

Galen Grey.4709:

Proposal Overview:
Ideas on a reward system for User generated content (UGC) should this be considered viable

<snip>

As for the overall reward my idea here is if there is going to be UGC someone needs to review them for obvious reason, be it GMs or perhaps even a player group. After a play through meant to ensure content is appropriate they’ll be asked to rate the UGC fractal on a number of matrix, say length, difficulty, effort, abusive etc.. This score can then scale a reward appropriate to the overall score. If a fractal is deem to have abuse potential say its lengthy but way too easy, this could be marked and the fractal itself might then give a small end reward or no reward at all. I would not remove the fractal itself unless its inappropriate because people might have designed it for a roleplaying scenario or story heavy or something of the sort.

User generated content seems like it holds a lot of potential. But in the extreme majority of cases the quality of even the best results is subpar compared to professionally developed content.

What is suggested seems like a very labor intensive review, which has to be applied to the extreme flood of content that user generation creates. Is it really better to devote so many resources to validating what will likely turn into a small handful of good content, rather than producing high quality professional content?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

MokahTGS.7850:

I also would like Fractals (and to a lesser extent, Dungeons) to evolve to allow for 2-5 player scaling. I know they are currently designed for 5 people, but I’d like to see the balance code reworked in such a way that 2 people could run through a fractal and be rewarded for that level scale. Obviously 5-man fractals would reward more, but I personally just want to run through them with my wife…currently that isn’t possible.

Call it “Casual-mode” for Fractals.

Personally I would like to see Fractals be able to be 5+ as well with associated risk/reward mechanics.

Chris

In guildwars, the more people you have, the easier the game becomes. Aoe cap for example severely limits content for 5+.

Things I would like addressed in order of priority.
1. Dredge. (This is civil disobedience. This fractal is all that matters.)

Brainstorming to improve the dredge fractal :

• Change the fractal to an infiltration type mission where you are disguised as a dredge. You are given new 1-5 skills like a transformation to face the encounters.
  1. Have an “alert” meter. When the meter fills, the dredge are aware of you, your disguises drop, and the fractal continues in its normal state. There will be points further into the fractal where hidden Whispers Agents that can re-disguise people once.
  2. 1-5 skills provide distractions, misdirections. Ideas include : “Toss dwarf relic” creates an object that a nearby dredge will move to and destroy; “Voice Projection” throws your voice to the target area, raises the alert level, but draws dredge in an AoE to investigate; “Reassuring Gong” you play the gong to reassure nearby dredge, lowering alert level.
  3. Actions that further the party’s movement through the fractal, such as standing on buttons, destroying walls, etc, raise the alert level – perhaps only if there is a dredge nearby witnessing the action? The party must co-ordinate their skills to distract, misdirect, in order to maintain their disguises. A bonus is awarded in an achievement, a chest, or both for navigating the fractal to the boss without causing an “alert.”

-Future work to pursue -ONLY- after the dredge fractal is addressed-
*Make Ascended rings salvageable into Globs of Mist essences.
*Make globs of mist essences purchasable for Fractal Relics or Pristine Fractal Relics.

phys.7689:

Wethospu.6437:

Nike.2631:

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.

Better “fix” dungeons too. Just make that whenever you try to enter a dungeon it randomly teleports you to any dungeon and locks the path selection. Only way to get rid of it is to completely the dungeon without stacking or skipping. Also remove grouping and just party people randomly. Imagine the soul-crushing monotony of playing with same set of friends all the time. We can’t have that.

Seriously, fix root of the problem. If people roll Swamp, make it longer. Like make people spawn at Mossman hut and move Mossman to trap area. Then require players to kill both bosses.

But no, let’s add some weird system which just makes everything more complicated and restricts stuff.

taking things to an extent that is illogical, is illogical.
random elements increase variability and test more different types of skill sets. Its pretty hard to make something incredibly replayable without adding uncertainty. Dealing with the unknown, or having every playthrough be different does more for replayability than just having the same thing again and again.

Solving the same problem 100 times is not more of a challenge, or more entertaining than solving 100 different problems.

I am a proponent of more random elements, and unpredictability in fractals. It doesnt have to impede progress, adding random extra goals, events, and very different levels will make it a lot more entertaining and replayable. And fractals is definately the place for it.

Holy hell, I’ve finally found someone with the same mentality as me. Hello!!!

I’ve been trying to push forth my ideas for implementing randomization methods into dungeons for a long time. Games are much more exciting when you have a whole world to explore and they lose their excitement when you have nothing new left.

Exactly what you said.

Content with great replay value MUST have an element of surprise. Uncertainty is a good thing and makes activities more thought-provoking and engaging rather than arduous and repetative.

I hope they can have unique fractal for each level bracket. For example remove dredge fractal from 1-40 bracket, and put it in the 40-49 bracket. And make dredge always the 4th fractal in that bracket.

When people reach the 50-59 bracket. Make a new fractal for the 4th fractal. And make it challenging.

It’ll give people a sense of progression. And people will have incentive to keep going up the bracket.

Also give unique token for each bracket. The higher level token can be trade in for unique skins, ascended armor etc.

A lot of interesting proposals so far. Some that I agree with, and some that I think would be a major mistake. I don’t really want to bog things down with personal view points, though.

There was one proposal that I thought I could add more to the Risks of that perhaps wasn’t seen:

Proposal Overview

Scaling Fractals for Number of Players.

Goal of Proposal

Open up game content that is currently unmanageable for small groups of friends who like to game together. Applies to fractals, dungeons, or any instanced GW2 content.

I game with two friends whom I know in RL outside MMOs; they have effectively left the game due to being locked out of party-oriented PvE content. The game currently allows for simple single-player roaming, 5-person dungeons, or zerg events. Groups of RL friends less than the magic number of 5 need not apply.

Proposal Functionality

Similar to the instances in the Tower event and other NC Soft games (e.g., late great City of Heroes), the fractal (or dungeon) would scale depending on the size of the party when the instance is generated. Rewards would also scale, as required.

Associated Risks

Some players may try to game the system to optimize party size vs. rewards.
Some party sizes may not balance well. This is true now with the scaling in the Escape from Lion’s Arch event, and was also true in the Tower.

Fractals, as well as dungeons, are balanced around a party not an individual or pair. In order to make many of the encounters possible for smaller groups to complete the content would have to be dumbed down to a less complex level. That goes directly against the stated purpose of Fractals of the Mist.

There have been several other proposals regarding ‘training mode’ or ‘practice’ versions. Making these ‘practice fractals’ soloable, or with any number of players, would work to give players who do not want to go in with a full group something to do, as well as give players new to the game a way to experience the dumbed down version of the mechanics in a situation where they do not feel pressured to perform. Just make the ‘practice’ not yield Fractal-specific rewards, so that it does not turn into ‘easy-mode farms’.

Which brings up:

Maybe casual player want to get ascended gears with fractal but they lack time. I think the solo-mode IS a solution for “Fractals are too difficult to get into” (along with the “practice mode”)…

I would have to ask, why? There is nothing statistically superior from Fractals that you can not receive other ways, if there were I could see the point. Why should someone who is not willing to face the challenge of Fractals be able to blow through easier solo versions to get the Fractal rewards?

maxinion.8396:

Keep leaderboards by clear time. Individual fractals, and then for all possible combinations. Like http://gwscr.com/ , but official and for fractals.

Time to clear is the only reliable metric on how “good” a run is, and is the best way to display mastery and leadership in the area.

I disagree. Time to clear is a bad idea because of the randomness of fractals. If you get Swamp → Svanir → Grawl, then you can get the best time, if not, you don’t have a chance.
It would also promote specific groups composition for max dps. This is already partly the case, as people want to get a fast run, but this kind of leaderboar would only make it even more of a situation.

We talked about the leaderboard issue quite a bit during the 2 weeks before Fractured patch, and after all propositions that were made, I think the only logical thing for a leaderboard would be to see the highest level attained, but that only has meaning if there is no hardcap on the fractal levels. Every other suggestion that were made back then were biased in some ways.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

RedShipRaider.9560:

Proposal Overview
I propose that the vote-kick function be locked once the group has advanced most of the way through the instance.

While I agree with you that there’s a problem with people kicking to invite their friends at the end, I don’t think your solution is the right one. It just has too many problems which aren’t solved.
For example, if some people in your groups get disconnected or rage-quit and don’t come back, you’re just stuck with no way to replace them. Trolls or AFK would also be able to abuse this in complete impunity. To avoid that, we need some ability to kick, but we also need incentives not to do so, so that the system isn’t abused.

I’d suggest rather a long time after a kick where you can’t invite anyone else. That way, people would think twice before kicking other players, and use it only when they’re forced to do so.

Correct me if I am wrong, I may be thinking about a different game, but can’t you remove offline party members from the group without a vote-kick? That would make kicking someone who went AFK and never came back with a long timer before you can invite someone else functionally similar to carrying on without them until they are auto-logged off and removing them. With the difference that if the AFK member had something urgent come up that they were able to handle within those few minutes before they were auto-logged they would still be able to rejoin their party.

This does still allow malicious players to intentionally Troll the group, by being present but not participating. However, I really do not think that people would work through two Fractals of the set just so that they can get to the third to troll the party nearly as often as players form LFMs with the intent to kick out all of the pugs that join in order to either get friends their daily rewards or else sell paths.

EDIT: I am also not certain that having a long cooldown period after vote-kicks would stop people from booting all of the pugs from their party to invite guild mates. Many of the people that I have seen doing this say that they are doing so in order to get their friends who may be at work or whatever to the Boss Fractal without having to spend an hour getting there when they get home. They could still accomplish this by getting the instance set up and booting out the rest of the players before their friends gets online. They would just have to kick out the other players long enough in advance that they could do something else and be ready to go once all of their friends are online.

Proposal:
Give us (wvw players) a litle bit loot from the fractals

Goal of the proposal:
We also fight in the myst but there is no rewards for us. I think we alse deserve some unique loot or fractal loot. We fight minimum as hard as a farmer but our rewards are the 1/10 of the fractal.

Proposal:
a better rewarded myst war will atract more and keep the actual players

laokoko.7403:

I hope they can have unique fractal for each level bracket. For example remove dredge fractal from 1-40 bracket, and put it in the 40-49 bracket. And make dredge always the 4th fractal in that bracket.

When people reach the 50-59 bracket. Make a new fractal for the 4th fractal. And make it challenging.

It’ll give people a sense of progression. And people will have incentive to keep going up the bracket.

Also give unique token for each bracket. The higher level token can be trade in for unique skins, ascended armor etc.

Getting 10 more silvers for a guaranteed dredge shard instead of maw or molten duo? I don’t think anyone would ever do this tier without a severe revamp of rewards (2-3 better rewards than previous tiers) and the shard itself (clown car).

Estriella Faerie.4029:

maxinion.8396:

Keep leaderboards by clear time. Individual fractals, and then for all possible combinations. Like http://gwscr.com/ , but official and for fractals.

Time to clear is the only reliable metric on how “good” a run is, and is the best way to display mastery and leadership in the area.

I disagree. Time to clear is a bad idea because of the randomness of fractals. If you get Swamp -> Svanir -> Grawl, then you can get the best time, if not, you don’t have a chance.
It would also promote specific groups composition for max dps. This is already partly the case, as people want to get a fast run, but this kind of leaderboar would only make it even more of a situation.

We talked about the leaderboard issue quite a bit during the 2 weeks before Fractured patch, and after all propositions that were made, I think the only logical thing for a leaderboard would be to see the highest level attained, but that only has meaning if there is no hardcap on the fractal levels. Every other suggestion that were made back then were biased in some ways.

Hi Estriella,

I think the solution to that is to keep separate records for each combination of fractals, as I mentioned. Then, no matter the combination, you are vying for the record. You could set the record for swamp – ascalon – cliffside – maw specifically— changing any of those would constitute a new category, and a new record to set. There are lots of possible combinations, and the RNG will prevent groups from going through every combination in sequence and setting the records. This means more groups can hope to compete— if you get a combination that’s not very common (looking at you, anything that starts with aquatic), you’re likely to be able to set a record!

If that’s too complicated, just keep separate records for each fractal.

Or both, which was my original suggestion

maxinion.8396:

I think the solution to that is to keep separate records for each combination of fractals, as I mentioned. Then, no matter the combination, you are vying for the record.

That only solve one part of the issue.
The biggest issue will be about the group composition. Profession that already have some difficulties to get grouped (necro, engi, ranger for ex) will have even more of a hard time.
It will also promote full zerker groups, even in pugs. However, many people just aren’t able to play zerker. I often see in my pug groups people dying left and right because they can’t play well enough for it. Those people would be much more effective for the group if they had a bit more survival stats and were managing to stay up for the entire fight. With a Time-to-clear leaderboard, Anet would send a message that this is what they want, everyone needs to be in full zerker. I’m sorry, but I don’t think zerker builds are for everyone.

When I say this, I don’t mean to say that playing zerker is bad. I am myself using an almost full zerker stuff. However, to be effective with this, you first need to be able to survive the encounter even with this low-survivability gear. Many people will just never be able to do that.

I’m going to fix all your Fractal problems in one post

Goal of Proposal
Rewards, time spent, diversity of difficulty and on top of it. I’ll even let players choose what fractals they want to play. ‘Boy, you be crazy! Choosing your own fractals, would mean that players would just play the easiest ones all the time’ I hear you saying.
But, what if I told you. That not only will I let them choose their own fractals on top of fixing every. single. current. fractal problem, but players will self willingly choose the harder fractals. If that isn’t enough for ya, I’m also telling you that you won’t even have to revamp or touch any of the more difficult fractals and players will be more than happy to play them.

But sir, are you some kind of an ascending angel capable of performing miracles!? Yes and no, but mostly no. I am but a man, that simply loves this game.

The Fractal Energy Capsule Tx implementation
The solution to everything is simply a new token I like to refer as “The Fractal Energy Capsule Tx” (x is for tier, more on that later).
To get a more understanding of the concept of my suggestion, I’ll start by putting it in an example.
When you enter fractals, you will be given 10 capsules to spend on fractals. Every fractal will cost a different amount of capsules. The easier the fractal, the more capsules it will cost and the harder, the less.
So you start with 10 capsules and are given the choice to choose what fractals you want to play.

So for example, players want to play the fastest and easiest fractals.
So swamp as a first. But considering it’s the easiest and fastest first fractal. This one will cost 4 capsules to pick. Now we have 6 capsules left to pick the remaining two fractals + boss fractal. But they can’t pick all the easy fractals, cause there won’t be enough capsules. So they’ll have to compromise. So:
1. Swamp: 4 Capsules
2. Cliffside: 1 Capsule
3. Volcanic: 2 Capsules
4. Solid Ocean Fractal: 3 Capsules

This leaves them with a fractal order they’re comfortable running with. Depending on the order of the fractal, some will cost more or less. For example, choosing Cliffside as your 2nd fractal, will cost 1 capsule. Choosing it as your third fractal, will cost you 2 capsules.

Rewards
What’s the deal with these capsules anyways, you promised us to fix all our problems! Silence you impatient Asura!
So now we come to the second section of the purpose for these capsules. Every capsule that is a left over when completing all fractals. Will become a physical form of a token. This token will have different tier and new merchants will be added to spend these tokens on. 1-10 Fractals, will have no capsules and it will just be random. These first levels will work as an introduction to fractals so people get to play most.

But starting at level 11, you’ll start getting “Fractal Energy Capsule T1” and at level 21 “The Fractal Energy Capsule T2”. For 5 token capsules you will be able to buy a Fractal chest (just like the end chest reward when completing all fractals) and in higher tiers. You could even add Fractal weapon skins for like 20 capsules and the tonic and so on.

Now what this simply means, that players can choose their own play and rewards. If they pick the hardest fractals, they’ll get more capsule tokens as leftovers in the end and even capable of buying an extra reward chest with it. This means that you won’t even have to touch the harder fractals or revamp them. But players will willingly pick them to increase their rewards.

So for example a hardcore player that wants to maximize his rewards would pick:

1. Uncategorized: 1 Capsule
2. Cliffside: 1 Capsule
3. Underground Facility: 0 Capsule
4. Captain Mai Trin Boss: 1 Capsule

This means that picking the hardest / longest fractals possible. Will cost you 3 capsules, which will leave you with 7 leftover capsules that become tokens when you complete them all. So you get the regular fractal rewards, the fractal completion chest + you will be able to buy an extra fractal completion chest and have 2 capsules left.

Everyone wins.