Guild Wars 2

Wethospu.6437:

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

Fractals are already as boring and tedious as dungeons. As I said above, you can roll a dice when selecting a dungeon path for the same effect. Saying that fractals are based on randomness sounds quite absurd and I would like to see a source if you have any.

If they want to encourage variation they can quite easily add new daily quest with randomly selected dungeon paths / fractal maps to complete. Instead of forcing us to do things they should give us a reason to do those things.

Source: Dictionary

frac·tal
?frakt?l/Submit
MATHEMATICS
noun
plural noun: fractals

a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.

What’s next? A bible? Anyways, I’m up for renaming fractals if we can then have sensible discussion.

You asked for source, I gave you the source. Renaming fractals? What’s next? Fractals are fractals because of their nature. What you’re trying to do is create a whole new content.

I’m not gonna stand by and watch something that I’ve been playing, turn into another speed clearing track. Create an extra mode if you have to, but don’t overhaul the entire system.

Nature or dictionary? Please try to choose.

Anyways, on more serious tune, in my opinion fractals are based on mini dungeons with high difficulty due to scaling. That’s their main mechanic, not random map selection. Lore wise, fractals can also refer to random nature of the maps. They have pretty much nothing in common and there’s no reasoning why we are living exactly those events.

Why do you care so much if others are able to reliably speedclear content? We can already speedclear it, just have to grind until we get lucky with rolls.

the problem is not your desire to speed clear, the problem is your desire to make that the main mode of play.

What do you object to about my proposal for a competitive mode, where you select 1 fractal with no random elements (like no bloomhunger) and try to get the best time.
you get slightly less fractal relics upfront, and no daily. but get chests/relics for placing high?

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Next is the difficulty/progression question. Personally I’ve always felt that the difficulty scaling in Fractals is a bit redundant. After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder? I know this has been commented on, but I’d like to hear some thoughts on alternatives. If not difficulty scaling (or supposing difficulty scaling simply stopped at a certain level), what else would add meaning to progressing through higher level Fractals? How does that align with your goals, whatever they may be (rewards, defeating hard content, discovery, etc).

So I haven’t yet commented on this thread, but I figured I’d at least take the time to write once.

I was a player who reached scale 80 for fun before the reset because I found no other valuable PVE content in the game. Fractals, for me, was supposed to be the challenging endgame PVE content this game lacks compared to its predecessor. I loved challenging myself and my group specifically on high scale shaman.

You asked “After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder?”

The answer is, sort of. In some fights where taking SOME damage is almost unavoidable, it encourages different builds and gear to mitigate being one-shot.

I think you were perhaps asking that question rhetorically, but I would suggest that another question is more relevant. Is infinite agony building to avoid agony one-shots more valuable gameplay than skillful avoidance of regular mob one-shots during non-boss encounters?

Honestly what ruined fractals for me, besides the reset and obvious lack of care for players that worked to get to high levels, was the shift from skill-checks to gear-checks. I refuse to grind exponentially for more agony resistance gear. It’s stupid and not indicative of skill, but rather of wasted time.

I would love to see more skilled encounters. Shaman was my favorite fight before Liadri. Liadri was probably the best example of a fight that required skill that has been implemented in the game to date. I realize Westhospu put up a video where he zerked Liadri in 5 seconds, but the achievement “Light up the Darkness” should have made things a bit harder for him. Also, last time I checked he wasn’t able to solo shaman.

I want content that requires me to think. Obviously once groups get to know each other, they figure out a “best way” to do things, and the “thinking” element sort of gets pushed to the back burner, but there was just something about the shaman fight that felt unique every time I played with different people.

Game play should focus on good positioning, good timing of skills, and good synthesis between group members. It should not focus on exponential gear grinds (your new infusion system), gear checks (every 10 levels of the Mistlock Instabilities), or mindless game play (dredge clown car-I fell asleep doing this in the 70s late at night on more than one occasion.)

Good mechanics that add a sense of variability could also help. For example, what if a fractal used the movement system you guys added in the Zephyr Sanctum?

agony resistance ehhhh i think its the least well implemented part of fractals

Wethospu.6437:

Nature or dictionary? Please try to choose.

Anyways, on more serious tune, in my opinion fractals are based on mini dungeons with high difficulty due to scaling. That’s their main mechanic, not random map selection. Lore wise, fractals can also refer to random nature of the maps. They have pretty much nothing in common and there’s no reasoning why we are living exactly those events.

Why do you care so much if others are able to reliably speedclear content? We can already speedclear it, just have to grind until we get lucky with rolls.

Because you’re forcing speedclearing on everyone. What I’m trying to do is give an ability to speed clearers to do their level by possibly giving us an option to choose 1st fractal, while rest remain the same with Tier system being scrapped away. That way you can have your challenge vs time, without completely destroying randomness.

What you’re suggesting is we choose every fractal or have an option to do it randomly. Who would want to do it randomly? If given an option, I’d never do certain levels again. Because why? For fun? Fractals were random for way over a year now. Why destroy it? For sake of that 10% of players that want to do speed clearing? I’m trying to have an option for you along with fractals remaining the same.

If given an option, you’ll always go for easier path. Unless you want to challenge yourself. Random nature of fractals is how we learned to play them. It was the big thing about fractals. Because frankly I can make more gold doing dungeons over and over again. But I want to have that excitement and unknown in the mix.

Taking down the tier system and allowing us to choose first fractal would keep fractals fresh by never knowing what’s next and at the same time give an ability to speed clearers to do their thing on any level they please. It would also benefit younger fractalers to learn each and every level with a guide.

Try not to force a certain way to do things, but create a way for both parties to be happy with the outcome.

Theres an issue if a choosable system is implemented, If fractals are player selected there is less risk and players will rapidly optimize their runs, this leads to several problems,
1. Fractals go the way of dungeons effective but not very fun (currently a player alots excess time due to the random nature of fractals, if lost players come to expect completion within a specific time and get angry when there expectations are not met).

2. Rewards distribution method would have to be completely reworked, selecting your fractals reduces risk and should reduce the reward.

3. Instabilities become crippled. “oh I have the random ice patch instability, I won’t do uncatagorised”,“conditions you apply have unintended effects? taking frozen fractal”.

phys.7689:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Wethospu.6437:

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Wethospu.6437:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I can’t get behind the instability system. It’s still the same lame dungeon which you want to complete as fast as possible to get the loot (Yes, that’s grind and GW2 turned into a grindy game) and the instabilities just slow you down. There is not even an explanation for those instabilities storywise.

How are instabilities making that worse? Even without them people ran only same levels for daily.
Why is getting slowed down a bad thing if you find fast clears lame?

Because slow clears are even more lame.
Look, I’ve played this game for over 3k hours now, most times in PvE, I’ve done all dungeons too often to find them entertaining. It bores me. I’m doing those things to get the reward.

Queensdale champion train sounds like a right place for you.

Anthony asks for opinions, I give him my opinion. You have a problem with that?
Instead of adding crude mechanics they should work on the grind so I don’t have to run 100 fractals just to get one ascended backpiece.

they got other options for ascended backpiece now. you can get the blades one, probably for less resources/time. No offense, but i dont think its a good idea to design fractals around people getting items super easily.

I don’t want them to be easier. But I don’t like the instabilities, partly because they don’t make the content any more satisfying, partly because they just got implemented without any reason or need. Furthermore I have to say that the grind is too huge to enjoy the fractals at a certain amount. Therefore I want them to work on new content istead of new instabilities.

Romo.3709:

Because you’re forcing speedclearing on everyone. What I’m trying to do is give an ability to speed clearers to do their level by possibly giving us an option to choose 1st fractal, while rest remain the same with Tier system being scrapped away. That way you can have your challenge vs time, without completely destroying randomness.

What you’re suggesting is we choose every fractal or have an option to do it randomly. Who would want to do it randomly? If given an option, I’d never do certain levels again. Because why? For fun? Fractals were random for way over a year now. Why destroy it? For sake of that 10% of players that want to do speed clearing? I’m trying to have an option for you along with fractals remaining the same.

If given an option, you’ll always go for easier path. Unless you want to challenge yourself. Random nature of fractals is how we learned to play them. It was the big thing about fractals. Because frankly I can make more gold doing dungeons over and over again. But I want to have that excitement and unknown in the mix.

Taking down the tier system and allowing us to choose first fractal would keep fractals fresh by never knowing what’s next and at the same time give an ability to speed clearers to do their thing on any level they please. It would also benefit younger fractalers to learn each and every level with a guide.

Try not to force a certain way to do things, but create a way for both parties to be happy with the outcome.

Casual players like you and me will play fun and new randomized fotm and after few runs or maybe a bit more, we’ll get bored and only those speedrunners stay. You said it yourself, players after some time play strictly for reward so why forcing randomization on that?

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

haviz.1340:

Casual players like you and me will play fun and new randomized fotm and after few runs or maybe a bit more, we’ll get bored and only those speedrunners stay. You said it yourself, players after some time play strictly for reward so why forcing randomization on that?

Because it’s what fractals was always about. Why I love this mode. Giving me an option to skip it all and do “mini dungeon runs” will kill it. I might still want to play randomized, but guess what? It’s a 5 player thing. And I like playing with my friends. I’ve been playing fractals for over a year now, and according to your reasoning I would be bored by now, yet I’m still playing it. And I’m here to make it better, so randomness would not always screw you over because you get dredge.

I’m no casual fractal player. I’ve done more runs that I can count, yet I still play it every chance I get. But because of some bugs and low rewards it’s harder and harder to get groups together. Because it’s always the same thing about Dredge making it ungodly long or not getting rewarded enough.

It’s not about wanting the randomness, it’s about not wanting fractals to turn into dungeons.

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

Single, Yes. A whole set, No.

Compromise to giving players a choice between random and choosing the next fractal: Why not make the choice of the next fractal one of three randomly selected fractals. This way you still have at least a somewhat randomized group of fractals while still giving players a choice.

You could always alter the rewards so that choosing “random” while have an increased reward (more gold, karma, etc) as opposed to manually choosing the next fractal.

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phys.7689:

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Wethospu.6437:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Wethospu.6437:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I can’t get behind the instability system. It’s still the same lame dungeon which you want to complete as fast as possible to get the loot (Yes, that’s grind and GW2 turned into a grindy game) and the instabilities just slow you down. There is not even an explanation for those instabilities storywise.

How are instabilities making that worse? Even without them people ran only same levels for daily.
Why is getting slowed down a bad thing if you find fast clears lame?

Because slow clears are even more lame.
Look, I’ve played this game for over 3k hours now, most times in PvE, I’ve done all dungeons too often to find them entertaining. It bores me. I’m doing those things to get the reward.

Queensdale champion train sounds like a right place for you.

Anthony asks for opinions, I give him my opinion. You have a problem with that?
Instead of adding crude mechanics they should work on the grind so I don’t have to run 100 fractals just to get one ascended backpiece.

they got other options for ascended backpiece now. you can get the blades one, probably for less resources/time. No offense, but i dont think its a good idea to design fractals around people getting items super easily.

I don’t want them to be easier. But I don’t like the instabilities, partly because they don’t make the content any more satisfying, partly because they just got implemented without any reason or need. Furthermore I have to say that the grind is too huge to enjoy the fractals at a certain amount. Therefore I want them to work on new content istead of new instabilities.

instabilities are meant to give you new challenges/difficulties/ways to play fractals. They dont really improve your drops, i think they are worthwhile, but i think they should be seperated from mechanical difficulties.
as far as grind in fractals, the main grind is agony (pretty bad imo) the grind for backpieces, well you can get 345 a day if you do 5 runs on each difficulty tier. lets say you can get 300 relics for 4 runs if you dont want to do the lowest teir. If you only want to do 2 runs, you can do the top two teirs for 184 relics a day, and take 10 days

it really aint that bad, problem is this assumes you already have access to the top tiers, but getting fractal stuff faster is kind of the point of the progression.

adubb.2453:

Compromise to giving players a choice between random and choosing the next fractal: Why not make the choice of the next fractal one of three randomly selected fractals. This way you still have at least a somewhat randomized group of fractals while still giving players a choice.

You could always alter the rewards so that choosing “random” while have an increased reward (more gold, karma, etc) as opposed to manually choosing the next fractal.

Nobody would bother a chance of getting fractals they dislike for extra 20-30 silvers.

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

Single, Yes. A whole set, No.

With the caveat of no daily chest/boss completion chest and no level up.

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

as long as it isnt as rewarding as a random whole set, i think thats fine.
I think the big thing i think we should evolve in fractals is the idea of different modes/seperating them from difficulty, and different rewards for fractals based on how easy/fast/meta they are.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

Single, Yes. A whole set, No.

With the caveat of no daily chest/boss completion chest and no level up.

Agreed.

Fractal Leaderboards could be based on fastest completion time for each Fractal at each scale. Being able to choose a single Fractal will allow speedrunners and leaderboard folks to easily choose which Fractal/scale they’d like to attempt.

For people like me concerned with training my guildmates, I can easily choose the Fractal I’d like to explain.

For people like Lost Witch who have never seen Thaumanova, well… you can just go start it.

If you like the randomness of Fractals, you just launch the regular 3+1 mode and do it that way.

Other concerns or objections?

Conski Deshan.2057:

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

Single, Yes. A whole set, No.

With the caveat of no daily chest/boss completion chest and no level up.

ah yes, the chest, it should probably have its rewards rebalanced for this mode. (based on comparitively short boss fights)

timmyf.1490:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I might be biased because I proposed it early on in this thread, but I’m wondering if we could all agree on this statement:

For a variety of purposes (including training, practice, leaderboard ranking, limited time to play, and potentially more), Fractals should include a mode where a party can select a single Fractal to complete.

Is that fair?

Single, Yes. A whole set, No.

With the caveat of no daily chest/boss completion chest and no level up.

Agreed.

Fractal Leaderboards could be based on fastest completion time for each Fractal at each scale. Being able to choose a single Fractal will allow speedrunners and leaderboard folks to easily choose which Fractal/scale they’d like to attempt.

For people like me concerned with training my guildmates, I can easily choose the Fractal I’d like to explain.

For people like Lost Witch who have never seen Thaumanova, well… you can just go start it.

If you like the randomness of Fractals, you just launch the regular 3+1 mode and do it that way.

Other concerns or objections?

i think each scale is too much data across too many players, leaderboards should probably be only at top scale. It should probably include each level with each instability, but thats a lot of data as well, hmmm… problem i think with leaderboards is too much data points

phys.7689:

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Next is the difficulty/progression question. Personally I’ve always felt that the difficulty scaling in Fractals is a bit redundant. After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder? I know this has been commented on, but I’d like to hear some thoughts on alternatives. If not difficulty scaling (or supposing difficulty scaling simply stopped at a certain level), what else would add meaning to progressing through higher level Fractals? How does that align with your goals, whatever they may be (rewards, defeating hard content, discovery, etc).

So I haven’t yet commented on this thread, but I figured I’d at least take the time to write once.

I was a player who reached scale 80 for fun before the reset because I found no other valuable PVE content in the game. Fractals, for me, was supposed to be the challenging endgame PVE content this game lacks compared to its predecessor. I loved challenging myself and my group specifically on high scale shaman.

You asked “After all, once the creatures have started to one-shot you, does it continue to matter that they keep hitting harder?”

The answer is, sort of. In some fights where taking SOME damage is almost unavoidable, it encourages different builds and gear to mitigate being one-shot.

I think you were perhaps asking that question rhetorically, but I would suggest that another question is more relevant. Is infinite agony building to avoid agony one-shots more valuable gameplay than skillful avoidance of regular mob one-shots during non-boss encounters?

Honestly what ruined fractals for me, besides the reset and obvious lack of care for players that worked to get to high levels, was the shift from skill-checks to gear-checks. I refuse to grind exponentially for more agony resistance gear. It’s stupid and not indicative of skill, but rather of wasted time.

I would love to see more skilled encounters. Shaman was my favorite fight before Liadri. Liadri was probably the best example of a fight that required skill that has been implemented in the game to date. I realize Westhospu put up a video where he zerked Liadri in 5 seconds, but the achievement “Light up the Darkness” should have made things a bit harder for him. Also, last time I checked he wasn’t able to solo shaman.

I want content that requires me to think. Obviously once groups get to know each other, they figure out a “best way” to do things, and the “thinking” element sort of gets pushed to the back burner, but there was just something about the shaman fight that felt unique every time I played with different people.

Game play should focus on good positioning, good timing of skills, and good synthesis between group members. It should not focus on exponential gear grinds (your new infusion system), gear checks (every 10 levels of the Mistlock Instabilities), or mindless game play (dredge clown car-I fell asleep doing this in the 70s late at night on more than one occasion.)

Good mechanics that add a sense of variability could also help. For example, what if a fractal used the movement system you guys added in the Zephyr Sanctum?

agony resistance ehhhh i think its the least well implemented part of fractals

I was trying to make the point that agony resistance implementation is terrible. I don’t think we disagree.

Romo.3709:

Yeah. Whatever they do with fractals in the coming months and however they take our responses it always comes down to one thing: Rewards. Either balance them out so they’re on par with each other or have different rewards tiers. And by different rewards tiers I don’t mean an extra green, because frankly they’re salvage trash, nothing more.
Even if balancing doesn’t happen and rewards tiers get implemented, there’s still need to do something with Dredge. That’s a point number 2 on the list before anything else, but after rewards.

I agree with this. I would put another point that need to be adressed, though.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

[…] I would suggest that another question is more relevant. Is infinite agony building to avoid agony one-shots more valuable gameplay than skillful avoidance of regular mob one-shots during non-boss encounters?

Honestly what ruined fractals for me, besides the reset and obvious lack of care for players that worked to get to high levels, was the shift from skill-checks to gear-checks. I refuse to grind exponentially for more agony resistance gear. It’s stupid and not indicative of skill, but rather of wasted time.

I would love to see more skilled encounters. […] Game play should focus on good positioning, good timing of skills, and good synthesis between group members. It should not focus on exponential gear grinds (your new infusion system), gear checks (every 10 levels of the Mistlock Instabilities), or mindless game play (dredge clown car-I fell asleep doing this in the 70s late at night on more than one occasion.)

I second this. This change to agony and AR is the thing I disliked the most about the fractured patch, along with our level reset.

This change force you to grind for stuff (which is excessivly costly) to be able to continue to progress, something we could before do with skill alone. I had friends at lvl 80 with only 25 AR, for example. This change also makes it impossible for the player to go in fractals with an alt. Before, we could switch character to play with different friends if the group composition was weak. Now, you can’t, as only BLC traders could hope to stuff multiple characters with full ascended equipment.

wasnt disagreeing with you nevets, was going to elaborate then thought it was better served in another, more thought out post. My fault for the confusion

phys.7689:

wasnt disagreeing with you nevets, was going to elaborate then thought it was better served in another, more thought out post. My fault for the confusion

No worries, I just wasn’t sure what you meant

Hey Chris.

I don’t have time or desire to sift through dozens of pages of extremely long posts to ensure that what I have to say hasn’t already been said, but I’ll try to give a few concise requests and opinions about FotM.

First and foremost, the only solution that I can think of the counter the incentive for the average player to roll for specific fractals is to release rewards that are unique to a particular fractal.

As well as the above, I believe the daily chest reward pool needs changing. I definitely do not advise weapon/armor chests being made more common than they already are. The problem is that if you don’t get one of these or a fractal weapon skin at the end, your reward is almost nothing at all. A simple yet effective solution would be to scale the amount of gold acquired at the end based off of what level of difficulty was done; each level would increment the gold reward by 10 silver.

Ascended rings are too abundant. It makes pristine relics essentially useless for any purpose other than conversion into regular fractal relics which are as well useless after a few items like a back piece/gifts of ascension are acquired.

As well as ascended rings being too abundant, you must implement some form of exchange we can do with these other than selling to a vendor for under 5 silver. It’s atrocious.

Two possible solutions:

1) enable us to salvage for a 1-3 chance of ectoplasm and globs of dark matter like exotics with an additional chance of 1-3 +1 agony infusions or 1-3 vials/globs/shards of mist essence as well. It seems pretty fair to me!

2) allow us to sell the rings to one of the vendors in Dessa’s Lab for a certain amount of fractal relics. I actually think it would be fair to offer this option as well as the salvage one listed above.

Let me know what you think. I have many many many more ideas for dungeons and fractals, but I’m going to limit this post to just these simple suggestions.

Purple Miku.7032:

First and foremost, the only solution that I can think of the counter the incentive for the average player to roll for specific fractals is to release rewards that are unique to a particular fractal.

That would make rolling even more viable than ever before. You’d roll for a certain level because you want those unique rewards. I think allowing us to choose the first fractal while completely randomizing the next two would be efficient enough. That way we can experience all the fractals, including the so-called Tier 1 ones.

Other than this point, I agree with rest.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s no surprise that the “add more mechanics” idea comes up a lot for difficulty scaling. Not only does it sound really great, it was also the original plan. Unfortunately it’s just about the heaviest approach we could take because it implies that every boss in the fractal needs to be updated and rebalanced for every tier that we add. Assuming 2 bosses per Fractal (and we never added new Fractals), every time we add a tier of difficulty we have to do this 30 times. I’m not saying we can’t do it; I’m saying it would be slow. Much slower than say, adding one or two new Fractals per tier with entirely new content.

What I actually don’t like about that approach is that it has a lot of filler progression. Hypothetical levels 51-60 would effectively all be the same. We thought the advantage of assigning an MI to every level was that it literally made every level unique and also avoids the re-rolling problem that fractal selection has.

---

Back on randomness/replayability/rewards: I think the intent has always been to make the Fractals a very replayable experience by using random to create semi-unique iterations through the content. But the extrinsic reward motivators work to the contrary, making random unfavorable for optimal gain.

I’d like to see more speculation on middle ground solutions which both add meaningful variety to the Fractals without forcing players to feel like they’re trudging through non-optimal reward paths.

Also, this is all just speculation. I’m not advocating or declaring an official re-work of any system here. Just exploring possibilities for the evolution of this and future content.

If it comes to the choice whether to have more mechanics or a new fractal, I choose a new fractal.

Also, Chris.
I’ve been trying to avoid the question for a while now, trying my hardest to contribute to this CDI as much as the time lets me, while trying to push this question to the back of my mind. It never seem to be a good time to ask it, but then again I don’t think it’ll ever be a good time to. But you once said that you will give your opinion on fractal reset after you gave it some thoughts. I was wondering if you got anything for us. Will we ever be compensated for levels we lost and those over multiple toons? Just stating if it’s not even a viable thing for discussion anymore would suffice.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Romo.3709:

Also, Chris.
I’ve been trying to avoid the question for a while now, trying my hardest to contribute to this CDI as much as the time lets me, while trying to push this question to the back of my mind. It never seem to be a good time to ask it, but then again I don’t think it’ll ever be a good time to. But you once said that you will give your opinion on fractal reset after you gave it some thoughts. I was wondering if you got anything for us. Will we ever be compensated for levels we lost and those over multiple toons? Just stating if it’s not even a viable thing for discussion anymore would suffice.

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

I’m pretty sure Izzy did not give us your thoughts on what happened. You’re the one who told Romo you would address it at some point after you’d had time to formulate a response. I know you’re in a tough spot in this, but… I feel like Romo has gone out of his way to be accommodating.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

After his response, the subject was still talked a lot. And you then told us you would think about how we felt and get back to us.

Source (response from Romo to Izzy): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369056

Your response to Romo after this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369091

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

Izzy had a very formulated response. But the thing was that at the very begining we’ve been given Leaderboards as a reason for reset. Then Izzy stated that the entire reason for it was “misunderstanding in terminology”, which is pretty silly of a reason for something so drastic. And nothing was ever stated about any kind of reimbursement for levels lost, which up till then you guys been pretty on point with all other areas of the game.
But no rush, I figured I’d give it one last shot. I’ve lost many fractal buddies because of this since they either stopped playing the game completely or don’t want anything to do with fractals anymore, figured this might bring them back somehow.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Romo.3709:

Also, Chris.
I’ve been trying to avoid the question for a while now, trying my hardest to contribute to this CDI as much as the time lets me, while trying to push this question to the back of my mind. It never seem to be a good time to ask it, but then again I don’t think it’ll ever be a good time to. But you once said that you will give your opinion on fractal reset after you gave it some thoughts. I was wondering if you got anything for us. Will we ever be compensated for levels we lost and those over multiple toons? Just stating if it’s not even a viable thing for discussion anymore would suffice.

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

hard to search this forum, but if memory serves, Izzy said in the development phase, they never thought players really looked at difficulty scale as a progression. He said they would consider that type of thing in the future, but not that they wouldnt do it.
As a whole, the issue and idea of creating/evolving content and how that effects various forms of progression, and what is and isnt off the table in terms of resets has never really been addressed.

In the context of evolving fractals, id like to say i personally think it was a mistake to do it for the purposes of leaderboards and/or trying to reset the playing field, and that going forward, new content should be released in a manner that doesnt completely focus on difficulty scales.

I think instabilities would have been better served as a seperate game mode, unlocked based on either reaching level 31 OR playing say 150 fractals(31 is 120 )
the rewards from instabilities should be somewhat better or unique.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

After his response, the subject was still talked a lot. And you then told us you would think about how we felt and get back to us.

Source (response from Romo to Izzy): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369056

Your response to Romo after this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369091

ahh yes, even playing field. I really dont think this was achieved, the people who used to be 50, are 50 again, many who werent havent gotten that much farther.
people skipped many of the instabilities and relied on the easiest (heaviest agony based) instabilities to progress.

From the devs it would be good to get some feedback here.

in retrospect was the fractal reset a good thing for fractals?
in evolving the game, tradeoffs will happen, how do you plan to minimize the negative effects of these trade offs
is leveling the playing fields worth wiping player progress?
is there ways to evolve/level playing fields without hard wipes?

I think it would be nice to give them a title say “Fractal Precursor” , A small amount of gold* say 5-10 and a choice of an ascended armor box or weapon box (with stat choice)
*(gold effects the economy the boxes don’t)

phys.7689:

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am pretty sure Izzy responded to this question a few months ago. I will check with him.

Chris

After his response, the subject was still talked a lot. And you then told us you would think about how we felt and get back to us.

Source (response from Romo to Izzy): https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369056

Your response to Romo after this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/3#post3369091

ahh yes, even playing field. I really dont think this was achieved, the people who used to be 50, are 50 again, many who werent havent gotten that much farther.
people skipped many of the instabilities and relied on the easiest (heaviest agony based) instabilities to progress.

From the devs it would be good to get some feedback here.

in retrospect was the fractal reset a good thing for fractals?
in evolving the game, tradeoffs will happen, how do you plan to minimize the negative effects of these trade offs
is leveling the playing fields worth wiping player progress?
is there ways to evolve/level playing fields without hard wipes?

I think it was a mistake on their part, the legacy /existing players should always be the group that is considered first in a change. Compensation should for anything like it should also err on the side of generous.

@phys , Realisticly the only time players are equal/playing on a level field is up until they hit create character.

How about giving everyone that lost levels, due to reset, a 50copper bonus chest per level lost? That way I’d have 20ish silver (including alts that I had earn FoM 3-5 on) and no one could say they weren’t compensated? Personally, I liked the reset since the fractals were made different and previous high FoMers already got the bonus fractal rolls from easier content. Please implement chest idea….tired of people saying they were not compensated POST reset since PRE reset rewards were apparently not enough.

KyleMcLaw.8974:

How about giving everyone that lost levels, due to reset, a 50copper bonus chest per level lost? That way I’d have 20ish silver (including alts that I had earn FoM 3-5 on) and no one could say they weren’t compensated? Personally, I liked the reset since the fractals were made different and previous high FoMers already got the bonus fractal rolls from easier content. Please implement chest idea….tired of people saying they were not compensated POST reset since PRE reset rewards were apparently not enough.

That is definitely not a constructive feedback in any way. It’s an insult directed at players. If you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say anything at all.

Romo.3709:

KyleMcLaw.8974:

How about giving everyone that lost levels, due to reset, a 50copper bonus chest per level lost? That way I’d have 20ish silver (including alts that I had earn FoM 3-5 on) and no one could say they weren’t compensated? Personally, I liked the reset since the fractals were made different and previous high FoMers already got the bonus fractal rolls from easier content. Please implement chest idea….tired of people saying they were not compensated POST reset since PRE reset rewards were apparently not enough.

That is definitely not a constructive feedback in any way. It’s an insult directed at players. If you don’t have anything constructive to say, don’t say anything at all.

It is constructive:
1) Fulfills demand of compensation
2) Recognizes a PRE reward gain that was inherent in easier fractals before mistlocks
3) I am an individual who lost levels and this is an easy way to make my loss of levels feel less like loss and more like a bonus reward for exceeding the contents original gimmick of no mistlocks

I am sorry if you want something excessive, but this request was fully reasonable.

I’d love to see those early Fractal 80-scale folks be “compensated,” but I’m not sure there’s a way to do it without making things worse.

Suppose you get a super-exclusive Fractal Pioneer title for hitting 80. You don’t think the forums will have a handful of angry people who maybe were in their mid-70s? And that’s assuming Arena can even access that information at this point.

Compensation will just anger all the people who would have done X had they known about the compensation then.

But for those of you who did it, do you have an ask? What would satisfy you? All I’ve seen are vague “compensate me!” posts without much detail.

timmyf.1490:

I’d love to see those early Fractal 80-scale folks be “compensated,” but I’m not sure there’s a way to do it without making things worse.

Suppose you get a super-exclusive Fractal Pioneer title for hitting 80. You don’t think the forums will have a handful of angry people who maybe were in their mid-70s? And that’s assuming Arena can even access that information at this point.

Compensation will just anger all the people who would have done X had they known about the compensation then.

But for those of you who did it, do you have an ask? What would satisfy you? All I’ve seen are vague “compensate me!” posts without much detail.

This is what I am saying. Other posts yell “compensate me!” with no definition of what they mean by compensate. And if you give too low of a suggestion, people will say you are “insulting” folks and not being “constructive”

timmyf.1490:

I’d love to see those early Fractal 80-scale folks be “compensated,” but I’m not sure there’s a way to do it without making things worse.

Suppose you get a super-exclusive Fractal Pioneer title for hitting 80. You don’t think the forums will have a handful of angry people who maybe were in their mid-70s? And that’s assuming Arena can even access that information at this point.

Compensation will just anger all the people who would have done X had they known about the compensation then.

But for those of you who did it, do you have an ask? What would satisfy you? All I’ve seen are vague “compensate me!” posts without much detail.

Back in the Fractured subforum, 3 months ago, there were talks about what kind of compensation players would feel ok with. I didn’t make notes back then, so forgive me for not looking back for sources inside the 2500 posts made on the subject back then…

Also, in the first page of this subject, I linked to a post made by Nike around 2 months ago where he made a proposal of compensation for fractal players. Link here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/38#post3392129
Note that this proposal was commented by some of us after that in the thread.

As for Anet not having access to the level we had back then. There was a massive reaction on the forums when Fractured was announced, a week before the patch went live. The moderation had to work quite a bit on it, many threads were deleted, some were merged, etc. In the 3 weeks between the announcement of Fractured and its end, around 2500 posts were made on this subject alone. Knowing this a a “touchy” subject, it would be strange for Anet to have just discarded this data, especially since around a month after Fractured, Chris told us he would think about how we felt.

I would work on the basis they want recognition for what they achieved.
That to me means something that visually identify s them as those who completed it.
The easiest way to do so is a unique title.

@kyle, anyone would consider the amount you suggested insulting, it amounts to about 5 mins of work if even.
@timmy, but they did’nt do it so they don’t get it, woulda shoulda coulda.
I’d suggest compensating anyone who rose above level 50, and as with fractals compensate by tier.

Conski Deshan.2057:

I would work on the basis they want recognition for what they achieved.
That to me means something that visually identify s them as those who completed it.
The easiest way to do so is a unique title.

@kyle, anyone would consider the amount you suggested insulting, it amounts to about 5 mins of work if even.
@timmy, but they did’nt do it so they don’t get it, woulda shoulda coulda.
I’d suggest compensating anyone who rose above level 50, and as with fractals compensate by tier.

people lost 30-50 as well, and post 50 was semi patched out, so ehhhh

Estriella Faerie.4029:

timmyf.1490:

I’d love to see those early Fractal 80-scale folks be “compensated,” but I’m not sure there’s a way to do it without making things worse.

Suppose you get a super-exclusive Fractal Pioneer title for hitting 80. You don’t think the forums will have a handful of angry people who maybe were in their mid-70s? And that’s assuming Arena can even access that information at this point.

Compensation will just anger all the people who would have done X had they known about the compensation then.

But for those of you who did it, do you have an ask? What would satisfy you? All I’ve seen are vague “compensate me!” posts without much detail.

Back in the Fractured subforum, 3 months ago, there were talks about what kind of compensation players would feel ok with. I didn’t make notes back then, so forgive me for not looking back for sources inside the 2500 posts made on the subject back then…

Also, in the first page of this subject, I linked to a post made by Nike around 2 months ago where he made a proposal of compensation for fractal players. Link here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/38#post3392129
Note that this proposal was commented by some of us after that in the thread.

I would be alright with the +2 agony infusion gift per level but anything more is excessive. The infusions would help with making more for higher FoM
@conski – How can that be insulting? I would be happy with any reward. I don’t support anet feeding inflation. Especially since, as phys said, post 50 was semi patched out so excessive rewards for unattainable content to players before patch would cause a new sect of players feeling discriminated against

Romo.3709:

Nobody would bother a chance of getting fractals they dislike for extra 20-30 silvers.

So is it better to force people to play content they dislike for nothing more? I mean, I hate being forced to play content like world bosses with those fluffy zergs. There are bad fractals as well.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

In regard to topics I would like to see (if that’s ok):

- Continued discussion about lore in fractals.
- Suggested scenarios (boss, encounter and level design) based on current mechanics and systems in fractals.
- Anything else that takes your fancy.

I am pretty well versed in all of your thoughts around rolling, rewards and leader boards now.

Chris

Putting aside your dev hat and any indications of inetntion etc etc

Out of nothing more than curiosity and get discussion back rolling…what would you personally “as a player/fan” like to see as a scenario. Given the whole the GW lore and history to pluck from?

For eg, I’d love something similar to the Ascalon fight, but with Ebonhawke and Kralk flying overhead branding half the area and you as soldiers fighting off branded so people could escape. That would be iconic!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

In regard to topics I would like to see (if that’s ok):

- Continued discussion about lore in fractals.
- Suggested scenarios (boss, encounter and level design) based on current mechanics and systems in fractals.
- Anything else that takes your fancy.

I am pretty well versed in all of your thoughts around rolling, rewards and leader boards now.

Chris

• A fractal, from the human perspective, on the day Orr sank.
• A Quaggan fractal.
• Fractal about the fall of the Flame Legion from power.

Trial of Ascension

It would be cool to have the 3 fractals be each mission required to be completed to access augury rock in GW1 and culminating in the boss fractal that is essentially your parties doubles.

That would be awesome

Rallar.2986:

Trial of Ascension

It would be cool to have the 3 fractals be each mission required to be completed to access augury rock in GW1 and culminating in the boss fractal that is essentially your parties doubles.

That would be awesome

I think I could live w/o the trials again – about to do that in HM and not looking forward to it lol!!! Love the boss fractal idea though. Us Vs Us would be epic if it could be done in a way that so that the fight wasn’t over too quick.