Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

I seriously hope not, because that would mean we somehow missed an announcement that “You’re just gonna have to lump it.”

Do the right thing on this one. Please.

Those players should be your ambassadors of fractaline awesome to the rest of the player base, not the most legitimately bitter voices.

Scorch der Juengere.7328:

Teckos, can you please explain your proposal in more detail?

hide spoiler

Teckos.1305:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/page/19#post3717448

I’m sorry, but can you please explain again? I don’t understand you proposal.
You say you propose to “Tie progressing into the fractals to dynamic events,” which sounds like mandatory events to me. However, in the risks you state that the events are optional. Also, I think “capture and hold” is already implemented in Urban Battlegrounds/Ascalon. So I don’t understand what this “brutal change” is.

I hope this helps you in stating your proposal more clearly. It would be bad if we miss a good idea because of some misleading words.

First I would like to excuse myself since it seems that in an attempt of making my post as short as possible, I made it quite hard to understand.

In “Tie progressing into the fractals to dynamic events”, I use dynamic events to refer to the structure used by the developers to create content.
Then I the Events in 2 categories:

1. The mandatory events which must be completed to succeed the fractal.
2. The optional events which are not required to finish the fractal.

By tying the fractal completion to events, it becomes much easier to create unique encounters(=/= fights) thanks to the structure ability to have a wide variety of success conditions.
The optional events would randomly start during the progression into the fractal each of them having it’s own probability, the goal is to make running the same fractal several times feels less repetitive. The risk here is to have these events being completely ignored by the players due to its optional nature, and this is why I proposed 2 solutions to this problem:

1. make them provide additional reward only at the end of the fractal
2. have these events interact with the mandatory ones.

To clarify a little more on how much of a change it can be I will provide an example to illustrate the system proposed.

Escort fractal:
The goal of this fractal is to escort a NPC, there is nothing blocking the player progression into the zone it can be freely explored also different itinerary are available.

Mandatory event:
Escort a merchant and his 3 dolyaks through the plains.
Enemies will spawn during the course of the escort trying to kill the dolyaks and the merchant.
If a dolyak dies it cannot be revived.
The merchant can be revived.
When the event finishes:

• gold reward: 3 dolyaks alive.
• silver reward: 1-2 dolyak(s) alive.
• bronze reward: no doluak alive.

Choice making:
At the beginning of the fractal players will be able to talk to the NPC and choose the itinerary.

Optional/random events:
Camps of bandits located outside of the escort routes.
Each camp is guarded by an enemy/group of enemy, the combat difficulty varies.
The camps can be destroyed by players and then captured to ensure the bandits wont come back.
The camps/event which will be up are decided as soon as the fractal is loaded.

Link between the optional and mandatory events:
If a camp/event is up bandits belonging to this one will be patrolling in a certain part of a certain itinerary.

With all this we end up with a fractal introducing quite a lot of mechanics:

• Since the escort wont start until an itinerary has been decided, and the occupied camps aren’t revealed until explored bu the player scouting to know which itinerary is the most appropriate.
• Each camp having different enemies to deal with deciding if cleaning the camp or going through the patrols is the most profitable choice to do.
• With additional reward tied to the dolyaks count at the end of the fractal spliting the group to protect the escort while dealing with the camps might be a good idea.
• The combination of camps at the start of the fractal being chosen aleatory each run through this fractal feels a little different.
• …

Well is hope that with this example I clarified my proposition enough.

So, outside of bait — er, I mean rewards — do we have any thoughts on how to get more players involved in playing fractals, moving up the ladder of once → occasionally → daily → competitively?

Is there something we can appeal to other than loot?

Would having a rotating selection of fractals help? The Rytlock Origin only comes up on a 5-day cycle maybe? (with origin fractals for all the Destiny’s Edge characters rounding out the 5-day rotation)

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

Scenario Ideas
I’d love to see some more bizarre fractals that show “possible universes” that we could play through. For example, a “What-if Zhaitan won” scenario wherein you fight your way through Lion’s Arch, killing hordes of zombies and zombie versions of popular NPCs. Three boss fights with member’s of Destiny’s Edge and Trahearne as the final boss.

Then there’s the obvious kralkatorrik fight wherein we help Destiny’s Edge fight through waves of kralkatorrik minions, lieutenants and finally Krakatorrik himself wherin Snaff sacrifices himself so we can escape. That would be great to see in-game.

Honestly, any chance to give the devs a chance to show us re-designed versions of some existing maps would be welcome. Possible examples: Arah, or any part of Orr during the Charr invasion itself. Fighting as the Charr during the Searing, or perhaps shortly after with a boss fight against King Adelbern.

Level Design Ideas
I enjoyed the first airship section of the Arah Story path where you have to fight off the enemies dropping onto your ship, shield against the huge giants and blast the dragons out of the sky. That was a lot of fun, I’d love to see more fights along those lines where some members of the team have to run defense in some fashion while the reason of the team fends of hoardes of enemies or has to take down a boss using a method other then JUST tank n’ spank.

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

He didn’t. So if you wouldn’t min-

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok as I thought my post has completely derailed the conversation. Please let’s continue discussing how to evolve fractals for the time being.

Thank you,

Chris

We’ve discussed dredge and rewards. Assuming any changes that actually take place aren’t the opposite of the opinions voiced here, there shouldn’t be any problems. Just add a new fractal every so often (similar in length/difficulty to thurmanova/aetherblade) and you can continue ignoring the malcontents asking for an explanation for a meaningless reset of their progress.

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

I made a halfway decent detailed suggestion so far around a Ghosts of Ascalon-Fractal (in general Novel-Fractals, because I’d die for it to replay the books in the Game in a kind of a matter, how the Bonus Mission Pack was designed for GW1, but this time for GW2 just more advanced and better rewarding as some kind of long term thing that will lure people into Fractals as either a Group or Solo.

I’d like to know, what your thoughts are about these kind of lore specific “Heroic Fractals” as like how I named it for myself this kind of fractal content in design of the BMP reintroduced with Fractals for GW2, including Tomes of Memories, rewarding books like diaries, where you need to fill in the missing Memories by playing the Heroic Fractal and collecting Essences of Memories.

Here a quick Re-Link to that posting of me in the case that you’ve just overseen it.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/page/13#post3700903

I want to have back for GW2 these stylish books that you can read like real books by changing the pages manually, like in GW1. These were awesome Interactive Books that you could open up ingame just like normal books in real life and read them page per page

I’ve nailed a winning scenario…

Super adventure box fractal!!!

Either a new level with jumping bits and fighting mechanics based on the weapons in the SAB (eg thrwo bombs into King Toads mouth) or a collage of bits from SAB – so rapids + say yeti then some jumping then World 2 boss.

:D

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

I seriously hope not, because that would mean we somehow missed an announcement that “You’re just gonna have to lump it.”

Do the right thing on this one. Please.

Those players should be your ambassadors of fractaline awesome to the rest of the player base, not the most legitimately bitter voices.

This is off topic for the time being Nike.

Thank you.

Chris

So as to let this thread stay only on the topic of the future of fractals and how we want it to evolve, could you then just tell us where and when we could discuss the reset topic ? As you could see, this subject is still quite vivid for most of us, and will obviously stay like this until we can get an answer on it.

Since I rather enjoyed the team being turned into Charr or Asura in certain fractals, lets take it up a notch – fractals where the team is turned into once race AND assigned a specific racial elite for the duration of the fractal – with the bosses of the fractal having specific vulnerabilities to that elite.

I’d also like to see more use of environmental weapon bundles.

I think the heart of the challenge is how much do you want to place expectation on the composition of the team?

If the content designer can expect:

1 power-based damage dealer
1 condition-based damage dealer
1 one durable character
1 support character

Then you can have a lot wider range of hurdles.

I think the problem with the Dredge 2-button encounter is not so much that it asks for a durable character (a rare breed to begin with) but that it asks for TWO of them.

If you added an environmental bundle, Like a Dredge Riot shield, then the 1 expected durable character can do their part and another character can temporarily take on that aspect to hold down the other switch.

Extending the principle, we can look forward to fights that use mechanics like we’re seeing in the Breach Maker fight right now with a shield that has to be worn down with conditions. The one expected condition character gets to shine, and an environmental bundle like a Witch’s Pointing Bone or some other lore-friendly tool is placed nearby so a second character can also fill in as a conditionmancer for that fight.

Expect 1, equip 1. Demand more variety than just 4 DPS and a Guard ((and stop making everything a DPS race… ))

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

I seriously hope not, because that would mean we somehow missed an announcement that “You’re just gonna have to lump it.”

Do the right thing on this one. Please.

Those players should be your ambassadors of fractaline awesome to the rest of the player base, not the most legitimately bitter voices.

This is off topic for the time being Nike.

Thank you.

Chris

So as to let this thread stay only on the topic of the future of fractals and how we want it to evolve, could you then just tell us where and when we could discuss the reset topic ? As you could see, this subject is still quite vivid for most of us, and will obviously stay like this until we can get an answer on it.

I’ve started a topic here for further discussion, so as to remain on-topic.

Scenario Idea List for Heroic Fractals:

Novels

• Ghosts of Ascalon
• Destinies Edge (for Germans Reign of the Dragons)
• Sea of Sorrows

Other Scenarios

• The Sinking of Orr
• Flame Seeker Prophecies (A Fractal based on all kinds of Titans/Mursaat/the Lich on the Ring of Fire)
• The Fall of Abaddon (to many people wanted that ove the Thaumanova Reactor, why waste the work behind of hit, you had to be prepared to finish this anyways)
• War of Kryta (Raid like War Battles with the option to play this together with many others, like a mixture of Fractals + WvW in a PvE Setting)
• Specific GW1 Missions reworked for GW2, like:
  - Thunderhead Keep
  - Closer to the Stars
  - That Mission where you fight against Glint at the end with its several Tests
  - The Nemesis (Having to fight against your own Doppelgangers like in GW1)

Elite Fractals:

• The Underworld (Fissure of WoE)
• The Deep
• Realm of Torment (Ebony Citadel of Mallyx)
• Urgoz’ Warren

PvP based Fractals reworked as PvE Lore Fractals

• Fort Aspenwood
• Jade Quarry

I think, if Fractals would have all of these, it would be an awesome beginning to start with improving Fractals by adding more lore based fractals and also such, that could be challenging and would make up also very good additions just for the nostalgia, especially all of the old GW1 Elite Areas reworked as GW2 Fractals would be awesome.

Some things that I’d like to see in the fractals are parts of Guild Wars lore and history. I am assuming that the fractals are used to place players in some kind of short story that shows you a random event that occurred in Guild Wars or in lore. I think it could help people who are unfamiliar with the first game’s lore to understand why some things in GW2 are happening. Here’s a list of some scenarios that I think would be great to see:

• The fight against the Lich at the end of Guild Wars : Prophecies. First of all, the mechanic of having to kill the Lich who respawns many times and teleport across the field is amazing. Putting a small party near lava and adding some knockback to the Lich would make it harder and pretty cool. Also, this could be an opportunity to make Prince Rurik appear and give some lore about him. This could be added as a boss fight, which I think suits it better than a full fractal.

• The assault Gandara the Moon Fortress, from GW : Nightfall. Nothing better than storming the castle and trying to kill its leader! I think this could be somewhat similar to the ascalonian fractal.

• The fall of Rin. This could lead to the construction of the Black Citadel. I think that we could have a WvW like fractal, where you are defending a keep/castle against hordes of ennemies while having catapults (or flame cannons in this case) destroying the walls, and ultimately fail to win.

These are a few of my ideas for fractals. I really hope we get some new fractals with GW1 story in it.

Some more ideas for new fight mechanics:
I’d love for a moving fight where you had to “chase” an enemy . This could be either on foot or on some kind of vehicle where you would alternate between DPSing the boss down, and then using ranged attacks to put “obstacles” of some kind in it’s path to either knock it down or daze it. (Picture an airship chase through a canyon and you’re having to shoot down boulders to daze or slow down it down)

Or what if it’s the other way around, where a huge enemy is chasing you down a hill where you have to fight it occasionally to slow it down then run like crazy to get out of it’s way. Example: A reverse Cliffside fractal, where the giant statue dude is actually trying to attack you and you’re running up the cliff trying to lash him to the cliff. Another example: Picture the mechanical spider fight in the beginning of FFVIII.

I’ve only had a chance to read about 3/4 of the topic, but have two suggestions. I’ll split them into two posts to make things easy (my apologies for the double post in advance).

Firstly, players in this thread have been asking about making the Fractals more lore-filled, and a few have brought up the books in GW1….what about a join in both?

Basically, the player gets a book from an NPC (if doing a single book, maybe Dessa herself, if doing multiple, maybe one for each Order.) which works like the GW1 Master Dungeon Guide. Each fractal has 1-3 pages, initially blank. Once players complete the fractal, they get a small write-up about it, maybe including information on the “boss” of the fractal, and further questions and mysteries.

Like the Master Dungeon Guide, players would be able to hand in completed books to Dessa or the Orders for a reward of some kind, maybe gold and/or relics/infusions.

It would need a large amount of development time to recreate the code required for the books, but once done they’re relatively expandable; it also allows for concept art of the fractals to be placed in game. The major hassal is having both another item to drag around, and that players will be tempted to keep the book with them if they are interested in the lore. How this is avoided is not my area of expertise.

Other idea after the break.

For the next idea I have to apologize for being self-promoting. Before the suggestions forums were closed I put up a group of “new” fractals as an idea. Unfortunately the post got slightly derailed.

I have put them on the GW1 wiki’s suggestion section because it is the only other area which would allow Arenanet to use them without problem. The link to those fractal designs is here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback:User/MularcTemplare/New_Fractal_Designs

I am sorry if this is not wanted here, as these are a bit “beyond the call” of the CDI. These seem to be on topic. They will in general require a fair bit of work building them, but I tried to design the early lot looking to using existing assets in different areas.

Hope someone gets a kick out of them, thanks for allowing me to post

Mularc

I’d like a scenario involving the Sunspears.

We had Battle fo LA and Winds of change as part of Guild Wars beyond, but we never got anything for Elona, why not correct this with a “fall of sunspears” story or “Escape of the whispers” vs the forces of Palawa Joko?

You could even have the end reward as a pile of Djinn spawning gold like the DO NOT TOUCH’s.

And maybe, just maybe, give everyone on-land spear skills unique for each profession.

1. Completely remove fractal rank from your account. Anyone can open any rank fractal and the rank of the fractal you complete determines your reward. If you’re good enough to do higher ranks, why force the endless mind-numbing grind through the lower ranks or make good players with low rank get horrible rewards for grouping with and helping friends on high-rank runs?

2. Rewards are far too low. I’d double the gold rewards, change all ascended drops to be stat-selectable, and make ascended items salvageable (for more or better results than exotics).

3. Time balanced. Typical run time is still disrupted by overly long fractals.

These are the current reasons why fractals aren’t part of my regular play. Similar reasons apply to my regular dungeoning group, all of whom have high-rank & high-AR characters and yet do fractals very infrequently, too.

adubb.2453:

Some more ideas for new fight mechanics:
I’d love for a moving fight where you had to “chase” an enemy . This could be either on foot or on some kind of vehicle where you would alternate between DPSing the boss down, and then using ranged attacks to put “obstacles” of some kind in it’s path to either knock it down or daze it. (Picture an airship chase through a canyon and you’re having to shoot down boulders to daze or slow down it down)

Or what if it’s the other way around, where a huge enemy is chasing you down a hill where you have to fight it occasionally to slow it down then run like crazy to get out of it’s way. Example: A reverse Cliffside fractal, where the giant statue dude is actually trying to attack you and you’re running up the cliff trying to lash him to the cliff. Another example: Picture the mechanical spider fight in the beginning of FFVIII.

That would be amazing!!

Loved these two suggestions.

I think Maw should be improved as it’s much easier than other boss fractals. I really liked that fractal video where Maw shot huge beam at players so that would be a good base.

1) Maw shoots 1-X (scales) slowly moving ground targeted heavy damaging lasers. Lasers would gradually move faster and faster until a) Maw is hit or b) player gets defeated. Lasers should follow the closest target so you can reliably have a kiter/tank. When Maw is damaged lasers should reset to their original positions (different spots on the area).

2) Crystal idea can remain. Players have to grab crystals to absorb laser and throw it back at Maw. Crystals should have charges. Longer you absorb laser, more damage your throw does. This can be indicated with a separate buff, skill 1 changing its icon or even an adrenaline bar. Initial charge and charging speed should scale. At lower scales you get higher initial charge but charging speed is much slower.

3) If you charge your shield too much it will overheat and explode in few seconds knocking and dealing heavy damage to everyone around it. This also includes enemies so players can intentionally use it to destroy big enemy groups. Similarly Maw’s laser could have friendly fire.

4) Crystals should spawn from dead Jade Shards or Jade Colossii. Their amount should scale backwards (less enemies on higher scales but enough for constant crystal output). To compensate there would also be Irukandji and Tentacles (more and more on higher scales). All enemies should be buffed. Irukandji should get anti-skipping skills to keep people at laser. Colossii should have their damage buffed a lot but remove permanent reflecting. Shards and Tentacles are quite ok but could use 1-2 extra skills or faster animations. (Frenzy on Tentacle might be cool).

5) Time to kill should be balanced. At higher scales, less Jade enemies means less crystals. Also charging would be harder and you might be needed to overcharge on purpose. Maw’s health could scale backwards meaning less health on higher scales.

6) Damaging Maw could permanently destroy some lasers. For example with 5 lasers, every 25% or 33% he would lose one laser. This would allow higher initial amount meaning more hectic and challenging start for the fight.

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

GW1 missions in fractals.
Many players didn’t play GW1 so they wouldn’t mind, and GW1 players would gladly see the missions again.
What missions would fit in fotm -

• Aurora Glade
• Sanctum Cay
• Thunderhead Keep
• Crystal Desert missions
• D’Allesio Seaboard
• some Ascalon missions
• pre searing when you have to kill Vatlaaw Doomtooth
• Hell’s Precipice

and that’s just for Prophecies. Many cantha/elona missions would work too, for example killing abaddon fractal.

Suggested Idea:
Ascended armor bought with fractal relics.

Goal of Proposal:
To allow fractal runners continue their progression without having to spend 60g+ on each weapon/armor since fractals hardly drop gold to cover the money requirement that is needed now. (especially when you want to run fractals with different characters as well)

Proposal Functionality:
Players can buy ascended armor/weapon boxes for 2350 fractal relics (same price as infused ascended backpiece in terms of relics), imo 4700 relics for 2-handed weapons but that kinda hard when they come in boxes.

Associated Risks:
Prices on several tier materials that are needed for ascended armor will drop in value on the trade post.
More entitled casuals in fractals hoping to reap cheap rewards and coming back from a cold shower after they realise they need to do atleast 20 runs for a single piece.
People would be less inclined to level up crafting professions.

Pros: pristine fractal relics and fractal relics have additional value (those are basicly your gold drops that would be spend on ascended armor)

Everyone else already said it so Im just going to throw it out, dredge needs a redesign. I dont care how but its current form is (ok its somewhat fun) but its a huge strain on a party and takes too long.

Fractal skins should drop more frequently at higher levels (lv40/50+ should see a drastic increase in drops imo). Also if we are ever allowed to buy skins with pristine fractal relics or fractal relics its going to seriously trivialise its value, please dont ever do that.

A quick question:

Are we going to see changes to Fractals anytime before November?

Might as well throw in my 2 cents:

1. Stop dropping uninfused rings above level 20-30. It’s just ridiculous to finish a lvl 49 fractal and get an uninfused Melaggan’s Whorl.

2. Kill the stupid clown car!

3. Make the cash rewards better. Something along the lines of: PR 1-10, 1g; PR 11-20, 2g; PR 21-30, 3g; PR 31-40, 4g; PR 41-50, 5g.

4. Get those pesky fractal weapon chests up already! Fractal harpoon is nice, but it gets old after your 3rd. And no matter how kitten I think my warrior is, he simply will not dual-wield shields! Even if they’re fractal shields.

5. Kill the stupid clown car!

6. Get more rewards for the Pristine Relics, rings just don’t cut it no more. And 15 relics for a pristine one is a joke.

7. Kill the stupid clown car!

8. Make the Fall of Abbaddon fractal. Even if it has to have its own clown car.

Edited to add a few things.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Might as well throw in my 2 cents:

1. Stop dropping uninfused rings above level 20-30. It’s just ridiculous to finish a lvl 49 fractal and get an uninfused Melaggan’s Whorl.

2. Make the cash rewards better. Something along the lines of: PR 1-10, 1g; PR 11-20, 2g; PR 21-30, 3g; PR 31-40, 4g; PR 41-50, 5g.

3. Get those pesky fractal weapon chests up already! Fractal harpoon is nice, but it gets old after your 3rd. And no matter how kitten I think my warrior is, he will simply will not dual-wield shields! Even if they’re fractal shields.

4. Get more rewards for the Pristine Relics, rings just don’t cut it no more. And 15 relics for a pristine one is a joke.

Basically this. But make it so rings dont drop at all in 30+. Also improve boss chest loot. And make the chests in say dredge and cliffiside have much better loot than chests in swamp and underwater.

Honestly everyone complaining about dredge makes me sad. It’s not that hard and I enjoy more difficult content. I would like more difficult fractal maps but since so many people complain I guess have them in the higher levels or a way to deprecate it because not everyone seems to be able to handle the harder content.

Corpse Flakes.5369:

Honestly everyone complaining about dredge makes me sad. It’s not that hard and I enjoy more difficult content. I would like more difficult fractal maps but since so many people complain I guess have them in the higher levels or a way to deprecate it because not everyone seems to be able to handle the harder content.

Dredge is by no means hard for a half-decent group, but the stupid clown car is a waste of time! There is NO challenge to it, you just sit there and press 1 to win. No challenge, no glory, just time consumed. Granted, the loot is decent, but I would rather skip those 5 minutes of boredom and move on.

Nike.2631:

Since I rather enjoyed the team being turned into Charr or Asura in certain fractals, lets take it up a notch – fractals where the team is turned into once race AND assigned a specific racial elite for the duration of the fractal – with the bosses of the fractal having specific vulnerabilities to that elite.

I would like to see a Sylvari fractal, where you help the firstborn.

Personally as far as scenarios/boss/levels I’d like to see.

Well as surprising as this likely would be given how many of these guys are in the game already, I’d like to see a Centaur Fractal. Centaurs with elemental bosses and the like, we have models in game already for giant fire and earth elementals so having these get some more play in the game would be great to have with new mechanics involved as well. Maybe something from around the time of the Elonian colonization of Kryta or during another conflict involving them.
-Maybe a three boss fractal, a Fire Elemental, an Earth Elemental, and then a Centaur. With an option to kill either elemental first, with the centaur getting buffs based on which was killed first.
-Make the final fight against the centaur a chase fight, where he runs along a course peppering the party with long range attacks and sending centaur after the party as they chase him down.

A fractal featuring the Jotun during their height, before the fall of their culture would be interesting, perhaps showing the events of their fall in more detail or some great conflict between them illustrating why their culture was doomed to fail in the first place or won’t ever reform.
-Have this be a scenario like the Ascalonian fractal, a siege situation where we could take the part of Jotun of a rival tribe/city/faction whatever it turns out, charging through the fractal to kill the enemy generals and leader.

A fractal featuring Zommoros’ imprisonment into the Mystic Forge would be interesting. In fact if the players act as a part of the imprisonment process it could explain why he seems to hate us more often than like us, that despite the fractals nature he realizes we saw and “helped” during that event.

A Largos fractal, turn us into Largos and go on a series of hunts for powerful targets, these could be anything and can be set in any setting near the water.

A Kodan Fractal of some sort. Perhaps on one of their iceberg ships during Jormag’s awakening and subsequent attack on them. This would be a good way to introduce people to Jormag as our first sight of him, even if we don’t see all of him or even see him directly. Just seeing what Jormag can do to a huge culture with these fortress like floating cities.
-Have boss fights be corrupted ice elementals and Kodan who become corrupted would be awesome for this
-Have the dungeon twist and turn inside a giant Kodan Ice ship would be a very big change of pace from the colors and designs of most of the other fractals.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Dredge is by no means hard for a half-decent group, but the stupid clown car is a waste of time! There is NO challenge to it, you just sit there and press 1 to win. No challenge, no glory, just time consumed. Granted, the loot is decent, but I would rather skip those 5 minutes of boredom and move on.

The loot isnt decent. Its better than other fractals simply because of the amount of miners bags you get. But for the amount of time you spend farming those dredge its still not time rewarding. And dont forget even if you get 40+ miners bags you still might get sweet f~ all from them. Its more like 15+ minutes of boredom aswell.

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Corpse Flakes.5369:

Honestly everyone complaining about dredge makes me sad. It’s not that hard and I enjoy more difficult content. I would like more difficult fractal maps but since so many people complain I guess have them in the higher levels or a way to deprecate it because not everyone seems to be able to handle the harder content.

Dredge is by no means hard for a half-decent group, but the stupid clown car is a waste of time! There is NO challenge to it, you just sit there and press 1 to win. No challenge, no glory, just time consumed. Granted, the loot is decent, but I would rather skip those 5 minutes of boredom and move on.

Yeah that does make sense.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Nike.2631:

Since I rather enjoyed the team being turned into Charr or Asura in certain fractals, lets take it up a notch – fractals where the team is turned into once race AND assigned a specific racial elite for the duration of the fractal – with the bosses of the fractal having specific vulnerabilities to that elite.

I would like to see a Sylvari fractal, where you help the firstborn.

I would like to see a Sylvari fractal where you ARE (one of) the firstborn. And you wander around clueless to anything and try to eat rocks and talk to birds.

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.

Chris

1. Lore in Fractals. If we’re going to throw open the door a bit, then let’s throw it wide. A series of Fractals which would progress not unlike the missions from GW1, where you would do a Fractal and then unlock the next in a chain. Or maybe two options, following threads of lore through a storyline but not excluding any one branch to a character. I’d be happy to dash up a mock-example if this is interesting enough.

Otherwise, I’d suggest an old idea talked about – a “Journal” of sorts which would record snippets of lore for a player to go back and read about while they’re doing Fractals. Something like a yellow text in the chat box; “Your Fractal Lorebook has been updated.” and they can peek at it and see some information about the Fractal they either just entered or just finished (maybe two ‘phases’ of entries).

2. Suggested Scenarios. Let’s start with the obvious. “Destiny’s Edge vs Kralk”. As it should have been, if Logan hadn’t left. And this could be a test of ideas for confronting an Elder Dragon which doesn’t boil down to “get on cannon, press 2 until dead”.

“Flight from the North”. Play as your own characters, but you’re trying to help the norn escape Gunnar’s Hold while Jormag is being held at bay. Try modeling it after Escape from Lion’s Arch to save norn who can’t fight and to bolster events which give them more time to get away. End it on a battle against a Claw of Jormag different from the one in Frostgorge Sound.

“The Guild Wars”. Play either as Krytan guildmember, Orrian guildmembers or Ascalonian Guildmembers, during the great Guild Wars which predated the Searing and revisit them. A battle taking place in Orr/Arah during the height of the Third Guild War?

“The Fall of the Sunspears”. The party are cast as mercenaries helping the last of the Sunspears escape Elona with the Mystic Forge and Miyani. Because Tyria shouldn’t get all the fun.

In terms of lore, I would prefer the fractals to remain quite abstract. Although I can see the wider advantages of re-using the main characters, fractals themselves are better if they are more enigmatic and less historical.

Proposal Overview
Mai Trin and Horrik to only target players

Goal of Proposal
To make the fight less annoying for anyone that uses minions/summons, most notably Rangers.

Functionality
As of right now pets at least will get aggro from Mai (don’t know about Horrik, but there’s no reason to assume he wouldn’t). Since much of the fight is about positioning it heavily punishes anyone with a summon. It doesn’t feel right that I as a ranger basically have to get my pet killed so that it won’t risk interfering.

Risks
Can’t use pets or other summons to distract bosses in dire situations (people down etc), But being able to do the boss smoothly is better I think than the one of occasions.

Rework of dregde fractal- it takes soo long and so many useless killing of trash-do it on high frac levels and it takes sooo long…

more possibilities to solve a fractal (like a normal and a hard way, which increase the reward at the end of this frac)

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Might as well throw in my 2 cents:

1. Stop dropping uninfused rings above level 20-30. It’s just ridiculous to finish a lvl 49 fractal and get an uninfused Melaggan’s Whorl.

2. Kill the stupid clown car!

3. Make the cash rewards better. Something along the lines of: PR 1-10, 1g; PR 11-20, 2g; PR 21-30, 3g; PR 31-40, 4g; PR 41-50, 5g.

4. Get those pesky fractal weapon chests up already! Fractal harpoon is nice, but it gets old after your 3rd. And no matter how kitten I think my warrior is, he simply will not dual-wield shields! Even if they’re fractal shields.

5. Kill the stupid clown car!

6. Get more rewards for the Pristine Relics, rings just don’t cut it no more. And 15 relics for a pristine one is a joke.

7. Kill the stupid clown car!

8. Make the Fall of Abbaddon fractal. Even if it has to have its own clown car.

Edited to add a few things.

Adding to my original post:

9. Fix the AR changes! As it has been quite well said before in this thread, fractals used to be about player skill and not as much about player gear. Now there’s just a gear check and then you’re off to the usual combat while ignoring agony. It’s a big “BRO, DO YOU EVEN RICH?” slap to the face, especially since there is quite a big inbalance between personal reward being accountwide, while AR is characterwide! Yay, I can now swap for a different class mid-fractal to help my party… but wait… not enough AR on that character… And it does not matter how skillful you are, so suck on that and go be more rich before coming back, punk! Not cool, ANet, not cool.

10. You really need to deal with the fact that you took something from the players and not given anything back. You cannot simply wipe away 20 PR levels worth of player progression, reroll everyone to PR30 and expect people to forgive and forget. That was a very low blow from you, ANet. While the (let’s call it) logic behind it is somewhat understandable, it’s not the players’ fault that you didn’t plan this in advance from the beginning. And you took from us 20-30+ hours of concentrated gameplay just like that. While I doubt that this deed will be unmade, some compensation would be kitten nice for all those lost levels and time, and for the odiousness of what you have done. Or is it your plan to keep rerolling players down every time you decide FOTM (or anything else, for that matter) needs to change?

11. Kill the stupid clown car!

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.

Chris

I have put a lot of thought in creating combat scenarios that require more of the way we build our characters. I’ve linked to these scenarios in the past, but I’ll adjust them now for fractals and post them here in batches. (While also spicing up the lore) These are not full fractals, just encounters with a lot of focus on strategy.

Here are the first few:

The arena of Orr

Three titans and the Door of Komalie

Among the ranks of the stone dwarves

Just a quick procedural question.

When will this CDI thread cycle end, and when will the next thread to discuss the CDI process start?

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

SkyFallsInThunder.8257:

Might as well throw in my 2 cents:

1. Stop dropping uninfused rings above level 20-30. It’s just ridiculous to finish a lvl 49 fractal and get an uninfused Melaggan’s Whorl.

2. Kill the stupid clown car!

3. Make the cash rewards better. Something along the lines of: PR 1-10, 1g; PR 11-20, 2g; PR 21-30, 3g; PR 31-40, 4g; PR 41-50, 5g.

4. Get those pesky fractal weapon chests up already! Fractal harpoon is nice, but it gets old after your 3rd. And no matter how kitten I think my warrior is, he simply will not dual-wield shields! Even if they’re fractal shields.

5. Kill the stupid clown car!

6. Get more rewards for the Pristine Relics, rings just don’t cut it no more. And 15 relics for a pristine one is a joke.

7. Kill the stupid clown car!

8. Make the Fall of Abbaddon fractal. Even if it has to have its own clown car.

Edited to add a few things.

Adding to my original post:

9. Fix the AR changes! As it has been quite well said before in this thread, fractals used to be about player skill and not as much about player gear. Now there’s just a gear check and then you’re off to the usual combat while ignoring agony. It’s a big “BRO, DO YOU EVEN RICH?” slap to the face, especially since there is quite a big inbalance between personal reward being accountwide, while AR is characterwide! Yay, I can now swap for a different class mid-fractal to help my party… but wait… not enough AR on that character… And it does not matter how skillful you are, so suck on that and go be more rich before coming back, punk! Not cool, ANet, not cool.

10. You really need to deal with the fact that you took something from the players and not given anything back. You cannot simply wipe away 20 PR levels worth of player progression, reroll everyone to PR30 and expect people to forgive and forget. That was a very low blow from you, ANet. While the (let’s call it) logic behind it is somewhat understandable, it’s not the players’ fault that you didn’t plan this in advance from the beginning. And you took from us 20-30+ hours of concentrated gameplay just like that. While I doubt that this deed will be unmade, some compensation would be kitten nice for all those lost levels and time, and for the odiousness of what you have done. Or is it your plan to keep rerolling players down every time you decide FOTM (or anything else, for that matter) needs to change?

11. Kill the stupid clown car!

I love this! I agree with every single point. But I’d like to add one more to it just so everything is sure to be mentioned:

12. Kill the stupid clown car!

+1 for all that xD

I haven’t played Gw1, but as a member of the Priory, I would love some of that.
Anyways, here’s my two cents:

Proposal Overview

Add existing features as mechanics for fractals. This could be a part of the fractal or an entire one.

Goal of Proposal
Gw2 has many features already that are fun and very versatile. It would be nice to explore all the potencial of those mechanics 1st before trying to add some more. And it would be easier, quicker and more polished.

Proposal Functionality
Existing mechanics that work:

1. Escape like Fractal. There’s a timer/bomb/pack of angry Dolyaks chasing the party. The goal is to leg it until a certain location is reached in order to escape. We have seen this in the Sanctum Sprint.

2. Survive like fractal. Doesn’t have to be too big, maybe a room or a couple rooms. Waves of monsters rush in a the party has to either complete the waves or survive a certain amount of time. Doesn’t need to be waves of monsters either, could be something fun like the rolling Karkas on the Karka Minigame.

3. Flying on top of something fractal. We have also seen this before in Arah. The envirorment was cool and could be well used as a complementation of idea 2, where you would need to protect said airship or maybe a flying Flint.

4. Grab-what-you-can-to-survive like fractal. Dispuse us of our weapons. Instead, give us a plank, a knife, a portal gun, a reflector shield, a glue/venom riffle and a tie. You just got a game going.

5. Low gravity. Jumping extra high, like when you have that Sanctum buff.

All of these could be short fractals that can use code reusing and still bring forward some complex/strategic gameplay, expand the current fractal’s pool and be FUN.

Associated Risks
a. Some might not like a certain fractal, though that is a lingering risk to everything in this game.
b. Reusing the code might not be as simple as it sounds.
c. These would mainly work as short fractals or sections of new, large, ones.
d. My ideas are simple, they would need more to be added. I just wanted to make a point of reusing what we got.

Proposal Overview
Have specific fractals available over specified level ranges

Goal of Proposal
1. Make is easier to vary the difficulty of fractals
2. Keep fractals random while still allowing some choice

Proposal Functionality
Each fractal would be assigned a level range. The swamp fractal, for example, could be a level 1-40 fractal. Only people choosing to do fractals within that range would have a chance to get the swamp. Lots of the ranges would overlap but there would not be a cut-off where you absolutely switch to a whole new set of fractals.

Detail:
Fractal A : 1-20
Fractal B : 1-30
Fractal C : 1-40
Fractal D : 20-50
Fractal E : 30-50
Boss A : 1-20
Boss B : 10-40
Boss C : 30-50
etc…

This way the very new people would always get Fractals A, B and C. This could provide a sandbox to introduce them to Fractals without overwhelming them.

You could then design fractals specifically for higher or lower level challenges without just throwing more mobs or health at things. It should make the design of fractal levels easier since you won’t need to make it playable by such a wide range of player ability.

People could have some choice in what fractals they have a chance at getting by selecting a specific level. If I choose level 30 I could get Fractals B, C and D and either boss B or C. Still somewhat randomized, but limited.

This would allow you to drop in structured fractals at specific levels. For example: at level 39 you will always get the segments of the Aetherblade dungeon in order, ending with Mai Trin.

Associated Risks
This makes administering fractals more complex.

The number of fractals available at any particular level would be less than now, which would actually appeal to some people but would be a drawback to others.

Proposal Overview
Introduce Fractals with unique abilities or skills
Goal of Proposal
Introduce new abilities and new skills in fractals. This could even be used by devs as a test-ground for these abilities.
Detail
How about a fractal that utilizes the zephyrite abilities from “bizaare of the 4 winds”…maybe with some back-story of rescuing Glint’s eggs…
Or a low-gravity fractal where jumps go 10 times as high…
Or a speed fractal where you move with a speed boost always on to avoid a crashing wave.
Or a jump plateform fractal (like the tequatl jump platforms) requiring you to jump from side to side of an arena to accomplish different tasks quickly.
A fractal where your weapon skills are changed to different skills for your different weapons.
The possibilities are endless, and this could be a testing ground for new things for the devs that they are thinking of introducing in the regular world.

Associated Risks
New skills or abilities could introduce new unseen skips or bugs (zephyrite jumping for instance could allow jumping off screen if not coded properly for it).

About Lore

Sometimes, the best bits of a good book is what it does not say. You should do the same in fractal. Take a moment from Guild Wars lore history and build a fractal about it. When you do, you do NOT have to fill it with a ton of direct lore commentary and cut-scenes. You can add key dialog to NPCs in the fractal and leave the rest to the users to find and figure out on their own. I think you can have compelling story telling, without the need to spoon feed the fractal user. You do this well in Ascalon, and not so well in others (Cliffside).

Perhaps Cliffside needs an explanation of how the Colosus got there? This of course, should be done with a companion fractal.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am going to be afk for a few days from tomorrow morning as I will be in hospital but as soon as I start feeling better and more awake I will catch up again on the thread.

Chris

Get well soon!

i would love to see more progression

maby on fraktal lvl 50+ drop essences to make utilitie slot on back items and earring so can have more than 1 utilitie slot in gear

• (combine this new essences with … Mist Essences + Pristine Fraktal Relics so they have some use for higher people and force people to go lower fractals)

more infusions for this utiltie slots like:
(cant use any infusion more than 1x in gear)
+15% runspeed
+15% WXP
-10% condi duration
-20% stunduration
+20% might duration
+25% buff food duration
+10% revive allies faster
…….. open for alot more ideas

than i would like to see some special title (or other things) for people going for lvl 60,70, 80, 90, 100 to show off the progress