Guild Wars 2

well then i ll put an idea here…

I think devs should question why people skip or avoid particular content and prefer other sort of content in fractal…

Since today the only development guideline for fractal was “force them to do everything even if bugged or totally unbalanced”

Maybe its time to question if the issue behind it isnt a lack of quality.

Instability for example:

Did you ever thougt how Outflanked would work in a game designed to work with lag?
what about Mist Stalker when you are stun from cliffside seal and you can t do anything?

Wonder why MOST people avoided most instabilities?
Because they are NOT FUN.
Didn t data proves how most people hate them?
They add a new layer of unbalance….

Get your metrics see what people like, compare them and see the common points…
From there you can design better fractals and fix the old ones.

For example…the ascalonian fractal change was really awful, now you mostky have to wipe because npc’s AI is terrible.

And for once solve the issue of guardians having really too much impact in any fractal Group….

You can see they are almost mandatory from 30+

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This is the point…….but aren t you giving too much credit to small minorities non representing “the fractal community” just because their ideas are more in line with yours?

(see lore)

IF once again you will come up with a fractured 2.0 (that reduced fractal playerbase), you could understand what went wrong…..

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Wethospu.6437:

shogei.8015:

Spoj The Second.7680:

Mikuchan.7261:

hendo.1940:

For goodness sake, stop with these puzzle suggestions, if you want to scare off what’s left of your dedicated fractal community, just throw in a bunch of obnoxious puzzles like all of the terrible suggestions in this thread and watch how nobody can be kitten d to do FOTM anymore because it will end up as Aetherpath 2.0 where it’s not worth the tedium.

For goodness sake be more constructive?
Also, the entire fractal community is doing a puzzle fractal as it’s first fractal constantly so I really don’t see the problem.
Yes, Swamp is a puzzle fractal, hate to break it to you.

Thats not the reason they do it though. Noone enjoys do the wisp puzzle. None of the pure invironmental puzzles are fun after doing them once. Puzzles arent replayable or repeatable. And even if you somehow make them randomly generated they will still eventually become boring because theres only so many iterations that can be generated. Fractals is a place where people go for difficult combat in pve. If you want environmental puzzles you should be doing jumping puzzles and guild puzzles not fractals.

I enjoy the heck out of the wisps puzzle, and not just because it is fast when you do it right. That fractal almost always gets my group laughing at ourselves. We then move on to shred whichever boss we are given.

The uncategorized fractal with it’s lightning staircase and harpies is also a blast – and a challenging set of fights.

Personally I would find 4 all-combat fractals in a row to be tiresome and boring. I suspect that the people on this thread, the ones suggesting all the puzzle fractals, would agree with me.

Sure, simple and shallow puzzles work wonders if you find lightning staircase challenging / interesting.

Luckily not everyone thinks like you or this game would be really really boring.

I agree with Shogei personally. There is nothing wrong with variety. We just have to make sure we get the balance right. Not sure about your final comment Wethospu simply because you don’t have access to metrics to show you just how many people do or don’t like this kind of content and in design assumption is very dangerous.

Chris

Variety is good. Shallow encounters, not so much. Variety and deep encounters are not exclusive so I can’t understand why people keep pushing only one of them.

Yes, without metrics I can only speak for myself. Hopefully I don’t need any metrics for that.

If your metrics show that people prefer shallow encounters then I suggest focusing more on the living story instead of fractals.

LordByron.8369:

well then i ll put an idea here…

I think devs should question why people skip or avoid particular content and prefer other sort of content in fractal…

Since today the only development guideline for fractal was “force them to do everything even if bugged or totally unbalanced”

Maybe its time to question if the issue behind it isnt a lack of quality.

Instability for example:

Did you ever thougt how Outflanked would work in a game designed to work with lag?
what about Mist Stalker when you are stun from cliffside seal and you can t do anything?

Wonder why MOST people avoided most instabilities?
Because they are NOT FUN.
Didn t data proves how most people hate them?
They add a new layer of unbalance….

Get your metrics see what people like, compare them and see the common points…
From there you can design better fractals and fix the old ones.

For example…the ascalonian fractal change was really awful, now you mostky have to wipe because npc’s AI is terrible.

And for once solve the issue of guardians having really too much impact in any fractal Group….

You can see they are almost mandatory from 30+

I couldn’t disagree more. The AI are extremely useful. Me and 2 of my guildies 3 manned lvl 39 and with banner heals, the NPCS did 75% of the work. On the final boss, id say the NPC’s did about 80% of the dps, it was insane. All I had to do was banner them. They helped clear a lot of the mobs as well. So I don’t know why youd think they hurt. Other npc’s like braham and rox can be slightly helpful as well whenever you get downed and they rez you, I find that nice.

LordByron.8369:

And for once solve the issue of guardians having really too much impact in any fractal Group….

You can see they are almost mandatory from 30+

This is a big concern of mine as well. As I see it, there are two ways to fix this. Either make guardians less important, or give the other classes more of a purpose.

I prefer the latter, because I’d like for my necromancer to be able to contribute more in Fractals. But it would seem to me that this is more of a balance problem between the classes in the whole game, rather than a Fractals specific issue.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

And those that like GW story, variety of gameplay and challenge therein are not in the minority.

I consider myself one of those players. I really like seeing more lore in Fractals, along with varied encounters.

I’m somewhere in the middle regarding puzzle content though. I really dislike any puzzle that completely halts progression, and causes multiple deaths in a row. The lasers in the Aetherblade facility I can deal with, but that electrified floor puzzle in TA Aetherblade path is just terrible. It brings the whole run to a halt, and I just want to stand to the side and watch the rest of my party ruin their armor for it, because I’m sure as heck not going to.

Then there are puzzle-encounters such as that bit with the deadly floors in the Aetherblade fractal, and I really like that one. I like it because there are some enemies in between, and you can also use teleport skills to bypass some of it. The combination of enemies and a simple (but not progress blocking) room-hazard spices things up, without bringing the run to a halt. I also like it because one person can shut the trap down once they get across, thus lifting any frustration for their party members.

I’d even go as far as to say that the designer didn’t use that mechanic to its full potential. I’d love to have seen more of that mechanic, with more enemies, and less linear. I think it has some unused potential.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

LordByron.8369:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This is the point…….but aren t you giving too much credit to small minorities non representing “the fractal community” just because their ideas are more in line with yours?

(see lore)

IF once again you will come up with a fractured 2.0 (that reduced fractal playerbase), you could understand what went wrong…..

‘This is the point…….but aren t you giving too much credit to small minorities non representing “the fractal community” just because their ideas are more in line with yours?’

No i am not. And those that like GW story, variety of gameplay and challenge therein are not in the minority.

Chris

Hey mr. whiteside I had a question/suggestion regarding fractal rewards. Is there any possibility that the devs could implement features in fractals that acknowledge solo, 3 man fractals. I saw earlier suggestions for it relating to people not being able to find groups. But what I wanted to ask if would Anet be willing to implement modes for solo or 3 man fractals where the fractals have the same difficulty as perhaps a 5 man, but give better rewards? Recently I have been running 3 man groups with my guildies in fractals 39-49. Its extremely difficult at higher levels, especially on dredge or shaman. We do it because we haven’t really felt any challenge from 5 manning high level fractals, and 3 manning it, even soloing if thats possible, is very very fun and challenging. It has sent us to put much more effort into our builds, even changing our skills/traits/utilities multiple times during a specific fractal depending on what boss or mob pull we are on. Is there any possibility that we could receive better rewards for 3 manning, 2 manning, or even soloing it(also those who do it with 4 people)?

Just some <coolstory>:
Yesterday we rolled Dredge fractal at lvl 32. We wiped few times during the first phase. I had to relog on lvl 52 thief and we did the first part, then I soloed bombs.

Conclusion:
- LVL 52 thief OP
- Basically this fractal is almost impossible without stealth. Dredges spawning near control pannel and attacking player operating this panel is a bit out of place. With a trinity system it would work, because tank would be able to aggro these mobs, but without it it’s too random. Bombs are doable in any party, but one thief can still do it faster and save few wipes.
- How the hell can dredges dig in the metal platforms and pop out of nowhere? Are 1000 dredges hidden under the platform and they can turn into ghost, cross the metal plate and pop up? this is just stupid.

Well this raises an important point Yayuuu. I really dislike two things about the Dredge fractal, which I would also dislike in future fractals:

• Respawning enemies. Especially if they respawn through a solid metal floor. They are annoying, and you’re not even rewarded for killing them either.

• Obstacles specifically designed for certain classes. With stealth it is easy to bypass the cage and the bombs, but I’m a necromancer, I do not have stealth. But it feels like this section was not designed with my particular profession in mind.

yayuuu.9420:

How the hell can dredges dig in the metal platforms and pop out of nowhere? Are 1000 dredges hidden under the platform and they can turn into ghost, cross the metal plate and pop up? this is just stupid.

Not stupid, just not realistic which is fine in a “fantasy” game, but be immune to blind and still can’t see players under stealth is the same.

ps Don’t ever implement anti-stealth mechanics to dredge Chris or i will get murdered by the community. =]

Dalanor.5387:

ps Don’t ever implement anti-stealth mechanics to dredge Chris or i will get murdered by the community. =]

Mental note: Murder Dalanor if dredge ever become immune to stealth.

On a more serious note. Id like to discuss some details about how to improve rewards. I know it has already been discussed but I just want to make sure some of the suggestions werent overlooked. Currently the rewards arent worth the time which means people dont really have an incentive to run fractals (especially higher fractals).

The way I would fix this in the short term is to increase the difference between gold rewards among the different tiers. Currently they increase by 10silver? Thats pretty woeful doing a lvl 10 and getting 1g and then doing a lvl 49 and getting 1g30silver seems like a bit of a joke to me. Personally I would make it 1g per tier. So 1-10 is 1g, 11-20 is 2g, etc. Even 50 silver difference between tiers would be much more favourable.

Another reason many people run fractals is for the karma and relics for backpieces. I think the relic and karma rewards are actually pretty good as they are. But I would like to see the karma gain factor cap removed.

On to the rng rewards. One of the big reasons to run fractals is to get weapon skins or ascended weapon/armour boxes. At the moment the weapon drop rate seems to by much lower than it was before the fractured patch. So there is far less drive for players to run fractals if they want a particular skin. With the introduction of the selectable weapon box you could quickly encourage players to run fractals more often. The random skins could also be a slightly more common drop, but I think they should be possible to convert to relics or other fractal mats (mist essence).

Weapon and armour boxes I have an issue with because 99% of the time its a stat combo I have no use for, but atleast with the weapons we can sell for 1g. I personally would prefer to select the stat combo and have no choice in the type of weapon. Not sure how you would do this for armour though? (maybe just make armour boxes vendorable for 1-2g).

Finally ascended rings. Before the fractured patch uninfused rings only dropped at 10-25 and all rings after that would automatically infused. Its very frustrating when you get an uninfused ring at 49/50. With the current agony requirements it makes no sense to have any type of ring in the loot tables for 30+ fractals. Players running these fractals should have enough AR and most likely have enough pristine relics to buy rings for alts anyway. Rings are a completely worthless drop which take up a spot in the loot tables. We cant salvage them, we cant trade them, we can only vendor them for a pathetic 5 silver. Making them salvageable for mist essences, ectos and relics would be a huge improvement.

Chris, why has your post been edited so instead of you not engaging at the current time was changed to not engaging at all, ever. Are you stating it’s over?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

LordByron.8369:

And for once solve the issue of guardians having really too much impact in any fractal Group….

You can see they are almost mandatory from 30+

This is a big concern of mine as well. As I see it, there are two ways to fix this. Either make guardians less important, or give the other classes more of a purpose.

I prefer the latter, because I’d like for my necromancer to be able to contribute more in Fractals. But it would seem to me that this is more of a balance problem between the classes in the whole game, rather than a Fractals specific issue.

Best fractals I always run are 3 warriors 2 guards, Ive done less than 1 hour 49’s with this group setup.

Necros are Pointless in fractals, no good Cleave attacks, no real support (chili and poison isnt support in fractals) and just takes up a more important roll.

Try doing Mai Trin without ANY Warriors or Guardians on a 49/50….. its a nightmare.
Not saying its not doable, just saying as a pug group it truly is a Nightmare.

On the subject of rewards:

Please, please get rid of all account bound limitations on exotics. It is really annoying that whenever I get a good drop in Fractals, it’s account bound, and I can’t sell it.

To bad Anet you put into the game the +1 agony Res items.

I would have loved to see all Items that give agony taken away and just have AR as a reward for your account for more fractals you do and fractal achievements you’ve done. Or making it like the Magic Find, where you have levels and must do Fractals to up the AR%.

ALOT less clunky and much easier to deal with, manage and to understand.

Is there anyway you would go to a Magic Find type of system for AR instead of what we have now?

Shameless plug for adding dragonite to fractals!

dutchiez.7502:

Shameless plug for adding dragonite to fractals!

This would also be nice. ;D

//brought into the proper form

Hi,

Proposal Overview
Adding past Living World content to the fractals with both easy/educational/recap mode as well as a regular fractal difficulty.

Goal of Proposal
Adding content to fractals without having to build levels & assets while enabling players to replay the living world story.

Proposal Functionality
The story part could be led by a guide – guide-o-tron – much like the vision of the pale tree where you are guided and narrated through the mission.
Hard part is hard.

Associated Risks
Being fractals/raids they require a group of players and less popular “paths” might be unachievable for solo players without those story fractals being solo-instances.

Michael

Of course you don’t like tht the hardest challenging content in fractals (lvl 80) could have been solo/duo’d most of the time, but was it really the reason to remove it? When do we finally see challenging content in fractals?..and i don t mean unavoidable agony which ticks for all your health whn entering combat if you don t have over 100 agony resistance.
I would rly appreciate some challenging content. Also make the mistlock instabilities random on each new fractal you can get, makes your experience at least a bit more exciting.

Is the reward team also looking into Fractals-armor? I would love to save up for a Fractals specific armor, like we used to do in FoW and UW back in GW1.

Chris,

Any word on my Fractal Weapon Box question from yesterday? No hurry, just thought I’d ask since you are around at the moment.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Iason Evan.3806:

Chris,

Any word on my Fractal Weapon Box question from yesterday? No hurry, just thought I’d ask since you are around at the moment.

Not yet. I will let you know as soon as I have discussed it with the team.

Thanks for the reminder.

Chris

Thanks for the heads up.

Wow, look at those Amazing replies <3

Thank you for all the effort, Mr. Whiteside!

Chris,
What would you think about introducing special types of pets for Rangers within fractals, mostly as tamable rewards after the boss fight.

Examples:
Jade Maw – Once Jade Maw is defeated, a tamable Jade Crab spawns by the chest.

Molten Boss- Once the molten duo is defeated, a tamable Molten Hound spawns by the chest

Captain Mai Trin- Once she is defeated, a tamable Watchwork Moa spawns by the chest

Special ones:
Aquatic Ruins- If you get the Dolphin path, after killing the giant jelly fish, a tamable dolphin spawns by the chest.

Would give Rangers more pets that we have been asking for
Encourage more rangers to play fractals

I’d like to hear from you in review of being a player, rather than in review of beign a Developer, what do you think personally about Lore Fractals that would work similar to the Bonus Mission Pack Chris.

Sadly I haven’t got about my suggestion yet any direct response, because i think it falled under the overall flow of the general discussion of more lore fractals being found positive by you.

But my suggestion wasn’t just all about more lore fractals, it was more based around the question of *how to add more lore fractals and how to unlock more lore fractal content over time to incentivize people to keep on playing fractals and not stop doing them directly after the first successful run after having seen some new lore"

I think the concept around the Bonus Mission Pack and how it was implemented into GW1 was perfect and it would be perfect also for Anet.

I for example would go buy Tomes of Memories in the Gemstore directly as account upgrades to receive this way access to very special Lore Fractals, that could be played either completely solo or as a 5 to xx person Group in relationship of it, if a Fractal would get designed as Raid Content to be able to be played also with more than 5 people, if the Fractal Gameplay Design allows for it through Up Scaling the Monster Density/Difficulty ect.

I made some pages ago a more detailed version on how for example a Ghosts of Ascalon-Fractal based on that Bonus Mission Pack Design with unlockable content, like readignb through a book with chapters and verses could work like.

I found the readable books in GW1 awesome and I’d love to see that feature somehow gettign back into GW2. Fractals would be the most fittign place for this feature, as the Fractals itself reminds me very much about the BMP.
The BMP was also very rewarding, did it offer to the player unique weapon skins as rewards only receiveable, if you bought the BMP and played through successfuly the missions of the corresponding books and if you completed the books, that worked like the dungeon diaries with complete entries everywhere, the book copied itself into a new clean one and the complete one could get used as a reward token to trade in for some massive exp, gold, karma ect. bonus rewards that was worth all of the effort in completing the book to turn it into the reward token.

I really also like the thought about it, that the Fractals are like some kind of huge *amnesia" of broken memories from the past, that we, the players have to collect to remember us on what happened in the past to reconstruct step by step more of our memories to unlock this way in the tomes of memories more new mission content from the lore.

Before this CDI gets closed, I’d really love to hear from you (or the reward team xD), what they think about that idea, because i think its alos a great way to make some profit also, if its content you get only through the gemstore to receive that way some optional new content that can reward you with lots of other new optional optical rewards, like new weapon skins, armor skins, lore based minipets from the past and so on …

PS:

Just as a reminder
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/0/0c/Storybook.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/5/51/Gwen%27s_Story.png

PPS:

Not to mention that these books would be surely something awesome for the Art Teams also, because the books already have very nice art in GW1

http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c3/End_of_the_World_page.jpg

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Wolfey.3407:

Chris,
What would you think about introducing special types of pets for Rangers within fractals, mostly as tamable rewards after the boss fight.

Examples:
Jade Maw – Once Jade Maw is defeated, a tamable Jade Crab spawns by the chest.

Molten Boss- Once the molten duo is defeated, a tamable Molten Hound spawns by the chest

Captain Mai Trin- Once she is defeated, a tamable Watchwork Moa spawns by the chest

Special ones:
Aquatic Ruins- If you get the Dolphin path, after killing the giant jelly fish, a tamable dolphin spawns by the chest.

Would give Rangers more pets that we have been asking for
Encourage more rangers to play fractals

I would worry that those Rangers that don’t do Fractals would feel left out. However i think this is a really interesting global reward idea so I will pass it on to the rewards team.

Thanks Wolfey,

Chris

I’m not sure if it’s 100% accurate but right now the wiki says Juvenile Wolves can only be found in the Eternal Battleground (which seems kind of odd, but assuming this is actually the case) that means there is already a precedent for location exclusive pets, else the same argument could be made that “Rangers that don’t do WvW would feel let out.”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Wolfey.3407:

Chris,
What would you think about introducing special types of pets for Rangers within fractals, mostly as tamable rewards after the boss fight.

Examples:
Jade Maw – Once Jade Maw is defeated, a tamable Jade Crab spawns by the chest.

Molten Boss- Once the molten duo is defeated, a tamable Molten Hound spawns by the chest

Captain Mai Trin- Once she is defeated, a tamable Watchwork Moa spawns by the chest

Special ones:
Aquatic Ruins- If you get the Dolphin path, after killing the giant jelly fish, a tamable dolphin spawns by the chest.

Would give Rangers more pets that we have been asking for
Encourage more rangers to play fractals

I would worry that those Rangers that don’t do Fractals would feel left out. However i think this is a really interesting global reward idea so I will pass it on to the rewards team.

Thanks Wolfey,

Chris

That’s true, though speaking as a Ranger who first joined in GW2, there are already several pets you would potentially feel left out from being able to get because they are HoM-based. So a 100% pet collection is rare as it is already.

Personally I think of it more as a cool incentive maybe – it would be a draw for them to at least experiment with fractals if they haven’t already and a cute reward for ones who do already.

I fractal occasionally, but even if I didn’t, I’d try and put in the time to get to whatever level those appeared at. Stuff like that is a cool concept.

Plus more pets in general would be awesome; I’m still wishing we got a Juvenile Karka Hatchling tank pet in Southsun. :P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I would worry that those Rangers that don’t do Fractals would feel left out. However i think this is a really interesting global reward idea so I will pass it on to the rewards team.

Thanks Wolfey,

Chris

Could you expound a bit on why this is an issue for you? There are pets that are available in a limited frame of areas and different level ranges, just like some weapon skins only drop in certain areas. If the difference between, say, a Jade Spider and a Cave Spider was purely cosmetic, then you’re not talking about vertical progression at all. The guy that has the Jade version has no advantage over the guy with the Cave Spider. All that’s going on here is cosmetic changes, and perhaps some bragging rights.

I honestly don’t see a difference between things like area specific Ranger pets and Fractal skins. Likewise, if players want WvW armor, they need to go to WvW. Or the massive amount of varied PvE that people need for Ascended gear. Or locking Cultural T3 behind a gold wall. They all require playing in a certain area of the game for more than a passing moment. In fact, I’d suggest that these are exactly the kinds of rewards that work for Fractals. It benefits the players that run them with a cosmetic benefit, without an imbalance. I believe that’s an excellent way to get people interested in the content without forcing them there.

I promise I’m not trying to be contentious here. I’d just like to get a firmer grasp on the how and why of rewards being matched with content.