Guild Wars 2

Romo.3709:

I seriously think that rolling should not even be an issue at this point. We have much more important things to discuss than people wanting “a real experience”. If you don’t want the “weaksauce”, then don’t roll. But don’t take that option from everyone just because you think it’s an issue. You have an ability to overpass it completely by never rolling. It’s not like it’s not an option for you.

For one it is as Nike said pretty much an exploit and second , it is very important in skill based content that everyone has had to undergo the same risks to have a chance at the reward, there can be no “weaksauce” option.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

I’d be happy with a story version of each new fractal, with no/minimal combat/rewards what so ever that you can choose from someone in mistlock. I like the story instances we get in the LS as I can take my time and see all the dialogue, without missing all of it because we’ve got agro and can’t hear the dialogue over the sound of fireballs.

The same fractal would then have its standard explorable version, which may have the core story elements still present but without dialogue heavy scenes or unskipable cut-scenes which people hate.

timmyf.1490:

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Charge each player 1g to enter Fractals. Each player receives an additional 1g at the completion of the first Fractal. (Kicking is disabled during the first Fractal?)

That would solve the rolling problem. But you have to think about the environment that change would foster. Pugs would be a nightmare since failing would be even more punishing.

I would be totally okay with this if it was worth the risk (paying 1g, but receive 3g at the end, for example). Also this kind of payment layout reminds me of GW1 Underworld/Fissure Of Woe, and considering we havent seen anything like that in GW2, I’m not expecting it anytime soon.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

Tie the release of new Fractals in with the LS Update they are contained in. Tell the story in the world. I had a post about a Fractal being set in the future dealing with the fallout of something happening now. The story can take place during a two week update and the Fractal deals with the consequences of what happened many years from now with the offspring of the characters from now involved.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

Make the dialogue run in the background in such a way that it doesnt halt progress while waiting for a conversation to complete. Make fractal objectives clues to the lore. Basically just avoid timegating the content for cutscenes and lore, but you can still add it in. Whenever I play the living story stuff for the first time I turn off my music and turn on npc chat so I can see and hear the dialogue. If it is simply background stuff then I can turn off ingame sound, play music and it doesnt interrupt my enjoyment of the content when replaying.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

I wish there was a reliable way to get the thaumanova reactor fractal again, I have only done the story version. RNG has never given me a chance to see the reactor again.

The storymode or practice mode versions mentioned earlier in the thread are pretty cool ideas here. Since they would allow lorelovers to explore these fractals in more depth.

Perhaps there could be different reward structures for these as well.

These would ideally be placed in a dungeon structure, but that wouldn’t allow for events that happen in the past or future.

A story/explorable split with their own reward scheme… another proposal to work on.

I had suggested Story Mode Fractals in the last CDI as part of my Order Missions idea. Here’s what I wrote then, in case anybody is curious.

I think Story Mode Fractals could be built on the same maps as the existing Fractals which would, I think, cut down significantly on the time it takes to build them. Above I suggested having an extra “side-path” though this isn’t a necessity.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

I think their could be different ways to add story to fractals:

• Dessa could talk to us more while we are doing the fractal, at the moment she only says something in the beginning… Like “It seems this is an alternate Version of Rata-Sum, something terrible must have happened. An experiment gone wrong? …” This would give us infos and not hinder processing at all
• There could be storymodes of fractals, with cut-scenes and NPCs etc, you would just talk to Dessa in the fractal entrance and choose “Story-Mode”
• Also the library idea someone had before is quite cool, so everyone interested could just visit this and read / see more about fractals
• I still think some hidden documents in fractals would work or NPCs to talk to, since in my experience it is not a problem to find groups if you clearly advertise before “We are doing story, with watching all videos etc”. Normal groups would just skip that.
• After doing a fractal for the first time, Dessa could sent us a letter, telling us more about what she discovered while we were doing it.

I like the first three best, but all would be possible I think. I’ll think a bit more about this on my way home

spoj.9672:

Make the dialogue run in the background in such a way that it doesnt halt progress while waiting for a conversation to complete. Make fractal objectives clues to the lore. Basically just avoid timegating the content for cutscenes and lore, but you can still add it in. Whenever I play the living story stuff for the first time I turn off my music and turn on npc chat so I can see and hear the dialogue. If it is simply background stuff then I can turn off ingame sound, play music and it doesnt interrupt my enjoyment of the content when replaying.

I agree voice-overs are a great way to deliver lore in parallel with the central action.

Perhaps add a few “Curious Object”s to the maps – click on them to ‘scan’ them, launching additional optional voice overs as Dessa or one of her assistants reports back on the analysis. Veteran teams can just stroll by. And if a lone newbie clicks one because they are curious, it doesn’t derail play. As a general framework it would also reinforce that you are an explorer-pointman for a larger team, and that the folks back at Mistlock Observatory want you to succeed .

ColinJohanson.2394:

We could do something like this, but when ends up happening is the work involved ends up being a lot of additional work to basically build something people play one or two times and then are done with it.

Isn’t this the exact definition of Living Story/World?

Malchior.5042:

Yup, I feel Dredge and rewards have made their presence known. Further debate and discussion on individual proposals can occur while we seek out further evolutions.

If you don’t mind Chris, I’d like to pose a question to the thread participants.

For any players of the original Guild Wars, what event in Guild Wars history would you like to see relived as a Fractal? This could be any event from those that players experienced in the actual game, to other events within the lore, before the time period of the actual game.

Let’s try to hold to the existing proposal format, so everyone can easily process the proposals.

1.) Closer to the Stars — the Factions ascension mission — from the standpoint of lore, the aspects, the limited time to get the bonus, it was probably my all time favorite GW1 mission and it would seem to translate well to a Fractal.

2.) Restore the Temple of War — a quest from the realm of Balthazar in the Fissures of Woe. It is first an invasion mission that consisted of fighting patrols of enemies while making headway into the forge, followed by a contained defense of the temple against waves of invaders. It would also seem to fit the format of a Fractal. (Being able to use obsidian shards and ecto at the forge once you succeed could be made into a great throwback to the original, and a nice reward, while adding a bit of variety to the instance — or use this forge instead of the mystic forge to salvage fractal rings/weapons.)

3.) This doesn’t truly fit the above proposal, but as a fun thing — the opposite of the Urban Fractal. Let us fight as humans defending the wall and defending the boss at the end fight against the Charr warbands. I can’t help it, I’m a Separatist at heart

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

To be honest the system is already in place. There’s no need to redesign the levels or fights/mechanics. We would have an ability to play any level of fractals. In doing so instead of working in cutscenes, dialogs, npcs, have a background voiceover “reading” the story. Make it feel almost like we’re watching a movie with a narrator telling us where we are what is happening, etc.

Example:
“And so the heroes went down to Mossman’s residence where he was stationed for "" time" because of “x reason”."

“Upon defeating him, our heroes has finally freed the lonely man that spent “x time” in sole confinement"

-camera moves back-

-video darkens-

-scene-

It would be something that would be omitted in regular fractals which would not include any cutscenes or dialogs. This way the only two areas you would need to spend time in is your writing department to come out with lore that would be read by narrator which would work in audio department. Implementation wouldn’t require any level or mechanics redesigns. But at the same time it would not only let players play out the levels while learning the mechanics, but it would also bring heavy amounts of lore into the lore-hungry fanatics like myself

How about a Fractal set in the future set in Straits of Devastation after the area is cleaned up? It could be about the building of a Temple of Kormir. This way, you could have the Temple being built during a two week LS update, and we would get to see the Temple of Kormir fully built in a beautiful version of a renewed Straits of Devastation in the future via the Fractal. It kills two birds with one stone. We get the lore in the LS update and we get to see Straits cleaned up in the Fractal.

Romo.3709:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

To be honest the system is already in place. There’s no need to redesign the levels or fights/mechanics. We would have an ability to play any level of fractals. In doing so instead of working in cutscenes, dialogs, npcs, have a background voiceover “reading” the story. Make it feel almost like we’re watching a movie with a narrator telling us where we are what is happening, etc.

Example:
“And so the heroes went down to Mossman’s residence where he was stationed for "" time" because of “x reason”."

“Upon defeating him, our heroes has finally freed the lonely man that spent “x time” in sole confinement"

-camera moves back-

-video darkens-

-scene-

It would be something that would be omitted in regular fractals which would not include any cutscenes or dialogs. This way the only two areas you would need to spend time in is your writing department to come out with lore that would be read by narrator which would work in audio department. Implementation wouldn’t require any level or mechanics redesigns. But at the same time it would not only let players play out the levels while learning the mechanics, but it would also bring heavy amounts of lore into the lore-hungry fanatics like myself

That sounds like it would play out like the Bonus Mission Pack stories in GW1 which were the best told tales in my opinion in that game. Those were totally replayable and you never felt like the story was getting in the way of the game play. I think doing some Fractals that handled story the way the Bonus Mission Pack did would be amazing.

In regards to Fractals as a tool for delivering lore

You only need to use the theme for a fractal. You can structure the conversations of various NPCs around the specific issues that brought about the instance.

Alternatively you can even get a more detailed summary from Dessa about what happened upon entering the fractal. I think this seed of lore is a good enough start. Players can then, on their own, research what the subject matter is related to a fractal.

I actually think you guys did a good job with Molten Alliance and Thoumanouva Reactor. I would make Molten a little more involved, but it serves its purpose well. So take that concept and run with it. I already mentioned some of the LS episodes I would love to experience in fractal form.

For example, I would love a combat oriented Bazzaar of the Four winds, where you have to vote for Evon or Kiel, with the added complexity that your regular skills are replaced by the Air, Sun and Water skills we had, modified for combat.

Is it wrong I want the option to poke around in the Mossman’s shack after we beat him?

I’m a big fan of the Norn. Mossman is a fascinating character to me. Why is he in a swamp? Why is he so cool he has multiple Spirit Forms? What’s his Legend?

Oh, and how can I get the “Morph-into-Random-Spirit-Form” Elite Skill? …Because a I WANTSES IT !

Aye.8392:

3.) This doesn’t truly fit the above proposal, but as a fun thing — the opposite of the Urban Fractal. Let us fight as humans defending the wall and defending the boss at the end fight against the Charr warbands. I can’t help it, I’m a Separatist at heart

I support this fractal. Make it so.

We’ve had an example of “tower defense” style play with the Marionette. Take the exact same map and flip the roles, falling back at fixed intervals. You can even have the famously mocked line “RRRrrrruuaaaahhhhhh!” act as some kind of amazing Elite Uber-Shout that buffs the players to the gills before they go out in a blaze of glory fighting for Ascalon to their dying breath. You can even use the existing “outnumbered” buff from WvW so that players don’t tank gear damage. Hold the final courtyard against rapidly increasing waves. After 2.5 minutes you’ve secured the right to move onto the next fractal and get the outnumbered buff – its an actual fight to the death with the reward being a good drop table on the mobs so fighting as hard as you can until dead is actually worth it instead of a time sink.

Conski Deshan.2057:

For one it is as Nike said pretty much an exploit and second , it is very important in skill based content that everyone has had to undergo the same risks to have a chance at the reward, there can be no “weaksauce” option.

Nonsense. The thing that you are arguing against — rerolling — would ensure that we all have the same experience, for at least one of the instances. Fractals played as intended ensure that we DON’T have the exact same experience when claiming the reward. But really I’d prefer an option to choose the starting Fractal over having to re-roll over and over to get the one you want. I’m also all of Fractal level 10, so re-rolling is pretty much a non-issue when I play. Only the few times that I’ve sidekicked up has it even been mentioned. We Fractal noobies really don’t like the Swamp >.>

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Arrange things so each account holds in memory what tier one fractal you last generated by starting a run. When you finish a Tier 1 fractal you launched it becomes blank/null, ready to receive a randomly generated new scenario the next time you start a run. But, as long as there is an old scenario waiting there, that is the only Fractal you will ever see when you are the person who opens the initial gate from Mistlock Observatory. New/first-time characters are assigned a random scenario from a list of tier one fractals that does not include the Swamp as a possible result (other troublesomely fast tier 1 scenarios introduced later can also be excluded). This prevents recruiting newbies solely for the purpose of trying to game their initial roll.

Done. Re-rolling is dead. Long live facing the challenges presented.

That sounds like quite possibly the worst idea I have ever seen.

If you want to roll something else, find people who want to roll something else, or pre-roll, make your lfg and say "fractal (level), rolled [name]). Instead, your idea would punish people who just want to do swamp.

I like the idea of orders being included – but it can be anyone from the outside world. Here is the idea.

Proposal Overview

We do not need more fractals exactly – we need them to be more diverse and to increese replayability of them. Let’s say we have different Orders and other NPC as part of fractals that would join us on investigating them (1 NPC following us through a complete run). This could end up bringing up new events in fractals, changeing boss mechanincs and maybe bring in a small chance for a special loot at the end for each different NPC we take with us, or guaranteed type of loot maybe. This NPC would also give us a different view of the fractal by commenting (speaking) during the run. This would allow for more lore to be included in without hurting speed-runners much.

Goal of Proposal

Goal of this proposal is to increes the replayability of the fractals not change the core part of what they are. Every level of fractals, every fractal on each level would gain with this the incredible amount of replay value. The lore would be accessible through replaying with different NPC as a ‘guide’ and achievements that come with completing every one possible combination NPC-Fractal would make pople do them all the time increesing the number of players interested in them.

Proposal Functionality

By entering fractals players would be able to talk to number of NPCs and choose if they want one of them to join on the adventure (similar to choice in personal story). The NPC would offer players to pay them in some way(see the end of this chapter for example). By choosing the NPC to join them, players are automatically going to get the new events in fractals (and as i said maybe change slightly mechanics of some bosses). Each fractal should have 1-3 events added depending on the complexity of the events.
During the runs NPC would take notice of things and explain what he/she is observing providing us with more lore about a fractal(much like NPCs talking in explorable dungeons AC comes to mind: “Ah, the reliquary of the king’s guard. My notes are unambiguous. There’s a scepter here.”)
At the end the NPC would give some kind of token to the players as an agreed payment for taking them with. (can be a small fee for example –
NPC1 – 25s on completing fractals
NPC2 – additional fractal relic
NPC3 – random crafting component etc.)

Associated Risks

Main risk here as i see it is the unfortunate distribution of loot or difficulty for each NPC. If one makes things much easier the other ‘ways’ will be evaded by players. If one has better rewards players will choose that one. But this is somehting that i personally see as an easy to handle risk.

About the rolling issue that people were talking about, instead of preventing people to roll for swamp, what needs to be done is making sure that people have no interested to rolling a specific map.

So, intead of finding ways to make rolling impossible, you need to have a better balance between the fractal maps, to ensure that there won’t be a specific map way faster than the others. There’s no use trying to solve the symptom, it’s much better to solve the cause of the problem.

cranked.3812:

CoffeeMug.9540:

Chris, I was wondering if you would comment on my suggestion for using Twilight Arbor Forward Up as a Fractal Shard earlier in the CDI discussion.

The dredge fractal is already a problem for most PUG groups. Is it really a good idea to add a fractal that would be even worse for them?

If you read the proposal it advised fixing the spider despawn. If you fix that, the path is perfectly fine and infinitely more fun and interesting than any of the other 3rd tier fractals and would make a great addition.

Vivenna is a challenging boss fight, but having a few skill intensive boss fights in the game wouldn’t be terrible.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

• My answer to this, Colin, would be to incorporate much of the intended story to be delivered into the mechanics of the individual Fractal itself. Cliffside is a fantastic example of this. We could have just gone up through the Colossus and killed the Archdiviner at the top, but some brilliant mind at Anet had the idea to have the players involved in removing the chains at each level.

• Now, the story of the Fractal (who the heck is this giant guy, why do we want to help him, and how do we help him) is partially built into the mechanics of that entire map. Some greater exposition into the who and why would have been appreciated, but this in my opinion is the perfect existing Fractals example of how to deliver more story without detracting from the action.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Moon.7310:

Using fractals to tell story:

Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.

Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.

So an interesting challenge we always face when trying to make any type of dungeon content more lore heavy, is they are by their very nature highly repeatable content. Historically our design philosophy around group content that falls into that category is to try and provide enough context for the experience to make sense, but not heavily attempt to tell deep story in these instances.

While the core concept of using fractals to continue to show great moments in the history of Tyria is indeed totally in line with our own thinking as well, the struggle we always face is how much of that story we can really put there. Once you play it once or twice, you really just want to actually play the content and not wait around for all the story moments, scenes, cinematics, etc. This can lead to a problem we used to run into in Gw1 where some people in the party really wanted to see the story, and others had played it before and wanted them to hurry the heck up.

Our work around for this for Thaumanova for example was to provide a story version of it that was around during the living world release with far deeper exposition, and the current fractal version today that tries to focus on the game play. Similarly, story dungeons are really intended to be played a handful of times to get the story, and explorable mode dungeons are very story light since they are intended to be re-playable based on the core content.

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

A common technique used to tell the story while engaging the player is to use player input sequences. The players have to input specific keys in order for the cut scene to progress otherwise you have to retry till you get it right.
The last game which told a story surprisingly well while engaging me has to be Ultimate Ninja Storm 3. I think the dev should take a leaf out of that games village book

Fractals time requirements to be reconsidered

Description of Topic Feature:
Comparing activities, most GW2 activities are not very time demanding – they can be started and completed in a short time period and then repeated. FoTM are the exception: in order to do a fractal cycle, one must prepare to do four fractals in a row, successfully, which takes significantly more time than other comparable activities (a dungeon path, a personal story path, a living story cycle, world boss…). One consequence is that people are not able to participate in FoTM unless they have a large uninterrupted chunk of time, which, as people get older, get harder to assure, resulting in people avoiding FoTM. Essentially “I want to do fractals, but I don’t often have two hours of free time in one chunk to PUG them. I’d do one, but everyone wants to do a full cycle…”.

Goal of Proposal:
Allow people with less free time or more fragmented free time to participate in FoTM evenly. Similar to how fractal relics can be acquired by doing a single fractal, but pristine fractal relics can only be acquired after a full cycle.

Proposal Functionality:
Rebalance the fractals to an even more even length and rework rewards so that the same rewards are granted per time, but without demanding the same time needed for a standard full fractal cycle. Possibly, reduce fractals to 2 regular+1boss format and adjust rewards to reward the same. Possibly, keep rewards (in terms of fractal relics and pristine fractal relics) the same, shorten the times needed, but double the prices (resulting in, essentially, the same reward, but allowing people to earn it “bit by bit”).

Alternatively, award pristine relics and special drops in every fractal played, but at a reduced rate.

Associated Risks:
Of course, this would demand a careful rebalancing of the fractal rewards and times needed to complete a fractal. However, most of the thread I’ve seen is already all about rebalancing fractal lengths and rewards, so…

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

No offense, but this logic holds true for the explorable mode dungeons. People pick one or two paths and run those.

There is A LOT of wasted content in the game, dungeons and in the open world.

Colin: In answering your question about lore snd story into the dungeon/fractals without cutscreens and bothering people that don’t want to wait for those who want to hear the story…..

I recently played an event/patch in a game called Warframe. I know nothing about the lore of that game. But I was completing the event and throughout the entire event, audio and animated avatars were playing and it gave a great idea of what the story is behind the event. I went from not knowing ANYTHING at all, to knowing that Im helping to free some guy from a prison that his father enslaved him in. There was a nice bickering back and forth between father and son.

In the short 10-15 minutes of running the event, I learned much. This was all done without bothering people with cut scenes. You can pay attention to the audio while completing the mission if you cared. If you didn’t care, just ignore it and continue playing.

So applying to fractals: While you are completing the fractal, you can have little audio bits playing that tell a story via a narrative or dialogue. Maybe theres one or two NPCs that are arguing back and forth and you can get an idea what the fractal is about.

I’d like to rephrase Colin’s question in a slightly different way. In Fractals, and in GW2 in general, which of these do you agree with?

a) There is too much story and lore in the game
b) There is about the right amount of lore and is consumable in a way I like
c) There is about the right amount of lore and is not easy or enjoyable for me to consume
d) There is not enough story and lore in the game

I imagine we will get answers all over the map. Not necessarily equal among all, but I bet there are widely varying opinions. Personally, I’d like for there to be more story and lore. The newer Living World instances with extended dialogue between characters? LOVE IT.

That said, it’s not “replayable” in the way Colin is asking. It’s a significant time investment for something the players consume once…

…but it brings SO MUCH depth to the world! Fractals only teases at this with some of Dessa’s comments. That’s why I think a Story Mode (like I suggested above with a Priory Historian) could really help to flesh out the Fractals.

Even if it’s just an NPC that runs with you and has some VO about the Fractal while you do the existing path. That would still be a nice extra piece of story for us to get.

Curious what others think.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the current fractal system is optimal for short content that is fast. I don’t think you can successfully implement story-heavy fractals with the current system. That would make the time it takes to do fractals very unbalanced if you get one of those as opposed to if you don’t.

But if the story isn’t enough elaborated, it just feels bad as a story-dungeon.
If you compare Aetherblade and Molten fractals to the dungeons, in the fractals you really get no idea what they were actually about. They’re too short and butchered. Yes, they are nice fractals, probably as good as you could make them in the fractal system, but not storywise compelling at all.

And as you say, building something that will only be used once isn’t very cost effective.

But have a dungeon system that runs in parallel with the normal fractals that has an explorable and a story mode and use the same maps for both. The reason to do it within fractals is because you can use it as a “story book” and put anything from the past, even from guild wars 1, in it and it would be completely fine lore-wise. You can’t do that in any other part of the game.

I’m not sure if you’ve read it yet and I’m starting to feel bad for reposting the link several times in the forum now… Heh…
But link to the referenced suggestion where I elaborate on this here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3682391

The reason you still develop the normal fractals is because they cater to a different set of people. They’re fast and varied which is interesting.
The story-fractals are interesting and beautiful in story mode and in explorable mode they’re endgame content that is hard to clear, takes longer time and takes alot of skill and practice and thus you cater to those people as well and you reuse the designed content, making it more cost-effective.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

A few ideas:

- Have the stories run like Dessa’s voiceovers, which work well enough on their own. For the most part, the Fractals as of so far are relatively decent about the story content not being important but future ones could have the NPC dialogue take place while players are approaching or such.

- Have small scenes in places to illustrate or otherwise demonstrate the story behind the fractals. And I do mean small – ten to thirty seconds.

- Go relatively low-impact: a journal item or NPC which adds to itself as you do more of a Fractal or as you find “discoveries” while in them. Example: a new bit is added for the Urban Battleground, where friendly noncombatants are sprinkled in the battlefield and talking to them reveals more about what’s going on.

Want to solve rolling? Add a vote on the next Fractal like the vote for dungeon paths.

Want to keep the randomness of selection? Randomize the selection of three Fractals plus a fourth “random” choice for people who want to give in to the whim.

And at the same time, make it so the Fractals aren’t “lost” when they exit back to Mistlock. Until the party departs the Mistlock, the Fractal they were just in is active and they can’t go into another one until that one is shut down. Dessa can give some typical asuran technomagicbabble explanation for why.

People who don’t want others to “reroll” and hope for an easier/different Fractal can have it stopped. People who want to just get the path they want have an option.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Want to solve rolling? Add a vote on the next Fractal like the vote for dungeon paths.

Propagating non-random, player-determined scenario selection to all three tiers instead of just the first tier isn’t getting rid of it…

Topic Title: Customized Weapons

Proposal Overview
Adding to the fractal rewards, a collection of blank items, that would be highly customizable. Unlocks that make these weapons more desirable would be available through fractal progression, fractal rewards, and BLTC.

Goal of Proposal
To create an additional aspect of customization for a character’s appearance, as well as add an additional endgame progression, through fractal progress that would assuredly be required to add customization options to the weapon.

Proposal Functionality
A blank item would be available from the Fractal Rewards merchant for a minimal fractal relics cost. This item could be used as a weapon of any sort, but it would be capable of being customized with several categories. This weapon would have a custom shape(type of weapon), base skin, dyejob, ‘aura’, and possibly more. This blank would absorb other weapons, slimier to transmutation, and the absorbed item would fill one of the blank’s ‘slots’, which would allow the weapon’s properties to be used in customizing the weapon. Additional, unique effects, would be available from BLTC or fractal reward shop. Progress in fractals (such as reward level up) would allow additional slots or additional customized weapons per characters. Progress on the weapon would allow eventually for more then one stat combination allowed. The unlocked combinations would be interchangeable at will (outside combat). Additionally, more then one sigil or infusion would be able to be added to a pool, which could be used to ‘fine tune’ a weapon outside of combat. Legendary items could be absorbed into blank weapons, allowing their highly unique attributes (appearance and statistic choice freedom) to be used in customization, but legendary items could be separated at will. Non legendary weapons, and weapon skins, would require a transmutation splitter to be separated.

Example: A blank staff is bought by a PC. This PC synthesis three items into this blank: A Wupwup-make staff, a exotic peacemaker rabid staff, and Kasmeer’s Staff skin. The customization pool, before specific unlocks, will resemble thus. Base statistics: Celestial – ascended, Rabid – exotic. Base appearance: Ascended (celestial), peacemaker, Kasmeer’s. Aura: Rainbow (from wupwup), asuran pink (from peacemaker), mesmeric feathers (from Kasmeer’s). This PC Chooses Celestial Ascended statistics, Peacemaker base appearance, and Kasmeer’s staff’s mesmeric feathers aura. This blank would be function-able at this point.

Associated Risks
Limiting a single aspect of customization to fractals might cause friction among those that do not prefer fractals.

If you have read this far, you have my gratitude for doing so, and apologies for my somewhat confused presentation and less then desirable grammar and spelling.

Nike.2631:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Want to solve rolling? Add a vote on the next Fractal like the vote for dungeon paths.

Propagating non-random, player-determined scenario selection to all three tiers instead of just the first tier isn’t getting rid of it…

Well add it to the entry then, if that’s your concern.

Topic Title: Balancing Fractal Levels

Proposal Overview
Removal of Tier based system

Goal of Proposal
To diversify the fractal rotation to make Tier 1 levels be included in complete rotation loop. Furthermore allowing groups to experience every fractal in rotation regardless of what level they “roll” for in the beginning. Pretty much bringing the fractal selection system to what it used to be.

Proposal Functionality
It would give ability to players that tend to roll for Swamp, chance of getting a Underwater level which has been now the least played level since Fractured. Instead of having us face the hardest fractal at the 3rd tier, give the chances of it coming up in rotation smaller percentage than it is right now (and yes I’m referring to Dredge). The system was put in place instead of fixing/balancing Dredge fractal that was (still is) making runs much longer than it should be. With the possible balance of Dredge fractal, this system would serve no purpose other than always giving us the hardest fractal at the end.

Associated Risks
Possibility of getting 2 Tier 3 fractals in a row (which still has possibility of happening at the moment), but it would also give us a chance to have an easy run with possible 2 Tier 1 fractals in a row and maybe 1 Tier 2. It was fine the way it used to be.

spoj.9672:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

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

Make the dialogue run in the background in such a way that it doesnt halt progress while waiting for a conversation to complete. Make fractal objectives clues to the lore. Basically just avoid timegating the content for cutscenes and lore, but you can still add it in. Whenever I play the living story stuff for the first time I turn off my music and turn on npc chat so I can see and hear the dialogue. If it is simply background stuff then I can turn off ingame sound, play music and it doesnt interrupt my enjoyment of the content when replaying.

Listen to this.
This is the way to go.
Don’t lock fractals behind forced cutscenes and NPCs.

The Lost Witch.7601:

RiShardV.8456:

I find the idea of saving progress in fractals interesting because that may remove a barrier players have for starting fractals: it takes time to complete. A problem I can see is that it is equally troublesome to keep a party together or plan these multiple runs with the same party. Maybe this can be resolved by coding the floppies with a way to save how many fractals have been run and allowing players with the same amount to enter the next one in line?
After re-reading it seems (if i understand correctly) you saw the same issue with parties but had a different idea with the floppies. I think that if it should save anything it is not the amount of ractals run but the “level” reached inside the fractals dungeon. This still leaves a problem of having to find people with the same amount of ractals completed though.

I believe I intend what you have in mind. But apparently it didn’t show clearly in my previous post.

The floppies would save the difficulty level and the tier. For example, after completing the dredge fractal you would have the following coordinates on your floppy: Difficulty level 23 and tier 3.

Flopp would then send you to the fractal you abandoned. (Let’s say the molten bosses fractal) Or, if you have teamed up with other people that had the coordinates: level 23 tier 3, you may end up in a different boss fractal, depending on who opens the instance.

Okay, so in this case it would restart the fractal in which the player or the party left i guess. The way I see it what should be saved is the amount of fractals run up to 3. In the example you used that would mean you can start the boss fractal on the same difficulty level, which could be any boss.

The reason I dont think you should let people restart or even return to the same spot they left in a fractal, is because players might not feel like it if the experience was too horrible and it sort of takes away the experience if you can shuffle to the end one step at a time every day.

The idea you had of letting people with higher level saves join lower level ones also makes things easier, all in all I still think its a very nice idea. The main point would be that you can stop after every fractal and start the next one next time to give a better sense of completion instead of leaving it at 1 or 2 fractals every time and lower the barrier by putting the end point closer.

I would be very interested to know if more people would start fractals more often if they could save their progress after every fractal.

ColinJohanson.2394:

spoj.9672:

But on to the point of explorable modes not being heavily story driven. Why does the new aetherpath in Twilight Arbor still have unskippable cutscenes and needlessly long dialogues? This is a major reason a lot of players avoid the path.

This is a perfect example of why heavily driving a lot of lore and story into something that is intended to be a group re-playable experience isn’t a great idea, and something typically we try and avoid. Thus the challenge here, to get across these cool stories, without the cost of the pacing of the fractal experience!

If you could give players an option at the start or before entering the fractals dungeon to skip all cutscenes then that would be perfect. You could just copy the lving story stuff into fractals and remove all the dialogues for people that chose to skip. In this case I think the lfg tool will let players group up with like minded.

Quick suggestion regarding the reward system, sorry for not following the format because I’m in a hurry

As many fotm runners would tell you, we have so many rings that fill up so much space and that we don’t know what to do with them. I’d suggest we can trade in rings for pristine fotm relics, may be 5 relics per ring. And allow us to use pristine relics for more items like rings, amulets, accessories and even fotm weapons. I have many guildies who run so much fotm and have not gotten a fotm weapon. This would add some “guaranteed” rewards that people have a choice of choosing from, just make it crazy expensive using pristine relics currency.

ColinJohanson.2394:

spoj.9672:

But on to the point of explorable modes not being heavily story driven. Why does the new aetherpath in Twilight Arbor still have unskippable cutscenes and needlessly long dialogues? This is a major reason a lot of players avoid the path.

This is a perfect example of why heavily driving a lot of lore and story into something that is intended to be a group re-playable experience isn’t a great idea, and something typically we try and avoid. Thus the challenge here, to get across these cool stories, without the cost of the pacing of the fractal experience!

An idea would be to incorporate Lore Scrolls that can be earned by completing achievements within the fractals or made to be a drop kinda like the blueprints from bags that when you piece them all together, you get the Lore story told either through a cinematic or a simple slide show with text, similar to the new Atlas content. This would allow players to experience the Lore outside of the fractal and not weigh down the team waiting on a cinematic to complete. I think it would be really cool to have the chance to experience some lore like the Edge of Steel in the Arena fighting gladiator style, or even reliving a dragonspawn battle with Destiny’s Edge. Seeing the dwarven race driven underground…..I am sure you get the picture. Have the scrolls pertain to the story related to the fractal in which it came.

Tyson.8492:

ColinJohanson.2394:

spoj.9672:

But on to the point of explorable modes not being heavily story driven. Why does the new aetherpath in Twilight Arbor still have unskippable cutscenes and needlessly long dialogues? This is a major reason a lot of players avoid the path.

This is a perfect example of why heavily driving a lot of lore and story into something that is intended to be a group re-playable experience isn’t a great idea, and something typically we try and avoid. Thus the challenge here, to get across these cool stories, without the cost of the pacing of the fractal experience!

An idea would be to incorporate Lore Scrolls that can be earned by completing achievements within the fractals or made to be a drop kinda like the blueprints from bags that when you piece them all together, you get the Lore story told either through a cinematic or a simple slide show with text, similar to the new Atlas content. This would allow players to experience the Lore outside of the fractal and not weigh down the team waiting on a cinematic to complete. I think it would be really cool to have the chance to experience some lore like the Edge of Steel in the Arena fighting gladiator style, or even reliving a dragonspawn battle with Destiny’s Edge. Seeing the dwarven race driven underground…..I am sure you get the picture. Have the scrolls pertain to the story related to the fractal in which it came.

I personally think a well made fractal either tells its own story in the case of the Ascalonian city fractal, or allows you to conjure up a story in your head for it. The cliffside fractal does this to perfection for example.

Having said that, I like the lore blueprint idea. That gives re-playability for casuals like myself with no interest in higher tiers.

I also love the idea of Destinys Edge fractals, maybe as a playable set you can choose inside. The arena, the dragonspawn fights, battling Kralkatorriks minions and the death of Snaff – all key moments in the book which could be played out.

Proposal Overview
To put Fractals reachable for newcomers and/or making it easily trainable alone

Goal of Proposal
Today it’s hard to find a group for newcomers or those who were not interested in fractals before (i’m actually interested in fractals, but because of the time to complete one serie and the difficulty to find a group that accept you as a noob : you need about 5 hours to finish a serie) since pro group are running it daily for loots. The goal is to be sure that newcomers will know what to do, how to do and when they must do something.

Proposal Functionality
Fractal is a place in Mist where you can relive past story of tyria. So why not make solo version of these fractals just like the Mission Pack of Guild wars 1 (you made something somewhat similar with the Thaumanova reactor). You can also put exclusive reward or/and make a rising difficulty like regular fractals for solo players.
You can even put in past living story event as a reminder

Detailling the idea : Solo fractal mode

The player enter alone in the hub and choose the Solo Mode, he choose the level he want to enter just like regular fratal and begin his journey.

- The fractals can the same than regular (in which you are followed by mercenary, or not) suited for 1 player.

- If not, the fractal can be a alternative story in a same fractal like : Being the Mossman in the swamp killing intruders, or playing a human before the attack of the charr in the Urban fractal, or playing an Asura trying to contain Scarlet outside the Thaumanova reactor, or a villager whose village is attacked by grawl who want to kidnap people to make a sacrifice in a volcano (leading to the volcano fractal) and so on…

- These fractals can be completely different than regular and tell another story in an another place.

- Just like Mistlock Instabilities, there could be random Mistlock Paradox in these solo fractals resulting a different story end/boss/encounter (some paradox depending on the level in which the player is, some will be obviously more difficult than others)

- Just like the “Baby mode” in the SAB, you can add an easy mode fractal where Dessa is much more explicit about what to do.

Some rewards can be exclusive for this new mode and other similar than 5-man fractal, so even hardcores gamers will find something to do in this new mode.

I have in mind mechanics mixing Super Adventure Box and 1v1 Boss fight in Queen Jubilee.

Oh, and please, reduce hugely the time needed to complete some fractal or increase strongly the rewards for the longuest one.

Associated Risks
Well… some profession may be not very suited for this new mode where some will be overused, unless a skill bar exclusive to a fractal… And a lot of work for you guys…

To sum up :
1) Make solo fractals like Mission pack of Guild Wars 1 or Super Adventure Box.
2) Make fractals accessible for newcomers and slightly shorter.
3) Make more lore/story fractals.

(i’ve made a post earlier but i’ve added so many thing, so i made a new post)

Randulf.7614:

I also love the idea of Destinys Edge fractals, maybe as a playable set you can choose inside. The arena, the dragonspawn fights, battling Kralkatorriks minions and the death of Snaff – all key moments in the book which could be played out.

I would be morally COMPELLED to put~

“I’m Logan Thackeray, and I’m going to run away.”

~into chat at the start of that fractal. Every. Time. For years, if possible. It would never get old . Those kids were awesome

manddras.1794:

Proposal Overview
To put Fractals reachable for newcomers and/or making it easily trainable alone

snip

Hi manddras, thanks for the idea! I’d like to make two points:

1) Early in this thread, I proposed a Practice Mode for Fractals where you could choose a single Fractal and do it with a group. Do you think this would help solve some of your problems?

2) The problem with a “solo mode” is that many of the encounters require group coordination, so it wouldn’t work. Think about Swamp, one you seem to know. You need at least 3 players to grab the wisps. Well, maybe solo mode has just one wisp, so that’s solvable. The Dredge Fractal, however, has puzzles which cannot be easily changed to solo versions.

I think we should separate “I want a solo mode” from “Fractals are too difficult to get into” because they are (to me) different problems with different solutions.

Description of Topic Feature or Goal.:
If you want to attract more players into the Fractal, try bumping up the reward, make Dredge less of a drag, and remove some stuff here and there.

Suggested Idea Proposal Format:
The reward for finishing Fractal might not appeal to any of other players when they realizes that they could get more gold per hour by simply doing dungeon. You could fix this by increase the chest rewards within those 4 fractal instance, use the relic to buy some of those fractal weapons, and boost up the gold reward to around 3 gold upon complication of every even fractal.

The Dredge is another issue when it comes to the Fractal. Simply put it, its too freaken long. You could easily solve this by removing one part of the fractal AND remove the need to kill the dredges in that room where they all popout of the cart like a clown car.

Finally, lets remove Scarlet Briar from the Thaumanova Reactor. She doesn’t NEED to be there and her existence only reminds us how horrible such a character she really is. The Reactor Fractal can do fine without her being there blabbing how she is the best thing evar.

Right now, try focusing on fixing the Fractal instead of adding new junk to it and creating more mess than you actually are.

And to all of you posters out there, I have a question. Why is it that you want to suggest that they added TA F/U in the fractal? Logically, Anet should fix the path by simply fixing the Spider Spawn at the end of the path and reopen it in TA. The Fractal doesn’t need to be a dumping ground for all extra dungeons or “mistake” that Anet place into the game.

- I would love to see more random events in each fractal and also make the higher tier fractals much more rewarding.

Proposal Overview
Tiered fractal specific rewards

Goal of Proposal
To describe a more fleshed out version of my idea for tiered fractal specific rewards that I mentioned in my previous posts.
To give a reason to want to do all fractals not just the most effective.

Proposal Functionality
Firstly by tiered I mean (10-19, 20-29,30-39,40-49, 50) and by fractal specific I mean each fractal, water,swamp,molten etc.

My proposal is to unlock playful rewards (minis/tonics/costume brawl items) through tiers of fractals.
so Tier 1-9 is the tutorial (no unique unlocks)
Tier 10-19 is the basic tonic rewards tier, fractals have a chance to drop their unique tonic in one use form.
Tier 20-29 is the mini reward tier, fractals now have a chance to drop their unique miniature.
Tier 30-39 is the Endless tonic tier, fractals now have a chance to drop their unique tonic in endless form.
Tier 40-49 unique costume brawl items have a chance to drop from each fractal.
Tier 50, an endless COMBAT tonic (like watchwork, I get the impression these require a lot of resources to add into the game though) for each fractal has a chance of dropping.

Example
You run the uncatagorised fractal,
At rank 10-19 it has a chance of dropping a one use kitty golem tonic , transform into a random cat golem.
At rank 20-29, The mister Tom miniature has a chance of dropping, as do the tonics.
At rank 30-39, The Endless kitty tonic replaces the normal ones chance of dropping. The miniature has a chance of dropping.
At rank 40-49, the Apocalypse stick has a chance of dropping, fires the harpy knockback as a costume brawl skill. The endless tonic and miniature have a chance of dropping.
At rank 50, the (I am not sure if non-human sized combat tonics are workable) Golem combat tonic drops. The costume brawl,mini and tonic all have a chance of dropping.

All of these items should be account bound, to give a fun/interesting reward for being a high level in fractals without taking up one of your armor slots.

Associated Risks

-Some players may feel an unjustified entitlement to all rewards and be offended at the idea that they may not be able to obtain the items.
-It’s a lot of items, I am unsure of how long development wise it takes to develop each of the types so it could be a lot of development hours.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

Colin,

What do you think of this:

Topic Title: Fractal Lore

Goal of Proposal

Add Lore to the individual Fractals to enhance the Fractals experience.

Proposal Overview

Add a “File System” to Dessa’s computer in the Mistlock Observatory. Each file could represent one of the Fractals and contain a piece of artwork along with Dessa’s notes about that particular Fractal.

Proposal Functionality

This would use part of the environment already built into the game and would only need and interactive function added, rather than any new environments or items.

Associated Risks

I think the risk would be minimal. I believe adding the interactive function to Dessa’s computer, artwork, and text would require considerably less resources than cinematics and/or spoken Dialogue. Players are also able to enter the Observatory alone, at any time, so this wouldn’t require their party to wait while they viewed cinematics. This would also make it simpler to add Lore anytime you released a new fractal.

(from a business standpoint, this should also be a far cheaper solution)

Conski Deshan.2057:

Proposal Overview
Tiered fractal specific rewards

I think the reward proposal is cool but I don’t like the RNG in it if you want a spezific one you might just Need to farm over and over again Level 20 for example that is boring and doesn’t increase your Level. Just to get that Tonic… I think there should be more fix rewards when one hits really high Levels like 123 or so he might have been unlucky and have no Special reward.. so rewards should be fix