Guild Wars 2

Anet’s new agenda seems to be to push content that requires long time investments in a single stretch and I don’t like it. Look at Silverwastes and the whole “afk in map for an hour then fight Vinewrath for 30 minutes” format. Fractals aren’t much better tbh especially with the new ones. It’s tolerable with a good group I guess but I can’t imagine how anyone pugs any level higher than 10.

I propose:

- Instead of randomly generating fractals at entry, randomize them every two hours or so and let us pick one from the set. It could be a selection of fractals based on difficulty tier like it is now.
- You get a full reward for doing one fractal, but it scales by difficulty (i.e. Swamp gives less than Dredge).
- You get some kind of "boss token’ for doing a fractal (again scaling by difficulty, i.e. Swamp gives one and Dredge gives 3). Each player needs X tokens to enter a boss fractal, which can be done anytime. Boss fractals give higher rewards than regular ones.
- Fractals are DR’d, i.e. doing Swamp twice doesn’t get you anything. If necessary, doing a whole set could reset DR but I don’t really see that many people having a huge investment in doing multiple Fractal runs back to back.

This way, you can do fractals based on how much time you’re willing to invest rather than having to set aside 2+ hours in case your pug is bad, and even if you run into griefers who kick you at the end, you don’t lose quite as much because you get your reward at the end of each individual fractal instead of at the end of all four. Hell, I don’t even pug Arah now and that’s way shorter than some of the Fractals.

I’m sorry but I don’t spend 2hours in fractals most runs take less than an hour, hour and half when things aren’t going right.

I’d say improve your skills and stop running with PUG’s remedy to your issue without the intervention of the powers that be.

I do pug fractal 50,38 almost everyday. It usually take an hour.

1-1.5 hours is still a ridiculously long run, especially since Anet officially supports kicking people at the end of dungeons now. I wouldn’t even trust doing something short like COE with pugs now, much less fractals.

It rarely take 1.5 hours for me. Majority are about 50-70 minutes.

Most people doing fractal 38 to 50 are quite good as they do fractal often.

I play on NA server, and most people there are quite nice. I never experienced getting kick at end of the dungeon.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

1-1.5 hours is still a ridiculously long run, especially since Anet officially supports kicking people at the end of dungeons now. I wouldn’t even trust doing something short like COE with pugs now, much less fractals.

It seems like you have more of an issue with pugs than the length of the recent content. In that case I’d recommend going with a guild or static group. Naturally as the difficulty rises you’re going to have a harder time finding pugs who are able, since there’s no way to determine skill beforehand which will result in longer times. That has nothing to do with the content itself and more so the “quality” of pugs.

Tl;dr Stop pugging.

For me, they’re generally too long (due to the fact that you have a chance of getting all the long ones or at least two long ones). I’m a parent with two young kids. It’s extremely rare that I can dedicate 45+ uninterrupted minutes to a game. So, while I actually like Fractals for the most part, I just can’t dedicate myself to a group when we might get stuck with the longer fractals. Thus, I only do Fractals a couple of times a month, at the most. However, I don’t necessarily think the format should be changed just because of my limited time to dedicate.

My group does fractal 50’s in 15 minutes. We always get fractal tonics or the skin of our choice. If you do it one second slower you’re a nomad’s wearing newbie.

It has begun.

My group is more like 50 minutes, we are not a fan of multiple elementalists as say a mesmer is better than a second elementalist. 2 warriors is the perfect balance because it is not risky like the elementalist class. But when we do have elementalists in our group we get them to camp lightning whip auto attack and spam all their blasts at once if use them at all because using burning retreat just gets you killed on harder bosses, and hey, elementalist is a difficult profession too.

Guang, I fully agree.

Grawl is my favorite fractal, I think it’s very fun. However, getting it at 2 in the morning is kittening bullkitten. The last 3 times I’ve gotten it it’s been on a run that started at like 1 am and I get something like cliffside, grawl, mai. Last night luckily we got harpy instead of cliffside… Either way, this is why I HATE the RNG with a deep burning passion.

Oh goody, that last thread died too soon. Thanks for the laughs dudes, please keep the battle going!

I do my best.

Fractals is legit a dumb format though. It’s pretty much 3 full-length dungeons chained back to back and then a boss fight at the end specifically designed to kitten with pugs.

I think my idea is good since there’s nothing stopping you from doing all of the hourly fractals for the extra reward if you really want. Not that Anet ever gives a kitten about anything PvE cause they’re pushing the “eSports MMO” angle so hard.

Painbow.6059:

get them to camp lightning whip auto attack

Implying you can melee Grawl.

or Old Tom.

Element Two.7316:

Painbow.6059:

get them to camp lightning whip auto attack

Implying you can melee Grawl.

or Old Tom.

I don’t think Anet ever bothered to fix that sploit where you just sit inside him and melee. The only thing that hurts you is the posion ticks (the projectiles don’t do anything) and his melee punch thing which you can block or invul depending on your class.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Element Two.7316:

Painbow.6059:

get them to camp lightning whip auto attack

Implying you can melee Grawl.

or Old Tom.

I don’t think Anet ever bothered to fix that sploit where you just sit inside him and melee. The only thing that hurts you is the posion ticks (the projectiles don’t do anything) and his melee punch thing which you can block or invul depending on your class.

You can just throw down an earth elemental using elite elementalist skill, or ranger bear, or AH guard, pretty much anything can tank it and others can stand behind and melee it safely. But yeah you can just stand directly inside his hitbox, but it can be a annoying to find sometimes. The attack when he leans forward can be reflected for high damage

Imo yes they are. 2 and a boss fract would be better.

I pug everything and it drags.

hybrid.5027:

My group does fractal 50’s in 15 minutes. We always get fractal tonics or the skin of our choice. If you do it one second slower you’re a nomad’s wearing newbie.

Lol why so bad? Stop ranging and use valid tactics. I consistently clear it in 5 minutes, solo.

But yeah, I think something should be done to reduce the time needed. It would attract casuals and help us in long term.

Painbow.6059:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Element Two.7316:

Painbow.6059:

get them to camp lightning whip auto attack

Implying you can melee Grawl.

or Old Tom.

I don’t think Anet ever bothered to fix that sploit where you just sit inside him and melee. The only thing that hurts you is the posion ticks (the projectiles don’t do anything) and his melee punch thing which you can block or invul depending on your class.

You can just throw down an earth elemental using elite elementalist skill, or ranger bear, or AH guard, pretty much anything can tank it and others can stand behind and melee it safely. But yeah you can just stand directly inside his hitbox, but it can be a annoying to find sometimes. The attack when he leans forward can be reflected for high damage

D series golem… Asura masterrace!

I’ve done five fractal runs, as a newb, at level 1, for the vine back item. I stopped after that partly because the 3+1 combination was too long. With a dungeon you can just do one path, but fractals are kind of an all or nothing deal.

I don’t see it would kill anyone to spread the rewards evenly so people can do one slice at a time. You can still do 3+1 in a row if you want.

This is all why I want this system:

Change rewards to be a PVP type reward system.

• Each fractal is worth a set amount of XP, higher levels are more, could even scale individual fractals based on length/difficulty… ideally a variable system which I’ll go into later
• Rewards come in every so often giving your pristines
• The track you choose will result in the ascended chest or fractal skin you want (no more RNG!!!!)
• Could add in other rewards to the system by giving additional tracks
• Each Fractal would have it’s own DR preventing chaining the same one for full rewards making you want to do all of them. You could do daily rewards for each though I think maybe a 4 hour DR would be cool so chaining one to practice si rewarding as would be doing them multiple times a day if you waited long enough

This would solve the length issue, the random fractal roll (no more dreaded cliffside/grawl/mai roll), and solve the random drop issue.

Likewise, I’d change the instabilities to be a “gambit” system where you can add them on for increased benefits, locking each to a daily and having that be your cash reward. This is where I’d really want the variable scaling thing, the more a certain one is chosen the day before the less it is rewarded the next day. So if everyone chose “less damage when endurance is low” it might only give 5 silver for doing it. Where “explode on death” may give 1.5gold or something like that, if enough people did the really rewarding ones that day the next day it might swap and the “mossman randomly shows up” becomes the top reward.

I’d be happy already if they changed the RnG to the way PvP maps are currently chosen. Rolling swamp usually takes longer than the actual fractal. >_>

A full fractals run takes between 40-70 minutes on average (lvl 38-50).
If that is too long for you, run regular dungeons.

Fractals are absolutely too long especially for how unrewarding they are. I get bored of fractals after doing them for like 5 days in a row once a day just because they drag on forever.

cranos.5913:

I’d be happy already if they changed the RnG to the way PvP maps are currently chosen. Rolling swamp usually takes longer than the actual fractal. >_>

Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa? Man, I usually get it within the first 3 rolls. It’s EXTREMELY rare for me to not to get it within 5 rolls… which is why when I run fractals with my guild they always demand I go roll for swamp lol

I always get swamp on my first try, sometimes even without trying.

While I don’t entirely agree that they are too long on average, there does really need to be a mechanic to keep you from getting, say, Uncategorized/Cliffside/Grawl/Mai or some other ridiculously long and painful set of fractals in a single run. The change to make certain fractals only appear as the first, second and/or third was a good step in the right direction (Remember when you could end up doing Cliffside/Grawl/Old Dredge? the horror) But it really feels like there needs to be another modifier or factor that should be accounted for when the RNG decides which set of fractals we end up getting.

Maybe instead of being totally random, you get a choice between two or three fractals with each jump? There might need to be some sort of mechanic or limit to it, otherwise noone will ever do Mai Tran again (not that any of us will shed a tear if that happened, but still), but even having the tiniest bit of control beyond the first fractal would absolutely make the whole experience less painful.

See, I actually really enjoy Mai, grawl and cliffside, thing is when I get them late at night… ugh, i do need to sleep…

I don’t want to avoid them, I just want to do them when I want to do them.

Removing tiers and adding voting between 2 maps would alleviate length problems in most cases. But it would also be cool to be able to save progress somehow.

thefantasticg.3984:

cranos.5913:

I’d be happy already if they changed the RnG to the way PvP maps are currently chosen. Rolling swamp usually takes longer than the actual fractal. >_>

Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa? Man, I usually get it within the first 3 rolls. It’s EXTREMELY rare for me to not to get it within 5 rolls… which is why when I run fractals with my guild they always demand I go roll for swamp lol

I guess RnGesus is on your side then…

Honestly, I think a better solution should be to offer the ability to split Fractal runs, doing each fractal separately as time permits rather than all at once.

I won’t take credit for the full idea (that belongs to ohoni and braballa), but here’s some options for implementing such an idea: Splitting Out Fractal Runs

If you have done fractals before and know the “worst case scenario” of how long it could take, how hard is it to simply decide not to go into the place?

You know that it could take over an hour, so if you don’t have that time, don’t start it. We have threads such as these and people are still upset that NPE treats them like babies…

serenke.4806:

If you have done fractals before and know the “worst case scenario” of how long it could take, how hard is it to simply decide not to go into the place?

You know that it could take over an hour, so if you don’t have that time, don’t start it. We have threads such as these and people are still upset that NPE treats them like babies…

That’s the thing, it COULD take over an hour, but it could also be done in 30 mins, the variable length is too large of a range thanks to RNG. It’s one thing to just suck and take forever, it’s another to get a bad roll and take a long time.

God, yes. Way too long. I’ve been trying to farm enough relics to bling out my capacitor but I just haven’t got the stomach for ‘em. Even in good groups I start to get bored by the third. The ’random’ factor and usual time to completion are just too much. If we absolutely have to do four in a row I’d prefer to vote for each subsequent fractal after the first has been rolled. That, or two then the boss.

That is exactly the thing. If you know it could take between “X” and “Y” and you know for sure you don’t have “Y” time then don’t simply don’t start doing it.

It’s not like you cannot estimate it before (unless you pug, but then you cannot estimate anything).

No, fractals aren’t too long. If you can’t stomach them, maybe you should do other content instead.

I’m just getting tired of Mai Trin as an end boss all the time. More Molten Bros pls I wanna be done faster.

Also the only place where my D/F ele feels risky as Painbow seems to imply is during colossus fractal with the kitten cultists/heartseeker spam. Maybe sometimes the ascalonian fractal. Those are completely trivialized with a thief’s black powder though.

Burning Speed is an evade itself and its hitbox is generous that you can use it to land in max melee range behind boss so you don’t get gibbed after using it. If I feel I’m gonna eat a boss autoattack i just pr-empt it with Obsidian Flesh or Arcane Shield.

I love my D/F ele it’s so fun, although I do wish they made chruning earth just a cast you set and forget and it detonates by itself while you can do other actions, and reduce the cd on fire grab because 30+ seconds of cd on a skill that does much less damage than a 100b or eviscerate is just DUMB. That way I could use D/D for the aoe burst.

And maybe they’ll buff scepter autoattacks to not be total garbage so my ele can use meteorologicus with one more reason other than might stacking and persisting flames usage.

Either way the worse pugs I’ve had lately finish in 1 hour 15-20 minutes at the latest. Most 50 pugs I do finish in 35-45 minutes.

The problem is not that fractals are long, the problem is rewards are total garbage.

serenke.4806:

That is exactly the thing. If you know it could take between “X” and “Y” and you know for sure you don’t have “Y” time then don’t simply don’t start doing it.

It’s not like you cannot estimate it before (unless you pug, but then you cannot estimate anything).

No, fractals aren’t too long. If you can’t stomach them, maybe you should do other content instead.

So your answer is “if you dont’ have the upward bound fo time you shouldnt’ do fractals” that seems like a terrible answer to me. It’s fun content, I enjoy it. I just hate that sometimes my late night fractals consist of the worst possible rolls.

serenke.4806:

If you have done fractals before and know the “worst case scenario” of how long it could take, how hard is it to simply decide not to go into the place?

You know that it could take over an hour, so if you don’t have that time, don’t start it. We have threads such as these and people are still upset that NPE treats them like babies…

If I keep kittening up during an Arah solo and it ends up taking two hours instead of 30 minutes, i’m fine with that because it’s one me. If I do a pug Fractal and it takes two hours to get the last boss because the pug wiped on every single boss, then they can’t beat Mai and all quit, and I have to open it up to LFG again and some kittens come in and kick me and take the credit for all the kitten I had to deal with the last two hours, then yes, that’s kittened.

Anet kittens with the RNG in Fractals by adding a bunch of encounters that pugs are categorically incapable of doing, then compounds that problem by making it so anyone can join at any time and steal your instance with zero consequence, because they’d rather the content be nothing but people zerging at a dumb flower and the hardest part is remembering to afk on top of the flower instead of next to it.

I’m fine if Anet hates dungeons now and has officially taken them off their list of supported content but if Fractals are going to come up as dailies every other day, it’d be great if they weren’t the worst-designed content in the game.

cranos.5913:

thefantasticg.3984:

cranos.5913:

I’d be happy already if they changed the RnG to the way PvP maps are currently chosen. Rolling swamp usually takes longer than the actual fractal. >_>

Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa? Man, I usually get it within the first 3 rolls. It’s EXTREMELY rare for me to not to get it within 5 rolls… which is why when I run fractals with my guild they always demand I go roll for swamp lol

I guess RnGesus is on your side then…

It is. LVL 38 last night. Swamp on 1st roll.

The risk vs. reward on Fractals are not worth it. They take forever, and that 1 whole Pristine Fractal you get it just amazing.

Absolutely not. It’s the contrary, dungeons are too short! The majority of the core dungeons are over so quickly that it’s not even an experience, nor a challenge. Fractals presents a fine medium for challenging content. Gw needs more long, challenging, and rewarding dungeon-esque content.

Rialen.1524:

Absolutely not. It’s the contrary, dungeons are too short! The majority of the core dungeons are over so quickly that it’s not even an experience, nor a challenge. Fractals presents a fine medium for challenging content. Gw needs more long, challenging, and rewarding dungeon-esque content.

That’s because the game is meant for a casual player. Getting stuck in hours long sagas isn’t what this game is about.

Well yesterday i joined lvl 29 need help. 2 rangers, one not so good warr,me ele and another ele who rerolled to thief. I joined on second one, ice one. The party was troublesome from the start, died a lot while trying to pass the first bonfire, then continued to wipe 4 or more times on the ice ele, every snowstorm every single one of them pulled every ice ele on the face of the earth. Third one was cliffside ofc. 4 more wipes on 2 sealed part, no passive pets and so on. Last one was molten, 2 more wipes.

The lenght depends on the party really. It can be from 4 hours to 45 min.

fractals have reasonable speed clear times imo, but entirely ridiculous average guild run or pug times. and part of that is because of the amount of experience required to run them well, part is because certain mechanics are easy to fail repeatedly and punish harshly with respect to time even with game knowledge, part is because of the really high spike damage, and part is because certain things are just unnecessarily long (like… cliffside, uncategorized in pugs, thaumanova in pugs, urban’s lack of a spawn point near ashym in the event of a wipe, snowblind’s runs in general, molten facilitys drilling tunnel). only 1 of those parts isnt related to time and the other 3 all have to do with things that drastically increase run times. although, i do like that fractals require a lot of knowledge to run decently, maybe because i like feeling like im better than the pugs i usually join.

The only fractals that destroy pugs are ascalon, cliffside, and fire shaman. The rest can be done by even the most incompetent of people eventually. Maybe add dredge to the list only because of the control panel.

Zenith.7301:

The only fractals that destroy pugs are ascalon, cliffside, and fire shaman. The rest can be done by even the most incompetent of people eventually. Maybe add dredge to the list only because of the control panel.

Call me a horrible player but I had a group that couldn’t kill old tom, and they advertised as a “zerk only pls ping” group. I solo’d the last 50% on my engi. We took about 45 minutes on that fractal alone rolled cliffside and I rage quit…because kitten that.

But other than those fractals, molten and mai trin are of course, party destroyers.

Zenith.7301:

The only fractals that destroy pugs are ascalon, cliffside, and fire shaman. The rest can be done by even the most incompetent of people eventually. Maybe add dredge to the list only because of the control panel.

urban destroys pugs? what? ive never been in a pug thats been destroyed by that one.

insanemaniac.2456:

urban destroys pugs? what? ive never been in a pug thats been destroyed by that one.

That’s what I was thinking.

sunset.3056:

Zenith.7301:

The only fractals that destroy pugs are ascalon, cliffside, and fire shaman. The rest can be done by even the most incompetent of people eventually. Maybe add dredge to the list only because of the control panel.

Call me a horrible player but I had a group that couldn’t kill old tom, and they advertised as a “zerk only pls ping” group. I solo’d the last 50% on my engi. We took about 45 minutes on that fractal alone rolled cliffside and I rage quit…because kitten that.

But other than those fractals, molten and mai trin are of course, party destroyers.

I’d add Aetherblade to that list as well, at least in my experience. Last couple of times either I or someone else were the last ones still standing trying to kill the last golem(s).

You know, my initial reaction is yes, they are too long and horridly boring, however, in Gw1, l didn’t mind spending 4-5 hours in Domain of Anguish doing all areas. It was fun, challenging and exciting, yet l completely HATE fractals and barely EVER do them. I think l’ve done one in the past 6mths. I’ll do multiple paths in multiple dungeons, yet not Fractals.
I hear Anet is making changes to them, one can only hope. The backpack and weapon skins are some of the best in the game.