Guild Wars 2

There are a number of issues with the design of several fractals I have noted:

• High levels of AR are pointlessly expensive to achieve, since in general most will only do the higher fractals once before dropping back to the minimum T4 fractals so as to have an easier time, due to rewards being based primarily on personal fractal level rather than fractal played.

• Several fractals have respawn locations that are inconvenient, as they require retraversal for no real reason, as either the enemies are already dead so it is walking through an empty area, there is a jumping sequence that is boring to do multiple times, and/or the path is needlessly long. Examples include Volcanic, Uncatagorized (respawn before the last jumping sequence if wiped at boss), and Snowblind (respawn at the beginning and have to walk all the way back down if wipe at or before Source).

• Volcanic: The corridor with the boulders in it is thematic but serves no purpose but making the fractal longer.

• Volcanic: The burn DOT radius from the lava pools is very badly indicated.

• Uncatagorized: Giving the harpies knockdown at higher levels doesn’t make them harder, since you just respawn immediately. It just makes them annoying and forces needless repetition of the simple jumping sequence.

• Aetherblade: The underwater mine sequence serves absolutely no purpose but to delay actually starting the fractal. The mine triggering radius is not clear and seems to be inconsistent, and in any case all that happens is you immediately go back, revive, and then swim it again with the mine you hit gone. You could theoretically have your entire group kamikaze the mines if you wanted to and there would be no effect on the fractal. It does nothing but annoy people, cause people to leave, and lengthen the fractal for no reason.

• Aetherblade: The second electrified segment is hard to no apparent purpose, since you just respawn in front of it. This makes it annoying rather than challenging, especially if too many of the people in your group are bad at it. Especially egregious in that the console area at the end is still in range of the fields (barring some inobvious spots), meaning that if others are having trouble, the player(s) who got there first have to walk in circles while they wait.

• Aetherblade: The door guard segment is too easily defeated by stacking in the corner right next to the platform.

• Swamp: The wisp segment is boring and serves no purpose, as it is neither hard nor a puzzle. It exists only due to the achievement for not hitting a trap.

• Aquatic Ruins: The darkness segment is too unforgiving of even a pixel stick worth of delay.

• Aquatic Ruins: It is common for anyone having issues with dolphin or darkness to simply die on purpose so they will respawn outside the boss room, as long as one other person has made it. This encourages people to not care about these segments while placing a burden on those who do.

• Snowblind: Initial cliff descent serves no purpose but to increase the length of the fractal as nothing can happen unless the players ignore the bonfires, which can only happen the first time, and is needlessly long with multiple fires after the point has been made. Explanation of mechanics could be accomplished by walking directly out of the cave and to the big bonfire sequence.

• Snowblind: The bonfire locations around the Source are difficult to see due to lighting, which results in many first-time players not realizing they are there and even experienced players having to reference the surrounding buildings rather than the bonfires themselves.

• Snowblind: The forest sequence is pointless as everyone just runs through it as fast as possible.

• Thaumnova: The heat room is not doable by all professions without extreme skill, and some players are unable to do it at all, resulting in the possibility of an entire group being unable to progress.

• Thaumnova: The pull exerted by the portals serves mostly to knock people off the catwalks, which is in general just annoying as they are forced to repeatedly walk back up. It only makes it actually challenging when it succeeds in pulling you into the summoned monsters.

• Molten Furnace: The tunnel drilling segment is pointless and serves only to add unnecessary length to the fractal, especially due to the enforced slow movement. The same could be accomplished by simply hacving a sequence where the wall has an entry blown directly to the next part after the ambush.

• Molten Boss: If you join this fight after the Berserker is dead, you will spawn at the edge of the boss platform and immediately be thrown off by the sound ring that forms for the second half of the fight, becoming unrevivable.

• Solid Ocean: Except when doing the achievement, the entire map is simply run through at top speed without fighting, making it pointless.

• Solid Ocean: It is too easy to accidentally start the timer for the Jade Maw achievement.

• Mai Trin: The entire boss fight is too long and depends too much mechanics that are not entirely under the control of the players.

Pretty good list there. It looks like about a third of your points are that some fractals have parts in them designed just to slow them down which is more than I realized from playing through them.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Volcanic: The corridor with the boulders in it is thematic but serves no purpose but making the fractal longer.

It’s something you need to look for when your running down. I find the killing of the grawl at the start pointless too. Why can’t you run down immeadietly? why do you even need to kill them?

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Uncatagorized: Giving the harpies knockdown at higher levels doesn’t make them harder, since you just respawn immediately. It just makes them annoying and forces needless repetition of the simple jumping sequence.

then don’t get hit. it’s better then kill the characters that fall down otherwise it would be much more difficult. use reflects/stability or be annoyed with jumping again and again.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Swamp: The wisp segment is boring and serves no purpose, as it is neither hard nor a puzzle. It exists only due to the achievement for not hitting a trap.

It’s not hard anymore because everyone knows how to run now. I remember the start where everyone tried to avoid the swamp fractal. Everyone hated that one at the start of fractals. I like it because it’s not mindless killing mobs. and if you don’t look out where your running you can do it again.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Aquatic Ruins: The darkness segment is too unforgiving of even a pixel stick worth of delay.

It has been a long time since i did this. but just equip invurnable skills and you can swim a bit farther. also dodging helps. (not sure if this is still possible)

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Aquatic Ruins: It is common for anyone having issues with dolphin or darkness to simply die on purpose so they will respawn outside the boss room, as long as one other person has made it. This encourages people to not care about these segments while placing a burden on those who do.

Yeah true. but if everyone needs to make it especially the dolphin part at higher lvl fractals it’s almost impossible to do without someone dying.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Snowblind: The bonfire locations around the Source are difficult to see due to lighting, which results in many first-time players not realizing they are there and even experienced players having to reference the surrounding buildings rather than the bonfires themselves.

There pretty visible when you are going to the source. Yes when you get teleported and there is a snow storm. Then it’s difficult to find them. But without it it’s pretty obvious where they are.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Snowblind: The forest sequence is pointless as everyone just runs through it as fast as possible.

yeah but yoiu need to avoid the mobs atleast that’s something. If you just run you get killed.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Thaumnova: The heat room is not doable by all professions without extreme skill, and some players are unable to do it at all, resulting in the possibility of an entire group being unable to progress.

Somebody posted a guide on how to solo the heat room with every class it isn’t impossible. And if you follow the mechanics and place the cooling rods first and then run to the end. it’s a walk through the park. Just do as intended and it’s easy

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Thaumnova: The pull exerted by the portals serves mostly to knock people off the catwalks, which is in general just annoying as they are forced to repeatedly walk back up. It only makes it actually challenging when it succeeds in pulling you into the summoned monsters.

be prepared and dodge at the right moment or use stability to avoid it. I like it that it can happen. it’s annoying true. but it’s part of the game

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Molten Furnace: The tunnel drilling segment is pointless and serves only to add unnecessary length to the fractal, especially due to the enforced slow movement. The same could be accomplished by simply hacving a sequence where the wall has an entry blown directly to the next part after the ambush.

It’s part of the story of the molten dungeon. Yes it goes slow but hey. you didn’t say anything about the grawls at the start of the volcanic fractal. So why with this one?

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Molten Boss: If you join this fight after the Berserker is dead, you will spawn at the edge of the boss platform and immediately be thrown off by the sound ring that forms for the second half of the fight, becoming unrevivable.

you should already be there at the start of the fight. not when 1 of them is already dead.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

• Solid Ocean: Except when doing the achievement, the entire map is simply run through at top speed without fighting, making it pointless.

Well this is my opinion but I’d rather run through it then just star directly with maw

About the first point. As they add more and more fractals less fractals will appear twice in one tier. In case they keep this system at the maximun of 25 fractals we will have not a single fractal twice.

Molten Furnace: End boss makes you listen to his 2 minute monologue before the equally boring fight begins.

Mai Trin: The final phase where the adds spawn should come first in the fight, not last. Considering the length of this fight, I’d prefer to know sooner rather than later that my pug group can handle it. I did Mai Trin once for the legendary, but won’t do it again unless something changes. Wiping after a 20 minute fight and being forced to repeat it is just too irritating.

Thaumanova: Does the floor have to be transparent? There’s enough shiny effects to look at in this fight. I don’t need to see shiny reactor through the floor too.

I’m actually not bothered by the AR gate. It forces people to play a lot and learn the fractals before they venture into T4. Without it, we will have a lot of leechers joining content above their level looking to get carried.

Osu.6307:

Molten Furnace: End boss makes you listen to his 2 minute monologue before the equally boring fight begins.

Mai Trin: The final phase where the adds spawn should come first in the fight, not last. Considering the length of this fight, I’d prefer to know sooner rather than later that my pug group can handle it. I did Mai Trin once for the legendary, but won’t do it again unless something changes. Wiping after a 20 minute fight and being forced to repeat it is just too irritating.

Thaumanova: Does the floor have to be transparent? There’s enough shiny effects to look at in this fight. I don’t need to see shiny reactor through the floor too.

I’m actually not bothered by the AR gate. It forces people to play a lot and learn the fractals before they venture into T4. Without it, we will have a lot of leechers joining content above their level looking to get carried.

I agree with this completely.

Gonna add Boon Thieves in its current iteration to it, because it completely butcheres the Guardian by design.
“Let’s make enemies steal boons from players”, while completely forgetting that the guardian applys the 2 most dangerous boons a enemy can have: Retaliation & Protection.
Like how did they think this was a good idea, i could understand removing boons + doing something with them.
For example: When the enemy removes boon X do Y, but not apply it to the boss.

So, in summary, basically a room with a boss across the board?

Mourningcry.9428:

So, in summary, basically a room with a boss across the board?

Naw, see I’m going to kill the boss, so why should I even have to, that’s just a waste of time. I should just zone into fractals, boss does some weird animation to summon a chest, I open the chest and boom done.

Wait, no! better yet, Fractal reward chests that spawn in home instances! no need to ever waste time again.

Jerus.4350:

Mourningcry.9428:

So, in summary, basically a room with a boss across the board?

Naw, see I’m going to kill the boss, so why should I even have to, that’s just a waste of time. I should just zone into fractals, boss does some weird animation to summon a chest, I open the chest and boom done.

Wait, no! better yet, Fractal reward chests that spawn in home instances! no need to ever waste time again.

I’d reply to this, but Anet should really implement some functionality to do that for me.

Mourningcry.9428:

Jerus.4350:

Mourningcry.9428:

So, in summary, basically a room with a boss across the board?

Naw, see I’m going to kill the boss, so why should I even have to, that’s just a waste of time. I should just zone into fractals, boss does some weird animation to summon a chest, I open the chest and boom done.

Wait, no! better yet, Fractal reward chests that spawn in home instances! no need to ever waste time again.

I’d reply to this, but Anet should really implement some functionality to do that for me.

Home instance? That’s extra loading screens! It should be delivered with the daily login reward.

Boogiepop Void.6473:

-snip-

tl:dr ’I’m bored of these old fractals. We need new, better ones.’

Most of the design issues you identify are a result of running fractals ad nauseum. I still remember the first time I ran fractals, and in each instance was blown away. I absolutely loved the atmosphere of the woods in Snowblind, the funky bongo drums at the boss in Uncategorized and countless other little bits that added flavour to the experience.

To be fair, I also find a lot of this stuff frustrating, boring and annoying as well now. As vets, we’re pretty much burned out. Just doing the dailies and praying for good drops. But hopefully there are still many, many newbies to come who will enjoy the content in it’s entirety – even the parts we feel like we’ve outgrown.

• Volcanic: The corridor with the boulders in it is thematic but serves no purpose but making the fractal longer.

It serves as a breather between the first fight and the second. Also even though I wouldnt call it difficult its not like you can just mindlessly go down the corridor. I actually find it fun.

• Uncatagorized: Giving the harpies knockdown at higher levels doesn’t make them harder, since you just respawn immediately. It just makes them annoying and forces needless repetition of the simple jumping sequence.

This one I think goes hand in hand with anets other method for increasing the difficulty per scale which seems to be largely just massively increasing their health pool. The idea of giving the harpies knockdown is fine on its own, it encourages making players use stability to get around it but when coupled with the much longer time to take down the harpies and the limited availability of stability on some classes it gets a bit unwieldy.

• Swamp: The wisp segment is boring and serves no purpose, as it is neither hard nor a puzzle. It exists only due to the achievement for not hitting a trap.

Strongly disagree. It is a simple coordination check that gets more involving the higher the scale.

• Aquatic Ruins: The darkness segment is too unforgiving of even a pixel stick worth of delay.
• Aquatic Ruins: It is common for anyone having issues with dolphin or darkness to simply die on purpose so they will respawn outside the boss room, as long as one other person has made it. This encourages people to not care about these segments while placing a burden on those who do.

Again I have to disagree, the darkness segment if you are having trouble with it you can use your dodges as well to decrease the time it takes you. The dolphin segment you can actually push through it as a group by making use of the teleport and rezz skill you have.

• Snowblind: Initial cliff descent serves no purpose but to increase the length of the fractal as nothing can happen unless the players ignore the bonfires, which can only happen the first time, and is needlessly long with multiple fires after the point has been made. Explanation of mechanics could be accomplished by walking directly out of the cave and to the big bonfire sequence.

The way it is now it is perfect at explaining the mechanic to players and it really isn’t that long at all. I disagree that just starting at the big bonfire sequence would work anywhere near as well.

• Snowblind: The bonfire locations around the Source are difficult to see due to lighting, which results in many first-time players not realizing they are there and even experienced players having to reference the surrounding buildings rather than the bonfires themselves.

They are only difficult to see once that snow storm effect starts to happen and lack of visibility is the entire point of that snow storm effect. It is up to the players in the group to take note of their surroundings before the fight and if there are any experienced players to explain it to them. That long walk down the cliff at the start would have further impressed upon them even new players that they need to be looking for places to make fires.

• Snowblind: The forest sequence is pointless as everyone just runs through it as fast as possible.

Its not pointless, its a breather between the two encounters. Plus even skipping mobs takes skill.

• Thaumnova: The heat room is not doable by all professions without extreme skill, and some players are unable to do it at all, resulting in the possibility of an entire group being unable to progress.

There’s already a mechanic to make it easier, the cooling rods. Plus you are exaggerating by saying extreme skill is required, just knowledge of your class and its movement abilities and damage mitigation. You could even bring healing food.

• Thaumnova: The pull exerted by the portals serves mostly to knock people off the catwalks, which is in general just annoying as they are forced to repeatedly walk back up. It only makes it actually challenging when it succeeds in pulling you into the summoned monsters.

Actually think about it. If it knocks 2 of the party off the bridge then the fight has just gone from 5 vs mobs to 3 vs the mobs until the rest of your party can make it back up. While you as the player who fell off may have felt it as a minor inconvenience it will make it more challenging for the people who did not fall.

• Solid Ocean: Except when doing the achievement, the entire map is simply run through at top speed without fighting, making it pointless.

Considering it is a boss fractal that is where the focus should be, on fighting the boss, plus as I said above even skipping Mobs takes skill

• Mai Trin: The entire boss fight is too long and depends too much mechanics that are not entirely under the control of the players.

No it doesn’t, that just demonstrates a lack of understanding how the fight works. Horrik does not fire at completely random locations and Mai does not randomly move about the map, it is based on player locations. If you don’t want Mai to move you all have to be really close to her and the same thing for Horrik firing his shot that makes Mai vulnerable. Ideally you want to be able to as a party dodge the fire blasts and lure Horrik into shooting the electric blasts at Mai.

Some of your issues are just not understanding how some of the fractals work which just seems odd to me considering other issues you raised seem to just be fractal fatigue and wanting each fractal to be over quicker (which would really be a detriment to the experience imo).

What Goatjugsoup said +1

There are mechanics you need to learn and adapt to in Fractals. Even with pugs, I have smooth runs on T4 on all of the mentioned Fractals, without dieing even once! 8/10 times I don’t have to repair my gear at all.

I’m sorry, but this is an mmoRPG. Focus on RPG. If ambiance and storytelling through the environment are obsolete to you, you are playing the wrong genre.

Not everything needs to be a skill check.

The only complaints I have is harpies crippling you midjump, and the portals on Thaumanova pulling you up from the floor below and making you fall down to youe death.

Everything else is perfectly manageable.

I’m surprised in your list of complaints you don’t list the scaling toughness, which thoroughly screws over power builds.

Yeah, they capped it to the lv50 value, but the difference is condi builds faced no such scaling mitigation, so power builds are heavily penalized at the toughness levels compared to what condi builds are doing.

It completely flipped the balance of classes. Seeing 3-4 necros daily on a fractal is pretty disgusting.

And yet compared to having a daredevil or tempest or revenant instead you know the the necros or engineers will highly speed up your clear times so long as you have a PS warrior in the group.

The toughness on mobs needs to be lowered so power builds are no longer kitten at high scales.

I wish everything in the game was just a cube-shaped boss of varying colour that guarded a chest with no lock.

As mentioned above, most issues the OP has mentioned boils down to being burned out from playing the same thing over and over and over again ad nauseam. That said, it does no justice to OP being sarcastic about it: he is obviously not requesting a T4 chest from the login rewards so he has nothing to play at all;.

I got quite the opposite from his post, actually, what OP really wants (and most of us do too) is change, be it changing what fractals we already have (Anet made it clear they can do this with Cliffside) or introducing new ones. I particularly believe new fractals should be introduced without further modifications to the old ones (honorable mention to Snowblind boss though, that could totally change), so that newcomers will have the same enjoyable experience we had when we first started.

People who mostly play fractals everyday are in desperate need of fresh air, literally and figuratively I might say, and Anet could help by expanding our choices with fresh ones. A team of 5, 6 people were able to pull out the Forsaken Thicket, in a very short time frame for the quality/amount of content. Surely there should be no excuses for even another small team like this not pump out fractals regularly (the mists should, after all, be an unstable environment full of surprises at every corner, not a static tower of bonus stages).

Note: I am using specific fractals to illustrate the argument. I am not saying others do not have these issues. Please do not misconstrue this as a rant against a particular fractal, but rather as a criticism of the methodology being used as a whole.

There are 3 things that are being used in fractals to make them longer and/or harder: Make things tougher, force a slowdown, and force a reset. The first is fair, just making the enemies harder. The second is less fair, and applies to things left over from LWS1, such as the slow mine sequence. It would be better if these items were removed where possible, because all they do is slow things down, not increase interest or increase difficulty. Lastly, what you have are forced resets, which seem to have been the main mechanism for difficulty in a couple of the fractals (Uncatagorized, underwater) These are either trivial once you have done it once (the knockdowns on Cliffside) or frustrating in the extreme but to no purpose (uncatagorized) because the method of difficulty elevation is to increase the amount of resets to the point of frustration.

The method of increasing difficulty used for the harpy fights in Uncatagorized is to first add an almost guaranteed reset knockback that is dodgeable (by jumping to other platforms, not by dodging, which is rendered useless), and then to keep increasing the number and decrease the spacing of the harpies such that the likelihood of multiple harpies aggroing and creating multiple zones such that dodging is impossible increases toward unity. This doesn’t make the fight more challenging, since you still fight the harpies the same way, you just have to keep rezzing, jumping back up, and picking up where you left off, it just makes it more frustrating. While an argument can be made for the knockback ability not inherently being bad design, it becomes a problem when you combine it with the possibility of multiple overlapping zones and the paucity of available platforms and this leads to a guaranteed reset.

This is actually a theme with fractal issues: take an interesting mechanic (knockback off platforms), add a way to deal with it (jump to another platform), then don’t consider the consequences of increasing the number, toughness, or grouping of the challenge leading to a bad situation (unavoidable reset).

Contrast this with a well designed fight like Old Tom. His strength is the gas and his projectile spam, but there is a clear way mitigate your disadvantage and it just requires some coordination. He isn’t made harder because he constantly kills you, he is made harder because you have to constantly balance killing him, dodging attacks, and keeping the gas under control.

No offense, BV, but I think some of your experience stems from, well, lack of experience. And while my initial response was sarcastic, it bore some degree of truth – application of your suggestions would really neuter fractals to triviality,

For example the Harpy knock back is completely neutralized by reflects, stability, or projectile destruction. Dodging is irrelevant. Old tom’s gas attack is also easily neutralized from heals, damage reduction and/or condi clear/transfer, a body block for his projectiles and good old quick DPS.

I think many of your concerns, mainly those around respawns, and enviornmental dangers will be alleviated with more experience.

Feel free to hit me up in game to run some fractals if you wish.
———————

Edit – As an aside, my viewpoint stems from seeing many newer fractals players, who started them after the change to 1-100, weren’t exposed to many of the strategies used (and to some degree needed) to complete the older/original fractals. For veterans, those many of those strategies completely trivialize the current fractals, and in many cases can be ignored/modified to the new format. However, without that original understanding many of the newer runners encounter issues that the veterans take for granted. Not their fault entirely, but also to a fault that those techniques are less taught/shared now.

Mourningcry.9428:

No offense, BV, but I think some of your experience stems from, well, lack of experience. And while my initial response was sarcastic, it bore some degree of truth – application of your suggestions would really neuter fractals to triviality,

For example the Harpy knock back is completely neutralized by reflects, stability, or projectile destruction. Dodging is irrelevant. Old tom’s gas attack is also easily neutralized from heals, damage reduction and/or condi clear/transfer, a body block for his projectiles and good old quick DPS.

I think many of your concerns, mainly those around respawns, and enviornmental dangers will be alleviated with more experience.

Feel free to hit me up in game to run some fractals if you wish.
———————

Edit – As an aside, my viewpoint stems from seeing many newer fractals players, who started them after the change to 1-100, weren’t exposed to many of the strategies used (and to some degree needed) to complete the older/original fractals. For veterans, those many of those strategies completely trivialize the current fractals, and in many cases can be ignored/modified to the new format. However, without that original understanding many of the newer runners encounter issues that the veterans take for granted. Not their fault entirely, but also to a fault that those techniques are less taught/shared now.

Are those techniques not “taught” now because fractals were made easier? Either way can you go into detail as to what some of the techniques that you don’t see newer players using are?

OriOri.8724:

Are those techniques not “taught” now because fractals were made easier? Either way can you go into detail as to what some of the techniques that you don’t see newer players using are?

Well, just my opinion, but there are a few factors that have contributed to this.

Firstly, fractals were made easier. No doubt there. Easily up until the mid 50s, the typical, zerg in and kill everything will work, regardless of composition. This can be seen most readily on Snowblind, Mai, Duo and Shaman. Often, Elemental Source in snowblind will die before new players realize what’s happening. Only later when the elementals aren’t taken care of, they’re wiping players, along with frostbite. Duo is another offender – newer players expect the burn, but when he doesn’t go down, often shockwaves aren’t jumped, and claps are jumped into – simply because they never got to experience them in earlier tiers.

The viper necro build also has helped to nullify many of the dangers of fractals. Allowing for the compete facetanking of anything in fotm short of Mai’s cannons.

Molten furnace is another offender. The AOE fire phase, as well as the fire traversals can be reflected. The corner stack is a poor substitute. A number of classes can stand center and protect the entire party through those phases. Just a bit further, how many can identify the attacks the Boss Dredge can do at the end of the tests? Doubt many newer players even notice them he often dies so fast.

I can go into other examples, but the idea is mainly that the easing up of the difficulty, along with the power-creep of the HOT builds have made many strategies unnecessary. However, having that basic understanding does allow the more experienced players an edge and allow them to spot less experienced members in the group.

Hope that helps clarify what I meant.

@OriOri, basically, yes. Fractals are MUCH easier now than they were pre HoT, I basically stopped playing since then, came back couple weeks ago and that was the first thing I realized. I’m quite sure they reduced the damage on most incoming attacks, most notably Mossman and Mai Trin (it’s night and day here on how many hits I can just take to the face that used to kill me).

Anyways, I thought I’d go item by item on the original post, but looking up a video I wanted to link I found that they updated it (really well done, props to those guys for making it even better), but anyways here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1R-GiMTON4&list=PLu6e24dQtVRdg1ihFaUnTiRLcAQ5OOr-f&index=1

A few of these complaints I wanted to comment on though. Mainly that the OP feels many of these are a waste of time. What made me find the post humorous was mainly complaining about the 10s skip and fall that is the beginning of Snowblind. Not enough time to complain about and I find it cool that we’ve found multiple short cuts that make it so. Waste the time if you don’t know what you’re doing. But that leads into some of the other complaints about having annoying respawns… save time if you’re good. Seems a common motif. Honestly I find the knockbacks on the harpies really cool, annoying as hell but because of that it makes you really want to dig deep into that bag of tricks and pull out what you can so you don’t have to hop up that kitten path again.

Details:
reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4i9h3q/king_fully_updated_guides_for_master_tier

@Mourningcry
It’s not just “lack of experience.” There are plenty of frequent fractalers who don’t use the techniques of which you speak. Some people have difficulty keeping track of all the places for reflects, when to use aoe blind, and so on. Some folks just need to hear about it to execute, some need to see it once, and others need a lot of practice before it’s second nature.

That said, I agree with the general intent behind your post: the mechanics highlighted by the OP aren’t the issue; those can be dealt with, using the above techniques, so it’s a matter of skill to learn the tactics (after which, for some, it can get dull).

Fractals aren’t perfect — e.g. the fact that we haven’t seen a new one and that only a few have been updated recently — I just can’t agree with the OP’s assumptions and therefore not their analysis or recommendations.

@Jerus thanks for that link, super helpful stuff. Didn’t realize I was missing quite so many things in fractals that really should have been obvious

Dominik.5162:

Gonna add Boon Thieves in its current iteration to it, because it completely butcheres the Guardian by design.
“Let’s make enemies steal boons from players”, while completely forgetting that the guardian applys the 2 most dangerous boons a enemy can have: Retaliation & Protection.
Like how did they think this was a good idea, i could understand removing boons + doing something with them.
For example: When the enemy removes boon X do Y, but not apply it to the boss.

I agree. Wouldn’t rank protection very high on the list of “dangerous” boons, but the combination of retaliation and boon thieves is horrible design. I know there are so-called “workarounds” when you have a guard in your group, like boon strip or not using light fields. But let’s face it: the, by far, most simple solution is just not to bring one of the nine classes, the guardian. Other classes may not be “meta” because they don’t bring a lot to the group, but guardian is worse, as it’s directly dangerous.

To me, it’s pretty fascinating how the devs could a) have such an incredibly stupid idea in the first place and b) then don’t do anything to correct it. Another proof Einstein was right.

First a disclaimer: I DON"T DO FRACTALS!! I find them uninteresting as far as the GW2 storyline is concerned———and I find it very difficult to find a party just to do something that I have no interest in!! That being said————————To force players to engage in activities they neither want to do, have an interest in doing, or provides any measurable “progress” to the player character is NOT a positive to this game———worse is discovering that, for example, to further progress in “legendary weapons”, one MUST “grind” their way through countless OTHER fractals before they can “try the one they need” is the BEST way of diminishing your player base that I can conceive of!!! To me, and I’m fairly sure to many others, FRACTALS are little more than an annoying irritant (the same holds true for WvW, Dungeons and PvP——since not all of us are enamored with these segments of the game). I suggest putting the needed gear, trophy, gizmo, etc that can ONLY be obtained in Fractals on the TP at a high enough cost that it provides players with a CHOICE for acquisition. If needed, only allow the TP to purchase those items obtained FROM the Fractal itself—thus keeping the price high

undouble.1472:

First a disclaimer: I DON"T DO FRACTALS!! I find them uninteresting as far as the GW2 storyline is concerned———and I find it very difficult to find a party just to do something that I have no interest in!! That being said————————To force players to engage in activities they neither want to do, have an interest in doing, or provides any measurable “progress” to the player character is NOT a positive to this game———worse is discovering that, for example, to further progress in “legendary weapons”, one MUST “grind” their way through countless OTHER fractals before they can “try the one they need” is the BEST way of diminishing your player base that I can conceive of!!! To me, and I’m fairly sure to many others, FRACTALS are little more than an annoying irritant (the same holds true for WvW, Dungeons and PvP——since not all of us are enamored with these segments of the game). I suggest putting the needed gear, trophy, gizmo, etc that can ONLY be obtained in Fractals on the TP at a high enough cost that it provides players with a CHOICE for acquisition. If needed, only allow the TP to purchase those items obtained FROM the Fractal itself—thus keeping the price high

How are you forced to do fractals? What gear is that can’t be obtained elsewhere?

• Legendary precursors are available on the TP.
• Non-infusions can be obtained in WvW.
• Ascended gear can be crafted, except for rings, amulets, and accessories, none of which require fractals.

I am glad to see that some of these were addressed in the summer update. Snowblind and Molten Furnace both had the slow sequences removed or at least sped up to the point where you aren’t waiting around. The respawn point in Volcanic was moved to right in front of the boss. I look forward to reworks of Aetherblade and Thaumnova.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

undouble.1472:

First a disclaimer: I DON"T DO FRACTALS!! I find them uninteresting as far as the GW2 storyline is concerned———and I find it very difficult to find a party just to do something that I have no interest in!! That being said————————To force players to engage in activities they neither want to do, have an interest in doing, or provides any measurable “progress” to the player character is NOT a positive to this game———worse is discovering that, for example, to further progress in “legendary weapons”, one MUST “grind” their way through countless OTHER fractals before they can “try the one they need” is the BEST way of diminishing your player base that I can conceive of!!! To me, and I’m fairly sure to many others, FRACTALS are little more than an annoying irritant (the same holds true for WvW, Dungeons and PvP——since not all of us are enamored with these segments of the game). I suggest putting the needed gear, trophy, gizmo, etc that can ONLY be obtained in Fractals on the TP at a high enough cost that it provides players with a CHOICE for acquisition. If needed, only allow the TP to purchase those items obtained FROM the Fractal itself—thus keeping the price high

How are you forced to do fractals? What gear is that can’t be obtained elsewhere?

• Legendary precursors are available on the TP.
• Non-infusions can be obtained in WvW.
• Ascended gear can be crafted, except for rings, amulets, and accessories, none of which require fractals.

but but, I don’t want to spend gold to buy it off the TP when crafting it is cheaper!!! /s

I would leave him be. He seems like one of those people that when the games says “do this to get a shiny” he must have that shiny therefore the game is forcing him to do something when he could do something else to get the same shiny but they’re just too blind to see it.

Morte de Angelis.7986:

I would leave him be. He seems like one of those people that when the games says “do this to get a shiny” he must have that shiny therefore the game is forcing him to do something when he could do something else to get the same shiny but they’re just too blind to see it.

I take the post at face value and reply on behalf of anyone who might be thinking that Fractals are somehow required (tl;dr: they aren’t).

undouble.1472:

First a disclaimer: I DON"T DO FRACTALS!!

Then you probably should avoid speaking from ignorance.

undouble.1472:

I find them uninteresting as far as the GW2 storyline is concerned———

Fractals are self contained. Their story is irrelavent to the rest of GW2.

undouble.1472:

and I find it very difficult to find a party just to do something that I have no interest in!!

Finding parties for fractals isn’t difficult in the slightest. Why would finding a party be of any concern when you don’t even do them? And how would you find finding a party difficult, if you don’t even try, because you don’t do them?! You stated you have no interest in fractals, so why even bother finding a party?

undouble.1472:

That being said————————To force players to engage in activities they neither want to do, have an interest in doing, or provides any measurable “progress” to the player character is NOT a positive to this game——-

>Premise 1: Players are forced to do fractals
>Premise 2: Fractals is required for progression

Could you be any more wrong? Not only are your assumptions false, but your logic is downright fallacious. Also, it’s not up to YOU do decide whats positive for the game. Considering a ton of players love fractals and do them daily, consider yourself wrong, and in the minority.

undouble.1472:

-worse is discovering that, for example, to further progress in “legendary weapons”, one MUST “grind” their way through countless OTHER fractals before they can “try the one they need” is the BEST way of diminishing your player base that I can conceive of!!!

You diminished yourself by ever thinking fractals are grindy in the first place. Even for the collections only 7-8 items out of around 50-60 are from fractals. Most fractals only last 5-15 minutes considering you only need low level ones for the collections.

Also, the collection is for precursors, not the legendaries, both of which are available on the TP.

undouble.1472:

To me, and I’m fairly sure to many others, FRACTALS are little more than an annoying irritant (the same holds true for WvW, Dungeons and PvP——since not all of us are enamored with these segments of the game).

Why would someone be irritated by content they don’t have to participate in, or ever see? Are you off your rocker?

undouble.1472:

I suggest putting the needed gear, trophy, gizmo, etc that can ONLY be obtained in Fractals on the TP at a high enough cost that it provides players with a CHOICE for acquisition.

Go back to a WoW like game, seriously. Fractals has fine rewards that are self contained. Most of which don’t even require fractals to obtain.

undouble.1472:

If needed, only allow the TP to purchase those items obtained FROM the Fractal itself—thus keeping the price high

So you are basically asking for something that would skew the economy…And you wanna talk about game health and whats positive for the game? The lack of self awareness is astounding.

First: I have NO objection to having to work (hard) to obtain the necessary gear, experience, knowledge needed to create a “legendary”. I also do not object to being able to acquire the necessary items by my effort, or my gold.
What I do object to is being unable to just access the needed fractal to obtain these items. Every time I try, I’m sent to the beginning fractal (you know; the Ascalon “grind”), and discover that to obtain access to the fractal I “need” I’m going to have to “grind” through upteen others first. This may be my “ignorance” showing, but that’s MY experience————-and MY disappointment in the design. Like many, I like this game———-that doesn’t mean I have to like the sidelines———-OR be required to engage in them!! But, a part of this game is the creation/acquisition of better armor, weapons, and trinkets. Every player should have that opportunity———————and the choice of method. My “rant” is due to my discovery that, for example" the “Jade Maw’s Eye” is an “unobtainable” UNLESS —-————-. It must be acknowledged that not all players enjoy, or wish to engage in, ALL facets of this gaming adventure. Preventing them from achieving——————because they don’t want to (Pvp, WvW, PvE, dungeon prowl, “run” Fractals—————your pick) is a stricture that should not “be in play”. There should always be an option (Gold, Gems, Laurels, etc) to obtain the needed items. Comments about “destroying the game’s commerce system” is a fool’s argument. Since items of this nature HAVE no commercial value (except an arbitrary, well-undervalued, “sell”
price, they will have little or no effect on the markets—————except as a high-value acquisition from the TP (who can buy it from the “regular” merchants for “coppers on the gold”)

undouble.1472:

First: I have NO objection to having to work (hard) to obtain the necessary gear, experience, knowledge needed to create a “legendary”. I also do not object to being able to acquire the necessary items by my effort, or my gold.
What I do object to is being unable to just access the needed fractal to obtain these items. Every time I try, I’m sent to the beginning fractal (you know; the Ascalon “grind”), and discover that to obtain access to the fractal I “need” I’m going to have to “grind” through upteen others first. This may be my “ignorance” showing, but that’s MY experience————-and MY disappointment in the design. Like many, I like this game———-that doesn’t mean I have to like the sidelines———-OR be required to engage in them!! But, a part of this game is the creation/acquisition of better armor, weapons, and trinkets. Every player should have that opportunity———————and the choice of method. My “rant” is due to my discovery that, for example" the “Jade Maw’s Eye” is an “unobtainable” UNLESS —-————-. It must be acknowledged that not all players enjoy, or wish to engage in, ALL facets of this gaming adventure. Preventing them from achieving——————because they don’t want to (Pvp, WvW, PvE, dungeon prowl, “run” Fractals—————your pick) is a stricture that should not “be in play”. There should always be an option (Gold, Gems, Laurels, etc) to obtain the needed items. Comments about “destroying the game’s commerce system” is a fool’s argument. Since items of this nature HAVE no commercial value (except an arbitrary, well-undervalued, “sell”
price, they will have little or no effect on the markets—————except as a high-value acquisition from the TP (who can buy it from the “regular” merchants for “coppers on the gold”)

This is not a fractal complaint at all then. It’s a Legendary complaint or just general rewards/collections/whatever complaint. I personally hate most open world stuff and certainly PVP I have no interest in anymore (I have given it enough tries, too many better options out there for PVP). WvW and instanced PVE is my thing, and plenty of times I’ve had to go do things I didn’t want to for a reward, it’s unfortunate and I feel you there. Just… again it has nothing to do with fractals specifically, it’s just one of the dozens of instances of this issue.

TL;DR

“Everything in fractals serves no purpose other than to be content in fractals. I don’t like to do anything in fractals so they should just spawn the end chest on top of us so we don’t actually have to play the game. "

Chaos.5072:

TL;DR

“Everything in fractals serves no purpose other than to be content in fractals. I don’t like to do anything in fractals so they should just spawn the end chest on top of us so we don’t actually have to play the game. "

Laurels say “hi!”