Guild Wars 2

This is a game. Play if for entertainment not reward, otherwise you are in for a big disappointment.

Hello everyone.

Today I’d like to talk about a problem that have been here since the release of that certain map. The dredge fractal. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to complain or wanting to discuss this, and i’m not going to be the last either. I was just notified by fellow redditors when I read the following message.

So what/how are people exploiting the dredge fractal? Simply there was two approach.

1. The jump above the cage. Basically one would run along the right side of the wall in the first room till you hit a spot where you could jump up against the right wall. Once you reached the top of the wall you could jump down to the ledge, run up the ledge and start jumping on the outside of the cage around it and over to the big cage. You would be above one of the two pad by now.

2. The mesmer portal. You would run to the ledge that lead to the second room (second room as either melt the door or the bombs one) but before you reach the sealed off gate, you would jump down to the white pipe below this ledge. (must have some sort of improved movement speed and out of combat to reach the pipe) run along this pipe to the big cage and stack right outside of it. Then after clearing out the left side of dredge, the mesmer would lay down a portal, and then blink over and into the big cage and put down a portal so rest of the team would join in.

So why am I explaining this exploit? Because I want people to know the story behind what I want to really tell, and because by skipping the first part of the room you probably “saved” your team from a process that would take extra 10min or more.

Dredge fractal is no fun at all. There are so many points I could pick out, but to begin with the exploits. It’s waaaaaay too long for a fractal level. Why is it long? because first, the intended way is to run up to each pad in the first room to let people in to the big cage. Then we need to coordinate who is standing on the two remaining pads in the big cage while one use the console to open the door to second room. In the second room we have an RNG between melting the door or running up bombs. Once we have done that. We enter the room with most complain overall in this map. The Caravan. OMG I seriously don’t understand the meaning behind it. So we have to kill the champion before spending 5-10 extra minutes to slay dredge popping out from the caravan. Once the caravan meter is depleted we get to the very final room where we have an RNG between a Dredge in a mining suit boss or an Ice elemental. Run around in a circle or back and forth between lava bucket which you pour over the boss to deal tons of damage.
#dredgefractal #nutshell

When I do fractal of the mist I believe the core design of what a fractal is

• taking you as a player back in time
• not spending over 2 hours in a one map, but rather spend 20min-45min max per map
• not encouraging people to do exploit because Y X Z is making progression faster
• not adding trash mobs that serve as a time consumer, but rather have a purpose of why they are there

and so on.

TL:DR. I wish and hope that A-net take some time to analyse what is fun and what’s not. Cause for instance Thumanova Reactor fractal has much greater design, and understanding of why the trash mobs are there, why we are doing Y X Z? etc. Dredge however? Tons of Dredge, caravan that feels like a…. added because we need something to consume time (content wise), encourage people to exploit to save time etc.

On the side note the only thing I can think positive of Dredge fractal is the drops, but other then that, nope. Too long for a fotm level, trash mob feels like a time consumer etc.

Auesis.7301:

Fotm offers:

1) Pathetic guaranteed rewards (I can make 5x the gold of a 49 run, Dredge included, just by running a casual AC)
2) Pathetic RNG on new reward systems (haven’t seen a single Fractal weapon since the Fractured patch. At least I got 12 Warhorns and 4 Torches before.)
3) Terrible scaling and dungeon design, biggest culprit being Dredge. Instead of fixing the actual dungeon and making it any measure of fun, they fix workarounds and extend the length even more, completely blind to the actual problems.

Thanks, I’ll stick to normal dungeons. I’ll have Frostfang and Bolt by the time I get a Fractal Axe and Sword. Just for the record, I’ve been trying for either of those, every single day on 30s and 40s, FOR OVER AN ENTIRE YEAR.

Generally speaking I would say FoTM indeed offers terrible rewards overall, compared to 3 paths of AC. The RNG for fotm should be increased rather than decreased when you are running 40/50 at least. And last point 3 pretty much summed out OP.

But then again, my personal reason for running fotm is for the tonic, but that’s pretty much irrelevant.

Dredge is not entertainment. It’s the only reason I don’t do fractals (except for lack of rewards).

Tree.3916:

This is a game. Play if for entertainment not reward, otherwise you are in for a big disappointment.

Hello everyone.

Today I’d like to talk about a problem that have been here since the release of that certain map. The dredge fractal. I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to complain or wanting to discuss this, and i’m not going to be the last either. I was just notified by fellow redditors when I read the following message.

So what/how are people exploiting the dredge fractal? Simply there was two approach.

1. The jump above the cage. Basically one would run along the right side of the wall in the first room till you hit a spot where you could jump up against the right wall. Once you reached the top of the wall you could jump down to the ledge, run up the ledge and start jumping on the outside of the cage around it and over to the big cage. You would be above one of the two pad by now.

2. The mesmer portal. You would run to the ledge that lead to the second room (second room as either melt the door or the bombs one) but before you reach the sealed off gate, you would jump down to the white pipe below this ledge. (must have some sort of improved movement speed and out of combat to reach the pipe) run along this pipe to the big cage and stack right outside of it. Then after clearing out the left side of dredge, the mesmer would lay down a portal, and then blink over and into the big cage and put down a portal so rest of the team would join in.

So why am I explaining this exploit? Because I want people to know the story behind what I want to really tell, and because by skipping the first part of the room you probably “saved” your team from a process that would take extra 10min or more.

Dredge fractal is no fun at all. There are so many points I could pick out, but to begin with the exploits. It’s waaaaaay too long for a fractal level. Why is it long? because first, the intended way is to run up to each pad in the first room to let people in to the big cage. Then we need to coordinate who is standing on the two remaining pads in the big cage while one use the console to open the door to second room. In the second room we have an RNG between melting the door or running up bombs. Once we have done that. We enter the room with most complain overall in this map. The Caravan. OMG I seriously don’t understand the meaning behind it. So we have to kill the champion before spending 5-10 extra minutes to slay dredge popping out from the caravan. Once the caravan meter is depleted we get to the very final room where we have an RNG between a Dredge in a mining suit boss or an Ice elemental. Run around in a circle or back and forth between lava bucket which you pour over the boss to deal tons of damage.
#dredgefractal #nutshell

When I do fractal of the mist I believe the core design of what a fractal is

• taking you as a player back in time
• not spending over 2 hours in a one map, but rather spend 20min-45min max per map
• not encouraging people to do exploit because Y X Z is making progression faster
• not adding trash mobs that serve as a time consumer, but rather have a purpose of why they are there

and so on.

TL:DR. I wish and hope that A-net take some time to analyse what is fun and what’s not. Cause for instance Thumanova Reactor fractal has much greater design, and understanding of why the trash mobs are there, why we are doing Y X Z? etc. Dredge however? Tons of Dredge, caravan that feels like a…. added because we need something to consume time (content wise), encourage people to exploit to save time etc.

On the side note the only thing I can think positive of Dredge fractal is the drops, but other then that, nope. Too long for a fotm level, trash mob feels like a time consumer etc.

This is where I think you need to reconsider, because out of these two maps, which do you enjoy?

Dredge or Thumanova?

Which of them has trash mobs added, because it makes sense they are there?
Which of them has a puzzle which is “enjoyable” (puzzle as needing Cooling rod vs standing on pads?)
Why is there even a caravan pooping out a ridicules amount of dredge because its suppose to be a “time consumer”.

These are the core idea behind why I even started the discussion. The reward isn’t something I really bother of. It’s the map design.

I remember a dev posted about how unnecessarily long Dredge was before the Fractured update.

Remove Dredge, spilt it, something.

I would really like to hear what Anet thinks of their this particular fractal level, since it is bay far most hated and most exploited/skipped fractal level.

From my point, i really enjoy running fractals and fixing exploits also a good thing. But very superficial move when you don’t fix “feel of need to use exploit”.

As extra what OP said that i can add, dredge itself also created a bad enviroment since they have AoE protection and other stuff spam, when it collides with high level fractal, it creates a “toxic enviroment” as mentally. Because high amount of buffer dudes basicly prevents counter-play (boon removal) and also protection + high amount of effective hps(because of high level fractal) makes everything harder when you compared others.

So it’s clear they don’t really read this section of the forums, but somehow are aware of all the exploits we do, yet have nothing to address to the most hated Fractal in the playerbase.

It’s disproportionately long compared to other paths, mind-numbing trash mob spawns, and perhaps what makes everything worse is how they have persisting protection buff + immune to blinds.

A temporary fix is really easy too to appeal to our playerbase, too: simply limit the amount of INSANE mobs in this fractal. Limit the amount of dredge in cages with pressure plates, limit the amount of dredge that spawns for bombing the gate, limit the amount of dredge in the caravan, limit the amount of dredge we have to skip to get to the boss. And so on.

Fix the heart of the issue. Don’t make it unreasonably difficult than other fractals.

I do not mind battling a battalion of the dredge army. I would not care about the numbers at all if it was not for the kitten INFINITE RE-SPAWNS!!!

Why? Why is that even necessary?

I’m tempted to stop doing fractals altogether. Dredge is the worse.

I’m rage quitting every time I get dredge now.

Wasn’t there a whole thread on this forum asking for feedback on this specific fractal? Why wasn’t there a moratorium on constantly increasing the length of this fractal, when everyone knows it was too long.

Yet the only changes this fractal EVER gets are to lengthen in. No dying on the pads, skipping entrance, adding more and more dredge and adding dredge popups that sometimes seem horribly broken (bomb path).

Someone thought all these changes were good ideas and yet no one has ever tried to make this fractal anywhere in line with the others. Very odd decision making.

Just remove the whole dredge champion fight. It is unnecessary.

Umm… Only like 5 dredge respawn infinitely on the bomb path. There are also more ways to do it than what’s on the wiki.

For the console room, you do not need stealth or a highly defensive class. Players have done this in full berserkers at 49/50.

The constantly spawning dredge from the car does need to be fixed. At least have a creative mechanic than just fluff to make the fractal longer.

Auesis.7301:

Fotm offers:

1) Pathetic guaranteed rewards (I can make 5x the gold of a 49 run, Dredge included, just by running a casual AC)
2) Pathetic RNG on new reward systems (haven’t seen a single Fractal weapon since the Fractured patch. At least I got 12 Warhorns and 4 Torches before.)
3) Terrible scaling and dungeon design, biggest culprit being Dredge. Instead of fixing the actual dungeon and making it any measure of fun, they fix workarounds and extend the length even more, completely blind to the actual problems.

Thanks, I’ll stick to normal dungeons. I’ll have Frostfang and Bolt by the time I get a Fractal Axe and Sword. Just for the record, I’ve been trying for either of those, every single day on 30s and 40s, FOR OVER AN ENTIRE YEAR.

^ This is just so absolutely true and right. You could not have said it better!
I won’t bother to even waste anything else to get even 1 more AR to go over level 30. Only reason I’m running FotM is for the backpacks. (Since, so far, I’ve not seen a different way to get yourself an exotic zerker backpack and no, I won’t be crafting 3 Ascended backpacks for the 3 chars I like to play in dungeons.)

Since Fractals already had their big update in the form of Fractured, don’t expect any meaningful changes for at least a year. Sad but true.

Well, the least they can do is try a hot-fix and remove it for the time being.

I can’t count the # of times I’ve heard or read “I’m not doing fractals until dredge fractal issues are fixed.” A-Net Do something!

Pip.2094:

Auesis.7301:

Fotm offers:

1) Pathetic guaranteed rewards (I can make 5x the gold of a 49 run, Dredge included, just by running a casual AC)
2) Pathetic RNG on new reward systems (haven’t seen a single Fractal weapon since the Fractured patch. At least I got 12 Warhorns and 4 Torches before.)
3) Terrible scaling and dungeon design, biggest culprit being Dredge. Instead of fixing the actual dungeon and making it any measure of fun, they fix workarounds and extend the length even more, completely blind to the actual problems.

Thanks, I’ll stick to normal dungeons. I’ll have Frostfang and Bolt by the time I get a Fractal Axe and Sword. Just for the record, I’ve been trying for either of those, every single day on 30s and 40s, FOR OVER AN ENTIRE YEAR.

^ This is just so absolutely true and right. You could not have said it better!
I won’t bother to even waste anything else to get even 1 more AR to go over level 30. Only reason I’m running FotM is for the backpacks. (Since, so far, I’ve not seen a different way to get yourself an exotic zerker backpack and no, I won’t be crafting 3 Ascended backpacks for the 3 chars I like to play in dungeons.)

Well, you need to do FotM a lot to get your 1350 relics, maybe 30 runs (1-9). In 50 dungeon runs (they are shorter) you can get ~70g. Enough to buy ~200 T6 mats. You’ll probably find rares which you give you 50 globs easily, same for skill points and Bloodstone Dust drop from all champs.

I agree. If you remove the champ fight, take away the dredge resistance to blind, and make reflecting stronger versus them. Then it we won’t feel so awful having to kill things normally in there.

Remove the Bombs/Turret rooms completely and I would be happy with dredge level.

TurtleDragon.3108:

I’m rage quitting every time I get dredge now.

I’m going to start doing the same.
Will take much less time to start over and do another 2 fractals then doing Dredge.

Thankful I stopped buying into fractal Rng joke.

Faux.1937:

Remove the Bombs/Turret rooms completely and I would be happy with dredge level.

Quoted for kitten truth.

Thats the problem, all anet is doing is fixing thing they perceive as problems, instead of fixing what we think is wrong with the map.
Im never doing dredge again. Its bad for my mood.

I knew this was coming, and while I don’t mind skipping, I can understand why ANet would do this.

I think they should just make it so the dredge don’t respawn after being killed. That would make massacring every blasted mole an acceptable (and profitable) strategy rather than players trying to skip difficult sections.

Dredge isn’t hard to me personally but I pug and I hate it so much, I go into fractals praying I wont get it, as it doubles most pug runs length entirely.

I’m currently starving to death while people repair halfway through dredge, if it were any other 3rd map i’d be done awhile ago.

It’s TOO LONG

It’s official. Anet actually hates it’s player base.

Vote to remove the endlessly spawning mobs in dredge! Raise your hands!

Asami.3572:

Vote to remove the endlessly spawning mobs in dredge! Raise your hands!

Anet just needs to pay attention to their dungeons in general, but specially Dredge fractal: is a curse, as a matter of fact, me and my friends learned a new curse word:

What the DREDGE?

get the DREDGE out of here!

shut the DREDGE up!

etc… Please Anet, fix the dredge fractal!

I ll try to ask this for the tenth time since fractal release…

BEFORE fixing exploits that are more workaround to a bad designed fractal, anet should balance properly the fractal to not be the most annoying thing in game…..

P.S. and please seems the same peopl who “fixed” dredge fractal is now “fixing” ascalon fractal…….make them play it until they can finish it 5 times at 50 without ANY wipe…..

So maybe they understand how bad they are becoming-….

Do any devs actually play fractals above lvl 10?

At igher levels Dredge fractal is so long compared to other fractals that it’s better to just exit and start fractals from the start that go troug all the pain of doing it.

It’s not fun, it’s not challenging, it’s pure frustration.

Only fixing the part that makes it less frustrating and a tiny bit shorter is just another slap in player’s faces.

Please do something to fix this properly. Players have given so much constructive feedback about the issue. Don’t just ignore it.

Just put back the “die on switch” i would be happy

Today I was doing PUG level 38 fractal and guess what? The host quit at the dredge fractal and told us, sry I’m out, it takes too much time now after the fix, aint worth it.

OMG, seriously anet? Why don’t you do something proper about dredge fractal? Do you even listen to us?

So it seems from now on its up to RNG if I can finish the fractal or not….

Conclusion: not worth doing it anymore, thank you anet. I might just quit the game, fractals was the endgame for me….

Players been asking for this sense the start of fractals, if they didnt do anything in the fractal patch, that just tells you they dont see any thing wrong with it.

I dont see a fix for at least 4 months…. PLEASE anet make me eat my own words this time.

Yah, i’m done with fractals. Thanks Anet.

Want me back? Fix the endless spawn throughout dredge fractal.

Velimere.7685:

Faux.1937:

Remove the Bombs/Turret rooms completely and I would be happy with dredge level.

Quoted for kitten truth.

this.

I think the Anet devs should do a live stream of them doing a level 40+ dredge fractal the legit way.

While I agree that the bomb tunnel and the clown car could use some rework, the switch room is fine. It’s challenging, requiring both teamwork and single player skill/profession knowledge.

Mickz.8356:

I think the Anet devs should do a live stream of them doing a level 40+ dredge fractal the legit way.

I like this idea. Go make a post in General Discussion and call it “Dev Live Stream Idea”. Start talking about how the devs should live stream doing dredge fractal at scale 49 to show us how they like the new changes. But emphasis the thread is about live stream so they don’t move it to this forum. And we can keep bumping it.

There are no high fractal videos online of dredge but here are videos of where people are struggling.

Bomb Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_38rOY6Nl88

Console Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pury3dyGX20

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Mickz.8356:

I think the Anet devs should do a live stream of them doing a level 40+ dredge fractal the legit way.

I like this idea. Go make a post in General Discussion and call it “Dev Live Stream Idea”. Start talking about how the devs should live stream doing dredge fractal at scale 49 to show us how they like the new changes. But emphasis the thread is about live stream so they don’t move it to this forum. And we can keep bumping it.

There has already been a thread made about this months ago.

All I am seeing in this thread is “My skill is to inadequate to complete this content. please make it not as hard so I can feel better about my inadequacies…”

As a wise man once told me; “wish not for a simple life, but for strength to endure a kittene.”

Bump for visibility.

While the fractal is -by no means- impossible, it is extremely tedious and annoying.

• Every single mob ends up having permanent protection due to Disaggregators, which makes their gargantuan-sized HP pools feel even larger.
• Their damage is comparable to that of an Elite monster.
• Their numbers so stupidly high that it’s not even funny. While I like the loot I get from the clown car, I’d gladly renounce to it if their numbers were significantly toned down.
• Dredge Strazars ignore LoS. They can shoot at you through the clown car. That car does block your line of sight, so you can’t fight back.
• Their numbers are ridiculously high.
• Their numbers
• Numbers
• Too many dredge
• /wrist.

On the bright side, a lot of their damage can be reflected and absorbed, but -seriously- given the amount of negative aspects that this fractal possesses, I don’t believe that this little perk is significant enough to compensate.
It is not the difficulty that I abhor (As a matter of fact, I adore challenging content), it is how artificial it feels. It’s the most dull, depth-lacking piece of content this game has to offer; might as well make it harder by increasing every dredge’s HP to rival that of Open World Bosses and grant them the ability to instantly kill anything they touch when you release Lv51 and higher FotM levels.

Devs, we’re not asking you to nerf this fractal to the (under)ground by removing each and every strength its enemies possess, we just want it to be more tolerable or even enjoyable.

Tree.3916:

All I am seeing in this thread is “My skill is to inadequate to complete this content. please make it not as hard so I can feel better about my inadequacies…”

As a wise man once told me; “wish not for a simple life, but for strength to endure a kittene.”

I do not wish for a simpler game, rather for one whose difficulty is not reliant on something so dull as high HP pools, high damage and infinite spawns. I believe that ANET can do much better.

If you read my posts on these forums, you’ll notice that I advocate for more difficult content and defend it whenever I can; sometimes too strongly.

Should have made a thread called “The Dredge Fractal Ragequitters” where everyone shares about their ragequitting experience, much similar to the “Funniest Player Fails” thread.

I would like to see it up to a thousand posts, and slap it to anyone who makes that fractal ridiculously kitten.

Iris Ng.9845:

Should have made a thread called “The Dredge Fractal Ragequitters” where everyone shares about their ragequitting experience, much similar to the “Funniest Player Fails” thread.

I would like to see it up to a thousand posts, and slap it to anyone who makes that fractal ridiculously kitten.

I’d like to read other players’ experiences on FotM. It would be enriching, or at least pretty funny.

Also, ragequitting is for the weak of mind. :P

I stopped playing fractals because of this. I do not like dredge fractal and refuse to sit through it.

Mickz.8356:

I think the Anet devs should do a live stream of them doing a level 40+ dredge fractal the legit way.

I would even pay for that to see.