Guild Wars 2

Can you buy Pristine fractal relics with normal ones or is just a big kitten you to people that stocked these?

Extremely dissapointed. I have no idea why you guys left Fractals as they are.
-Still uses the terrible RNG system
-Still has the D/C bug
-Still nothing done to make older dungeons worth while
-Fractals still crap all over everything this game stood for

well done.

I really like the change to fractals and a non-range way to get rings, but we really need the dc issue, fragmentation issue, and the overflow issue fixed in the near future.

I was hoping for more Arah bug fixes also since I’ve personally been affected by 2 other bugs that stopped me from completing path 2 and 4.

Overall some good stuff in there, just waiting for more :p

?? They fixed the end of path 1 for arah? I completed it last night and couldnt get the tokens… =\

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Strifey.7215:

we really need the dc issue, fragmentation issue, and the overflow issue fixed in the near future.

I was hoping for more Arah bug fixes

We’re working very hard on all of these things. It’s a very complex issue, and I can promise you we making progress on all the things you mentioned.

Figured they were going to be more complex, thanks for your work on them and hopefully it’s soon :p.

“Ascended Rings and Fractal Weapon Skin drop rates now increase appropriately with player scale.”

Can someone help me by explaining what this mean? Scale as in the character’s level. Scale as in the scale of FotM we’re doing.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

KyleQuest.4639:

“Ascended Rings and Fractal Weapon Skin drop rates now increase appropriately with player scale.”

Can someone help me by explaining what this mean? Scale as in the character’s level. Scale as in the scale of FotM we’re doing.

You’re more bound to find those things based on the player’s fractal level.

Does that mean increased chance at higher fractal levels, or decreased chance at lower ones?

I’m disappointed in how varied the difficulty of the fractals are. It basically adds another RNG factor into it, along with the RNG rewards which no one enjoys. Sometimes I feel like to only reason I am at the level I am in fractals is because I get three out of the four “easy” fractals. I’m sure every fractal veteran can agree on which are the easy fractals and which are the hard ones.

Cliffside already gave my parties a lot of trouble, and that was before the boss could reset his health. This is just another added challenge to the already most annoying fractal. The part with the arms is especially challenging unless you use the “exploit” where there are no additional spawns if you don’t kill one of the enemies. If this is ever fixed then I won’t be running fractals again because I have never beaten this part with both sides spawning. _I suggest to remove the boss fight at the beginning, it’s literally the same boss as the end boss, and it just makes the already most time consuming fractal longer. _

Volcano fractal is the main killer, I’ve failed most times because of the boss on this one. The only problem is if your party can’t kill the spawns fast enough, you will all die. The boss spawns the lava elementals at every quarter of his health, and every time, it’s either we beat him without a hitch, or we fail on the first wave of spawns, then we continuously fail that part until we quit. _I now make it an effort to run this one first, so that if we fail, I wouldn’t have wasted an hour or more of my time on the first two fractals. _

tl;dr Balance fractal difficulty so people don’t have to reset for Aquatic first and hope for Urban/Swamp/Snowblind on numbers two and three.

The change in
*The chest received when Shaman Lornarr Dragonseeker is defeated now contains rare crystal materials instead of dust.
*The chest received when the Raving Asura are defeated now contains rare corrupted materials instead of dust.

Does this mean they will drop lodestones, T6 gems, or what off these. I would love Charged lodestones to be the answer lol

Maybe i am just over looking something

this has been said many times already I’m sure but finding people to group up at different level FOTM really sucks and its at times worse than finding tanks. Its so bad I cant even progress. I’m stuck doing fotm lvl 10. This is not fun. Did Anet not say they didnt want to be waiting 30 mins to look for a group? Yet here we are. This is kitten

Im happy with FotM updates. Too bad the DC issues/Rejoin FotM party feature isn’t included at the moment.

Gate before first boss(es) in Arah Path 3. 3-4 Veteran enemies spawn and gate is locked until you kill them.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

KyleQuest.4639:

“Ascended Rings and Fractal Weapon Skin drop rates now increase appropriately with player scale.”

Can someone help me by explaining what this mean? Scale as in the character’s level. Scale as in the scale of FotM we’re doing.

You’re more bound to find those things based on the player’s fractal level.

Is this tier based? I mean if I do lvl28 instead of lvl20 for that daily tier, will I have a larger chance for fractal weapon skins? Also how does it scale exactly? 10% more chance on 30 than 20 o_O?

You cant re enter the map and get back into your dungeon anymore , please fix this.

Sry to keep QQing but the Pristine fractals relics don’t go far enough. I’ve already done Jade Maw dailies for a couple of weeks, I don’t want to run them dozen more times to get rings.

I’ve overflowing with fractals tokens , I think you award 30-50 of them for a complete run , can we plz exchange 50*10=500 tokens for a ring ?

CoF path 1 is now impossible to complete. First off the stupid boss has 9,000,000,000 health to begin with. Took 20 minutes flat out to kill him.

Now he heals more than we can POSSIBLY damage him?

Referring to the final flame effigy.

There are too many crystals to be able to kill them all before the next wave spawns, and the boss has too much health to actually damage him in any sort of fashion.

Seriously, do you guys actually test your patches before you release them? Because I would love to see a video of ANY dev actually playing through this dungeon.

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path… He chilled from close up and far away, and has tons of HP. Nothing wrong at all, but now, all the sudden he nonstop spams mobs of Hunters?… I’m beginning to think ANet’s solution to easy paths are spamming mobs on bosses… Was this suppose to happen?
Side note: They even continue spawning AFTER killing the second boss in P1. (After the troll, forgot his name.)

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

Frvwfr.4307:

CoF path 1 is now impossible to complete. First off the stupid boss has 9,000,000,000 health to begin with. Took 20 minutes flat out to kill him.

We didn’t touch that boss in the last patch, and I beat him with a PuG this morning. It is not impossible. It can certainly take lots of time if you don’t kill the crystals he summons though.

The problem was the crystals were spawning at a rate 5x faster than I have ever seen before. And I do this dungeon daily. We couldn’t get his health below 95% before he fully healed back…

Really? Did CoF path 1 last night and its still one of the easiest paths in the game, a full clear (no skipping) took about 15 minutes.

climhazzard.5897:

Really? Did CoF path 1 last night and its still one of the easiest paths in the game, a full clear (no skipping) took about 15 minutes.

I will go through it again and fraps it this time. If it happens again I will have a video of it.

As I said, I had never seen it before either. We just practically couldn’t hurt him. It was weird.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

Frvwfr.4307:

CoF path 1 is now impossible to complete. First off the stupid boss has 9,000,000,000 health to begin with. Took 20 minutes flat out to kill him.

We didn’t touch that boss in the last patch, and I beat him with a PuG this morning. It is not impossible. It can certainly take lots of time if you don’t kill the crystals he summons though.

I’m not talking about the final boss. I’m talking about the Aldus Stormbringer. Sorry for not clarifying. I just did P1 two days ago, and he didn’t spawn anything besides the pack that starts off infront of the staircase.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

The 2nd boss of Path 1 now summons 3 Silver-strength adds when you engage, and another 3 Silver-strength adds every 25%. However the damage going around needs some tweaking, it’s an incredibly difficult fight now.

As a player that enjoys fractals a lot, I wanted to add that I appreciate the effort and fixes you guys have done. Cliffside was a….chore, to say the least, in the past and having run it twice now on 28 and then 30 for dailies, it seems solidly fixed and working properly, like it did originally when it was released (before I knew about the aoe seal glitch).

One of my running buddies upgraded an ascended ring to its infused version through the MF as well, and that’s really neat. However, i’m slightly concerned as the cost is 5 vials, 3 globs, and 1 shard, plus the ring. The cost itself isn’t a big deal, but in combination with the removal of vials from 10+ and globs from 20+, and the fact that shards/globs/vials already have a very low droprate (one of my running buddies with over 400 fractals completed got his first shard yesterday), I am concerned i’ll end up having to grind the 9- fractals for a length period of time just to get some more vials if I want to, say, create an infused Lunaria and Solaria. I can see if this is possibly a technique to get more players into the lower level fractals to help out late-comers to the fractal game. Nonetheless, if the drop rate wasn’t buffed considerably for vials/globs/shards, I can see this becoming it’s own form of an RNG gating mechanism that people will whine about.

So a question (I have three for this post actually) is: Why were the vials and globs removed from the droptables of the higher level fractals instead of an across the board increase in drop rate? It seems like it’s at odds with the two ideas I see (getting more people into lower level fractals and helping people get through the tier (10/20/30) gates).

Second question would be: I read that you guys were looking into, and were unhappy with, the current upgrade costs of things like backpieces and infusions. I’m really quick excited about what you guys did with the T6 mat prices and 1-2 from bags (I save up my dredge bags til I get a stack and open all at once, love the dredge loot, please don’t nerf it), however I went to upgrade my relic backpiece and noticed that it’s still 250 ectos, which is disheartening to say the least.

Why would you decrease the T6 mat costs for upgrading ascended gear/infusions, but then leave the most expensive component (ectos) at the full stack limit? I feel 100 ectos for the 2nd upgrade and then another 100 to make it super glowy and epic to be far more reasonable.

Last question: I participated eagerly in the fractals the day they were released. In the beginning, I was getting upwards of a dozen rares per run in those level 1-5 runs. This was addressed as an error, and nerfed, understandably. In the patch notes yesterday, the loot was claimed to be updated so higher level fractals would drop loot more accurately appropriate for the scale of difficulty. I ran a 28 daily and then a 30 daily (8 fractals, got cliffside twice, dredge, swamp, underwater, and svanir). The svanir and swamp and very low on lootable mobs (most skip the three groups of svanir hunters between the now named blizzard causing elemental and final boss, and only the summoned dogs drop loot when lighting the fire to get through the ice wall). However, the cliffside drops loot decently, underwater mass krait also drops a fair bit of loot, and ofc the dredge loot (at 30). I killed all the mobs on the jade maw fractal both times and in total for those 8 runs I got 1 yellow item, 0 exotics, and 2 cores (chests, including jade maw, and back pieces, and vile/putrid essences all factored in). No rings or skins from the dailies either (which is ok, I understand those are still low drop rates, one of the guys I ran w/ got a spear skin (nice skin btw)).

Are the droptables properly configured for the higher level fractals? If so, in your experience, did I just get two very poor rng runs back to back? Or are the lower level fractals supposed to get 0 rares (if i’m getting 1 in 8 fractals, I pity those playing the level 1-20 scales)?

tl:dr
Compliments followed by 3 Q’s.
Why were the vials and globs removed from the droptables of the higher level fractals instead of an across the board increase in drop rate?
Why would you decrease the T6 mat costs for upgrading ascended gear/infusions, but then leave the most expensive component (ectos) at the full stack limit?
Are the droptables properly configured for the higher level fractals?

CoF 1 seems fine, the boss is as easy as ever since the nerf long ago to kill.

yet what’s this i see, Arah path 3 has new mobs spawning that were not mentioned in the patch notes, yet no increased rewards from the path itself.

when in this thread here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Nerf-silver-rewards-of-easy-dungeons you yourself admitted harder dungeons like Arah needed better rewards, yet your making it worth less because it takes even more time.

sure path 3 is easy beyond new people who struggle with Lupus but you should be making the bosses harder in exchange for boosting the reward, not adding trash that just makes everything take longer, i wouldnt mind if Trash dropped interesting loot, but they dont and are no different from killing a veteran in Orr only harder.

i should also add today i experienced a bug in Cliffside that made the cages invincible and impossible to escape from.

gw2.exe encountered an error
oh shiii, you were in fractals? too bad, here nothing, lol

FIX THE kitten DC ISSUE!!

If you aren’t able to fix all the other stuff, then at least make it possible to rejoin fractals after a dc, this kitten is getting annoying like hell.

multiple-part super long post

part 1

Okay first off I’m glad that you made an actual discussion thread where we can voice our thoughts & opinions. I have a really detailed criticism for you guys concerning The Fractals Of the Mist that is aimed at being constructive rather than the same complaints echoed over and over again.

For some background, I’m currently on level 55 of the fractals of the mist, and I’ve made a pseudo-guide & multiple videos with commentary, with the goal to help others succeed in the dungeon.

Link to the guide

Recent FotM 52 run

Here’s my unbiased list of critciques, which include my amazingly brilliant suggestions on what you should do to remedy them. Note that I have no programming experience whatsoever and I speak only for myself (though I predict many people, if not everyone, will agree with me).

List of things Robert Hrouda and Jon Peters screwed up: (and how to fix them)

1) Difficulty of forming a group with people at the exact same progression level:

This is one of the biggest problems I have with the whole dungeon— getting a group for it. While I understand you don’t want people to get a free ride all the way up, you need some kind of reasonable range that people can work with.

SOLUTION: I would say that [b]between 5 to 10 levels[/b] is a nice place to start at, and that as the levels get higher (perhaps 30 or 40+), you allow the higher end of the range to suffice. This way if someone’s at 45, which is still a fairly high level to reach, I can actually bring them into my group at 55. Then, upon completion, they will gain credit for up to 55 as well.

Wait, I know what you’re afraid of here. “But then people will complain that they worked at 10 levels for nothing when others just got a free ride.” But no! That’s not the case! At that high of a level, players would kneel down and praise you for simply allowing them to have a much easier way of forming a group. I sure as hell wouldn’t care if someone got a “free ride” from 45-55, since they technically had to prove they could make it through 55 anyway, and I rather do that than wait for days on end to try and get a group.

part 2

2) Stop trying to make the jade maw impossible at 50+:

Really, if you don’t want us to get to a certain level, then simply limit the progression to a specific number. Don’t try to force us to die during the final stage, on an impossible-to-avoid agony hit, that completely subtracts “skill” from the equation… because at a high enough level you can’t even time healing each other, due to dying so fast. I have no idea how the guy that came up with that idea managed to get it passed in whatever meeting you guys have. For a game that focuses so much more on “fair chance” and “skill” it makes me wonder what the thinking is behind this universally-hated element that basically says “okay now you all die and you can’t do anything about it! haha! you wasted your time getting this far!!!”

i even noticed you guys snuck in a little patch to the jade maw’s stage, where you removed one of the stones you can jump on, in order to reach the boss. this used to be the only known way around the idiotic element of an agony-based “forced death” (by dying on the edge of the stone and getting revived), but of course you decided to eliminate that “exploit” which only allowed you to continue fighting the boss fight.

Solution: Change the phase-change agony mechanic to something else— make it dodge-able. Make it reflectable; make it target everyone but one person. Make it SOMETHING where we can actually counter it in some form. You can even let the jade maw reset if we all mess up what we’re supposed to do at that point. But don’t just leave it there as a stupid game-element where you basically are screwed and can’t do anything about it. That defeats the whole purpose of the dungeon that’s supposed to be “infinite” and ruins the fun of seeing how far you can get. Please change this, it really is dumb.

3) Make new s—- happen at the higher stages:

Okay, so finally I get to FotM level 40. Man I can’t wait to see what’s in store this time!! Oh…wait…it’s the exact same thing as level 10, except everything hurts more. Do the monsters do anything new…? Oh…they don’t….it’s the exact same pattern. Okay, but there’s gotta be some kind of new boss fight right?!! Nope…same exact thing…again….

It gets kind of stale when one hit kills you at FotM 40, and one hit kills you at FotM 50. At that point you do the same exact thing, dodge the same exact patterns, reflect the same exact projectiles, & stand in the same exact spots. BORING!!! “Increase in difficulty” doesn’t mean “increase in how much damage stuff does.” It also eventually becomes a 0 “increase in difficulty” once you simply die in one hit from everything. After getting used to timing the dodges & general strategies, it’s just…the same thing…again…and again.

SOLUTION: How about giving monsters some new moves? How about introducing DIFFERENT monsters, or NEW monsters, at certain tiers of the dungeon. How about changing the pattern of attacks monsters do, or introduce new elements into the mix like a “Grim reaper” enemy that appears every now and then, at random, and stalks you throughout the runs.

How about giving the bosses entirely new mechanics at certain stages? Maybe the iceboss will summon a miniature dragon that tries to break into the room, and you have to somehow barricade the wall while you struggle to finish off the boss before his pet comes in and rips you into pieces. Then if his pet DOES break in, rather than simply lose, you can, with extremely precise timing, dodge his lunges and/or stun him. To add to the difficulty, you can give the pet extreme swiftness & quickness, so that people will feel like they “pretty much lost” if it breaks in, yet it would still be, though EXTREMELY difficult, possible to win the fight even with the dragon in the room the whole time.

This is just one example— I know you claimed to introduce new levels to the fractals, but how about introducing things that only happen at certain tiers? At level 60, I’d like a special “middle of hell” stage where I have to fight the son of giga lupicus, but only available to people at that tier. You can still give ALL levels the majority of new stages, but you should have something new at each tier. This will keep people guessing and make them actually look forward to getting futher in the dungeon, and for more than simply getting some rewards. “I wonder what they’ll have at level 100!” you exclaim to your friends after seeing the latest challenge level for your tier. Basically there has to be something NEW and FRESH, besides “enemies do more damage and take longer to kill.” That is the opposite of new and fresh, it’s called “stupid.”

It should be an understood sub-effect, as you get further in the levels, for everything to hit harder and take longer to die— not the only thing that changes.

part 3

4) Why the #@$! can’t I sell the rings i don’t want?

Really, it’s lucky enough to even get one (or go through 10 agonizing dailies to buy a non-infused ring). Why can I not simply exchange a ring I don’t want for a ring I actually do want, especially if I haven’t used it yet?! I can understand not letting me sell it to other players— what I can’t understand is why I’m just stuck with something I can’t use.

SOLUTION: Let me sell the ring for 10 pristine relics, so I can at least get the horrible non-infused version of what I want. Or better yet, let me exchange an infused ring I hate, for an infused ring I actually want. I already went to the trouble of getting lucky / crafting an infused ring…so why can’t I just exchange it for a different one? Again, whoever got this passed at the board meeting must be slipping roofies in everyone’s coffee.

You had the right idea…you did…but then you forgot what the purpose of that idea was

5) No Leaderboards?

I’m kind of curious how far people have gotten thus far. You’ve got leaderboards for PvP, which I’m sure were much more complicated to implement— so…can we get some sort of viewable leaderboard for how far people have gotten? Even better, can we get a filter that showed us not only how far people have gotten, but how long their run clocked in at? I’d be curious to see the fastest times for some of the higher levels, as well as what stages they had to run. If someone ran stage 50 in 30 minutes, I’d assume they got swamp, ice & water. If I saw someone ran Grawl, Dredge, and Cultist Hammer in 30 minutes, I’d probably ask for their autograph.

It feels like there would be more of a purpose, besides everything else, to be able to get more information on how far everyone’s gotten and what the best times some people have gotten. Not everyone can/will run fraps and record an awesome speed run, let alone spread the news of it to everyone. It would be cool to simply know a certain time was possible or not— or reaching a certain level was possible, and have some proof.

6) Overflow Requirement

Yes yes I know you guys are working on the “must be on overflow if you’re from different servers” issue as well as the “disconnecting = a ruined run” issue. But I’ve got an idea on the first issue.

SOLUTION: Let us manually join an overflow, regardless of whether a friend/guildmate is on it or not. There you go, first problem solved without having to try and fix whatever complicated netcode is causing the issue. I’m sure you must have a way to do this, since you already have an easy way to right-click and join a party member’s overflow. Why not simply let us join an overflow manually? You could even restrict us to a random overflow, since then our party members could join us once we got there. I fail to see how this could be abused or ruin anything in the game. All you have to do is limit the “manual overflow” to lion’s arch only. Then no one can abuse it to mine things, do double events, or whatever else you might be worried about.

part 4

7) Make progression account-bound please

There are very few people who will like the idea of re-doing 50+ levels of the fractals of the mist on an alt. If we manage to get to stage 50 on a guardian, then going in on a warrior doesn’t mean we are suddenly kitten and don’t know the basic strategies & methods of beating all of the levels. The knowledge didn’t suddenly disappear as we switched characters. Sure, someone may suck horribly when he switches to his ranger… but guess what, I’ve met a guy that played 45+ levels on mesmer and still couldn’t dodge the dredge-boss’s agony, and was using a scepter as his primary means of attack. Was this guy bad? Sure. Was it due to trying a character he wasn’t used to? No. Sometimes bad players may make it to a high level, in any game, for any number of reasons. The level means nothing in the long run— their skill and ability to adapt is what’s important.

Basically, there’s no reason I should be stopped from switching to a guardian if my group already has 3 mesmers in it. Sometimes a group set-up may call for switching classes, and it’s a [dumb] shame that I can’t do that because of this “character-based” progression. I’ll probably still mostly play on my mesmer, but it would be nice to have the freedom to try a different class at a higher level, rather than going through the excessively tedius routine of running all the levels again, one by one.

8) Please let us know what changes you are considering making, before you just go ahead and make them

I’ve met people that wasted a lot of time and money forging their own back-piece, before doing so with the fractal dungeon’s token back-pieces was possible. It’d be nice to, you know, give us kind of a “heads up” on some things. You don’t have to make any promises, or give any dates, or anything like that. You don’t even have to commit to whatever your considering. It’d just be nice to “be in the loop” and kind of know what “can possibly happen” in the near-future.

Of course it’s your game and your decisions, but it would be nice of you to simply give us a word every now and then on something you’re thinking about.

End of long post— hope it was helpful and I don’t get in trouble

i understand that, but the way you did it just feels all wrong, your just slowing us down theres no actual increase in difficulty to the path, it would be much better for everyone to redesign the bosses to be interesting and harder to fight rather than just adding in trash mobs that do nothing but slow people down, i already have to deal with the 2hour Diminshing Return cooldown.

i should also note that Seer’s path isnt hard, it’s just buggy because of the Simin fight, pretty much every thread for path 4/Seer route in this forum is about Simin and her Sparks.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Lorana.2468:

yet what’s this i see, Arah path 3 has new mobs spawning that were not mentioned in the patch notes, yet no increased rewards from the path itself.
.

I did add 4 veterans to path 3 at the start. Having to kill 4 veteran mobs isn’t such an endeavor as to give more rewards for doing it. Considering also the difference between say the Seer path and the Forgotten path, it’s still easier and faster while rewarding the same amount.

You also changed crusher, hunter and mage boss to legendary status. Seems like crusher has more hp, hunter a bit less and mage’s hit points were increased at least twice. It increases by a bit a completion time. Please increase rewards for long dungeons instead of making short paths even longer.

the main problem is, that the bosses aren’t hard or challenging, but boring and tedious. If I want to shot for hours at some guy who can’t do anything, I’d do HotW. Or the Destroyer in CoE3. Or Grenth in Arah4…

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Lorana.2468:

yet what’s this i see, Arah path 3 has new mobs spawning that were not mentioned in the patch notes, yet no increased rewards from the path itself.
.

I did add 4 veterans to path 3 at the start. Having to kill 4 veteran mobs isn’t such an endeavor as to give more rewards for doing it. Considering also the difference between say the Seer path and the Forgotten path, it’s still easier and faster while rewarding the same amount.

I’m going to give you my honest opinion:

Everytime you make changes that aren’t included in notes or “increase difficulty” by upscaling mob hp (without also increasing rewards for the increased TEDIOUSNESS) or double timers (Hello Magg) it makes a statement to me akin to “I hate the playerbase.”

There is no reason not to include the details of every change like that in patch notes, as many other people have said, instead of nerfing the dungeons people do you should examine them and bring other paths up to their level of fun/rewards/time spent.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

@alucard

I don’t imagine you will get in trouble. I actually appreciate your thoughtful and constructive criticism.

I appreciate that. I also wasn’t trying to place the blame on you personally despite joking about the list being your fault.

I agree with some of the above posters that there is a feeling of deception when you don’t release all the details in the patch notes. I understand that you guys can’t sit there and be expected to write “Fixed the ambient lights in arah path 1 so they are .0001 shades brighter”, but you really should let people know when you change spawns or secretly change the terrain somewhere to address an exploit.

(As a side note, rather than just posting a list of changes, it would be nice if you guys later amended that list to include why you made those changes)

Imagine someone doing all of FotM 60, only to get to the Jade Maw and see the “getting around phase-change agony” stepping stone was removed, and not have any revive orbs on them. They would’ve wasted their time getting that far because they weren’t prepared with an alternative plan and didn’t see such a change in the patch notes.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Lorana.2468:

yet what’s this i see, Arah path 3 has new mobs spawning that were not mentioned in the patch notes, yet no increased rewards from the path itself.
.

I did add 4 veterans to path 3 at the start. Having to kill 4 veteran mobs isn’t such an endeavor as to give more rewards for doing it. Considering also the difference between say the Seer path and the Forgotten path, it’s still easier and faster while rewarding the same amount.

Those #@!$& 4 mobs kind of force you to clear the first room, if not entirely most of it, because otherwise you don’t have enough space to move and evade those mobs. Also you can’t pull them one by one, once you damage one of them all take agro.

These new and fresh change made my PuG group wipe a couple of times, wasting time and gold for repairs. We finished with Crusher and Hunter after 30 minutes…30 MINUTES!! After having to wait quite an hour to get a group that won’t made it to Lupicus.

It was really pathetic, and I was about to ragequit…If you don’t want that anybody runs Arah, remove the dungeon entirely but don’t make things worse than they already were.

Ailie.4837:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Lorana.2468:

yet what’s this i see, Arah path 3 has new mobs spawning that were not mentioned in the patch notes, yet no increased rewards from the path itself.
.

I did add 4 veterans to path 3 at the start. Having to kill 4 veteran mobs isn’t such an endeavor as to give more rewards for doing it. Considering also the difference between say the Seer path and the Forgotten path, it’s still easier and faster while rewarding the same amount.

Those #@!$& 4 mobs kind of force you to clear the first room, if not entirely most of it, because otherwise you don’t have enough space to move and evade those mobs. Also you can’t pull them one by one, once you damage one of them all take agro.

These new and fresh change made my PuG group wipe a couple of times, wasting time and gold for repairs. We finished with Crusher and Hunter after 30 minutes…30 MINUTES!! After having to wait quite an hour to get a group that won’t made it to Lupicus.

It was really pathetic, and I was about to ragequit…If you don’t want that anybody runs Arah, remove the dungeon entirely but don’t make things worse than they already were.

The instance is not “ruined” just because your group could not clear two extra packs of mobs.
I Approve of this change greatly and wouldn’t mind more stuff like this in other places to force groups to actually RUN the instance.
I do not enjoy trash running or terrain exploiting.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

Frvwfr.4307:

CoF path 1 is now impossible to complete. First off the stupid boss has 9,000,000,000 health to begin with. Took 20 minutes flat out to kill him.

We didn’t touch that boss in the last patch, and I beat him with a PuG this morning. It is not impossible. It can certainly take lots of time if you don’t kill the crystals he summons though.

I have done HotW for the past 2 weeks just to get the armor set, and until today, I have never encountered Aldus spawning anything in all the times I have fought him.

Then we run path 1 today, and we hit a wall with Aldus because the mobs suddenly spawn, then we run around, they despawn/disappear, rush Aldus, they appear again at full health, or a different set of mobs appear, same thing, all of them have a ton of HP, it was ridiculous.

I am not sure what’s going on, because we ran the path yesterday, AFTER the Winter’s Day patch build went up, and he didn’t spawn anything. Is this bugged or what?

GODLIKEDEVIL.6479:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

Frvwfr.4307:

CoF path 1 is now impossible to complete. First off the stupid boss has 9,000,000,000 health to begin with. Took 20 minutes flat out to kill him.

We didn’t touch that boss in the last patch, and I beat him with a PuG this morning. It is not impossible. It can certainly take lots of time if you don’t kill the crystals he summons though.

I have done HotW for the past 2 weeks just to get the armor set, and until today, I have never encountered Aldus spawning anything in all the times I have fought him.

Then we run path 1 today, and we hit a wall with Aldus because the mobs suddenly spawn, then we run around, they despawn/disappear, rush Aldus, they appear again at full health, or a different set of mobs appear, same thing, all of them have a ton of HP, it was ridiculous.

I am not sure what’s going on, because we ran the path yesterday, AFTER the Winter’s Day patch build went up, and he didn’t spawn anything. Is this bugged or what?

This was happening before the patch although I agree it’s super annoying and difficult although not impossible. Out of 4 runs I’ve done this path, the neverending spawns happened twice. First was last Saturday, the second time was today.

I try to get my guild to attempt dungeons, it’s not easy. When we do one and spend an hour getting wiped repeatedly, at least 1 will quit. I’ll never get them back into that dungeon again. It leaves a very depressing aftertaste.

Paths like AC3, SE1 feel like they are designed exclusively for hardcore players. I have learned that I have to go online to see if we even have a chance at a dungeon before attempting it, as well as learning the mystery strategy to complete it.

The Wintersday dungeon in the grove has pretty bad rewards to be honest. After a couple of attempts my guildies just didn’t want to do it anymore because 1 sweater and 1 gift in the chest was easily gotten anywhere else in the game for a fraction of the time. And the DR on the pop up reward is even less motivating.

I’m not sure if I understood the wording correctly, but If I’m right and I’ve reworded differently based on my understanding:

1. Vials of Condensed Mists Essence no longer drop starting at scale 11.
2. Globs of Coagulated Mists Essence no longer drop starting at scale 21.

I’m already at level 31 but missing 3 vials to infuse an ascended ring. I’ve enough globs and a Shard for the infused ring recipe. Now, i’m forced to redo content level 1-9 or 1-10 if I understood the wording correctly earlier. So far I’ve done over 7 full tier 1 runs without a vial dropped, the drop rate is still absurdly low. I hope it’s not bugged with Christmas present boxes as part of the loot table for the period of time.

I’d much appreciate if Robert or someone else can confirm the loot table range for Vial of condensed mists.

mystiq makes a valid point;

i’d suggest allowing “backwards forging” as a temporary relief to players who are missing the lower tiered essence, but don’t want to feel forced to play the lower tiers to get them.

It would be nice if we could pay a small fee & convert a shard of crystallized mist essence into 5 globs of coagulated mists essence, as well as the glob into 5 vials of condensed mists essence.

It takes 5 of the lower tiered ones to make a higher tiered one, so why can’t we convert them backwards as well? I wouldn’t mind paying some kind of fee / tedious recipe for it, but if we can do it one way, we should be able to do it backwards as well.

This would reward players who do the higher fractals because then only one higher tiered essence would be needed to count for 5 lower tiered ones, yet still leave a window of desire to do the lower ones if you’re only missing say 1 or 2 vials (or have no more higher tiered _ of mist essence to backwards convert)

I really like the changes to ring acquisition. It preserves the thrill of RNG while giving us a guaranteed goal to look forward to.

The changes to globs/vials are certainly also a nice change., as it promotes players to visit lower tiers and help other players.

However, I do not feel segregating glob/vial acquisition is enough because it is still impossible to find a group for anything besides 10 and 20. The odd-number fractals are especially frustrating because there is no daily reward for people.

It would be nice if we somehow had another reward for odd number fractals, and a reward for helping other players.

One proposal I have to promote helping other players through a title acquainted with such a thing. When they help someone who hasn’t cleared a specific fractal level, it is added to their achievement.This prevents giving one player any advantage over the other, while still granting an incentive to do so for people enthusiastic with the game.

But overall though, I do think this patch is a great step in the right direction. Lots of work still needs to be done with the DC problem and helping other players group, but it’s really not that bad.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Release Hold.4392:

Has anyone else done Path 1 to HoTW?
Nothing was even wrong with this path…

The only things we did in HoTW is close off map exploit possibilities in this recent patch. We didn’t touch any of the bosses to my knowledge.

Actually, you did 2 things to HoTW, that I noticed right away. In the Zealot path, the Jelly fish before the boss used to be veterans. Still a tough fight, but understandable, seeing as underwater combat is clunky, and the camera is all over the place over there, and there’s a lot in tight quarters. You made them silvers, that hit a lot harder and poison like crazy. Still not overly hard, just a complete unnecessary waste of time.

Also, Stormbringer now always spawns 3 silvers simultaneously, and on my last run, did so on a timer, we ended with 6 of them pretty quick. It used to be that he spawned nothing if you killed the non-silvers in front of him as you approach. AOE fest, then boss, no adds. Now he spawns adds every time.

Those are just 2 changes that I noticed right away.
Only question I have: WHY?

Grizzly.2647:

Only question I have: WHY?

HotW was way too easy and not nearly tedious enough.

Oh and buff the kitten chest loot. Receiving 3 blues over and over again is NOT fun.