Guild Wars 2

I really like the fractal dungeons and the way they are implemented in the game. Iplay a guardian and have run through the 30s solely with public groups (using the website) and generally enjoy them. Others please share your thoughts ABOUT THE FRACTALS, and not about why you hate rings, or why agony is the worst thing ever, or using the website, or fractals in general, or dc issues that will soon be fixed.

If I have one basic theme, it’s that fractals should be designed so that a skilled group can move through them quickly. Boss fights should be exciting, high danger scenarios – not attrition fests. The speed of progression should be based on skill, and not on artificial, non-skill based barriers like giant hp pools for bosses. The current fractals are a mix of both.

Dredge – I really like this one, especially because various parts of it (the bombs, the door you have to cut through) really give thieves a useful role with their stealth fields. But please doublecheck your spreadsheet – I think you gave Rabsovich an extra zero or two on his health. He takes longer to kill than the boss, and it’s not a challenging fight; he just has way too much health. Give him a damage boost, an extra attack or two, and a massive cut to HP. The mining suit/ice boss is a great team battle design – he hits hard enough to hurt you, but played correctly he goes down fairly quickly.

Underwater – Another favorite, but same issue as with the Dredge. The jellyfish isn’t hard, he just has a stupid amount of health. Again, boost damage, give him some different attacks, and a big hp cut.

Asura – Love this one, harpies or no harpies; fun boss fights with good team work. (Ressing is good for team building.) Would like to see more jump puzzle type fractal content in the future.

Swamp – probably the best designed fractal. This is how a fractal ought to be designed – for a well-coordinated team that knows the ropes, it can be run quickly.

Blizzard – Same thing for the boss here. Probably too much health, but could use a few extra attacks to shake things up. He basically can’t hurt anyone as is, and his agony attack is totally avoidable.

Ascalon – awesome, and I love the idea of using the fractals to elaborate on little slices of Tyria’s history. Definitely a path for the future. The boss here is challenging without being cheap, goes down fast enough that you fear him killing you instead of you falling asleep, and the mob fights similarly can be rough if you overpull, but encourage the team to work methodically together.

Lava – Another good boss that rewards teamwork and tactics, and who can be a good challenge. Indiana-Jones style boulder rolling is always welcome, and another good inspiration for future fractals.

Hope some of this is useful. The dungeon designers have overall done a tremendous job and added a really fun element to the game that gives a challenge and some decent loot too.

I generally share your assessment although I feel some Fractals just take way too long on higher levels.

I’m not sure hat levels you’re referring too, but I’ve found that a level 20+ run takes closer to 2 hours than one hour. At times things feels very drawn out, especially if you wipe once or twice.

The Dredge is a classic example of a Fractal that takes too long. You have a puzzle element with some fighting, then massive waves of mobs with another mini boss…and then the real bossfight which can be a little lengthy if things don’t go flawlessly.

Basically the entire middle part feels like bloat and makes the whole thing take twice as long as it should.

Underwater is ok and a good template for how fractals should be designed. A little trash + a little puzzle + boss fight = end. Obviously the boss fight itself is a little lackluster and underwhelming but the fractal itself works.

Asura fractal is ok…if there were a few more reliable ways to get through the Harpies. A few less Harpies would really make the fractal a whole lot more enjoyable as it gets tedious grinding your way through them.

Swamp is near perfect in my opinion. Quick with coordination and a fair and well-paced boss fight at the end.

Blizzard is okish too although I feel the Blizzard spire itself takes too long to kill. Cutting it’s HP by 1/3rd would be fair. The final boss is ok too, albeit a bit easy (at least so far). And extra mechanic might do him some good.

Ascalon – I like this one too. Good pacing…plenty of trash for good loot and a boss fight that can be completed either very quickly or drag in a while, depending on performance. Melee hostility aside…it’s good.

Volcano -Avoiding the rolling stones is a little easy, but otherwise it’s ok. The Shaman mini-boss can drag on slightly longer than necessary but otherwise it’s ok. Bugs and melee hostility aside, obviously.

Yeah I fully agree about them taking too long. At 20+ things are usually closer to two hours unless you draw short fractals – like swamp, asura, and underwater. You make a really good point that I forgot to make about loot. Loot is a good reason to run fractals, and the amount isn’t really well related to the difficulty of the fractals, and some combinations of fractals reward very little. Cliffside, for example, is one of the longer fractals but has very few drops. Asura has few drops but at least the harpies drop expensive T6 blood. Dredge takes a long time – I really think toning down Rab would help – but at least you get a pile of loot.

Just one thing, not all the difficulty comes from final boss, I find Old Tom, Grawl, and Ice Elemental really difficult at 30+.

Perhaps add another path in the Asura that would let you bypass the harpies but jump for longer or require more teamwork like the knockdown stairs.

First I want to say that Fractals should follow Trash/Puzzle/mini/short trash/boss. A combination (harpies) is excellent toward the future.

1. Dredge – Too long. Feels like you were going toward more exp length. Cut out the entire first section (most people skip anyway) and just leave Door puzzle + Mini boss + Trash (Mini boss event has a ton of filler trash as well) +Final boss. I would also advice to remove this from lower end fractals. This one is frustrating for newcomers to dungeons.

2. Underwater – Perfect length and use. Trash/puzzle/Boss. Quick, but you still get loot. HP on boss needs a very slight reduction. Nothing too big since cages do nice dmg.

3. Asura – Remove the first part with the cages. Its dungeon padding at its worst. Beating on champions for no reward really sucks. Make it – Trash/Puzzle/Old tom/trash/boss. Short sweet and simple. As of now it is: Trash/mini event/puzzle/Mini Boss/Trash/boss. Bit too long for what fractals should be.

4. Swamp – Remove swamp from lower end fractals. Perfect the way it is, but can be frustrating for newcomers.

5. Underwater – Good except WAY too much hp. Mini boss is harder than final boss by a long shot. Whats with ANet and making Svanir bosses have truckloads of hp? HoTW has this exact same problem.

6. Ascalon – Love it. Keep it as is. Maybe remove it from lower end fractals due to players not knowing in’s and out’s while also being new (lets face it going “straight” towards the door sucks for newbies), so possible remove it from lower end fractals.

7. Lava – Lava is fine. One of the hardest high end and easiest low end. Since all mobs are easily skipped it follows a great formula – Trash event/puzzle/mini/ optional trash/boss. Love that about this one.

8. Cliffside – Really like this one. Perfect as is, even though it is longer the mechanics are just too good to pass up. That and I can’t think of any part to really remove that wouldn’t make it look awkward.

It would be nice to ease players into fractals with easier ones. So I would say for 1-4 Easy fractals only and start adding more every other level (as people get used to dungeons).

In order of length of time spent in each fractal, Asura is the worst. Even when running with a skilled group that isn’t getting constantly knocked off ledges it takes well over 30 minutes to do purely because of how the pacing is set up. (Note, if you’re with a good group, don’t use the cheese tactic on the champion ettin, it slows the dungeon down a LOT).

Dredge comes in second, mostly due to how long it takes to kill Rabinovich. He’s not challenging at all to anyone that’s ran the dungeon multiple times, but his HP pool is ridiculous.

Snowblind is third. Constantly having the boss teleport up onto his cliff and do the exact same pattern of icicles over and over is the most ridiculous time waster ever. The only people that ever die to it are beginners and people that get randomly bugged as an ice cube and can’t move.

Cliffside would be fourth if the final boss wasn’t so easy to skip. Please make some changes to the mob spawns on the chest seal if/when you fix the final boss.

dredge: this is a bad design 100%

If he use his agony attack he forces you to dodge, then he use the bomb attack, and that may result in certain death

also a boss where a single mistake makes him reset full health is again bad design (because downed players are instakilled by anything before kiting him away, or esle if the party is able tokite him away he regen half health).

Swamp….you know everyone just abuse various classes skills, not all classes combination are able to do this easy unfortunately.
Slight lag also makes this impossible.

Lava: huge bug here where shaman tp to a victim -.- also agony and repeated damage on a single target is too harsh.

Ascalon: badly optimized prevents many players to play the game as its meant to….dropping from 70+ to 20 FPS on a gaming PC means it should be removed instantly from the game :| until fixed…..try to think what happens on a normal pc….