Guild Wars 2

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.
Something about a Mossman and a geometry / pathing bug. I’m sure you know it.

I’m sure this post is within the rules as these are vague enough to not allow people to perform these. Also, I don’t know how Revs do that thing they do. I never asked, but I should so I could submit a proper bug report.

Fractals have become so stupid. They obviously know about all the exploits, and choose not to bother fixing them. There’s seriously a rule preventing us from talking about them openly on the forums? That’s a laugh…
The rewards are bad anyways, I guess that’s what makes it okay.

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.
Something about a Mossman and a geometry / pathing bug. I’m sure you know it.

I’m sure this post is within the rules as these are vague enough to not allow people to perform these. Also, I don’t know how Revs do that thing they do. I never asked, but I should so I could submit a proper bug report.

I absolutely agree. Not sure why a forum post is required, I’m quite sure Arenanet are aware of the state of their game content, especially one which is supposed to be endgame.

Do I agree that these issues need primary addressing? No.

What needs addressing is:

- fractal reward structures and design (the mentioned exploits exist since people can rerun certain fractals for maximum reward in minmum time. Fixing these exploits will lead players to find the next fastest fractal that can be run/exploited

- new fractals! It’s about time

- enemy AI

On a different note, going through your posting history (the first 10 posts where enough) you seem the kind of person who likes to tell people how to play their game. Maybe focus more on maximising your own enjoyment instead of telling others how to enjoy GW2. The mentioned fractal exploits can easily be avoided with a group of friends.

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.
Something about a Mossman and a geometry / pathing bug. I’m sure you know it.

I’m sure this post is within the rules as these are vague enough to not allow people to perform these. Also, I don’t know how Revs do that thing they do. I never asked, but I should so I could submit a proper bug report.

Make LFG with “legit mossman only”, I’m sure you’ll find lots of people who’d love to waste their time with you.

Wait, Fractals are end game??? Didn’t realize this…

Samnang.1879:

Wait, Fractals are end game??? Didn’t realize this…

Yes. Its end-game 5-man PvE content. Not everyone miss WoW hard enough to waste their time in lolraids.

Samnang.1879:

Wait, Fractals are end game??? Didn’t realize this…

I honestly believe it is intended to be. The main dailies also give tomes, which are for leveling alts.

Ugh. I had a long response written to this but the forums ate it.

But basically, fixing the exploits only treats the symptoms, not the cause. To truly break the cycle, you need to either remove the incentive for people to just mindlessly grind the same content over and over, or remove the requirements that makes people grind in the first place.

The former is always a disaster; look at the sorry state of dungeons now. Nobody really does dungeons anymore aside from people looking for AP, since it’s much faster to acquire dungeon tokens and gear from the PvP reward tracks than it is to do the dungeons themselves.

The latter, meanwhile, comes with the risk that players will simply move on once they’ve gotten their shinies, depriving ANet of numbers and potential income. However, this only happens if the shinies are the ONLY thing keeping players there. If the content is fun and enjoyable on its own merits, players will keep coming back to it for the experience alone. So far with HoT, it seems like ANet has just locked a bunch of fancy rewards behind onerous/expensive collections and grindy requirements.

I’ve just started to join random groups doing 40 as one of the dailies and that seems to work instead of farming it. The fractal junk gives way too much gold, as it seems they just moved some of the dungeon gold over to fractal junk.

They might also just patch those two bugs much like they patched the boxes at the Golem world boss

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.

They are fixing more important things.

But A.S.A.P. ArenaNet, i saw you guys can do invisible walls pretty easily, one invisible wall on MossMan, one on moltenDuo that disappears when effigy dies, PROBLEM SOLVED

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

Saudi.5320:

They might also just patch those two bugs much like they patched the boxes at the Golem world boss

It’s far more likely they will do the same they did with dungeons when they were faced with a similar problem. They don’t like fixing old things, they prefer to work on new ones. So, most likely if people will keep reminding them that Fractals need fixing, then Fractals will end up nerfed into the ground rewardwise so noone will care about them anymore.

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

Flawless.

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

Players have been doing this in dungeons for a long time. Why would you not expect these exploits to be found and used in fractals now? I saw this coming as soon as Anet announced their change in dungeon rewards and pushing the players towards fractals. Since the main reason for doing these activities for many of these players who exploit is simply to make money, the quicker the better. If you want to experience these instances as the developers intended them to be, I am sure these exploiters would be happy not to have you in their party. Is is sad, yes. But this game is becoming more about making money and less about the content. Is it the developers fault or the nature of our community … I dunno.

phys.7689:

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

Hot fixing some terrain/geometry issues will not change the preference in fractal levels run for dailies. What would go a long way to incentivizing different fractals would be a true reward for doing longer fractals. They said they were doing that…at least I don’t think I imagined that, but I don’t see the implementation. I waited until the alleged improved rewards patch to start my 75+ fractals and I only saw improved drops for the first two days after the patch. The gold rewards are still there, but not so much with any other drops. I’m also not seeing any difference in rewards when I run a level other than swamp/duo…versus swamp/duo. If they really want to incentivize…they need to actually incentivize, instead of presenting a temporary illusion that they are incentivizing. They said they toned down the toughness scaling past level 50, but I can’t tell. Either the pugs are secret nomads or the toughness is still jacked up too high. No one wants to spend extended time grinding away at toughness…with longer runs…when they can get it done faster on a shorter run.

My key issues are:
Toughness still too much at high levels
Stupid instabilities (social awkwardness/boon fumbler)
Imaginary increased rewards (drops) for longer fractals

I’ll also say they really shouldn’t have moved away from the random fractals if they wanted all levels to get equal play. That was the key thing that made all levels get done….otherwise, why would anyone do a longer fractal?

They balanced the exp you gain for longer fractals but not the rewards…hope they fix this too…

phys.7689:

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

No one fights him up there on fractals without these atrocious new instabilities. Yes, people will always choose Swamp/Molten Duo. They’re the fastest. Again though, the new instabilities only served to make anything BUT swamp wildly unattractive. Being feared and immobilized every second isn’t fun, it isn’t engaging, there is little to no long-term counterplay. Of course it’s preferable to just chill on a little hut and get the daily fractal chore over with.

I would wager that with some engaging instabilities (or even the old ones back), you would see a lot more play in some other fractals. Nearly every instability they implemented is horrible and actually hurts enjoyment more than anything else.

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.

Not only Rev but also Ele. I’m sure you know it.

Saint.5647:

phys.7689:

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

No one fights him up there on fractals without these atrocious new instabilities. Yes, people will always choose Swamp/Molten Duo. They’re the fastest. Again though, the new instabilities only served to make anything BUT swamp wildly unattractive. Being feared and immobilized every second isn’t fun, it isn’t engaging, there is little to no long-term counterplay. Of course it’s preferable to just chill on a little hut and get the daily fractal chore over with.

I would wager that with some engaging instabilities (or even the old ones back), you would see a lot more play in some other fractals. Nearly every instability they implemented is horrible and actually hurts enjoyment more than anything else.

The instabilities are a side issue. Its lazily done, and sometimes works against good play, but thats not why people run swamp to death, and its not why they go on top.

As annoying as random conditions are, its still more entertaining than pressing rotation x with virtually no interaction.

But the exploit is easier, the level is faster and the difference in reward is not great enough to offset longer levels, and longer waiting for group.

Simple truth, fractals shouldnt be competing against each other. The work balancing them is not worth it, and it overall will make them generic and same feeling, as well as limiting development options.

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

phys.7689:

The instabilities are a side issue. Its lazily done, and sometimes works against good play, but thats not why people run swamp to death, and its not why they go on top.

As annoying as random conditions are, its still more entertaining than pressing rotation x with virtually no interaction.

But the exploit is easier, the level is faster and the difference in reward is not great enough to offset longer levels, and longer waiting for group.

Simple truth, fractals shouldnt be competing against each other. The work balancing them is not worth it, and it overall will make them generic and same feeling, as well as limiting development options.

I would have to disagree and say that the instabilities are definitely an essential part of the issue.

Sure, it’s a lot easier to pole climb against mossy, but it would be much faster to kill him out in the open where Mossy doesn’t get random invulnerability frames or put himself in a spot where everything gets obstructed/can’t be targeted.

Why isn’t that seem more often? Have you ever been hit with random fears with the Superspeed buff? With the amount of distance I travelled I might as well be running the wisps again (I’m exaggerating). The higher damage output and higher health pool I can deal with against Mossy. The unpredictability of what I need to counter is largely annoying after the first couple times I fear run myself into Narnia.

Even better. How many of us enjoy walking into the sea of Dredge to have every single one of them explode upon being killed? That instability was funny the first time around during v1 of the instabilities; you would end up with something like Last Laugh on Uncategorized. Outside of the Achievements I can’t see many people purposely running anything other than 56 in that set.

I will agree that fractals worked better as a set of instances rather than pick and choose. I understand that the devs wanted to make the content more casual friendly, but they did not do a great enough of a job to balance effort against compensation. The major differences being trash mob loot (meh) and the quantity of XP reward (neato….unless you’re maxed in Masteries).

Zaxares.5419:

Ugh. I had a long response written to this but the forums ate it.

But basically, fixing the exploits only treats the symptoms, not the cause. To truly break the cycle, you need to either remove the incentive for people to just mindlessly grind the same content over and over, or remove the requirements that makes people grind in the first place.

The former is always a disaster; look at the sorry state of dungeons now. Nobody really does dungeons anymore aside from people looking for AP, since it’s much faster to acquire dungeon tokens and gear from the PvP reward tracks than it is to do the dungeons themselves.

The latter, meanwhile, comes with the risk that players will simply move on once they’ve gotten their shinies, depriving ANet of numbers and potential income. However, this only happens if the shinies are the ONLY thing keeping players there. If the content is fun and enjoyable on its own merits, players will keep coming back to it for the experience alone. So far with HoT, it seems like ANet has just locked a bunch of fancy rewards behind onerous/expensive collections and grindy requirements.

Fractals were fun and enjoyable – 3 years ago when they first came out. It’s been a stale experience ever since – no new fractals – with just 3 recycled islands.

That’s why people exploit – because there’s honestly no incentive to do the content apart from the rewards.

That aside – remember how they said Fractals would be their “focus point” along with raids and how they’ll care about it and whatnot.

Look at it now – the state it’s in pretty much speaks for itself.
From bugs, to exploits and quality of life issues( can’t change stages while inside -have to go outside) – every time they’ve touched fractals they’ve somehow made them worse.

The rewards are half decent now – but the overall experience is much less enjoyable since we have the “preset selectable fractals”.

Astralporing.1957:

Saudi.5320:

They might also just patch those two bugs much like they patched the boxes at the Golem world boss

It’s far more likely they will do the same they did with dungeons when they were faced with a similar problem. They don’t like fixing old things, they prefer to work on new ones. So, most likely if people will keep reminding them that Fractals need fixing, then Fractals will end up nerfed into the ground rewardwise so noone will care about them anymore.

I can actually see this happening – they have a miserable track record for supporting their content once they push it out.

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

The last thing I want is the “exploit or be kicked” mindset that plagued this community back when people exploited the geometry in the first room of Dredge fractal. That caused me to quit GW2 for a LOOOOONG time.

How about you just do Mossman the legit way or go do some other fractal?

I run fracs almost every day, have been for a long time, and very rarely do I ever run into groups that use exploits. The only one I saw a lot of was the (now fixed) molten duo exploit where you could skip the first fight.

Beyond that, like mentioned before, most of the exploits are pointless at higher levels.

phys.7689:

Raizen.7981:

“nerf other people playstyle’s because I’m offended by how they play”
I don’t know, how exactly does other people playing particular fractals affect you? Was your boss going to give you a raise, but then said “oh, you don’t run the fast fractals? Go be poor”. Did your wife leave you? Kids flunked out of high school? I really don’t get this stupid kitten argument. I recently did my 1-100 fractals for ze first time, and I had no issues at all filling parties for the “non swamp” fractals. It took me at most 5 minutes to fill for the most annoying ones. So again, how does other people’s choice of fractals affect you?

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

The problem with fractals being different in length and difficulty wasn’t even a problem when they were coupled in sets of 3 + one bonus round because the encounters were random.

So yes – the hard ones came and you did the hard ones – and sometimes you got easy ones – but it was random and you knew that going in.

The problem is – with the new system there are fractals that you literally have no reason to do – Why would I do 90+ dredge or 90+ cliffside when I can do 90+ swamp? Provided these exist ( I didn’t check) and you don’t need them for your achievement.

There’s no point.

I explained this to the devs in the CDI – this structure can’t work because there will always be that one fractal that has an optimal reward vs difficulty ratio and people will just do that one.
The random nature of fractals prevented their “farm” – until now.

Saint.5647:

phys.7689:

sorry, but lets be honest here.
You are not meant to fight mossman via going up in a tree clubhouse

these are bugs/exploits.

That said people would still pick these fractals due to ease of play.

and contrary to your opinion, it is a problem. It reduces the life of fractals when 90% of them are seen as wastes of time, fractals were never meant to be balanced against each other. the difference in speeds, goals, style of levels was smart design to keep them fresh longer, and make fractals as a whole more entertaining.

Now i wouldnt say they should stop people in a ham handed way, but rather create incentives to play fractals differently, for some players.

but yeah 9 swamp a day meta is not something devs should be aiming for. Lets be honest we arent playing swamp because its the most fun fractal ever created.

No one fights him up there on fractals without these atrocious new instabilities. Yes, people will always choose Swamp/Molten Duo. They’re the fastest. Again though, the new instabilities only served to make anything BUT swamp wildly unattractive. Being feared and immobilized every second isn’t fun, it isn’t engaging, there is little to no long-term counterplay. Of course it’s preferable to just chill on a little hut and get the daily fractal chore over with.

I would wager that with some engaging instabilities (or even the old ones back), you would see a lot more play in some other fractals. Nearly every instability they implemented is horrible and actually hurts enjoyment more than anything else.

I’m pretty sure they’re going to address this not by fixing the instabilities or anything like that but by nerfing the “popular” fractals.

RubberDougie.2750:

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

The last thing I want is the “exploit or be kicked” mindset that plagued this community back when people exploited the geometry in the first room of Dredge fractal. That caused me to quit GW2 for a LOOOOONG time.

How about you just do Mossman the legit way or go do some other fractal?

Unfortunately you and I both know people won’t stop doing it until it’s fixed. And when it’s fixed they’ll search for the next spot. If human nature makes you want to quit GW2 then you most likely won’t stay playing for very long.

I understand your frustration but instead of aiming it at the players maybe direct your dissatisfaction somewhere else.

But, see, the players are the problem! I can’t possibly criticize ANet on their own forums or bad things will happen to my forum privileges. :P

rhodoc.2381:

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.

Not only Rev but also Ele. I’m sure you know it.

Guard and war can do it aswell. :<

All fair points, and you’re right, multi swamp per day isn’t particularly fun. It’s just something you put some time into and it’s done. On the flip-side, running cliffside with some of these absurd instabilities would be less enjoyable. It’s just as old, just as tired, and just as dry.

Are fractals bad? No. Fractals were cool content, years ago when they released. Now, they’re tired. The new instabilities are a perplexing decision and only serve to frustrate players.

It is no surprise people will do their triple swamp, stand on a post, go through lazy half rotations, and collect their rewards.

Frankly, even if they put up invisible walls and somehow invalidated any “cheez” spot, I’m sure more people would just stop running fractals altogether once they finished their backpieces and collections. I know I would.

If they are serious about keeping fractals around and not throwing it to the wolves like dungeons, they need to do more than patch up little bandaid fixes. Otherwise fractals will be dead in another year or so.

Fracs are already basically dead now, all people run are 56 67 and 77 with the occasional pages just in case we need in the future. Don’t need to wait a year lol.

fishball.7204:

Fracs are already basically dead now, all people run are 56 67 and 77 with the occasional pages just in case we need in the future. Don’t need to wait a year lol.

^

Though, I’ll also throw in the extra 15-20 minutes to do the adept and veteran dailies for the free keys and boxes. Otherwise, this statement is awfully accurate.

Previous to the island structure, players would actually go through the various tiers since they all had somewhat of decent chance at ascended equipment. Relative to the drop data for fractals chests, our realistic chance for box drops nowadays are from the Champion boxes. So if that all a player wants it’s not at all a surprise they go straight for the goal and as quickly as possible. Thus, we end up with triple swamp.

Also, wondering where the heck all these great instabilities went off to.

Keksmuffin.1450:

rhodoc.2381:

RubberDougie.2750:

Something about a Rev and Molten Boss. I’m sure you know it.

Not only Rev but also Ele. I’m sure you know it.

Guard and war can do it aswell. :<

There’s even more classes that can.

Also, a properly done mossman is faster than doing him while afking.

As for the bugs, yes they need fixing, but we already saw how much dedication put into fixing those things; slap “fixed …” into the HoT-patchnotes while only actually fixing one or two problems and causing a dozen new bugs.

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

the exploit isnt any shorter though, just easier and more monotonous.

but as you said, this is a flaw in design. fractals was made to offer variety, its not really supposed to be about doing the fastest fractals as easily as possible.

fixing the exploits is needed, just because they are exploits, but it wont solve the problem. with current system it will always be about spamming the easiest fractal, if swamp gets fixed it might be aquatic, if aqutic is long, they may find a shortcut in uncategorized.

this is huge and hamstrings new fractals, even if they are better designed, more engaging, they will be competing with swamp, or whatever is the meta easy fast fractal at the time.

I want my pre-HOT FoTm back t.t

phys.7689:

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

the exploit isnt any shorter though, just easier and more monotonous.

but as you said, this is a flaw in design. fractals was made to offer variety, its not really supposed to be about doing the fastest fractals as easily as possible.

fixing the exploits is needed, just because they are exploits, but it wont solve the problem. with current system it will always be about spamming the easiest fractal, if swamp gets fixed it might be aquatic, if aqutic is long, they may find a shortcut in uncategorized.

this is huge and hamstrings new fractals, even if they are better designed, more engaging, they will be competing with swamp, or whatever is the meta easy fast fractal at the time.

This is exactly correct; even without the mossman exploit, boarding the triple swamp daily train for 51+ fractals would still be the most common method since swamp would still be the fastest fractal.

The exploits or design oversights or whatever you want to call them should be fixed on principle, but really that would not fix any of the staleness of fractals. People will gravitate towards to faster/easier option if one is available. This is unavoidable to an extent and it isn’t a problem that players want the most return for their time spent, but it does mean that most players will rarely/never even attempt most of the scales under normal conditions. Others in this thread have pointed out that no one is being forced to run 7 swamp/molten bros for dailies, and this is 100% true. But the daily fractal system – essentially your “fractal goals for the day” – encourages players to take the easy option to get the guaranteed fractal daily success. My guildmates and I are pretty good at the game, and we could beat any of the fractal scales if we tried, but every day our 51+ dailies are still triple swamp. Every day we fight mossman and do the dumb exploit and beat him with 1 finger. Not because we have to, but because if we do anything else we might fail or take a long time and have to try again, and the potential for wasted time discourages us from playing different scales. Judging by the statements anet has made about fractals in recent months I would say this is not what they envisioned.

The obvious solution is to just make the dailies be 3 specific fractal scales (or 3 + boss or 2 + boss) instead of the current 1 specific + 2 of your choice (aka swamp/molten bros). If the dailies are difficult fractals people will still do them, because the daily rewards are actually quite good on average (especially for the 51+ daily, despite what many unlucky posters have said), and so even if it takes longer, you don’t feel as much like you are wasting time by doing aetherblade retreat or cliffside because there is no other option to get the substantial daily reward. Those scales are relatively lengthy and annoying to do, but if there is a good reward in the end I’ll happily do them and feel like I accomplished something afterwards.

I completely understand that the idea of the current daily system was to make fractal rewards achievable by more players, but I think I am not the only player who feels that fractals are less enjoyable than pre-HoT, even with the improved liquid rewards. The exploits are dumb and should be fixed, but those fixes would merely make farming/dailies a bit slower.

The Molten Boss one is stupid, you miss out on a champ bag and event XP!

The Mossman one is also stupid. It’s slightly easier than normal stacking on him, though.

harold.3526:

I want my pre-HOT FoTm back t.t

Ew why!

Both of these exploits have already been reported up the chain, and both will be resolved in the early new year.

In all fairness the Molten Boss event is announced as ‘Bonus Event!’ which implies that the more expedient players should skip them.

Most players doing the suggested exploit cannot beat Mossman otherwise. I’ve seen the attempts.

phys.7689:

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

the exploit isnt any shorter though, just easier and more monotonous.

but as you said, this is a flaw in design. fractals was made to offer variety, its not really supposed to be about doing the fastest fractals as easily as possible.

fixing the exploits is needed, just because they are exploits, but it wont solve the problem. with current system it will always be about spamming the easiest fractal, if swamp gets fixed it might be aquatic, if aqutic is long, they may find a shortcut in uncategorized.

this is huge and hamstrings new fractals, even if they are better designed, more engaging, they will be competing with swamp, or whatever is the meta easy fast fractal at the time.

It is shorter because you perceive it as shorter. It can allow you to do other stuff while doing said fight so you’re not really losing time compared to being at 100% and doing just that.
So while not being shorter it’s less of a time killer.

When fractals were made un-random the whole system and concept was broken.

Draknar.5748:

harold.3526:

I want my pre-HOT FoTm back t.t

Ew why!

Because it was cool – not something anyone could do and even with the rewards being as bad as they were the pre-HoT state of FOTM rewarded skilled players more than the post-HOT state of FoTM.
Why? Because pre-Hot you could 3 man or 4 man and make a nice profit while being challenged.

Post-HoT you do swamp and that’s it.

FoTM was supposed to be the 5 man instanced content that rewards skilled play and competence. Right now it doesn’t even come as close as Pre-HoT fotm did.

Not only does post-HoT FOTM not reward skilled play -it doesn’t even require it. With the old system if you were terrible and tried a high level daily like a 50 you might actually fail repeatedly in some harder stages.
Right now you can be as bad as you want – you can still beat swamps and molten or jade.

Dinosaurs.8674:

phys.7689:

Harper.4173:

Jahroots.6791:

The core problem that plagues all PvE content is effort vs reward. In order to get anything even remotely worthwhile you need to repeat content ad nauseam. It’s flawed design, but ‘necessary’ for Anet’s business model.

Personally, having experienced a variety of approaches to various fractal encounters a few dozen times, I’ll stick to the fastest and safest method where possible. Longer fights really aren’t any more fun. I suspect a great many other players feel the same way.

Agreed – as someone who’s done fractals ever since they were first released I can honestly tell you the last thing I want is to enjoy another full length mossman fight.
The content is old and stale – if not for rewards people wouldn’t touch it.

Of course – we might not feel the same way about it if more and more content was added giving us a large variety of fractal islands – maybe that variety might have been enough to keep older content “fresh” since you might see it more rarely – but alas it was not to be.

the exploit isnt any shorter though, just easier and more monotonous.

but as you said, this is a flaw in design. fractals was made to offer variety, its not really supposed to be about doing the fastest fractals as easily as possible.

fixing the exploits is needed, just because they are exploits, but it wont solve the problem. with current system it will always be about spamming the easiest fractal, if swamp gets fixed it might be aquatic, if aqutic is long, they may find a shortcut in uncategorized.

this is huge and hamstrings new fractals, even if they are better designed, more engaging, they will be competing with swamp, or whatever is the meta easy fast fractal at the time.

This is exactly correct; even without the mossman exploit, boarding the triple swamp daily train for 51+ fractals would still be the most common method since swamp would still be the fastest fractal.

The exploits or design oversights or whatever you want to call them should be fixed on principle, but really that would not fix any of the staleness of fractals. People will gravitate towards to faster/easier option if one is available. This is unavoidable to an extent and it isn’t a problem that players want the most return for their time spent, but it does mean that most players will rarely/never even attempt most of the scales under normal conditions. Others in this thread have pointed out that no one is being forced to run 7 swamp/molten bros for dailies, and this is 100% true. But the daily fractal system – essentially your “fractal goals for the day” – encourages players to take the easy option to get the guaranteed fractal daily success. My guildmates and I are pretty good at the game, and we could beat any of the fractal scales if we tried, but every day our 51+ dailies are still triple swamp. Every day we fight mossman and do the dumb exploit and beat him with 1 finger. Not because we have to, but because if we do anything else we might fail or take a long time and have to try again, and the potential for wasted time discourages us from playing different scales. Judging by the statements anet has made about fractals in recent months I would say this is not what they envisioned.

The obvious solution is to just make the dailies be 3 specific fractal scales (or 3 + boss or 2 + boss) instead of the current 1 specific + 2 of your choice (aka swamp/molten bros). If the dailies are difficult fractals people will still do them, because the daily rewards are actually quite good on average (especially for the 51+ daily, despite what many unlucky posters have said), and so even if it takes longer, you don’t feel as much like you are wasting time by doing aetherblade retreat or cliffside because there is no other option to get the substantial daily reward. Those scales are relatively lengthy and annoying to do, but if there is a good reward in the end I’ll happily do them and feel like I accomplished something afterwards.

I completely understand that the idea of the current daily system was to make fractal rewards achievable by more players, but I think I am not the only player who feels that fractals are less enjoyable than pre-HoT, even with the improved liquid rewards. The exploits are dumb and should be fixed, but those fixes would merely make farming/dailies a bit slower.

They went with the HoT update despite being warned that this would happen – it’s my belief that they simply don’t care. I think they simply wanted more players to do them and that’s what they ultimately got.

What I propose as a fix is this – a new parallel system to what we have now that would function as an alternative to current dailies.

You want to do 3 51-75 dailies just like right now? Go for it -you get a daily chest.
You want the old system back? You’ll get 3 random fractals between 51-75 for double the rewards when you complete.

Ta-da.

Maybe you can only do one of the choices per day so god forbid us player don’t get too much loot from FOTM.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Both of these exploits have already been reported up the chain, and both will be resolved in the early new year.

Nice to hear.

LadyHawk.5319:

Players have been doing this in dungeons for a long time. Why would you not expect these exploits to be found and used in fractals now? I saw this coming as soon as Anet announced their change in dungeon rewards and pushing the players towards fractals. Since the main reason for doing these activities for many of these players who exploit is simply to make money, the quicker the better. If you want to experience these instances as the developers intended them to be, I am sure these exploiters would be happy not to have you in their party. Is is sad, yes. But this game is becoming more about making money and less about the content. Is it the developers fault or the nature of our community … I dunno.

Yeah, because prior to HoT no one ever used exploits in Fractals like standing on a rock for Archdiviner or killing Mossman underwater or abusing Kiel’s AI in Mai Trinn. Curse you HoT for letting those filthy exploit-hungry dungeon proles pollute our beloved Fractals!

What is this rev and molten boss exploit? I would love to know to do it myself. Thanks <3