Guild Wars 2

I have two level 80 characters, both fully geared, both ready to go. These characters are the result of playing about 2 hours a day on average since release. I have been very happy with having multiple characters because it keeps things fresh for me. I was even already planning out my third character as I was beginning to stockpile gold again.

I like to keep it fresh in dungeon groups. I play all eight classes in spvp. I swap it up in wvw.

Then I found out that fractal level is character bound. Why?

I only have 2-3 hours of gametime a night. And since GW2 released it has gotten the lion’s share of that time. Now I am forced to split progress between my characters. With only 80-100 hours needed to 100% a character this new mechanic is introducing a 1-1.5 hour sink PER fractal level. With a minimum of 10 levels necessary that’s almost an entire week in my time just to get one character to fractal 10 (of a potentially much higher count.)

If there are 30 fractal levels (as some have theorized) that is almost enough time to achieve full 100% map completion! Nevermind how fatiguing it would be to grind the fractal levels on the exact same set of dungeons over and over.

What happens if I do get a third character? How about a fourth?

That’s a whole week to three weeks of not playing with my friend on all but my most developed character. No more mixing it up in dungeons. No more variety. And I’d be leaving them hanging too. Now they have to find a fill in.

ANet go back to “play the account not the character.”
This is incredibly unfun. I do not want a “fractals main.” I want to play my account.

I hate this aswell. I have more than one 80 and forced to play on one of them now.

No thank you.

You may have just finished level 12 with your guardian in full exotics and some ascended gear. I do not want to run level 13 with your new 80 Ele in rares that you suck at playing – An example, not aimed at you specifically.

Kandrick.8054:

No thank you.

You may have just finished level 12 with your guardian in full exotics and some ascended gear. I do not want to run level 13 with your new 80 Ele in rares that you suck at playing – An example, not aimed at you specifically.

Your kind of elitism is not welcome here.
In fact, if you’re so pro, why are you only thinking of PUGs?

/signed

If you have a lot of exotic twinks it really sucks to bring them all to at least lvl 10. Make the level account wide and let people decide with whom they want to do the dungeon. Cause after all, the only piece of gear that matters is ascended gear and infusions.

/Asagi – I am not pro or elite in any way. I’m just saying that I would want my runs to go as smoothly as possible which means using the character that has proven they can complete the instance at the required level.
While I am not pro or elite I am not prepared to carry you through a dungeon, you would be a hinderance.

“your kind of elitism is not welcome here” – Well luckily you have no input on who is or is not welcome to use the public forums.

With no gearcheck level (i.e. auto level to enter) then please leave as it is – per character.

No Kandrick, you’re just a wannabe.
Again, if you want smooth runs then pugs will never guarantee that, and a person who knows the dungeon is more valuable than someone decked out in exotics who doesn’t have a clue.

Asagi.1405:

No Kandrick, you’re just a wannabe.
Again, if you want smooth runs then pugs will never guarantee that, and a person who knows the dungeon is more valuable than someone decked out in exotics who doesn’t have a clue.

As I already stated – Luckily nobody really cares what you personally think..

Kandrick.8054:

Asagi.1405:

No Kandrick, you’re just a wannabe.
Again, if you want smooth runs then pugs will never guarantee that, and a person who knows the dungeon is more valuable than someone decked out in exotics who doesn’t have a clue.

As I already stated – Luckily nobody really cares what you personally think..

Same to you, hotshot. Nobody cares that you want to be guaranteed that the 4 other people in your group will carry you.

I somewhat agree with Asagi only because FotM is a little different in the fact that when someone dies, there’s no way to waypoint up. It’s either carry on as a 4-man group, go back and get the poor soul that died, or everyone die and retry from checkpoint. Any other dungeon I could care less. In fact I’m usually the advocate; it’s your repair bill. But now this is more team oriented than the dungeons before. So I think it’s a matter of accountability; I know that this toon has worked up to the level we are about to go in. Not carried on the coat-tails of an alt.

FoTM is build around a progress. Progress of your character. You also dont have story dungeons, map completion account bound, do you? Just achievements ..

All those drops are account bound, so … what is this all about?

Actually, having a level restriction at all is an epic design-failure. These restrictions should not be souldbound or accountbound, they should be nonexistant.

If I’m (hypothetically) the god of GW2-PvE play, I can spend the next month soloing Arah explo and still be the best GW2-player imaginable. If my FotM playing guild needs my help with FotM level 9 then, why should I not be allowed to?

- I’m not good enough?
I’m the best possible player, I just never bothered with FotM.

- I need to practise the easy levels first?
I can (theoretically) advance the level I’m admitted to to 100 but the RNG never sent me to a certain shard. So the first time I go there might be at level 100.

If ArenaNet insists on restricting advancement through content not by skill but equipment (which they did, aside from just the atrificial barrier of fractal level) then they should restrict it by equipment.

If I’m perfectly geared, I want to be admitted. In all exotics, you’re perfectly equipped for anything up to level 9, because there’s no agony until 10, IIRC. So why do we have this clunky mechanic anyway?

However, since the mechanic is as disingenious as it can possibly programmed on a touring-complete machine, I’m all for restricting its effects as much as possible amd make it account-wise. Or guild-wide. Or server-wide. Or just abolish it.

The only thing that should change is being able to raise the level to the highest person in group, period. Nothing wrong with it the way it is beyond that.

Up until 2 days ago I could run every dungeon with whatever alt I wanted. We’ve got 3 squishes and no heavy? I’ll bring my Guardian. Need more range or combo fields? Elementalist then. Lack control? Lemme hop on my Mesmer.
I could bring a lot of utility to my group.
In the Fractals, where it would be most useful given the supposed “difficulty” of the content going up, I can’t.

As if competing with the RNG or spending a lot of money on getting Ascended stuff wasn’t discouraging enough for us altoholics…

Hoping this will change sooner or later.

I’d settle for being able to go to anyone else’s level, but this still isn’t as good an option. If you’re used to running fractal level 15 are you really going to be able to enjoy playing on training wheels again?

There is no subscription fee in this game.
DO NOT DUPLICATE KEY GRINDS.

i imagine the reason is to mitigate the segregation that’s already being caused. it’s pretty hard to get a group for lower level fractals, so if you have to run the lower levels with your alts, you’re allowing people that haven’t given fractals a chance yet to find a group.

in a perfect world, they would find a system that completely gets rid of this issue while still not forcing veteran players to go through the easier levels. the best i can think of are monthly resets with account-bound fractal level, but even then it’s not good enough.

Until they abolish this thing, casuals should just watch it on youtube instead of playing in it.

The FDS effectively discourages switching of alt. And good luck if you fell behind with your regular group on FDS level.

Kandrick.8054:

No thank you.

You may have just finished level 12 with your guardian in full exotics and some ascended gear. I do not want to run level 13 with your new 80 Ele in rares that you suck at playing – An example, not aimed at you specifically.

• You can still pick lower than 13 lvl.
• Game is easy enough
• I thought gear doesn’t matter that much
• If someone’s level 80 they shouldn’t suck at one proffesion and be good at another unless you bought that level (crafting)
• If you think gear will carry you, you’re just bad

As someone that can’t get a group for level 4… I’m glad it’s not account bound.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i imagine the reason is to mitigate the segregation that’s already being caused. it’s pretty hard to get a group for lower level fractals, so if you have to run the lower levels with your alts, you’re allowing people that haven’t given fractals a chance yet to find a group.

in a perfect world, they would find a system that completely gets rid of this issue while still not forcing veteran players to go through the easier levels. the best i can think of are monthly resets with account-bound fractal level, but even then it’s not good enough.

I thought about this aswell, but atleast for me it’s just stopping me from playing with my other characters because I want to progress not start over.

Hador.2753:

Up until 2 days ago I could run every dungeon with whatever alt I wanted. We’ve got 3 squishes and no heavy? I’ll bring my Guardian. Need more range or combo fields? Elementalist then. Lack control? Lemme hop on my Mesmer.
I could bring a lot of utility to my group.
In the Fractals, where it would be most useful given the supposed “difficulty” of the content going up, I can’t.

As if competing with the RNG or spending a lot of money on getting Ascended stuff wasn’t discouraging enough for us altoholics…

Hoping this will change sooner or later.

I agree to this. I myself want to be versatile in every dungeon and not just focus on one class. Even tho the loots are account bound you always want your every toon to be there at the level you want em to be and not just 1 alt. People get bored playing one class everyday running dailies that’s why we make alts. Not every people have the luxury of time to run 2-5 fractal runs a day that’s why casual players have this so called daily runs. Not to mention the guesting system is not yet implemented, players are looking for overflows just to get a group in one server which is a pain. Just LFG is already frustrating at low levels.

Why the OP ask. Here is the answer: it’s not account bound for a simple reason: agony.
I’ll make you a simple example.
Accordingly to the rng of rings, the “alt” shouldn’t have yet enough agony res to deal a lv40-49 fractal run. (Rest is cheating, at 50 you cannot deal with agony not using some exploits soon removed).
Ye, you can tell me: well i’m on my 400th fractal run, i got loads of clones/extra rings.
Some can tell it, some are still chasing his stats having maybe a few more to spare with perfect stats for an alt and loads of clones. Can happens ,cannot too. And the “sense of progression” is lost, you run your main to 49, all your account is 49, chasing your rings you got enough extra rings for every alt (and maybe funnily all of them will have their stats except your main, accordingly to the Murphy’s Law ) then what?
Different would be ask a title, showing over your name with a tiny number or a particular color, whatever, your real “knowledge” of fractals. So when you play with your alt, joning a lv23 group, every other with you will not assume you’re the noob of the day with 0/minimum agony or pretending a ping because he wrote “agony res is required to join”. Sorta of dungeon master title, just a clown can pretend to teach him something about how dungeons works and how to deal with a battle (assuming he wasn’t a carried player, but i doubt).

Actually there are 2 main reasons why I think AN made fractals account bound.

1. For players with multiple characters it potentially adds more content to chew through – although this is really ‘grind’ it is technically more content and adds as a time sink to prevent players ‘finishing’. This is AN main reason.

2. Just because you can complete a fractal as a l20 Guardian doesn;t mean you are equally adept at doing it with a mesmer. Even if both are in full exotics they have different playstyles and roles. Although good players can adapt, they is no objective evidence that the mesmer knows their role and can perform to an adequate level. The Guardian does have objective evidence that he knows his role because he has completed 19 levels before.

I find the fractal levels annoying but simply put, just because a player can play fractal level X on one character doesn;t mean they are proficient with it on an alt.