(edited by Boogiepop Void.6473)
Fractal updates needed
1 – Agreed, newbies shouldn’t get this on their first ever fractal run especially when some mobs there respawn and they may not know that
2 – Agreed, everything requiring more than 1 person to progress instance should be removed
3 – I disagree, I often do the run solo, you just need to LoS the kraits and also medic packs and stealth packs help if you’re being extra. Dolphins could use more skills though and make the revive a special action key.
4 – No, the spinning walls are fun to me and I don’t hate the encounter
5 – I agree, it should be a little more engaging, the kraken should be more of a world boss than just a point to throw crystals at.
6 – No! Git gud
7 – Remove cinematic, make the fight more interesting
1- Agree. It’s tedius, the initial mobs add nothing because 90% of them are skipped anyway. I know it’s supposed to mimic a battlefield, but it is just a total mess. As a first fractal as well, it’s not very new player friendly.
2- Switches need explaining and pathing could be adjusted to be quicker to reach, but require mobs to be killed before you can activate the first 2 switches before the Mechanical gate room.
3- I don’t find a problem with Aquatic, you have an instant ally revive skill on both paths to encourage movement as a group, use it.
4- Absolutely not. This fractal is based off old Living Story and would not make sense if changed. Fractals are explorable chunks of reality in Tyria, whether past or alternate.
5- Somewhat agree. It could be adjusted to be real boss fractal.
6- See point 4.
7- Allow skippable cinematic. See point 4.
Kitten.
1 – I agree. Its not welcoming to new players at all as the first fractal they will do. Just reducing the amount of AoEs would work though, I don’t mind the extra enemies running around.
2 – The switch part is very boring, especially in pugs who can’t coordinate to do it quickly
3 – I just don’t like underwater combat, I would rather see it removed entirely if I am being honest
4 – I disagree, I quite enjoy this fight, its more engaging than most because of the spinning walls
5 – Agree, this fractal needs a rework
6 – The boss fight is fine as it is.
7 – I don’t really care one way or the other
hi friends ,
1 : difficult but fine , main problem is you can’t do it if you have not ranged weapon for oil.
2 : if you are not necro or guard it will be difficult , but is fine as thief with shadow refuge , ranger can tank with pet , mesmer sealth+clone , ingi have sealth to with gyro.
ele… can die , like everytime >< okok joking , he take reflect earth from staff and relfelct shout from cataclyst , so , heal as water and fine ?
3 : agree , a little more gameplay should be fun. maybe a day when we will have an aquetic extension with interest port to aquatic.
4 : its not fun because you have done many time but its still a good gameplay , funny mechanic.
5 : its a different gameplay than every other fractal but its like this and i think its fine like this , add something before and this fractal should be too long.
6 : when i see i can solo it with 1finger , i think a normal group 5player with 2hand can done it.
7 : nothing to say on this one , probably fine.
Absolutely not. This fractal is based off old Living Story and would not make sense if changed. Fractals are explorable chunks of reality in Tyria, whether past or alternate.
The job of fractals is to be good repeatable content. S1 was never designed with repetition in mind. Things that work as a one time novelty don’t always work as something you are going to do over and over. Gameplay and fun come before “historical accuracy” any day.
I’d just like to see urban’s arrow carts not apply afflicted or give us means to destroy them before we reach the gate, thanks.
Adding:
8) Uncategorized – There is no reason for people to down when they fall. Just put them back at the start. The down is a needless delay. The stair trap would be fine IF the visual and the radius of the instant down matched. However, whether due to lag or just an overlarge hitbox, there is always lots of dying despite appearing to properly avoid the beams, particularly when moving to the side rather than outright dodging. The Old Tom fight could also use improvements since getting past it at high levels usually involves knowing to cheese the activation by not touching the floor rather than playing it as intended. The Mad Asura fight could also use less “did you bring a class with reflects or projectile destruction? if not, prepare to die.”
(edited by Boogiepop Void.6473)
afflicted is the worst instability ever made
Several fractals need a makeover fast.
Fast? No. Not sure I agree with you that any of these are the first thing I’d change in fractals, if it were up to me.
1) Urban Battleground – that mess fighting Dulfy at the gate needs to be changed. It’s too much AOE, too many enemies, and should not be most peoples’ first experience with fractals. It literally drives people away rather than drawing them in.
Slow & steady succeeds for tier 1.
2) Underground Facility – The initial mess with the switches needs to be changed. It’s unfun, takes too long, is too dependent on what classes you bring (not every class can stay alive while standing still on a switch), and too dependant on communication which gets people killed typing (while standing on switches).
The initial mess with the switches is… not a mess. For experienced groups, it’s a matter of watching the mini map to see if the blue dots are where they need to be. You don’t have to stay long on the buttons.
I think it’s good that some mechanics are easy with coordination and hard without it.
3) Aquatic Ruins – The dolphin path is needlessly long, without clear gameplay. Getting through is more about luck and your team drawing aggro than anything else.
It’s not about luck; it’s about paying attention to foes. Run a conga line and you can rez anyone going down.
4) Aetherblade – The final boss is horrible. It was fun the first few times, but it is not to do over and over. The spinning wall room is also more annoying than fun.
It should be easier now with condi builds.
5) Solid Ocean – 90% of this fractal is worthless, as you just run through it. Even Molten Boss has more going on.
This one deserves a makeover, to be sure. But it stymies some people now, so I don’t see it as any different from any of the other issues you’ve described.
6) Mai Trin – The main fight is too long without any recovery points. Nothing is more frustrating than going down toward the end and knowing you have to do 15min+ all over again.
Why are you going down towards the end? Why is it taking you 15 minutes to get her to 5%? I could live with the barrage phases all being the same length, but only because it’s boring to me after the first 10 seconds. Again, I don’t see this as a problem.
7) Molten Boss – Would be nice if there was a bit more to this, but at least make it so we don’t have to watch the boss entry cinematic over and over.
There’s a mechanical reason for the cinematic (other assets are loading). I sort of like that we have 1-2 fractals that aren’t that involved.
8) Uncategorized – The stair trap would be fine IF the visual and the radius of the instant down matched. However, whether due to lag or just an overlarge hitbox, there is always lots of dying despite appearing to properly avoid the beams, particularly when moving to the side rather than outright dodging. The Old Tom fight could also use improvements since getting past it at high levels usually involves knowing to cheese the activation by not touching the floor rather than playing it as intended. The Mad Asura fight could also use less “did you bring a class with reflects or projectile destruction? if not, prepare to die.”
There are all sorts of profession-specific ways get up the stairs. I’m not sure why you think those aren’t intended. If ANet didn’t want us to teleport, they could have just added a gap anywhere on the stairs. (Besides that, various projectile blocks can be used to get others up the stairs, the usual way.)
tl;dr I’m not against seeing a makeover. I just don’t agree that any of these things are important issues.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Absolutely not. This fractal is based off old Living Story and would not make sense if changed. Fractals are explorable chunks of reality in Tyria, whether past or alternate.
The job of fractals is to be good repeatable content. S1 was never designed with repetition in mind. Things that work as a one time novelty don’t always work as something you are going to do over and over. Gameplay and fun come before “historical accuracy” any day.
Gameplay and fun is subjective.
Can I repeat this fractal in as much time as any other fractal? Yes.
Do I enjoy this fractal? Yes, I think many who played LS1 enjoy this fractal and the others because of it’s historical accuracy, we absolutely need more of these fractals. It would accomplish variety in scale content but also bridge the gaps between Personal Story – LS2.
Given my initial post, some fractals could do with tweaks, other more visuals to explain a mechanic, but I’d much rather have new fractals any day.
Kitten.
tbh I’d rather they focused efforts on making new fractals.
1 – Agreed, newbies shouldn’t get this on their first ever fractal run especially when some mobs there respawn and they may not know that
2 – Agreed, everything requiring more than 1 person to progress instance should be removed
3 – I disagree, I often do the run solo, you just need to LoS the kraits and also medic packs and stealth packs help if you’re being extra. Dolphins could use more skills though and make the revive a special action key.
4 – No, the spinning walls are fun to me and I don’t hate the encounter
5 – I agree, it should be a little more engaging, the kraken should be more of a world boss than just a point to throw crystals at.
6 – No! Git gud
7 – Remove cinematic, make the fight more interesting
“everything requiring more than one person should be removed” in a mmo…
Although I agree with some of your points (it’s a really sad that most area of the Solid Ocean is skipped), it’s incredibly difficult to create content that can be enjoyed over and over again, and in general, ArenaNet did an excellent job with fractals.
Imagine you had to do Heart quests over and over again. Of yourse you don’t have to in any case, but imagine they added dailies for Hearts with rewards of similar value as for fractals.
I still enjoy doing fractals, I just don’t always have the time to do the dailies, T4 alone can take 40+ minutes of uninterrupted gameplay.
Maybe the “order” of the first fractals could be changed. Starting with Urban Battleground, then Swamps, then underwater battle sure is a bit discouraging for starters. But people don’t have to start with these, they can join any T1 fractal via LFG. Molten Boss, Molten Furnace, Volcanic, Solid Ocean all have no complex mechanics and are better for starters. I think they should fill the first 4 slots of T1.
Herleve – Ruins of Surmia
I agree with some of your points, but some of the complaints is more about the gap on how the content was designed to be played and how it is actually played.
Urban – Agreed on the fact that as the beginning area as currently is shouldn’t be the first experience ever of new people in fractals. For later levels, I really dislike the damage the Warriors do, their Rush ability hit for like 20k and their autos for almost 10k for example and it isn’t every time you can read the telegraphs or cc every single one of them.
Underground Facility – No need to rework the beginning, it’s more an issue of how people decided to do it, if everyone took 30 seconds to clear the areas around the buttons before stepping on them most of these problems would never exist in the first place, but people want to rush the content so it’s their own problem. My only complaint about this one is that the scale 68 should have the instabilities changed as Flux Bomb plus Last Laugh makes this part kittened to play.
Aquatic Ruins – To be honest, they should just remove this until they rework underwater combat.
Aetherblade – What’s wrong with the last fight? I don’t think this one needs any kind of rework at the moment.
Solid Ocean – Agreed 100%. The beginning might as well not exist. The last boss has this annoying waiting part where you stay around doing nothing while waiting for the boss to throw out some crystal dudes every one billion seconds between each that get bopped in two seconds before continuing.
Mai Trin – The barrage phase is too long as is, any bad player will go down within the first 20 seconds, better players are just bored to death. The boss itself, maybe Mai Trin should get some actual mechanics, the fight currently can be done very easily by stacking on her and outhealing the damage with a single Druid as long as people keep Social Awkwardness in mind.
Molten Boss – Pretty sure the cutscene could be removed but maybe they don’t do it because people would farm it even more…
Uncategorized – Old Tom has the same problem as Mai Trin, you can just stack and dps while a healer outheals every single mechanic and attack. The last boss is basically veterans that die in three seconds while some asura dude attempt to delete people randomly.
Just going to chime in here that Aetherblade is my second favorite Fractal since its revamp and I don’t want anything about it to change. The boss is pretty cool and refreshing compared to every other tank/spank boss in Fractals, so I hope they keep it as-is.
[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!
I agree with some of your points, but some of the complaints is more about the gap on how the content was designed to be played and how it is actually played.
Urban – Agreed on the fact that as the beginning area as currently is shouldn’t be the first experience ever of new people in fractals. For later levels, I really dislike the damage the Warriors do, their Rush ability hit for like 20k and their autos for almost 10k for example and it isn’t every time you can read the telegraphs or cc every single one of them.
Underground Facility – No need to rework the beginning, it’s more an issue of how people decided to do it, if everyone took 30 seconds to clear the areas around the buttons before stepping on them most of these problems would never exist in the first place, but people want to rush the content so it’s their own problem. My only complaint about this one is that the scale 68 should have the instabilities changed as Flux Bomb plus Last Laugh makes this part kittened to play.
Aquatic Ruins – To be honest, they should just remove this until they rework underwater combat.
Aetherblade – What’s wrong with the last fight? I don’t think this one needs any kind of rework at the moment.
Solid Ocean – Agreed 100%. The beginning might as well not exist. The last boss has this annoying waiting part where you stay around doing nothing while waiting for the boss to throw out some crystal dudes every one billion seconds between each that get bopped in two seconds before continuing.
Mai Trin – The barrage phase is too long as is, any bad player will go down within the first 20 seconds, better players are just bored to death. The boss itself, maybe Mai Trin should get some actual mechanics, the fight currently can be done very easily by stacking on her and outhealing the damage with a single Druid as long as people keep Social Awkwardness in mind.
Molten Boss – Pretty sure the cutscene could be removed but maybe they don’t do it because people would farm it even more…
Uncategorized – Old Tom has the same problem as Mai Trin, you can just stack and dps while a healer outheals every single mechanic and attack. The last boss is basically veterans that die in three seconds while some asura dude attempt to delete people randomly.
They could have it o you can speed up the phase by destroying the cannons early with ranged attacks or w/e. (mai trin)
I have another update to add:
Remove Swampland. The worst fractal of them all. Bloomhunger in tier 4 does way too much damage. Has way too much cc, and will repeatedly harass whoever is downed or trying to res the downed. It’s just a nuisance and too many damage sources.
I have another update to add:
Remove Swampland. The worst fractal of them all. Bloomhunger in tier 4 does way too much damage. Has way too much cc, and will repeatedly harass whoever is downed or trying to res the downed. It’s just a nuisance and too many damage sources.
Oh take away one of the good updated bosses no thank you, just did him 12 hours ago with 4 necros and a thief zero problems.
What was needed and changed was the boring stand and shake while you hit me fight it used to be.
the only thing bad about bloomhunger is the boring trash mob phase. it should be removed
the only thing bad about bloomhunger is the boring trash mob phase. it should be removed
Nah I much rather they droped loot, same goes for other enemies in urban battle ground before main boss for example.
Edit
Since its alot of animals in swamp maybe introduce another leather farm hint hint nudge nudge
I have another update to add:
Remove Swampland. The worst fractal of them all. Bloomhunger in tier 4 does way too much damage. Has way too much cc, and will repeatedly harass whoever is downed or trying to res the downed. It’s just a nuisance and too many damage sources.
Still haven’t figured out why ppl getting downed there so much. Sure, on a bad day or one mistake from time to time can down you once but in the end it’s a clear sign of refusing to use the dodge key or just move a bit. Must be the same ppl calling out the champ and tunnelvision damaging it every fricking time instead of ignoring because it’ll die to aoe/epi/whatever.
Took me 3 runs of the dungeon to get the bug.
I have another update to add:
Remove Swampland. The worst fractal of them all. Bloomhunger in tier 4 does way too much damage. Has way too much cc, and will repeatedly harass whoever is downed or trying to res the downed. It’s just a nuisance and too many damage sources.
Still haven’t figured out why ppl getting downed there so much. Sure, on a bad day or one mistake from time to time can down you once but in the end it’s a clear sign of refusing to use the dodge key or just move a bit. Must be the same ppl calling out the champ and tunnelvision damaging it every fricking time instead of ignoring because it’ll die to aoe/epi/whatever.
Well if you have more then one necro they may want to bounce those lovely conditions back onto bloom.
Well if you have more then one necro they may want to bounce those lovely conditions back onto bloom.
why would you want to waste one epidemic if you can just cleave the champ with condis and dont have to bounce.
Well if you have more then one necro they may want to bounce those lovely conditions back onto bloom.
why would you want to waste one epidemic if you can just cleave the champ with condis and dont have to bounce.
I dont see how your wasting 1 epi can you elaborate?
Your dubbling back the conditions you just epi from boss so dubble the damage on main target.
the only thing bad about bloomhunger is the boring trash mob phase. it should be removed
Nah I much rather they droped loot, same goes for other enemies in urban battle ground before main boss for example.
Edit
Since its alot of animals in swamp maybe introduce another leather farm hint hint nudge nudge
That’s a bad and really unhealthy thing to do. It will lead to the same stuff people deal with in the 40 farm which is equally unhealthy for the game.
I’m all for fixing the leather issue but building zoo’s everywhere isn’t the solution.
I have another update to add:
Remove Swampland. The worst fractal of them all. Bloomhunger in tier 4 does way too much damage. Has way too much cc, and will repeatedly harass whoever is downed or trying to res the downed. It’s just a nuisance and too many damage sources.
So content you find too hard should be removed? I’ll take that as a yippee!
Means, I read your post as a rant and not a serious suggestion. I love Swamps with guild mates, it’s a pain with a pug. Very often, pugs will just leave the party while fighting Bloomhunger because they get downed or die a couple of times. I also died often in the first T4 Swamp attempts, but I quickly stopped doing that, and I play a Thief with less than 12k health. If it’s too hard for you, don’t ask for it to be removed, just don’t play it.
Herleve – Ruins of Surmia
Well if you have more then one necro they may want to bounce those lovely conditions back onto bloom.
I don’t mind that situation, it’s decent, not bad but I meant the tempests, warriors, guards etc. that constantly call out the target and stay to burst him down. Meanwhile Bloomhunger gets their attention not running into the right spots resulting in being invunerable for years.
Took me 3 runs of the dungeon to get the bug.
The boss fractals and the urban are really the only ones I can agree on. As far as the dolphin path goes, there is a clear path that lets you avoid all krait in between the clusters, and the distraction takes care of those. Rarely fail dolphin run solo.
Vee/Volk
Maguuma – Predatory Instinct [HUNT]
Necromancer
Maguuma – Predatory Instinct [HUNT]
Necromancer
So content you find too hard should be removed?
That’s the background behind a lot of the suggestions in this thread.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Well if you have more then one necro they may want to bounce those lovely conditions back onto bloom.
why would you want to waste one epidemic if you can just cleave the champ with condis and dont have to bounce.
I dont see how your wasting 1 epi can you elaborate?
Your dubbling back the conditions you just epi from boss so dubble the damage on main target.
epidemic has a limit of copying 25 condi stacks at once. if you cleave boss and the oakheart both at once (with aoes when they are close to each other), you dont have to waste 1 epidemic on boss, you can use both epidemics on the champion since it’s already capped on 25 bleed
So content you find too hard should be removed?
That’s the background behind a lot of the suggestions in this thread.
There is a difference between too hard and annoying or badly designed. “I clearly didn’t get hit by something but it killed me anyway” is bad design because the game is killing you despite you having played properly. “There is so much aoe and aggro that it is impossible to dodge because you only have 2-3” is bad design because you are dying due to sheer damage volume with no way to mitigate it other than luck. “You need to both continually fight while standing still (possibly something your class by design can’t do) while also simultaneously disabling your controls to communicate” is bad design. “You just run through 90% of the level because it is pointless” is bad design.
The only place where I think the bad design is directly a difficulty issue is Mai Trin. And that’s more about how long the difficulty is sustained than the difficulty itself. Even most Raid bosses are a shorter fight than most Mai Trin runs.
So content you find too hard should be removed?
That’s the background behind a lot of the suggestions in this thread.
There is a difference between too hard and annoying or badly designed. “I clearly didn’t get hit by something but it killed me anyway” is bad design because the game is killing you despite you having played properly. “There is so much aoe and aggro that it is impossible to dodge because you only have 2-3” is bad design because you are dying due to sheer damage volume with no way to mitigate it other than luck. “You need to both continually fight while standing still (possibly something your class by design can’t do) while also simultaneously disabling your controls to communicate” is bad design. “You just run through 90% of the level because it is pointless” is bad design.
The only place where I think the bad design is directly a difficulty issue is Mai Trin. And that’s more about how long the difficulty is sustained than the difficulty itself. Even most Raid bosses are a shorter fight than most Mai Trin runs.
Of course there’s a difference between “too hard” and badly designed. I don’t think any of the specifics in the original post fall into the second category. They aren’t that hard and some of them make for an interesting encounter for many others.
Your example with Mai Trin is telling: any group of 10 that can take down VG in 10 minutes (with experience) isn’t going to have trouble having only 5 to take down Mai Trin more quickly. Groups that need more time are having trouble with the mechanics and they’d struggle just as much (if not more) with raid encounters.
So while I wouldn’t mind seeing updates to the older fractal instances, I don’t think it’s an urgent issue and I strongly disagree with the details about which the OP feels so strongly.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
You assume organized groups. That’s the difference between fractals and raids: Most Raid groups are organized and on voice chat. Most Fractal groups are PUGs. PUGs have to communicate by typing and are in general a random collection of classes rather than a carefully organized composition. You can’t apply the same standard to mainly PUG content as you can to organized content.
You assume organized groups. That’s the difference between fractals and raids: Most Raid groups are organized and on voice chat. Most Fractal groups are PUGs. PUGs have to communicate by typing and are in general a random collection of classes rather than a carefully organized composition. You can’t apply the same standard to mainly PUG content as you can to organized content.
Yea and you dont have to type at all for any of the fractal instances.
Yea and you dont have to type at all for any of the fractal instances.
Not sure about that, sometimes I have to type to tell people to stay in the green area in Swamps, or to target the bunny first in Uncategorized, or to stand on a platform in Underground, and so on and so on…
Herleve – Ruins of Surmia
Yea and you dont have to type at all for any of the fractal instances.
Not sure about that, sometimes I have to type to tell people to stay in the green area in Swamps, or to target the bunny first in Uncategorized, or to stand on a platform in Underground, and so on and so on…
So you couldent just ping map were you are and use target on bunny, thats what I do no typing nessesary.
Edit
Or are we talking t1-t2 here then yea you could always type before getting into boss/ event room what is needed to be completed.
So content you find too hard should be removed?
That’s the background behind a lot of the suggestions in this thread.
There is a difference between too hard and annoying or badly designed. “I clearly didn’t get hit by something but it killed me anyway” is bad design because the game is killing you despite you having played properly. “There is so much aoe and aggro that it is impossible to dodge because you only have 2-3” is bad design because you are dying due to sheer damage volume with no way to mitigate it other than luck. “You need to both continually fight while standing still (possibly something your class by design can’t do) while also simultaneously disabling your controls to communicate” is bad design. “You just run through 90% of the level because it is pointless” is bad design.
The only place where I think the bad design is directly a difficulty issue is Mai Trin. And that’s more about how long the difficulty is sustained than the difficulty itself. Even most Raid bosses are a shorter fight than most Mai Trin runs.
Of course there’s a difference between “too hard” and badly designed. I don’t think any of the specifics in the original post fall into the second category. They aren’t that hard and some of them make for an interesting encounter for many others.
Your example with Mai Trin is telling: any group of 10 that can take down VG in 10 minutes (with experience) isn’t going to have trouble having only 5 to take down Mai Trin more quickly. Groups that need more time are having trouble with the mechanics and they’d struggle just as much (if not more) with raid encounters.
So while I wouldn’t mind seeing updates to the older fractal instances, I don’t think it’s an urgent issue and I strongly disagree with the details about which the OP feels so strongly.
Mai trin aside, I don’t think any of the things in the original necessarily post fall into bad design either, but that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t annoying. And if something is annoying, that’s enough cause to request it be changed.
Mai trin aside, I don’t think any of the things in the original necessarily post fall into bad design either, but that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t annoying. And if something is annoying, that’s enough cause to request it be changed.
Except the OP isn’t simply saying that these are annoying and would prefer a change, they are claiming that it’s an urgent issue. And part of that claim is based on misunderstanding the mechanics (as is discussed above).
Several fractals need a makeover fast.
They don’t “need” a makeover; the OP wants one. And most people here disagree that a make over should happen “fast”.
If the OP wants to make a new post that says, “here are the things that annoy me about fractals”, I might quibble with the choices (they aren’t the things that annoy me the most), but I doubt I’d respond — only the OP can say what annoys them. I can, however, dispute the OP’s claim about urgency and about what changes are “needed”.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I think that the last fight in the underground facility could use a couple changes. The fights initial mechanics have been conflicting with breakbars since they were added: the heal is now often uninterruptible (while the breakbar is recovering) and soft cc are stunning the boss in random places making the fight longer than it needs to be. To fix this I would change a couple things.
First, the boss would only be able to heal when the breakbar is up, or gets a fresh breakbar when the boss begins to heal. Also, change the breakbar so that soft cc like cripple and chill can’t stun the boss, and only hard cc can.
On a side not it would be nice if the bug got fixed where the druids ancient seeds trait imobilizes the boss.