Guild Wars 2

Are you doing fractals? Are you sick of LFG filled with 2,x,10, 21,x,40 and 56,67,77?
Yes I know right, me to.

So for those of you who are not aware of this or don’t know anything about fractals, here’s how it goes: basically Fractals of the Mists is a dungeon that consists of 14 mini dungeons. The dungeon scales in difficulty starting from 1 all the way up to 100. Each level now has a specific mini-dungeon tied to it, and the mini-dungeon changes slightly depends on the difficulty scale you are in. Your main reward for doing the dungeon is doing 3 mini-dungeons (3 different difficulty scales) in a certain range of difficulties. 1-20, 21-50 and 51-100. As it stands, and this is understandable, some of the mini-dungeons are easier than others.

However here’s the issue: the Swampland Fractal and the Molten Boss Fractal are significantly easier than others and are just ran one in succession to the other to complete those dailies in a very short period of time. Yes, It has been stated by A-Net that completing higher difficulties such as 91-100 will reward higher chance for ascended gear, but what does it help in if 99 is a Molten Boss and 83 is Swamp? In addition the chance increase from my own experience appears to be minor.
There are a few ways to resolve this issue.

The first solution would just be reworking these fractals to be more engaging and challenging especially in the higher difficulties. But these fractals are not all bad, apart from a few bugs that will hopefully get fixed they can be fun to run when they’re not the ONLY thing you run.

So the solution I came up with was the following:
Split the fractal mini-dungeons into three groups:
Easy:
-Swampland
-Molten Boss
-Molten Furnace
-Solid Ocean
Medium:
-Aquatic Ruins
-Uncategorized
-Urban Battleground
-Snowblind
-Aetherblade
Hard:
-Cliffside
-Thaumanova Reactor
-Aetherblade Boss
-Volcanic
-Underground Facility

Keeping in mind the goal is to cause people to run more difficult fractals more often and feel rewarded for doing so:
Completing an Easy fractal will give slightly less rewards than the current rewards.
Completing a medium fractal will give approximately 1.4x than the current rewards.
Completing a hard fractal will give roughly 1.8x-2.0x the current rewards.

This type of system will obviously require some change to the way difficulty selection works, and there are plenty of ways it can be done, but this is not the current issue.

To sum up, I think fractal rewards although better now, definitely need a shift in those rewards towards the harder fractals instead of rewarding those who choose to repeat the easy ones over and over.

Edit:
As it might be unclear, I don’t seek to punish those who want to complete their daily fast, but instead give an incentive to do other fractals that involve more mechanics and take more time.

People just want to do their dailies quickly.

Anet took all the fun out of fractals for me, and a lot of other people by giving all bosses an unnecessary large health pool and decreasing their damage.
There’s no challenge in them anymore, even at the highest levels, so its pretty natural that people will just do the fastest fractal over and over, even more than before.

Rewards are already pretty bad, and if Anet would change them so that “easy” fractals give less, I feel like that would only drive more people away from Fractals.

BeLZedaR.4790:

It has been stated by A-Net that completing higher difficulties such as 91-100 will reward higher chance for ascended gear

Is this really a thing? Isn’t the Champion chest of the mists the same thing in the end, anyway?

Nuka.6701:

BeLZedaR.4790:

It has been stated by A-Net that completing higher difficulties such as 91-100 will reward higher chance for ascended gear

Is this really a thing? Isn’t the Champion chest of the mists the same thing in the end, anyway?

For the three daily I would assume yes. I think the increased rewards from higher levels would assume the final chest at the end of the individual fractal. So more relics, better chances for exotics? Things like that.

bladex.9502:

People just want to do their dailies quickly.

Anet took all the fun out of fractals for me, and a lot of other people by giving all bosses an unnecessary large health pool and decreasing their damage.
There’s no challenge in them anymore, even at the highest levels, so its pretty natural that people will just do the fastest fractal over and over, even more than before.

Rewards are already pretty bad, and if Anet would change them so that “easy” fractals give less, I feel like that would only drive more people away from Fractals.

That’s exactly why my point is not to make them completely unrewarding, but rather to give people that don’t wanna run swamp 24/7 a reward for doing the fractals that take more time.

What I want to happen to Fractals:
– Add a separate category for 76-100

Add a random daily (“recommended” Fractal) for 51-75 and 76-100
Make the 3 daily require 2 of any type + the recommended Fractal. That way, every day you have to mix things up a bit if you want the big chest. You could still run 2 swamps but worst-case would require you to run a Cliffside, but all in all I think it would be a fair compromise.

The biggest problem is that newcomers and veterans that aren’t in PvE/raid guild are not learning the basic combat mechanic of GW2. I tend to pug fractal for daily pages and I have a lot of people in 3000~30000 ap range that do not know projectile defense, blasting stealth, dodging and ccing, etc. And worst of it is people get through fractals regardless of their performance so if a run does not go smoothly (aka 3rd~4th wipe) people leave the group and join another LFG. How will newcomers and people in general able to do any difficult content that may or may not come in the future?

This is only increasing the gap between the groups that already know GW2 combat mechanic and those who don’t know because they have no ways of learning other than watching speedrun fractal/raid videos. Even then the lack of understanding of GW2 combat system creates blindly following allowing instead of actually understanding why meta build(s) are created in certain way.

This cause lots of misunderstanding between the groups as it is already while lowering the standard skill level of GW2 playerbase. As much as each side call the other side “casual” or “elitist” the fractal change is only widening the gap between the two. There should be more ingame tutorials other than dodge to show people how amazing GW2 combat system is and foster the community as a whole instead of pitting them up against one another by putting invisible skill ceilings among players.

Nuka.6701:

What I want to happen to Fractals:
– Add a separate category for 76-100

Add a random daily (“recommended” Fractal) for 51-75 and 76-100
Make the 3 daily require 2 of any type + the recommended Fractal. That way, every day you have to mix things up a bit if you want the big chest. You could still run 2 swamps but worst-case would require you to run a Cliffside, but all in all I think it would be a fair compromise.

Per reward chest there should be at least 2 recommended fractals that have to be completed, better 3 imo. Running 2 times swamp and one recommended daily is still a bad system.
And why are actually only 3 fractals required for completion? It used to be 4.

TheFamster.7806:

The biggest problem is that newcomers and veterans that aren’t in PvE/raid guild are not learning the basic combat mechanic of GW2. I tend to pug fractal for daily pages and I have a lot of people in 3000~30000 ap range that do not know projectile defense, blasting stealth, dodging and ccing, etc. And worst of it is people get through fractals regardless of their performance so if a run does not go smoothly (aka 3rd~4th wipe) people leave the group and join another LFG. How will newcomers and people in general able to do any difficult content that may or may not come in the future?

This is only increasing the gap between the groups that already know GW2 combat mechanic and those who don’t know because they have no ways of learning other than watching speedrun fractal/raid videos. Even then the lack of understanding of GW2 combat system creates blindly following allowing instead of actually understanding why meta build(s) are created in certain way.

This cause lots of misunderstanding between the groups as it is already while lowering the standard skill level of GW2 playerbase. As much as each side call the other side “casual” or “elitist” the fractal change is only widening the gap between the two. There should be more ingame tutorials other than dodge to show people how amazing GW2 combat system is and foster the community as a whole instead of pitting them up against one another by putting invisible skill ceilings among players.

As a newer player to the game I had NO idea about what fields and finishers were for the longest time. There was no mention of them in game aside from tool tips. And no, I am not going to /wiki everything. I wanted to experience the game, get lost in it.

Now I am starting to get a better understanding of those things and it is really fun and interesting. I would agree, there needs to be a more in depth introduction to the combat system while initially leveling up.

BeLZedaR.4790:

snip

Though I pretty much agree with almost everything you wrote, you’re a bit late for that.
Many suggestions were already given, heck, even yours got covered in a way (see here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Swamps-of-the-Mists/first#post5852264 ).
It’s up to A.Net now wether they stick to their word and make fractals the new fun/rewarding/enjoyable/etc. instanced content for partys of 5, or make fractals go down to the same dark place where they’ve already sent dungeons to rest in piece.

People are sick and tired of having to do the same kitten maps over and over. Its with rest of the game, a trend Anet does now, to retweak existing systems based on previous poor performance, only to not make it nec better, yet call it content updates. Same thing you see in pvp, wvw, world bosses and so forth. People are too gullible that they accept it, but Anet gets away with it as gw2 is pretty and has good combat.

Fractals are old, the rate we get content is slow, I just want to finish my champ chest daily asap for my alt. I couldve skipped doing fracs but since raids will take most likely another year to finish, i need some asc to fill the gap.

bladex.9502:

People just want to do their dailies quickly.

Anet took all the fun out of fractals for me, and a lot of other people by giving all bosses an unnecessary large health pool and decreasing their damage.
There’s no challenge in them anymore, even at the highest levels, so its pretty natural that people will just do the fastest fractal over and over, even more than before.

Rewards are already pretty bad, and if Anet would change them so that “easy” fractals give less, I feel like that would only drive more people away from Fractals.

So much this. Before HoT I’d run 40 and 50 daily, now I only touch fractals when I’m guilt tripped into joining my guildies. The annoying RnG instabilities together with the extremely long facetank fights is soooooo boring. Old 50 was 10x more challenging then anything we have now, and people were already complaining it was too easy then… It just shows how little they know about the game if they consider this the more “challenging” version that they promised us.

Lendruil.9061:

Per reward chest there should be at least 2 recommended fractals that have to be completed, better 3 imo. Running 2 times swamp and one recommended daily is still a bad system.
And why are actually only 3 fractals required for completion? It used to be 4.

You know that forcing everyone doing more job for same reward is a bad idea, right?

Let’s be realistic, this highlights the need for new fractals more than anything else.

Besides, Anet have actually been really generous to us in this update. They’re times faster, the loot is pretty good and you get to choose exactly which islands you want to play in order to get the rewards. No more rolling for swamp – you can just straight up go right there! In spite of the overwhelming positives a lot of people are just complaining. Which is understandable, but still. And even if the devs did implement any of the ideas suggested here another, louder batch of complaints would pop up (maybe from some of you lot as well).

Remember all of the anti-berserker meta complainers? Look what that got us. High level fractals with instabilities tailored to make that very play style bothersome and tedious, but still the most viable way to beat the encounters. Do you really trust these people to make further changes that would actually benefit us? Best to leave well enough alone I think.

Jahroots.6791:

Let’s be realistic, this highlights the need for new fractals more than anything else.

Besides, Anet have actually been really generous to us in this update. They’re times faster, the loot is pretty good and you get to choose exactly which islands you want to play in order to get the rewards. No more rolling for swamp – you can just straight up go right there! In spite of the overwhelming positives a lot of people are just complaining. Which is understandable, but still. And even if the devs did implement any of the ideas suggested here another, louder batch of complaints would pop up (maybe from some of you lot as well).

Remember all of the anti-berserker meta complainers? Look what that got us. High level fractals with instabilities tailored to make that very play style bothersome and tedious, but still the most viable way to beat the encounters. Do you really trust these people to make further changes that would actually benefit us? Best to leave well enough alone I think.

Well all they’d need to do is revert some of the changes to dmg and delete those tedious instabilities.

TheFamster.7806:

The biggest problem is that newcomers and veterans that aren’t in PvE/raid guild are not learning the basic combat mechanic of GW2. I tend to pug fractal for daily pages and I have a lot of people in 3000~30000 ap range that do not know projectile defense, blasting stealth, dodging and ccing, etc. And worst of it is people get through fractals regardless of their performance so if a run does not go smoothly (aka 3rd~4th wipe) people leave the group and join another LFG. How will newcomers and people in general able to do any difficult content that may or may not come in the future?

This is only increasing the gap between the groups that already know GW2 combat mechanic and those who don’t know because they have no ways of learning other than watching speedrun fractal/raid videos. Even then the lack of understanding of GW2 combat system creates blindly following allowing instead of actually understanding why meta build(s) are created in certain way.

This cause lots of misunderstanding between the groups as it is already while lowering the standard skill level of GW2 playerbase. As much as each side call the other side “casual” or “elitist” the fractal change is only widening the gap between the two. There should be more ingame tutorials other than dodge to show people how amazing GW2 combat system is and foster the community as a whole instead of pitting them up against one another by putting invisible skill ceilings among players.

This is just sad, especially because there are more and more MMOs that come with a fully voiced and comprehensive tutorial.

BeLZedaR.4790:

bladex.9502:

People just want to do their dailies quickly.

Anet took all the fun out of fractals for me, and a lot of other people by giving all bosses an unnecessary large health pool and decreasing their damage.
There’s no challenge in them anymore, even at the highest levels, so its pretty natural that people will just do the fastest fractal over and over, even more than before.

Rewards are already pretty bad, and if Anet would change them so that “easy” fractals give less, I feel like that would only drive more people away from Fractals.

That’s exactly why my point is not to make them completely unrewarding, but rather to give people that don’t wanna run swamp 24/7 a reward for doing the fractals that take more time.

This is disingenuous. It seems like you are more interested in trying to get ANET to pressure people into doing those other fractals with you, than you are interested in getting more rewards for doing longer fractals. They already said they were going to give the increased rewards for the longer fractals…although I have not seen these increased rewards in the longer ones yet either. What you are asking for, in your previous post, is for them to go as far as decreasing rewards for the shorter fractals. That is as blatant and obvious as it gets…as far as trying to punish players for not doing the fractals you want, with you.

To be honest though, I could care less about the contents of the end boss chess of a fractal. The only chests of consequence are the daily reward ones. The end boss chess is highly unlikely to have anything of real value anyway. Maybe an extremely unlikely ascended chest…that requires you to spend at least one gold…just to salvage the ascended item. Everybody and their grandmother has full ascended by now anyway. The other contents are some random T6 mats that my inventory is overflowing with anyway, some rares that don’t even sell for a gold, and maybe an account bound exotic…if I’m lucky. Its gotten to the point that I don’t even worry about it if I forget to click on the boss chest….I let my basic kittens have that :-)

What I would care about would be things I actually need in the end boss chests. Things like orbs and dust for amalgamated gemstones. Things like a random rare drop for a mastery point…similar to tomes of knowledge…something that I can apply to any mastery.

cranos.5913:

Jahroots.6791:

Let’s be realistic, this highlights the need for new fractals more than anything else.

Besides, Anet have actually been really generous to us in this update. They’re times faster, the loot is pretty good and you get to choose exactly which islands you want to play in order to get the rewards. No more rolling for swamp – you can just straight up go right there! In spite of the overwhelming positives a lot of people are just complaining. Which is understandable, but still. And even if the devs did implement any of the ideas suggested here another, louder batch of complaints would pop up (maybe from some of you lot as well).

Remember all of the anti-berserker meta complainers? Look what that got us. High level fractals with instabilities tailored to make that very play style bothersome and tedious, but still the most viable way to beat the encounters. Do you really trust these people to make further changes that would actually benefit us? Best to leave well enough alone I think.

Well all they’d need to do is revert some of the changes to dmg and delete those tedious instabilities.

The problem with that is that it would take a miracle for ANET to actually own up to having made bad decisions and to actually take the time/resources to undo their mistakes. They seem to almost never revisit and undo bad decisions.

ODB.6891:

cranos.5913:

Jahroots.6791:

Let’s be realistic, this highlights the need for new fractals more than anything else.

Besides, Anet have actually been really generous to us in this update. They’re times faster, the loot is pretty good and you get to choose exactly which islands you want to play in order to get the rewards. No more rolling for swamp – you can just straight up go right there! In spite of the overwhelming positives a lot of people are just complaining. Which is understandable, but still. And even if the devs did implement any of the ideas suggested here another, louder batch of complaints would pop up (maybe from some of you lot as well).

Remember all of the anti-berserker meta complainers? Look what that got us. High level fractals with instabilities tailored to make that very play style bothersome and tedious, but still the most viable way to beat the encounters. Do you really trust these people to make further changes that would actually benefit us? Best to leave well enough alone I think.

Well all they’d need to do is revert some of the changes to dmg and delete those tedious instabilities.

The problem with that is that it would take a miracle for ANET to actually own up to having made bad decisions and to actually take the time/resources to undo their mistakes. They seem to almost never revisit and undo bad decisions.

I think it’s their marketing team managing their game, they are repackaging everything (like fractals change) instead of investing in development (making new fractals) and end up breaking things that work in the process.

It’s the reason why I left the game (since most of my friends also left for the same reason). They nerfed dungeon rewards to make people buy HoT. They added gliding everywhere to make people buy HoT and Skins. They are so money driven the original concept of Guild Wars has been completely diluted into a cash cow brand.

What i want for fractals: make lv101-125, make a daily for it, make the daily be 5 random fractals, have just one instability: “bosses hit for twice the ammount” ( ;D see what I did there? )

I would LOVE this.. oneshotting bosses again? Random fractals? No more skillcapping anti-skilledplay-instabilities(dodge)? YES PLEASE

Set the daily fractals to something fixed instead of letting us pick and be kittening done with it, it really isn’t that hard and would effectively kill all 3x swamp runs for high levels.