Guild Wars 2

So, I saw a dev post about fractals being stepping stones to raids. No thank you. Please keep raids well away from fractals.

I have no interest in raiding. I will never raid. Stop trying to move us towards making fractals into raids. Why is everything thing in this game from anet these days, obsessed with ‘hard core’ and raiding – it’s spilling over into other areas. And now they are messing with fractals to raid-i-fy them.

Just…. no.

mostrol.6975:

So, I saw a dev post about fractals being stepping stones to raids. No thank you. Please keep raids well away from fractals.

Why is everything thing in this game from anet these days, obsessed with ‘hard core’ and raiding
Just…. no.

lol, clearly you have a warped definition of what is hardcore if you think Arenanet has put out true hardcore content.

The sheer amount of complaints about something presenting a mild case of not afk +1 is astounding.

Anet should take notice of this and hopefully continue doing what they are doing. It’s the healthiest thing they’ve done for the game sans banning/deleting gold-sellers.

They are making fractals engaging and fun content, and each time they are getting better at it ( Congrats A-Net) . How dare they make a video game fun instead of boring?

mostrol.6975:

Just…. no.

Why?

OnizukaBR.8537:

They are making fractals engaging and fun content, and each time they are getting better at it ( Congrats A-Net) . How dare they make a video game fun instead of boring?

Because some people care more about what they get out of something (= rewards) than the experience itself. I never understood it but they seem to be legion in modern RPGs.

To OP:
You still have your non challenging fractals, just don’t do T4, it’s really that simple.

Tentonhammr.7849

And now that two braincells are required, they’re not used to it so they resist the change.

ranting is easier than using two braincells

some ppl are just like “log in, loot, log off”

and some of them rant about that they can’t get all the loot without putting more effort into it

I’m okai with more challenge, more gameplay, but I love fractals due to diversity of pug compo and builds, and shorts scenes. T4 is the tip top of the pugs : join and show you can adapt for 10 minutes.
Make fractals a DPS race, like raids or farm, or an all afternoon occupation, isn’t a sane idea.

I’m curious, the new fixation on the underground boss. Do you like that? I don’t see how a group couldn’t, allowing pets and knowing who he’s after, it’s just great. But, it’s a raid mechanic :s

Content which is soloable in under 10 minutes is clearly no hardcore content

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I love fractals due to diversity of pug compo and builds, and shorts scenes

well, fractals (and dungeons) were way harder in the past. since the spec update etc. they became really easy even for bad teamcomps. i think the move towards favouring good teamcomps and players is a good thing.

Zhaid Zhem.6508

Make fractals a DPS race, like raids or farm, isn’t a sane idea.

dude, its a game where you have to deal dmg to enemies in order to succeed.

its just natural that in EVERY part of the content there is a dps race while avoiding to die, just some are not that good players yet, so they play even through easy content with tanky stats because they can’t survive otherwise, take longer for it because for the easy part of the content you dont need to be good in order to simply DO it.

for the harder part of the content, its just right that you have to become a better player.
and they are moving the content towards that.

Fractals can never be stepping stones to raids as lomg as people are even to lazy to read the suggested AR notice

yeah i agree they should have you fight bloomhunger next to his hut that he stole from mossman and if you’re on his hut none of his attacks hit you, i feel so clever beating bloomhunger like that this is totally what t4 fractals are all about!

if only anet would listen….

Barath.4305:

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I love fractals due to diversity of pug compo and builds, and shorts scenes

well, fractals (and dungeons) were way harder in the past. since the spec update etc. they became really easy even for bad teamcomps. i think the move towards favouring good teamcomps and players is a good thing.

Yes and no, most of players swore only by “meta”, that was effective until you found a bad thief with no smoke/blind, vulnerability, a bad guard without wall etc. But there was already “f50 5 guards hammer pug” “f50 5wars pug” “free join” or solo/duo record, and it worked as well.

I’m not talking about playing unproductive set or build, just you should not need alacrity, banner or any particular buff, or 5 condi build… to not kitten the fractal.
Chaos is sympathic, feasible, but last boss is a HP bag for nothing.
Bloomhunger is a pain for some normally viable compo.

I just hope new and future fractals won’t be a witch hunt for most of the classes, just like guard cause of retaliation is excluded 90% of the time.

mostrol.6975:

So, I saw a dev post about fractals being stepping stones to raids. No thank you. Please keep raids well away from fractals.

I have no interest in raiding. I will never raid. Stop trying to move us towards making fractals into raids. Why is everything thing in this game from anet these days, obsessed with ‘hard core’ and raiding – it’s spilling over into other areas. And now they are messing with fractals to raid-i-fy them.

Just…. no.

I think you might have misunderstood what the dev said.

The idea is that there’s are different degrees of difficulty in the game, with certain modes being more difficult. It’s already established that (to date), the most difficult PvE content is Raiding and Fractaling is #2.

Some fractals have been closer to dungeons in difficulty and ANet (as well as many players) thought this was a mistake, as it made it harder for folks to graduate to raiding, if they want to. Recent changes have been reducing tedium from raids and reducing simplistic encounters into challenging ones.

Thus, ANet is trying to “move” anyone towards raids. They are trying to make sure that fractals continues to be challenging content, instead of a cake walk.

Zhaid Zhem.6508:

Barath.4305:

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I love fractals due to diversity of pug compo and builds, and shorts scenes

well, fractals (and dungeons) were way harder in the past. since the spec update etc. they became really easy even for bad teamcomps. i think the move towards favouring good teamcomps and players is a good thing.

Yes and no, most of players swore only by “meta”, that was effective until you found a bad thief with no smoke/blind, vulnerability, a bad guard without wall etc. But there was already “f50 5 guards hammer pug” “f50 5wars pug” “free join” or solo/duo record, and it worked as well.

I’m not talking about playing unproductive set or build, just you should not need alacrity, banner or any particular buff, or 5 condi build… to not kitten the fractal.
Chaos is sympathic, feasible, but last boss is a HP bag for nothing.
Bloomhunger is a pain for some normally viable compo.

I just hope new and future fractals won’t be a witch hunt for most of the classes, just like guard cause of retaliation is excluded 90% of the time.

My experience with PUGs tells me that the reason most people find the Gladiator and Bloomhunger to have too much health is because they’re not doing it right. Gladiator people sink back to range doing much less damage, but not just that they don’t bring CC to break him and give a ‘burn phase’. Bloom you just have people dying right and left so each phase comes with a recovery section that makes it take easily twice as long.

Seeing the times I’ve had on these, and the mistakes and missed opportunities, I really don’t think either of them are an issue, we just need more practice.

Zhaid Zhem.6508:

Barath.4305:

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I love fractals due to diversity of pug compo and builds, and shorts scenes

well, fractals (and dungeons) were way harder in the past. since the spec update etc. they became really easy even for bad teamcomps. i think the move towards favouring good teamcomps and players is a good thing.

Yes and no, most of players swore only by “meta”, that was effective until you found a bad thief with no smoke/blind, vulnerability, a bad guard without wall etc. But there was already “f50 5 guards hammer pug” “f50 5wars pug” “free join” or solo/duo record, and it worked as well.

I’m not talking about playing unproductive set or build, just you should not need alacrity, banner or any particular buff, or 5 condi build… to not kitten the fractal.
Chaos is sympathic, feasible, but last boss is a HP bag for nothing.
Bloomhunger is a pain for some normally viable compo.

I just hope new and future fractals won’t be a witch hunt for most of the classes, just like guard cause of retaliation is excluded 90% of the time.

How does Bloomhunger hard for a normal viable comp? There is no enrage timer, literally all you have to do is bring bloom hunger to the circles and dps then get players in place at wisps grab wisps then put them in the clefts. Literally nothing in there is dependent on composition you don’t need a healer you don’t need a tank.

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I’m not talking about playing unproductive set or build, just you should not need alacrity, banner or any particular buff

but exactly that is the point my friend.

there are offensive options (banner of discipline, alacrity, quickness, gol etc), and there are defensive options (more stuns, stability, protection, all that stuff)

the better you become, the less defensive options you need, and the more offensive options you can take until you reach a point where you die. depending on how good you are that point is higher or lower

Barath.4305:

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I’m not talking about playing unproductive set or build, just you should not need alacrity, banner or any particular buff

but exactly that is the point my friend.

there are offensive options (banner of discipline, alacrity, quickness, gol etc), and there are defensive options (more stuns, stability, protection, all that stuff)

the better you become, the less defensive options you need, and the more offensive options you can take until you reach a point where you die. depending on how good you are that point is higher or lower

I mean you shouldn’t need in particular a chrono boons, a rev FoN or thing like that to succed, just mechanics most of classes can do, blind, might, reflection, range …

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I mean you shouldn’t need in particular a chrono boons, a rev FoN or thing like that to succed, just mechanics most of classes can do, blind, might, reflection, range …

that would destroy any class diversity ^^
it would result in people playing the highest dps classes only
(5 eles, 5 thieves, depending on how large the hitbox is and how long the fight is atm.)

you would have to make all classes the same. mesmer portals for everyone, or no portals at all, EVERYTHING. classes would only differ in visual effects.
no class diversity —> no need for classes at all.

balancing everything so EVERYTHING can do EVERYTHING on the same level, while keeping up class diversity, is a really tough thing. and in NO online game so far that contains different classes, characters, whatever, they were able to do that. why? because its nearly impossible (again, impossible if you want to keep up diversity :P)

i hope i made obvious why that suggestion should not be solved the way you say ^^

Oh no! content that actually requires a small amount of engagement!?!?

What ever shall we do!

I don’t want to actually play the game!
I just wanna hit 1 and win!!!

Fractals aren’t raids. Fractal bosses have no enrage timer… It’s not a DPS race, at all.

You just have to learn the simple mechanics, that’s it. Raids require awareness + good skill rotation. Fractals just require awareness.

The complaint is almost saying : “I just want free loot. Thank you.”

You have tier 1 fractals if you want faceroll content. There is no reason that fractals can’t get progressively more difficult to ease players into raids.

I didn’t say “erase all specifities” just “shouldn’t need”.
Obviously this is dps/support increase etc and good to take, but look already in raid which it’s still difficult for many of pug or experiencing guilds : you can say “It’s okai, my revenant can heal” and everybody lose their minds cause it’s not “meta” like on the video guid or the previous instance …

The come back of a meta for fractal ? Small group, giving to much significance of each slot !? And many players (good or bad) believing only in it !? This is not fun.

Barath.4305:

Zhaid Zhem.6508

I mean you shouldn’t need in particular a chrono boons, a rev FoN or thing like that to succed, just mechanics most of classes can do, blind, might, reflection, range …

that would destroy any class diversity ^^
it would result in people playing the highest dps classes only
(5 eles, 5 thieves, depending on how large the hitbox is and how long the fight is atm.)

you would have to make all classes the same. mesmer portals for everyone, or no portals at all, EVERYTHING. classes would only differ in visual effects.
no class diversity —> no need for classes at all.

balancing everything so EVERYTHING can do EVERYTHING on the same level, while keeping up class diversity, is a really tough thing. and in NO online game so far that contains different classes, characters, whatever, they were able to do that. why? because its nearly impossible (again, impossible if you want to keep up diversity :P)

i hope i made obvious why that suggestion should not be solved the way you say ^^

I’m a little confused by this back and forth. Is someone suggesting that you can’t play whatever you want in fractals? Because, you can, no skill or family of skills is required. You don’t actually need blinds, you don’t need heals or condi damage, or anything. There are plenty of ways to do fractals and that includes the new ones.

Jerus.4350:

I’m a little confused by this back and forth. Is someone suggesting that you can’t play whatever you want in fractals? Because, you can, no skill or family of skills is required. You don’t actually need blinds, you don’t need heals or condi damage, or anything. There are plenty of ways to do fractals and that includes the new ones.

Fractals, dungeons, nor raid require particular skills/classes, other players make you feel you need.

All the old meta for dungeons and fractals, like 4 war 1 mes, 2 ele + destack thief … they were not needed, but I think we all had the frustration of a kick or ragequitting players, hours of research for a pug and stupid chat commentaries because the mass of players only wanted “meta” and you were the one class to many or an engie, a necro …
I feel the same for raid, they are few able to adapt to different compo. And again theses day I have read some funny things on fractal LFG for T4 chaos or bloom.

Jerus.4350

I’m a little confused by this back and forth. Is someone suggesting that you can’t play whatever you want in fractals? Because, you can, no skill or family of skills is required. You don’t actually need blinds, you don’t need heals or condi damage, or anything. There are plenty of ways to do fractals and that includes the new ones.

its maybe a bit confusing that he stated “need to succeed”, because i was talking about a good team not a team that simply wants to do the content no matter how good.

well, i did not really read that he wrote “need to succeed”, because you could basically do everything with any teamcomposition, that also includes raids!
people did raids with 10 rangers, or 10 guards. still, the rest of what i wrote is still true, if you look onto a good team-composition.

however, its quite obvious that its not the best option to go with for example 10 guards (at the moment atleast, who knows what the future brings )

only because it is “possible to do content” with a team composition, it does not mean that it is a good teamcomposition.

mostrol.6975:

So, I saw a dev post about fractals being stepping stones to raids. No thank you. Please keep raids well away from fractals.

I have no interest in raiding. I will never raid. Stop trying to move us towards making fractals into raids. Why is everything thing in this game from anet these days, obsessed with ‘hard core’ and raiding – it’s spilling over into other areas. And now they are messing with fractals to raid-i-fy them.

Just…. no.

There is a huge difference between being a “stepping stone” to something, and actually being that thing.

Zhaid Zhem.6508:

Jerus.4350:

I’m a little confused by this back and forth. Is someone suggesting that you can’t play whatever you want in fractals? Because, you can, no skill or family of skills is required. You don’t actually need blinds, you don’t need heals or condi damage, or anything. There are plenty of ways to do fractals and that includes the new ones.

Fractals, dungeons, nor raid require particular skills/classes, other players make you feel you need.

All the old meta for dungeons and fractals, like 4 war 1 mes, 2 ele + destack thief … they were not needed, but I think we all had the frustration of a kick or ragequitting players, hours of research for a pug and stupid chat commentaries because the mass of players only wanted “meta” and you were the one class to many or an engie, a necro …
I feel the same for raid, they are few able to adapt to different compo. And again theses day I have read some funny things on fractal LFG for T4 chaos or bloom.

Fractals you can have pretty much anything. Sure, certain classes/builds make things easier, but the content itself is able to be completed with just about any class/build.

Raids are a bit different. There are alternative compositions you can use, however, they are pretty limited as raids have somewhat strict requirements on what it takes to achieve a victory.

With VG there are a few primary requirements :

1. You need a way to control the boss. (1 player to tank who can reliably stay alive and move the boss in an efficient manner)

2. You need a way to strip boons to defeat the blue guardian.

3. You need a way to deal condition damage to defeat the red guardian.

4. You need to be able to either kill the boss within the allotted time, or enough healing / survivability to be able to continue fighting the boss after he is enraged and until he is dead.

Gorseval steps that up since Gorseval literally has DPS checkpoints that if you don’t meed them it’s an instant wipe.

Ok, that makes a lot more sense.

But, at the same time, as someone who will do 1-3 t4 clears a day, most of which are in PUGs. I just don’t see much more than “lvl XX” or “dailies” posted. I did see ‘4nec+druid meta’ once, but in general I don’t see much in terms of demands. I’m guessing EU is different then?

Tentonhammr.7849:

I’m 100% convinced none of these people played the game at launch.

And i’m 100% certain you are wrong on that point.

Razor.9872:

There is a huge difference between being a “stepping stone” to something, and actually being that thing.

There’s also a massive difference between content standing on its own, and being treated as stepping stone to a different one.

If the reason they are changing fractals is because they feel there’s a need for a stepping stone for raids (unlike, say, because they were thinkink that it would make fractals more interesting), then it’s a bad decision. You should never base changes to one content on your designs for another. Not unless you want that content to stand on its own.

Jerus.4350:

But, at the same time, as someone who will do 1-3 t4 clears a day, most of which are in PUGs. I just don’t see much more than “lvl XX” or “dailies” posted. I did see ‘4nec+druid meta’ once, but in general I don’t see much in terms of demands. I’m guessing EU is different then?

Nope. And it never was. The unrestricted LFGs always outnumbered the ones with high requirements. And you were as likely to succeed on either of those.

Jerus.4350:

Ok, that makes a lot more sense.

But, at the same time, as someone who will do 1-3 t4 clears a day, most of which are in PUGs. I just don’t see much more than “lvl XX” or “dailies” posted. I did see ‘4nec+druid meta’ once, but in general I don’t see much in terms of demands. I’m guessing EU is different then?

t4 fractals are daily endeavors with a high chance of success where you usually expect only about a 15 minute difference between running one perfectly and running one decently. People generally don’t nitpick about them. They may nitpick about Swamp or Mai Trin though since those have a relatively high chance of failure.

I think a game should increase in difficulty. GW2 is really bad this. So I partially agree on the stepstone thing.

But on the other hand: I’m in a very casual guild. GW2 offers little content for us, which is the reason why many of our guildmates stopped playing in 2012. We were a group of people who played GW together since 2006/2009 and half a year of GW2 destroyed most of our community. (It’s our fault for not leaving GW2 altogether).

GW2 is mostly a singleplayer. GW2 offers little teamcontent. I can be solo at tequatl, solo in tarir, play the story solo. It makes no sense to do this content together as a guild.
GW2s only teamcontent are dungeons and fractals. Thats the content we mostly play together as the remaining ~5 players of probably 200. We enjoy playing together, its the only reason for most of the remaining players to keep playing GW2.
Heard similar storys of other guilds, players and website-communties.
Same was true for GW1, dungeons and dragons online, Lotro, Aion. We always had people leaving for other games, but they always returned to GW1 because of the amount of teamcontent it offered.

I’m not buying a MMO to play solo. I know many people don’t want to play as a team, but there are better games for soloplayers. GW2 also offers tons of content for soloplayers.
If GW2 wants to keep teamoriented players GW2 needs teamcontent. Teamcontent of different difficulties. There might be a raid community which wants harder teamcontent. I’m ok with that. But there is also a very casual community which wants easy teamcontent. Content which requires a team but which is also easy.

GW2s design is just bad. It seperates the community in many different subcommunities with little exchange between those communities. The gap between those subcommunities would be smaller if GW2 would offer more content of different difficulties. So people could climb up the ladder instead of hitting a wall of increased difficulty.
But: currently we only got fractals. I like the system of increasing levels and difficulty. They have been more difficult in the past without the ability of having enough AR.
But they are 2012 content. Playing them again and again as the only teamcontent gets boring. Even I, as a player who has seen nearly every content GW2 offers (~31k AP) feel too casual for raids. My guild is definatly not able to raid, we’re often still having troubles at dungeons or low level fractals. Atm we are busy doing mostly fractals and some storyachievements. Increased fractal difficulty would probably stop the last people of my guild playing. For example thaumanova must have been an traumatic experience for them. I wasn’t with them at that time but i guess they have fallen into death a lot.

GW1 had storymissions of increasing difficulty, comparable to dungeon storymodes. ~20 per expansion. It had hundreds of teamoriented quests. And it had its elite areas/raids, hardmode and maybe 20 dungeons.
In GW2 we got dungeons, fractals and raids. Would be ok, if we would still be in 2012. But we aren’t. We got only half an expansion full of open world zergcontent and some raids. Without any easy or medium difficulty teamcontent.

I think the lack of content is not fixable anymore. GW2 is a pretty old game. We will get another expansion, but I doubt we’ll get a third expansion. The next expansion will probably contain 3-4 open word maps and maybe another raid. GW2 will stay as it is.

TL;DR: GW2 would need more teamcontent to create stepstones. More easy teamcontent, more difficult teamcontent – and everything in between.

git

gud

Astralporing.1957:

Razor.9872:

There is a huge difference between being a “stepping stone” to something, and actually being that thing.

There’s also a massive difference between content standing on its own, and being treated as stepping stone to a different one.

If the reason they are changing fractals is because they feel there’s a need for a stepping stone for raids (unlike, say, because they were thinking that it would make fractals more interesting), then it’s a bad decision. You should never base changes to one content on your designs for another. Not unless you want that content to stand on its own.

I can’t help but feel like this is a non-issue stuck between announcement semantics.

From my perspective, I see it as them updating fractals to make them more interesting with new mechanics. These new mechanics add slightly higher levels of attention than the vanilla “target and kill.”

I believe this is what they mean when they state “stepping stone.”

In other words, the fractals are not so much being introduced to mini-raid-mechanics, so much as upping the mechanical complexity in a difficulty curve complexity curve so they can make them more interesting while, at the same time, gradually maturing players towards their new engine mechanics they developed that they may introduce in future content.

Is OP an Anet dev I haven’t heard of? Last I heard, GW2 was designed by Anet, and they can do as they please, which includes defining fractals in whichever way they see fit.

mostrol.6975:

I want it to be EZ

This is what you sound like. Frankly your aversion seems to stem from anything connected to the concept of raids, not the increased difficulty of the new fractals. If anet introduced the new fractals with the patchnotes

• Made swamp more challenging

you’d be okay with it. But if they wrote

• Stepping stone to raids

then all the complaints come out.

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

mostrol.6975:

I want it to be EZ

This is what you sound like. Frankly your aversion seems to stem from anything connected to the concept of raids, not the increased difficulty of the new fractals. If anet introduced the new fractals with the patchnotes

• Made swamp more challenging

you’d be okay with it. But if they wrote

• Stepping stone to raids

then all the complaints come out.

Yes, because it shows the dev mindset behind the changes. Raids keep having more and more impact on the non-raid part of the game. Their importance is blown way out of proportion compared to the tiny part of the community they were made for.

Astralporing.1957:

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

mostrol.6975:

I want it to be EZ

This is what you sound like. Frankly your aversion seems to stem from anything connected to the concept of raids, not the increased difficulty of the new fractals. If anet introduced the new fractals with the patchnotes

• Made swamp more challenging

you’d be okay with it. But if they wrote

• Stepping stone to raids

then all the complaints come out.

Yes, because it shows the dev mindset behind the changes. Raids keep having more and more impact on the non-raid part of the game. Their importance is blown way out of proportion compared to the tiny part of the community they were made for.

The dev mindset doesn’t matter in the least. The issues are:

• Did swamp need to be revamped?
• If so, should it be remade to be like everything else already in the game? Or should it provide a new sort of challenge?
• If new sort, does it make sense to offer some similarities to raid challenges, so those who think they might be interested some day can get the experience, without having to do a full raid?

The first two have nothing to do with raids — they would have happened anyhow, as that’s been the trend since launch. The third influences the kind of challenge, without forcing it to be one thing or another.

Fractals have always been intended to be challenging content, with the higher levels increasing the distractions (instabilities, upgrade foe strength/defense) and increasing the complexity of the mechanics.

The new swamp does that: the mechanic is very, very forgiving at T1 and only becomes challenging at higher levels. That’s exactly what fractals are supposed to do and exactly what swamp no longer was before the update.

Astralporing.1957:

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

mostrol.6975:

I want it to be EZ

This is what you sound like. Frankly your aversion seems to stem from anything connected to the concept of raids, not the increased difficulty of the new fractals. If anet introduced the new fractals with the patchnotes

• Made swamp more challenging

you’d be okay with it. But if they wrote

• Stepping stone to raids

then all the complaints come out.

Yes, because it shows the dev mindset behind the changes. Raids keep having more and more impact on the non-raid part of the game. Their importance is blown way out of proportion compared to the tiny part of the community they were made for.

You are one of the most vocal forum users for an easy mode raid and advocate for tiered difficulty for instanced content.
ArenaNet is using it correctly in fractals now, making T4 Fractals the challenging 5 man content many wanted.
You should welcome it as a test for tiered raids. The fact that you are against it shows your true face in the difficulty discussion.

Miellyn.6847:

Astralporing.1957:

SirPrizeBartSachs.4670:

mostrol.6975:

I want it to be EZ

This is what you sound like. Frankly your aversion seems to stem from anything connected to the concept of raids, not the increased difficulty of the new fractals. If anet introduced the new fractals with the patchnotes

• Made swamp more challenging

you’d be okay with it. But if they wrote

• Stepping stone to raids

then all the complaints come out.

Yes, because it shows the dev mindset behind the changes. Raids keep having more and more impact on the non-raid part of the game. Their importance is blown way out of proportion compared to the tiny part of the community they were made for.

You are one of the most vocal forum users for an easy mode raid and advocate for tiered difficulty for instanced content.
ArenaNet is using it correctly in fractals now, making T4 Fractals the challenging 5 man content many wanted.
You should welcome it as a test for tiered raids. The fact that you are against it shows your true face in the difficulty discussion.

Astralporing says that they would rather have Raids have pre revamp mechanics so they just want to stack and spam one. Best part Astralporing has advocated for no enrage timers and rely on easy mechanics, Anet obliges by revamping swamp stack and spam 1 and people like Astralporing still complain.

Fractals are not even close to raid difficutly and I think the new swamp difficutly is the right difficutly for the loot you get from t4 fractals. All of the t4 fractals should be as hard as the new swamp, if not even harder. Only the time gates are annoying. If you are not good enough of a player, or don’t want to improve, just do t3 or t2 dailies. For the first time, you have to do something, instead of just auto attacking.

But why is it important for players to improve ? I’m legitimately curious.

What I’ve experienced with challenging content is that very, very few people actually enjoy difficulty. They like the idea of it. They want to feel like they’ve done something amazing and earned bragging rights. But the end goal is almost always effortless completion.

So what’s the value of the interim bit where you struggle for hours, deal with frustration and rage quitters until eventually you figure it out and then can beat it easily? (as long as the rest of the team has gone through the same bullkitten and is semi-competent)

I’d rather just skip all that and have content with engaging mechanics that are simple enough to explain on the spot, and anyone in level appropriate gear who’s actually paying attention can get done. (This is my view on all instanced PvE)

I mean if you don’t wanna improve then you don’t get the T4 rewards, it’s really that simple.

ANet shifted the goal posts, you either adapt or you ignore them and do something else.

Jahroots.6791:

But why is it important for players to improve ? I’m legitimately curious.

What I’ve experienced with challenging content is that very, very few people actually enjoy difficulty. They like the idea of it. They want to feel like they’ve done something amazing and earned bragging rights. But the end goal is almost always effortless completion.

So what’s the value of the interim bit where you struggle for hours, deal with frustration and rage quitters until eventually you figure it out and then can beat it easily? (as long as the rest of the team has gone through the same bullkitten and is semi-competent)

I’d rather just skip all that and have content with engaging mechanics that are simple enough to explain on the spot, and anyone in level appropriate gear who’s actually paying attention can get done. (This is my view on all instanced PvE)

So simple enough as running in a circle pulling boss into the circle and dps till he phase changes then wait out a timer dps he adds, and then repeat the first step, till phase, and then have a small mechanic that has been similar to one already in the fractal of running wisps to points.

But I think for you you just want to stack and AA till boss is dead, you probably miss stacking on hut/ tree for mossman.

There is literally nothing wrong with having to learn new mechanics or be challenged in a game, there is a reason Anet is implementing mechanics that don’t force stacking and AA most casuals and the majority were complaining about it especially with Mossman in fractals, and other content like dungeons. When the majority of “challenging” instanced content had the same strategy, i.e. Stack as tight as possible and AA to win something is wrong. You just want Braindead gameplay and to be rewarded for it.

Jahroots.6791:

But why is it important for players to improve ? I’m legitimately curious.

What I’ve experienced with challenging content is that very, very few people actually enjoy difficulty. They like the idea of it. They want to feel like they’ve done something amazing and earned bragging rights. But the end goal is almost always effortless completion.

So what’s the value of the interim bit where you struggle for hours, deal with frustration and rage quitters until eventually you figure it out and then can beat it easily? (as long as the rest of the team has gone through the same bullkitten and is semi-competent)

I’d rather just skip all that and have content with engaging mechanics that are simple enough to explain on the spot, and anyone in level appropriate gear who’s actually paying attention can get done. (This is my view on all instanced PvE)

Well current swamp for example is exactly it, the mechanics are pretty simple, “Go to green area, hit bloomhunger, repeat, get the wisp and go to the tree with markers, thats it” And anyone paying attention can do it easy.
And another thing you can’t have engaging mechanics if they are ignorable, this is a fact.

Fractals on high levels should be hard as kitten. The game is TOO EASY and i doesn’t matter if you’re bad so it’s difficult to you – endgame isn’t for bad players, it’s for the best. so yes please keep bloom and others bosses hard on tier 4

Jahroots.6791:

But why is it important for players to improve ? I’m legitimately curious.

What I’ve experienced with challenging content is that very, very few people actually enjoy difficulty. They like the idea of it. They want to feel like they’ve done something amazing and earned bragging rights. But the end goal is almost always effortless completion.

So what’s the value of the interim bit where you struggle for hours, deal with frustration and rage quitters until eventually you figure it out and then can beat it easily? (as long as the rest of the team has gone through the same bullkitten and is semi-competent)

I’d rather just skip all that and have content with engaging mechanics that are simple enough to explain on the spot, and anyone in level appropriate gear who’s actually paying attention can get done. (This is my view on all instanced PvE)

I doubt I would have spent more than a month or two in this game if it wasn’t for my good buddy Lupi. There’s a reason a lot of people in this subforum area spent hours in there just solo/duoing him, it was fun.

Just like you seem to not understand why struggle can lead to fun, I can’t understand why people feel running around in circles and gathering pixels to buy other pixels is fun. AB/SW and those types of things literally put me to sleep, 10 minutes in I’m about ready for a nap. If I’m going to shut my brain off I might as well be comfortable right? The old Dungeon farm just felt awkwardly in the middle. I can’t completely shut off my brain, but I don’t really have to think. And that’s what fractals turned into with HoT, and arguably a little before that.

Personally I wish they’d bump the reward on dungeons back up so people who just want to farm some easy instanced content can do that, and then let the fractals get back to the level they once were.

And, to answer your question. When you struggle it makes the reward that much sweeter. I mean we can all go buy a custom trophy of whatever we want, but it doesn’t feel the same as winning one.

mostrol.6975:

Why is everything thing in this game from anet these days, obsessed with ‘hard core’ and raiding – it’s spilling over into other areas.

Where is all this ‘hard core’ content?
I haven’t found hard content till today. :-(
Most content I found is faceroll on the keyboard easy. :-(

OnizukaBR.8537:

Well current swamp for example is exactly it, the mechanics are pretty simple, “Go to green area, hit bloomhunger, repeat, get the wisp and go to the tree with markers, thats it” And anyone paying attention can do it easy.
And another thing you can’t have engaging mechanics if they are ignorable, this is a fact.

This has not been my experience. You left out the part where he pounces on people and basically insta-downs ’em and you spend ten minutes trying to revive people over and over, as well as the swarm of spirit creatures and periods of invulnerability.

Sublimatio.6981:

Fractals on high levels should be hard as kitten. The game is TOO EASY and i doesn’t matter if you’re bad so it’s difficult to you – endgame isn’t for bad players, it’s for the best. so yes please keep bloom and others bosses hard on tier 4

I disagree with this. Endgame is for everyone at level 80. It’s important to keep the content interesting and engaging, but there’s a point where the difficulty level brings out the worst in others and takes the fun out of playing.

All in all I’m comfortable with T4 as is, just hoping that Swampland is the exception rather than the new direction of fractals.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

There is literally nothing wrong with having to learn new mechanics or be challenged in a game, there is a reason Anet is implementing mechanics that don’t force stacking and AA most casuals and the majority were complaining about it especially with Mossman in fractals, and other content like dungeons. When the majority of “challenging” instanced content had the same strategy, i.e. Stack as tight as possible and AA to win something is wrong. You just want Braindead gameplay and to be rewarded for it.

No, not looking for ‘braindead’ gameplay at all and explicitly stated that yes, you should have to figure out how to beat something. What I take issue with is the amount of time and effort required. Also, while I’m not against stacking or cheesing if it’s the most effective tactic for, I am in favour of active play. The best fractal bosses, imo, are Archdiviner and the Dredge Powersuit.

My view here is that gaming should be enjoyable, first and foremost. I think that if content drives most players into a rage and/or forces them to be particularly selective about how they run it, then it is poorly designed.