In light of the recent announcement of Fractal changes yesterday, I think we need to express ourselves while we have some attention.
We wanted new content, not new arbitrary level numbers on the same old maps, not a new color on old weapon skins without their particle effects.
Here are my proposed solutions.
New maps once or twice a year — New fights like Abaddon that tell some of that rich GW1 lore many of us GW2 players never experienced. Old fights that we’ll never get to see again like Scarlet fights, defense of LA, the one-time Karka fight, living story. Give us the old fights that took a lot of development but yielded less value because of exposure like LS3 final fight, Claw island, or the opportunity for a revamped Zhaitan fight. FoTM’s freedom from the timeline should give developers unlimited opportunities, but we’re not seeing it put into effect.
New mechanics on old maps — Bosses need more than 2 attacks.
Rethink Mistlocks — New Mistlocks are not new maps. Re-think a way these can add to the experience.
Improve the FoTM Mastery, AR, achievements, and infusions — The FoTM mastery was an unrelated, flavorless grind. Mastery should be more than merchant unlocks and a singularity that doesn’t really change my experience. Add more singularities and put agony resist into the mastery. Agony resist should be an account-unlock through achievements and mastery and available to all the characters on an account. Pumping AR into every slot on all items is clunky and only has value in FoTM. Unless you want to carry around a bunch of sets, you miss out on more creative infusions. Keep in mind that infusions will be expending with Raids and you don’t want to be missing out.
Rethink rewards — What if anything is valuable in a fractal encryption? The cat golem minis are all the same thing with a different color and appeal only to the mini-hoarders of Tyria. Give us new, exclusive minis like a mini Molten Berserker, mini Anomaly, mini Zhaitan, or give us rare, old minis on a high RNG like mini Molten Firestorm. You could bring back the molten jetpack on another high RNG. If encryptions are selling for 10-15s on the TP, the balance is off. Restore ascended drops to their old RNG or put them on the vendor for 50-100 pristine. Old rates weren’t crazy high. I ran a lot of FoTM and it took me 6 months to start filling a bank tab of chests and of that most were gloves and boots. It did not need a drop nerf.
Rethink weapon skins — If you ask anyone their favorite thing about the old skins, it will be the particle effect across the board. New skins lost that touch and are the old skins with a golden paint job—a color that is unpopular if you look around and won’t even match the legendary pack piece. Redo new skins in the old theme. Give us a rapier sword, a 2-handed scimitar, a melee staff, etc. They don’t have to all launch at the same time, but this is a much better option. Old skins were the staying factor for old FoTM and selling them on the vendor was a terrible idea.
Modify the time-gate — FoTM 100 and/or mastery should give me even more Daily Recommended Levels. If everyone gets 2 Daily Recs, a FoTM 100 player with mastery should get 4-5 to speed the flavorless time-gate and incentivise higher level FoTMs. Add a Daily Rec 50-75 and a Daily Rec 76-100. If people want to say the higher levels are too hard—don’t do them. Right now there is no incentive for higher level FoTM. Players who did 50,40,30 daily now just run a 8 and a 21 for the pages and call it a day.
Final thoughts — After HoT story and DS, you just can’t help but feel like our developers are capable of so much more than we’re seeing in FoTM right now. FoTM right now is the sloppy joe of GW2. Take the old meat, add some new sauce, slop it on a bun, and send it out. We’ll eat it, but we know it’s reheated left-overs.
I’d like to add that I feel my money was well spent on HoT—but that has absolutely nothing to do with FoTM in its current state.
(edited by Gav.1425)
