Can we all agree on this?
I for one think that just about every fractal is well above average. Their completion time is short and sweet. Their difficulty is good, as is the ability to make it as difficult as I want by going up in ranks. Just about everything is as near to perfect with the actual fractals themselves.
But my word the implementation is ridiculously bad. Like, what the actual hell were you doing when you were putting them in the game bad.
1. Disconnection issues – For starters the fractals are unstable as heck, people who have never had disconnection problems with the rest of the game suddenly cant even do your content. This wouldnt be so bad if not for 2.
2. no reconnection – I dont even know what to say to this. You clearly tested these fractals ahead of time. Someone wrote a guide before they were even released. How did this happen? This is something you guys fixed YEARS ago in guild wars 1. It’s absolutely shameful. Worse still not only has it not been fixed, but as far as I can see you’ve given the community no indication of what’s going on
3. Ascended gear – This ones a bit of an eh kind of thing. Lots of people dont really like the concept of it, and feel that it poops all over your own manifesto. it’s been debated to death though, so we’ll stick to the main problems with it that are topic related which are 4. and 5.
4. RNG – This is such a kitteny system. That’s really all there is to say on the matter. I have no idea what compelled you to do this besides some kind of sadistic streak.
5. single location, multiple distribution – The only way to get the gear is to do a singular instance, which as per 1. and 2. isnt possible for some people and as per 4. is possible, but not likely for others.
6. Rewards? – Loot is fine, despite there being an issue with higher fractals not rewarding as well as the lower ones. Im talking more about influence with guilds, as in, guilds get absolutely zip from fractals. Also a dearth of karma, neither completion nor bags of wonderous goods. But tbh this section is really nitpicky, and not exactly a real issue
7. Lack of communication – I could accept not telling players about your plans for problems for a week. Maybe two. But anywhere after that just looks plain bad. It shouldnt be a complicated answer to any of these questions: 1. are you going to allow players to reconnect to the fractal if no, why the hell not? If yes, why havent you done it yet? If it’s difficult, why is it difficult? If there’s some issue with it that’s occurring because of something you’ve done to accommodate players, then let us know! 2. Are certain elements (such as the rings) supposed to be RNG. If yes, then I dont know what to tell you, because holy kitten, that’s such a terrible way to do it, and I hope you’re planning to change it. If no, why havent you fixed it yet. And so on. The fact is Anet, we like your content, and we like to experience your content, and when we’re blocked from doing that for some reason (whether it be disconnections, or RNG gods hating us, and so on) we’re going ask you what you’re doing to fix things, and non-satisfactory answers, and being tight-lipped dont do you or anyone any good.
I dont mean to make this sound like a whine thread. I know it does, im sorry. But, I mean, look here’s another example.
Someone posts about their RNG issues. Robert responds. Not to console them, or tell them anything positive, but to say “hey I changed title of your thread” Now robert, I dont specifically know, how much power you have in Anet. But I suspect it would have been trivial for you to have asked a dev, if they’re working on the RNG issue And then saying that, in the thread. Like, you dont even need to give them a status update. Simply saying “We’re looking into it, and im sorry for inconvenience” goes a hell of a lot more towards making your players happy, than saying nothing. Like, not to point fingers, but, it’s almost like you went out of your way, to make that player less happy than he was. and that boggles my mind, because making players happy is meant to be your job. Happy players are infinitely better than non happy players for Anet as far as I can tell.
Would it really be so hard to make a post addressing current player concerns, once a week if you dont have a large patch? I know in GW1 you had a community manager (or several) whose entire job was basically logging on and answering questions as best they could. I know of several other MMO’s who try to stay as connected to their playerbases as they can, and their players are much happier because of it.
At the end of the day, any communication is better than none, and that’s really the most important thing to take away from this post.
(edited by Zenyatoo.4059)