I would like to start out by saying I love the fractals! I think ArenaNet did an amazing job making them fun, and the art work is unbelievably beautiful.
However, there are just a few issues that I see repeated often that need addressing.
1.) Fighting with a ton of NPCs that have the bare minimal A.I. (that I would rather just die so we can do it ourselves) is not fun. Look, I know they want the fights to feel “epic” and huge… but I swear, I absolutely despise fighting with a ton of NPC mobs. What is the difference between them and horrible pug players? You can’t communicate with them or come up with strategies. They just run in and mess up any fun plan you might have wanted to try (like trying to pull enemy mobs around a corner to line of sight them). Please… less of this. NPCs are not fun to run with.
2.) Why did I level all the way up to 80 and get my skills mastered to turn into a defenseless dolphin that gets 2 shotted and has ZERO fighting skills? Really? Why can’t I just fight the krait instead? So people just take off all their armor, run to the end with at least one person making it, and then die to rez back up at the end to fight a giant jelly fish boss that has too much health, does almost no damage, is super boring, and takes forever to die. The underwater fractal is my least favorite of them all… and I’m not alone.
3.) Ok, so we have harpies with knockbacks on a jumping puzzle. And there are like 10 of them and the harpies can shoot you through the floor but you can’t shoot them back. It wouldn’t be so bad if you COULD SEE THE RED CIRCLES ON THE PLATFORMS! So you can be the most attentive, talented, and amazing player on the face of the earth (with every stability feature you can muster) and still die for no reason… why? Because sometimes, there is no red circle or indicator AT ALL on those floating platforms. Like, if they just filled them in with red or something, ok… I could see that. But even if you watch like a hawk, you’ll be pummeled off and sometimes one shotted to complete death. Seriously, that needs to be fixed or reworked.
3.) Dredge. This is the most complained about instance in all of fractals. First, it’s just overkill on the endless mobs when bombing or drilling through the door. When you are fighting 30+ mobs with control effects, you aren’t just outnumbered. There are just too many of them and most of them are ranged. So once you get past that mess (always losing people and only using luck), you get to the last boss that takes forever to kill because it heals too much while you kite it in a giant circle.
4.) Every other level cannot be a daily. Why is there a weird random rule like this? It makes it even harder for people to level up or find groups. Does there really need to be a rule that says only even numbered fractals can be dailies? That’s not a good idea.
5.) Pop ups in the middle of the screen. Please… just move them up a little. Or better yet, save the position we put them in. You go to loot the boss and #$%*@ a popup window just covered the middle of the screen on me. Ok, it’s not game breaking, but come on… didn’t this at least get on the nerves of the alpha testers?
6.) Skipping… if you want to fix skipping, make it an achievement to kill all the adds. That one is easy to fix.
7.) The drop rate on “Vials of Condensed Mists” is insane. I have run about 220 fractals and I have a whoppin’ 6 of them. It takes 20 of these to upgrade a single ring. Really? Like, I’m not complaining about the drop rates on rings like others are… but I thought that GW2 wasn’t supposed to be a grindfest. Do you know how many fractals it takes to upgrade BOTH rings where you need 40 of them to get only 10 more agony resist?
8.) Why am I taking agony damage in level 10-20 fractals with 15+ agony resist. I think there might be a bug. It only happens on a few bosses – like boss in the fractal with the giant colossus for example. I’m not sure if anyone else is experiencing this.
I thought I would share my thoughts on improving the fractals. I love Guild Wars 2 and think it is an AMAZING game. If we could just get a little more balance in a few of the fractals, end game dungeons would be a lot more fun.