My view on the new Fractals

My view on the new Fractals

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Posted by: Roseblood.6793

Roseblood.6793

So HoT also revamped the fractal system, a system they say they are planning to use over dungeons because it allows for more versatility. The new system reworked each level to contain a single island now and your daily chest is now given as a daily achievement.

Here are my thoughts:

  • I find the new system to be uninspiring.

I liked the randomness of fractals pre-patch, it forced me to do a few instances I didn’t like which made me appreciate the others a lot more. I also find the Mistlock instabilities to be boring as you get the same instability for like 10 different levels.

  • Unclear rewards

Every time you finish a fractal you get a few chests that you can only unlock using specific keys. each key is worth 20 silver and the stuff that comes out is usually some grey junk item. What’s the point of these chests? They were never explained before.

  • Salvaging of the ascended rings.

It’s soooo bloody expensive! 1g per ring is an incredible amount (at least for me). And what do we get? A single Stabilizing Matrix. What they’re used for? I assume the legendary, but other than that… I compare this to regular salvaging of items and they usually have more interesting drops than that. Salvaging rings only leads to those matrices, no exception (so far).

What I’d also like to point out is that I haven’t dropped a single ring since HoT has launched. Normally I’d expect them to appear in the daily chest but that has been replaced with a daily chest key. I really don’t get this….

/endrant

Well, here’s my my opinion on the current fractal system. Please tell me if I missed anything. I imagine fractals will feel a lot more rewarding once everything has been figured out, but until then it feels like a massive gold sink.

tl;dr: Fractals feel unrewarding and uninspired.

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Posted by: Arenzo.3298

Arenzo.3298

the instabilities seem amusing, im ok with not randomness, but from what ive heard the rewards arent too good

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Posted by: Huttunen.8309

Huttunen.8309

The rewards are horrible, did levels 51 – 63 today, and I only got one 1g worth piece from like 30 – 50 chests I got. I also got a few recipes of ascended weapons, but who cares about the recipes anyway when they’re almost free compared to the cost of the weapon?

Also I’m not sure should we have had an condi engi or something on the team, but at 51+ or something the bosses just hit less than they used to, and meanwhile they have more toughness and vitality, which makes the engages just ultra boring. On some bosses like the anomaly and ooze it worked and it made them more fun since they didn’t melt instantly, but when you kite some ettin around for time what feels like 10 minutes in uncategorized and damage it without taking any damage it just numbs your brains. Also the first stage of the grawl shaman in the volcano fractal only made my team fell asleep

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Posted by: Harper.4173

Harper.4173

The main thing everybody talked about in the Fractals CDI was how rewards were underwhelming and bad.

They took that and made the revamped fractals that came with HoT even worse rewards wise.

It literally takes money away from you now instead of giving it to you. I never thought I’ d see the day when I’d regret the 1 gold the old fractals gave us.

If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”

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Posted by: Cbomb.4310

Cbomb.4310

Its that john smith guy working for anet. Econ guy’s job is basically to kitten over players and laugh about it. I mean… I assume thats in his job descrip because hes doing a very good job at it.

I would love to give him a swift kick in the baby kittens.

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Posted by: Gaaroth.2567

Gaaroth.2567

You talk about bad reward with or without fractal masteries? Because I feel is good with them.

Tempest & Druid
Wat r u, casul?

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Posted by: Roseblood.6793

Roseblood.6793

You talk about bad reward with or without fractal masteries? Because I feel is good with them.

With, I farmed CoF to get the masteries. Which is another problem I have with fractals, they don’t give enough xp by far. You’d expect you can get at least one mastery by playing fractals, but after doing 3 runs I still only had about 10%.

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Posted by: NovaanVerdiano.6174

NovaanVerdiano.6174

You can actually make acceptable money with fractals as of now, the rewards are simply not liquid by default.
The thing I want the most are more dailies, 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80 and 81-100 please. This gives fractal runners much more to do.

As for the instabilities, most of them seem alright (from those I’ve seen yet). The Condition instability duo can be annoying as heck, but that’s what they’re supposed to be. (I’ve been feared down by the Anomaly in Thaumanova yesterday during my 64 while it only had 0.5% HP left and I was the last one alive, I wanted to throw my mouse into the monitor and shout at it lmao)
The only instability that seems really bad is “Boon Fumbler”, i.e. the one where you lose all your boons upon dodge. I didn’t run one of those tiers yet, but being punished for dodging on its own seems extremely silly. It should be “lose all boons on hit” or even better “lose all boons on a wasted dodge” (i.e. you don’t get an evade-notification). I mean clearly their intent was to require active defense and make use of utility/weapon-blocks (if those don’t count), but there’s classes which can do that better and others that barely have any additional dodges, seems a bit meh to me.

Also, the toughness/HP of the mobs is killing me, either that or my pugs were all super low DPS (I had stuff like 8min Ashym, so that’s kind of painful)

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Posted by: Zach.2618

Zach.2618

You can actually make acceptable money with fractals as of now, the rewards are simply not liquid by default.
The thing I want the most are more dailies, 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80 and 81-100 please. This gives fractal runners much more to do.

As for the instabilities, most of them seem alright (from those I’ve seen yet). The Condition instability duo can be annoying as heck, but that’s what they’re supposed to be. (I’ve been feared down by the Anomaly in Thaumanova yesterday during my 64 while it only had 0.5% HP left and I was the last one alive, I wanted to throw my mouse into the monitor and shout at it lmao)
The only instability that seems really bad is “Boon Fumbler”, i.e. the one where you lose all your boons upon dodge. I didn’t run one of those tiers yet, but being punished for dodging on its own seems extremely silly. It should be “lose all boons on hit” or even better “lose all boons on a wasted dodge” (i.e. you don’t get an evade-notification). I mean clearly their intent was to require active defense and make use of utility/weapon-blocks (if those don’t count), but there’s classes which can do that better and others that barely have any additional dodges, seems a bit meh to me.

Also, the toughness/HP of the mobs is killing me, either that or my pugs were all super low DPS (I had stuff like 8min Ashym, so that’s kind of painful)

Wait till you get boon fumbler and the one where mobs steal your boons on hit haha you’re gonna hate thatXD judging by how much you love your boons haha

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Posted by: GrimmR.3541

GrimmR.3541

While some instabilities make the fractals more entertaining do I agree that the new reward system is horrible.

I hate the golden fractal weapons and got 2 so far.
On level 100 I expected some unique reward but I have to disappoint you. It sucks!!

toxic since 2012

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Posted by: deSade.9437

deSade.9437

While some instabilities make the fractals more entertaining do I agree that the new reward system is horrible.

I hate the golden fractal weapons and got 2 so far.
On level 100 I expected some unique reward but I have to disappoint you. It sucks!!

ç_ç

I swear to Chtulhu fractals feel grindier and more like a chore, and for this I can’t bring myself to do more than 15 a day, leaderboards or not… I think it’s because of the huuuuuuuuuuuuge hp pools and toughness of bosses. They’re literally punching bags with their reduced power and with those op defense pots. Archie takes away less than half my health at 80+ with 1 attack, while it used to oneshot me (with overkill) at 50. wtf?
Seriously, they gotta rebalance stats. I get they hate zergburger, I get it, but it’s not fun to hit a 2-attack boss for 10 minutes. It’s not. (Especially with a meh teamcomp…)

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Posted by: NovaanVerdiano.6174

NovaanVerdiano.6174

While some instabilities make the fractals more entertaining do I agree that the new reward system is horrible.

I hate the golden fractal weapons and got 2 so far.
On level 100 I expected some unique reward but I have to disappoint you. It sucks!!

ç_ç

I swear to Chtulhu fractals feel grindier and more like a chore, and for this I can’t bring myself to do more than 15 a day, leaderboards or not… I think it’s because of the huuuuuuuuuuuuge hp pools and toughness of bosses. They’re literally punching bags with their reduced power and with those op defense pots. Archie takes away less than half my health at 80+ with 1 attack, while it used to oneshot me (with overkill) at 50. wtf?
Seriously, they gotta rebalance stats. I get they hate zergburger, I get it, but it’s not fun to hit a 2-attack boss for 10 minutes. It’s not. (Especially with a meh teamcomp…)

This. This right here. What this is doing is shoehorning people into one type of damage by rendering the other one useless. If you went with def on your stats, you at least got something else in return. Now you’re forced to run condi or spend ages in a run. Doesn’t help you need full asc and it’s gotten more expensive.
This is legitimately the first time I felt restricted when it comes to choosing gear.

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Posted by: rfdarko.4639

rfdarko.4639

The way the rewards are structured currently, I can’t see any reason to do level 70+ fractals for the 51-100 daily, which makes those tiers kind of a waste after you get the chievo. At least in the old system you wanted to get your pr level up and do 41+ to get a better chance at boxes and the tonic.

There doesn’t seem to be special rewards for each tier outside of completing the chieve, you just get more boxes. Anything rare or special (like golden pristines or aether skins) are in the boxes, which you can get at any level or even buy off the TP. In fact I think you could get a golden fractal skin never having set foot in fractals just from buying the boxes, getting 4 of them and forging them. (maybe the keys are mastery locked? not sure)

The rebalenced scaling (reduced power, high toughness) was also a real disappointment. It’s masked somewhat by the instabilites, especially the random condi one, but on lvl 90s I was zoning out halfway through the fights. Dredge final boss is a nightmare since condis were NOT fixed on him. The suprise at mai trin was cool but finishing her felt really anti-climactic because she was just a giant hp bag at the end. Even at lvl 100 she was hitting for less then she did at lvl 50 before (possibly because of the stupidly op fractal potions).

I also haven’t seen any weapon/armor boxes drop, just recipes, so I’m not even sure fractals are a direct source of ascended gear anymore.

guildless hobo who likes to solo – [x]

(edited by rfdarko.4639)

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Posted by: deSade.9437

deSade.9437

About 40 runs and I havent’ seen a single ascended drop in boxes or daily.

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Posted by: Afya.5842

Afya.5842

I asked on reddit but so far no one can give me a clear answer. Does the reward get “good” with mastery lvl3? By good I mean comparable to old chest, you know, solid reward like gold and RNG like ascended/skin.

My casual guild lost quite a bit of interest on fractal now. They ain’t meta but we run 38 every other day. Some do run 50. I’m not sure if I should encourage some of them to get AR up now if the reward stays flat across the levels.

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Posted by: TheRandomGuy.7246

TheRandomGuy.7246

About 40 runs and I havent’ seen a single ascended drop in boxes or daily.

I hope this is some kind of a bug. They managed to “deincentive” fractals more than dungeons lol.

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Posted by: NovaanVerdiano.6174

NovaanVerdiano.6174

I asked on reddit but so far no one can give me a clear answer. Does the reward get “good” with mastery lvl3? By good I mean comparable to old chest, you know, solid reward like gold and RNG like ascended/skin.

My casual guild lost quite a bit of interest on fractal now. They ain’t meta but we run 38 every other day. Some do run 50. I’m not sure if I should encourage some of them to get AR up now if the reward stays flat across the levels.

On high tiers I get a whole lot of infusions and encryptions with some normal loot, all depending on fractal length of course. In the current state I’d argue that it actually beats out the old chest on average, even without MR3.

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Posted by: captainteemo.6537

captainteemo.6537

I like having the new achievements to work towards.
I like having more levels to work towards, and fixing the fractal levels that were broken.
I like being able to buy my fractal skins using Pristine relics.

I don’t like how cheap the skins are. I had over 700 Pristine relics saved, and at the cost of 20 Pristines, it just made the skins lose that prestige of earning them. They just cheapened the image of fractal skins overnight. That’s terribly disappointing. Especially since they mentioned they wanted to preserve that.

Since I mainly login, do dailies and do fractals. It seems like I’ve been losing gold recently. With the new terrible rewards (You only get about 1g from Fractals 51+ tier) and plus random RNG from those boxes which you purchase the keys to open.

Congrats to all the HoT owners. Lots of obvious advantages for the people who paid.

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

What I’d also like to point out is that I haven’t dropped a single ring since HoT has launched. Normally I’d expect them to appear in the daily chest but that has been replaced with a daily chest key. I really don’t get this….

I got 3 rings in one hour lol. You just have bad luck.

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Posted by: Aretak.3826

Aretak.3826

The rewards are severely nerfed. There needs to be another daily band of 90-100 if they ever want people going through the stupidly high enemy health pools for 19 relics + the new trash. You can earn more than previously sure, but a huge layer of RNG was added.

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Posted by: Shoe.5821

Shoe.5821

well theres your guys first mistake

stop buying keys and sell the boxes on the market instead

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Posted by: Daiboru.5792

Daiboru.5792

Terrible Rewards. (I’m max mastery)
Terrible Boss scaling.
Who the kitten designed fractal 64?

Yeah Anet, you sure showed them meta folk- Lets just add kittened mistlock + boss combinations, and let people whack a boss for 10 minutes with minimal mechanics because- you can just equip anything non-zerker now and not be punished for missing dodge ques.

Top Ele/Thief – ESL Hero
Scyllau
Daiboru

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Posted by: deSade.9437

deSade.9437

96, still no ascended drop.

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Posted by: thrag.9740

thrag.9740

96, still no ascended drop.

Seriously? No joke, I ran my friend (her personal reward lv is 20) through 1-4. On fractal 1 she got an uninfluenced ascended ring, and lv 3 got her an ascended armor box.

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Posted by: deSade.9437

deSade.9437

96, still no ascended drop.

Seriously? No joke, I ran my friend (her personal reward lv is 20) through 1-4. On fractal 1 she got an uninfluenced ascended ring, and lv 3 got her an ascended armor box.

Well, good for her? What do you want me to do, screen every single daily and chest I opened? I got no improvement in rewards 51-100, the boxes I tried to open are a flat gold loss (didn’t even recover the price of keys with full fractals mastery, so what the hell is the point?), no more weapons, no more armor boxes, no gold, no exotics… not even empyreal fragments or uninfused rings, jerus kittening christ.
I’m so annoyed I can’t be bothered to complain any longer. Whatever. I’m distancing myself from this horror. I’ll just get to 100 and then strictly do dailies.

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Posted by: thrag.9740

thrag.9740

96, still no ascended drop.

Seriously? No joke, I ran my friend (her personal reward lv is 20) through 1-4. On fractal 1 she got an uninfluenced ascended ring, and lv 3 got her an ascended armor box.

Well, good for her? What do you want me to do, screen every single daily and chest I opened? I got no improvement in rewards 51-100, the boxes I tried to open are a flat gold loss (didn’t even recover the price of keys with full fractals mastery, so what the hell is the point?), no more weapons, no more armor boxes, no gold, no exotics… not even empyreal fragments or uninfused rings, jerus kittening christ.
I’m so annoyed I can’t be bothered to complain any longer. Whatever. I’m distancing myself from this horror. I’ll just get to 100 and then strictly do dailies.

I’m sorry man I didn’t mean to anger you. I’m just so surprised. Now that the lowest tier of fractal drops ascended, the fact you did 40+ above lv 50 with nothing says to me something is up. Sorry =/ I am also disappointed with the recent changes. Lets just hope raids will be better.

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Posted by: Faoiltiarna.4271

Faoiltiarna.4271

I did maybe 200 runs so far, all 5 dailies done every day after HoT release and doing lv40 molten duo numerous times aswell. So far i dropped 4 rings (1 infused). I find it humiliating that after doing 3 fractals over lv 51, i don’t even get a ring (got it 1 time out of 4) . I won’t even comment on ascended chest drop rate which is a total joke (none of my guildies dropped anything, same as me).

Before HoT, we were doing 50,40,30,20 which usually ended up with 3-4 rings 1-2 infused, 4 pristine relics. Now we don’t even get pristine for each daily so already – in pristine relics. From my own experience i got a asc chest/ skin every 3rd 50lv daily. Now it’s a joke. Back then if u knew what u are doing u were doing everything extremely fast. But if u didnt know tactics or got wrong build – u got wiped over and over again. Now it is just a matter of time.

And yes, i have mastery 4 from the beginning.

tl;dr Fractals were better without HoT.