Guild Wars 2

I’d like to get some opinions on the current Fractals. The most recent changes to them(when Cliffside was changed) killed them for me, couldn’t bring myself to do the Fractal dailies.
Previous version of Fractals was IMO very good, and provided a steady daily gold income. The current Fractals don’t seem to be worth the effort, specially for the highest level ones, most of the time if i’m doing T4 Fractals, it lasts a fair bit longer than those nine runs we did previously.

TL;DR As the title says, are you satisfied with the current Fractals or would you like for them to be like they were before?

I have a very limited frame of reference for the old high level fractals, but I’m pretty happy with the new tiers. Cliffside is infinitely better since the change, imo.

My main interest is in new ones more than anything else.

For perspective, before the change, I was stagnant on some scales for weeks and stayed in tier 2 for nearly a year. People either wanted swamp or whatever the daily was. If you were going for fractal skins like I was, you could be waiting so long in LFG that it kicks you out several times in a row. The longest I spent was a little over an hour with no one joining.

After the change, I’m pretty much doing things are my leisure. I’m now up to Tier 3 and the particular toon that I created for fractals is almost in full ascended. I just need one particular accessory that requires me to complete the Arah collection. I have 142 agony resist as well. It’s relatively easy for me to find groups to roll with for blacksheep scales.

If I were to change anything, I would add a non-RNG way for everyone to get a full set of ascended gear by doing fractals. It would only be one set but it would be a full set, including trinkets. I would also add a way to buy mists essence with fractal relics.

I actually like the new system better. I started doing them to make the backpiece after they changed it and enjoyed doing so.

We just need new fractals is all. Forget the old / current ones – JUST MAKE NEW ONES!

The new reward system and layout is good enough, it rewards more or less fairly and require more or less just enough effort to be fun to do. The fractals themselves, however, have become pretty stale. When fractals were announced we were told there was literally infinite potential as to what we could find inside, we could literally have 100 different fractals instead of rehashing Living World stuff (they are already planning to rehash even more…), and still have infinite amount of lore left to explore. So they implemented a great idea very poorly IMHO.

Nevertheless, what little fractals we have are fun to play through, but if they’re not going to release levels regularly they might as well add more “surprising” elements to keep us up and running without it becoming a chore.

Jazz.2643:

I’d like to get some opinions on the current Fractals. The most recent changes to them(when Cliffside was changed) killed them for me, couldn’t bring myself to do the Fractal dailies.
Previous version of Fractals was IMO very good, and provided a steady daily gold income. The current Fractals don’t seem to be worth the effort, specially for the highest level ones, most of the time if i’m doing T4 Fractals, it lasts a fair bit longer than those nine runs we did previously.

TL;DR As the title says, are you satisfied with the current Fractals or would you like for them to be like they were before?

The system is better now for the people I play with. It’s easier to get people to group up, fractals take far less time than before to get better rewards, and ANet’s finally been tidying things up.

tl;dr much better now.

So basically you are just missing Swamps of the Mist?

Still mad about Thaumanova winning over Abaddon. >:|

One other thing. If this apparently amazing raid team they have can make all this raid content, why can’t a small fractal team pump out more fractals?

I mean, they are supposed to be much smaller in scope and complexity, but still 5 man challenging content right? Heck, can we even just have the raid team moved over to make a few new fractals every now and then if they are so good at content creation? Or have them obersee the fractal team or something anyway.

MashMash.1645:

One other thing. If this apparently amazing raid team they have can make all this raid content, why can’t a small fractal team pump out more fractals?

I mean, they are supposed to be much smaller in scope and complexity, but still 5 man challenging content right? Heck, can we even just have the raid team moved over to make a few new fractals every now and then if they are so good at content creation? Or have them obersee the fractal team or something anyway.

Someone has to work on the next expansion :P

MashMash.1645:

One other thing. If this apparently amazing raid team they have can make all this raid content, why can’t a small fractal team pump out more fractals?

I mean, they are supposed to be much smaller in scope and complexity, but still 5 man challenging content right? Heck, can we even just have the raid team moved over to make a few new fractals every now and then if they are so good at content creation? Or have them obersee the fractal team or something anyway.

In order for new fractals to be added to the rotation, old fractals would need to be taken out, whether permanently or in a random lottery style rotation. That’s if they limit it to 100 scales.

I miss the three-boss fractal but can understand why they made the change. All in all, imo, fractals has never been in a better place than now.

MashMash.1645:

One other thing. If this apparently amazing raid team they have can make all this raid content, why can’t a small fractal team pump out more fractals?

I mean, they are supposed to be much smaller in scope and complexity, but still 5 man challenging content right? Heck, can we even just have the raid team moved over to make a few new fractals every now and then if they are so good at content creation? Or have them obersee the fractal team or something anyway.

The raid team isn’t creating the new wings frome scratch. Most part of those wings where already done before the raid team got that small. The raid team now only needs to fine tune, repair bugs, alter small things etc. So even if they move that team to fractal team. Don’t expect a new fractal every month or so.

With amount of gold and ascended chests daily fractals are spewing today, I think they are overboosted. Hell I don’t do anything else for profit than daily fractals.

Previously you got 1 chests with chance of asc drop, now you get 12. Whats there to complain?!

In less then one month I got 8 asc chests, some golden weapons and a min of 10g per full daly run. They are in as good position as ever, fear the nerf if anything…

Edit: they are however deeply neglected in form of a new instances, tho they have announced new ones. Better late then never eh?

Aidan Savage.2078:

MashMash.1645:

One other thing. If this apparently amazing raid team they have can make all this raid content, why can’t a small fractal team pump out more fractals?

I mean, they are supposed to be much smaller in scope and complexity, but still 5 man challenging content right? Heck, can we even just have the raid team moved over to make a few new fractals every now and then if they are so good at content creation? Or have them obersee the fractal team or something anyway.

In order for new fractals to be added to the rotation, old fractals would need to be taken out, whether permanently or in a random lottery style rotation. That’s if they limit it to 100 scales.

Not really. The vast majority of Fractals have 7+ difficulty levels, with several having 9 or 10. It would be easy to free up at least 2 slots in each tier to introduce 2 new fractals without removing any of the ones we currently have. I bet Anet could even manage to make room for 4 new fractals and still have each fractal be offered at least once in each tier.

The current reward system is very good.
But the high level fractal instabilities are still not very fun to play with.

my opinion is that the rewards keep getting unnecessarily buffed because people cant comprehend the value of an ascended box and write them off as worthless. im not complaining here, because i have like 8 toons in full ascended thanks almost purely to fractals, and i enjoy the reward buffs. but begging for more at this point is silly.

on the subject of the encounters, there are a bunch that need work due to the hp/toughness scaling in t4:

• mai
• snowblind boss, ice ele
• thauma boss
• mossman

and there are a few fractals that are just boringly long:

• dredge
• thauma (everybody waits at the heat room for someone to volunteer to solo) (then everyone wipes 3x at south room 1 at a time so no one can respawn)
• molten furnace (time gate time gate time gate)
• that one long path in urban that gets picked 90% of the time (confirmation bias)
• the dolphin run in water fractal (pretty miserable, and the boss is boring, but its pretty much the easiest fractal once the general pug population figures out what buttons to push and learns that stacking anywhere is an option)
• the aetherblade time gate right before the boss room

but no, i disagree with your OP. fractals are much better now than before the cliffside rework. and theyre slightly better now than pre-hot because of the multitude of good systemic changes.

I am pretty happy with fractals currently and am doing them daily unlike when swamps of the mists was the go to thing. I just wish the hp pools were reduced a bit so that soloing could become something fun to do again instead of just a hyper tedious chore. But it is better for groups than it was before where bosses at max level could be burnt so quickly that they wouldn’t be able to outlast an ice-bow chain stun.

As someone who used to do lvl 50 in the old 3 frac system (with the old infernal dredge) and who did lvl 1 to 100 at HoT release, my opinion is that now they are a lot less challenging and that it feels less gratifying accomplishing them because they have been pretty casualised.
They actually did a great job in the HoT release because the tier 4 fractals were actually challenging (looking at cliffside or snowbind lvl 90+ for example).
But since it was their goal to casualise it, I’d say they did a good job because it’s easier for people to get into it (cliffside nerf, revival,etc).
Concerning the rewards, I think they have always been correct (not a lot but enough, getting ascended items is a big prize).
What I’m salty about is that casualising fractals decreased the value of items that could show that you were good at them. First example the golden frac weapons, at the release of HoT, having one from the 1-100 achiev was a big thing (people would gz you for having one). Second example is Ad Infinitum, I mean I thought having one would show that you were trully dedicated to fractals but anyone can make it without any trouble within some weeks (lots of time gate there).
So overall they did a good job casualising them but now it’s not as satisfying for a “veteran”.
(sorry if bad english, not native speaker)

Exciton.8942:

The current reward system is very good.
But the high level fractal instabilities are still not very fun to play with.

THAT’S for sure. And adding fractal avengers is like rubbing salt in a wound. As if we didn’t die enough already.

But, overall, I am extremely happy with the changes, at least up to about level 65 or 70. (Avengers are just too much. They force you to stack or stay close to each other, even when that goes against ones play style.)

Daddicus.6128:

Exciton.8942:

The current reward system is very good.
But the high level fractal instabilities are still not very fun to play with.

THAT’S for sure. And adding fractal avengers is like rubbing salt in a wound. As if we didn’t die enough already.

fractal avengers are one of the most interesting things theyve ever added to fractals.

What I don’t like as a chrono is the part of high lvl fractals where mobs steal buffs on hit. It’s not a fun mechanic because it’s hard to keep some quickness on teammates. The content doesn’t get more challenging, it just adds some mins to the timer because of lower dps.

insanemaniac.2456:

Daddicus.6128:

Exciton.8942:

The current reward system is very good.
But the high level fractal instabilities are still not very fun to play with.

THAT’S for sure. And adding fractal avengers is like rubbing salt in a wound. As if we didn’t die enough already.

fractal avengers are one of the most interesting things theyve ever added to fractals.

Agreed.

Although admittedly, they confuse the heck out of people. There are all sorts of ways to counter them (not including the obvious: don’t get downed).

Please, we talk about fractal avengers? Really? Any cc skill (or invisible skill when they finish stomp) would deny them. If you know how to lower bosses break bar, you know how to save your self. Also I suggest being more selective with pugs, in my day to day games, downed ppl get ressed pretty much instantly.