Guild Wars 2

guildwars2hub and mmorpg both published guides to the new fractal dungeons today. Interestingly, they both posted contradictory information about how the difficulty scaling/locking/reset mechanics work.

Can someone please definitively clarify the scaling/lockout/reset mechanics? I know we’re not supposed to call out Anet specifically, but really, who else can answer this question?

TLDR versions of the two articles:

MMORPG sez: “once your personal difficulty level has been raised (say, to 3), you cannot reenter the dungeon later at any difficulty less than 3. Unless of course you bring a player along in the group who is still at an unlock level of only 1 or 2, in which case the difficulty starts at that lowest person’s unlock level. You’re stuck in this progressive hard-lock cycle until the dungeon resets for everyone once per week. At which time everyone in the world starts at difficulty 1 all over again”

GUILDWARS2HUB sez: “each time you achieve a new unlock level, the game remembers that level permanently. When a group goes in to the dungeon, they can choose any difficulty level up to the lowest unlock level in the group. So, if four people are at unlock level 5, and one person is at unlock level 3, then when the group enters the dungeon they can pick any starting difficulty from 1-3.” Furthermore: GW2HUB says nothing at all about any weekly reset, and they even show a clear screenshot of a dungeon entry dialog that clearly shows a “choose your difficulty level” control on it.

So, um, the company I’m not supposed to call out directly, what’s the real story here?

Can someone please definitively clarify the scaling/lockout/reset mechanics?

Yes.

In fact, almost immediately after the dungeon is accessable this question will be answered. Which also happens to be the exact moment in time when the question actually has meaning.

TheRabbit.9478:

Can someone please definitively clarify the scaling/lockout/reset mechanics?

Yes.

In fact, almost immediately after the dungeon is accessable this question will be answered. Which also happens to be the exact moment in time when the question actually has meaning.

It’s actually two questions:

1.) After you beat a fractal and move up in difficulty, will you be able to choose to go back down to a lower difficulty?

2.) Will the dungeon reset everyone’s difficulty scaling to 1 each week?

Only the first one will be answerable after the first teams clear the dungeon – but we won’t know the answer to the second until a week after the dungeon launches unless we get clarification. And since we’re currently seeing press articles that are offering conflicting information, it seems reasonable to be asking now for that clarification.

Or… someone from Anet can simply explain. It wouldn’t take more than a few sentences.

Siding with rabbit on this one. The answer has no practical application to us until we can form additional parties and enter it a 2nd/3rd/4th/umpteenth time. Please let the Devs keep working on more crucial issues until that time. They’re obviously in a crunch here

ilr.9675:

Siding with rabbit on this one. The answer has no practical application to us until we can form additional parties and enter it a 2nd/3rd/4th/umpteenth time. Please let the Devs keep working on more crucial issues until that time. They’re obviously in a crunch here

The community manager or architect/designer who occasionally pulse-checks the forums is not a critical path for event readiness tomorrow.

And actually, this information has significant practical application for a guild’s or static group’s very first foray into the fractal dungeon on Friday. What if said guild/group wants to focus first on learning the layout/strategy of all 9 fractals? They might prefer to keep each fractal at difficulty level 1 for a while until they push into the more difficult variants of each fractal.

For a time-limited casual guild, if the dungeon uses the hard lock portrayed by mmorpg, that casual guild might quickly paint themselves into a corner if they try a full run for their first foray.. They might prefer instead to do only two fractals, drop out, and start again to infinitely keep everyone at unlock level 1 for most of the week, until they’ve seen all 9 fractals enough to feel confident pushing forward.

By contrast, if the mechanics are as guildwars2hub states, then such a guild/group would not need to game the system in this manner to achieve their goals.