Guild Wars 2

I wanted to post and condense some of the info we got on how fractal development is going, since 1) not everyone goes on reddit, and 2) the info isn’t well organized since the dev is just replying to random posts. You can trawl through all the replies yourself here: /user/anet_sean

Fractal Leaderboards have evolved into something else entirely, and development is on hold.

“So yeah, development on this has been suspended. The more we worked on Fractal Leaderboards the more we realized it just wouldn’t work with Fractals as they are right now.
We did come up with something else entirely that we really do like as an alternative, but that would take a lot of development work and we just have too many problems with Fractals in their current state before we can devote those kind of resources to a project like that.” [x]

The backpiece is no longer linked to the leaderboard/whatever is replacing the leaderboard.

“I can’t promise a certain date, but we’ve de-linked the backpack from Fractal Leaderboards so we can release it sooner rather than later. […] it was originally tied into leaderboards pretty closely. We had to undo all that, which took time. Now we need to test it and make sure all the changes work correctly.” [x]

No plans to release scales above 100 for the forseable future – instead they want to replace boring/annoying instabilities and revamp old fractals.

“For the near future, replacing most likely. We don’t really want to add more levels past 100, because that opens up a whole new can of worms.” [x]

“…as we develop new, better Instabilities we do plan on phasing out the old ones. We’ll likely end up with a mix of new and old Instabilities for a period though, at least until we develop enough new ones.” [x]

“We’re borrowing a page from Raids here with things like phase transitions and different attacks, which will then become more challenging at higher scales (e.g. larger AoEs, shorter breakbar windows, more punishing attacks when you fail to dodge, etc.)
And yes, we are looking at both doing this for new Fractals and reworking old Fractals to incorporate these things as well. It will take us some time to get to all the old Fractals though.” [x]

“Swamps of the mist” will be addressed through reward structures rather than re- balancing individual fractal difficulty.

“‘Swamps of the Mists’ is definitely not ideal. I think the main driver behind this is how the Daily Achievements are structured, so we’re currently looking into reworking those to encourage players to play all of our different Fractals.” [x]

" we originally though about just making Swamp longer, but realized people would just move onto Jade if we did that… and Snow after that… etc.
We’re hoping the changes to daily achievements will resolve this issue, without actually making any of the individual Fractals longer/harder." [x]
__________________________________________________________________

In terms of a priority list/timeline of changes, from his responses I think it’s something like this:

• Immediate future: Finishing fractal backpiece, changes to reward structure to discourage swamps of the mist.

• Soon-ish future: New/reworked instabilites, new fractal islands with raid-like multiphase bosses.

• On hold/soon™: The “not-leaderboard”, whatever it ends up being.

• wishlist/far future: rework agony, reword scaling system. (“Maybe instead of having scales at all, you would just play Core Molten Duo or Casual Jade Maw or something like that, instead of Scale 40 and Scale 20.” [x])

And, finally, he did confirm that the backpiece will also function as a glider skin. [x] If I missed any big or relevant points let me know and I’ll add them above.

Edit: added links to the quotes.

rfdarko.4639:

And, finally, he did confirm that the backpiece will also function as a glider skin.

I can die in peace now.

Man, what a relief. I like leaderboards in certain games like diablo 3 or path of exile.

I don’t see how it would work for fractals so I am glad they got rid of it.

What was the obsession with fractal leaderboards anyway??? Such a useless thing to spend resources on. The speedclearing crowd record their run on youtube, and the ones who care about it watch it and see that ‘wou, that guy is top in fractals’, but why should it be a part of the game? General gamers don’t care.

I’m glad it got suspended and I hope it won’t be continued on.

So this basically confirmed what we were expecting. Why have they wasted so much time delving around Fractal Leaderboards when it was clear from the start it was a flawed concept?

And they keep going at it: they said they’re not done with that just yet. Seriously? This isn’t how an iterative process should be like at all. Things should be filtered right out the bat to avoid wasting time in failed concepts.

They keep on rebuilding and “laying foundations” but no buildings are actually being built. They need to turn that ship around while they can (can they still?)

It´s very good thinking from Anet to not just make swamp longer and send people into maw then, absolutely the right mindset.

Never caught the fascination with leaderboards either.

New fractals would still not hurt.^^

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

So this basically confirmed what we were expecting. Why have they wasted so much time delving around Fractal Leaderboards when it was clear from the start it was a flawed concept?

And they keep going at it: they said they’re not done with that just yet. Seriously? This isn’t how an iterative process should be like at all. Things should be filtered right out the bat to avoid wasting time in failed concepts.

They keep on rebuilding and “laying foundations” but no buildings are actually being built. They need to turn that ship around while they can (can they still?)

I couldn’t agree with you more. The wasted time and delays in getting Ad Infinitum into the game is just ridiculous. We’re going on 5 months now since Unbound has been in the game and there’s still no clear date for when we’ll get Ad Infinitum. Just more “Soon™” responses.

Plus all the wait was for nothing because now the fractal leaderboards wont even come with it.

Fractal leaderboards were kind of pointless to begin with.

The actual content that will be added mostly sounds fun. I’m a dungeon runner at heart, so anything more complex than ‘stack on this guy and attack until he’s dead’ feels like padding to me, but I’ve got an open mind towards the new mechanics they’re hinting at.

My bottom line will be the reward: effort ratio. If it’s any harder, or takes longer to complete my dailies without a proportionate loot or reward increase, it’s just going to feel like they’ve gypped me.

rfdarko.4639:

I wanted to post and condense some of the info we got on how fractal development is going, since 1) not everyone goes on reddit, and 2) the info isn’t well organized since the dev is just replying to random posts. You can trawl through all the replies yourself here: /user/anet_sean

Fractal Leaderboards have evolved into something else entirely, and development is on hold.

“So yeah, development on this has been suspended. The more we worked on Fractal Leaderboards the more we realized it just wouldn’t work with Fractals as they are right now.
We did come up with something else entirely that we really do like as an alternative, but that would take a lot of development work and we just have too many problems with Fractals in their current state before we can devote those kind of resources to a project like that.” [x]

The backpiece is no longer linked to the leaderboard/whatever is replacing the leaderboard.

“I can’t promise a certain date, but we’ve de-linked the backpack from Fractal Leaderboards so we can release it sooner rather than later. […] it was originally tied into leaderboards pretty closely. We had to undo all that, which took time. Now we need to test it and make sure all the changes work correctly.” [x]

No plans to release scales above 100 for the forseable future – instead they want to replace boring/annoying instabilities and revamp old fractals.

“For the near future, replacing most likely. We don’t really want to add more levels past 100, because that opens up a whole new can of worms.” [x]

“…as we develop new, better Instabilities we do plan on phasing out the old ones. We’ll likely end up with a mix of new and old Instabilities for a period though, at least until we develop enough new ones.” [x]

“We’re borrowing a page from Raids here with things like phase transitions and different attacks, which will then become more challenging at higher scales (e.g. larger AoEs, shorter breakbar windows, more punishing attacks when you fail to dodge, etc.)
And yes, we are looking at both doing this for new Fractals and reworking old Fractals to incorporate these things as well. It will take us some time to get to all the old Fractals though.” [x]

“Swamps of the mist” will be addressed through reward structures rather than re- balancing individual fractal difficulty.

“‘Swamps of the Mists’ is definitely not ideal. I think the main driver behind this is how the Daily Achievements are structured, so we’re currently looking into reworking those to encourage players to play all of our different Fractals.” [x]

" we originally though about just making Swamp longer, but realized people would just move onto Jade if we did that… and Snow after that… etc.
We’re hoping the changes to daily achievements will resolve this issue, without actually making any of the individual Fractals longer/harder." [x]
__________________________________________________________________

In terms of a priority list/timeline of changes, from his responses I think it’s something like this:

• Immediate future: Finishing fractal backpiece, changes to reward structure to discourage swamps of the mist.

• Soon-ish future: New/reworked instabilites, new fractal islands with raid-like multiphase bosses.

• On hold/soon™: The “not-leaderboard”, whatever it ends up being.

• wishlist/far future: rework agony, reword scaling system. (“Maybe instead of having scales at all, you would just play Core Molten Duo or Casual Jade Maw or something like that, instead of Scale 40 and Scale 20.” [x])

And, finally, he did confirm that the backpiece will also function as a glider skin. [x] If I missed any big or relevant points let me know and I’ll add them above.

Edit: added links to the quotes.

Thanks for the nice summary. Here’s hoping fractals are exciting to play again.

So when is the ETA for the new fractals?