Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

I recently have had a little frustration with the Thaumanova Reactor Fractal. Either the fractal tasks, mechanics or the boss fight lead to a restart or a very long trial and error grind.

I for myself know the fractal very well and find it very interesting lore-wise. As an asura player I came across the reactor ruins in Metrica and was very excited to see the background story to it. Also it’s helpful in understanding LW S1.

Since ArenaNet has started on reworking fracals and wants to make them mechanically interesting and enjoyable, here are my suggestions to improve it.

The overheated Cooling Chamber:
The cooling chamber is one of the most repulsive and ambiguous tasks in the fractal. When moving the most common and intuitve route (Entrance -> up the stairs -> to the middle and clockwise around) it’s the first task you come across, however it cannot be done as intended at that point, since you need a cooling rod to have a chance of traversing it.

If a group knows that and grabs a cooling rod first you still only see what you can and have to do only if you stand inside the chamber and suffer heavy damage.
The rod itself is very clunky and has skills on it, that have no name, are hard to read, or even do nothing at all.
Also it is very hard to see where the rod needs to go to cool the chamber and if one manages to get one in its recepticle it should be noted as a success and therefore not be punished by inevitable death of the brave hero.

Most groups use a combination of leaps, blinks, portals and superspeed to do this task without a rod. While I don’t think that is a bad thing, I’d love to see the rods implemented correctly and usable.

The Repulsor Labyrith:
The Labyrinth is one of the better implemented mechanics. The task is clear and after a few tries an unexperienced group can figure it out. Problem again is visibility and the environmental pickup, the Safety Shield.

It would be good to have the cog-map-marker for the two consoles so players have a general idea of where to go. That should be enough to make it perfect.

The problem with the shield is, that it is generally useless, even when used correctly. Most professions have at least one better solution to the task with less downsides than the shield. I have no really good ideas on how to fix that, but a tweak to the heat damage and the number of hits the shield can take before heating might help.

The Dormitories:
The Dormitories is one of my favourite mechanics in the fractal. After seeing Greeza and Chibb die in earlier runs you get a chance to rescue them on higher tiers. In return they help you destabilize the Anomaly causing the boss to take more damage, how much however remains a mystery and even if it affects condition damage or not.

However this bonus does not come for free. You have to smash the doors in within a short period of time before the scientists get overrun. That time is only told by audio lines and some of these are even shuffled and may cause Dessa to say the wrong line, making it hard to tell, if you were successful or not. I’d like to see a timer added to the event box to get disambiguation.

Also if one party member runs into the dormitories (out of group miscommunication, bad habit or by accident) the event triggers and the group has no chance on getting the debuff for the boss. If the door to the dormitories had an opening mechanism, that required a party poll, the fractal could still be done with less than 5 players (if one so desires) but a player may not enter without the backing of the group.

Subject 6:
The miniboss of this fractal has good and usable mechanics to work with, however there are a few flaws.

Subject 6 has a very distinct set of attacks: a ranged basic attack, a ground-pound AoE, an AoE flurry and his iconic blocking stance. Also whenever it takes too much damage it spawns a minoin, that heals him if the players don’t intervene.

The only problem is the visibility of his ranged basic attack and the range of his ground-pound. As the Subject’s health goes down it also decreases in size, making it harder to read, his attacks however remain equally large and strong making it especially deadly in higher tiers. While I see that this is an intended mechanic and should not be altered, players should get a clue of wether they are in danger or not via an AoE circle rather than by rule of thumb.

The Boss: The Thaumanova Anomaly:
This boss fight is the prime example for the basic rule of visual design: " looks good does not always mean works good"

Let’s start at the Boss Arena:
You fight this boss on a platform above the reactor core. The platform is made up of hexagon tiles, that are temporarily removed by the boss as the fight goes on.
The one big problem here: The platform is transparent and because the Anomaly is rooted in the middle right above the reactor core, that is bright as the sun, you always look against it, rendering the platform almost invisible.

Also because of these holographic tiles you can’t see any AoE circles, neither of the players nor the boss. You can’t even tell if you are inside your own heal field, not to mention deadly Boss-AoE.

Next up is the attack pattern:
The Anomaly has a set of very powerful attacks: a channeled beam, a singular targeted star smash, a sticky bomb and its all-famous Cosmic Barrage.

All of these attacks remove platform tiles in one way or the other.
The problem is: If you have its aggro you cannot do anything about it aside from running in a way that causes the least damage to the platform. One could make very good use of the defiance bar here, which to this day is always locked.

I want to also have a more detailed look on its most powerful attack:
Cosmic Barrage:
It causes a massive amount of starfall AoE strikes on the entire platform, while also having the boss to reflect all projectiles while channeling. It reqires all party members to stop attacking and seek a safe spot in order to survive. Because the starfalls are on a delay before they strike it gives the boss at least one free hit on any player he has aggro on.

On top of that it uses this attack very frequently, so much that most classes don’t have time to 1. let agony wear off, 2. pull their healskill and 3. have it ready for the next barrage.

Also it punishes players that are ranged too much. Because a reflected attack switches ownership from the player to the boss it strikes with the boss’ power (which of course is extremely high). Melee fighters already have a disadvantage because of their more confined space in the center and his pushback forcefield.

I think that the Defiance-Bar will fix this issue in particular and in an interesting way. (surprise me ANet)

Which brings me to the last topic:
Downstate and reviving:
If any player falls off the platform during the fight they are completely killed and get teleported to the feet of the boss inside his forcefield. It’s possible, though obviously not intended, to revive people during the fight.

Perma-Death is a mechanic also familiar to the Raid in Forsaken Thicket and while it definately belongs there, it also should be limited to it. Raids are not Fractals and Fractals are not Raids.

Once a player goes downstate, he is doomed in most cases. Since players are generally split in order to not remove tiles under each others feet, it is unlikely and dangerous to reach out to a downed player since it accumulates chances to get hit by an attack that knocks everyone down. So most groups, even when they are in Voice-Com, just cut their losses and go on, which significantly reduces their damage output and prolongs the fight.

These are the most glaring issues I see with this fractal. Let me hear your opinions or suggestions on this. If I have a major oversight in my sugestions let me know.

I know this is a long and drawn out post, but I want to like this fractal, because it tells an interesting story, however, and I think most people can agree, it’s a mess in some of the most important places.

Some things in your post are valid points but a few are skewed or incorrect. Mainly 2 of them that is.

hornswroggle.8023:

The Dormitories:
However this bonus does not come for free. You have to smash the doors in within a short period of time before the scientists get overrun.
Also if one party member runs into the dormitories (out of group miscommunication, bad habit or by accident) the event triggers and the group has no chance on getting the debuff for the boss. If the door to the dormitories had an opening mechanism, that required a party poll, the fractal could still be done with less than 5 players (if one so desires) but a player may not enter without the backing of the group.

The Dormitories can be very easily solo’d on most classes and builds especially since, thanks to the fractal team the door’s can be conditioned. If someone is struggling all you have to do is start with the fire or poison room first since these two are the only two with a “short” window to save the asura. The other two are still seemingly needed for the buff sometimes and others not but in general you have to be insanely slow to not manage to save those two. So adding what amounts to an idiot blocker doesn’t really help fractals but instead causes annoyance when someone who can solo it gets told by their party no, or when someone just keeps popping the pop up. As it is WAY too many groups will sit outside the heat room doing nothing while 1 person solo’s it.

hornswroggle.8023:

Cosmic Barrage:
Also it punishes players that are ranged too much. Because a reflected attack switches ownership from the player to the boss it strikes with the boss’ power (which of course is extremely high).

This is not how reflection in guild wars 2 is taken into account, the wiki does a terrible job explaining it, but basically when an attack is reflected the Skill’s source’s power is used while the reflection’s source’s crit chance, crit damage and damage modifiers are used for the damage calculation, this is why things like 1 shotting bosses is a thing.

Thank you for your feedback and correction.

On the Dorms:
The big point for me is the group coordination. If a player can solo it while the group is doing something else they can “send” him in easily via the poll.
If someone refuses to coordinate with the group and starts trolling by pulling up the poll window over and over, that player probably isn’t a good factor to the group climate in the first place; but still isn’t able to cause harm to the other players experience who might want to go at their own pace or want to do Dorms together for safety reason.

On the Dorms:

I can confirm that you need to both 1. Break the two aura out off the poison and fire room and 2. Kill the portals in the other two rooms and cut the mob’s aggro to register the bonus. It was fixed a while ago that you no longer need to only rescue the asura in the fire and poison room.

I’m aware that some coordinated groups don’t need this kind of bonus but it gets annoying when they show up in a pug, start triggering the event on its own and waste the bonus without the group’s consent and sometimes not even aware of the undeerlying mechanics – just to shave off a few minutes by sending the rest of the group to start Subject Six early. However, it ends up with a very messy boss fight. The OP totally speaking opinion about this fight. It dooms any classes that melee attack if they trigger the initial aggro. A big Ugh!

Only thing that needs work is the visibility of AoEs etc. during the boss fight imo.
Rest is fine, especially the heat room. I like the fact that you either change up some skills to solo it quickly.
Also, as it stands, the way this fractal is set up allows you to split up and low-man various tasks, leading to a faster clear, or just taking it slow and doing each task as a full group.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Only thing that needs work is the visibility of AoEs etc. during the boss fight imo.
Rest is fine, especially the heat room. I like the fact that you either change up some skills to solo it quickly.
Also, as it stands, the way this fractal is set up allows you to split up and low-man various tasks, leading to a faster clear, or just taking it slow and doing each task as a full group.

I know what you mean and in my suggestions i paid very close attention that that remains possible.
But imagine not a pro player, TS3 coordinated group on scale 97 but rather a casual, exo geared random group on scale 7.
What I want is an easier accessibility and clarity especially for players who are new to Thaumanova or fractals in general.
Take a look at Uncategorized for example: It’s one of the medium length fracs, but your next task is always clear because of how the fractal is built. There is never uncertainty about what to do.
In Thaumanova, like I said in my suggestion, to an unexpierienced group the tasks are not always clear and it may take a few trials and errors to get even one of them done, which is already a source of frustration.
If you want to blink throuh the Heat Chamber because you can: be my guest.
But if you don’t know how to or don’t have the classes necessary the intended solution should not be as clunky and ambiguous as it is right now.

Iris Ng.9845:

The OP totally speaking opinion about this fight. It dooms any classes that melee attack if they trigger the initial aggro. A big Ugh!

It probably needs rework on both ends: melee and ranged.
Like I said: The defiance bar is there, ArenaNet just has to put it to use.

hornswroggle.8023:

But imagine not a pro player, TS3 coordinated group on scale 97 but rather a casual, exo geared random group on scale 7.
What I want is an easier accessibility and clarity especially for players who are new to Thaumanova or fractals in general.
Take a look at Uncategorized for example: It’s one of the medium length fracs, but your next task is always clear because of how the fractal is built. There is never uncertainty about what to do.
In Thaumanova, like I said in my suggestion, to an unexpierienced group the tasks are not always clear and it may take a few trials and errors to get even one of them done, which is already a source of frustration.
If you want to blink throuh the Heat Chamber because you can: be my guest.
But if you don’t know how to or don’t have the classes necessary the intended solution should not be as clunky and ambiguous as it is right now.

There are explanations in the upper right corner and even in the easiest level you have 3 opportunities from which you have to be successful in 2. It’s not very hard to find out.

I’m not sure how many quality of life improvements this fractal needs since at the moment most people know what to do and how to do it. For a fractal that’s been around for so long you won’t find a lot of groups that don’t have at least one person that can explain what’s what to the rest.

I’d much rather get a new fractal instead^^

Also most of you points would make my life much easier. I’d like to avoid that since this fractal is pretty easy to begin with even on T4 and that’s definitely not a good thing

hornswroggle.8023:

What I want is an easier accessibility and clarity especially for players who are new to Thaumanova or fractals in general.

They already destroyed Fractals for having easier accessibility and people still complain?
Only illiterated people or thoose who refuse to read the infobox can’t complete this fractal.

Marius.3185:

I’m not sure how many quality of life improvements this fractal needs since at the moment most people know what to do and how to do it. For a fractal that’s been around for so long you won’t find a lot of groups that don’t have at least one person that can explain what’s what to the rest.

I’d much rather get a new fractal instead^^

Also most of you points would make my life much easier. I’d like to avoid that since this fractal is pretty easy to begin with even on T4 and that’s definitely not a good thing

ironfrodo.7625:

hornswroggle.8023:

What I want is an easier accessibility and clarity especially for players who are new to Thaumanova or fractals in general.

They already destroyed Fractals for having easier accessibility and people still complain?
Only illiterated people or thoose who refuse to read the infobox can’t complete this fractal.

Don’t get me wrong on this. I do certainly not think this fractal is too hard.
It links very well with the Living World Story and its mechanics are innovative and interesting for the most part.
What I want to accomplish with this thread is to point out pieces of this fractal where some polishing could work wonders to make this fractal a smooth and enjoyable expierience, while changing as little as possible to the actual mechanics so those players who already know it don’t have to learn it all over from scratch.

I admit: many points in my OP are very subjective and you don’t necessarily agree with them, but some, like the implementation of the cooling rod for example, are objectively flawed and pose a source of major inconvenience or frustration for players who are new or unexpierienced with the trampled path players have taken for years, just because the road was blocked. Like I mentioned earlier:

hornswroggle.8023:

If you want to blink throuh the Heat Chamber because you can: be my guest.
But if you don’t know how to or don’t have the classes necessary the intended solution should not be as clunky and ambiguous as it is right now.

Heat room, cooling rod, big red lines across the wall in a number of places equal to the number of cooling rods you can acquire in the fractal.

You also get teleported out of the heat room each time you slot in a cooling rod(or should), it’s not a heroic death to place one.

Thaumanova is a awesome fractal, please don change anything about it.

I actually think that Thaumanova is possibly the best fractal in the game. It has a good difficulty level, is reasonably long for an experienced group, requires experimentation and problem solving for an inexperienced group, and has mechanics that vary based on scale. It also just looks cool and contains some interesting game lore.

I would agree with one thing in the OP though. The cooling rods as they stand are unnecessary, which isn’t really that big of a deal but for new players they’re basically a red herring lol. They have to exist so that any comp can make it through, but it would be nice if using them was actually better sometimes than just bringing a class than can solo the heat room.

Something else the OP didn’t mention that is really annoying is the fact that portals can pull you from too far away in some cases, causing you to just fall to your death. Getting pulled by a portal on the level above you is also pretty stupid, though it isn’t going to hurt you.

As for the other things:

Labyrinth is great, the shields aren’t as useless as you think as they can be used as an extra one of two invulns. I used them pretty much every time I do thaumanova. I also don’t think a cog marker is necessary. It’s nice to have to actually figure things out once in a while, and at lower scales it shouldn’t be a problem for any group.

Dorms are also great, I don’t see the “accidental event start” as an issue because no one is going to be running around solo if they’re new unless they’re playing stupidly, in which case they deserve to fail the event.

I don’t think attack visibility on subject 6 is an issue. If you get whacked once you’ll stay back next time. When he does the bounce attack you’ll back the kitten up if it almost killed you last time. People just tend to rely too much on the circles on the ground telling them exactly where an attack will hit. Subject 6 can be a long and frustrating fight if you don’t know what you are doing but I don’t see this as a negative, fights that encourage you to actually pay attention to what’s happening are all too uncommon in this game.

Thaumanova anomaly is probably the best fractal boss there is. I certainly don’t think it needs to be made easier, the only change that would be really nice is if green circles for your aoe attacks appeared on the floor properly. Adding a break bar that lets you stop the bomb attack seems unnecessary, as the attack can (obviously) already be dealt with anyway. If a break bar were to be added, I would rather it be on a completely new attack that will permanently (i.e. until a wipe) remove some tiles if the defiance bar is not removed.

Of course there are some minor improvements that could be made, just like with any content, but considering the pathetic state of some of the other fractals it would be nice of those once were reworked first lol.

Don’t bother to change it. If you make changes to the already easy to see and avoid tiles in boss fight, then this becomes a walk in the park. It’s too easy as it is now. Maybe speed up the tiles falling?

Dinosaurs.8674:

Dorms are also great, I don’t see the “accidental event start” as an issue because no one is going to be running around solo if they’re new unless they’re playing stupidly, in which case they deserve to fail the event.

Trust me: I’ve had 3 great randoms on my group on Lv. 84 (so they should be expierienced) and the 4th ran straight into the dorms and started with the Portal Doors, while we 4 were stuck in the labyrinth, without communication whatsoever.
It would just be nice, if a single person would be unable to ruin the fractal for 4 that are working well together.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Labyrinth is great, the shields aren’t as useless as you think as they can be used as an extra one of two invulns. I used them pretty much every time I do thaumanova. I also don’t think a cog marker is necessary. It’s nice to have to actually figure things out once in a while, and at lower scales it shouldn’t be a problem for any group.
[…]
I don’t think attack visibility on subject 6 is an issue. If you get whacked once you’ll stay back next time. When he does the bounce attack you’ll back the kitten up if it almost killed you last time. People just tend to rely too much on the circles on the ground telling them exactly where an attack will hit. Subject 6 can be a long and frustrating fight if you don’t know what you are doing but I don’t see this as a negative, fights that encourage you to actually pay attention to what’s happening are all too uncommon in this game.

I’m always thinking about that and I understand your concern about too many indicators. How about removing some/all of them on higher scales? So a group on 15 has them to learn the distances and ways, while a group on 50+ has to pay closer attention.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Thaumanova anomaly is probably the best fractal boss there is. I certainly don’t think it needs to be made easier, the only change that would be really nice is if green circles for your aoe attacks appeared on the floor properly. Adding a break bar that lets you stop the bomb attack seems unnecessary, as the attack can (obviously) already be dealt with anyway. If a break bar were to be added, I would rather it be on a completely new attack that will permanently (i.e. until a wipe) remove some tiles if the defiance bar is not removed.

The missing AoE circles was my biggest concern in the OP.
I think that the Anomaly counters any and all group cooperation that makes other Fractal bosses “too easy” (apart from “don’t get too close to me”), everybody is on his own, if someone dies noone can do anything about it. I’d love to see a mechanic that opens just a few windows, so a well coordinated group is rewarded for reading the boss correctly. With the suggestion of a Defiance-Window I always have difficulty scaling in mind. On higher scales the bar would be harder to break in time, or even be removed completely. Captain Ashym can kill a player equally quick as the Anomaly can, but I never feel as helpless against him as against Thaumanova, because he has mechanics to work with.
I don’t think the Anomaly needs a Soft-Enrage on top of everything.
Like I said: The positioning of the boss makes the platform almost invisible, especially for people who are color deficient. I’m certain the fight can be designed equally hard and demanding on an opaque platform, which would also fix the AoE-issue.

The boss is ok until level 60’s, as someone who did level 97 multiple times (even pre toughness nerf) the last 25% of the fight are just boring and annoying, he’s constantly spinning (reflecting range attack) while also destroying 60% of the platform.

A large flaw in this game is that its telegraphs are wholly inadequate relative to the amount of spell effects/animations there are, even with the effect filter on.

More importantly, every tell seems balanced around human females or asura because as a male norn or charr I asure you with other charr and male norn you won’t be seeing anything in time.

The draw distance is also hideously capricious in this game.

I don’t know why they ever disposed of GW1’s cast bars on enemies. They are far clearer than all these tiny humanoid bosses with slight animations covered by a barrage of spell effects.

Trice.4598:

The boss is ok until level 60’s, as someone who did level 97 multiple times (even pre toughness nerf) the last 25% of the fight are just boring and annoying, he’s constantly spinning (reflecting range attack) while also destroying 60% of the platform.

That’s exactly why I think the Defiance bar could work wonders.

@Zenith: This Thread is about a specific fractal, not general design flaws. Please stay on topic. Also in this fractal your race and gender are irrelevant because you are in an asura body anyway.