Guild Wars 2

Generally speaking, I’m not an extremely elite GW2 player, but I have my share of MMO experience from multiple games, such as WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO etc etc. and I adore GW2’s Fractal System. However, I keep feeling as if it’s not enjoyable and gets a bit repetitive after a few days, and that’s purely down to the lack of diverse challenge. It all feels very same-y. So below, you’ll find my thoughts on how Fractals could be improved to have a longer life-span.

Mistlock Instabilities

The Mistlock Instabilities are a great concept, but lack variety. For many players, we only experience about 3-4 Instabilities, ranging from Toxic Trail to Flux Bombs, and then it gets very ‘run of the mill’.

Proposal: Mistlock Instabilities should rotate daily/weekly to add new challenges to existing Fractals, in addition to adding a new roster of Instabilities, such as those that encourage build diversity.

Examples:

‘Reversal’ = All boons inflict conditions on the users, and all conditions give boons.
‘Over-Protection’ = Barrier that exceeds max health deals damage to all allies.
‘Power Play’ = Only Conditions deal damage to enemies.
‘Condition Red’ = Conditions deal no damage to enemies.

These are just a few examples, that I feel could improve build diversity within Fractals.

Ascended Armour Stat-Swapping

I can already hear the pin-drop. “Oh gosh, what is she about to say now?” Believe me, I wouldn’t be saying this if there wasn’t a drawback. In the current climate, stat-swapping feels essential to the game, as optimal builds are required in different modes. Such as Staff Daredevil or D/D Thief in Raids, or D/P or Trapper Thief in WvW etc, it feels as if the ability to change builds on the fly shouldn’t be locked behind a legendary-grinded armour set, but should be upgraded through doing existing content without the skins.

Proposal: Pristine Fractal Relics and Journal Pages should be used to unlock stat-swapping on a piece of Ascended Armour, or a Weapon. The proposed value is a minimum of 360 Pristine Fractal Relics for a full set of stat-swapped Armour, as that’d take 24 days to farm, but then the Pages could be relative to this number, or higher.

Every day, a person can gain 15 Pristine Fractal Relics, in 4 days, with Relics alone, they could stat-swap a piece of armour or a weapon, providing that they do every Fractal for 4 days in the Daily Pool. This value could be increased to suit the current game-play motive.

Conclusion

Don’t jump on me for having an opinion. I don’t particularly want to see the usual rage, which seems to come out of people who believe that everything is perfect. I have things that I enjoy in GW2, and things that I dislike, and Fractal game-play is something I enjoy but have criticism to help improve it.

I hope you like my suggestions, and let the Hunger Games begin! <3

No, I don’t like your suggestions at all.

The reward pattern will be overhauled anyways, look at the corresponding thread on the first page of this subforum.
Stat-swapping is relevant when patches hit. It would be very annoying to swap everytime you enter a new fractal, with pugs it would take aeons because they forget, don’t have the gear on their toon they are playing atm etc. etc.

I also don’t like to be dependent on playing my chars due to mistlock instabilities. They are annoying and add nothing challenging to the content. I’d rather have new fractals and not overhauling the system every fricking year. Too much time and development was spend to overhaul fractals over the last years. It’s enough, just rework the older ones and bring new fracs.
In my opinion they can also remove the instabilities completely because they add no fun to the fights.

I agree with Vince. While I wouldn’t mind some rotation in the instabilities and maybe a few new ones, such a system would have to be implemented very carefully. I don’t want to see another disaster like boon thieves and your suggestions are exactly on that level. Also, that stat swapping stuff is just bad. There’s legy armor for stat swapping (what would be the point of it?) and it would be incredibly tedious if you had to swap every bloody day because some new stupid stuff has popped up.

But if you want to swap builds now with Ascended Armour, you have to pay upwards of 30g-40g every single time… so I’m not sure what the issue is with my proposal regarding Ascended Stat-Swapping.

Easy get another set of ascended or raid/spvp or wvw legendary armors

Linken.6345:

Easy get another set of ascended or raid/spvp or wvw legendary armors

Unfortunately, that’s not realistic or ‘easy’ in any way. That’s a long grind for a lot of players. Also, the WvW/PvP legendary armour sets are more difficult to craft than the raid set IIRC.

CptAurellian.9537:

I agree with Vince. While I wouldn’t mind some rotation in the instabilities and maybe a few new ones, such a system would have to be implemented very carefully. I don’t want to see another disaster like boon thieves and your suggestions are exactly on that level. Also, that stat swapping stuff is just bad. There’s legy armor for stat swapping (what would be the point of it?) and it would be incredibly tedious if you had to swap every bloody day because some new stupid stuff has popped up.

1) My suggestions aren’t concrete, only examples of what could exist.

2) Pressing a drop down menu isn’t as tedious as having to spend 40g to re-spec just for fractals, if you’ve been playing WvW or another mode with a different meta.

3) Anet’s been looking for Fractal currency sinks. This is an idea that could work for Pristine Relics.

Vinceman.4572:

No, I don’t like your suggestions at all.

The reward pattern will be overhauled anyways, look at the corresponding thread on the first page of this subforum.
Stat-swapping is relevant when patches hit. It would be very annoying to swap everytime you enter a new fractal, with pugs it would take aeons because they forget, don’t have the gear on their toon they are playing atm etc. etc.

I also don’t like to be dependent on playing my chars due to mistlock instabilities. They are annoying and add nothing challenging to the content. I’d rather have new fractals and not overhauling the system every fricking year. Too much time and development was spend to overhaul fractals over the last years. It’s enough, just rework the older ones and bring new fracs.
In my opinion they can also remove the instabilities completely because they add no fun to the fights.

1) See above for my replies to the stat-swapping stuff.

2) An overhaul of instabilities could remove the pointless ones, and add things that provide a constant challenge. Making instabilities isn’t as time-consuming as making new Fractals, and gives long-life to the content.

3) Removing the instabilities would make Fractals pointless and easy af. They’re the only bit of challenge in the instances at the moment.

Twyn.7320:

Vinceman.4572:

No, I don’t like your suggestions at all.

The reward pattern will be overhauled anyways, look at the corresponding thread on the first page of this subforum.
Stat-swapping is relevant when patches hit. It would be very annoying to swap everytime you enter a new fractal, with pugs it would take aeons because they forget, don’t have the gear on their toon they are playing atm etc. etc.

I also don’t like to be dependent on playing my chars due to mistlock instabilities. They are annoying and add nothing challenging to the content. I’d rather have new fractals and not overhauling the system every fricking year. Too much time and development was spend to overhaul fractals over the last years. It’s enough, just rework the older ones and bring new fracs.
In my opinion they can also remove the instabilities completely because they add no fun to the fights.

1) See above for my replies to the stat-swapping stuff.

2) An overhaul of instabilities could remove the pointless ones, and add things that provide a constant challenge. Making instabilities isn’t as time-consuming as making new Fractals, and gives long-life to the content.

3) Removing the instabilities would make Fractals pointless and easy af. They’re the only bit of challenge in the instances at the moment.

You clearly have no idea how much testing needs to be done to add instabilities. Trying to say it’s ‘easy’ in any matter is just ignorant of what goes into developing a mechanic. In fact it’s actually harder to make new instabilities because you have yo watch for interactions with current ones, and current skills. It’s MUCh easier to keep a current instability and apply it to a new space, because how it works is already a given.

@OP The issue of stat swapping has broad implications so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t comment on it, other than to say that Anet may have already queered their pitch on that one.

As for the instabilities there are (referencing this page https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists) 8 instabilities in the game currently, and I find that I see all of them with reasonable regularity. May I ask who exactly which players you think are the ones who don’t see enough variety in the instabilities?
As for the ones that you have suggested I think there are serious flaws:

• The two instabilities that limit damage to either power or condition would shut down a lot of builds and as a result I think they would push the players using such builds out of doing fractals.
• Barrier is (in current balance at least) a very rare ability, particularly amongst core or HoT classes, so an instability that targets that ability specifically will make for a “pointless” instability for many players – a situation your later comments suggest you would like to avoid. It would also lead to the rather unfortunate situation that Scourge players could accidentally or deliberately kill their allies via barrier support, a situation that could lead to bad feelings in a group.
• An instability that gives out conditions when players gain boons would have similar problems – any build that shares boons around the party is liable to kill everyone in it. And an instability that gives out boons to enemies when they receive conditions would force every party to carry a ton of boon corruption or removal, which could hurt class diversity in fractal play.

In sum whilst I might be interested in seeing new fractal instabilities I would not support seeing these ones specifically. Did you have any other instabilities you wanted to suggest?

Twyn.7320:

But if you want to swap builds now with Ascended Armour, you have to pay upwards of 30g-40g every single time… so I’m not sure what the issue is with my proposal regarding Ascended Stat-Swapping.

While I wouldn’t mind the ability to swap stats on ascended gear more easily (though rune swapping would be required in addition), I think that this idea is so far off that it isn’t worth putting much thought into it. Such a change would make legy armor obsolete, so it simply won’t happen.

FrostDraco.8306:

Twyn.7320:

Vinceman.4572:

No, I don’t like your suggestions at all.

The reward pattern will be overhauled anyways, look at the corresponding thread on the first page of this subforum.
Stat-swapping is relevant when patches hit. It would be very annoying to swap everytime you enter a new fractal, with pugs it would take aeons because they forget, don’t have the gear on their toon they are playing atm etc. etc.

I also don’t like to be dependent on playing my chars due to mistlock instabilities. They are annoying and add nothing challenging to the content. I’d rather have new fractals and not overhauling the system every fricking year. Too much time and development was spend to overhaul fractals over the last years. It’s enough, just rework the older ones and bring new fracs.
In my opinion they can also remove the instabilities completely because they add no fun to the fights.

1) See above for my replies to the stat-swapping stuff.

2) An overhaul of instabilities could remove the pointless ones, and add things that provide a constant challenge. Making instabilities isn’t as time-consuming as making new Fractals, and gives long-life to the content.

3) Removing the instabilities would make Fractals pointless and easy af. They’re the only bit of challenge in the instances at the moment.

You clearly have no idea how much testing needs to be done to add instabilities. Trying to say it’s ‘easy’ in any matter is just ignorant of what goes into developing a mechanic. In fact it’s actually harder to make new instabilities because you have yo watch for interactions with current ones, and current skills. It’s MUCh easier to keep a current instability and apply it to a new space, because how it works is already a given.

I didn’t say that making instabilities is easy, I said that removing them would make Fractals ‘easy af’. However, in context, making instabilities is far easier than making brand new Fractals.

As for the general angle I’m aiming for, I think people are generally missing the point.

In Fractals, currently, you play one build for every Fractal, with maybe a different potion if you’re trying to be optimal. With rotating instabilities, and new ones, Anet’s ‘build diversity’ preaching would make sense, as you’d have a different build for different situations, which is the point of GW2’s combat system.

Power and Condition instabilities are important, as they provide combat challenges, as it means that the player has to change their style of play. Fights might take longer, or they might be shorter, but it’s a different angle to play with than just playing one build over and over again in every Fractal.

The diversity I’m aiming for is not playing the same build in every single Fractal. However, the only way to change that is to put the difficulty in the Fractals’ enemies/instabilities, so it forces you to change your play-style, and use every aspect of your class, instead of being a ‘master of one build’.

Twyn.7320:

[…]Anet’s ‘build diversity’ preaching […]

… is, first of all, a pile of steaming bull manure. If their balance team did their job, it might be worth arguing about build diversity, but not at the current state.

As to your concept, it’s still bad. Apart from the fact that some classes lack a usable power or condition build, it’s no fun if you have to change your build every day because some arbitrary, pointless restrictions get thrown at you. Besides, your concept is more harmful to build diversity than the current state – with such instabilities, class restrictions would reach a wholly new level.

Twyn.7320:

The diversity I’m aiming for is not playing the same build in every single Fractal. However, the only way to change that is to put the difficulty in the Fractals’ enemies/instabilities, so it forces you to change your play-style, and use every aspect of your class, instead of being a ‘master of one build’.

Not going to happen, because it defies human nature. It also goes against the grain of ANet’s philosophies: all profs should be viable (though perhaps not optimal) & there should be multiple successful strategies for completing challenges.

Some of us already swap traits, skills, profs, etc per fractal and some of us never do. Changing the instabilities to force that will annoy the latter group, who will either find new static builds to do the content or skip fractals.

Further, it’s clear that some instabilities don’t mesh well with certain fractals, which is why they aren’t applied randomly.

I’m not against the idea of more variety in instabilities or different challenges — the existing ones have been around for ages and could use some attention. I just don’t see how this proposal makes the game more fun for most people.

Twyn.7320:

As for the general angle I’m aiming for, I think people are generally missing the point.

In Fractals, currently, you play one build for every Fractal, with maybe a different potion if you’re trying to be optimal. With rotating instabilities, and new ones, Anet’s ‘build diversity’ preaching would make sense, as you’d have a different build for different situations, which is the point of GW2’s combat system.

Power and Condition instabilities are important, as they provide combat challenges, as it means that the player has to change their style of play. Fights might take longer, or they might be shorter, but it’s a different angle to play with than just playing one build over and over again in every Fractal.

The diversity I’m aiming for is not playing the same build in every single Fractal. However, the only way to change that is to put the difficulty in the Fractals’ enemies/instabilities, so it forces you to change your play-style, and use every aspect of your class, instead of being a ‘master of one build’.

Um yea no. I’m not stat swapping every time i want to play fractals. Even with my leggy armor, and weps. Half the player based cries about ascended. Do you think this is a viable option?

I can tell you, not really.

I am not really against the idea to throw us into different situations and thus make us pick up different builds depending on what is needed.
However, we are still missing build templates. People mentioned to tedium that is swapping builds constantly and I fully agree.
Allowing us to change ascended stats more freely will not solve this. No offense, but the only people who think legendary armor with it’s stat swapping allows you to swap builds on the fly are those who do not own the armors themselves.
Swapping ascended pieces is much less tedious and still a pain in the backside.
We can agree to disagree on the part about ascended armor being hard to acquire. Since that seems to be the main reason why you are proposing the easy swapping rather than the need to do it for Fractals themselves.

Another issue is how these changes will affect different groups of players differently.
Those who are able to do Fractals easily now will always be able to do so no matter the balance or instabilities. They are also the ones with a multitude of geared builds and professions. Ready to swap if needed.
Others who are already having trouble with certain mechanics will be way worse off.
They will be required to gear up further, to practice different builds, to practice a new profession even. They might no longer be able to clear some of the levels the way they used to. They might not understand that this might make them better players, or more likely they will not care and instead ask to have back their easy rewards.
Not a part of a that group myself but I know quite a few who are. They would prefer instabilities to be removed all together let alone have new ones being implemented.

Twyn.7320:

In Fractals, currently, you play one build for every Fractal, with maybe a different potion if you’re trying to be optimal. With rotating instabilities, and new ones, Anet’s ‘build diversity’ preaching would make sense, as you’d have a different build for different situations, which is the point of GW2’s combat system.

Forcing people to play specific builds for specific content is not build diversity. That would be being able to tackle the content with many different builds with not much difference in their effectiveness. And that’s the exact opposite of what you try to advocate.

Also if you think that a majority of current fractal players would be willing to swap builds/classes/gear for each fractal, you are naive. The only thing that would happen is that many people would simply play only those fractals that would allow their builds. Which is not what anyone should want.

Vinceman.4572:

No, I don’t like your suggestions at all.

The reward pattern will be overhauled anyways, look at the corresponding thread on the first page of this subforum.
Stat-swapping is relevant when patches hit. It would be very annoying to swap everytime you enter a new fractal, with pugs it would take aeons because they forget, don’t have the gear on their toon they are playing atm etc. etc.

I also don’t like to be dependent on playing my chars due to mistlock instabilities. They are annoying and add nothing challenging to the content. I’d rather have new fractals and not overhauling the system every fricking year. Too much time and development was spend to overhaul fractals over the last years. It’s enough, just rework the older ones and bring new fracs.
In my opinion they can also remove the instabilities completely because they add no fun to the fights.

Reward pattern overhaul? Where?