Upcoming Fractal Changes
Gold
In this iteration, there will be several changes to how fractals give out liquid rewards (gold and items designed to convert directly into gold). The negative aspect of this change is a required decrease to the amount of keys you receive from converting a stabilizing matrix from two to one. However the upside is threefold:
- First, the quantity of free Fractal Encryption Keys you receive for completing all dailies will increase.
- Second, the amount of liquid rewards Fractal Encryptions contain will be greatly increased.
- Last, the variation of liquid rewards will be reduced. We noticed that the general perception of how much the Encryptions were rewarding players and the aggregate numbers didn’t agree, they weren’t even close. We believe that the variation was set to rely too greatly on the high valued rewards. This change will make liquid rewards from fractal farming and dailies much more predictable.
We look forward to getting these changes to you and would like to thank you for all of your constructive feedback on Fractals. We are committed to supporting fractals for the long term and we’ll be continuously monitoring them for future improvements.
Thank you,
John
These seem highly contradictory and i fail to see the need to reinvent the wheel, the fractals reward were just fine when they just gave out gold.
Vials Maize Balm Exploit(Halloween) 2014
Locked out of JP (Wintersday) 2015
Gold
In this iteration, there will be several changes to how fractals give out liquid rewards (gold and items designed to convert directly into gold). The negative aspect of this change is a required decrease to the amount of keys you receive from converting a stabilizing matrix from two to one. However the upside is threefold:
- First, the quantity of free Fractal Encryption Keys you receive for completing all dailies will increase.
- Second, the amount of liquid rewards Fractal Encryptions contain will be greatly increased.
- Last, the variation of liquid rewards will be reduced. We noticed that the general perception of how much the Encryptions were rewarding players and the aggregate numbers didn’t agree, they weren’t even close. We believe that the variation was set to rely too greatly on the high valued rewards. This change will make liquid rewards from fractal farming and dailies much more predictable.
We look forward to getting these changes to you and would like to thank you for all of your constructive feedback on Fractals. We are committed to supporting fractals for the long term and we’ll be continuously monitoring them for future improvements.
Thank you,
John
These seem highly contradictory and i fail to see the need to reinvent the wheel, the fractals reward were just fine when they just gave out gold.
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Being able to mystic forge ascended gear was about the only change that actually made a fair difference in the right direction. But it still wasnt enough to make fractal rewards satisfactory.
Looks like some great ideas! I’m so happy
Thank you guys for looking into the changes and letting us know
I appreciate it and look forward to seeing how fractals feel in December.
Schrödingers Clone: PvP Mesmer
How bout reducing the HP on some of the bosses? The fights are just way too long due to the break-bar mechanics (e.g. grawl shaman (stone shields interrupts break bar braking) or the ice elemental in dredge at +60 and above). The fights are BORING when they are that long.
How bout reducing the HP on some of the bosses? The fights are just way too long due to the break-bar mechanics (e.g. grawl shaman (stone shields interrupts break bar braking) or the ice elemental in dredge at +60 and above). The fights are BORING when they are that long.
…??? They’re adressing the toughness, which is the main issue. More HP on high scales is fine, it’ll still be much faster with the reduced toughness.
a) fix collection
b) reduce ascended salvage tool cost by A LOT
a) fix collection
b) reduce ascended salvage tool cost by A LOT
I agree with this. If you salvage an ASCENDED item the cost should not be in the tool in any significant manner. You are salvaging an ascended item, that should be more than enough cost for the salvaging of the gear. You can’t even sell most of the materials and the ones you can sell simply aren’t worth it to sell at the current prices. It’ll be less worth it once the fractal changes hit because now you are getting matrixes that only give you 1 key and likely won’t cost more than a key because that is one of the few things it is good for.
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
So, you’re finally doing all of this, after I spent 3 weeks grinding trying to find out where the money is, blew 500 pristine relics on rings for matrices to open encryptions and try to make money, only to salvage 50 rings to make 8g. No word on fractal tonic I’ve been after for, well, forever, can’t fix fractal collection, and now you’re telling me that it was all for nothing, and you’re going to nerf what I’ve gathered and buff what I’ve lost. No apology, no reimbursement, no nothing.
Not to mention, this method, this approach, has literally burnt me out on fractals in 3 weeks, when I used to run 2-3 a day, and be happy. I’d get an ascended chest or 3 a week, a few rings, sometimes a skin, since then, nothing.
This is absurd. I could probably do swamp/molten duo/maw/aquatic blindfolded now because I’m forced to do low fractals I have zero interest in doing with people who have no clue what they’re doing, I often end up just soloing all the low fractals now. There’s only one I can’t solo, and that’s cuz I can’t be at 2 places at once in underground facility.
So now here’s what’s going to happen. People will do their daily. Then do swamp or aquatic or molten or whatever is fastest to finish the stupid 3 for the daily, and then go farm molten at 40 until my eyes bleed because you announce all this before it happens instead of merely stating increases in certain areas, you flat out tell us matrices are going to go up in price, but down in value for keys, keys will still cost us money, so we have to pay money to try to make money still, salvaging has cost me a small fortune due to 500 rings and 20backpieces and like 30 accessories and several extra weapons/armors that yielded me all of a few balls of dark energy….and I accidentally salvaged vision crystals. Why in the kitten can you salvage those? for what? An augor stone? maybe a bloodstone brick?
These changes are ridiculous and announcing this has shot the market to hell already. New challenging mistlocks? No, they’re stupid. They require condi and boon removal, the ability to dodge, or stability. These aren’t challenging mistlocks. The previous mistlocks were harder than these. Not to mention, I think Mai trinn is harder at 25 than it is at 50 or 100…..No aquatic levels after 75? Why give out millions of breather recipes then? They’re useless, irrelevant and not required.
So, do I “trust” your “increase” in rewards, like was stated when this was released? Or do I farm 40 til my eyes bleed, sell the encryptions and make money while I can, until people find out these increases STILL cost more than you make. Not to mention, I could run a 30 40 and 50 for dailies in under 2 hours before, yet now it takes me sometimes up to 4 hours to complete them all. I won’t go to Magus because you haven’t fixed the map completion bug, I wanted it to be new content but you forced story completion before exploration, I’m almost disappointed I bought HoT now.
And the fact that it took 3 weeks to announce it’ll be another month until anything is done, when you chose to release halloween and HoT on the SAME DAY, knowing both would have problems, bugs, etc, just downright silly.
So disappointed in fractals now it’s not even funny. And the tonic drop rate? Does it even drop? From where? anywhere?
So now it’s 20s and 5 relics to open an encryption….and hope that your word on the increase is an actual increase, because I’m sick of losing money doing fractals. But, thanks for the heads up, farming 40 til my eyes bleed, here I come….because the ONLY profit in fractals right now is farming that and selling the encryptions.
(edited by Filosophi.7251)
and pls fix the collection..had the collections completed twice before hot and my collection says 7/19..and a guildy has 19/19 in the collection but didnt get the weapon crate Q_Q
yeah i got the same problem, got all skins open even in wardrobe but collection dont register.
A message from John Corpening and John Smith:
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.
I’m utterly perplexed by the usage of the words, “noticed” and “expecting”. Is the drop rate not simply a fixed value that one of the developers was instructed to enter? That’s not something you would “notice” later, or something that should generate unexpected results.
Please help us to understand. At the moment I just feel like the usage of this language is an attempt to deflect fault for what was a very poorly received change.
You expected them to come out and say they made a mistake and nerfed the rewards too hard?
Balance
After reviewing stat scaling we have decided to make an adjustment to how toughness scales. From fractal scale 1 to 50 the toughness stat of creatures will scale up with the fractal scale. Beyond fractal scale 50 the toughness stat of creatures will no longer increase with the scale of the fractal. This is to make damage builds more viable in higher level fractals.
JohnHonest question expecting an answer: Wasn’t your first intention to make fractals above 50 an actual challenging content? I mean, what’s the point of having an additional 50 levels where difficulty does not scale up?
All you did with HoT was to increase armor and HP of bosses in order to make things “more challenging”. Plan failed greatly because all the change accomplished, was to make things more boring and not more challenging at all. You admit that it was a mistake, by removing the insane toughness scale above 50, but what about your actual first intention? Challenging content…
Did you just go back to your word and said “to heck with it, zerker meta is not going anywhere”?
If there are no other balance changes other than the ones you mentioned, the game will still be the same spam #1 and go to loot. No new mechanics, no new anything, no sight of challenging content.
Anyways, read it or ignore it, I just had to ask.
The zerker meta never changed, it’s always been and always will be that way
Get used to it
In case you missed it somehow, they stated many many times that HoT will bring challenging content. They said that you will not be able to “zerker meta” your way around, meaning there would be times where you will not be able to avoid all the damage by evading.
Now here we are, fractals are more boring than ever with zero challenge involved. It’s the same old spam #1 and go to the loot. No player skill no excitement no nothing. It’s like playing a hack n’ slash game on easy-mode…
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
No they weren’t.
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.
If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
No they weren’t.
Yes they were
I can do this all week
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
Elzareth – Asura Mesmer
Honestly if anet does get this right. ASSUMING the do… There shouldn’t really be any more issues that are severe. Don’t screw it up anet. Also before December sounds better.
Great changes! Pretty much everything I hated about fractals are going to be changed. Too bad we have to wait for december.
Thank you! But really, FIX THE COLLECTION NOW!!!! all your algorithm has to do is count the fractal skins O.O
With ascended gear making a comeback can you guys add more types of the new stats to the chests?
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
No they weren’t.
Yes they were
I can do this all week
Can you back up that statement with actual evidence though? :P
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
No they weren’t.
The 50+ ascended armor and 20+ ascended weapon boxes in my bank would like to disagree.
Edit: Also the hundreds of gold from selling fractal 50/40.
(edited by Alphard.6529)
Honestly if anet does get this right. ASSUMING the do… There shouldn’t really be any more issues that are severe.
I don’t know. Yes condi meta and kitten rewards were annoying and definitely pushed a lot of players away, but I think there are still huge problems:
1.) Stale content, same maps for years. And honestly, given how much work it would require to put maps into the 1-100 range, I doubt this is going to change.
2.) Bad instabilities. Dodging is too fundamental to this game to punish it.
3.) RNG vs. steady progress. I think it should be possible to purchase golden skins/ fractal tonic with a ton of pristine relics.
If they put the tonic in there for a ton of pristines, I’ll be furious, as I just dumped 500 pristines on rings for matrices, as they’re virtually useless to me at this point since I have all the weapons, and 2 mawdreys. I kept some because I may need a ring or 2 down the line, but beyond that, there’s not a single item I need them for.
Awesome changes. Covers every point we were complaining about.
So what about the fractal tonic? Since the changes I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere at all, does it even drop anymore?
That is a great start! Thank you for the update.
Could you kindly walk over to the WvW team and tell them to get off their kitten butts and post an update on their plans to fix WvW since the game mode and community are hemorrhaging players and going the way of old Ascalon!?
I think… I think I love you for this.
Personally I would prefer a simple reward system. You do stuff, you get some currency. Just like in dungeons.
Now there are multiple currencies which can be acquired multiple ways. Instead of just playing the game you have to calculate or think of optimal ways. Whole thing seems like playing the trading post.
Nah, no recorded evidence other than me being moderately wealthy after only playing fractals for the last year or so, and the old fractal spreadsheet data if that still exists. But then again you didnt show any evidence either. :b
Its true that fractal rewards werent top notch, that they maybe should have been improved, that they had a lot of issues like weapon rng, useless relics, that their value varied between players (such as asc glove box not being useful to players that only have one character or that already have multiple sets of ascended gloves on all characters).
My argument is that while they had these problems and were not top notch they were not a bad source of income if you played the content anyways. I also believe many people perceived fractal rewards to be MUCH worse than they actually were. In my experience fractals had consistently better indirect gold rewards (like gold item drops, t5 mats) compared to dungeons. Also getting an ascended glove box feels much less rewarding than being handed 30g for example.
Another thing that I believe lead to many complaints was how much they scale with player skill/experience compared to the rest of the game. Id agree that rewards were pretty kittenty if my average run took 40min+. Plus many players probably had no clue that you could consistently do runs in half that time, which would again lead to seeing the issue in the rewards.
Also im salty because the constant complaining was a surefire way to make anet up perceived rewards by putting more bullkitten boxes and random currencies into fractals.
tldr Speaking from my experience the consistent fractal rewards were very much good enough to not feel bad about the time spent playing them instead of dungeons or silverwastes or something. Plus you had the rng skins.
Would you agree? If not, why?
(edited by Rag.3258)
Nah they werent. Fractals have never been rewarding enough.
Yes they were. Fractals have been rewarding enough.
No they weren’t.
The 50+ ascended armor and 20+ ascended weapon boxes in my bank would like to disagree.
Edit: Also the hundreds of gold from selling fractal 50/40.
Doesnt that prove the rewards were useless? The fact that you had 70+ pieces of ascended in your bank with nothing to do with them.
And im sure you can see why the gold from selling fractals shouldnt be included in your justification.
Curious..Question…
“First, the quantity of free Fractal Encryption Keys you receive for completing all dailies will increase.”
All dailies? Including the one with the research pages that I need to open if I want my legendary backpiece done by the end of the year? Or just the daily adept journeyman and master dailies?
Before you get to the point in Fractals where you might receive an ascended weapon/armor as a reward, you must already have way more ascended equipment than the Fractals provide. That is not how carrot on a stick works.
It is not about gold, or XP, or anything. It should be about a good progression. Right now, you bring the ascended stuff you have, Fractals can add two rings in a reasonable amount of time, and then you just progress Fractals by progressing your equipment playing stuff outside Fractals. There is no strategy for an AR progression from just within the fractals because for no reason AR is linked to ascended equipment.
That means that even a very good player will progress to the point, where Fractals kill him for even a small mistake, which is fun once, maybe twice. Then you look at the time scale you need to solve this hurdle by just adding another 5 or 10 AR and the timescale gets rather crazy. For what? That you run in the same problem five Fractals higher?
Does the player then stop because it was fun and he had his fill? Does the player stop because it was frustration? Which player is more likely to return? All players might quit eventually, but it is up to ArenaNet to influence the mood in which they quit. Not necessarily the entire game, but just one game mode. One way to influence them is build better walls to run into.
Before you get to the point in Fractals where you might receive an ascended weapon/armor as a reward, you must already have way more ascended equipment than the Fractals provide. That is not how carrot on a stick works.
It is not about gold, or XP, or anything. It should be about a good progression. Right now, you bring the ascended stuff you have, Fractals can add two rings in a reasonable amount of time, and then you just progress Fractals by progressing your equipment playing stuff outside Fractals. There is no strategy for an AR progression from just within the fractals because for no reason AR is linked to ascended equipment.
That means that even a very good player will progress to the point, where Fractals kill him for even a small mistake, which is fun once, maybe twice. Then you look at the time scale you need to solve this hurdle by just adding another 5 or 10 AR and the timescale gets rather crazy. For what? That you run in the same problem five Fractals higher?
Does the player then stop because it was fun and he had his fill? Does the player stop because it was frustration? Which player is more likely to return? All players might quit eventually, but it is up to ArenaNet to influence the mood in which they quit. Not necessarily the entire game, but just one game mode. One way to influence them is build better walls to run into.
You’re meant to have a set before you get to that point, the rest is for gearing alts.
If they put the tonic in there for a ton of pristines, I’ll be furious, as I just dumped 500 pristines on rings for matrices, as they’re virtually useless to me at this point since I have all the weapons, and 2 mawdreys. I kept some because I may need a ring or 2 down the line, but beyond that, there’s not a single item I need them for.
With this mentality nothing can ever be improved.
You’re meant to have a set before you get to that point, the rest is for gearing alts.
I do not remember anybody from ArenaNet ever saying that. It could be considered rude to ask people to enter a specific (and good) content only for the purposes of equipping secondary characters and ask players to leave, if they are on their first character; or simply on their main.
Of course, we are all free to make up our own excuses for the structure of specific content and rewards. ArenaNet will hardly ever deny nor confirm speculation that is in their favor.
Doesnt that prove the rewards were useless? The fact that you had 70+ pieces of ascended in your bank with nothing to do with them.
In any case after stat swap was added, fractals had very good rewards (the best they’ve ever had). Also newer players get quite a lot out of fractals (free rings, free back, free 20 slot boxes).
Well they nerfed fractals and dungeons for a reason. At best I can see them returning the old asc drop rates and raising the gold amount to something less than it was before.
Fractal rewards were kitten poor even before the nerf, and I highly doubt this change will bring rewards equal to the old ones, let alone even higher ones.
We’ll have to wait and see. Hopefully I’m wrong. If i’m right, i guess a solid kitten sandwich is better than a liquid kitten sandwich.
Have new fractals been released with HoT or am I missing something?
Have new fractals been released with HoT or am I missing something?
No, same old fractals. But twice as many levels now (100). And you can select which island you do.
So have fun with farming molten boss
You’re meant to have a set before you get to that point, the rest is for gearing alts.
I do not remember anybody from ArenaNet ever saying that. It could be considered rude to ask people to enter a specific (and good) content only for the purposes of equipping secondary characters and ask players to leave, if they are on their first character; or simply on their main.
Of course, we are all free to make up our own excuses for the structure of specific content and rewards. ArenaNet will hardly ever deny nor confirm speculation that is in their favor.
The fact that it’s impossible to do the highest level fractals without ascended armor is just that a fact. You need it to do it, so the only purpose of ascended drops at that point is to gear alts. this is no excuse, this is a fact.
Its to gear for RAIDS, since raids are gonna be the all-new-hype-train-inc content with a wildly astonishing array of necessary builds for every profession.
So you see, you will at least need three different variations of gear for raids:
- healer/support
- condi
- zerker
But tbh, and this is said without any sarcasm, you usually get enough mats to craft your ascended gear in reasonable amount of time, doing fractals. So there is your progression.
And, dont forget, you’ll need ascended gear to salvage it too. So its not all as black and white now
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.
You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.
You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.
Exactly, that’s why I maintain it’s a PR move. Over nerf, claim a mistake, un-nerf but put it at a lower threshold than you started with. You get the level set to where you want it AND you get positive spin for “listening.”
December???? Seriously?
December???? Seriously?
You know implementing these changes will take some hours.
And atm Anet needs to spend every minute on raids.
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.
You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.
Not saying you’re wrong but it’s crossed my mind more than once that their drop equations are more than RNG. Could be a multivariate function taking into account things as simple as magic find or as diverse as individual performance, chat during encounters, hours played etc.
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.
You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.
Not saying you’re wrong but it’s crossed my mind more than once that their drop equations are more than RNG. Could be a multivariate function taking into account things as simple as magic find or as diverse as individual performance, chat during encounters, hours played etc.
If that’s the case, then it falls under the option of ‘flat out lying’, since it’s been stated repeatedly and loudly that stuff like magic find or amount of time played has no bearing on box drops unless otherwise explicitly stated (PvP reward track chests).
Ascended Drop Rates
We’ve noticed some changes to ascended drop rates that are below what we were expecting.If you tell a computer, 10%, it will give you 10%. If you tell it, 1%, it will give you 1%. Please tell me, how you can “EXPECT” less than the value YOU put in? Are you kidding me?
You know, I would respect you a lot more if you you man up for a change.
Except that’s not how that works. At all.
That’s absolutely how it works. There are many very complex systems in this game. RNG boxes are not one of them, so don’t try and white-knight by pretending that coding an RNG box takes any amount of skill or experience, because it doesn’t.
You literally just slap an RNG with a if check onto every item in the loot table. If RNG produces a number above a threshold, then it appears in the box. This is not complex, and saying that they ’didn’t expect rates to be this low’ is either flat out lying or admitting they literally don’t have the first clue of how either math or coding works.
Not saying you’re wrong but it’s crossed my mind more than once that their drop equations are more than RNG. Could be a multivariate function taking into account things as simple as magic find or as diverse as individual performance, chat during encounters, hours played etc.
If that’s the case, then it falls under the option of ‘flat out lying’, since it’s been stated repeatedly and loudly that stuff like magic find or amount of time played has no bearing on box drops unless otherwise explicitly stated (PvP reward track chests).
Bankers and politicians have a few things in common when it comes to telling the truth. And as long as this type of “politicking” goes on from Anet’s banker, the company will never regain my trust.