Guild Wars 2

… there was no Ascended Gear, and the dungeon rewards were gradually increased chances for rares/exotics, plus tokens for cosmetic skins? I suppose another way of saying it would be, “If the gear mechanics remained the same as they were before this weekend, would the dungeon stand on its own merit, or does it need the loot to be worth doing?”

Ì would,

Do you run the dungeon with the only reason to get the ring, which we dont even know for sure if/where it drops? if so i would wait until its confirmed how you get it.

I’d do FotM if I could get a group for my difficulty scale. But instead I’ll stand in Lion’s Arch and go do something else… maybe read a book or so.

I sure would. It’s the only dungeon that feels fun while you do it because of mechanics (except for maybe swamp and giant statue stages, they are annoying). It’s also got a pretty decent rate of dropping stuff you can vendor and it’s an alternative to getting obsidian shards.

I too would do it.I don’t need som much ascended gear.But now 20slot bags?That is different case;)

yes. For the Fractal weapons + all the rare and exotic drops.

I would do it cause the fractals are fun, but I wouldn’t grind it like I do it currently.

I’d still do it, simply because its not a dungeon you can run through brainless mode. You have to work together and figure out every element. The only downside on it is that if you don’t work together well, lots a accusations go back and forth

Certainly. The gear treadmill is patently unnecessary, and the agony mechanic actually hurts the dungeon, putting down an artificial and arbitrary barrier that can only be passed with luck.

I would love to do zones for more appearance gear only. Why i did most of the other zones anyways. I now have 5 sets of exotic gear because I can.

I only care about Ascended because of Agony. Current items won’t make you that much more powerful.

I would still run most of them fractals if the rewards were cosmetic. Why? Because they are genuinly fun (alltough the swamp is unnecessaryly difficult without mesmer portals).
I very enjoy the ‘Asura and kitten golems’ dungeon, the stairs was reminding me of playing guitar hero in reverse XD and the golems death sounds was just too cute to be real.

I also enjoy the siege of ascalon (I think), ascending the ranks of the flame legion and thus changing appearance while having WvW castle siege feel to the whole thing, also enjoy the color theme there, but that’s cause I’m a sucker for reds and orange shades.

The Giant trapped in the cliffside is also a very fun one, despite that I got knocked off the bridge by the wind and died cause I managed to hit the cliffside often enough to shatter my skull XD

In short, each fractal has one or more interesting mechanics to them which makes them much more enjoyable then your basic dungeon dodge and slap things, most requireing team coordination (dredge fractal is a good example here). The environments are also very taught out and interesting, it’s worth to take a moment and take it all in (if the mechanics aren’t trying to kill you atm). They also seem shorter then the average dungeon provided you know what to do.

No. The agony progression is necessary here.

ehtom.5047:

No. The agony progression is necessary here.

Because?

ehtom.5047:

No. The agony progression is necessary here.

It’s just artificial difficulty. It’s not necessary at all.

I would absolutely do it without the gear grind element.

In fact, I doubt I will even get to level 10. We’ve been told that WvW players will be able to obtain Ascended gear from WvW, and there’s not really anywhere you can grind in WvW, only competitive play is possible.

So if I can be rewarded with gear for succeeding at competitive play, I’m all for it.

Grinding that one dungeon (even if it is a cool one) just doesn’t do it for me at all, sorry. I can’t be bought with RNG trinkets.

Thanks for all the responses so far. I’m really interested to see if we can get a broader response base going forward. I’m also interested in what people think about the staying power of this type of dungeon, whether the mechanics are enough for sustained use or if the rewards are the only reason for repeated entries?