Guild Wars 2

Proposal Overview
Reduce the length of the Underground Facility fractal. (sry for the wall of text but I couldn’t make it any shorter without leaving something out)

Goal of Proposal
The goal is to make the Tier 3 fractals more equal in length and reduce the frustration players experience while in the Underground Facility. As it stands, just the clown car part of the dredge fractal takes as long as completing either the Volcanic, Aetherblade or Thaumanova fractals. Getting dredge as the 3rd fractal makes the whole run take 20 minutes longer than it would take with any other 3rd fractal.

Proposal Functionality
I take ‘proposal functionality’ as ’how to implement the proposal, so here goes:

1) The pressure plates – we know how the puzzle is intended to be done, but due to the endlessly respawning dredge and not being able to dodge while standing on a pressure plate the final room is unnecessarily sensitive to errors (more than would be reasonable). Suggestion: make the pressure plates in the last room significantly larger so that you could dodge on them without making the console reset.

2a)The cannon room is designed in a way that includes you fighting through the dredge, stealing the cannons and blasting the door while fending off the defending dredge. In reality it doesn’t work like that. Stealth is mandatory because the amount of the endlessly respawning dredge is absurd and cannot possibly be contained without a wipe even by an experienced party without stealthing. However unlike in the bomb room, if you decide not to use stealth you can still make progress little by little by firing the cannons even through several wipes. Suggestion: reduce the amount of endlessly respawning dredge significantly here.

2b) The bomb room is designed to be completed in a way that includes you fighting through the dredge while dropping bombs and defending the bombs while the fuse of the bombs go off. In reality it doesn’t work as intended – stealth is mandatory and becomes more and more crucial the higher the level goes because the amount of endlessly respawning dredge is just absurd and cannot possibly be controlled or contained while waiting for the bombs to go off, let alone even getting to drop the bombs without stealth. Unlike in the cannon room here it is impossible to make progress in case of a wipe because the dredge will pick up the bombs immediately if you can’t defend them. Suggestion: close the bomb room permanently; or significantly reduce the amount of dredge and shorten the bomb fuse.

3) The Clown Car. This encounter is arguably the most complained about in the whole game. It seems to serve as a mere time gate, is not innovative, not fun and on top of this is bug-ridden. There is no fun and no point in spending 10 minutes at lvl49 fractal just to kill dredge after killing the trivial boss in the room. Apologies for sounding bleak but this encounter is the main reason why this fractal is by far the least liked. Suggestion: remove the encounter.

Associated Risks
I see no risk in making the changes above. I firmly believe that implementing the changes I suggested above the dredge fractal can be made more fun, less tedious and length-wise be put in line with the other tier 3 fractals.

Concerning Fractals, I think 3 big points need to be addressed. I’ll talk of the 3 points in separate posts, to avoid the “wall of text” as each of those points is different.

First proposal overview: Compensate players for the fractal level reset.
Goal of proposal
With the Fractured patch, many players saw their progression (fractal level) resetted to 30, without any kind of compensation for that loss.

This was already talked about in the Character Progression CDI, quite in detail, but without answer. I’ll therefore link the previous posts about it.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/first#post3368282

Back then, Chris told us that he would “spend some time thinking about how you feel and get back to you”. However, unless I missed it, I don’t think we got any more comment on it since.

Recap of what happened:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/38#post3391562

Proposal Functionality
Here’s a proposition of a solution by Nike:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/38#post3392129

Second proposal overview: Make AR less mandatory, like it was before.
Goal of proposal
The way Fractals were when it was released, it was a dungeon where players could test their skills, to progress in levels. Agony Resistance was designed to help players progress through those levels, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary. If you had enough skill and knowledge of the fights, you could complete the fractals without any AR at all. This was good ! Players should be able to progress by improving their skill, their profession mastery, …

The way Fractals are now, after Fractured, is completely different. Some fights, as well as some instabilities (40, 50 for the moment, but with this pattern we can expect to get it every 10 levels), now absolutely requires a high level of AR. So, whatever the skill of the player, if he didn’t farm enough AR or an ascended armor, he won’t be able to make it. Progressing through fractals, which before was a matter of skill of the player (as the max possible AR, 30 at the beginning, wasn’t enough if you didn’t play well enough), has now become a matter of grinding for stuff. From something that was skill-gated, it was changed with Fractured patch to a gear-gating. This is a really bad change.

This especially is a problem concerning alts. With Fractured, fractals were changed to have a account-wide level. What’s the point of this, if the required AR is now so much than you can’t use an alt on fractals anymore ? As AR wasn’t absolutely mandatory before, you could switch to another character if your main wasn’t suited to the group (too much of one profession, …). Now, it’s not possible anymore, as you can’t get that much AR on multiple characters…

Proposal Functionality
We need to get back to what fractals were, a challenge to the player skill, not to his stuff. It wouldn’t be that hard to implement. Changing 2 instabilities (40 & 50) to other ones, a few maps to tweak to make AR less mandatory (or less AR mandatory), and it would be back to being great. Players want their skill to be challenged, not their stuff.

Third proposal overview: More balance between fractals, as well as better rewards.
Goal of proposal
The balance issue mainly concerns the Dredge fractal. Since the beginning of fractals, more than a year ago, it was said that this map was way longer than any other. Nothing was done to change that. Players tried to find ways to make it shorter, by using many tricks, which were for most patched one after another. I’m not advocating for using exploits here, but Anet need to understand the reason those were used by most groups. First of all, the length of the map is way too long compared to other fractals. Second, some professions are almost mandatory for this one (thief for first room and bomb path). After all the changes that were made, this map is now even more of a chore than it was before. Dead people not counting on the platforms, more dredge patrols added, … And of course, the hundreds of dredge hiding in the tank of Rabsovitch…
Other maps may need a look at, but Dredge is so unbalanced that it need to be put in first priority. A few bugs are also still there (camera on grawl shaman or elemental source in svanir map for example).

For the rewards, the gold reward on a daily is a joke. Completing a level 49 gets you 1.4g. You get almost the same for completing CoF p1. In the same amount of time you do a fractal, you can do all paths on AC (5.5g) or COE (3g). High-level Fractals are supposed to be the highest difficulty dungeon. The rewards should therefore be at least on par, if not a little bit higher, than other dungeons. The gold reward for a daily fractal need to be upped quite a bit to make it interesting to do. As it is now, it’s a waste of time.

The relics are also an issue. For other dungeons, tokens can get you exotics armor or weapon. Once you no longer need those for your character, you can use your tokens to recycle those items. Therefore your tokens always have some value. For fractals, once you have your backpiece, relics have no more value for you. Same thing with the pristine relics.

Proposal Functionality
- Shorten the length of dredge map. Dividing this map in 2 different fractals could be a good option
- At higher levels, the number of dredge with Rabsovitch is way too high
- Instead of upping the gold reward by 0.1g for every 10 levels, you should up it by 1g per 10 level. (1g level 1-10, 2g level 11-20, 3g level 21-30, 4g level 31-40, 5g level 41-50). It’s a very big up, but when you compare to how much you can gain with other dungeons, like AC, that much is needed.
- Give us something to buy with relics, something that would still have some value even in the long term

Proposal Overview

As Fractal problems are frequently ignored (and stealth fixes only increase the problems in dredge), Developers should be entirely transparent about what their goals are for Fractals.

Goal of Proposal

Increase developer to player transparency when it comes to Fractals.

Proposal Functionality

Obviously, developers cannot give too much information, and will not discuss exploits because people should not know about possible ways to exploit the game. However, things like “What hole in Dredge Fractal did the developers change today ?” Should be clearly outlined in the patch notes so that people can alter strategies. But more importantly, developers should be clear about why they change what they do. The problem is, we have no contact or conversation with the people changing things in the dungeons, so problems often get ignored or stealth nerfed. A good conversation with the developers would be super helpful.

Proposal Overview

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Goal of Proposal

As leader of a small guild, I routinely find that new and experienced players alike have a fear of getting started with Fractals. They don’t know what Fractals are, how they work, or what they should be doing. I’ll offer to take them on some low level runs and explain the maps, but given the large number of Fractals, it can take awhile before we run into certain Fractals.

This makes it considerably harder to get them up to speed.

Also: I do not do higher-level Fractals with instabilities, but I could see this functionality being useful for practicing Instability X with Fractal Y.

Proposal Functionality

By speaking to Dessa, you can take your party into a single, specific Fractal of your choosing. (Over time, as Fractals deactivate, this could also be a way to play Fractals that are no longer in the main rotation.)

Associated Risks

Loot is my primary concern. If Practice Fractals have the same drops and rewards as regular Fractals, I could see them being farmed. I therefore propose that no loot drop AT ALL in Practice Mode Fractals so they are ONLY used for their intended purpose: learning the encounters so you can play regular Fractals with a group.

Will we be talking at all about fractals as they are, or just the future evolution of fractals? Fractured did a lot of damage to fractals both the game mode, and the community around it. Is that going to be addressed at all in this thread? Or the repeated changes to the underground fractal? I think these are really important to the fractals community, and we still never really got answers for a lot of what was changed about fractals.

Oh, top 3 things I’d like to see evolved:

1. Fractal developer to player communication
2. Dredge fractal revamp
3. Fractal party and instance owner changes

Top 3 things evolved

1. Rewards: Past 3 times I have done fotm 50 I have gotten nothing as a drop, not even a ring. Need better rewards than the small amount of gold at the end or a way to make rewards less RnG.

2. Dredge Fractal: Needs to be changed. It’s tedious, boring, and badly designed except for the final boss.

3. Better form of progress: Some Mistlocks are broken (33, 43), while others are boring (40/50, 34, 49). Currently people are progressing by picking the easiest ones to level (why is 49 ten times easier than 43).

Proposal Overview

Improving rewards for higher level fractals to make them on part with other areas in the game

Goal of Proposal

By increasing rewards for higher level fractals people will be encouraged to do FOTM at higher levels – one of the few places that you can go to in this game in order to do high-end PVE.

It will also reward those who’ve put in the time and effort to do high level fractal runs.

Proposal Functionality

It would work like this – bump up gold rewards for fractal tiers.

1-10 – 1 gold.
11-20 – 1.5 gold.
21-30 – 2 gold.
31-40 – 3 gold.
41-50 – 4 gold.

I think that would make it somewhat fair. A level 41+ fractal run takes a LOT longer than just rushing through AC 1+3 and I feel this sort of increase in gold reward would make things more balanced and improve FOTM’s outlook as one of the game’s more interesting activity.
One of the core questions I get from new players is : " what is gw2’s high-end PVE like" – my answer is " FOTM" – " is it hard " – " yeah it takes some time to get good at it and it’s rather fun. " is it rewarding?" – " not so much" – " then why do it?"
Pretty much sums up the issue.

Top 3:

1) Dredge
2) Ease of getting started with Fractals/Practice Mode (see my proposal)
3) Fractal rewards compared to risk/reward of other game types

Just wanted to state the obvious real quick: We need to be able to do something with ascended gear that we get rewarded but dont need; ie we should be able to sell them, or salvage them, or trade them in for something of value. Any of the above options or all three if you want to be awesome.

Also we should be able to buy weapons and armor with tokens just like we can with accessories. Im not sure why this wasnt implemented on day one. If its against company policy can you explain why?

Thanks

I think that fractals are an awesome way of telling additional stories:

1. I would like to see a lot more fractals

I love fractals. I was overjoyed when the new fractals were added. I have a hundred ideas of GW2 things that would make good fractals, just based on GW2 alone (not even GW1 which I didn’t play enough).

2. I think players need some degree of influence on which fractal(s) will come up

Even though I love the concept so much, I haven’t played a single fractal since the fractal patch. Why? Because while trying to finally get the Molten fractal, which happened just before server reset on the last day, I completely burnt myself out. I’m still recovering.

I get that the fractals are randomized as to not allow players to just pick the one fractal that they’re good at / that is easy / that is short and to that over and over. But for somebody who plays fractals (and repeatedly) for the story, this is frustrating, and unfortunately it will only get worse with the introduction of new fractals.

I was super super happy to get the Molten fractal – finally I’d be able to get back into my favourite dungeon. Now I feel somewhat cheated, because apparently I have to play fractals for hours each day for a chance that it will come up after 2 weeks. I don’t have the time and I’d rather not set myself up for disappointment.

A possible solution would be to do something vaguely akin to story dungeons vs. explorable dungeons: Let players choose which fractal they want to play, but in return they will get fewer rewards, or not be able to level up their fractal level, or something like that.

3. Background information about the fractals

I’m still deeply in love with the original fractals, but it irks me that 18 months later I still have no idea who/when/where/why/etc. anything to do with the Colossus/Grawl Shaman/etc. I play GW2 for the story, and that includes the fractals. I would be willing to accept that there is no lore attached to them and that they were created to look pretty and offer various mechanics and that’s that. But devs have hinted at existing lore that they’re just not ready to share with the player base, and at this point, I’m not sure whether I believe it, and I’m a bit frustrated.
_______________

You can see that my concerns are with the story / experiencing the story, and less with mechanics and rewards. No doubt, many hardcore fractal players will focus on the technical aspects in their feedback. So I think these should be noted. Thank you for reading

Savoy.6824:

Just wanted to state the obvious real quick: We need to be able to do something with ascended gear that we get rewarded but dont need; ie we should be able to sell them, or salvage them, or trade them in for something of value. Any of the above options or all three if you want to be awesome.

Also we should be able to buy weapons and armor with tokens just like we can with accessories. Im not sure why this wasnt implemented on day one. If its against company policy can you explain why?

Thanks

I’d like to say i completely agree with this. Forgot all about it when considering problems with fractals.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

A possible solution would be to do something vaguely akin to story dungeons vs. explorable dungeons: Let players choose which fractal they want to play, but in return they will get fewer rewards, or not be able to level up their fractal level, or something like that.

I love all of your post, but just want to chime in: my Practice Mode proposal above would, I think, accomplish this. Would be glad for any feedback.

Proposal Overview
Multi-Stage Fractal Armor (In a manner similar to the fractal backpiece)

Goal of Proposal
To add a reward that requires skill and dedication to obtain the top tier while giving less skilled players something to work towards, In a satisfying piece by piece manner.

Proposal Functionality
note: Ideally this functions like the achievement unlocks window, in that once you unlock the tiers you can withdraw at will. If that’s not possible implement like in Pvp with traders gated behind fractal level.
The idea is that you have to do this once for your account.

Basic armor unlocks
This is the base skin for the armor (equivalent being the exotic capacitor)
Fractal Level:
1, basic shoes
10,basic shoulders
20,basic helm
30, basic gloves
40, basic trousers
50, basic chest

Associated Risks
1. Technically fudgable by buying/being carried.
2. Some people may feel it unfair as they cannot reach it.

Intermediate Proposal Functionality
The idea in this tier is to prevent people just joining at the end of the fractal for full rewards. This is mystic forged.

Intermediate armor unlocks
This is the intermediate skin for the armor (equivalent being the beta capacitor) unlocked by combining the basic item with the other required items
Basic item + 1 pristine fractal relic + (item) fractal token + 1 Glob of Coagulated Mists Essence.

The item fractal token is obtained by completing 5 unique fractal levels within the relevant tier (i.e 1-9 for the shoe token) all the boss fractals are grouped as 1.
So that’s full completion of 5 from the list of (Swamp,Asuran,Ascalon,Dredge,Grawl,Water,Cliffside,Aether,Molten,boss)

Associated Risks
1. Technically fudgable by buying/being carried but slightly more time consuming on the fudger.
2. RNG on what fractals you get may delay genuine players from getting their intermediate armor.

Advanced Proposal Functionality
This tier is meant to be for the top players and be completely unfudgeable, I however could not think of a satisfying way to do so.

Advanced armor unlocks
This is the Advanced skin for the armor (equivalent being the maxed out capacitor) unlocked by combining the intermediate item with the other required items
intermediate item + 5 pristine fractal relic + 1 Shard Crystallized Mists Essence + X (can’t think of a suitable gate item)

Associated Risks
1. Some people may be frustrated at being unable to acquire this skin.
2. If not visually satisfying enough may not be worn by those who earn it.

1, Dredge should be made shorter and easier + more viable for other classes except theif/mes (first bit)

2, Better reward system. For example getting much more gold, gold example it starts and 1 gold per level and you get 10 more silver per level

3, Less grindy places to put agony resistance

4, Higher levels

5, Fractal weapon chests!

Proposal Overview
Procedural fractal (an endless fractal that is procedurally generated as opposed to set scenarios to increase re-playability)

Goal of Proposal
To take the elements from existing fractals and the level system combining it in a manner to further increase re-playability. Allowing play that lasts as long as you want and allows you to leave when you’re finished without abandoning your team or worrying about a level up.

Proposal Functionality
Speak to Dessa to choose this option,
Similer to a standard fractal you can choose a difficulty/ associated instability, unlike current fractals rather than pre-set scenarios you go through a series of mist rooms which contain elements from other fractals, endlessly in random sequences.
I.e room one could be underwater with the jellyfish, room two could require doing the seal breaks like in the colossus to open the door to the next room etc.

Regular reward chests could be given every 5 rooms or so, with a boss chest every 15 (would have to be play tested) without a person being ported out after , so they can continue on until they get bored.

This is essentially identical to the procedurally generated dungeons you find in many many MMO’s utilizing the freedom of the mists and mechanics established from the set fractals. It would still require Agony and all enemies should scale with the difficulty as should the rewards.

Associated Risks
1. It may be quite time intensive for the Dev team to get rooms to function correctly and flow smoothly.
2. An alternative to the daily chest would need to be given in this path.
3. Players may be opposed to a standard dungeon crawl being added.

Proposal Overview
Increasing gold rewards for upper tier fractals.

Goal of Proposal
High end fractals currently do not reward sufficient gold for the effort and time required to complete them. The aim is to fix this as skilled play should be the most rewarding play or at the very least to bring it on par with dungeon runs and champ farming.

Proposal Functionality
A multiplier be added on the current gold value scaled so that a level 50 fractal reward around 5g

Associated Risks
1. Could lead to increased cheating attempts by players to increase their gold yield further.
2. Players who do not participate in fractals may feel the reward unfair, it can be compared to the average gold earnings from advanced play which works out at 5g/h which would alleviate their concerns.

Proposal Overview

Create a token-based acquisition system for fractal weapons.

Goal of Proposal

By making fractal weapon acquisition more consistent ( note. not easier ) you can ensure that the fractal-oriented player base feel their efforts and time spent are being rewarded instead of feeling left out and becoming frustrated by not being able to get their weapon no matter how much they strive for it.
Creating a system that would enable you to save tonics means you could track your progress so your efforts feel validated and as a player you understand you’re working TOWARDS something rather than just playing and hoping the RNG gods will be kind.

It would also create incentive for newer players to get into fractals – since they now know fractal weapons are something they can work towards and not just pray they’ll drop.

Proposal Functionality

Fractal weapons still need to stay hard to obtain – just that the means through which they are obtained need to become more consistent.

A 100 Pristine fractal relic cost ( possibly 200) per weapon seems like a fair price for any ONE weapon of choice. The right number of course could be up to debate but the core issue is that we should have a fixed number. No matter how high or low.

Alternatively normal fractal relics could be used – 3000-4000/ weapon?

Another solution could be a vendor – with the ability to trade 4 fractal weapons ( any of them ) for 1 specific fractal weapon. This would mean you could find a use for all those fractal weapons you can’t equip.

Hoping this could be implemented in the future.
I cannot stress out enough how frustrating it is to go into FOTM time after time and not only not get the weapon you want but feel you’re just as far away from it as you were when you started.
I’ve done maybe over 300 FOTM runs, most of them 30+. Pre-patch, post-patch, you name it.
I feel no closer to getting that fractal longbow than I was when I started. That right there is the issue. Give us something TANGIBLE to work towards.

Asko.4120:

Associated Risks
I see no risk in making the changes above.

Somewhere, a Game-Design Faerie shrieks and falls down dead every time someone says ‘these changes are risk-free’ .

The pressure plates_ – we know how the puzzle is intended to be done, but due to the endlessly respawning dredge and not being able to dodge while standing on a pressure plate the final room is unnecessarily sensitive to errors (more than would be reasonable). Suggestion: make the pressure plates in the last room significantly larger so that you could dodge on them without making the console reset.

While I agree with your sentiment on the Bomb and Clown-Car fights, I’ll point out that the Pressure Plate battle is one of the few places in the entire game where glass-cannons are not rewarded out of all proportion with any other build. It’s not that the fight is hard per se, but that the encounter actually calls for 2 characters to be able to withstand a bit of a beating without relying on dodge-spam. That also makes it one of the few places where Support can make a difference. Knockbacks, interrupts, mass-Aegis, strong healing… If the enemies weren’t Drege this would also be a amazing fight for anyone with AoE blinds.

In this case I think that the fight needs to be better explained to the players (Readable sign outside the gates?) and possibly some environmental weapons added that can be picked up by the heroes who will stand on the pads that give them better tools to perform their role. Like a Big-Honkin’ Drege Riot Shield that gives you good hold-your ground-skills on buttons 1-4 (dropped by pushing button 5).

In other words don’t make it more easy, make it more fun .

@Nike: I really love the environmental weapon idea. It reminds me of the Thaumanova fractals shields.

Although honestly on my glass ele standing on that button is easier than on my sentinel ele, because I can actually kill the dredge attacking me.

(Edit: yes yes I have a sentinel set I use for when I need to do less damage so my hubby doesn’t feel like I’m ruining his immersion)

Nike.2631:

Asko.4120:

Associated Risks
I see no risk in making the changes above.

Somewhere, a Game-Design Faerie shrieks and falls down dead every time someone says ‘these changes are risk-free’ .

The pressure plates_ – we know how the puzzle is intended to be done, but due to the endlessly respawning dredge and not being able to dodge while standing on a pressure plate the final room is unnecessarily sensitive to errors (more than would be reasonable). Suggestion: make the pressure plates in the last room significantly larger so that you could dodge on them without making the console reset.

While I agree with your sentiment on the Bomb and Clown-Car fights, I’ll point out that the Pressure Plate battle is one of the few places in the entire game where glass-cannons are not rewarded out of all proportion with any other build. It’s not that the fight is hard per se, but that the encounter actually calls for 2 characters to be able to withstand a bit of a beating without relying on dodge-spam. That also makes it one of the few places where Support can make a difference. Knockbacks, interrupts, mass-Aegis, strong healing… If the enemies weren’t Drege this would also be a amazing fight for anyone with AoE blinds.

In this case I think that the fight needs to be better explained to the players (Readable sign outside the gates?) and possibly some environmental weapons added that can be picked up by the heroes who will stand on the pads that give them better tools to perform their role. Like a Big-Honkin’ Drege Riot Shield that gives you good hold-your ground-skills on buttons 1-4 (dropped by pushing button 5).

In other words don’t make it more easy, make it more fun .

Believe me, I’ve tried facetanking it with a full pvt/soldier armor on a guardian and it lead nowhere. even through all the guardian blocks the dredge can still nuke ppl at 49 or old scale48. Also, facetanking is not fun but active defenses like dodging would be :P

Proposal Overview

Create more fractals that are in some way related to GW1 or GW2 Lore.

Goal of Proposal

More content will incentivize players to start doing or come back to FOTM.

Proposal Functionality

If the added fractals would be related to lore in any way it could attract large numbers of players – we all remember the reaction of the player base to the possibility of a Abaddon fractal.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Savoy.6824:

Just wanted to state the obvious real quick: We need to be able to do something with ascended gear that we get rewarded but dont need; ie we should be able to sell them, or salvage them, or trade them in for something of value. Any of the above options or all three if you want to be awesome.

Also we should be able to buy weapons and armor with tokens just like we can with accessories. Im not sure why this wasnt implemented on day one. If its against company policy can you explain why?

Thanks

I’d like to say i completely agree with this. Forgot all about it when considering problems with fractals.

Yeah, something with this would be great. I don’t do fractals frequently enough to run into problems with rings taking over – I’m usually able to home them on an 80 of mine – but I have guildies that have entire bank tabs and storage characters dedicated to ascended rings.

On top of that, we have a lot of people who haven’t done fractals that much and haven’t had the chance to even get rings or relics to buy them with. I’ve a few that I can’t use on any character, which I’d love to give to my fiance, for example. But they’re account-bound, so my only options are to have them take up space, vendor them for a couple silver, or right-click > destroy.

Please, please, please give us something to do with these items. Let us salvage them. Let us give them to others who might need or want them. Let us sell them on the trading post (they probably wouldn’t be worth much anyway, but it’d be something). Let us trade them in for fractal weapons, or towards ascended armor/weapons. Let us do SOMETHING with them other than have them collect digital dust if we don’t need them!

My top 3 subjects for discussion:

1) equalize fractal lenghts – this means rebalancing fractal tiers and cutting dredge fractal in half
2) Improve rewards:
Cof1 – 7 minutes and 1.26g
AC1 – 8 minutes and 1.76g
SE1 – 6 minutes and 1.26g
Arah3 – 12 minutes and 1.76g
Arah1 – 15 minutes and 3.26g
Fractal 49 – 45-60 minutes and 1.4g with an abysmal chance for a weapon skin.
3) This is not really a suggestion, but a reminder: fractals are full of game-breaking bugs which really need to be fixed.

Harper.4173:

Proposal Overview

Create more fractals that are in some way related to GW1 or GW2 Lore.

Goal of Proposal

More content will incentivize players to start doing or come back to FOTM.

Proposal Functionality

If the added fractals would be related to lore in any way it could attract large numbers of players – we all remember the reaction of the player base to the possibility of a Abaddon fractal.

This is a great idea. I even think there are a couple GW1 missions that could be brought over, slightly modified, as a Fractal. Aurora Glade would be an interesting choice that comes to mind.

Proposal Overview

Rework or remove the Dredge fractal.

Goal of Proposal

The Dredge fractal – as it is now – is THE most hated and unliked fractal in the entire set.
Changing it so that it rewards good players that have skill and coordination or just taking it out entirely would go a long way to improving the overall feel and quality of fractals. Short of crashing or being kicked out it is THE worst thing that can happen to you on a FOTM run.

Proposal Functionality

In order to rework this fractal for it to be somewhat decent we should look at what I believe to be the core trait of a good T3 fractal. The Skill to reward ration.
A good example of this is the Volcanic fractal – a good group will breeze on through with little issue while a bad/uncoordinated group will take a long time and a lot of wipes.
This is – in my opinion – the way to go – reward the good players and incentivize worse players to get better and use teamwork.

In its current state the fractal is unjustifiably long and unrewarding for skilled group and this alone promotes all forms of exploits / glitch using in order to make the terrible experience shorter.

Asko.4120:

Believe me, I’ve tried facetanking it with a full pvt/soldier armor on a guardian and it lead nowhere. even through all the guardian blocks the dredge can still nuke ppl at 49 or old scale48. Also, facetanking is not fun but active defenses like dodging would be :P

Then possibly something needs to be done about the scaling of the enemies or their attacks. But making the fight more like every other fight (Dodge and Dodge again…) isn’t the answer. We have desperately thin variety in high level gameplay. Lets work to preserve the handful of quirky outliers while fixing the places where the numbers just don’t add up .

timmyf.1490:

Harper.4173:

Proposal Overview

Create more fractals that are in some way related to GW1 or GW2 Lore.

Goal of Proposal

More content will incentivize players to start doing or come back to FOTM.

Proposal Functionality

If the added fractals would be related to lore in any way it could attract large numbers of players – we all remember the reaction of the player base to the possibility of a Abaddon fractal.

This is a great idea. I even think there are a couple GW1 missions that could be brought over, slightly modified, as a Fractal. Aurora Glade would be an interesting choice that comes to mind.

Oddly enough I was thinking of that exact one. But there is a LOT they could bring back.
It would only serve to promote the game’s lore more and in turn players would flock to see the new fractals – and if the rewards are reworked and improved there’s a HIGH chance they’ll stay on board.

It is crucial that FOTM is improved – it’s almost everything this game has going for it in terms of high-end PVE.
The question of " how’s high-end PVE" comes very often from a lot of players that might want to give GW2 a go but don’t feel it offers enough of a challenge. And while there is some hardcore open-world content that is too different to instanced high-end pve to be considered a substitute.

Proposal Overview

Implement a “Load Build Feature”

Goal of Proposal

Give us a way to switch our builds easily. I know you guys want to challenge us by having us work as a team and I get that you are trying to design content that forces us to think about what builds we bring to the dungeons but we dont have a way to change those out easily. I think you could have fractals like the dredge where you have tanky classes stand on plates and play a bunker roll if we had a way to switch to that type of load out when we got there.

Proposal Functionality

It would be best if it were a new interface piece that let us save builds and when you select your “Tank Build” if it auto-magically switched up your traits and armor. Would be fantastic if it pulled the armor from a locker, but at this point Ill settle for having to carry it around in my inventory. You can also leave weapons up to us, we can switch our weapons up, but again if you want to be totally awesome you can add that in the automatic switch as well.

If you even want to go the lame hot fix route you can sell us an unlimited trait resetter in the gem store. I know you already have a limited one there. Heck make it charge us everytime we use it like the copper fed salvage omatic does if the gold sink is that important. And then we can just swap our armor and retrait our skills ourselves

Bottom line, let us change our armor and traits without leaving the fractal so you guys can design more varying content to keep us on our toes and a fun game mode will be even more fun.

Thanks

Proposal overview
Revamp the tier system

Goal of proposal
This proposal is to remove the tendency to roll for the Swamp fractal. Before “Fractured”, people would simply reroll if they got the Underground Facility, Volcano or Cliffside. Only the hardcode people would actually roll for the Swamp fractal. Let’s go back to something similar but with our tiers in mind.

Proposal functionality
The tiers are kept but are more hidden. A full run cannot consist of two fractals of the same tier. The first fractal is however entirely randomized accross all tiers. If the first fractal is from tier 3, no other fractal of tier 3 will occur and the two other fractals in the run will be of either tier 1 or 2. This proposal removes the need to “roll for fractals” as it will become more tedious to get the expected fractal (usually Swamp) given that there are more and more fractals. Before “Fractured”, it was hard to roll swamp. Now there are 3 more fractals (in tiers), it’s become even harder, forcing players to settle on easier fractals and adding variety in the runs.

Associated Risks

1. It’s possible that people will roll to not have a specific fractal (read Underground Facility or Volcano), actually rolling for an easy tier 3 fractal and not caring about tiers 1 and 2.

Proposal Overview
A conversion for rings or a gold value.

Goal of Proposal
To empty that tab in my bank full of rings.

Proposal Functionality
Give ascended rings a value of 1g on sale like other ascended items.

Allow Infused Ascended rings to be converted to x fractal relics (only infused as if normal rings are allowed relics could be obtained without doing fractals)

Associated Risks
1. Sudden influx of gold from the conversion of tabs of rings.

Apologies only saw the top three request now,
1. Unique high end rewards for fractals/increased rewards in general: (I usually feel several areas are over rewarded but this is not one of them, high level fractals require significant effort and should be rewarded as such.)
2. Additional fractals/endless fractal/something new: ( I like fractals in general but they are extremely repetitive.)
3. Dredge is a nightmare I have seen pugs and guild groups alike break on it. This is more a question of length with some parts just being excessive mob spam. Please shorten it.

Fractals in general
Ability to choose starting fractal
Lets face it, I haven’t done water since fractured. Just let me start swamp right away. You could also let someone start a harder fractal on purpose (It’s a pain making guides for T3 fractals when you rarely get the one you want)

Better total duration
Right now there’s no difference between getting harpy>cliffside>dredge and swamp>ascalon>aetherblade. Rolls should be calculated so you don’t get a bunch of long fractals together or a bunch of short fractals together. (You promised us no cliffside+dredge then went back on your word. We noticed.)

Alternatively, calculate a bigger reward for longer fractals. (harpy>cliffside>dredge should give at least 5g, swamp>ascalon>aetherblade should be at most 4g)

Better LOOT
The loot is abysmal. You make a tenth what you make in arah for the amount of time invested. Not to mention the amount of money invested since you need a ton of ascended gear to get enough AR to play higher levels, which brings me to:

No more AR hardcaps
I’m skilled enough not to get hit. I can do a 49 with 0 AR. And yet, if I try to do a 40 with any less than 50 I’m toast. These AR hardcaps are just plain stupid. Who thought these up? If you need 55AR to finish a 40 you might as well remove all the agony from 41 to 49 since the agony will bearly tickle.

No more random rewards
Ascended chests without stat choices suck. Random fractal weapon skins suck. Random rings suck. The only decent rewards from fractals are all RANDOM. We need choices.

No more LYING
You promised fractal weapon chests. You put fractal weapon chests in the patch notes. You went back on your promise, edited the patch notes, and told us we were mistaken.

You promised no cliffside and dredge. You hadn’t even finished that live stream before you went back on your word.

Frankly being lied to @!#$es me off more than all the other problems here. Stop saying stuff and going back on your word. /offtopic

Dredge
Ah dredge. I’m sure what I have to say here is going to be drowned in the swarm of complaints about it, but let me take a quick look at it anyway.

Right now all of dredge up to the clown car is impossible without a thief. It needs to be reworked from scratch so that a skilled party can do it without glitching. Primarily the amount of dredge has to be cut in 5. Better yet, add new mechanics altogether to replace the old sections.

Bomb route like CM p2 barrels. Don’t have dredge shooting at you at all, make them focus on the bombs.

Cannon route you have to dodge the cannons firing at you while shooting the door or something. Again – stop having dredge shooting at you, it’s useless.

Pressure plates… Good idea, horrible execution. As Asko mentioned, larger pressure plates could be an option, but really there’s no way to fix this. Remove it or rework it from scratch. You can’t have players standing there taking a million dps and not being able to do anything for 15 seconds!

Coming to the clown car – Why is this thing still here? It eats your cleave, so you do even less damage against the unneccesarily sadistic amount of dredge that spawn from it.

Solution? Make less dredge spawn as long as the boss is alive (Like that solitary veteran that fights alongside him) and have the car despawn as soon as the boss dies.

Harpy fractal
Chop the ettin and shaman’s HP in 3 or 4 and we’ll call it good.

Urban battleground
Applause on the AI changes – they’re much better post fractured. The main issue now are the mages. Their flame burst hits for up to 20k, and they usually use it as an opener resulting in ~5 flame bursts on a single target. 100k damage aoe is a bit rediculous. Consider reducing their flame burst damage.

The bosses agony attack should do more base damage. As it is we can afk at 49 and let the npcs kill him since they aren’t affected by agony any more. If it does more base damage he can wipe the npcs just in time for the party to have at least a small challenge killing him.

Molten fractal
The tunnel is too slow. Move it along already!

That first group after the tunnel is EVIL. Cut the amount in half, even the best groups regularly wipe on it.

Cliffside
The amount of enemies in this fractal make me wish the ascalon NPCs were here. Cut them down a bit.

Additionally, the end boss’ second phase attacks are hardly telegraphed at all – specifically his 3 pronged pull looks like just another hammer swing. If he hits you with that in melee it hits 3 times, and is almost always followed up by agony that kills the downee.

Proposal Overview
Ability to recycle or mystic forge Ascended Rings

Goal of Proposal
To have the ability to salvage or put ascended rings in the mystic forge for a chance at Essence material, Agony Infusion or Ascended material, fractal mini’s or fractal potions.

Proposal Functionality
Make fractal salvage kits purchased with relics to salvage fractal items and open up the mystic forge to accept multiple ascended rings at a chance for a different one or fractal skin. This means you would have to run at least 16 fractals or 4 full fractal runs for just a chance at a skin using the rings you’ve been awarded if you get them. May take more.

Associated Risks
1. Increase in Essence material and AR infusions in the game.

The idea for having fractal tier gear is awesome! This way the truly dedicated fractal players have a way of showing their progress outside fractals (if the looks are good).

But the reason why i quote this post is that i want to add a small feature.

Proposal Overview
Agony resistance infusion slots on fractal gear.

Goal of Proposal
To let players enjoy fractals without having to spend 100’s of gold on ascended gear in order to progress. Ofcourse people can do this if wanted, but it shouldnt be a necessity. A gear/money check should not be halting people to progress further, skill level is what matters. Thus the fractal gear should have AR infusion slots and therefore make ascended gear something extra instead of a necessity.

Associated Risks
The economy might get hit as people are not required to have ascended armor anymore.

Proposal overview
Make Fractal weapon chest available

Goal of proposal
“Fractured” was advertized with the fractal weapon chest. This chest doesn’t drop as of now. Keep your word and provide the fractal weapon chest as soon as possible.

Proposal functionality
Currently 50 is the highest scale players can play. For getting there, make them get their rightful reward and add the Fractal weapon box to the possible rewards. Make it so one in four fractal weapon skin is such a chest.

Associated Risks
None.

Proposal Overview
Give groups the ability to choose the fractals they wish to run rather than leave it to chance.

Goal of Proposal
To make fractals as fun, rewarding and challenging as the players want while creating an even playing field not tied to random chance. For example, in the current setup, a group getting lvl 33 instability (hits from behind and sides do more damage) and drawing the dredge fractal is going to have a much different/more frustrating experience than a group getting the aetherblade retreat fractal.

By giving the choice to the players, you let groups that wish to tackle specific challenges/go after specific achievements/experience specific fights do so. Additionally, players/groups just wishing to move through quickly (which I am not one of) can choose the quicker fractals.

Proposal Functionality
- As each fractal tier begins, the group is asked to vote (similar to picking a dungeon path) from the fractals in a particular difficulty tier.

- Potentially associate specific loot rewards or drop chances with specific fractals to encourage groups to do different fractals.

Associated Risks
The biggest risks are a. people not wanting to do specific fractals, which could become an issue of contention in pugs and b. people finding exploits on specific fractals and taking advantage of them more easily. I do think that these are both issues that could be dealt with easily though.

Three Things
To the request, here is my list:

1. Player choice in the fractals they do (the idea outlined above).
2. Let us salvage rings from fractals
3. New Fractals as fast as possible based on past LS steps (love the potential this system has).

Relativity.3264:

No more AR hardcaps
I’m skilled enough not to get hit. I can do a 49 with 0 AR. And yet, if I try to do a 40 with any less than 50 I’m toast. These AR hardcaps are just plain stupid. Who thought these up? If you need 55AR to finish a 40 you might as well remove all the agony from 41 to 49 since the agony will bearly tickle.

Completely agree here. What’s even worse is that now, with those hardcaps, people don’t even care to dodge anymore.
Before, even at max AR, you had to dodge on the higher levels, or you would die. If you had not enough AR, you could survive if you were skilled enough to dodge.

Now, you’re forced to have a minimum level of AR (because of insta 40 & 50), so much that you don’t take any damage from agony on the following 9 levels. So people don’t dodge, they just facetank the damage. And as you said, skill isn’t rewarded. It’s either you have the stuff, or you don’t…

About All Those Rings…

Something to keep in mind with the pink Rings that drop in the Fractals – these were the first Ascended Gear offered and the time scale/commitment required to get pink BiS gear has been refined considerably since then. They simply are NOT on the same scale of value with most other Ascended gear. They still drop with stunning regularity and you can even buy your exact preferred choice with a very modest number of runs. The fact any Fractal Frequenter player has so many should tell you they aren’t worth much. Moreover, ArenaNet can’t just go back and lower the drop rate to give them some value – the horse has left the barn and it took multiple bank-tabs worth of rings with it before it left.

Second, the Economics Team fights a non-stop battle with the many, many gold faucets in the game, and turning left over rings and all future extra rings into coin is basically the least desirable of all possible transactions.

What I would suggest is allowing them to be exchanged for something of value, but NOT coin. Perhaps swap them for one of the random Fine Materials boxes currently available from the Laurel Vendors. Or maybe 1, 2, or 3 unidentified dyes per ring. This way the player can then sell the reward for coin if they choose, but they aren’t putting more coin into the system by doing so.

1, Transparency between player and developers. Hopefully this CDI is a step in the right direction!
2, Make fractals more balanced in length. Tier 3 fractals varies hugely in length, they can take 5min or 25min depending on what roll you get. Dredge needs to be shortened.
3, Higher levels, new fractals, let us progess

Here we go:

Proposal Overview

• Keep on adding new fractals constantly, like 1 new Fractal every 3 or 4 months
• Improve the Rewards of FotM, especial for Fractal Relics/Pristine Fractal Relics.
  - Fractal Armor Set/ Fractal Finisher/ Fractal Minipets
• Make Fractals more accessible to rank up quicker (remove the +1 Limit, if I play a Fractal, that is like 5 Ranks higher, than I’ve unlocked and I’m successful, I’d rank up +5, not +1)
• Feature: Heroic Fractals/ Tome of History/ Time Portals
• Redesign Instabilities more into a kind of Fractal Gambits that don’t get forced upon you, but be more a kind of optional difficulty setting for getting better rewards
• Feature: Special Seasonal Fractals, like having a unique Halloween Fractal or a special Wintersday Fractal

Goal of the Proposal

• Make Fractals more fun/accessible/rewarding and less of a rank grind
• Add in new Features to keep Fractals fresh and interesting by improvign the Key Feature with additional elements taken from the concept of the Bonus Mission Pack
• Make just Fractals of the Mist just simply alot more awesome
• Having access to it not from a Town, move it to Southsun Cove or let us access it from the UI also, like we can join WvW/SPvP directly

Proposal Functionality
More people would play it, because we would have quick access to it, likegoing into SPvP/WvW with a few clicks or Southsun would get somethign, that draws people back to go to this Map for this special dungeon (but this qould require some kind of more living story explanation, why the fractal entrance is out of a sudden there).

A better rewarding feeling would also attract more people to play Fractals.
Removing the +1 Limit for Rank Ups, if you successfuly do Fractals that are more higher rankend than +1, would reduce also a bit the rank grind.

In an other following posting I’ll get a bit more into details about the suggested new Features written in spoiler tags.

My top 3:
1. Length/difficulty variance between fractals (dredge)
2. Fractal diversity
3. Rewards

Proposal Overview
Add additional attacks/mechanics to bosses and other monsters as fractal levels increase, and reduce the cooldown of stronger attacks/mechanics based on fractal level.

Proposal Goals
To make bosses and other encounters feel more challenging, rather than simply increasing attack power and enemy count.

Proposal Functionality
Add attacks to bosses every XX fractal levels, making fights more complex and interesting level as players delve into higher level fractals. Some boss fights, such as the giant jellyfish in the underwater fractal, feel long and repetitive, and adding mechanics which trigger after a certain amount of health is removed would help remedy that.

The Jade Maw, although providing an interesting fight, does not feel up to par with the other boss fractals. It also does not seem to scale as it should with fractal levels. Adding strong area-denial attacks to this boss would make the fight far more active. (Attacks like those used in Twisted Marionette warden fights, increasing in frequency/severity as fractal level increases).

Associated Risks
Bosses could become too strong or unforgiving for some groups to complete, or could force groups into taking certain classes over others. Balancing would have to be very thorough.

Side note: Shouldn’t this CDI be in the dungeon forum? Or are fractals not considered dungeons now?

timmyf.1490:

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Would you consider some sort of written overview and/or miniature models of the fractals that can be viewed from the Mistlock Observatory map a working alternative? Maybe a second platform you can walk across a bridge to where you then have some in-game guidance you can browse without things trying to kill you?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I would like us to start of by listing the top three things we would like to see evolved in Fractal Design.

The first and most important, in my view, issue that needs to be addressed with Fractals of the Mist is the Instance Owner and Group Kick abuse. I am talking about the more and more common practice of two or three guildies starting a group on the LFM, entering the instance first so that one of them is the one who have the instance ‘owned’ by them, and then booting the rest of their group once they get to the boss fractal so that they can bring their friends in without their friends having to put the time into getting their rewards. To make the situation even worse for honest players, GW2 was designed so that when you have been booted from a group the chat log is wiped, meaning players that have had this done to them can not even block the offenders to make sure that they do not group with them again. And on top of that there is no clear way for players to report this type of action, either ingame or on the support website.

My second greatest issue would be with uneven rewards for higher level fractals. High level Fractals are much more challenging than the typical GW2 dungeons, which makes them much more exciting. Yet playing them gives players a tiny fraction of the rewards that standard dungeons do. I did not see this as much of a problem when Fractal runners were being rewarded with account-bound rewards that could not be sold, and so do not increase player’s wealth while still giving some kind of reward, but ever since the Fractured update the unique rewards seem to be both diluted with lesser rewards (uninfused rings) and less frequently given out (weapons). As it stands right now, it would really make Fractals seem more worth while if there were an increase in either the account-bound or else wealth rewards.

Since a top three was asked for, I guess that my third would be the way that some things kind of fall apart as the Fractal Level scales up. The dredge fractal, especially. At the low scale, it seems perfectly alright. However, as the scale goes higher the volume of dredge starts to become absolutely ridiculous. If you have a plan in place to deal with 30 dredge at once, then turning that into a larger number of them is not going to increase the difficulty greatly just the time needed to execute. Since the Fractals have been organized into tiers now, it would be nice to see roughly similar time expectancies across all of the Fractals of a similar tier. Not one that drags on forever, to the point that it can be faster to restart than it is to slog through it.