Guild Wars 2

Proposal Overview
Add an achievement tree that rewards people for doing each individual Mistlock Instability. Then, add a meta-reward for completing all of them with a fitting reward that every fractal runner would agree with: A Fractal Weapon chest.

Goal of Proposal
This proposal will solve a problem that we currently have, which is that they take the path of least resistance to level up their fractal level. Most people are only doing the easiest Fractal levels, like 49, by piggybacking with people that already have it unlocked. This is bad, as they miss out on all the interesting and challenging mistlock instabilities that are in between 30 and 50 that at this point very few people are running.

Furthermore, by adding a highly anticipated reward like a Fractal Weapon Chest to completing them all, it gives people positive stimulation to do all levels while at the same time lowering complaints people have about the RNG that the currently drop system has.

Proposal Functionality
Not a whole lot of functionality will have to be added for this proposal. It will simply be 20’ish achievements for doing every mistlock instability, either added to the Fractal of the Mist category, or in its own achievement tree for clarity.

Simple, but effective.

Associated Risks
I don’t see a lot of risks involved in this proposal, as this is probably relatively simply to implement and I don’t see any drawbacks to it.

Esya.3427:

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Esya.3427:

Proposal overview
Make agony resistance (AR) account wide.

While I agree there’s a problem with AR and alts, I’m not sure giving account-bound AR is the solution, as I think the problem is wider than that.

Like others have also said in this CDI (Relativity & Mr Niice on page 1, Auesis & The lost witch on page 2, Patrikan Habaton & One note chord on page 3, etc.), the problem with AR, even on one character, is the complete gear-gating it has become. Skill should be what has to be improved to progress in fractals, not AR.

Because of this reliance on AR, we now see even at the highest levels people who don’t care to dodge anymore, as they don’t take any damage from agony. What’s the point of agony then ?

I see those as two different proposals. The time gating and need of AR could still be addressed while making AR account bound. One does not exclude the other.

I agree that they’re not mutually exclusive. I just wanted to say that just making AR account-bound would not solve the whole problem. To completely solve this, you also need to change either the way agony is applied / works, or modify the AR.

[Proposal]
One way to do that would be to change some instabilities, especially level 40 and 50. Those are especially bad, as they force players to have so much AR that they don’t care anymore about agony on the following levels. With this pattern, we could also expect to get the same thing (with the same problem) on 60, 70, … when they’re released, so we should change the 40 & 50 instabilities before we come to that.
A second point that needs to be done is change a few maps about how agony is applied, to make sure that Agony never is a gear-gating system, but stay a skill-gating. So you need to make sure Agony can be evaded by skilled players. Some of the agony right now isn’t. For example, on the molten boss map, you sometimes get agony just by walking on a certain place, near the entrance of the ring.

Wethospu.6437:

Rebalancing instabilities should definitely help with the issue. If they are tracking which instability completion they should be able to tweak them relatively easily.

But problem with lethal combinations would still remain. Some instabilities are quite ok on some maps but get on rampage on other maps. I can’t see anyone regularly doing these levels.

And what about if ANET makes that some maps can´t appear with some instabilities. We will always have some randomness in fractals because the levels you get are random but if they reduce the maps that you can get for some instabilities, may be it will be easier to balance and you won´t get that lethal combinations.

That would also give them more freedom creating the instabilities. Bacause if some instability is impossible in one map but ok in the others they could remove that map from the rotations in that particular level. So they could create some instabilities that would be impossible to implement with the system that we have now.

That system will also make it easier to add more maps.

Solypsys.1876:

I’ve been playing fractals fairly regularly since they were initially introduced so I have a few big suggestions for that area:

High level fractals/Endgame:

• The max fractal cap (50) needs to be eliminated or changed to the highest level of fractals that you EVER want players to complete (potentially 80)
• The difficulty of higher level fractals should not come from excessive health and damage scaling but should utilize the mistlock instabilities to create the bulk of the difficulty
• The instabilities for higher level fractals should add significant difficulty for players that isn’t in the form of lengthening encounters, an example of a good one would be the instability at 35 that causes stunning lightning strikes to constantly appear around the players. The instabilities at high levels (60+) in particular need to focus around substantially crippling certain common behaviors of players.
• High level fractals should also incorporate multiple instabilities
• Most importantly high level fractals, particularly in the 60-80 range, should not have any “safe” levels E.G. fractals 36, 38, 49 with ignore-able instabilities. Groups attempting high level fractals should have to make a seasoned decision what level to run based on their group composition.
• All of these would ultimately allow for fractal leaderboards again especially if the 70-80 fractals prove to be extremely difficult

Rewards:

• The bonus gold reward needs to be increased even taking into account the increased t6/rares droprate. Currently 10-15 minute dungeons award at least 1.26 gold while a 45 minute fractal 49 (which is near perfect with no mistakes or dredge) awards about 1.4 gold I believe
• More things should be available for purchase with (pristine) relics. The only good suggestion I could think of at the moment is to allow for fractal weapon chests to be purchased for a large amount of fractal currency (I’m thinking at least 1000 relics and 20 pristine)
• Potentially consider additional currencies exclusive to high level fractals
• Fractal weapon drop rates need to be increased SLIGHTLY, fractal weapons currently carry prestige in that they are one of the few weapon sets that cant be bought with gold. As such the drop rates are a little low now, weapon skins at the 4x level should be increased from the ~5% it is now to 10-15% and skin chests added at this level at 5%. These drop rates should increase gradually until 70+ fractals nearly guarantee a skin or chest.
• Ascended rings need to be adressed, the first idea I have is to simply make them salvagable and they would potentially give orichalcum, ecto, dark matter, and mist essence (if theyre infused)
• The second ring idea is to implement significant mystic forge recipes involving rings such as: 3 infused rings of the same type plus a certain amount of mist essence will yield an ascended amulet with the same stat combo and the infusion slot determined by the type of mist essence used. This gives a use for rings and a legitimate use for mist essence. Also, you could incorporate new items bought with fractal relics into these recipes to yield different items or stats.

Other suggestions:

• The dredge fractal needs to be shortened considerably
• There are still a number of bugs that need addressed
• Please for the love of god remove “rolling,” not only is swamp my least favorite fractal but it is now impossible to get any of the other “initial” fractals such as underwater. A couple of the tier 2 fractals can be dropped to tier 1 (aetherblade hideout) and rolling needs to be eliminated

Apart from the leaderboard idea, which I am not so fond of, I agree with you on everything you suggest here

Wethospu.6437:

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Overview
Improve current Randomness of Fractals
Goal of Proposal
Get Fractals to be more repeatable. I love the random nature of some fractals (dredge end-boss, new Thaumanova reactor), this needs to be increased to increase replayability.
—

BlueDragon.7054:

I also think that the instabilities should be random (for every level, not just the first one and don’t keep it for the other 3, to avoid rerolling) and the gold reward should scale better.
—

As with all “add more random” ideas, these would just make fractals more luck based then skill based. They won’t be able to balance it. For example if the content was really hard people would just roll Swamp until they get Bloomhunger instead of Mossman. Imagine this happening mid-run. You end up with the hardest encounter. Reroll?

If the random elements are optional, and rewarded as i suggested, it wouldnt really make it more luck based. you still have the well designed dungeon elements, and you have optional side elements which are rewarding and interesting. You have to remember, being super fast is only great for the daily, If extra missions and bonus missions are rewarded, its basically like doing another fractal, while you are already doing it/aka more effecient. Not only that but it makes it more entertaining not knowing exactly what extra things you may be given the option of doing.

Yea, some people will skip it and just want to finish asap, but those looking for a deeper, more interesting fractal wont (as long as its got rewards)
If you can get for example 10 extra fractal relics, 500 karma and some silver for doing a dynamic event, why not do it? If you can fight a guild bounty and get the same extra 10 relics, 500 karma and silver a long with boss chest, why not? after all thats pretty close to what you are running the fractal for to begin with.

Note this hinges on my suggestion for making fractal relics rewarding as well.

also random elements are a test of skill, some tests are harder than others, but that doesnt make them not challenging. Now maybe its harder to compare peoples achievements to others if it involves random elements, but thats not really the same thing as being tests of skill.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Moon.7310:

Using fractals to tell story:

Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.

Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.

-snip-

Hi Moon,

Thanks for delivering a very good proposal for more Lore based fractals.

TimmyF this post is a good example to discuss ideas around.

Chris

Hmm. I wasn’t going to look through this thread, but thought I should show some interest in the parts of the game I don’t tend to play.

I’m something of a lorehound myself – however I really don’t like GW2’s dungeons or fractals at all. Going with a group of friends makes them tolerable, but… my issue with this is that putting so much story in dungeons and fractals makes looking into the background of GW2 a chore. So.

Brief proposal
Could we get a (ignoring the GW2 definition here) story mode that gives crap loot but makes these fractals and dungeons accessible for those who just don’t care about the rewards?

Wethospu.6437:

Rebalancing instabilities should definitely help with the issue. If they are tracking which instability completion they should be able to tweak them relatively easily.

But problem with lethal combinations would still remain. Some instabilities are quite ok on some maps but get on rampage on other maps. I can’t see anyone regularly doing these levels.

IMO they should do away with set-in-stone instabilities and replace them with the gambit system a la the Queen’s gauntlet. Let the party decide which gambits they want and how many they want.

With just 5 gambits and the choice to take any number of them, you get 32 ways to play one map. It’s an easy way to refresh old content. I can already see the PR hype Anet can use for this: “… and introducing 434 new ways to fractal!!”

Why this discussion is not on the french forum?

Proposal Overview
How I would rework fractals including AR, instabilities, leaderboard, Achievments, rewards and Special rewards.

Goal of Proposal
This proposal is to get back hardcore Content while providing some more alt friendlyness with AR changes and having a bit less RNG in the reward section.

Proposal Functionality

General Implementation:
Since we most likly get leaderboards I wanna have fair cirumstances when racing for the top. When isntabilities were released we experienced great issues by the combination of Buggy instabilities for example Mai trin and regen boon. To avoid this I would have the known RNG Fractal seclection with instabilities for each Level till Scale 100(or 80 if you prefer this).After this I would implement a Special Boss you Need to kill to advance ( wich should be really hard). Once you have passed this Point there should be fix fractals with fix instabilities to make a fair race to advance and not having RNG and LUCK deciding who gets further or not.

AR Changes:
To provide more alt friendlieness and deny skipping of certain fractals I would propose that you get 1 account AR for each instability completed. Armors are still usefull in a safenet so you can skip some instabilities. Still a Person who is at scale 60 or 70 should have at least completed half of the instabilities. The Goal is that you can skip about 10-20 instability Overall given the max scale is somwhere around 150+. In this way you Change your Gear- to a Instability completed Check if you leave it ingame.

Leaderboards:
You can just make a leaderboard about highest Level completed Since People Need to complete instabilities before to advance further and there is no RNG luck after a certain Point so leaderboards are fair and all who completed fractal 132 have completed the same challenging 32 scales. With this you should implement a track so People can check wich instabilities they completed and wich they still Need to do.

Achievments:
Since you Need a track of completed instabilities anyway I would give em an achievment. If the achievmentleaderboarders think it’s unfair I’d be fine if it rewards only 1 or even 0 Point. Still it be an achievment you get.

Rewards:
I think you can Keep the RNG that is in game if you can add a new item ( maybe just ascended gear peaces ) Each 10 Levels completed to the merchant. I think this ensures once you hit scale 100 you have max AR resistance from gear since you can buy it till than.

Special Rewards:
I think These should be FIX rewards you get for reeching scale 100/Defeating the Special Boss at scale 100. I think there could be a Special upgradably armor ( maybe even upgradable to legendary start near there) Where you Need to do several bosses with additional instabilities or maybe just you get new Tier when you complete next 10 Levels.

Associated Risks
– Special rewards might be a Problem/could be titles as well but since it’s an optic game it would be nice to have an optic Show off of your achievment:)
- The less RNG reward section might Need tweaking to not be overpowered
- Achievments might cause flaming because People think they are to hard (but that basicaly is an achievment:))
-Loads of People including me actually never wanted leaderboards I think you could leave this Point out. But if you implement it the top places shoulnd’t be decided by LUCK (like it was with getting Mai at 37 not beeing able to advance)
-AR changes might make People unhappy since you cannot completly Bypass all instabilities just by playing scale 50 with having enough AR
- People might not agree having a Special Boss only the hardcore People will see ( but in the end this is basicaly what p2 is of the junglewurm in my opginon)

Feel free to discuss Points of this proposal:)

in hopes they Change Fractals once again….

for the better

I see several people want Account wide Ar so heres a proposal:

Proposal Overview
An account wide AR system

Goal of Proposal
To provide account wide AR without reducing the difficulty of getting to that AR total.

Proposal Functionality
As any item that contains AR becomes soul-bound, it may be possible to implement a check:

1. AR on armor is made just a number, not actually functional.
2.A player goes to Dessa with their character that has the highest AR total, they choose the check resistance button.
3. The game checks the total AR of that character and sets it to the account wide total, you can recheck whenever you want, to prevent mistakes or update the total with more.

This keeps the work required to get up to the total, but then makes it only once per account which I think is a nice change.

Associated Risks
- A person not playing when the update happens may hop into fractals and die instantly without understanding why.

Edit:
TL;DR:
Make fractals unique rewards salvageable or make it possible to turn in for other non-bound rewards of significant value to balance out the lack of rewards compared to other content.
/Edit

Nike.2631:

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Functionality
If I can earn 1.5 gold for a 15 minute run of COF or HOTW, I should earn 4x that for a 1 hour run of fractals. Gold reward should be commensurate with the length of time it takes to complete an individual fractal.

If I could score best-in-slot items randomly from even 100 runs through CoF I might think there was a comparison to be made here. But there’s not. Gold is not the only currency in the game, and trying to turn everything into a gold earning competition just adds that many more faucets and debases coin that much more. Five fractal-specific currencies. FIVE. Yes, we need more ways to spend them, but we need to also not ignore that they exist in the rush to throw ourselves on the tender mercies of the Trading Post. Fractals are a separate track. Any number of Dungeon-delvers will tell you the grass is greener on the Fractals side of the fence and that they are the ones being wronged by the differences.

First off, the only BiS Fractals uniquely offer are ascended rings and an ascended backpiece as well as inventory bags. The weapons and armors are dropped everywhere where you can get ascended materials.
But even if we would ignore this, you’re basically saying that when I have BiS gear, I have nothing to get from fractals. You’re saying that I instead should go Frostgorge farming. The endgame content is then not for me anymore.
That’s the extent of your argument.

I don’t think this is how it should be.
BiS only has a value only if you don’t already own it.
When you own it, it has no value at all because you can’t sell it.
I’m not saying you should be able to sell it, maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t.
But what I am saying is that even when I have BiS, I want a reason to go to fractals.
Why “lock people out” because they get a miniscule amount of rewards compared to for example mindless zerging in Frostgorge that takes no skill at all except the skill to make sure you tag the boss before it dies.
Everyone needs money for almost everything. This is what should be scaled, the unique bound rewards should be a bonus. Legendaries – tons and tons of money. Ascended gear – tons of money. Unique skins – tons of money. Gems – real life money or tons of ingame money. Commander title – a small ton of money.

To avoid inflation, alot of the reward could be loot-based with high-value loot that’s constantly in demand, while a small part is money-based. Then it doesn’t add much gold to the game, but you still get gold from selling the loot to other players.
Balance this so that higher difficulty = higher rewards and longer time requirement = higher rewards (for all content). To encourage people to learn to play harder content, the reward scaling could be slightly exponential as opposed to linear or logarithmic. But not “unfairly” so. So higher skill means even higher loot, which encourages people to not go to Frostgorge but instead go to high skill content and learn it.

One easy solution to fix it would be to let people salvage fractal unique rewards into valuable loot that can be sold. Ascended gear could give a large amount of ectoplasm and ascended planks / leather / fabric / metal as well as bonus dark matter, which could be salvageable into other loot as well. Take into account the rarity of ascended gear when doing this.

Proposal overview
Remove the confusion from the mind of players.

Goal of proposal
This proposal is there to make sure that the players understand exactly what you mean. For instance, you meant to add leaderboards and weapon skin boxes. So far we haven’t seen any. So people speculate about whether it’s ever gonna come and lengthy discussions about it come and go.

Implementation

• Produce clear statements about what is gonna come in a release. If something is available at release, mention it. If you advertised it and did not make it happen in the end, mention it. Clearly.
• For the special case of weapon skin box, the info came on the 10th day of “Fractured” (“Fractured” was out on November 27th, the info about no skin box came on December 6th). This should not happen anymore. In the release notes, there should have been a clear mention of the absence of the skin box given that it was advertized.
• Make clear statements about the leaderboards. If you still want it, tell us so. We might be a bit harsh, but we can understand delays. Make it a goal for end of 2014 if you want, as long as we know. If you got rid of the idea, please tell us. On a personal note, I’d actually welcome that. Opacity has never been an answer.

Risks

• You might have more understanding customers instead an angry mob for no answer.

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Overview
Add more need for skills within fractals
Goal of Proposal
Involve the different Skills. Make skills necessary. In the past, the only way through certain areas successfully was to use a teleport, or invisibility, or to advance in another area, Stability was necessary. Bring in more of those mechanics. Make people change skills based on Fractal area entered. Make people think a little to accomplish the task at hand. This also has the added effect of forcing increased group dynamic, making people want to group with a mesmer, and a guardian, and an elementalist (or bring in alts) to make use of the appropriate skills.

snip

and

Gwarrior.4952:

Proposal Overview
Currently, the gear combination we use for meta are PPCri such as Berserker/Assassin, nerfing crit damage would not solve the problem we don’t use other stats combined gears, highly organized solid team still use PPCri meta gear for max their damage to minimize the time for one dungeon run. I want propose changing the dungeon mechanism to make Vitality, Toughness, Healing Power and Condition Damage to be more viable for dungeon run or at least we won’t pass them anymore at first glance. Let’s take the first step from changing the high-end dungeon content such as FOTM.

snip

With the random nature of FotM, I believe that this would not be the best place to start asking for specific builds. New dungeon paths, or revamped dungeons would be more suited for this. Since it would be easier for players without such a build set-up to get their tokens from another path, or to prepare for the difficulties thrown at them before starting the dungeon.

I’ve written more about this here. And I believe that this kind of difficulty is perhaps best off in a challenge mission type of dungeon. Where you can experience the content no matter how good you are, but only score high if you are specifically build for the challenges posed.

plz dont make fractal skins easier to get. I like something hard to archive.

Now that I’ve though a bit more of the title “Fractal Evolution” instead of just seeing it as “The Fractals CDI”… Evolution sounds actually pretty high level for me.

Thus, if I would have to pick one Fractal as an example for to where Fractals should be evolving to… (this will be very subjective)

Thaumanova
Rised from nowhere to my favourite Fractal within two or three runs.

• It introduces new challenges with higher levels, but at the same time you get faster and faster at the “old” challenges, so the time required for completion stays at a fair amount
• The challenges are fun to play and not only directed towards direct damage
  (control is pretty neat for subject 7)
• The boss fight is also really cool and unique

What I hope to see in new Fractals would be encounters with multiple objectives that are to be completed in parallel.

• Subject 7 is an example (damaging it and holding off the little ones).
• The first encounter with the Grawl shaman in Volcanic is another (killing Grawls while throwing stones).
• Having one member dump lava on the Dredge Mining Suit while the others are damaging it.
• Having people stand on Dredge pressure plates while other players aggro the remaining Dredge (but don’t kill them, or more will respawn).
• Keeping the aggro of the Cliffside chanters of one seal while one player runs with the charged hammer to hit the other one.

So, I don’t want to say that Fractals needs more of these encounters. I think they are part of the core concept. And I think this should definitely be also the case for new Fractals. Perhaps everybody thinks alike on this one and it is therefore not discussed.
If so, I’m glad to have made this point such that the developers know that they have done a good and much appreciated job. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there are also other opinions on this.

Wethospu.6437:

The Lost Witch.7601:

I believe that if fractals are to become harder (which I believe is a good idea), there should be a way to save your progress as a team. (Up to the start of a fractal)

That way we can feel happiness and relief after struggling through a seriously hard version of the uncategorized fractal, instead of feeling down because we can’t finish a full run.

Nice idea but what about the implementation?

How would this work on pug teams? Where you aren’t guaranteed to get same team together?

What if someone leaves? Could you invite someone else? Who’s progress would get saved?

Good questions. I’ll try to come up with some good answers:

Proposal Overview

Making it possible to save fractal progress. (With improved rewards as a side effect)

Goal of Proposal

To make more challenging fractals possible, without creating a situation where players would feel disheartened after completing a difficult fractal when realizing that they have no time for completing all four.

Proposal Functionality

The floppy

Players can get an item that saves their fractal progress. We’ll call it a floppy for now.

The floppy is accountbound and is updated at the start of every new fractal. It will save coordinates in the mists based on difficulty level and the tier of the fractal. The data adds up with every fractal. Until it is completed at the end of the fourth fractal.

Flopp, the fractal driver

In front of the fractal portal, there is an asuran NPC called Flopp, he can navigate through the mists based on the coordinates saved on our Floppy. He will pick the fractal of that tier that is saved by the partyhost. (To avoid rerolling)

Flopp requires 4 floppies with the same coordinates to succesfully travel through the mists. (He’ll make some exuse that it requires the strength of at least 4 times the fractal essence found in one floppy. We all know what the real reason is…)

The 5th player could be anyone. (This is done to avoid situations in which a guildmember has become inactive.)

Selling the floppy

For players that have a lone floppy and no reliable way to get in touch with other players with a similar floppy (for example, the inactive guildmember, or a pug), they can sell it.

A completed fractal floppy gives a higher reward than an incomplete fractal floppy. But at higher levels, the incomplete fractal floppy value is still significant. (The value of a completed fractal floppy should be worth more than the value of a tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 floppy combined, otherwise players would jump out of fractals to sell their floppy data at every tier)

At the moment I’m considering these values for a level 20-30 fractal:

Tier 1 – 25 silver + 5 fractal relics
Tier 2 – 50 silver + 10 fractal relics
Tier 3 – 1 gold + 20 fractal relics
Complete floppy: 2 gold + 50 fractal relics

And these for a level 40-50 fractal:

Tier 1 – 50 silver + 10 fractal relics
Tier 2 – 1 g + 20 fractal relics
Tier 3 – 2 g + 40 fractal relics
Complete floppy: 4 g + 100 fractal relics

(You can probably guess what the other fractal level tiers would be based on this)

Associated Risks

Leavers

Players might join late, have an incomplete floppy, and then join new groups to complete their floppy. Then leave again when their floppy is complete.

Perhaps measures can be taken against this though?

• Complete floppies automatically after the fourth fractal, even if you join late. (So they don’t have to catch up.)

• Add more data. So players would be able to have a completed fractal in addition to older fractal data already saved on the floppy. That way players would be encouraged to complete their next run of the fractal. (Instead of stopping where they joined in last time)

Inflation

More money flows into the economy. Perhaps this can be countered by making the floppy rewards based on something other than gold.

Complexity

The concept might be hard to grasp? And to explain in an LFG message? I have no solution for this.

More items to fill our bank and inventory

This would prove especially problematic if players wish to save their progress in several fractals. Maybe someone can help with ideas here?

Proposal Overview
Adding “Restart Current Level” option to fractals.

Goal of Proposal
To allow players that get stuck to restart the current level without restarting the whole set of fractals.

Proposal Functionality
It happened numerous amount of times when a certain bug was present that somehow made the level impossible to complete and the entire fractal set had to be restarted. Examples: Hammer disappearing, Rox and Brahm following the group instead of starting the chamber room, Uncategorized fractal boss running off the map. Instead of restarting the whole set, which normally ends with party disbanding, we could restart the current level and have all the mechanics reset as well to allow further progress.

Associated Risks
The only risk I can think of is players farming the loot drops on a specific level over and over. That could be easily prevented by adding “no loot drop instability” on the restarted level as a penalty for resetting it, which would be removed upon entering the boss battle of that particular level.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Wethospu.6437:

The Lost Witch.7601:

I believe that if fractals are to become harder (which I believe is a good idea), there should be a way to save your progress as a team. (Up to the start of a fractal)

That way we can feel happiness and relief after struggling through a seriously hard version of the uncategorized fractal, instead of feeling down because we can’t finish a full run.

Nice idea but what about the implementation?

How would this work on pug teams? Where you aren’t guaranteed to get same team together?

What if someone leaves? Could you invite someone else? Who’s progress would get saved?

Good questions. I’ll try to come up with some good answers:

Proposal Overview

Making it possible to save fractal progress. (With improved rewards as a side effect)

Goal of Proposal

To make more challenging fractals possible, without creating a situation where players would feel disheartened after completing a difficult fractal when realizing that they have no time for completing all four.

I find the idea of saving progress in fractals interesting because that may remove a barrier players have for starting fractals: it takes time to complete. A problem I can see is that it is equally troublesome to keep a party together or plan these multiple runs with the same party. Maybe this can be resolved by coding the floppies with a way to save how many fractals have been run and allowing players with the same amount to enter the next one in line?
After re-reading it seems (if i understand correctly) you saw the same issue with parties but had a different idea with the floppies. I think that if it should save anything it is not the amount of ractals run but the “level” reached inside the fractals dungeon. This still leaves a problem of having to find people with the same amount of ractals completed though.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Proposal Overview

Making it possible to save fractal progress. (With improved rewards as a side effect)

Nice try on a difficult topic. However, I don’t get what those “coordinates” are. (1) Only which Fractal and in if it was the 1st, 2nd or 3rd? (2) Or the complete instance? Both come with problems.

In (1), this can be abused to skip Fractals when you only want to get to the end chest,
as you get 5 floppys and only need 4. Thus, you can do 4 1st-Fractals and get enough to continue with 2nd-Fractals 5 times. For example you do

• 1st Fractal 16 times => 80 floppys for 2nd, therefore
• 2nd Fractal 20 times => 100 floppys for 3rd, therefore
• 3rd Fractal 25 times => 125 floppys for boss, therefore
• Boss Fractal 31 times (and 1 floppy left)

In (2), you probably can’t do that, since much more information has to match between runs. In this case, however, you get one player that gets additional rewards (for not using his floppy). So I guess the rewards should not be account bound such that you can exchange them with your teammates for fairness… but why then not stop after each Fractal, get the bonus cash and continue with 4 of our 5 floppys?

I imagine (2) also to be really complicated both to understand and to code.

I’d like to hear more suggestions on this topic.

I’m also planning a proposal, but it is not ready yet. Nevertheless, I hope my concerns can help others pondering about the topic to refine their own proposals.

Don’t copy that floppy!

In all seriousness, I like the idea of saving progress, but if that’s going to be an option, there needs to be a very simple way of handling it. Lost Witch’s floppy idea will almost certainly lead to some level of floppy farming and groups demanding you bring a Completed Swamp floppy to join their 2-3-4 group.

I hate to be artificially limiting, but I think any sort of Save Progress system should require the same party members to return later.

RiShardV.8456:

I find the idea of saving progress in fractals interesting because that may remove a barrier players have for starting fractals: it takes time to complete. A problem I can see is that it is equally troublesome to keep a party together or plan these multiple runs with the same party. Maybe this can be resolved by coding the floppies with a way to save how many fractals have been run and allowing players with the same amount to enter the next one in line?
After re-reading it seems (if i understand correctly) you saw the same issue with parties but had a different idea with the floppies. I think that if it should save anything it is not the amount of ractals run but the “level” reached inside the fractals dungeon. This still leaves a problem of having to find people with the same amount of ractals completed though.

I believe I intend what you have in mind. But apparently it didn’t show clearly in my previous post.

The floppies would save the difficulty level and the tier. For example, after completing the dredge fractal you would have the following coordinates on your floppy: Difficulty level 23 and tier 3.

Flopp would then send you to the fractal you abandoned. (Let’s say the molten bosses fractal) Or, if you have teamed up with other people that had the coordinates: level 23 tier 3, you may end up in a different boss fractal, depending on who opens the instance.

Scorch der Juengere.7328:

The Lost Witch.7601:

Proposal Overview

Making it possible to save fractal progress. (With improved rewards as a side effect)

Nice try on a difficult topic. However, I don’t get what those “coordinates” are. (1) Only which Fractal and in if it was the 1st, 2nd or 3rd? (2) Or the complete instance? Both come with problems.

In (1), this can be abused to skip Fractals when you only want to get to the end chest,
as you get 5 floppys and only need 4. Thus, you can do 4 1st-Fractals and get enough to continue with 2nd-Fractals 5 times. For example you do

• 1st Fractal 16 times => 80 floppys for 2nd, therefore
• 2nd Fractal 20 times => 100 floppys for 3rd, therefore
• 3rd Fractal 25 times => 125 floppys for boss, therefore
• Boss Fractal 31 times (and 1 floppy left)

In (2), you probably can’t do that, since much more information has to match between runs. In this case, however, you get one player that gets additional rewards (for not using his floppy). So I guess the rewards should not be account bound such that you can exchange them with your teammates for fairness… but why then not stop after each Fractal, get the bonus cash and continue with 4 of our 5 floppys?

I imagine (2) also to be really complicated both to understand and to code.

I’d like to hear more suggestions on this topic.

I’m also planning a proposal, but it is not ready yet. Nevertheless, I hope my concerns can help others pondering about the topic to refine their own proposals.

I guess I should elaborate some more (tried to keep it as short as I could, but this proves difficult to explain)

A floppy would have a seperate entry for each tier. So to complete a level 43 fractal floppy, you would need a first, second, third and fourth (boss) fractal done. So 4 starter fractals wouldn’t work.

You make a good point with the 5th floppies adding up for ‘bonus’ skips though. I had not thought of that yet. Perhaps this could be solved by removing the floppy ‘item’ and instead making it into a property of your account. That way the process could be updated automatically, making it impossible to save up those 5ths for a skip later on. (Which you could do now by not carrying a floppy all the way through as the 5th)

The floppy would then become something everyone has from the moment they enter fractals, that just keep track of what they do. It would not be an item you can bring (also taking care of the bankspace issue), it would be part of your account.

It could show somewhere on your hero-page. Maybe a ‘fractals’ section. Where you can find your reward level, and the data on your floppy.

This clearly needs some more thought!

On the scope of Fractals as a vulnerable instance:

Why is the instance owner allowed to be kicked? What’s the point in that? Atleast make him immune to kick.

Moon.7310:

Using fractals to tell story:

Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.

Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.

Proposal Functionality
Existing fractals:
I think the fractals should have some more story, like what is this underwater fractal thing, what happened in this strange rata-sum version, is it ascalon we are over-running? It would be great if we got some more informations about them while doing them, either by getting more informations from Dessa or by some writings found in them or NPCs you could talk to.

New fractals:

• There could be fractals which tell us about events that happened between GW1 and GW2
• Fractals that tell us about things that happened even before GW1
• Fractals telling alternate versions of history: I would especially love to see a fractal where we help Shiro to kill the Emporer (still a great fan of Shiro )
• Fractals about a possible future: Everything is overrun by Scarlet (sorry, I just had to write that here, since I like here even if so many hate her^^)
  I’ll complete the list here with this examples, since I could go on about this for a long time.

Associated Risks
Of course people might not care about lore/story, making it a bit of wasted time for you devs, but I still think many would think it a nice addition and if it leads to new fractals everyone should be happy.

The problem that comes up is that people are always in a hurry to get through the Fractals. Play! Get the Reward! There’s no time to stop and watch cutscenes or speak with NPCs. Players already escape out of the very brief cutscenes that currently exist.

But I’d love more lore, too. Perhaps an instance along the lines of Dessa’s Library where players could go to learn more about the lore behind the Fractal — it could use books like the book carts in DR or Ebonhawke, Holograms like those used by Vorpp, an NPC lab assistant, complaining about the long hours or raving about the latest discovery who is available to answer questions… The point is while we are with a team and in the throes of battle is probably not the best time to do lore research, and Fractals are a bit difficult to solo to get to an end spot where it would make sense to have the lore placed. Surely Dessa is already compiling some of the information somewhere and if that is outside the Fractal the lore bugs could find what they’re looking for and others wouldn’t be held up in their game play.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

On the scope of Fractals as a vulnerable instance:

Why is the instance owner allowed to be kicked? What’s the point in that? Atleast make him immune to kick.

I feel like there could be some karmic justice in this. Also, if you have a group that’s, say, 4 guild members and 1 PUG, the PUG can start the instance as protection against possible kicking later.

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Arrange things so each account holds in memory what tier one fractal you last generated by starting a run. When you finish a Tier 1 fractal you launched it becomes blank/null, ready to receive a randomly generated new scenario the next time you start a run. But, as long as there is an old scenario waiting there, that is the only Fractal you will ever see when you are the person who opens the initial gate from Mistlock Observatory. New/first-time characters are assigned a random scenario from a list of tier one fractals that does not include the Swamp as a possible result (other troublesomely fast tier 1 scenarios introduced later can also be excluded). This prevents recruiting newbies solely for the purpose of trying to game their initial roll.

Done. Re-rolling is dead. Long live facing the challenges presented.

timmyf.1490:

Don’t copy that floppy!

In all seriousness, I like the idea of saving progress, but if that’s going to be an option, there needs to be a very simple way of handling it. Lost Witch’s floppy idea will almost certainly lead to some level of floppy farming and groups demanding you bring a Completed Swamp floppy to join their 2-3-4 group.

I hate to be artificially limiting, but I think any sort of Save Progress system should require the same party members to return later.

Well, having the same party members return would certainly be easier and more solid. I would love to have that. But if a more complicated idea allows for pug-teams to make good use of a saving system, I think it is worth exploring.

To make this work I think we shouldn’t base the floppies on individual fractals. (Since it would make it too hard to find someone with a similar saved state)

In addition to that, perhaps we should allow for higher level floppies to be downscaled to lower levels if desired? So you can use your level 46, tier 3 coordinates to complete a level 42, tier 3 team.

I believe that a system can be made to make a less rigid save-mechanic than that based on an entire party, but perhaps the floppy system as I presented is not an elegant method. With all the input I’m getting I should probably work out a different version later. (So keep that input coming)

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Charge each player 1g to enter Fractals. Each player receives an additional 1g at the completion of the first Fractal. (Kicking is disabled during the first Fractal?)

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Arrange things so each account holds in memory what tier one fractal you last generated by starting a run. When you finish a Tier 1 fractal you launched it becomes blank/null, ready to receive a randomly generated new scenario the next time you start a run. But, as long as there is an old scenario waiting there, that is the only Fractal you will ever see when you are the person who opens the initial gate from Mistlock Observatory. New/first-time characters are assigned a random scenario from a list of tier one fractals that does not include the Swamp as a possible result (other troublesomely fast tier 1 scenarios introduced later can also be excluded). This prevents recruiting newbies solely for the purpose of trying to game their initial roll.

Done. Re-rolling is dead. Long live facing the challenges presented.

Is doing away with the re-roll something that is really wanted or needed? If so, why? It seems like a forced control step where none is really needed. Most of my teams don’t reroll, but some few do; in thinking about it it’s mostly high-level groups that choose to re-roll, low levels just play what is presented. Is it truly an issue?

timmyf.1490:

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Charge each player 1g to enter Fractals. Each player receives an additional 1g at the completion of the first Fractal. (Kicking is disabled during the first Fractal?)

I’m gonna pass on the thousand Support tickets all saying “I got DC’d and lost my gold” .

The choke point is the person opening the fractal – there is literally no reason they need to be allowed to “pick up the die and toss it again” you can nail the die to the table until the scenario has been played out. Without opening a can of worms relating to the larger party dynamic and the antics that surround kicking.

Aye.8392:

Is doing away with the re-roll something that is really wanted or needed? If so, why? It seems like a forced control step where none is really needed. Most of my teams don’t reroll, but some few do; in thinking about it it’s mostly high-level groups that choose to re-roll, low levels just play what is presented. Is it truly an issue?

When the point of the entire environment is facing random challenges, having the first 1/3 not be random is weaksauce.

Its a loophole, and closing it is relatively trivial.

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Arrange things so each account holds in memory what tier one fractal you last generated by starting a run. When you finish a Tier 1 fractal you launched it becomes blank/null, ready to receive a randomly generated new scenario the next time you start a run. But, as long as there is an old scenario waiting there, that is the only Fractal you will ever see when you are the person who opens the initial gate from Mistlock Observatory. New/first-time characters are assigned a random scenario from a list of tier one fractals that does not include the Swamp as a possible result (other troublesomely fast tier 1 scenarios introduced later can also be excluded). This prevents recruiting newbies solely for the purpose of trying to game their initial roll.

Done. Re-rolling is dead. Long live facing the challenges presented.

I don’t understand what is so wrong with rolling. It doesn’t hurt the game in any way. The only thing that hurts it is the fact that we cannot get any other “tier 1” fractal later on. Because of tiers, we’re now missing out on many levels we used to enjoy.
I say let’s bring the old RNG based levels back, scrap the tier idea completely. This was the chances of getting Dredge is lower than 25%, but more around 10% chance because it would be more randomized like back in the day.

If Anet makes it so you can’t reroll they need to make sure that there is a way to have the appropriate AR while underwater. Currently you lose the head slot’s AR and very few people waste time making ascended/legendary underwater weapons (10 more AR).

This could be solved, as several people have proposed, through account AR.

Also, not that I want to change topics, but can we talk for a moment about probabilities and “tough runs?” I do not roll Swamp. I just don’t do it. But I’m a little worried that makes my Fractal runs harder overall (not just on the first.) Here’s why:

There are 5 possible Fractals in Tier 2. Assuming equal probability of each, I should have a 20% chance to get the hardest, Cliffside. If I Roll For Swamp, that’s true.

But let’s say I don’t and I take Uncategorized or Urban Battlegrounds… that means that there are only 4 possible Fractals in Tier 2, so I now have a 25% chance to get Cliffside. After doing one of the longer/harder Tier 1 options.

So having a harder T1 Fractal increases my chances of having a harder T2 Fractals.

Same thing happens with T2-T3. If I get Cliffside as my second Fractal, my chances of getting Dredge third go from 20% to 25%.

Anyway, that means that rolling Swamp (or Underwater) reduces the likelihood of you getting Dredge. (I did some back of the envelope math and found it reduces it from 21.25% to 21% but I’m not entirely sure that’s correct. And it’s a very small effect, if I did that math correctly. Still a little troubled by that system.)

To me, this means that Tiers are okay, but maybe Fractals should only exist in a single tier.

Nike.2631:

Aye.8392:

Is doing away with the re-roll something that is really wanted or needed? If so, why? It seems like a forced control step where none is really needed. Most of my teams don’t reroll, but some few do; in thinking about it it’s mostly high-level groups that choose to re-roll, low levels just play what is presented. Is it truly an issue?

When the point of the entire environment is facing random challenges, having the first 1/3 not be random is weaksauce.

Its a loophole, and closing it is relatively trivial.

I seriously think that rolling should not even be an issue at this point. We have much more important things to discuss than people wanting “a real experience”. If you don’t want the “weaksauce”, then don’t roll. But don’t take that option from everyone just because you think it’s an issue. You have an ability to overpass it completely by never rolling. It’s not like it’s not an option for you. So rather than forcing that on everyone, let’s focus on more important things. Like balancing levels, making them more enjoyable and more profitable, rather than forcing more rules upon a section of the game that is loosing more and more people with each day.

Romo.3709:

I don’t understand what is so wrong with rolling. It doesn’t hurt the game in any way.

I think “manipulating the system to reduce the amount of time to reach rewards” is just about the fundamental definition of exploit. No exploit ‘hurts the game’ if you’re willing to ignore that . It’s not a desirable to permit it anywhere else in the game. Its not desirable that it be left in place here.

Just because “you don’t have to use the exploit…” doesn’t mean a designer shouldn’t ruthlessly hunt them down and exterminate them .

Nike.2631:

Romo.3709:

I don’t understand what is so wrong with rolling. It doesn’t hurt the game in any way.

I think “manipulating the system to reduce the amount of time to reach rewards” is just about the fundamental definition of exploit. No exploit ‘hurts the game’ if you’re willing to ignore that . It’s not a desirable to permit it anywhere else in the game. Its not desirable that it be left in place here.

This is not an exploit in any way. Rolling swamps does not guarantee an easy and fast run. It doesn’t guarantee you’re not gonna get Dredge or Fire Shaman. And what rewards are we even talking about at this point? 1.x Gold? Fractals take time to complete. A lot more time than most dungeons with much better rewards. The longer they take, the less people are interested in it.

GoldenTruth.2853:

If Anet makes it so you can’t reroll they need to make sure that there is a way to have the appropriate AR while underwater. Currently you lose the head slot’s AR and very few people waste time making ascended/legendary underwater weapons (10 more AR).

This could be solved, as several people have proposed, through account AR.

This sounds like a problem that needs to be addressed on it’s own merits, regardless of if anything is done about re-rolling the first scenario.

Its not a big enough issue to be worth discussing. As romo said we should focus on more important things such as shard balance, rewards and bugs.

I would however like underwater to appear in tier 2 though. Before this happens they need to add craftable ascended water breathers though. Or make head pieces carry over AR to underwater.

Romo.3709:

This is not an exploit in any way.

Bullcrap. People aren’t re-rolling because they like the scenery in the swamp. They aren’t there to drop off the Mossman’s mail. Its done because the time spent re-rolling is considered less than the time/difficulty it saves by doing it.

What I’m trying to say is lets not make fractals less forgiving, but more fun to try to bring people back to it. At this point it’s very unforgiving and having Dredge in the mix makes it very unfun for any returning or new player trying out fractals.
Rolling was never an issue, why do we make it an issue all the sudden when there is still so many things wrong with fractals, starting with rewards and ending on balancing and bugs.

Nike.2631:

Romo.3709:

This is not an exploit in any way.

Bullcrap. People aren’t re-rolling because they like the scenery in the swamp. They aren’t there to drop off the Mossman’s mail. Its done because the time spent re-rolling is considered less than the time/difficulty it saves by doing it.

Yes, we roll because this one level is shorter than others. That was always the reason. That also never guarantees the length of the run. It never did. So what if I want to make the first tier shorter?
I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re making it to be such a big issue. If you don’t like rolling, then don’t roll. There. Issue fixed. Don’t try to force it on everyone.

Nike.2631:

Romo.3709:

This is not an exploit in any way.

Bullcrap. People aren’t re-rolling because they like the scenery in the swamp. They aren’t there to drop off the Mossman’s mail. Its done because the time spent re-rolling is considered less than the time/difficulty it saves by doing it.

If I have a chance of doing cliffside and dredge in one run, I am going to want to minimize the amount of time spent on the first fractal, because I sure as hell ain’t minimizing the time on the next two.

Fix the major problems with fractals (rewards and DREDGE) and you will see less rolling. Before fractured, my fractal group barely even rolled. We were okay with anything as long as it wasn’t cliff/dredge.

Instead of trying to prevent rolling, they could always just make Swamp more difficult to bring it in line with the other Tier 1 Fractals. That falls under the realm of Balancing, a topic the moderator Romo approves for discussion here.

I would very much like to see a score ranking for fractal after completion, sorta like in Devil May Cry after missions.

I also believe later fractals should be made harder but not longer. The skilled should not be punished with fractal lasting 2-3x the time of low level one cause it’s “hard”. People got lives you know. Well some of them….sometimes…..somewhere.;)

So i propose fractal boss super damage mechanic. Put simply – remember dumping lava buckets at dredge fractal end boss for huge damage boost?
Kinda like that, but for all bosses and it would be granted or not based on team’s play.
If team is on top of it’s game defense wise, taking little hits, and not getting downed boss would start panicking unlocking the damage debuff on itself. If team is faring poorly – their problem.

Of course that requires some serious thought on what classifies as successful defensive game and what does not (for example necro and guardian may want to get hotfoot on grawl boss due to their skills/traits), but it would be epic to have fast high tier fractal runs, given you’re skilled and on top of your game.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Moon.7310:

Using fractals to tell story:

Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.

Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.

So an interesting challenge we always face when trying to make any type of dungeon content more lore heavy, is they are by their very nature highly repeatable content. Historically our design philosophy around group content that falls into that category is to try and provide enough context for the experience to make sense, but not heavily attempt to tell deep story in these instances.

While the core concept of using fractals to continue to show great moments in the history of Tyria is indeed totally in line with our own thinking as well, the struggle we always face is how much of that story we can really put there. Once you play it once or twice, you really just want to actually play the content and not wait around for all the story moments, scenes, cinematics, etc. This can lead to a problem we used to run into in Gw1 where some people in the party really wanted to see the story, and others had played it before and wanted them to hurry the heck up.

Our work around for this for Thaumanova for example was to provide a story version of it that was around during the living world release with far deeper exposition, and the current fractal version today that tries to focus on the game play. Similarly, story dungeons are really intended to be played a handful of times to get the story, and explorable mode dungeons are very story light since they are intended to be re-playable based on the core content.

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

Thaumanova was well done in this regard. Its an enjoyable fractal for replayability and even so you still experience some of the lore without interrupting the content.

But on to the point of explorable modes not being heavily story driven. Why does the new aetherpath in Twilight Arbor still have unskippable cutscenes and needlessly long dialogues? This is a major reason a lot of players avoid the path. Not to mention the previous path that you replaced it with was far better designed and much more fun. I like that fractals dont interrupt content with cutscenes and dialogue (The npc dependency is an issue in the molten fractal though, this is also a major issue in many regular dungeons which results in bugs and frustration).

The Lost Witch.7601:

The floppy

Players can get an item that saves their fractal progress. We’ll call it a floppy for now.

I’m still digesting this, but I have to say right up front the name is so incredibly hilarious that I almost don’t care what it does, it needs to be in the game!

More serious consideration to follow.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Moon.7310:

Using fractals to tell story:

Proposal Overview
Fractals should be used to tell as more about the lore/history of Tyria.

Goal of Proposal
Increase the amount of lore used for the fractals and creating new fractals which story and background informations. This is such a good oppertunity to tell us about things that happende before GW2, things that could happen in the future, things of an alternate version of Tyria.

So an interesting challenge we always face when trying to make any type of dungeon content more lore heavy, is they are by their very nature highly repeatable content. Historically our design philosophy around group content that falls into that category is to try and provide enough context for the experience to make sense, but not heavily attempt to tell deep story in these instances.

While the core concept of using fractals to continue to show great moments in the history of Tyria is indeed totally in line with our own thinking as well, the struggle we always face is how much of that story we can really put there. Once you play it once or twice, you really just want to actually play the content and not wait around for all the story moments, scenes, cinematics, etc. This can lead to a problem we used to run into in Gw1 where some people in the party really wanted to see the story, and others had played it before and wanted them to hurry the heck up.

Our work around for this for Thaumanova for example was to provide a story version of it that was around during the living world release with far deeper exposition, and the current fractal version today that tries to focus on the game play. Similarly, story dungeons are really intended to be played a handful of times to get the story, and explorable mode dungeons are very story light since they are intended to be re-playable based on the core content.

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

This is similar to the practice mode discussed earlier, though it adds some nice lore/flavor to the concept.

I like it, as long as the rewards don’t turn it into a farm (with your proposed numbers looking fairly safe).