Guild Wars 2

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Proposal Overview
Tiered fractal specific rewards

I think the reward proposal is cool but I don’t like the RNG in it if you want a spezific one you might just Need to farm over and over again Level 20 for example that is boring and doesn’t increase your Level. Just to get that Tonic… I think there should be more fix rewards when one hits really high Levels like 123 or so he might have been unlucky and have no Special reward.. so rewards should be fix

I agree that it would be bad if the only rewards were RNG, My proposals cover three types of reward, the guaranteed (The multi-stage fractal armor), the super grind (The fractal legendary) and RNG (the tier item proposal)
I believe that a person should always be rewarded for getting to elite content levels (i.e high level fractals) but I also think the game would be very boring if everyone could get the same items so I also suggest some RNG items.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Proposal Overview
Tiered fractal specific rewards

I think the reward proposal is cool but I don’t like the RNG in it if you want a spezific one you might just Need to farm over and over again Level 20 for example that is boring and doesn’t increase your Level. Just to get that Tonic… I think there should be more fix rewards when one hits really high Levels like 123 or so he might have been unlucky and have no Special reward.. so rewards should be fix

I agree that it would be bad if the only rewards were RNG, My proposals cover three types of reward, the guaranteed (The multi-stage fractal armor), the super grind (The fractal legendary) and RNG (the tier item proposal)
I believe that a person should always be rewarded for getting to elite content levels (i.e high level fractals) but I also think the game would be very boring if everyone could get the same items so I also suggest some RNG items.

agreed that is what my proposel is as well around:) RNG is fine as Long as it is not only RNG:)

To go back to the original request, my three biggest concerns:

1) re-balancing certain fractal instances to be in line (time- and difficulty-wise) with the others. This is already beaten over a ton here, I agree with most of it.

2) Rewards need to be re-evaluated, and tied to difficulty level. As mentioned already I get far more gold running Arah (to the point that I’m finally getting good at Lupi melee fights), or P1-3 of other dungeons. All happily in Exotics (mostly).

On the other hand, we should also consider slightly better rewards for running levels below our normal one – this is to encourage bringing newcomers to Fractals. Not asking for a lot here, perhaps another 10% Karma or a couple extra ‘normal’ relics per fractal. Also more options on what to do with rings/relics at higher participation levels (already discussed extensively).

3) Lore and Story. I like some of the ideas here (in particular the Practice Mode), as they can serve a dual purpose of both introducing the maps and the story behind it. videoboy’s idea above is also good. As well as incorporating its presentation through Dessa’s background monologue, and chat bubbles during the run (less intrusive yet still useful if you’re interested in it).

timmyf.1490:

Hi manddras, thanks for the idea! I’d like to make two points:

1) Early in this thread, I proposed a Practice Mode for Fractals where you could choose a single Fractal and do it with a group. Do you think this would help solve some of your problems?

2) The problem with a “solo mode” is that many of the encounters require group coordination, so it wouldn’t work. Think about Swamp, one you seem to know. You need at least 3 players to grab the wisps. Well, maybe solo mode has just one wisp, so that’s solvable. The Dredge Fractal, however, has puzzles which cannot be easily changed to solo versions.

I think we should separate “I want a solo mode” from “Fractals are too difficult to get into” because they are (to me) different problems with different solutions.

1) Yes, sort of, but where will you find 4 others players to practice these fractals after..? why not being solo while you are in a team with 4 powerful Npc doing and explaining stuff to you ?

2) That’s why i suggested that some fractal could be in an alternative or parrallel story of one fractal. I see something for this puzzle in Dredge fractal solo-version (my nightmare) : time gated switches (like in this asura jumping puzzle, i don’t remember the name) in a puzzle-jump that open a door… While being chased by dredge (like SE p1).

Maybe casual player want to get ascended gears with fractal but they lack time. I think the solo-mode IS a solution for “Fractals are too difficult to get into” (along with the “practice mode”)…

manddras, that’s good feedback. I think the game’s answer is to find a guild. I run training dungeons and Fractals with my guild all the time, and there’s even one that’s sprung up on the forums here. Still, you make good points. The game does not always make it easy to learn mechanics and often leaves it to players to find a way themselves.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

This is a really good point:

I personally think a well made fractal either tells its own story in the case of the Ascalonian city fractal, or allows you to conjure up a story in your head for it. The cliffside fractal does this to perfection for example.

And one we should always aspire to regardless of additional exposition of law.

Chris

I do believe that more things can be added to help us conjure up a story though. Perhaps some more elaborate cave drawings or tapestries that tell a story without words. (Which leaves it up to us to interpret them)

I’ve been transformed into a dolphin quite a few times… but it doesn’t make me wonder why. (Up until now) But if there was a shiny glowing largos that showed up as we arrive that starts singing and turns us into dolphins … that would make me wonder. Or if we were to swim through an enormous trumpet that turns us into dolphins… that would also make my mind wander.

Things in fractals can be crazy and random, but I prefer the things that make me wonder. Like that colossus in cliffside, which is one of the most impressive and epic unexplained stories I’ve ever seen. This is not just a giant, the giant is a prisoner, and guarded by priests. These 3 ingredients are enough to make my brain start spinning stories. While the purposeless krait, giant jellyfish and dolphins don’t connect into story-spinning at all.

Top 3
1) Relic Merchant
2) Ring Rewards (I have a full bank slot of useless freakin rings)
3) Mob issues (Harpies and Dredge most notably)

Topic: Rewards —> Relics Merchant

Discussion: I have to agree with many, the usefulness of Fractal Relics by the time you hit fractal 30 is pretty much done. Considering the variety of content in Fractals already, there should be expanded merchant options. Especially with the recent potion fix (10% damage and mitigation), please add a merchant tab to buy relevant potions. It would also be great to have access to jewelry for pristine fractal relics similar to laurel vendors. And honestly I think the the RNG for the weapon skins is silly. Every dungeon has exotic weapons for sale using dungeon tokens which can be earned in 2 or 3 days. Pristine relics should be able to buy weapon skins as well. Dungeon tokens vs. Fractal Relics… they are both currency.

Associated Risks: Too many care packages sent to Arena Net main office (do not make me post the the address…) This really should have been addressed during the revamp.

Topic: Ring Rewards

Discussion: Ring rewards in general are great since you need AR. After you reach that 150 fractals achievement the ring rewards are useless, just clutter.

Please add a merchant to exchange rings or at the very least let them be salvaged. Ectos, raw materials, possibly AR essence?

Topic: Mob issues

Some mobs do not reset properly, most notably Harpies and Dredge. Harpies continuously fire even when they are LoS, their range is like 2000. Dredge spawn continuously, ignore solid objects and spawn from the ground which can apparently trap them since stand right next to them can only be hit by AoE/Cleave attacks. Also the amount of enemies in higher fractals is pretty insane considering their boosted stats.

Please work on some of the terrain and mob reset mechanics.
Also decide to boost stats or number of mobs since doing both really lowers the fun and makes it seem more like a chore then game.

Associated Risk: Improved quality of game play… IDK attracting more players?

Proposal Overview
Have 3 different levels of agony.

Goal of Proposal
Agony needs to provide a real challenge when you do higher levels without enough AR, but the way it just gets forced on you right now isn’t the right way.

Proposal Functionality
The current agony condition would be divided into 3 different agonies:

-Strong Agony: This is the one we have right now and it would stay pretty much the same. A high damage condition applied from telegraphed strong boss attacks.

-Medium Agony: Same functionality strong agony, but it wouldn’t apply the 50% healing reduction and would need 10 less agony resistance to negate than the strong agony. This would be applied by normal boss attacks and even by some stronger attacks from the trash and minibosses.

-Weak Agony: Would need 20 less AR than the Strong agony and no healing reduction. All the attacks not already aplying the other 2 agonies would do this. If you lack the agony resistance to even block this, you need to be a real wizard to win fights.

So in reality, if you were doing fractal 49 with 45 agony resistance you would still take some agony damage from boss attacks and need to pay attention to them, but otherwise you wouldn’t be bothered by agony.
If you did the same level with 35 AR however, the boss attacks would already be hitting you really hard with agony, and you’d need to be able to dodge even the smaller and harder to dodge attacks. Not impossible but definitely hard.
Trying to do 49 with 25 AR the boss attacks would already be fatal, the medium agony hits would take most of your health and even normal trash hits would be hitting real hard because of the agony. Still not impossible to beat in theory, but even most of the pro players would crumble at this. Would get even crazier when the small agony is enough to 1hit you

Associated Risks
It’d propably get pretty annoying to see the small agony and medium agony spammed on you even with enough AR to negate those. Would need to have the game not apply agony on you if you have enough AR.

Also Toughness and Vitality would become useless at higher levels when most of the damage you take is from agony, which ignores both. Maybe agony would need to start doing a set amount of damage and getting reduced by armor.

1) Proposal overview

Extended achievement & associated titles system for fractals.

2) Goal of the proposal

The goal is to make fractals, through a seemingly easy implementation of hard achievements & associated titles, into more of an end-game experience. You give people an additional goal to strive for. Instead of striving for gear (which is nothing more than status/vanity) you strive for titles (which are nothing more than status/vanity). Both things do not have to exclude one another of course. The value of these titles will rather simply be decided by the difficulty of ataining them (if the difficulty resides in maximizing gameplay); so the goal gets more valuable as the goal gets harder to achieve/will take you longer to learn (replayability!).

3) Proposal functionality

Not sure what to put here but let me use it for the following. Since the goal for most players in fractals now is gear, and since the best way to get gear is to do fractals fast, the best choice for those players is to go max dps. But if your goal is some achievement which requries you for instance to stay above 50% health, or to let a lot of mobs live during some fight (etc, etc) dps no longer becomes the best choice. I mean to say: you can design achievements in such a way that going dps is not the maximizing strategy for ataining them. Moreover, if the achievements are varied enough, multiple sets of gear will be the best choice for the job at hand. This proposal therefore also helps to alleviate an often heard complaint: that dps is really the only way to go.

4) Associated risks.

Not sure. But with respect to asking for assistence from other members of the CDI: what hard achievements can you come up with?
“Do not let a single party member get downed during a complete run of fractals level 50” Title: Immortal, Among Others. (i’ve not done lvl 50 yet, if its to easy, find yourself something harder)

What i find the best about my proposal might be due to a lack of game development knowledge. It seems to me that achievements are really easy to implement and don’t take a lot of development time.

I just finished the dredge fractal, so this is going to sound angry. And that is the point, part of your content can and often does drive people into full on raaaaaage. This is not good by any conceivable standards, and for the life of me I cannot understand why you guys at ANet insist on keeping it around in its current form.

The dredge fractal is not hard. It is not challenging. It is long. It is tedious. It does punish pugs/new players. The random nature of the fractals system also makes it bloody aggravating that its always looming over the horizon.

I like fractals. They’re some most interesting situations in the game. But the dredge fractal keeps people away. It is reason I have to pug it up if i want to do anything beyond 11-19. Every so often, I can talk my friends into doing a ‘quick’ baby fractals run but we always end up rolling dredge—-which not only doubles the length of the run—but also sours everyone on Fractals.

I want to see the dredge fractal removed entirely. Again, I’m still in post-dredge-rage. But I don’t see any merit or unique ideas it brings to the table. If you really want to keep the final boss somewhere and tack it on else where. Just do something

The RNG of the rewards also really sting. I’ve done 200+ fractals. I have so many rings that I cannot do anything with. Relics are also a dead end after you snag your backpieces. Would it really be so bad if we could trade in relics/rings towards weapons skins?

I can tell you it really blows when RNG gives a skin to the guy doing his first 11+ run or the guy who spent the entire boss fight dead cause his AR was low. Not because another player got one, no because I’m left no closer to obtaining one and my only choice is to try again.

It just really isn’t worth the bother. Any ‘progression’ comes down to RNG luck, and the threat of rolling dredge overshadows the potential fun.

I’d like to share some ideas myself and a group of fractal addicted friends brainstormed. We went over the most common things everyone has already mentioned (rewards, dredge) etc, and we fully agree that these should be top priority. We think the instability mechanic has a lot of potential to really make groups think about their team composition and shake up strategy in fractal runs. Based on this concept, we realised that we don’t necessarily want new fractals (although we certainly wouldn’t say no!), we’d really like new ways of completing fractals. There are 2 suggestions rolled into one here (so apologies for the long proposed functionality section) which both centre around the addition of a new fractal mode entirely.

Proposal Overview
New ways of completing fractals: 1) Marathon Mode 2) Time Trial Mode

Goal of Proposal
Increase re-playability of fractals by introducing new ways to beat them. Additionally, these modes could made leaderboards actually relevant and introduce competition to fractals.

Proposal Functionality
1) Marathon Mode. As the name suggests, Marathon Mode (MM) is a test of stamina. In MM, your team starts at fractal level 30 and each time you complete a fractal you move up one level. The goal is simply to see how far you can get before a party wipe or you decide to call it quits. Your reward scales according to how far you got. Sounds easy, right? Well, the catch is tPvP rules apply here. That means no character swapping, no gear switching, no trait / skill swapping and no consumables. Everything is locked in place from the moment you leave the observatory – and you’re stuck with it till the end of the run, so you better have prepared for all the instabilities and all of the fractals!

We think MM’s potential is fully unleashed when interesting instabilities are brought into play, forcing players to carefully analyse their team composition before they begin and ensure they are fully equipped to deal with every situation, which is something GW2 currently doesn’t do anywhere else in PvE as we’re freely allowed to swap out our skills, traits and weapons to perfectly counter every single fight before we engage. If you remove this and add interesting instabilities, you’re left with some very challenging content that really will test teamwork.

2) Time Trial Mode, or Mistlock Collapse Mode (MC). The concept here involves the fractals collapsing in on each other and becoming mashed up into one long pre-determined chain. You have 60 minutes to try and stabalise as much as you can before Dessa is forced to initiate evacuation protocol and get you out. Imagine if you had to fight the Anomaly, then a bridge spawned which took you over to the arm seals of Cliffside. When you’re done, instead of finding a walkway up to the top, you’re greeted with Uncategorised’s harpy climb to Old Tom. After he’s dispatched, you take a dive off the edge into the light-swim of Aquatic Ruins, which leads you to the Mossman’s house. Upon his demise, a path opens into the forest which takes you through Snowblind’s forest section connecting through to Urban Battleground’s Dulfy who is protecting the door to Mai Trin. Reaching the end of these courses in the time limit would be very difficult, and give fractal addicts some new content to theorise over and continuously improve at, being rewarded for their progress each time.

The idea was originally inspired by making fractal leaderboards actually mean something, and we feel reviving GW1-style challenge missions would be an excellent way to introduce competition to fractals. The Mistlock Observatory can have an interact-able console which displays the current MC leaderboard, ranking groups based on (if they completed it) how long it took or how far they got before they timed out. In the ideal world where developer resources are infinite, the MC chain would be changed every month, and the final leaderboard archived.

Associated Risks
Each mode carries its own key risk. MM causes a conflict with something I very vaguely remember Anet saying they didn’t want in GW2 many months before launch: content that requires you to play for several hours consecutively (someone should tell that to the dredge). Additionally, if the rewards for performing well are not substantially greater than the rewards for completing normal fractals, no one is ever going to do MM. On the flip side, if the reward is too good, there will be outcry that people are expected to grind fractal levels and agony resistance, then play for several hours consecutively to reap the game’s best rewards. Perhaps we’re biased in saying this, but we feel rewarding players who demonstrate they can do more than stack and press 2 is worth the rage from those who aren’t willing to put in the hard work to get there.

MC, on the other hand, reinforces the DPS zerker meta. After all, the whole mode is based around testing how quickly you can beat the content presented.

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?

And thus we have another reason in addition to those I already mentioned why Fractals don’t really work as lore/story delivery vehicles. The Fractal system itself is at odds with allowing for a player (particularly if that player is one who is not interested in challenge based group content) to really dig in and explore the content. If you’re a focused Fractal player then the last thing you want is an extra long story heavy Fractal that encourages lollygagging and sight seeing.

Even in the give case of the Thaumanova Reactor Fractal above, that wrapping still falls apart when viewed in a larger context. Sure it worked fine while the Reactor Fractal was new, but now that the enveloping update is long gone due to the Living Story system (and will be even more long gone as we continue to advance in the story) it will only become more of a disconnected fragment.

Malchior.5042:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

runeblade.7514:

Proposal Overview
Remove stacking

Goal of Proposal
With stacking gone, developers can actually continue to give fractal/dungeons depth. Nothing is trivalized anymore because of an easy tactic.

Proposal Functionality
First, make stacking in the long term a unviable tactic. Let players stack once in a while for boons, res or whatever, but after that if players continue to stack, they will wipe hard.

Associated Risks
None.

And here’s where the conversation becomes ruined and people’s biases start causing arguments. I’m not going to bother arguing but I really think you should think a little harder about “risks” before saying that there are none.

IMO, people like runeblade have a right to express their opinion, but it’s lack of experience with software design/development that lead to unrelated proposals or the inability to analyze risk.

Okay, Risk: Dungeon isn’t easy mode anymore.

Tree.3916:

cranked.3812:

CoffeeMug.9540:

Chris, I was wondering if you would comment on my suggestion for using Twilight Arbor Forward Up as a Fractal Shard earlier in the CDI discussion.

The dredge fractal is already a problem for most PUG groups. Is it really a good idea to add a fractal that would be even worse for them?

If you read the proposal it advised fixing the spider despawn. If you fix that, the path is perfectly fine and infinitely more fun and interesting than any of the other 3rd tier fractals and would make a great addition.

Vivenna is a challenging boss fight, but having a few skill intensive boss fights in the game wouldn’t be terrible.

I feel like people remember this path with rose colored glasses.

This path was very boring. The only decent part in my opinion was where you stealth past the bees. Vivena creates a condition AoE and goes invisible, bring condition removal or just don’t attack when you have confusion, that’s about it. Nightmare tree was even worse, just dodge when he does his shake attack and long wind up AoE attack…that’s about it. He is essentially a watered down Bloomhunger with broken spider spawns.

Most boss mechanics, particularly all those at the end tier of 3 fractals are leagues ahead of the TA bosses in terms of design, (which is understandable since they started using a different boss design tool after release).

In my opinion they should just slowly change almost all release dungeon bosses ala AC (which has decent bosses, not great, but a step above what they were). Or just nuke them and replace them with something well designed (like TA Aether but speedrunable). I’m hoping TA F/U doesn’t return as a fractal. Besides, what’s the point in making it a fractal, might as well just bring it back as a dungeon path and revamp it if they want to return that content.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

I’d suggest rather a long time after a kick where you can’t invite anyone else. That way, people would think twice before kicking other players, and use it only when they’re forced to do so.

I like this idea :P

Or they could copy the PvP disshonor system and alter ait a bit .
Each day , i can start one vote kick for free .
The second time my <<Magic Find >> is reduced by 10% of its total score .
The debuff lasts for 14 days and its stack up to -100% total <<Magic Find>> .
Theres also a <<Report for Afk option>> where a person can be booted out of the istance , if he doesnt meet the requiments

Requiments , when the party is in combat :
An <<Adrelaline Bar>> shows in the sides (0-100 value) , where :
a) spamming the button 1 , will jump the Bar up to 15
b) when it will reach up to 15 and you keep spamming 1 the Adrelaline Bar will decay
c) pressing the 2 or 3/4/5 bottun will give an small boost to the Bar (+3) and spamming the 1 again , will offer more Adrelanine for 3 sec (you can even pass the softcap of 15 with those 2 combinations attacks)
d) if your bar reaches 0 , you are kicked from the istance :P

omg chris we need a new rule in the CDIs. posts like this:

rpfohr.7048:

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

There are thousands of better options than these. Yet we keep buffing these because they don’t have synergy with ranger weapons?

That is bad. I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst. Read my 2nd proposal on page 20

(bold) are seriously kittening me off. ive seen several throughout these 4 CDIs. i dont read every single proposal. in fact, i skip proposals to spend time reading actual discussion instead of joe schmoes ridiculous copypasta and terribad balance comprehension (not that theyre all bad, just that i dont want to waste dayz). if theres a discussion post referencing anything, please kittenING INFRACT THEM if they dont have their reference linked!!!!1

seriously.
its like… sugar in the gas tank. /dance on a fallen enemy. “gg noob” after winning a game.

dont tolerate this badness.

you dont have to delete their posts. just slap their wrists so they stop the bm. PLEASE! there are NO downsides!

[/formal proposal formatting]

ColinJohanson.2394:

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?

Ok, first off, i want to say that even though you may only experience something once, it can be a driving force for a lot of other play. It can make it feel more signifigant. Keep in mind movies are multi million dollar ventures, and they are usually only expereinced a few times, but i digress.

As some have said, i think the key to telling a story in a game is NOT to interupt the action. Incorporate the story into the action, or have it go on while we are still moving/fighting. fractals are unique in that the player is an outside observer no matter what, so it can be something the player can observe while doing other things.

As per my suggestion,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3688910

you can also build dynamic event like events that trigger randomly, but dont interupt the flow, and give some reward on completion, or perhaps take you through the area in a different way.

Point is you can combine lore/story with gameplay if you do it right, just try to avoid direct cutscenes, and static dialogs, or waiting for npcs to slowly walk places. This is the mists, so you can have ghosts, ethereal figures, disembodied voices, or people out of time who just appear for moments and fade away. (even while you are fighting enemies! or traversing the area) Also make sure to reward the players for doing these side events, dont be stingy either. (note that one of the keys to this is making fractal relics more rewarding)
my reward for relics suggestion:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3688787

for cutscene or heavy dialog type exposition, make them into collectable lore entries or stories you unlock and can view/listen/read later.

Its definately within the scope of what you guys have created to deliver these type of interesting stories, without having to interupt the feeling of action. By making these pieces of the story happen randomly, you also make fractals itself more interesting.

for example,
take Ascalon fractal, a side story might be an event that shows that one of our legendary old npcs was trying to do to stop the charr. Sometimes when you do the ascalon fractal, his event spawns, and instead of fighting the your way through the alleys, you follow his disembodied voice, and after images across the rooftops,(mini jump puzzle) his voice exposes some story or plan he has to stop the charr. you then catch him in the alleyway right before the plan is set in motion, and fight to disable it. you beat him/the event which gives you some fractal relics, karma, and lead you to the regular boss room from a different path.
Overall the fractal was the same length, more interesting, you get extra karma/relics and you got to the end boss in roughly the same time. At the same time you heard the story of This ascolonian, and how his plan may have saved ascalon if it wasnt thwarted at the last second. you never stopped, never saw a cutscene, and yet you got a story, and action, at the same time. You even skipped mobs (which people love to do! even if it takes similar time). Its random so its not boring, and you got a bonus rewards.

Seems like win to me all around.

Fractals should be different the other dunguons

INTRO
In my Opinion Fractals are a anomaly in time and space. Almost like a dimenion Traveler or a dream. Fractals are not bound on reality or even your Char. In Fractals you can be the good Guy or the Bad Guy. You can be you or someone else.

LORE IN FRAC
How about replay history events. for those let the player transform into a certain figure and give everyone unique new skills for that frac.

Transform the Player into 1 Big Dragon where everybody control one aspect of the dragons power. and we are fighting against Destinis Edge to replay Snaffs death.

Give fracs the feeling of weird dreams.

FUN MODES
For play fun i also would like more jumping puzzles in fractals.
Maybe make us feel god like for a brief of time.

Example all 5 players transform into the Guardians of Light, We even get the ability to fly and one hit huge amount of mobs. Thats of course still provide a challange at some point.

*time limits to finish it for example

a Other idea is…

Fractal could be the place for play the game different. I even would like small mini games like cooking in Hells kitchen which could be a mix of jp and fast reflexes where u need feed a giant demon when he is full and not hungry anymore u are done.

Not every frac need be hard or long since there are 4 fracs anyway.

Higher rewards are not a way to evolve a game. U could do the most stupid game design when the reward is high ppl will do it, BUT that should be not the way how u messure ur success…

Proposal Overview
Require players to complete content before progressing

Goal of Proposal
Many players currently skip the majority of the Mistlock Instabilities by constantly rerunning a high “Preferred” level. This allows them to bypass difficult content whilst still acquiring the better rewards.

Proposal Functionality
When Fractal levels increase above 50, require players to have completed all previous Mistlock Instability levels. (Eg: Completed 31 -> 49 – And not just 49 20 times)

Associated Risks
This will create a segregation between those above Fractal 50 and below which will limit the ability for players to play together.

Proposal Overview
Increase the overlap of shorter fractal scenarios appearing in the later stages.

Goal of Proposal
The goal of the proposal is to increase the chances of seeing some of the short fractals that are almost never seen as well as reducing the chances of getting the undesired “Longest path”. (Swamp->Cliffside->Dredge) Currently, seeing Cliffside in the second scenario actually increases the chances of seeing Dredge as the 3rd scenario. Adding more candidates to the 3rd slot will reduce the chances of this happening.

Proposal Functionality
Have Swamp, Underwater, Uncategorized(Harpy), and Urban Battleground all have the chance to appear as either the first or second Fractal. Additionally, have Molten Furnace, and Snowblind have a chance to appear as either the second or third Fractal. Finally, change Cliffside to only have the chance to appear as the third Fractal.

Associated Risks
The shortest runs may become Swamp->Underwater->Snowblind or Molten Facility.

Proposal Overview
Arena fractal, taking place in Lions Arch (past).

Goal of Proposal
A new tier 1 or boss fractal around the gladiatorial fights of Edge of Steel (Rytlock, Logan and Caithe) and Dragonspawn’s Destiny (Eir, Garm, Snaff and Zojja).

Proposal Functionality
The fractal takes place within the Lions Arch arena, there could be several opening rounds of combat as your party must fight their way up to the final, the end boss of the fractal would be either Edge of Steel (Rytlock, Logan and Caithe) or Dragonspawn’s Destiny (Eir, Garm, Snaff and Zojja). This could be chance based like the swamp/dredge fractals end bosses are.

A fun fractal that gives insight into the past of the A team characters. Also allows for a more mechanical based fight (i.e avoiding Caithe’s damage while trying to keep her out of Logans Guardian shields, with Rytlock delivering some AOE attacks.)

Associated Risks
-New groups will wipe until they learn the mechanics, which judging from Queens gauntlet won’t take very long.

1. Rewards rework.
-Fractals are a long dungeon, especially at higher levels. It needs to be rewording at the end one way or another. Right now its just a RNGfest. Gold need to raise i think its fine to start 1g, tier 10: 1.5g, tier 20: 2g, tier 30: 2.5g, tier 40: 3g, tier 50: 3.5g, etc.. Difficulty raises so rewords must raise too.

2. Remove dredge fractals (or rework).
-A small amount of ppl (those who do it with organised group) don’t have a problem (or do they?), but all those ppl at high tiers that pug fractals its a pain and a waste of 1hour and more for 1 fractal alone.
So how do it:
You may introduce a way to have the ability to reroll for a fractal. So if a pug groups ends in dredge fractal has the ability to reroll for another one (just one time). And this way you don’t have to rework it, and all the people that want to complete dredge can do it, am i right?)

3. I would love to see more stuff for fractal relics and pristine fractals, right now its only for the rings, maybe give us the ability to buy random Tier 6 materials for some price and other stuff for ascended crafting, etc.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading my thoughts.

Vissarion.6509:

2. Remove dredge fractals (or rework).
-A small amount of ppl (those who do it with organised group) don’t have a problem (or do they?), but all those ppl at high tiers that pug fractals its a pain and a waste of 1hour and more for 1 fractal alone.

I still disagree with the bold claim. I don’t pug every day, but when I do it’s a 49 or 50, and when we get dredge it usually goes fine. People are still learning how to do it without stealth, but it’s not too hard to talk a little and get everyone on the same page.

It’s too long, I agree with that. The clown car is stupid. But everything else is honestly okay imo. Aryilana made a nice comparison over here about the pressure plate room in particular: It’s like getting people to leave a cultist alive in cliffside for the arm seals.

(The next post in that thread also contains some reasonable suggestions for making dredge easier without nerfing it into oblivion. But the most important thing is for people to stop thinking that it’s impossible without stealth, because with that attitude, of course it seems like it should be removed.)

Proposal Overview
Revamp Fractal rewards to be in line with other part of the game.

Goal of Proposal
Encourage more people to run fractals and challenge themselves instead of grinding mobs in the open world. Additionally expanded rewards to show off fractal achievements.

Proposal Functionality
Currently the gold reward for high level fractals is a joke. I can earn 8-10g doing other activities with significantly less risk in the same time I can do a lvl 40 fractal. Additionally the rewards that do drop the most often (Rings) and completely worthless for the level. You can’t make it to those levels without already having the “rewards” that drop on those levels. Allowing rings to be salvage for emp frags/dragonite would be a step in the right direction, but additional rewards are needed. I suggest a full set of armor be introduced that has pieces tied into your fractal level. No one likes RNG so instead use relics and pristine relics that are already in place to have the armor purchasable. Additionally use tier vendors like in sPvP to only allow purchase of certain pieces once you reach the required level.

Associated Risks
Rewards need to be carefully balanced. If they are scaled incorrectly people will simply farm the lowest level fractal for the highest level reward. Risk can be mitigated if you have the available data on average time of completion for each fractal level.

Proposal Overview.
Acquiring Ascended Weapons and Armor.

Goal of Proposal
Other ways to get your gear and a use for Bloodstone Dust, Dragonite Ore and Empyrial Fragmants and fractal relics.

Proposal Functionality
This utilizes the Mystic Forge and crafting, First there is the Gift that you need to make, lets call it Gift of the Mists (account bound) (any crafting 400/500). Recipe can be bought for X Prestine Fractal relics and X amount of gold or a drop in fractals (insert level). To make it lets say you need X amounts of globs vials and shards and a gift of ascension. Now on to the Forge part, use a Exotic armor piece or Weapon (example rabid stats) 1 Gift of ascension a vision crystal and the new Gift of the Mists. and a ascended counterpart comes out.

Associated Risk
Ascended gear wil be more easier to get. But if you have 5 chars to be outfitted and or mutlible builds that you run on your chars you wil have something to work for.

Cheers

Proposal Overview:
Ideas on a reward system for User generated content (UGC) should this be considered viable

Goal of Proposal
Suggestion for how a fair reward system could be implemented for UGC

Proposal Functionality
My proposal has two components to it, one is the overall reward for finishing a User authored fractal and two rewards from drops.

Drops would be automated. My idea here is to lets say for example we have a baseline that the ideal fractal consists of for the sake of argument 10 veterans 10 elite and 3 champions and 1 legendary mob and each of this should drop something. Each class of enemy should get a score (inverse to their rank) and drops could be adjusted in relation to this score. So lets say common are worth 10, Veterans are worth 5, elites 3, champions 2 and legendary 1. Our baseline has a score value of 87. If someone tries to cheat an put a 100 common mobs for the loot, thats worth a 1000 points which is about 8 times bigger then a baseline so each mob gets 12% to drop something. This would only apply to downgrade reward for obvious reasons it cannot be used to upscale reward, 1 legendary mob would mean a score of 1 but if it drops 80 times more loot then the baseline obviously a lot of people will just try to abuse that way. An easy way out could be to simply have mobs drop nothing and simply give a reward at the end of the fractal.

As for the overall reward my idea here is if there is going to be UGC someone needs to review them for obvious reason, be it GMs or perhaps even a player group. After a play through meant to ensure content is appropriate they’ll be asked to rate the UGC fractal on a number of matrix, say length, difficulty, effort, abusive etc.. This score can then scale a reward appropriate to the overall score. If a fractal is deem to have abuse potential say its lengthy but way too easy, this could be marked and the fractal itself might then give a small end reward or no reward at all. I would not remove the fractal itself unless its inappropriate because people might have designed it for a roleplaying scenario or story heavy or something of the sort.

Associated Risks
UGC does open up abuse and my proposal does depend on the integrity of the reviewers. This can be further mitigated by allowing people to report abusive UGC fractals which would help unmask any abuse if any by the reviewers themselves.

Proposal Overview
Shattered Fractals
A series of smaller fractal rooms that get connected in a random order and filled with random enemies and provided with random events to complete.
Te more different small rooms are added, the more they can combine to form a different path.

Goal of Proposal
Adding the feel of randomly generated maps and challenges to Guild Wars.

Proposal Functionality

• The panel to enter the fractals would change to have two buttons: Enter Explorable Fractals and Enter Shattered Fractals.
• Once entered the Shattered version, and using the teleporter, players are sent to a first random room.
• Once in a room, it will have a different random event. It could be absolutely anything that can fit the average size space of most events. Examples?
  • Replaying any existing event from any map in the game.
  • Doing a small minigame of mimicking a mime’s emotes.
  • Defeating a champion.
  • Surviving a horde of enemies for a certain time.
  • Answering the riddles of an NPC.
  • A small jumping puzzle.
• If it’s possible to move these rooms like “boxes” on a map to form a random map, it would be done like that. If it’s not possible, rooms would be connected with portals instead.
• Access to the next room usually requires completing the previous one, but every 5 rooms the party earns a ‘reroll’ that lets them disable the events in the current room and forcefully opening the portal to another. This does not mean they have a ‘free room’. They will just ‘reroll’ another room, and they still need to make enough rooms to get to the boss.
• Each room also has unique mechanics. A nightmare-themed room may have spores making clouds of poison. A frost-themed one may cause random chilled.
• The enemies are also random, and not necessarily linked to the theme. A flame legion room may have svanir enemies.
• Shattered fractals start with 5 rooms, plus 1 additional room ever 5 levels.
• The last room is always a boss fight.
• Shattered fractals also have instabilities after level 30.

Associated Risks

• Competition with normal fractals. Rewards must be balanced to make sure neither gives more rewards per time spent. They should not share daily rewards, so there’s no need to choose between either and one can do level 10 in one and then in the other.

Proposal Overview

Add a fractal that takes us back to a defining moment in the Guild Wars

Goal of Proposal

A lot of discussion has been made about adding historical events to the fractal rotation, and adding an important part of a historical event so significant that the game’s name is borrowed from it would be a boon

Proposal Functionality

The fractal could take place in past Arah when it was a human city under siege. Kryta and Ascalon are fighting in the streets and the players could be soldiers of Orr defending the homeland.

This would allow players to take place in this moment of history and both get a glimpse of what Orr looked like before it was destroyed AND make players realize that an event called the Guild Wars actually took place, and that the game name is based on it and not Guild vs Guild combat.

Suggestions

-make it a T2/3 fractal so we have a bit more variety in that range.
-introduce important characters like King Adelbern and Vizier Khilbron when they were both alive.

Associated Risks

-Could be too similar to the Ascalon fractal’s mechanics if not careful
-Players stop asking for GvG unknowing that Guild Wars is a historical event (kidding)

Hello Chris,

Thank you for this CDI. I will be posting what I like to see changed and then take my leave again. Can’t be bothered with reading all those posts.

1. Rewards
I would like to see the rewards increased. I think it would be a fair to have the same gold reward that dungeons currently have and have that in fractals too. At the moment I’m better of farming easy dungeons than doing high level fractals, which shouldn’t be the case in my oppinion. A nice solution to this is to get a daily 1g for a level 1 fractal, 1.5g for level 2 and 2-3g for a level 3. And to keep everyone happy, let the level 50 fractal have a higher daily gold reward than a level 10 fractals. This because higher level fractals require more effort and time than lower level fractals.
Maybe increase the gold reward with 50 silver for every 10 fractal levels?

2. Rings
I’m really surprised that I’m able to get a non-infused ring at fractals level 49. I think that whenever you get a ring above level 30 it should be an infused ring. This because level 30 almost requires you to have infused rings to even participate because of the AR. Let us have more use of the rings, make them salvageable so that we might get ascneded materials and a small chance on 1,2,3,4,5 Agony orb that we use to create higher AR?

3. Dredge
I’m sure that many people already gave their oppinion on the dredge fractal. ArenaNet already fixed a few ‘exploits’ in the recent past because people were finding alternative ways to speed up the fractal. However I find it disturbing that ArenaNet treats the symptons and not the disease. It’s because of the broken/long fractal that people look for alternative ways. I think that the trash should be severally reduced on the bomb/wall part, that the clown car with the endless trash should be removed and make the champion, that spawns at the clown car, a legendary endboss of that fractal to reduce the length.

What of the legendary dredge suit boss? Make that a fractal of its own, just like the molten alliance bosses, maw and may trin. I think that this boss would be a nice addition to those bosses.

4. Pristine fractal relics
I’m having waaay to many of these currently and have no actuall reason to spend them either. I don’t play on alts so I don’t need them to create another backpiece or buy bags with them. I would like to see more rewards that require these relics to buy. What about the fractal capacitor in different colors or 10 AR infusions?

5. Fractal weapons
I don’t need the drop rate to be increased but I would like to see a small change. Like I said before, I only play Guild Wars 2 on my main character, which is my thief. The chance to get one weapon is already significant small, but to get an actual weapon that my thief uses is almost none. Therefor I suggest the fractal weapon box, just like we already have with Ascended weapons. Keep the current droprate but make it drop a chest so that we can choose which weapon we would like to get.

6. Make use of the mists
You might be wondering what I mean with this, but what I mean is that we play/experience these dungeons in the mists. Which means that almost everything is possible, so make use of that! Recreate old GW1 dungeons/missions (Abaddon fight, Shiro fight, Lich King etc maybe?) You already made a great example with the fall of Ascalon fractal. Guild War 2 is a sequal to it’s great predessor, make use of that, please!? There’s nothing wrong with letting people replay their favorite game with some new fancy graphics, brings back nostalgia and I love nostalgia!

That was about it, thanks again for this CDI Chris and I hope that we can build a better fractals of the mists together with the community!

1. improve difficulty for swamp portal, it’s too easy, at 20+ people always start from it. reduce difficulty for dredge fractal or remove/remake it, add some more waypoints.

2. add items to buy for fractal relics. make fractal skins obtainable throw fractal relics, not just random drop. make 2 version of this weapon skins. 1 version for self use – account bound, another one costs x2 relics and can be sold throw trade post. and price like 2000 for account and 4000 relics for auction. add new upgradable armor with unique skins. costs like 1gold + 250 relics for exotic one, ascended version – 500relics + essense/vials and some gold.

3. improve AI, better AI → less mobs. position/spells/dodge for mobs. for example 10 mobs in pack, let it be 3 mobs, but they will work like mini-bosses. same time to kill them, more challenge.

Suggestions:

Reworking Dredge Fractal:

This has been Stated many times already in this topic, the fractal is almost as long as a full dungeon and the unlimited spawn on the Dredge make the fractal unnecessarily difficult for team makeups without stealth.

Allow the Dredge to be defeated without respawn which allows players to safely work the control room, introduce a new champion to enable the access to the override and allow progress.

On the bomb run, allow for dredge to attempt defusals but promptly despawn after all the bombs have been defused or exploded.

Reduction on the numbers within the “Clown Car”.

Shortening the process overall is the general theme.

Increasing Fractal Rewards:

High level fractals are under rewarded compared to dungeons in the game in terms of effort to rewards, Fractal weapon and Ascended weapon & armour drops are very rarely seen.

An increase in gold rewards based on the range of fractal completed makes running fractals as rewarding as running CoF/AC explorable paths.

Removing Ring drops from fractals from 30 (non-infused) & 40 (Infused) should increase the rate of ascended and fractal weapons & armour.
In addition adding fractal skins to the vendor in exchange for Fractal relics & pristine fractal relics allows for those unlucky enough to recieve rewards from the daily chest have a way to purchase the skins but would also act as a gating system.

New Fractal Additions:

I’d like to see some new fractal scenarios, the current ones have been played for over 18 months (with the exception of the aether/molten additions). GW1 has a rich backstory to pull from which would allow new fractals to be created, the eye of the north expansion would allow for some intersection between the games in terms of lore.

Fractal Progress selection:

Currently we’re randomly placed into one of a limited number of next stage fractals, how about a vote of three options for the next fractal?

how it would work is:

Complete swamp vote is initiated for Ascalon, Cliffside or Random. Most votes wins & votes count towards your ready to progress onwards.

Risks

The only risk associated with changing the dredge fractal would be more people having fun and not cringing when they are randomly put into it.

Increased rewards from fractals means more fractal weapons which means less uniqueness and more gold in the pockets of those who run several tiers of fractal per day.

New fractals means more work for your designers. (sorry guys, but you can do some great things with what you have at your disposal).

And fractal selection will surely mean more work and harder fractals being skipped.

Just a few of my suggestions for fractals.

Proposal Overview:

Functionality of agony infusions and their benefits.

Goal of Proposal:

Make it easier to upgrade agony infusions after they have been added to ascended items and change their functionality so that they benefit you even at lower levels.

Proposal Functionality:

Right now the only option to get an agony infiusion back after using it on an item is to use the upgrade extractor (250 Gems/ea) from the gem shop.

This makes it only viable for infusions that are already realy high in level, otherwise buying a new infusion is often the cheaper option.

Especially for those people that are not fequently playing fractals this will have the consequence of reaching a poit in fractal levels at which they are forced to invest a high amount of money in order to upgrade their equipment only to play the next highest tier even though they had enough enough agony infusions if only they had not used them that early.

I would like to see a mechanic similar to luck where you reach the next level of agony resistance once you collected enough infusions. That way the players have a steady progress in reaching the next highest fractal level.

In addition to this I see a need to make agony resistance work for each point a player has and not only be usefull at each 5 point increment. There is no reason for an agony resistance of 69 points to have the same protection as one of 65 points.

Agony damage is already calculated in percent of your max HP, why not let each point of resistance influence that falue?

Associated Risks:

The upgrade extractor might no longer be worth his value of 250 gems.

Proposal Overview:
1) Enhance storytelling and lore, create more fractals that have to do with known lore or incorporate current fractals with current lore.
2) Create options for ascended gear other than to equip (examples: salvaging, trading, mystic forge components…).
3) Pour holy water all over the underground fractal and watch it whither away in agony as it crawls back into the netherworld from whence it came.

Goal of Proposal:
1) Fractals have incredible potential for storytelling, as they let us revisit past events that are otherwise only spoken of in timelines and wiki pages. Furthermore, fractals with no real back story have the potential to reveal new components to already existing lore, or to invite new lore into the world altogether.
2) No bank should be cluttered with final tier gear. That’s just downright wrong. If people have too many final tier items, it’s time for change. In this case, that change is rather simple, just allow us to toss ascended rings into the mystic forge, and they can turn into a piece of ascended armor or an ascended weapon (preferably let us choose the stats on the new item, or it’d just defeat the purpose).
3) There are some evils that are irredeemable. The inability to go to the Crystal Desert, for instance (seriously, let us in). Another is a fractal that requires players to sacrifice themselves to keep an over sized button down so that another player can sit there channeling a fifteen minute mechanism to open a door to get to the next stage of a fractal that’s roughly five times as long as every other fractal. …Okay, maybe we shouldn’t wipe the fractal of the map, but maybe cut its length a bit.

Fractals are a personal favorite of mine, so I’m glad I got the opportunity to put a word or two in. I know all of my points have already been argued, but the redundancy should just fortify the fact that these are valid points.

Oh right, the Associated Risks:
1) None, lore is king. Everyone likes a good story. The lore of Guild Wars 2 is insanely cool.
2) The economy of Guild Wars 2 is somewhat foreign to me, so I’m not sure what additional accessibility to ascended gear would do.
3) When players hear that the great evil that haunted the Fractals is finally dead, they may flood back in through the Fractal portal and cause server crashes.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree Wethospu. It is much more useful for folks raising issues if they provide suggestions for how to fix said issues (-:

Chris

These are for the dredge issue which may be out of the scope of this CDI as it appears this is more large scale than anything specific. Anyway, I feel that these changes should make the fractal a little easier but not a complete nerf that takes away all of the challenge. I’m not sure how difficult they would be to implement on a programming standpoint but I’m sure they’re easier than revamping.

• Reduce the time need to channel the console to open the final gate by 5 seconds and/or allow the gates to remain open for a few seconds if a player steps off any of the panels (no more than 2 seconds and this will allow dodges to be done).
• Reduce the number of bombs to take down the door to just five. This allows the door to be completed in one successful kamikaze run or in just one run of clearing everything but the handful of dredge that respawn infinitely.
• Reduce the time it takes to use the drill on the door by about 10-15%.
• Reduce the number if dredge/waves for the dredge car by 50% until a more creative way to utilize it has been found rather than it being a time sink.
• Reduce the dredge count by 5-10% on a map scale. I do not necessarily want this one to be included in combination with the others mentioned but I can live with it if it is.

I can create this as a separate suggestion thread if you feel it distracts from the objective of this thread.

Proposal Overview
There have been many proposals that i have thought of myself.. such as the dredge fractal etc. so I won’t start about that.. what I would like to put my attention to is the sheer frustration.. I myself have.. or my guildmates or general teammembers.. when we do a fractal 49.. and there is no reward.. the best we get is greens.. not even a rare and then not once.. twice.. my personal best is 50 fractal runs in a row with no reward while my luck is up to 220%

So I would like to see is that there is a reward.. ring chest extra gold it does not matter..

Goal of Proposal
reduces the frustration and perhaps loss of players who don’t see the worth or fun in playing fractals anymore by adding secured rewards based on level

Proposal Functionality
eh now i can do 50 runs on level 49.. and get no reward at all.. just greens and blues and perhaps a lost rare somewhere in between..
and then it would say ( lets say 8 ) that you are assured of a worthy reward every amount of fractals that you do

Associated Risks
People farming fractals for the secured rewards

ColinJohanson.2394:

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?

Honestly, cut-scenes aren’t even necessary. Use Dessa or introduce another NPC to FotM who’s able to make some sense out of the fractals to narrate as the players go along. Dessa, on multiple occasions, will make comments about what’s going on over her “fractal loudspeaker”. Perhaps that could be expounded upon?

That way, you don’t really have to pause player movement through the fractal. The best thing I can compare it to at the moment is listening to an audiobook while taking a walk.

Thoughts?

ktbenson.7935:

Thoughts?

Yes. Have a Durmand Priory Historian NPC who you can activate to run along with you and narrate (but avoid combat).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree Wethospu. It is much more useful for folks raising issues if they provide suggestions for how to fix said issues (-:

Chris

If you read my Suggestion about Overall changes , you see that adding a certain cap ( for exmaple scale 100) after that you have fix fractals and instabilities if you want to advance, would solve the Problem partially. Yeah People could still reroll to advance faster at the mid Levels (50-100) but they coulnd’t reroll when the really hard Content hits, so there is no RNG in leaderboards or fix rewards that might get added there. Everyone that goes to 132 has completed the same 32 scales after 100 with the same instabilities.

To combat rolling, would it be out of line to suggest just having a voting period between fractals?

Issue:

Swamp fractal being consistently “rolled” as first fractal.

Solution:

Two solutions to the “swamp-only” mentality for first fractal would be adding another part to it or moving it to boss fractal. It is as long as a boss fractal with only 2 goals: orb puzzle + boss. Move swamp fractal to boss tier while altering bosses to be a bit tougher OR keep it first tier and add another part to complete. Adding another puzzle or adding a mini water boss (at the water part after orbs) could potentially give the other tier 1 fractals an opportunity to be ran.

Problems:

No foreseeable problems other than people insisting that fractals are “longer” now; however, fractals are the end-game pve dungeon. They should require more time than ac, cof, arah and the rest.

Comments:

I am very against the idea that some people are suggesting: “voting” for fractals. I like the randomness and the ability to not be forced into a common voting scheme that I am sure will develop just as “swamp-only” first fractal developed

KyleMcLaw.8974:

Problems:

No foreseeable problems other than people insisting that fractals are “longer” now; however, fractals are the end-game pve dungeon. They should require more time than ac, cof, arah and the rest.

That’s a huge problem. And if Fractals are “end game” why is Fractal 50 easier than Ascalonian Catacombs p2? I see tons of outrageously bad players and teams managing to finish fractal level 50 on Twitch every day, and I know for a fact those same teams and players would take over an hour to finish Ascalonian Catacombs p2. I disagree that it’s not a problem, and I disagree that Fractals are the hardest content in the game.

Wow 10 pages is a lot to read through at this point so apologies if this has already been put forward:

Issue: Rng of Ring assignment as a reward

Many people who fractal regularly have so many rings of stat types they don’t want or need and which they’ll never use and are only taking up bank or bag space for no reason whatsoever as nothing can be done with them except destroy.

Solution:

Add Mystic forge recipes to get a ring of your choice, perhaps combining 3x random rings and a tier6 mat or trophy.

Examples:

• 3x Random ring + 5 elaborate Totems = Druids Circle (cleric)
• 3x Random ring + 5 Karka shells = Lucce Seal (apoth)
• 3x Random ring + 5 Passi flowers = Purge signet (apoth)
• 3x Random ring + 5 Orichalcum Ingots = Ruriks Royal Signet Ring (cav)

Problems:

Removes a laurel/pristine fractal sink

ColinJohanson.2394:

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?

What about something like Scarlet’s Journal, but for fractals?

Proposal Overview
A big journal containing fractal lore.

Proposal functionality:
You get a book when you complete a fractal, with a little extra snippet about what was going on; when you have all of them, you can combine them into one big journal.

This snippet might be a description, or perhaps a line quoted from a point-of-view NPC/character in the fractal. Perhaps voice acted, if that isn’t asking for too much!

It could be further expanded upon by showing Dessa the journal, and asking her for some more information. This would all be text based and available to players whenever, so I think it would minimize interference with the designs of fractals.

Associated Risks:
There are many fractals, and if even more are added, this could prove to be too complicated for the current item/conversation systems.

A technical problem would be determining eligibility to acquire a book after a completed fractal, so we don’t end up acquiring dozens of them.

(edit 2: some more formatting)

Satakal.6971:

ColinJohanson.2394:

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?

What about something like Scarlet’s Journal, but for fractals?

You get a book when you complete a fractal, with a little extra snippet about what was going on, and when you have all of them, you combine it into one big book. You could further expand on this by showing Dessa your journal, and asking her for some more information. This would all be text based and available to players whenever, so I think it would minimize interference with the designs of fractals. An issue I can think of is how you can be sure that a player is eligible to get a book when he completes a fractal, so we don’t end up acquiring dozens of them.

This is a really cool idea! It reminds me of something, I just can’t put my finger on it…

Anyway, I’m surprised ArenaNet hadn’t already thought of this YEARS ago!

Proposal Overview
Molten fractal and molten boss fractal getting end chest rewards equal to other fractals.’

Goal of Proposal
Currently the molten fractal(weapon test facility one) Gives only one item/relic/infusion. Sometimes it will give normal drops like 3 items. All other fractals give 3 items/relic/infusion. Same goes for the molten boss fractal. I don’t know if this is a bug or something but it would be nice if they rewarded you just like the other fractals.

Proposal Functionality
Simple, give these two fractals the same level rewards of the other fractals.

Associated Risks
No real risks as it will give rewards at the same level of all the other fractals.

KyleMcLaw.8974:

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Comments:

I am very against the idea that some people are suggesting: “voting” for fractals. I like the randomness and the ability to not be forced into a common voting scheme that I am sure will develop just as “swamp-only” first fractal developed

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

Satakal.6971:

An issue I can think of is how you can be sure that a player is eligible to get a book when he completes a fractal, so we don’t end up acquiring dozens of them.

Manage them as achievements rather than inventory. Click on X to earn achievement. When you have the meta-achievement, you can look at the book .

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.