Guild Wars 2

Thanks for taking the time to scroll through dozens of pages and respond to us chris. We really appreciate it!

Maybe we can get some insight from our Host:

Chris, what do you see as the long term value proposition of Fractals? Not necessarily the company policy, just your take as a well-informed designer. Why should players keep coming back after getting their rings & backpack and/or getting to level 50? What is the lasting appeal of this content? You’ve mentioned a blue sky dream of large-group fractals. Any other outside-the-box wishes that might help us better grasp the scope of changes this discussion might precipitate?

Proposal Overview
The Mist Traveler’s Shield is an evironmental item acquired during a Fractals shard that allows to counter any occurrence of agony. It is the most effective when multiple shields are used at the same time.

Goal of Proposal

• Allow groups to see “unavoidable” agony as a skill-check.
• By doing so, give the designers a new way of adding difficulty to higher levels.
• Allow players to save their low-agony-resistance teammates.

Proposal Functionality
This is a further developed version of the device I proposed here.

The shield can be collected during a Fractals shard. In higher levels, multiple shields can be aquired. The aquisition may involve doing some extra work, for example clearing also the other streets in Urban Battlegrounds.

The shield gives the player the following skills when carried:

• Surge of Agony Resistance increases the agony resistance of the player and nearby teammates by a certain amount (10). This protection decays over time (5 after 5 seconds, 0 after 10 seconds).
• Wave of Agony Protection sends out a cone that gives Agony Aegis to teammates it hits (not yourself). Each stack of Agony Aegis blocks one stack of agony. Agony Aegis lasts only a short amount of time, but this duration scales with agony resistance and (inversely) with Fractal level.

Using one of the skills sets the other one on cooldown, as well. Additional skills may be added based on the current Fractal, for example a skill to run faster while in Thaumanova’s cooling rod room.

Like stated in my other post, there should be some means to re-aquire a shield in the case things went wrong. One possibility is again a small robot at the place where you aquire the shield to reset it (shields and robots share the same color).

While for current Fractal levels such a device would be nice to have to save your low-resistance teammates, I think that the full potential of such a device would come when new agony occurences are added in higher levels. For example, absorbing Jade Maw’s beam with a crystal gets you a stack of agony—so you better have a teammate nearby to send you a well-timed wave. Ont the other hand, encounters like the cooling rod room require the team to walk in a group (not easy with the speed skill) and time their surges.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

In a similar way to the exercise that Orpheal has under taken it would be wise now to ask you all to pick 1 area that you would prioritize above all others having has the chance to have seen everyone’s opinions around each others proposals.

Chris

I personally believe that the Dredge and Rewards problems are intertwined, and need to be dealt with together (or at the very least have the other ‘part’ of this coin polished, when attempting to re-mint the one side).

If I’m being forced to choose, it will be Dredge first (its the primary barrier to new entrants). HOWEVER, I strongly suggest you add some rewards to sweeten the interest in this Fractal.

Examples:

1) If we take the earlier idea to ‘split’ the final Legendary boss to its own Tier 4 (boss) fractal, add more achievements to these.
One example: Forged by Fire – ‘Attacked’ the Legendary boss with only those ‘molten ladle’ things the entire fight (aka only kept his Overheated debuff running).

2) The earlier idea of ‘rebalancing the composition of the Dredge forces’ will allow the removal of constant re-spawn. In turn, they should all have loot tables attached to them. Also, in this idea, I’d like you to consider having Dredge composition change with each Fractal Tier. i.e. you can add one extra ‘buffing’ Dredge in tiers 3/5 (that may not sound like a lot, but if placed within a group of ranged Dredge in the back, you’re going to add remote pressure to the party as the melee grind commences).

3) On the flip side (to explain my point): Working on Rewards only should have highest compensation to the Dredge map (if not changed). A simple solution would be to add a scaled bonus chest to all maps, similar to explorable dungeons now. Swamp would have no chest at all at Agony Tiers 0-2 (L0-20); Dredge (in its current form) should top out at Arah P4 levels (perhaps a bit higher) when at Agony Tier 5 (L50).

Again, I personally believe these two ‘pain points’ in Fractals will need to be tackled together in some form. But, you’ll not need to totally re-do the other bit when attacking only one side (even if I prefer you did both).

well if you take a step back and ask the question, what would you rather fix rerolling or dredge, its essentially saying whats more important, creating a more varied experience, or making it less time consuming/annoying.

the consensus is that speed/and ease is more important than variation to most people. I blame the reward system that prioritizes speed and ease. If the rewards were based on how long/difficult it was, people wouldnt care that much about rolling the shortest/easiest, and people would be trying to get better at dredge (i admit dredge is out of balance, and designed kind of annoying)

i think the rewards is probably one of the biggest issues with fractals, id say the other major issues would be agony progression being empty, grindy and sometimes backwards, and variation/replayability of fractals.

dredge i see as more of a balance issue, than an indicator of evolution of fractals

I think the most important thing is to make Fractals FASTER. They need to make a way for players to be reliably in and out within half an hour. You wouldn’t get the same reward that you would for clearing an entire Fractal run now, but you should get progress towards the same rewards (as opposed to just receiving lesser rewards). You might have to run the fractals of this length several times to earn the same level of reward that the existing fractals run, but you would be able to do them all at once, or over several days, or even several weeks, whatever works for your schedule, rather than having to set aside over an hour straight if you want to even dabble in the Fractals.

Aack, I lost my post.

One thing I don’t think I’ve seen discussed in rewards is that it’s not about what players get. It’s an economic concept, really: it’s about incentives, and what exactly players are being encouraged to do. I was a little dismayed at the prospect of introducing random events and having players get frustrated at them because it gets in the way of their daily.

So, what are players being incentivised to do? There’s killing enemies, which provides small amounts of money, loot, blue and green weapons, champ bags and mist essence; chests at the end of fractals, which provides a small amount of gold and karma, some blues and greens and a +1 agony infusion, and the daily chest provided at the end of the boss fractal, which provides a very slowly increasing amount of fractal relics, empyreal shards and 1g.

What do we want to incentivise players to do? I can’t speak for all of you, but I want them to stick through a fractal to the end; I want them to challenge the harder content. I want them to go back to earlier levels so that newer players have people to play with; I want them to mentor newer players and pass on their experience. I want them to go off the beaten path, to explore the full possibility space.

If we know what behaviours we want to acknowledge, then building a reward system to suit is much easier. I think the current reward system is doing maybe one of those?

One possibility: take the current roll for rings/fractal weapons in the daily chest and put it into a tiered bag. Maybe some gold as well. You get one bag for the boss fractal, and some of the trickier fractals also award one or even two bags once you get to the daily chest.

Another possibility: as you increase the fractal scale, you activate random conditions, where if you fulfil some optional criteria, you can loot a mist essence.

ColinJohanson.2394:

This is a perfect example of why heavily driving a lot of lore and story into something that is intended to be a group re-playable experience isn’t a great idea, and something typically we try and avoid. Thus the challenge here, to get across these cool stories, without the cost of the pacing of the fractal experience!

I know that topic switched since this quoted post, but I just found time to get through all the red posts and I quickly wanted to add my 2 cents to this.

I think the current Living Story showed some very very nice ideas how to get access to the background of things. I loved the summary videos that have been produced, adored the backup room with items on the tables where one was told about Scarlet’s plans and what she was up with at a certain time.

For fractals, what about to have a place in the lobby added where there are some items typical for each fractal. Each item can be investigated, maybe there is a summary or a background video associated with, there might be a “flight” around the fractal as if one stood on a vista in the fractal.

One might even add achievements to that in form of a scavenger hunt, so that in each fractal, one need to find pieces of that “item”. With 1 piece, one might see the flight sequence, but one needs to find another piece to access the written summary or the video. Only after collecting all – 3 to 5 – pieces, one gets like 3 achievement points and a full access to the fractal lore item of this specific fractal.

(I hope I could explain my idea so that it’s understandable)

Ayrilana.1396:

LordByron.8369:

1) I had the luck to speak with a dev fixing a gamebreaking bug (dungeon section, when any wipe aywere resulted in full spawning of chanters at arms and people said it was “intended”) ….at that point i could ask him to please adapt the chanter spawn at what players used to do…..

And he finally decided he could do that……(see it wasn t designed to be so).

Unless you can provide proof then your claim holds no weight. Anyone can state that they had an alleged conversation with a dev and use it to support their argument.

This forum….. if you doubt you can use the awful search function or just ask…..
Its proven they didn t think of it from his words….

This statement is known as a red herring. Stacking and LOSing have nothing to do with the method for Cliffside. You’re bringing up a totally separate, unrelated to distract people from the original argument.

The 2 alive tactic requires LoS tactic and stacking tactic.
You LoS in order to remove aggro from the 2 alive chanters (that is why you can t fight in half of the corridor…)

You stack and los again because you would wipe at higher level fighting under the seal.

I can’t tell what you’re trying to say here. Could you please rephrase or state what you said more clearly?

All my points comes from the fact i played almost only fractals since its release….they were my favourite part of the game and i witnessed all the bug, exploits and changes…..

That is why you may miss some points….

Actually most players can. Just about everyone knew the jp tactic for dredge was wrong yet they still did it.

the JP part maybe…
All the other like Dying on buttons, or using consumables (revive orbs or karma stealth) and i d bet even clearing HALF side……

You can t prove its intended……its easy to say other were obviously not intended….i said that at the proper time…and infact we are at this point…..

Anyway, all of this is outside of the scope of this thread. If you’d like to discuss this further then please create a new thread or just post in the one I started a few days ago which already covers this subject.

Thanks!

This is more than on topic…

Do you know how much did it take to complete the level 1 history fractal until DULFY posted a guide?

That clealry shows that people can t understand how to face fractals….and that due to lack of hints….(swamp is the best….why the hell are there opening passages if you have to jump on trees? 0 sense…….)

Also if the challenge is to discover how to play a fractal, it becomes stale from the second time you play it…..(reason why dungeons are too hard for some and too easy for Others….).

That is why they should post videos of the intended tactic….if they can t be clear enough for players to get it….(and i bet data from D1 of fractured is quite clear…)

Merus.9475:

What do we want to incentivise players to do? I can’t speak for all of you, but I want them to stick through a fractal to the end; I want them to challenge the harder content. I want them to go back to earlier levels so that newer players have people to play with; I want them to mentor newer players and pass on their experience. I want them to go off the beaten path, to explore the full possibility space.

I think this is the right idea of how to tackle rewards.

That said, “challenge harder content” and “go back to earlier levels” seem to be a bit opposed to each other. I think the current solution for this, rewarding doing lower levels with something different (Karma), is quite clever.

Nike.2631:

Don’t get me wrong – I think the polishing should be done. I just, in my heart of hearts, can’t believe that it would take more than a day to write the code to kill re-rolling. That it would take more than a day to rip the clown car out of the Underground facility Fractal. That the meetings to review and expand the array of choices for the Fractal vendors drawing on existing assets would take more than 3-4 days of focused analysis. Then yes, all of that has to be tested before being pushed to Live, but ultimately if there was the will, all of the these adjustment would take less time to execute than we’ve spent talking about them .

Except re rolling doesn’t need to be killed and I really hope ANet are ignoring the complaints about it because practically nobody besides a handful of people trying to draw attention to themselves on the forum even care about it.

Don’t want swamp? Set up LFG – lvl [number] fractal, rolled [not swamp]. Is it that hard? Stop concerning yourself with what other people are doing and focus on your own fun rather than punishing other people who want to roll a certain fractal.

LordByron.8369:

—
That clealry shows that people can t understand how to face fractals….and that due to lack of hints….(swamp is the best….why the hell are there opening passages if you have to jump on trees? 0 sense…….)
—

I would also like to hear an explanation about this. Half of the passages always close if you get near with a wisp.

hendo.1940:

Nike.2631:

Don’t get me wrong – I think the polishing should be done. I just, in my heart of hearts, can’t believe that it would take more than a day to write the code to kill re-rolling. That it would take more than a day to rip the clown car out of the Underground facility Fractal. That the meetings to review and expand the array of choices for the Fractal vendors drawing on existing assets would take more than 3-4 days of focused analysis. Then yes, all of that has to be tested before being pushed to Live, but ultimately if there was the will, all of the these adjustment would take less time to execute than we’ve spent talking about them .

Except re rolling doesn’t need to be killed and I really hope ANet are ignoring the complaints about it because practically nobody besides a handful of people trying to draw attention to themselves on the forum even care about it.

Don’t want swamp? Set up LFG – lvl [number] fractal, rolled [not swamp]. Is it that hard? Stop concerning yourself with what other people are doing and focus on your own fun rather than punishing other people who want to roll a certain fractal.

I really hope Anet focuses on things that are actual issues. Rolling happens because it’s an option. If it would be removed in one way or another, you’re practically putting up another barrier for people that actually want to play fractals and have fun. You are taking an option away from them. Rather than having a feeling that you somehow have a small way of changing the roll they would be forced to play a certain level at the very beginning, so rather than going through the fractal, some people would actually go: “Meh, this one is gonna take too long, I’m gonna go do some dungeons instead”.

Forcing people to do things (that they used to do for over a year now) differently, will not make them happy. It will make them feel like another thing is forced down their throats. I like rolling because it’s an option I have. Having another thing taken away from me is something that is not enhancing my gameplay, but limiting it.

If you really want to stop rolling, give us a reason to stop. Make fractals balanced to the point where we don’t care what we get. And NO, I’m not saying make swamps longer, I’m saying put in a fractal or two that are on par with swamps. That way whichever one we get at the beginning, we’ll be happy regardless.

This CDI is based on Evolution. Forcing something rather than making it fun and innovative is not a step towards it, it’s a step backwards. We’re not trying to limit the gameplay in fractals and in turn loose even more people that are only now getting slightly interested. But instead make it fun and rewarding where people have options to how they want to play and start.

When I do a high level fractal with my friends, we roll for swamps every time. Why? Not because we like the level, not because the scenery, but because we know that there’s a chance of getting Dredge later on, and we don’t want to waste a whole night on one fractal run. If Tier 1 would have 3 or 4 fractals that would on average take the same amount of time, we wouldn’t waste time rolling at all. At the same time when we want to wind down and have fun run on a single digit or teen fractal, we take what it gives us.

Don’t take options away, but add more options to evolve the rolling system

I agree with Romo wholeheartedly. It’s the same thing with the other things a bunch of people say should be gotten rid of. Right now we have options. Getting rid of rolling, of stacking, of skipping, of this and that, is getting rid of options. Why do we want to get rid of options?

I don’t always roll swamp. I really love the uncategorized fractal, for instance. I feel like I get rewarded for doing it. But if I only have a couple hours on the game, I roll for swamp. That option actually improves fractals for me. It gives me the option to run what I feel like seeing or what i have time for.

What I’d like to see evolved for fractals is actually the party system. I’d like to see options for fractals to have more than 5, less than 5, and unique parties to take over the mists. I’d like to see new fractals with NPCs from GW1 or give the option of heroes.

My 2 c

I’m tired of rolling….

I’m tired of talking about rolling.

At this point just let people vote for all but the boss fractal.
In order to incentivize people who choose grawl, cliffside and dredge remove the tier system and weight every fractal individually. Once weighted assign a modifer based on the cumulative weight of the fractals chosen to the loot / reward after the still random boss fractal.

Example:
1) Swamp
2) Aquatic
3) Uncategorized
4) Urban Battleground
5) Snowblind
6) Molten Furnace
7) Cliffside
8) Thaumanova
9) Aetherblade
10) Volcanic
11) Underground
(not a definitive weighting just an example)
If players chose swamp (1), aquatic (2) and asura(3) this would add a +6 modifier to the loot / reward after the boss fractal (or even cumaltive throughout the run, so that after swamp they had +1 bonus while on aquatic then a +3 bonus while on asura), meanwhile those after much better rewards / loot would choose Aetherblade (9), Grawl (10) and Dredge (11) for a bonus modifier of +30 to their rewards.

This way newer fractal runners could choose when they were comfortable enough to move onto the harder fractals. (or selectively choose which achievement to chase or which part of their fractal profile was lacking etc, )

A downside or Associated Risk would be without new players running fractals eventually everyone would be good / fast enough to only run the ones weighted the most. (a way to combat this would be to increase the weight of rarely selected fractals).

Just some quick thoughts…

I’d say this: rolling isn’t a problem, it’s the symptom of a problem. That:

1) Despite a tiered system, there are still Fractals which are clearly “better” (read: quicker)
2) With the existing reward system, Faster = More Rewarding most/all of the time

timmyf.1490:

I’d say this: rolling isn’t a problem, it’s the symptom of a problem. That:

1) Despite a tiered system, there are still Fractals which are clearly “better” (read: quicker)
2) With the existing reward system, Faster = More Rewarding most/all of the time

I agree. It’s not a problem. It exists because of imbalances (time wise) between fractals. If those were leveled in a way, we would see rolling happen less and less over time.

At this moment, Swamp is the quickest way to start a fractal. Kind of like jump-starting a fractal. If all tier 1 levels were balanced to be based on average time length to complete, it would make rolling obsolete. Time is money, so the less time it takes, the more population it would attract.

Please do not read it as “make everything longer”, so they’re the same length, but shorter so they’re on par with Swamps. At least Tier 1 Levels.

Also I miss those times when we had a chance to get (now known as) Tier 1 level as our third fractal. Those moments felt like winning a lottery. Now it’s more of a “here it comes” kind of a feeling. Where we hope to get the lesser of 4 evils…

I just finished a fractal (49, 1h 7mins , swamp,cliff,aether,maw, 3 account bound exos,2 rares,1 charged core nothing in daily) and from that I’d note the following.

-Cliffside is a T3 fractal and should not be in T2.
-Aether is a T2 fractal.
-Either change the exotics to bind on equip so I can sell them for reliable income, or give the ones that drop from fractals a unique skin so I have a reason to keep them. (1 insignia,2 ectos,5 dark matter from the 3).
-Maw has no difficulty other than the agony, maybe some changes there?.

To be fair, Conski, if any of those exotics were cavalier armor or weapons, those insignias and inscriptions are worth a fair amount. There’s a good income for you!

Please don’t change Maw, I love it, it’s a gift after dredge.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

To be fair, Conski, if any of those exotics were cavalier armor or weapons, those insignias and inscriptions are worth a fair amount. There’s a good income for you!

Please don’t change Maw, I love it, it’s a gift after dredge.

Maw is a gift. Keep it the way it is. The past 5 runs I did now I keep getting Molten Duo. It’s not hard, but it’s not that fun after 3rd time in a row…

Romo.3709:

timmyf.1490:

I’d say this: rolling isn’t a problem, it’s the symptom of a problem. That:

1) Despite a tiered system, there are still Fractals which are clearly “better” (read: quicker)
2) With the existing reward system, Faster = More Rewarding most/all of the time

I agree. It’s not a problem. It exists because of imbalances (time wise) between fractals. If those were leveled in a way, we would see rolling happen less and less over time.

At this moment, Swamp is the quickest way to start a fractal. Kind of like jump-starting a fractal. If all tier 1 levels were balanced to be based on average time length to complete, it would make rolling obsolete. Time is money, so the less time it takes, the more population it would attract.

Please do not read it as “make everything longer”, so they’re the same length, but shorter so they’re on par with Swamps. At least Tier 1 Levels.

Also I miss those times when we had a chance to get (now known as) Tier 1 level as our third fractal. Those moments felt like winning a lottery. Now it’s more of a “here it comes” kind of a feeling. Where we hope to get the lesser of 4 evils…

Agree. My group always plays the disheartening guessing game on each loadscreen. And with our luck it usually cliffside and then dredge and then mai trin. We dont mind cliffside if we get it as the 3rd (were just grateful we didnt get dredge at that point). But I dont really like the tier system. It wasnt needed. Before it was less likely to get dredge + cliffside. Now its much more common to get both simply because of how they are weighted and how few fractals their are in the 2nd and 3rd tier (This makes the final roll rather predictable and frustrating).

Anyway as Conski mentioned I believe cliffside should be removed from tier 2 and put solely into tier 3 if you are keeping tiers. If you need an extra fractal for tier 2 then I suggest putting underwater in tier 2. That way it can actually pop up even when a group rolls for swamp.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

To be fair, Conski, if any of those exotics were cavalier armor or weapons, those insignias and inscriptions are worth a fair amount. There’s a good income for you!

Please don’t change Maw, I love it, it’s a gift after dredge.

Oh I’m not complaining about the loot from that run it was the best run I’ve ever had loot wise.
I was just pointing out the observations (I got 1 soldiers insc which with the fractal gold brought me up up to par with the 5g/h average.)

What I would say is it’s very inconsistent, I’ve had 2-3 runs where no exotics or valuable items dropped. Meaning that an hours high effort yields 1-2g.

This one is another take on “training mode”, “time challenge” and “casual mode”. You will find many ideas you have already seen in this thread. I just mixed them up to form a (hopefully) consistent whole.

Proposal Overview
In addition to the current method of Fractal running, you can also select each shard and encounter only and exactly this one. Leaderboards are also enabled in this mode. A “Daily Fractal Challenge” allows players using only this mode to gain levels, too.

Goal of Proposal
Sometimes people want to play a specific shard. Reasons I’ve gathered so far are:

• Train the guild mates such that they know what they are up to when they pug (here)
• Get better at that shard (implicit in the name “practice mode”)
• Improve in the leaderboards for that shard (I assume here that leaderboards are specific to each shard, which might be not the case) (not
  directly, but close enough)

Sometimes people want to play only some time, but have not enough time for a full run. For some players, this seems to be the case more often than not. Therefore, it should also be possible to gain Fractal levels by only doing single shards.

Proposal Functionality
Single Shard Mode: Dessa allows the instance owner to select any existing shard before starting. This will be displayed along with the selected Fractal level. The players will only face this shard and will then be teleported back into observatory. Rewards stay the same, but here is no daily chest to get here (if you are not doing the daily challenge, see below) and you can not gain a personal Fractal level.

While leaderboards also measure <whatever they measure> while in normal mode, they apply here, as well.

Daily Fractal Challenge: Each day, there will be a global random selection of shards, one from each tier (1 to 4 (boss)). Once a player has completed the first shard in single shard mode, he will get some notification that he has done so and that he can now tackle the tier 2 shard. This continues until the process resets after the specific 4th-tier shard has been completed.

Then, the player will receive a daily chest as if he or she has done a full Fractal run but without the chance for a ring/weapon chest/armor chest/fractal weapon/… only the fixed rewars are contained. The “level” of the chest is determined by the lowest level of the 4 shards. In the same manner, players gain a Fractal level when completing a challenge with all shards at or above their current level.

The 4 shards do not have to completed at one day. If you don’t have time or don’t want to do the specific shard that is today’s 3rd-tier: wait until tomorrow and continue then.

spoj.9672:

But I dont really like the tier system. It wasnt needed. Before it was less likely to get dredge + cliffside. Now its much more common to get both simply because of how they are weighted and how few fractals their are in the 2nd and 3rd tier (This makes the final roll rather predictable and frustrating).

I might be wrong on this, but in the old system, the chance of getting both would have been:

2/11 * 1/10 * 9/9 * 3 = 0.05454… (getting 2 out of 11 shards and one more, with 3 possible places for “one more”)

Now it is:
1/5 * 1/4 = 0.05 (cliffside as 2nd, dredge as 3rd)

Thus it is actually less likely. Things of course change when you rolled for something different first. Then it would have been 0.01818…

(edit)

And there is my mistake… you have a 50% chance of getting a also-tier2-shard as your first, so currently the chance is (1/16 + 1/20)/2 = 0.05625, which is indeed higher than before Fractured!

Romo.3709:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

To be fair, Conski, if any of those exotics were cavalier armor or weapons, those insignias and inscriptions are worth a fair amount. There’s a good income for you!

Please don’t change Maw, I love it, it’s a gift after dredge.

Maw is a gift. Keep it the way it is. The past 5 runs I did now I keep getting Molten Duo. It’s not hard, but it’s not that fun after 3rd time in a row…

I wouldn’t call Maw a boss or an encounter. It really should be buffed on par with other boss fractals. Preferable with a moving beam of death as we saw on that one fractal trailer.

Then also there should those Irukandji around with immobilizes and stuff (yea, buff them too with anti-skipping skills).

LordByron.8369:

This forum….. if you doubt you can use the awful search function or just ask…..
Its proven they didn t think of it from his words….

Another logical fallacy. You cannot shift the burden of proof onto someone else if you made the original claim. It’d be no different as if I claimed that Anet stated that they intended for everyone to play just warriors and then told anyone that disagreed to prove me wrong.

LordByron.8369:

The 2 alive tactic requires LoS tactic and stacking tactic.
You LoS in order to remove aggro from the 2 alive chanters (that is why you can t fight in half of the corridor…)

You stack and los again because you would wipe at higher level fighting under the seal.

No. Your previous post attempted to say stacking and LOS’ing was unintended because supposedly the Cliffside arm seal method was unintended based on your opinion. You were trying to use the opinions some people have against stacking and LOS’ing to justify your opinion. Stacking and LOS’ing existed well before fractals.

LordByron.8369:

All my points comes from the fact i played almost only fractals since its release….they were my favourite part of the game and i witnessed all the bug, exploits and changes…..

That is why you may miss some points….

I asked for you to clarify the post as it did not make sense. I was not asking how long you have done fractals nor was I questioning whether I was missing some points.

LordByron.8369:

Actually most players can. Just about everyone knew the jp tactic for dredge was wrong yet they still did it.

the JP part maybe…
All the other like Dying on buttons, or using consumables (revive orbs or karma stealth) and i d bet even clearing HALF side……

You can t prove its intended……its easy to say other were obviously not intended….i said that at the proper time…and infact we are at this point…..

Could you please not keep saying that I’m stating something is intended. I never stated such a thing. This is the third time that I’ve had to ask this. It’s as if you keep trying to state that I am on purpose hope people won’t read previous posts and assume that you’re correct.

LordByron.8369:

This is more than on topic…

Do you know how much did it take to complete the level 1 history fractal until DULFY posted a guide?

That clealry shows that people can t understand how to face fractals….and that due to lack of hints….(swamp is the best….why the hell are there opening passages if you have to jump on trees? 0 sense…….)

Also if the challenge is to discover how to play a fractal, it becomes stale from the second time you play it…..(reason why dungeons are too hard for some and too easy for Others….).

That is why they should post videos of the intended tactic….if they can t be clear enough for players to get it….(and i bet data from D1 of fractured is quite clear…)

Actually, the topic is the evolution of fractals and not about how an already existing fractal should be “fixed”.

I do not see whether a guide was needed or not has to do with anything. So you’re expected there to be zero challenges/puzzles and want everything to be a faceroll? Is that seriously your intention? Part of playing ANY game is to figure out how to overcome a challenge as you come to it. If you feel that you need a guide then that’s your choice but it does not mean there’s something wrong it.

I think you don’t understand how challenges in games in general work. It’s not common for people to overcome them their first time. Quite often people fail and then learn from their mistakes and what get experienced and then use that knowledge on future attempts.

Well if course the challenges feel “stale” after you beat them since you now know how to do them. But then you want everything to be a faceroll anyway so I don’t see what your point is with this. After all, you want guides posts by the devs to show how to do each encounter rather than leave it to the players to figure it out for themselves.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Astute post.

Chris

Just wanted to snip this and ask that if Fractals are ever balanced for personal reward based on time x difficulty, that careful consideration is used in actually balancing the rewards. I was excited to hear that Dungeon paths were being reworked to offer gold based on path length and difficulty, only to be immensely disappointed at the perceived laziness in actually balancing the rewards (AC paths are incredibly short and easy and give 1.5g each, while all other dungeon paths (except Arah) give 1g flat despite their relative balance and length compared to each other, almost all of which are longer or more difficult than AC paths). Please consider how to balance these rewards properly, if they’re ever implemented in Fractals.

Personally my priority of changes to fractals is the following:

1. Fix the bugs and balancing issues in the already existing fractals, and rework Dredge. Currently, a lot of what is there is not 100%, and this takes away from the overall experience of the dungeon. I believe dredge is the biggest issue and deserves #1 priority, because of how the entire fractal is a source of dread and suffering in high reward levels, and the time it takes to complete compared to every other fractal is staggering. There’s a difference between “challenging” and “painful,” and dredge is just painful and not fun at all.

2. Rewards. The replayability of fractals gets dampened when doing them repeatedly doesn’t provide anything. The ascended rings and backpiece are nice (much easier to obtain here than anywhere else), and were the initial reward pull of fractals in general. (for me at least) However, these rewards are long since obsolete by the time you reach level 30 in reward level, and there are still 20 more levels of difficulty which are supposed to be the “elite levels” with the instabilities and everything. The potential for ascended weapons and armor is nice, but unless someone is extremely lucky, it’s much more reliable to just craft them, because 100 fails at rolling a weapon/armor box makes you no closer to getting them than the day you started.

3. New fractals. New content is the best. I loved the new fractals, variety is great. The only reason this isn’t priority 1 is because I believe everything that’s existing should be perfected first before new fractals are added because those new fractals will have their own bugs, and the old bugs will be buried under new bugs and can be forgotten about. (I’m speaking from my own experience as a game designer here, it’s so easy to lose track)

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

I think doing this creates a longetivity expectation. If you can explain the futuristic aspects of the Fractal within the Fractal itself, that’s good. But, with Uncategorized for example, people see an abandoned Rata Sum, speculate that it might be a Rata Sum of the future, and then are stuck waiting for any kind of explanation or in-game event that may never come.

Never do anything relating to “the future” if there’s no guarantee it will ever be explained. Part of players’ issues with the current GW2 story now is that there were open-ended questions left at the end of GW1, almost all of which have yet to be addressed in GW2, in favor of Scarlet and other things.

Causing players to be curious sometimes is good. But you can’t constantly make players curious AND never reward their curiosity or give them answers.

Proposal Overview
Rebalance of vitality and toughness of bosses.

Goal of Proposal
- Increasing viablity of condition based builds.
- Increasing build/gear diversity.

Proposal Functionality
Lowering health pool and increasing armor of bosses would encourage players to use condition based builds up to stacking limit before going into full berserker team. Rebalance should be done in a way that’d keep kill times same as they are now for full power oriented team.

Associated Risks
- Going from one extreme into another – too high toughness to vitality ratio could make condition builds too good. It’d be mostly fixed by conditions stacking limit.

Darmikau.9413:

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

I think doing this creates a longetivity expectation. If you can explain the futuristic aspects of the Fractal within the Fractal itself, that’s good. But, with Uncategorized for example, people see an abandoned Rata Sum, speculate that it might be a Rata Sum of the future, and then are stuck waiting for any kind of explanation or in-game event that may never come.

Side note: it’s not Rata Sum. (Which I think makes it even more interesting.)

Proposal Overview

Improving cosmetic rewards from Fractals.

Goal of Proposal

Incentivizing playing the difficult fractals while simultaneously and uniquely rewarding players that lost progress in the Fractal reset.

Proposal functionality

Add an “evolved” look to the Ascended Fractal capacitor and/or Fractal weapons Even just a color swap. Unlock buyable tiers of an upgrade item from the Fractal Vendor for Fractal relics that allow these items to be evolved.

Make a unique, account bound, single use version of this item to be mailed to any character that lost 10 or more levels of Fractal progress.

Potential problems:

Dye market may flux as characters try to change outfits.

Palette swaps may feel like a “cop-out” reward instead of something more substantive.

Darmikau.9413:

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

I think doing this creates a longetivity expectation. If you can explain the futuristic aspects of the Fractal within the Fractal itself, that’s good. But, with Uncategorized for example, people see an abandoned Rata Sum, speculate that it might be a Rata Sum of the future, and then are stuck waiting for any kind of explanation or in-game event that may never come.

It’s not Rata Sum nor is it from the future.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

That’d be an amazing way to hint at upcoming content to players, especially if it was added quietly.

For the curious here is Scott McGoughs post about the Uncatergorized Fractal

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/The-Uncategorized-Fractal-is-Rata-Sum/2380457

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am hoping that we can inject more lore and epic moments into the fractals. That we can transport player’s to even more iconic periods of Guild Wars history.

Woohoo! New content .

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

“Introducing the Foreboding Fractal – Dessa’s probes have locked onto a new fractal hinting at what may come to pass as the Living Story advances into its second season.”

With a firm plan at the outset something like this could be a very compelling narrative tool.

I am hoping that we can build on the strong foundation that we have with base Fractal mechanics and continue to build challenging encounters through strategic gameplay and strong ‘team’ centric inter-dynamics.

I’m going to tease you that the word ‘fun’ appears nowhere in your post .

I as a player also hope that we can make fractals more rewarding, especially in regard to ascended acquisition.

As the tier matures, I think we’re going to (have to) see continuing adjustments across all play modes. I’m still eager to see more possible improvements from the vertical progression thread work their way to Live. My alts are waiting .

I hope this answers some of your questions. Fractals are one of my favorite parts of the game and these are some of my wishes for their evolution.

Thank you. It does nicely in matters of looking to the future. I foresee in the next CDI Evolution thread I’ll again be asking for threads to include a Primer that helps us better understand “where we are at now – Arena’s Perspective” as a launch point for our flights of fancy .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

NuclearBuddha.8641:

That’d be an amazing way to hint at upcoming content to players, especially if it was added quietly.

Oh, they already did that. The Snowblind Fractal is foreshadowing parts of the campaign against Jormag in late 2015.

Very much so. Take it in the jovial spirit it was intended .

((Your signature made me laugh aloud))

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Maybe we can get some insight from our Host:

Chris, what do you see as the long term value proposition of Fractals? Not necessarily the company policy, just your take as a well-informed designer. Why should players keep coming back after getting their rings & backpack and/or getting to level 50? What is the lasting appeal of this content? You’ve mentioned a blue sky dream of large-group fractals. Any other outside-the-box wishes that might help us better grasp the scope of changes this discussion might precipitate?

Hi Nike,

I am hoping that we can inject more lore and epic moments into the fractals. That we can transport player’s to even more iconic periods of Guild Wars history.

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

I am hoping that we can build on the strong foundation that we have with base Fractal mechanics and continue to build challenging encounters through strategic gameplay and strong ‘team’ centric inter-dynamics.

I as a player also hope that we can make fractals more rewarding, especially in regard to ascended acquisition.

I hope this answers some of your questions. Fractals are one of my favorite parts of the game and these are some of my wishes for their evolution.

Chris

How set are we on the current fractal structure in this regard? (An adventure of 4 semi-randomly picked mini dungeons)

Because I think that with a different structure, the lore possibilities can be enjoyed by a lot more people than just the hardcore fractal crowd. (Since reaching those bits of lore can be quite a hassle in the current system, especially if they are on the third and fourth fractal tier)

I would really like to see fractals of the mists as an explorable area. Where players can travel through the mists at their own risk. Where party sizes can differ between fractals. And where we can feel the thrill of exploration as true pioneers. (Going further than any NPC from ‘our’ Tyria has traveled before)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Doing something like you have suggested really comes down to man power and global GW2 development priority.

Chris

But wouldn’t it be absolutely awesome?

Terkov.4138:

Proposal Overview
Rebalance of vitality and toughness of bosses.

Goal of Proposal
- Increasing viablity of condition based builds.
- Increasing build/gear diversity.

Proposal Functionality
Lowering health pool and increasing armor of bosses would encourage players to use condition based builds up to stacking limit before going into full berserker team. Rebalance should be done in a way that’d keep kill times same as they are now for full power oriented team.

Associated Risks
- Going from one extreme into another – too high toughness to vitality ratio could make condition builds too good. It’d be mostly fixed by conditions stacking limit.

I think it would be nice to have a variety of boss fights in this regard. Some where conditions really shine, others where they’re not quite as good.

Have to keep in mind you cant force re-gearing. Beserkers and other gear sets should not be made unviable. As it takes far too long to craft ascended gear.

The Lost Witch.7601:

How set are we on the current fractal structure in this regard? (An adventure of 4 semi-randomly picked mini dungeons)

Because I think that with a different structure, the lore possibilities can be enjoyed by a lot more people than just the hardcore fractal crowd. (Since reaching those bits of lore can be quite a hassle in the current system, especially if they are on the third and fourth fractal tier)

I would really like to see fractals of the mists as an explorable area. Where players can travel through the mists at their own risk. Where party sizes can differ between fractals. And where we can feel the thrill of exploration as true pioneers. (Going further than any NPC from ‘our’ Tyria has traveled before)

Going back to your “floppy” idea…

If the Mistlock Observatory were expanded or a new small, misty, mysterious bit of fantastical landmass were added (say, about the size of the sPvP training area) with slightly mobile “fractures” that you could identify and then use to enter the exact fractal of your choosing, you could acquire some sort of progress credits used to buy entry into a boss fractal for the big loot. When you have a complete floppy that has been run through ALL the fractals at least once, you can turn it in for a choice of the top tier rewards or maybe a huge infusion of fractal relics (like 800 plus a bonus based on the average difficulty level of your set)

You let people just intent on their daily pick their pieces – much smaller, discrete pieces that can be mix-and-matched over time making the single-sitting commitment smaller.

But to get the good stuff, you have to run them all at least once.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Please do note these are the things I would like to see as a player. This is not an announcement of additional content or a change in design direction.

I am simply joining in the conversation and passing on my thoughts. It becomes very difficult for me to be a group member of the CDI if everything i say is going to become some kind of ‘News’.

Anyway I am sure you understand my point,

Chris ‘Fun’ Whiteside

Thanks for the insight on your part as a player. It helps us better connect with you as a person, rather than talking at company that doesn’t really respond in very structuated responses that have to go through careful evaluations.

I, myself, keep forgetting that you guys are in fact players as well. With things you like and dislike about the game. Things you’re passionate about and things you really couldn’t care for less. It’s nice to know that rather than just designing fractals, you guys actually play them as well. Which helps a ten-fold in understanding the frustrations, accomplishments and rewards we all encounter.

If you don’t mind me asking, what are your views on Tier system that was put in place? Is it something that works for you, or the whole element of surprise is taken away because of it. Because as you probably seen in my earlier post I stand by the latter.

Terkov.4138:

Proposal Overview
Rebalance of vitality and toughness of bosses.

Goal of Proposal
- Increasing viablity of condition based builds.
- Increasing build/gear diversity.

Ah yes, I completely forget about this one. I think this would be a good thing for some bosses or “smaller” enemies alike. Note that I would suggest “some”, for I think that diversity should not come from everyone doing everything equally well but from having everyone having “a moment to shine.”

I really like the way this was done for Triple Trouble, where the husks were nearly immune to direct damage. Since the variety of a 5-player party is more limited, however, I suggest a somewhat less extent of “rebalancing” for Fractals.

(That said, I agree with Nike that the pressure plates in Dredge should be kept since this is one of the few places where toughness/vitality/healing power characters are advantageous. Man, Nike how many posts do you have? Ok, let’s cite this one.)

Romo.3709:

I, myself, keep forgetting that you guys are in fact players as well. With things you like and dislike about the game. Things you’re passionate about and things you really couldn’t care for less. It’s nice to know that rather than just designing fractals, you guys actually play them as well. Which helps a ten-fold in understanding the frustrations, accomplishments and rewards we all encounter.

I hope this doesn’t come off as Mr. Creepy Stalker or anything, but whenever I see somebody with the Anet badge in-game, I’ll add them to my friends list. You might be surprised at how often they play the game.

There’s a handful of devs on my server (SoR) and most of them play without the Anet badge most of the time I see them running around.