Guild Wars 2

Lighter.5631:

If those weapon skins are any easier then now to obtain, then i’ll be kittened for doing so many fotm48 38 after so many useless weapon skins and finally get the good one

just to get it’s value decrease

heck no..

Oh you mean that value of 0g 0s 0c account-bound, soulbound on use? Yeah. Dat value.

Nike.2631:

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

I think what people are missing is the old level >30 fractals are GONE. From this point on much more challenging versions have replaced them and your older progress tracker doesn’t apply. beating the old 42 will be a cakewalk compared to the new 42.

looks like it will actually be easier from what was said in the fractured forum

The ‘mistlock instabilities’ don’t sound easier to me, and adding two new boss levels you could get instead of the extremely simple puzzle fight that is the Maw is going to be a bit more lively too in my estimation.

I could see leaving the current levels in place – but mostly because it’d be funny to stand by the portal and listen to the sizzle-scorch-gurgle-silences as groups wipe over and over jumping directly to their maximum level, refusing to pause and learn the new mechanics.

Yes, its a bit baby-buggy-bumper, but it’s probably for the best in ensuring the new material gets used instead of our most daring-of-old rage-quitting after a difficulty 48 Mai Trin hands them their rumps AGAIN and AGAIN on their first run into the new fractals…

When will you get it if we going on playing at 80 we don’t get the rewards if they’re to hard to complete so what Point taking away the Level the Argument we didn’t do it under new circumstances is irrelevant we have nothing out of our lvl 81 if we can’t complete the Levels and get the new rewards ! let us be Level 81.. Play the difficulty we choose is right to get in again and try out how hard it really is before wasting another 2 months to realize that it isn’t that hard.. man just delte the idea of making a race to the top when ppl already won the race… it’s a joke!

I think since Anet wants fairness… I think all karma needs to be reset before they release the new ascended gear put everyone at zero… also reset all crafting to zero… its the only fair way.

I also think in the sake of fairness that all pvp/wvw rank’s should be reset due to the WvW season 2 coming out. Its only fair to put everyone on equal footing for season 2 right???

While where still at it lets reset everyone’s gold… the people who been playing since launch they should be on equal footing to the people who just joined the game as part of Anet’s grab for new players right???

This change really upsets me and I am only lv 38 fractal rewards but I worked hard getting there. My prospective I am getting screwed by a company I put faith in to do the right thing.

Okay, PRL 51 AR 55

I worked hard to get to PRL 51, I PUG’d. I do not have friends who run fractals. The highest of my friends in fractals is level 27. I did Fractals because it kept me in the game during my un-employment when I got bored with other aspects of the game and all my friends left because they were bored. My total Run fractals is close to 1700…I completed the 500 fractal achievement back in March….I was actually upset that there was no title at 500 fractals run or when I went above 48 finally after months of doing 48 fractals. (you have no idea how hard it is to find a PUG that is doing above 48…I finally got invited to do a couple 71’s after doing a 48 with a group that regularly did high-levels, and one of their guy’s was sick that day…that got me to 51…been there ever since…that groups main guy came back).

That is my history, now my thoughts: I am okay with them re-setting down to 30 for everyone since above 30 is effectively “new content”. However, I wore my PRL 51 as a badge of honor when we would enter fractals (PUG’s would comment, WOW! someone is 51!) That personal reward level gave me some respect when I ran fractals with a PUG and it allowed us to actually get through high level fractals easier…when I explained a strategy, people listened. In the same way as, when I played with that group who were 80’s, I respected them…I listened even though I had already gotten my 500 fractal achievement months before…Personal reward level was important in a PUG and always brought comments by the person starting the fractal.

I don’t care about rewards. What I want is the respect that my high level fractals granted. Right now when my character is walking around with fractal weapons, people know that I did high-level fractals, that is going to change now that people can get them at level 10. When I joined a PUG people commented on my 51 PRL, that is going to change now that we are re-set to 30. Basically, I will garner no more respect than my friend at 27 even though I EARNED that respect…nothing shows that I was an advanced fractal runner…which means I start all over with any PUG (and believe me, there are some horrible fractal runners at level 30—-38 was where the decent fractal runners started to show up in PUGs). The second part of this is time. I put in a tremendous amount of time into fractals. Most fractal runs with a PUG take much longer than a dedicated group. I have spent 4 hours going through a single set of fractals because the PUG did not listen, or was bugged (in which case we didn’t even complete it), or people rage quit on the first wipe. I was un-employed back then, I had the time. I don’t have the time to PUG my way through 30-48 anymore. Now with a job I have at most 2-3 hours on a night to spend…this is the primary reason I have done very few fractals in the last 2 months since I got a job… I don’t think I have the stamina or time to make it back to 48 again. I admit this.

Giving me extra achievement chests, or etc rewards for my levels above 30 mean nothing to me. I already have all the fractal weapons I wanted (except that KITTEN fractal shield I wanted). Give me a unique title, or better yet, make my Infused backpiece glow red or black, showing that I was once higher than I am now. Change the glow on my fractal weapons to a different color from the new ones. (like you did with SAB weapons) Anything to show that I put in the effort…anything to say that I did the work. And honestly, this should show differently for people that did 40+ and even 50+ and 60+ etc…give the high level fractal runners their respect. That is probably all most of us want. After-all we did fractals for very little reward previously. This was hard, this was a greater achievement than finding 30×. Give us our due respect….reset the levels to 30, but give us something to show that we were there first.

Nike.2631:

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

I think what people are missing is the old level >30 fractals are GONE. From this point on much more challenging versions have replaced them and your older progress tracker doesn’t apply. beating the old 42 will be a cakewalk compared to the new 42.

looks like it will actually be easier from what was said in the fractured forum

The ‘mistlock instabilities’ don’t sound easier to me, and adding two new boss levels you could get instead of the extremely simple puzzle fight that is the Maw is going to be a bit more lively too in my estimation.

I could see leaving the current levels in place – but mostly because it’d be funny to stand by the portal and listen to the sizzle-scorch-gurgle-silences as groups wipe over and over jumping directly to their maximum level, refusing to pause and learn the new mechanics.

Yes, its a bit baby-buggy-bumper, but it’s probably for the best in ensuring the new material gets used instead of our most daring-of-old rage-quitting after a difficulty 48 Mai Trin hands them their rumps AGAIN and AGAIN on their first run into the new fractals…

yeah, i was thinking that, but he actually said they rebalanced it to be a little easier up till 50.
so while it will have this new mechanic from 30 onward, it probably wont make it that much harder compared to what was there before.

Hopefully this “readjustment” of difficulty from 1-30 will make things easier, can finally get past Fractal 1 I hope. =/

If not I’ll just go back to not doing them at all, doesn’t much affect me otherwise.

the real questions are… will there be fractal competitive seasons and how are the servers going to be matched up initially?

Fox.3469:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Corpus Christi.2057:

slurpey.6014:

Let’s just reset the whole game while we at it. That gives a balance on every aspect since nothing remains

Haha, precisely that!:P

+ 1 please anet I lost my Progress everyone should loose theirs! Just for sake of Fairness and Casuality I suggest a yearly reset:)

Odly enough, that sounds like fun, imagine an mmo just resetting so you can do it all over again (the race to 80, lvling, the first takedown of bosses (especially tequatl as he is now with people not all being 80), if they open a reset server, i’d so be up for that :p

It’s not just that. It’s everything. Characters back to 30, Legendaries/Ascended Gear removal, WwW/PvP Ranks/Listings removed, Dungeon resets, Story Mode back to 0, Gem Stone purchases erased and removal of all items inside the TP. At least then the game is balanced and everybody got a nerf instead of just specific groups

Out of morbid curiosity: for those who are upset about the level reset, what would you consider a reasonable alternative?

It’s clear from the patch notes that fractal levels 30-50 are going to be effectively brand new content after the patch, which no one has ever run before.

Are you suggesting that people who are 50+ before the update should unlock all the new content and rewards instantly without having to play it in order? I don’t see how that makes sense; that’s like saying that you should be able to fight a living story boss without playing through the living story because you were fractal level 50; this isn’t the same content. And several of you have explicitly denied that you were hoping for this.

Are you suggesting that they should have put the new 30-50 at 80-100 instead, and force everyone who wants to play the new content to grind through 50 levels of obsolete placeholder content first? That strikes me as mean-spirited, and in any case it’s obviously foolish from a business perspective (content that most players will never see won’t keep them playing), so I can’t see it happening no matter how righteous your cause.

Do you want to be able to continue to play the current version of the fractal levels that they’re removing? I could imagine a system where there’s 2 parallel advancement tracks, one through the current levels and another through the new levels, and you keep your position on the old track. I think that would be reasonable in principle, though I have a hard time believing that the current level 50 is different enough from level 30 and the new level 50 to be worth extra developer time and splitting the playerbase just to keep it around.

Do you just want a little box somewhere in your hero panel that says you got to level X under the old system?

What exactly would “not resetting fractal level” look like, in your imagination, assuming they’re still going through with everything else?

Thank you for making it account bound. You have no idea how tedious it was that if I wanted to use my alts, I had to switch to my main at the end and pray a stealth update wasn’t deployed, preventing me from getting back into the instance.

I have some reservations, though. Will you be improving fractal weapon drops rates and making it so when a fractal skin drops it’s a box with a weapon you pick? Making the daily chest account bound nerfs the acquisition rate of pristine relics and ring drops if you don’t fix the drop rates of the items themselves.

Felbryn.5462:

Out of morbid curiosity: for those who are upset about the level reset, what would you consider a reasonable alternative?

It’s clear from the patch notes that fractal levels 30-50 are going to be effectively brand new content after the patch, which no one has ever run before.

Are you suggesting that people who are 50+ before the update should unlock all the new content and rewards instantly without having to play it in order? I don’t see how that makes sense; that’s like saying that you should be able to fight a living story boss without playing through the living story because you were fractal level 50; this isn’t the same content. And several of you have explicitly denied that you were hoping for this.

Are you suggesting that they should have put the new 30-50 at 80-100 instead, and force everyone who wants to play the new content to grind through 50 levels of obsolete placeholder content first? That strikes me as mean-spirited, and in any case it’s obviously foolish from a business perspective (content that most players will never see won’t keep them playing), so I can’t see it happening no matter how righteous your cause.

Do you want to be able to continue to play the current version of the fractal levels that they’re removing? I could imagine a system where there’s 2 parallel advancement tracks, one through the current levels and another through the new levels, and you keep your position on the old track. I think that would be reasonable in principle, though I have a hard time believing that the current level 50 is different enough from level 30 and the new level 50 to be worth extra developer time and splitting the playerbase just to keep it around.

Do you just want a little box somewhere in your hero panel that says you got to level X under the old system?

What exactly would “not resetting fractal level” look like, in your imagination, assuming they’re still going through with everything else?

Easy don’t add leaderboards you can’t just add leaderboards to a race that is already over.. and leave us our Level there is no Point in deleting our fractal Levels if you don’t have leaderboards.. if we want the new rewards we have to finish the scale at the new difficulty otherwise we don’t get nothing out of our Levels. or exclude us from leaderboards and leave us our Levels… there is basicaly no Point besides the leaderbaords to take away our Levels … for all that say it’s harder no it might be but if we can’t complete or have to farm agony resistance on lower Levels now.. it’s fair but we could enter scale 81 the scale we deserve if we wanted that is the important Thing. if they leave us the Level they loose nothing if we can’t complete the new Content on that Level we gain nothing really nothing and if we can complete it we deserve it anyways so whats the Point?

This reset thing seems a bit irrational to me…
With the current system you can get up to level 50 on your own as intended.
Now they want to add 20 new levels that have some extra difficulty.
So why not let them be 50-70?
Why does everyone have to go back to 30?

Gondrakif.4510:

This reset thing seems a bit irrational to me…
With the current system you can get up to level 50 on your own as intended.
Now they want to add 20 new levels that have some extra difficulty.
So why not let them be 50-70?
Why does everyone have to go back to 30?

why not let em be 81-100 nobody would complain… 80 was the cap before realease the cap and make new Levels it seems fine for me… but not just reroll Progress of ppl

I understand that you guys cater for casual players mindlessly farming in champ trains and I’m perfectly fine with that being a casual myself but spitting right in the faces of people who did arguably the hardest content without any reward(i.e. for fun) is just terrible.
Resetting people to 30 for a so called fair start is obviously wrong and the leaderboard? Seriously? That’s a joke and you guys know it. Turning yet another part of the game in a grindfest?
I understand that you won’t change your mind because the players who are affected the most are a very small part of the community, the majority being the zerg open world bunch who are probably more than happy with the new carrot on the stick that fractals are ought to become.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

for all that say it’s harder no it might be but if we can’t complete or have to farm agony resistance on lower Levels now.. it’s fair but we could enter scale 81 the scale we deserve if we wanted that is the important Thing. if they leave us the Level they loose nothing if we can’t complete the new Content on that Level we gain nothing really nothing and if we can complete it we deserve it anyways so whats the Point?

It sounds like you’re saying what you want is the ability to skip new levels 31-49 (which you have never played) and jump straight into new level 50—option #1 in my previous post. Am I understanding you correctly?

Gondrakif.4510:

This reset thing seems a bit irrational to me…
With the current system you can get up to level 50 on your own as intended.
Now they want to add 20 new levels that have some extra difficulty.
So why not let them be 50-70?
Why does everyone have to go back to 30?

Because people complaint that they couldn’t get the weapon skins or couldn’t find groups running the lower level fractals. So they reset it with the excuse that the “difficulty has been increased” and “we added new stuff”. If they would of add it to the current 50+ fractals, people would of complaint that the new upcoming patch is only for hardcore players since they are grinding fractals for months now.

Excuses for resetting us to 30:

Leaderboards

With a total of 50 available levels the granularity on these leaderboards is so small it’s useless. If you intend to calculate things other than level (kills, time taken, etc) there is no reason to reset the level.

Not a valid excuse.

Levels 30+ are now harder, leaving people at previous levels would be giving them an unfair shortcut

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

Not a valid excuse.

Compensation for resetting us to 30:

Relativity.3264:

Excuses for resetting us to 30:

Leaderboards

With a total of 50 available levels the granularity on these leaderboards is so small it’s useless. If you intend to calculate things other than level (kills, time taken, etc) there is no reason to reset the level.

Not a valid excuse.

Levels 30+ are now harder, leaving people at previous levels would be giving them an unfair shortcut

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

Not a valid excuse.

Compensation for resetting us to 30:

to add here: Levels 30+ are now harder, leaving people at previous levels would be giving them an unfair shortcut

If we can’t complete those high level’s we used the so called shortcut for we don’t get any rewards so it’s not a shortcut if we can complete that Level we deserve to be there… and shortcut is a joke because we put in a lot of time and effort so it’s not a shortcut at all!

Dardevilmon.6702:

mtpelion.4562:

The leaderboard is not the main reason for the reset. They have completely redesigned the difficulty and AR system which is what merits the reset.

It’s like this: you worked really hard to become the best horse racing jockey around. Then they invented cars and now everyone drives indy race cars instead of horses around the race track. Your horse racing skills are now “pointless” and thus they don’t matter.

It sucks for you, but you’ve either got to get with the times and enjoy the new content or slowly fade into obscurity as that “cranky old horse guy”.

I assume you have a legendary (i do). Anet introduces a new one, your old one gets deleted.
You’ve reached rank 80 in spvp, they introduce new balance patch/game mode you are reset to 30.
They add new dungeon and reset your DM title so you have to do it all over again.
You got the 250k kills in wvw they reset it because they added new map and changed some beep.

You understand where I am coming from? and you don’t get anything as compensation or at least we don’t know (and I honestly don’t have hope for anything)

(edited for comprehension)

I’d just do it again. Fact is, they’re increasing the difficulty of 30+, meaning for you to keep your level 40 without meeting the new, increased difficulty, would result in you entering harder, level 40 fractals and perhaps being unprepared for them, which could hurt your progress, as well as that of your group (if you’re pugging). The content and the work required to surpass it has changed; allowing you to bypass that on an outdated rank means you’re entering an even more challenging level without experience from the new fractal difficulty, without doing the work required for the “new” rank.

I understand your frustration, however your comparisons to changes in WvW, dungeons, and spvp don’t really apply – unless you’re one to work for a rank and then stop once you’ve reached it. People playing WvW and dungeons are going to play regardless of an achievement – it’s because they want to, they want those rewards. I don’t WvW for an achievement to kill 500 players. I don’t run dungeons just for a DM title. I do it for gold, I do it for loot, I do it for variety, I do it for fun. It also doesn’t apply to a legendary – legendary is contingent upon completing a grind (or having enough gold), not attached to skill level or competency. It is static – changes are applied across the board. Fractals are the only challenging, progression based content in the game – therefore I’m ok with increased difficulty at the cost of dropping my level to 30 (hey, at least it’s not 0..). I run it for the challenge, gold, group coordination, and rewards – which is only changing for the better.

Instead of looking at it as “losing” existing work, it seems more to me like progressing from a normal/story mode dungeon to a hard/heroic mode dungeon (in other games). You’re just progressing to a higher difficulty. It’s continued progression, and additional content (in terms of challenge level) and provides the player with a new challenge to climb back on top. You’re only receiving a partially reduced rank; you’re not losing your rewards, your gear, your experience, or your gold.

LOL

tbh, I care about my personal 80 as much as I care about this game right now, which is none

Dears,

All we wanted was the following:
- better rewards: No. We even get worse rewards as we could play 28, 38 and 48 in a day to hope for skins, ascended or whatever, now we have only 1 shot a day and that’s it.
- account-bound level: Yes, finally, thanks a lot!
- new fractals and/or significant changes to dredges: yes for the first, thanks a lot! No idea for the latter.
- Less RNG in skins: No, you only reduced the level to get them. Couldn’t you implement a token system? You already have thousands of tokens in this game, why not one more?
- keep the existing everything else: Definitely no.

Looks like you didn’t listen to us. What’s the purpose of these forums. All the fractals hardcore people are on the forum. You only have to read the dungeon subforum, yet it really really looks like you didn’t read it at all. I’m not saying you didn’t: just that it doesn’t look like you did.

Sorry but I’m completely disappointed. The good points don’t outdo the bad ones. I really wished I’d be happy with the changes, but I really can’t, sorry

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Gondrakif.4510:

This reset thing seems a bit irrational to me…
With the current system you can get up to level 50 on your own as intended.
Now they want to add 20 new levels that have some extra difficulty.
So why not let them be 50-70?
Why does everyone have to go back to 30?

why not let em be 81-100 nobody would complain… 80 was the cap before realease the cap and make new Levels it seems fine for me… but not just reroll Progress of ppl

Because getting to 80 after the patch was impossible unless you had someone who had 80 help you. In my opinion 50-70 should be the new levels and ppl at 80 should be left as they are, if they wanted to reset them it should have been done when 50 was hard capped. It would be a complete joke to everyone who did odd fractals to progress after the patch to be reset.

This reminds a bit of LDoA, although back then they gave a title to everyone who did it and after years they made an easy way for the rest to do it….
It’s not the same but there is a resemblance…

robertul.3679:

I understand that you guys cater for casual players mindlessly farming in champ trains and I’m perfectly fine with that being a casual myself but spitting right in the faces of people who did arguably the hardest content without any reward(i.e. for fun) is just terrible.
Resetting people to 30 for a so called fair start is obviously wrong and the leaderboard? Seriously? That’s a joke and you guys know it. Turning yet another part of the game in a grindfest?
I understand that you won’t change your mind because the players who are affected the most are a very small part of the community, the majority being the zerg open world bunch who are probably more than happy with the new carrot on the stick that fractals are ought to become.

I’m glad that at least someone is able to understand…

I honestly don’t understand why some people even argue. Why do they care if I start from maximum level? (Leaderboard should update when I beat a level)

Bright.9160:

So what this update has done is the following:

• Screw over a bunch of people that got to lvl50+ or 50 by invalidating their work and putting them on the same standard as some random scrub that just hit lvl30.

• Hand out Fractal weapons to everyone: if anything, they should have changed them to only drop in lvl30 or lvl40+, not lower the requirement to get them.

• Remove any incentive to do more than 1 Fractal run/day, because they are now account bound and doing a daily again is basically a waste of time. The only reason the day after the patch to do extra levels is in order to get to 50 first. Woopdi-flipping-doo. As if this game wasn’t alt-unfriendly enough.

• Cheat a bunch of people out of 100’s of gold because of the t6 mats they used to make special infusions.

• Show yet again how incompetent Anet is as a company.

• Show yet again how little Anet cares about their hardcore high-end PvE community.

Yep, and dumb down difficulty after level 30 because it’s too hard because metrics.

But hey, we get another dredge fractal and a chest that gives one gold for doing a daily 48!

islarose.7356:

Fact is, they’re increasing the difficulty of 30+

Lie

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

They couldn’t increase the difficulty for one simple reason, the game is already too hard.

can clearly tell who are the people that never liked/cared and only did it until lvl 20 and the people who did like the way it was and dedicated their time in it.

personaly idc for the rewards, i just want some token to remind/show what lvl i did manage to reach. ~81

Please no leaderboard. You will wipe our 30+ progress for nothing. The only place in this game where people should flex is bank of LA with legandary.
At least give us some reasonable compensation.

pretty much this. Fractals were the only thing keeping me on this game. I’ve been waiting a while for some changes that would improve compensation (i.e. salvaging ascended rings, letting me do something with 20+ shards in my bank, let us infuse ammy/accessories to make lvl50+ reasonable AR-wise). Instead, they for some reason drop everyone to 30 instead of just keeping the difficulty system as-is? If they wanted to tweak the difficulty a bit, why not implement these changes at 50+ (without booting everyone to 50, of course).

Who cares if someone is already lvl80 and would be top of the leaderboard… kudos to them! I’m only lvl 50.

Also… why do we even need a leaderboard for this?

Fractal weaps at lvl 10? Great! Now everyone will have them.

Yes, I’ve been patiently waiting for an update, but this feels like the opposite of what fractal-goers want. I guess I’ll just stick to Dota2 from now on. GG and goodbye Anet

islarose.7356:

Dardevilmon.6702:

mtpelion.4562:

The leaderboard is not the main reason for the reset. They have completely redesigned the difficulty and AR system which is what merits the reset.

It’s like this: you worked really hard to become the best horse racing jockey around. Then they invented cars and now everyone drives indy race cars instead of horses around the race track. Your horse racing skills are now “pointless” and thus they don’t matter.

It sucks for you, but you’ve either got to get with the times and enjoy the new content or slowly fade into obscurity as that “cranky old horse guy”.

I assume you have a legendary (i do). Anet introduces a new one, your old one gets deleted.
You’ve reached rank 80 in spvp, they introduce new balance patch/game mode you are reset to 30.
They add new dungeon and reset your DM title so you have to do it all over again.
You got the 250k kills in wvw they reset it because they added new map and changed some beep.

You understand where I am coming from? and you don’t get anything as compensation or at least we don’t know (and I honestly don’t have hope for anything)

(edited for comprehension)

I’d just do it again. Fact is, they’re increasing the difficulty of 30+, meaning for you to keep your level 40 without meeting the new, increased difficulty, would result in you entering harder, level 40 fractals and perhaps being unprepared for them, which could hurt your progress, as well as that of your group (if you’re pugging). The content and the work required to surpass it has changed; allowing you to bypass that on an outdated rank means you’re entering an even more challenging level without experience from the new fractal difficulty, without doing the work required for the “new” rank.

I understand your frustration, however your comparisons to changes in WvW, dungeons, and spvp don’t really apply – unless you’re one to work for a rank and then stop once you’ve reached it. People playing WvW and dungeons are going to play regardless of an achievement – it’s because they want to, they want those rewards. I don’t WvW for an achievement to kill 500 players. I don’t run dungeons just for a DM title. I do it for gold, I do it for loot, I do it for variety, I do it for fun. It also doesn’t apply to a legendary – legendary is contingent upon completing a grind (or having enough gold), not attached to skill level or competency. It is static – changes are applied across the board. Fractals are the only challenging, progression based content in the game – therefore I’m ok with increased difficulty at the cost of dropping my level to 30 (hey, at least it’s not 0..). I run it for the challenge, gold, group coordination, and rewards – which is only changing for the better.

Instead of looking at it as “losing” existing work, it seems more to me like progressing from a normal/story mode dungeon to a hard/heroic mode dungeon (in other games). You’re just progressing to a higher difficulty. It’s continued progression, and additional content (in terms of challenge level) and provides the player with a new challenge to climb back on top. You’re only receiving a partially reduced rank; you’re not losing your rewards, your gear, your experience, or your gold.

Look if I Keep my Level 81 I will get nothing out of it besides beeing able to join high Levels as I was before.. whats the reason to set me down? if there is new difficulty ok I might be not able to complete it. but that’s my Problem not yours… there is no Point in resetting it besides leaderboards just exclude me from those.. don’t say I take a shortcut getting lvl 81 was hardwork … I don’t get more or less rewards if I can’t complete the acoording Level Keep that in mind.. If I can complete Level 64 I get the reward of Level 64 if I can’t complete it I don’t get anyreward for beeing 81…

On top of that you remove all the Karma you handed out about 10k for helping ppl a lower Levels out this is taken away from me as well

Relativity.3264:

islarose.7356:

Fact is, they’re increasing the difficulty of 30+

Lie

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

Read, please. After 30 you get the new challenging features. The curve he’s talking about if you had any clue was jumping from 20 to 40 prior to people being able to stack agony up their kitten with the ascended accessories.

Back then your only option was to actually learn to reliably dodge all agony attacks.

Moreover, you can’t say dredge and ascalon got ridiculous for non plate stacking groups.

I know most “hardcore” groups can’t appreciate this as they have rarely had any qualms about using guardians and warriors to trivialize content, but doing dredge at 48 as berk ele or even ascalon without a guardian for perma reflects or the burst aoe of 100b is just dumb.

It was gimmicky balancing. Hopefully the newly introduced challenges don’t take the usual game balance design of “Hard = more HP more damage done”.

My questions and concerns:

1.) The hard cap of FotM 50 is going to be reached by hardcore PvE’ers in about a week, even with the reset to 30. Why did you decide to cap FotM at 50?

2.) What is going to happen to the people who upgraded backpieces, rings and infusions? A lot of materials (ie, ectos, T6 materials, relics, mist essence) were put into those upgrades. I know we don’t have the full picture on exactly how the AR changes are coming, but it seems a lot of these things will be destroyed.

3.) YOU SHOULD NOT RESET LEGITIMATE PROGRESSION IN A GAME. Ever. Period.

• If the content is challenging, if the mechanics are too difficult, people will go in at lower levels until they are confident enough to move forward.

• Arbitrarily resetting people to 30 simply to initiate a “leaderboard” is possibly the worst idea I’ve yet seen by the developers. The only people interested in such boards are the high-end PvE community — coincidentally the people you are hurting the most out of this update — and they already know who has the levels and skill to do high level fractals.

• To the people who think that the reset is okay: please don’t. Have sympathy for your fellow players. If you WvW or PvP, this is most comparable there — would you not fight to keep the progression you made there, especially if your rank was going to be cut in half or more? To the more casual PvE’ers — just imagine all of your characters being sent back to level 1 with no gear and being told that it was “okay”. You’d be upset as well. As Bright and Arietta have stated, there was lot of time, effort and gold spent among people who progressed to 50 – 80 level FotM.

4.) Thaumanova Reactor / Molten Furnace / Aetherblade Fractal — forgive me if I seem jaded but. . .are these just the same LS dungeons you’ve already released. . .made into a fractal level? The boss encounters described in your release sound like the same exact boss fights. They were BAD in the LS releases. They WILL NOT BE BETTER in a fractal unless you have done serious reworking of the mechanics in those fights.

• In particular I am worried about the Mai Trin boss fight. You’ve mentioned those stupid cannons where you ran in a circle for way too long until they got bored and came back down so you can actually do something about killing them. That fight in LS was not challenging. It was boring. It was tedious. Everyone I know was immensely relieved to have their achievements done so they didn’t have to ever do it again.

I appreciate that fractals updates are happening, but I have serious concerns about it’s implementation.

Nick.6972:

That’s correct. They’re not punishing the casuals, they’re punishing hardcore players.

No intention to offend, but having been a definition hardcore player in games that shall not be mentioned (meaning hours nightly in progression raiding with tight mechanics and group coordination, server firsts in high difficulty modes, high raid awareness and top gear levels to participate) I’m a little amused at “hardcore” equating to what are essentially 5-man heroic/hard mode dungeons, and getting upset at an increased difficulty level.

Giving higher challenge/difficulty levels and improving rewards for those higher levels seems to be rewarding players that are actually hardcore, who typically welcome increased challenges, and is more of a punishment to casuals who may have slowly made their way to 30+ (or been carried, or simply pursued the grind in lieu of anything else).

Additionally, at launch my “hardcore raiding guilds” left GW2 as they perceived it to be lacking in challenging end-game content; adding fractals and subsequently increasing difficulty level is a welcome move to appeal to that player style.

Give these players a unique title and back piece that won’t be available after the patch and problems solved.

Zenith.7301:

Moreover, you can’t say dredge and ascalon got ridiculous for non plate stacking groups.

I know most “hardcore” groups can’t appreciate this as they have rarely had any qualms about using guardians and warriors to trivialize content, but doing dredge at 48 as berk ele or even ascalon without a guardian for perma reflects or the burst aoe of 100b is just dumb.

It was gimmicky balancing. Hopefully the newly introduced challenges don’t take the usual game balance design of “Hard = more HP more damage done”.

I’ve got to 80 using this composition: 2 war/nec/2 ele. You know what do you need the most in fractals? Reflections. Do you know what this group lacks?

Bright.9160:

I’d love to see the WvW ranks reset to 0, because I have 0 myself, and then see the ****storm unleash, only to jump in saying things like

Haha, who cares about WvW anyway?

and

No one forced you to do WvW, why are you complaining?

And see how all the carebear kittenters in this thread that are actually implying anything about this update is good would react. The only positive thing about this update is the fact that Fractal weapons will come in boxes at higher levels.

Everything else, including account bound personal level is absolute horse kitten. Making this game even more alt-unfriendly is the last thing we needed.

How is account bound personal level alt-unfriendly? I perceived that as being friendly for alts, seeing as that level would be shared, and you could use characters best suited for group composition without having to level them all respectively (fractal levels). Unless you’re referring to the lockouts/loot restrictions?

Frosty.8491:

• To the people who think that the reset is okay: please don’t. Have sympathy for your fellow players. If you WvW or PvP, this is most comparable there — would you not fight to keep the progression you made there, especially if your rank was going to be cut in half or more?

If PvP wasn’t account bound progression then I would never touch it considering PvP leveling is a big grind.

If WvW progression was reset to a lower level but changed to account bound, I would happily take it.

It is unfortunate for the players that grinded their toons to high level fractals get reset, but you all have already got your rewards from those runs. You are not losing anything except the level progression that you can get in less than a week.

To be honest, there seems to be a big disagreement between account bound and non account bound stuff between anet devs. They should just make everything account bound.

haviz.1340:

Zenith.7301:

Moreover, you can’t say dredge and ascalon got ridiculous for non plate stacking groups.

I know most “hardcore” groups can’t appreciate this as they have rarely had any qualms about using guardians and warriors to trivialize content, but doing dredge at 48 as berk ele or even ascalon without a guardian for perma reflects or the burst aoe of 100b is just dumb.

It was gimmicky balancing. Hopefully the newly introduced challenges don’t take the usual game balance design of “Hard = more HP more damage done”.

I’ve got to 80 using this composition: 2 war/nec/2 ele. You know what do you need the most in fractals? Reflections. Do you know what this group lacks?

Range weapons?

haviz.1340:

Zenith.7301:

Moreover, you can’t say dredge and ascalon got ridiculous for non plate stacking groups.

I know most “hardcore” groups can’t appreciate this as they have rarely had any qualms about using guardians and warriors to trivialize content, but doing dredge at 48 as berk ele or even ascalon without a guardian for perma reflects or the burst aoe of 100b is just dumb.

It was gimmicky balancing. Hopefully the newly introduced challenges don’t take the usual game balance design of “Hard = more HP more damage done”.

I’ve got to 80 using this composition: 2 war/nec/2 ele. You know what do you need the most in fractals? Reflections. Do you know what this group lacks?

A guardian?
I’m just kidding. No, actually i’m laughing my head off.

SkyChef.5432:

Range weapons?

I can appreciate good attempts.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

islarose.7356:

Dardevilmon.6702:

mtpelion.4562:

The leaderboard is not the main reason for the reset. They have completely redesigned the difficulty and AR system which is what merits the reset.

It’s like this: you worked really hard to become the best horse racing jockey around. Then they invented cars and now everyone drives indy race cars instead of horses around the race track. Your horse racing skills are now “pointless” and thus they don’t matter.

It sucks for you, but you’ve either got to get with the times and enjoy the new content or slowly fade into obscurity as that “cranky old horse guy”.

I assume you have a legendary (i do). Anet introduces a new one, your old one gets deleted.
You’ve reached rank 80 in spvp, they introduce new balance patch/game mode you are reset to 30.
They add new dungeon and reset your DM title so you have to do it all over again.
You got the 250k kills in wvw they reset it because they added new map and changed some beep.

You understand where I am coming from? and you don’t get anything as compensation or at least we don’t know (and I honestly don’t have hope for anything)

(edited for comprehension)

I’d just do it again. Fact is, they’re increasing the difficulty of 30+, meaning for you to keep your level 40 without meeting the new, increased difficulty, would result in you entering harder, level 40 fractals and perhaps being unprepared for them, which could hurt your progress, as well as that of your group (if you’re pugging). The content and the work required to surpass it has changed; allowing you to bypass that on an outdated rank means you’re entering an even more challenging level without experience from the new fractal difficulty, without doing the work required for the “new” rank.

I understand your frustration, however your comparisons to changes in WvW, dungeons, and spvp don’t really apply – unless you’re one to work for a rank and then stop once you’ve reached it. People playing WvW and dungeons are going to play regardless of an achievement – it’s because they want to, they want those rewards. I don’t WvW for an achievement to kill 500 players. I don’t run dungeons just for a DM title. I do it for gold, I do it for loot, I do it for variety, I do it for fun. It also doesn’t apply to a legendary – legendary is contingent upon completing a grind (or having enough gold), not attached to skill level or competency. It is static – changes are applied across the board. Fractals are the only challenging, progression based content in the game – therefore I’m ok with increased difficulty at the cost of dropping my level to 30 (hey, at least it’s not 0..). I run it for the challenge, gold, group coordination, and rewards – which is only changing for the better.

Instead of looking at it as “losing” existing work, it seems more to me like progressing from a normal/story mode dungeon to a hard/heroic mode dungeon (in other games). You’re just progressing to a higher difficulty. It’s continued progression, and additional content (in terms of challenge level) and provides the player with a new challenge to climb back on top. You’re only receiving a partially reduced rank; you’re not losing your rewards, your gear, your experience, or your gold.

Look if I Keep my Level 81 I will get nothing out of it besides beeing able to join high Levels as I was before.. whats the reason to set me down? if there is new difficulty ok I might be not able to complete it. but that’s my Problem not yours… there is no Point in resetting it besides leaderboards just exclude me from those.. don’t say I take a shortcut getting lvl 81 was hardwork … I don’t get more or less rewards if I can’t complete the acoording Level Keep that in mind.. If I can complete Level 64 I get the reward of Level 64 if I can’t complete it I don’t get anyreward for beeing 81…

On top of that you remove all the Karma you handed out about 10k for helping ppl a lower Levels out this is taken away from me as well

I don’t care about leaderboards either, and as I said, I understand the frustration. Truly. I was simply trying to rationalize the changes, and instead of facing something undesirable and getting upset over it, I chose to highlight the positive aspects. I’m certainly not denying the hard work done by players who have achieved high ranks, I’m choosing instead to highlight new challenges rather than the loss of rank.

What’s this about removing karma?

Zylonite.5913:

Give these players a unique title and back piece that won’t be available after the patch and problems solved.

that’s what I said, We all did the high level fractals for almost no reward prior to this…so just give us some recognition so that when we join a group someone can look at us and say “ahh….he (or she) is one of the old-guard”. It’s giving people the respect that they earned for accomplishing something that not a lot of people did. Give us something special to show that we were the leaders prior to the leaderboard being created…and making it different depending on how high you really were would be icing on the cake….like add a tag to the backpiece for every 10 levels above 30 you used to be…or a different color…or just anything to show that I was there…even if I might not have the time or energy to go there again.

Zylonite.5913:

Give these players a unique title and back piece that won’t be available after the patch and problems solved.

Ha ha, solution to everything in MMOs!

Moshari.8570:

Zylonite.5913:

Give these players a unique title and back piece that won’t be available after the patch and problems solved.

that’s what I said, We all did the high level fractals for almost no reward prior to this…so just give us some recognition so that when we join a group someone can look at us and say “ahh….he (or she) is one of the old-guard”. It’s giving people the respect that they earned for accomplishing something that not a lot of people did. Give us something special to show that we were the leaders prior to the leaderboard being created…and making it different depending on how high you really were would be icing on the cake….like add a tag to the backpiece for every 10 levels above 30 you used to be…or a different color…or just anything to show that I was there…even if I might not have the time or energy to go there again.

If they implement these changes, I definitely won’t be going there again.

For once, Arena Net found the perfect title to the release: Arena Net and the players community could not be more fractured.

McFly.2134:

Current concerns:

1) Will 30+ be given compensation? Will 50+ be given extra compensation? What will it be?
2) Please explain what happens to infused backpieces. Was infusing it with 250 ectos a complete waste? If so, will those be given back?

I will personally keep posting these once or twice every page until a dev responds to them (even though I really only care about the second one and it’s getting lost in the QQ of the first).

*For a good comparison regarding the AR change on infused back pieces:

250 ectos is a chunk of change. We’ll say that it makes up 75% of the mat/gold investment to created an infused back item (that number is inaccurate, I just used an easy number for sanity’s sake).

What does 75% mat/gold investment of a legendary weapon look like? What if tomorrow ANET makes an announcement that crafting legendaries is far easier. 1) They remove the Icy Runestone requirement. 2) They remove the Mystic Clover requirement. 3) They remove one of the Gifts (Making only three required). 4) They remove the precursor requirement.
How would you feel about that if you literally finished your legendary a week ago?

I would like to add:
3) Who cares about leaderboards for PvE content? 95% of the posts I see don’t want this, at all, especially if that’s the excuse for negating our levels past 30. If this is actually the real reason, then why aren’t the levels going to 0? As that would be the real level playing field.

Here is my perspective:

I leveled to FOTM 80 because it was the only content in the game that I found moderately difficult and enjoyable. I didn’t have a set group, but usually leveled with a mix of friends and a mix of pugs. It was a lot of time, very little proportional reward, but a whole lot of fun.

The clutch moments on level 79 shaman where the 4/5 people die and one person manages to res the rest… that was why I played high level fractals. I enjoyed it.

Looking at the new changes, I am hesitantly disappointed. I know I’ll have to test out the new levels 30-50 before I can fully judge, but from what the developers have been saying you can get to level 50 with less AR than before, and the overall difficulty curve from 1-50 has been lowered. The devs said they’d open up levels 50+ in the future, but not now.

I’ve waited a long time for them to “re-officially” open 50+. I quit the game a while back due to school, and was really looking forward to this patch to maybe bring me back in. But instead of a new challenge being opened to the rest of the player base, the cap on 50 is still in place, and from what the devs said, the content has been dumbed down a bit.

As it stands now, this really isn’t encouraging me personally to come back to the game.

I was one of the people who played from 50-80 not for the rewards, but for the challenge and fun and yes, admittedly, a bit of guild prestige. I don’t care about the leaderboards, don’t care about the rewards, and don’t care about the “new” fractal if it’s going to be easy. I want the dungeon that they said, and now are saying again, has “infinite” levels, that increases in difficulty, so I can challenge myself and have some fun in the process.

Edit: Also, if and when they open 50+, if it requires AR grind, I’ll never enter the dungeon again.

*1 maybe true depending on your prespective

*2 supposedly drop rare hasent changed and they were always possible from 10 on, just highly unlikely (well thats what the dev said) i have gotten one in the 20s though.

*essentially the daily system is almost exactly the same, except its acount bound now.

*the old infusions are not being touched, no one will have less AR, there is no a possibility for higher AR, nothing really different here

*since all your beefs except 1 are inaccurate, i dont know if you can really make that claim, but regardless, it sucks that you lost your title, i suggest they give you another
Alpha fractal runner X
x= level of fractal over 30 you obtained

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

Here is my perspective:

I leveled to FOTM 80 because it was the only content in the game that I found moderately difficult and enjoyable. I didn’t have a set group, but usually leveled with a mix of friends and a mix of pugs. It was a lot of time, very little proportional reward, but a whole lot of fun.

The clutch moments on level 79 shaman where the 4/5 people die and one person manages to res the rest… that was why I played high level fractals. I enjoyed it.

Looking at the new changes, I am hesitantly disappointed. I know I’ll have to test out the new levels 30-50 before I can fully judge, but from what the developers have been saying you can get to level 50 with less AR than before, and the overall difficulty curve from 1-50 has been lowered. The devs said they’d open up levels 50+ in the future, but not now.

I’ve waited over a year for them to “re-officially” open 50+. I quit the game a while back due to school, and was really looking forward to this patch to maybe bring me back in. But instead of a new challenge being opened to the rest of the player base, the cap on 50 is still in place, and from what the devs said, the content has been dumbed down a bit.

As it stands now, this really isn’t encouraging me personally to come back to the game.

I was one of the people who played from 50-80 not for the rewards, but for the challenge and fun and yes, admittedly, a bit of guild prestige. I don’t care about the leaderboards, don’t care about the rewards, and don’t care about the “new” fractal if it’s going to be easy. I want the dungeon that they said, and now are saying again, has “infinite” levels, that increases in difficulty, so I can challenge myself and have some fun in the process.

Edit: Also, if and when they open 50+, if it requires AR grind, I’ll never enter the dungeon again.

i get what your saying, and it actually saddens me they are making it easier, the loss of the ever increasing difficulty sucks.

Dont get the last part though, fractals were set up from jump to be a AR grind, not a bad one imo, but AR grind none the less, why would they take that away now?
also, Mr Ordon said the level 50 fractal has the AR requirement for 50-59, so shouldnt be that bad really

phys.7689:

*1 maybe true depending on your prespective

*2 supposedly drop rare hasent changed and they were always possible from 10 on, just highly unlikely (well thats what the dev said) i have gotten one in the 20s though.

*essentially the daily system is almost exactly the same, except its acount bound now.

*the old infusions are not being touched, no one will have less AR, there is no a possibility for higher AR, nothing really different here

*since all your beefs except 1 are inaccurate, i dont know if you can really make that claim, but regardless, it sucks that you lost your title, i suggest they give you another
Alpha fractal runner X
x= level of fractal over 30 you obtained

@phys, you are actually incorrect on all accounts.
1) weapons ONLY dropped 20+ at a rate of ~5% (~15% at 38, ~30% at 48)
2) you could run multiple dailies, one from each “tier” (i.e. 48, 38, 28)
3) they ARE reducing AR. “infused” rings will no longer have the +5AR built in… rather, they will already have AR in the infusion slot… what happens to people that grinded the 250 ecto infusions?? will they be given 100s of gold they spent to get them?