Guild Wars 2

JMar.3254:

You guys seem to be very adamant and berating people with questions. Why do you guys take such an issue with us valuing our time?

Do you not understand that we invested time and work into progression, only to have it erased? Would you feel cheated if the same thing happened to you?

I’m not adamant and I’m certainly berating no one.

Logically speaking, the stuff you’ve done isn’t lost, because you’ve done it. But that content is being replaced by different content that you haven’t done.

Now Anet isn’t going to skew the new content so that the majority of the playerbase won’t benefit from it.

This is about perspective and nothing else. In your perspective Anet is taking away something from you, but what? A few hours of your time. How many hours would you estimate that it will take to get from level 30 to level 50 fractals.

Because that’s what’s really at stake here. The stuff you’ve done in the past isn’t really lost, because you’ve done it. You don’t get to say you’ve done the new stuff, because you haven’t…but that doesn’t detract from what you’ve done.

You may enter through the same gate, but it’s not the same Fractals. All Anet did was take away something that pretty much only a tiny percentage of the population accessed and replaced it with something else.

Is that something else worse? Better? As good?

No one knows because no one has played it yet.

ozma.3498:

What about WvW? How would you feel if when they added Bloodlust and new Mastery mechanics they downgraded your rank from 150 to 30 because you hadn’t earned your rank under the new conditions?

What about your character’s level? How would you feel if they added several new zones between level 30 and 80 and revamped existing zones, and reset your level to 30 on all characters, since you’d made no progress in the new content?

All these are just numbers, and yet somehow I doubt any player who is a hardcore PvPer/WvWer/altaholic would be okay with any of them. Pick whatever thing you like to do in-game, imagine your last ~150 hours of it was deleted with no compensation because it received some form of facelift, and then you’ll realize why so many high level fractal players are upset by this.

You do realize that when I go into a level 30 map they already reset my level to 30, right? Yeah, thought that was worth mentioning.

In WvW, the new mastery mechanics are the levels, so that makes no sense either.

someone please explain me how ANY of the 80+ ways was an exploit,
revive orbs? as far as i can remember they are intended for this thing called “REVIVING”.
ODD lvls? how is me lvling by un even lvls an exploit? its the exact same as doing that below lvl 50.

if they wanted to prevent you from going above that they would have completely shut it off, there was a hard cap at 80(81 visible) for a reason.

for players who don’t actually want agony resistance but just a steady flow of ascended rings to accomodate characters, will lvl 10 be sufficient and will it be harder easier, or same in future?

VOLKON.1290:

You do realize that when I go into a level 30 map they already reset my level to 30, right? Yeah, thought that was worth mentioning.

Pfff, you know what I mean… :P

In WvW, the new mastery mechanics are the levels, so that makes no sense either.

No, what I mean is – they add a new Mastery in an update, therefore the playing field is changed, therefore it’s unfair to still have ranks that you earned on the previous “playing field”. For example, they added Flame Ram Mastery in the Tequatl update. The playing field changed. Time to delete everybody’s ranks because you got to rank 150 in a world where Flame Ram Mastery didn’t exist.

lordkrall.7241:

Or are you maybe suggesting that these new instabilities will actually make it EASIER to complete Fractals?

According to the devs, even with those new instabilities your way up to 50 is going to be easier than it is now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/fractured/Fractured-Pro-Con-Suggestion-Thread/first#post3228388

We don’t want or care about leaderboards. This is PvE ! We worked for our levels.

Konrad.9587:

lordkrall.7241:

Or are you maybe suggesting that these new instabilities will actually make it EASIER to complete Fractals?

According to the devs, even with those new instabilities your way up to 50 is going to be easier than it is now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/fractured/Fractured-Pro-Con-Suggestion-Thread/first#post3228388

Ye, so just grind levels again so that they can be reseted next year.

Konrad.9587:

According to the devs, even with those new instabilities your way up to 50 is going to be easier than it is now.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/fractured/Fractured-Pro-Con-Suggestion-Thread/first#post3228388

´That is not actually what he is saying.
He is saying that the difficulty CURVE will be less steep.
That does however not mean that the Instabilities would make stuff easier, only that it the innate difficulty scaling will increase slower.

Wethospu.6437:

Ye, so just grind levels again so that they can be reseted next year.

Grind or not, I definitely don’t like the fact that the most prestigious skins in the whole game, one of the few that cannot be bought, will become so common.

Who cares about leaderboards in a PvE game? Seriously. I am only lv 28, so these changes don’t have an effect on me, but if I was level 80, i would be kitten ed if they got rid of all of my hard work.

I personally think the leaderboard was something that no one asked for and I really don’t see anyone who has said “YAY leaderboard!”

I think it is ridiculous that my levels get removed because of new content. Even if you say that 51-80 was done with an exploit….what about 30-50? Of my friends I am the ONLY one who has gone above 30 in fractals. Most of them bought magic find infusion slots and etc, so they didn’t have the AR to be able to go above 30 and most of the rewards could be gotten from a level 28. I went above 30 and made the infusions, and got myself to 45 AR (and now 55 AR with my GS) in order to do the harder levels. I do not understand why my achievement is now worth nothing more than their achievement. I have run over 1700 fractals, they have run 200 or less. After this patch…I am EQUAL to them.

Since from now on you get one of the +1 AR infusions for each fractal you run, what about doing something like giving one of those +1 infusions for every fractal you have over the 500 fractal achievement…I know guys who have done well over 2000 fractals, so this would give them 1500 +1’s and since it takes 512 for a single +10, this would effectively give them two +10’s and almost a third….which would grant an advantage over those other people at level 30, but it is a deserved advantage for time spent.

We just need something to show for our previous effort. It is ridiculous that those of us who did the content suddenly get our accomplishments removed because they want to put in a leaderboard that no one wanted!

I think a much better alternative to a leaderboard would be to have races. You could do a one month race where you have to make a new character, start at level one fractal, and just go. You could have the new content start off in the race as an extra incentive to play it. (After the race is over, the new content, and the characters / items would be put back into regular play. )

Ala D2 / PoE

My 2 cents

ozma.3498:

VOLKON.1290:

You do realize that when I go into a level 30 map they already reset my level to 30, right? Yeah, thought that was worth mentioning.

Pfff, you know what I mean… :P

In WvW, the new mastery mechanics are the levels, so that makes no sense either.

No, what I mean is – they add a new Mastery in an update, therefore the playing field is changed, therefore it’s unfair to still have ranks that you earned on the previous “playing field”. For example, they added Flame Ram Mastery in the Tequatl update. The playing field changed. Time to delete everybody’s ranks because you got to rank 150 in a world where Flame Ram Mastery didn’t exist.

Nah, they just allow for a reset of the points.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I’m struggling to think of an instance in an MMO where player progress has been reset on purpose outside of bugs or the result of an exploit. Personally, I always thought it one of the big No No’s of online gaming.

It’s user/customer perception that is just as important as the facts and on this aspect the level reset seems a very bad move.

A probably better solution would be to add a one off title track that gives people who were reset something to show for their efforts.

WoW does. In PvP you get a new set of season gear that the honor or weakest gear is better then the high end gear of the previous season. Everyone who participates knows this and accepts it. If you have a bad season you catch up in the next and try harder. If someone new comes in to the game they catch up in two seasons. Generally leveling up and learning in the current one and then trying hard in the next. But your always on a even playing field with the best players in the game at the start of each season. It’s really awesome.

I don’t do the PvE scenerios or whatever their calling them but they do the same for those as well. They have leaderboards for the small group and solo competative PvE instances which is basically what fractals are in this game. Those leader boards aren’t deleted I don’t recall but there is a new one made for the current season. So you can’t go super high and then nobody ever beat you etc.

No resting Laurels. It’s good it keeps new players coming in to the game because they think they actually have a shot at getting their name up there. With Fractals right now someone coming in and looking at it would be like 80+? I have no chance in hell of getting up there and not even bother trying. But that’s only to people who actually care. Personally I couldn’t care less about how high people get. They can only brag to people that care about what their high score is. Which is generally a very small group.

When the Ascended gear and Fractals came out the damage was done. ANet showed through action that they were focusing on grind and vertical progression. Since then they have done nothing to prove otherwise. So that already had tons of people leave. Guild after guild now looks like a barren waste land. But that’s done and gone. Going back to what GW2 was supposed to be is not going to bring those masses back. Their off in other games doing other things.

So what will these changes in Fractals actually do? A lot of good actually. Yes it will kitten off a small number of elites (which blizzard is successful because they learned to NOT cater to this community long ago.) and are making Fractal levels to be perceived as more obtainable by people that would not even have bothered before. Their making it less grindy by having it be account wide. This could cause issues if you have say gotten up to 50 on a geared character but then try on you new level 80. But hey we’ll see. By inscreasing the reward payouts they are making it so people may try this instead of Champ farming. Now they’re going to have to really make the rewards better. Alot better. 1g not gonna cut it better. I could see 1g with a 25% chance of an ascended or fractal drop maybe and yes maybe being worth it vs champ training for money and crafting your ascended gear.

Overall I think this change is good and in the right direction over all for the GW2 community, if there is a decent amount of one left.

lordkrall.7241:

But how is it washed away?
Does it simply come down to the fact that you are afraid that you won’t be able to complete the new more challenging lvl 31+ or what is it all about?
If you did manage to get to lvl 50 before, why won’t you be able to do it again?
Was it not done for fun?

They are adding a new reward structure, should you somehow be able to bypass the lower levels just because you were lucky enough to be part of the small minority that managed to get a stable Fractals group?

Lucky? You’re funny.

I’m not afraid. I look forward to the challenge. This game is way too easy, although still fun.

As far as doing it again? As everybody else has asked, what if they reset your toon to lvl 1? Are you afraid you can’t get to 80 again? Wouldn’t you be upset to have your progression reset?

I’m not asking to bypass the reward structure. logic is hard.

Vayne.8563:

This is about perspective and nothing else. In your perspective Anet is taking away something from you, but what? A few hours of your time. How many hours would you estimate that it will take to get from level 30 to level 50 fractals.

If it’s just a few hours, why shouldn’t everybody do it? Why should my “few hours” be deleted so that all these other people don’t have to “play a few hours”

lordkrall.7241:

JMar.3254:

You guys seem to be very adamant and berating people with questions. Why do you guys take such an issue with us valuing our time?

Do you not understand that we invested time and work into progression, only to have it erased? Would you feel cheated if the same thing happened to you?

But thats just the thing.
You DIDN’T put time and work into the NEW lvl 31-49. Because they were not released.

And WHY did you put time into it in the first place if not for the fun of it?

Can you people really not grasp what we are getting at? We aren’t asking to stay at lvl 50+ so we get to skip all the content.

It should have been started at 50, plain in simple. We are now on the same page as everybody at 30. Our time, work, and energy is removed. You play this game for the ‘fun of it’ so what if your account was deleted and you had to start all over.

Ision.3207:

Vayne.8563:

JMar.3254:

Vayne.8563:

But those who are under 30 at this point who might want to try to get on the leaderboard would be affected…unless there’s a way to opt out of the leaderboard, which there’s not.

Basically, though, it’s such a small pool of people who have done it, and of those people some of them have said they don’t even care…so the pool of people is even smaller.

Oh, so the minority should have their time devalued to favor the majority? That seems pretty immoral.

I’m not sure immoral is the right word to use. There’s nothing immoral about catering to the majority if you’re a business. This isn’t taking food off someone’s table. It’s not doing physical harm to them. It’s not doing anything to them, except removing a completely arbitrary achievement that the game doesn’t even really recognize.

In your mind, this is bigger than big. You’re at this very high level. But from the point of view of the game developer and most people it’s absolutely meaningless.

Attrition mechanics exist in games for reasons. They tell you something isn’t working or shouldn’t be done.

Those who reached level 80 completely ignored the attrition mechanic.

This has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with practicality. There’s no good and evil here, only what some people want and what other people want.

Oh my God, hell just froze over … because I agree with Vayne; and not just in part, but wholly. +1

So what about those at 50? it’s fine to reset their progression just because they want to roll out leaderboards? And yes, this is their reasoning, and no dev has said otherwise afaik

PvP wasn’t reset when leaderboards came out.

Lol, who cares? Why are they spending more time on fractals? Many of us have ever even done one.

Vayne.8563:

Because that’s what’s really at stake here. The stuff you’ve done in the past isn’t really lost, because you’ve done it. You don’t get to say you’ve done the new stuff, because you haven’t…but that doesn’t detract from what you’ve done.

Oh, so when they make an expansion you’re okay with all characters being reset to 1? Because I mean, the stuff you’ve done in the past isn’t really lost, because you’ve done it. You don’t get to ay you’ve done the new stuff, because you haven’t…. but that doesn’t detract from what you’ve done.

Sanduskel.1850:

Lol, who cares? Why are they spending more time on fractals? Many of us have ever even done one.

Yup, and those are the people that are “okay” with being reset. And those are the people that are being catered to that won’t do it.

JMar.3254:

lordkrall.7241:

JMar.3254:

You guys seem to be very adamant and berating people with questions. Why do you guys take such an issue with us valuing our time?

Do you not understand that we invested time and work into progression, only to have it erased? Would you feel cheated if the same thing happened to you?

But thats just the thing.
You DIDN’T put time and work into the NEW lvl 31-49. Because they were not released.

And WHY did you put time into it in the first place if not for the fun of it?

Can you people really not grasp what we are getting at? We aren’t asking to stay at lvl 50+ so we get to skip all the content.

It should have been started at 50, plain in simple. We are now on the same page as everybody at 30. Our time, work, and energy is removed. You play this game for the ‘fun of it’ so what if your account was deleted and you had to start all over.

By asking this, you’re asking ANet to create new content for a vast minority of players and completely disregarding most of the player base because, well, you don’t care about them. But then again you’re saying to take away the levels for everyone that managed to get over 50 because, well, they’re not you. So the only ones that really benefits are the level 50 crowd alone. There’s a hypocrisy here that’s not sitting well.

VOLKON.1290:

JMar.3254:

lordkrall.7241:

JMar.3254:

You guys seem to be very adamant and berating people with questions. Why do you guys take such an issue with us valuing our time?

Do you not understand that we invested time and work into progression, only to have it erased? Would you feel cheated if the same thing happened to you?

But thats just the thing.
You DIDN’T put time and work into the NEW lvl 31-49. Because they were not released.

And WHY did you put time into it in the first place if not for the fun of it?

Can you people really not grasp what we are getting at? We aren’t asking to stay at lvl 50+ so we get to skip all the content.

It should have been started at 50, plain in simple. We are now on the same page as everybody at 30. Our time, work, and energy is removed. You play this game for the ‘fun of it’ so what if your account was deleted and you had to start all over.

By asking this, you’re asking ANet to create new content for a vast minority of players and completely disregarding most of the player base because, well, you don’t care about them. But then again you’re saying to take away the levels for everyone that managed to get over 50 because, well, they’re not you. So the only ones that really benefits are the level 50 crowd alone. There’s a hypocrisy here that’s not sitting well.

50 was the soft cap. I already said I’m fine if they want to do 80.

If those people didn’t go up to 48, I don’t they will all of a sudden get to 30 just to do the new content.

Plus, it’s the fact that they are taking a dump on that “vast minority”. It’s okay if you don’t include new content for a “vast minority”, but don’t delete the progress that minority made.

Call it a design flaw, but don’t punish the players.

I’m also not being a hypocrite, as you are putting words into my mouth that I never said.

There are a lot of better options than resetting fotm level.

The only reason I say lvl 50 is because I think players knew they shouldn’t go above that, but they decided to push themselves that way. It was perfectly reasonable to expect our levels not to be reset at 49, which was well intended for the players to reach that lvl.

Here’s my opinion on the upcoming changes, both good and bad: For the record, I myself am a personal reward level 31. (But I have done many more level 10/20/30 dailies)

New Fractals: Yes! New content is always something I look forward to, and I’m glad that they’re not actually removing old fractals (I loved TA Aetherpath, but I felt that the removal of F/U was in extremely bad taste.) I loved the Molten Facility and the Aetherblade retreat living story instances, it will be nice to be able to revisit them indefinitely. I’m excited about the Reactor meltdown as well. The only thing I’m upset about is the issue from several months ago- the vote which selected one of two awesome fractal concepts and abandoned the other. There is absolutely no good reason why we can’t have the Fall of Abbadon fractal as well.

New Boss Fractals Also yes! It’s nice for some variety. Doing the Jade Maw a million times gets stale, it’s nice to at least have a few different options.

Account wide fractal level Yes! Not having to grind fractal levels on multiple characters is nice.

Reward Updates:
What I like:
—Boss fractal and bonus chest at any level including odd- No more even fractals only. —-Gold reward for finishing fractals.
—What sounds like a better chance at getting ascended weapons for free
What I don’t like:
—Daily account bound reward repeatable only once, regardless of level. Account bound doesn’t bother me as much as level bound- I liked the ability to play each 10 level for a reward multiple times a day.
—Fractal Skins being dropped at level 10+, while a tonic being dropped at 40+. The fractal weapon skins were a prestige drop that is much more bragging-rites worthy than a stupid tonic. Personally I think the fractal weapons should be 40+, and I could care less about a tonic, especially since it’s account bound so there’s not even a gold value to it. However, I think the fractal skins need two changes: Box selection like ascended weapons to let you pick the skin you want, and make them an actual skin, rather than force you to buy a gem item in order to use them.

Resetting levels to 30- I understand how difficult of a decision this must have been, and there really is no answer that will satisfy everyone. I realize that they catered to the majority of players to allow them a glimmer of hope of seeing this new content, but at the same time they are seriously angering those hardcore players by removing yet another outlet of endless challenge. There is no 100% way to fix this, because the original mistake was made a long time ago. Promising “endless levels” and then not actually making the content scale beyond 48 when the real limit was 80+ was the original problem. There is no excuse for this, the difficulty should have gone up to 80 to begin with. Then, it was “fixed” by hardcapping the difficulty at 49 without any real explanation why. It sounds like the reason was “oops, we didn’t think anybody would get this far, there’s not actually anything to see here, move along.” Because of this quickfix, there’s no good place to put the new content. Put it at 80, and only the people who made it to 80 before or despite the hard cap will be able to access it, and the majority of players will never see it because they won’t want/be skilled enough to get that far. Put it at 50, and those people who made it beyond 50 will be unhappy. Put it at 30, and more people will be able to see the content, but more people will be unhappy. The solution: I really don’t know. It’s a pretty big hole anet dug themselves into. Personally, I think 50 is probably the best place for the new content, since they already decided to make the hardcap at 50 a while ago, and there is content up to 50 already. Might as well stick to the decisions that were already made in the past.

Leaderboards- No. Just no. Ironically, I think the leaderboards would have been cool if there actually was endless levels of difficulty. It would be cool to see who managed to break into the 100s and far beyond what you would expect the average player to dream of, but since there is a level cap, all you’re going to see is a long list of players at the level cap. And doing it based on who gets there first is lame, because then it would be all about who happens to be most free next tuesday and wednesday.

JMar.3254:

lordkrall.7241:

JMar.3254:

You guys seem to be very adamant and berating people with questions. Why do you guys take such an issue with us valuing our time?

Do you not understand that we invested time and work into progression, only to have it erased? Would you feel cheated if the same thing happened to you?

But thats just the thing.
You DIDN’T put time and work into the NEW lvl 31-49. Because they were not released.

And WHY did you put time into it in the first place if not for the fun of it?

Can you people really not grasp what we are getting at? We aren’t asking to stay at lvl 50+ so we get to skip all the content.

It should have been started at 50, plain in simple. We are now on the same page as everybody at 30. Our time, work, and energy is removed. You play this game for the ‘fun of it’ so what if your account was deleted and you had to start all over.

Agree!
You guys really should think about this way.
What about Anet told you:
We are having a change about the char levels, the char levels would up to infinity level. We are going to change a new exp reward system which you need a lot more exps to level when you get higher level. And also, we are going to put your level of characters on leaderboard. However, because we think it might be unfair for the people just bought the game, we are going to reset all you characters’ level to level 0. So it would be fair to everyone.
What do you feel about this?

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

By asking this, you’re asking ANet to create new content for a vast minority of players and completely disregarding most of the player base because, well, you don’t care about them. But then again you’re saying to take away the levels for everyone that managed to get over 50 because, well, they’re not you. So the only ones that really benefits are the level 50 crowd alone. There’s a hypocrisy here that’s not sitting well.

50 was the soft cap. I already said I’m fine if they want to do 80.

If those people didn’t go up to 48, I don’t they will all of a sudden get to 30 just to do the new content.

Plus, it’s the fact that they are taking a dump on that “vast minority”. It’s okay if you don’t include new content for a “vast minority”, but don’t delete the progress that minority made.

Call it a design flaw, but don’t punish the players.

I’m also not being a hypocrite, as you are putting words into my mouth that I never said.

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I’m struggling to think of an instance in an MMO where player progress has been reset on purpose outside of bugs or the result of an exploit. Personally, I always thought it one of the big No No’s of online gaming.

It’s user/customer perception that is just as important as the facts and on this aspect the level reset seems a very bad move.

A probably better solution would be to add a one off title track that gives people who were reset something to show for their efforts.

There are several of us in my guild that agree.

Permanence is the hallmark of a MMO. It’s a concept that someone at ANet does not understand.

Capriciously changing the rules of the game is something every player in this game ought to be concerned about.

ANet left a soft cap in Fractals. For a year. ANet understood players were achieving higher levels over the last year. ANet did not put a hard cap on Fractals at anytime in the past year, allowing players to continue to level, knowingly retaining those players over the last year.

ANet now has the distinction of being the first MMO to de-level their customers, which breaks every known covenant regarding leveling in an MMO. Leveling is the cornerstone of MMO gameplay. Levels gained remain. Period.

Blizzard reset gear in a forward manner, allowing players to catch up. Players understood and expected this to occur. Stats were not taken away, the new stats were inflated. Nothing was taken away.

ANet has now violated their stewardship as a trustworthy Dungeon Master.

The game will move on. So will some players. Other will wave their hands because they aren’t personally affected. Some will rationalize everything the developers do. Some will re-level. Those players will remember long after others have forgotten.

The question every player ought to be walking away with at this point is, “who is next?”

VOLKON.1290:

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Right, they are deleting content and progression that they made the players believe would stay there by promising unlimited levels. But you’re okay with that, because I assume you are under level 30 fractals. You can clarify if I’m incorrect.

Lets say anet says We’re going to allow you to make legendaries shiny! So get your legendaries, and in 6 months we’ll let you make it really shiney!

You grind and grind and grind. You put the effort in, because, as the legendary is cool, you’re really looking forward to the next release when you can make it shiney. So you get your legendary and you’re all ready to go.
Then, 6 months later, they say “Actually we didn’t like it being shiny, so we’re going to change colors. But We’re going to reset you back to just having t6 mats, so everybody is on the same page, and the people who don’t have a legendary can experience the new colors”

Seems legit right?

I could do the same example with WvW progress, PvP progress, Character levels, etc.

OK, This this exactly what Anet did for FOTM.

You guys really should think about this way.
What about Anet told you:
We are having a change about the char levels, the char levels would up to infinity level. We are going to change a new exp reward system which you need a lot more exps to level when you get higher level. And also, we are going to put your level of characters on leaderboard. However, because we think it might be unfair for the people just bought the game, we are going to reset all you characters’ level to level 0. So it would be fair to everyone.

What do you feel about this?
They just used fractal level instead you character level.

Another thing, hope this topic won’t be ban again.
I didn’t use any abused words, I didn’t has negative mood, and I didn’t post anything that unreleased.
I didn’t break any rules in the forum, i don’t even know where are those rules in forum comes from, although it breaks the free speech law, but i am not going to sue you, someone else may.

goldenwing.8473:

There are several of us in my guild that agree.

Permanence is the hallmark of a MMO. It’s a concept that someone at ANet does not understand.

Capriciously changing the rules of the game is something every player in this game ought to be concerned about.

ANet left a soft cap in Fractals. For a year. ANet understood players were achieving higher levels over the last year. ANet did not put a hard cap on Fractals at anytime in the past year, allowing players to continue to level, knowingly retaining those players over the last year.

ANet now has the distinction of being the first MMO to de-level their customers, which breaks every known covenant regarding leveling in an MMO. Leveling is the cornerstone of MMO gameplay. Levels gained remain. Period.

Blizzard reset gear in a forward manner, allowing players to catch up. Players understood and expected this to occur. Stats were not taken away, the new stats were inflated. Nothing was taken away.

ANet has now violated their stewardship as a trustworthy Dungeon Master.

The game will move on. So will some players. Other will wave their hands because they aren’t personally affected. Some will rationalize everything the developers do. Some will re-level. Those players will remember long after others have forgotten.

The question every player ought to be walking away with at this point is, “who is next?”

FIFY

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Right, they are deleting content and progression that they made the players believe would stay there by promising unlimited levels. But you’re okay with that, because I assume you are under level 30 fractals. You can clarify if I’m incorrect.

I’m willing to admit that I’m sitting at 28 or 29, I forget… WvW takes most of my time these days. But these changes starting at 30? Hell yeah that’s enticing be back to Fractals. I always enjoyed them, but so many bad guys to kill… but regardless, I wouldn’t have an issue personally if I were higher and it was being reset (or say they were resetting it to 20) because I know that’s putting me on a different, more challenging path of progression. I don’t “lose” anything. I get a fresh start with fresh, juicy stuff. I mean, can’t you just feel that cold, juicy, sweet Mistlock Instability dribbling down your chin? Yeah… Daddy gonna get some of dat. That’s the main reason the reset to 30 doesn’t and wouldn’t bother me. It’s to access a different path of progression. I don’t know how many people are sitting at level 49 and spend day after day doing the level 48 daily but let’s be honest… the progression there is done. Dead. Same old same old. Sure, you do the same old better than most, very nice indeed. But now there will be actual progression to be had that differs from what we’ve seen so far. And, more importantly, that new progression will be available to large wads of people rather than isolated among a select few.

I gave it some more thoughts and I’m suggesting the following.

Player will retain their FotM LvL, however, they have to re-unlock it by going through the tier at least one more time.

Example: Player with LvL 50 Fotm

This player will need to do lvl 30 but once completed it will unlock 31, 32…40. That mean they can skip all the way to lvl 40. They will then need to do lvl 40 to skip to lvl 50.

VOLKON.1290:

I’m willing to admit that I’m sitting at 28 or 29, I forget… WvW takes most of my time these days. But these changes starting at 30? Hell yeah that’s enticing be back to Fractals. I always enjoyed them, but so many bad guys to kill… but regardless, I wouldn’t have an issue personally if I were higher and it was being reset (or say they were resetting it to 20) because I know that’s putting me on a different, more challenging path of progression. I don’t “lose” anything. I get a fresh start with fresh, juicy stuff. I mean, can’t you just feel that cold, juicy, sweet Mistlock Instability dribbling down your chin? Yeah… Daddy gonna get some of dat. That’s the main reason the reset to 30 doesn’t and wouldn’t bother me. It’s to access a different path of progression. I don’t know how many people are sitting at level 49 and spend day after day doing the level 48 daily but let’s be honest… the progression there is done. Dead. Same old same old. Sure, you do the same old better than most, very nice indeed. But now there will be actual progression to be had that differs from what we’ve seen so far. And, more importantly, that new progression will be available to large wads of people rather than isolated among a select few.

So if it were at 50 then you wouldn’t do the new content, because you wouldn’t want to level up from 28/29 to 50? Yet, you don’t see how we are angry and upset that our time and energy spent going form 28/29 is wasted?

I am very excited about the new challenges. But they are implementing this in a horrible, horrible way.

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Right, they are deleting content and progression that they made the players believe would stay there by promising unlimited levels. But you’re okay with that, because I assume you are under level 30 fractals. You can clarify if I’m incorrect.

I’m willing to admit that I’m sitting at 28 or 29, I forget… WvW takes most of my time these days. But these changes starting at 30? Hell yeah that’s enticing be back to Fractals. I always enjoyed them, but so many bad guys to kill… but regardless, I wouldn’t have an issue personally if I were higher and it was being reset (or say they were resetting it to 20) because I know that’s putting me on a different, more challenging path of progression. I don’t “lose” anything. I get a fresh start with fresh, juicy stuff. I mean, can’t you just feel that cold, juicy, sweet Mistlock Instability dribbling down your chin? Yeah… Daddy gonna get some of dat. That’s the main reason the reset to 30 doesn’t and wouldn’t bother me. It’s to access a different path of progression. I don’t know how many people are sitting at level 49 and spend day after day doing the level 48 daily but let’s be honest… the progression there is done. Dead. Same old same old. Sure, you do the same old better than most, very nice indeed. But now there will be actual progression to be had that differs from what we’ve seen so far. And, more importantly, that new progression will be available to large wads of people rather than isolated among a select few.

So if it were at 50 then you wouldn’t do the new content, because you wouldn’t want to level up from 28/29 to 50? Yet, you don’t see how we are angry and upset that our time and energy spent going form 28/29 is wasted?

I am very excited about the new challenges. But they are implementing this in a horrible, horrible way.

Right now 50 is pretty inaccessible for the vast majority of players, probably myself included. It would quite literally take me months to ever see the new content if that were true, and more likely than not I’d simply give up on it as other parts of the game called more loudly. This is back to the accessibility issue. If you make it seemingly out of reach, people won’t bother sticking their hands out to try and grab it. The carrot on a stick doesn’t work if the carrot is so far away you can’t see it.

PVE leaderboards are pointless as many ppl know. They can also be ignored, which is what a lot of ppl will do to no negative harm. I understand the frustration ppl have for the reset of fractals lvl, I also understand why they did it. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal. Just an annoyance. It is in no way the same as a full lvl reset as that would affect everyone. The ppl above lvl 30 in FOTM is unlikely to be more than a minority (altho that is speculation based on this being a casual game).

ALso, no free speech laws were broken. This is a private forum and doesn’t fall under a country’s governing free speech laws.

Kimyrielle.3826:

I am not over 30 myself, but I can feel the pain of those who are. Leaderboards…honestly? Who except a bunch of braggers wanted to have that anyway?

As for the “But it’s going to be redesigned, so it has be be reset!” argument: Did people who completed their Dungeon Master title prior to AC changes and Aetherpath have it revoked? No? Why should it be different for Fractals then? Or will I lose my legendary when the new precursor system launches? I -really- hope not!

At NO point in a MMO people ever should lose their progress on anything except they used exploits to get there. Ever! Everything else is just a horrible decision. It makes one wonder if it’s actually worth working towards anything at all if there is always a lingering threat of it being taken away after the fact.

I’m also below level 30, but I don’t agree with removing progress. The people who have played to high levels deserve to keep those levels. The advent of leaderboards definitely shouldn’t take accomplishments away from players who have already earned them.

VOLKON.1290:

Right now 50 is pretty inaccessible for the vast majority of players, probably myself included. It would quite literally take me months to ever see the new content if that were true, and more likely than not I’d simply give up on it as other parts of the game called more loudly. This is back to the accessibility issue. If you make it seemingly out of reach, people won’t bother sticking their hands out to try and grab it. The carrot on a stick doesn’t work if the carrot is so far away you can’t see it.

If you’re saying that because 50 is almost impossible because of the soft cap of maw attack, then I meant 49. Just saying the new content should be 50 (obviously with the soft cap removed)

I understand what you are saying, but don’t you see what I’m saying? You said it would take you months to do the work to get from 29 to 50, so why is that work okay to be ripped away from me, along with a lot of other players?

You said you’re into WvW a lot. Lets assume your level is 150 in wvw. What if the new map has content in it for lvl 40 and above. But everybody’s level is reset to 30 that way the majority of players who don’t wvw have a chance of the content. Wouldn’t you feel cheated? Wouldn’t you be really upset with people that are lvl 25 that say “No! You should have had fun playing wvw, so nothing is being reset except for a silly number. You don’t get anything for your time”

VOLKON.1290:

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Right, they are deleting content and progression that they made the players believe would stay there by promising unlimited levels. But you’re okay with that, because I assume you are under level 30 fractals. You can clarify if I’m incorrect.

I’m willing to admit that I’m sitting at 28 or 29, I forget… WvW takes most of my time these days. But these changes starting at 30? Hell yeah that’s enticing be back to Fractals. I always enjoyed them, but so many bad guys to kill… but regardless, I wouldn’t have an issue personally if I were higher and it was being reset (or say they were resetting it to 20) because I know that’s putting me on a different, more challenging path of progression. I don’t “lose” anything. I get a fresh start with fresh, juicy stuff. I mean, can’t you just feel that cold, juicy, sweet Mistlock Instability dribbling down your chin? Yeah… Daddy gonna get some of dat. That’s the main reason the reset to 30 doesn’t and wouldn’t bother me. It’s to access a different path of progression. I don’t know how many people are sitting at level 49 and spend day after day doing the level 48 daily but let’s be honest… the progression there is done. Dead. Same old same old. Sure, you do the same old better than most, very nice indeed. But now there will be actual progression to be had that differs from what we’ve seen so far. And, more importantly, that new progression will be available to large wads of people rather than isolated among a select few.

I guess you don’t play FotM very much or really care didn’t care about it until now but progression did not end at lvl 48. In terms of a fixed number then yes, 48 is still 48. However, lvl 48 FotM provided the best chance of reward in terms of Skins, rings, rares that further help your progression in terms of gears and skin collections. They are now taking that away so starting at lvl 30, you have a reduced chance of getting those items.

For WvW, would you be ok if everytime they added new WvW abilities, Anet reset everyone’s WvW back down to 1? Just asking….

the whole reset and leaderboards thing sounds ok by me… but the way theyve worded it, it sounds like there WILL be a level cap. and its a cap thats lower than the levels that were attainable in the past. and thats something i have to take issue with.

frankly im not opposed to seeing some ascended or legendary level infusion with 37 AR being made from 2 that have 36 AR, or higher. as long as its useful to have 8 of them because youre at fractal level 178.

VOLKON.1290:

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

JMar.3254:

VOLKON.1290:

The “progress” that was made by the over-30 crowd was made in content that will be obsoleted. Now, if they gave a nice little title, maybe some personal exclusive clothing or the like for those crowd, hey, I’m all for that. Recognition never hurts. But regardless, what you progressed in is going away. There’s a new progression with different challenges and maybe even different skills and capabilities, we don’t know. New progression, new path, everyone gets on the path together. Everyone has a reasonable means to access the path by starting at 30 instead of higher up.

Right, they are deleting content and progression that they made the players believe would stay there by promising unlimited levels. But you’re okay with that, because I assume you are under level 30 fractals. You can clarify if I’m incorrect.

I’m willing to admit that I’m sitting at 28 or 29, I forget… WvW takes most of my time these days. But these changes starting at 30? Hell yeah that’s enticing be back to Fractals. I always enjoyed them, but so many bad guys to kill… but regardless, I wouldn’t have an issue personally if I were higher and it was being reset (or say they were resetting it to 20) because I know that’s putting me on a different, more challenging path of progression. I don’t “lose” anything. I get a fresh start with fresh, juicy stuff. I mean, can’t you just feel that cold, juicy, sweet Mistlock Instability dribbling down your chin? Yeah… Daddy gonna get some of dat. That’s the main reason the reset to 30 doesn’t and wouldn’t bother me. It’s to access a different path of progression. I don’t know how many people are sitting at level 49 and spend day after day doing the level 48 daily but let’s be honest… the progression there is done. Dead. Same old same old. Sure, you do the same old better than most, very nice indeed. But now there will be actual progression to be had that differs from what we’ve seen so far. And, more importantly, that new progression will be available to large wads of people rather than isolated among a select few.

So if it were at 50 then you wouldn’t do the new content, because you wouldn’t want to level up from 28/29 to 50? Yet, you don’t see how we are angry and upset that our time and energy spent going form 28/29 is wasted?

I am very excited about the new challenges. But they are implementing this in a horrible, horrible way.

Right now 50 is pretty inaccessible for the vast majority of players, probably myself included. It would quite literally take me months to ever see the new content if that were true, and more likely than not I’d simply give up on it as other parts of the game called more loudly. This is back to the accessibility issue. If you make it seemingly out of reach, people won’t bother sticking their hands out to try and grab it. The carrot on a stick doesn’t work if the carrot is so far away you can’t see it.

Does this mean new contents are gated behind level30? If so what about players that are still haven’t done a single fractal. I always thought that you could experience all fractal content at level 1 or am i wrong?

Randulf.7614:

PVE leaderboards are pointless as many ppl know. They can also be ignored, which is what a lot of ppl will do to no negative harm. I understand the frustration ppl have for the reset of fractals lvl, I also understand why they did it. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal. Just an annoyance. It is in no way the same as a full lvl reset as that would affect everyone. The ppl above lvl 30 in FOTM is unlikely to be more than a minority (altho that is speculation based on this being a casual game).

ALso, no free speech laws were broken. This is a private forum and doesn’t fall under a country’s governing free speech laws.

it is not a private forum. If it’s private, you can not post anything on it. This is a public forum for sure.
And we should have the right to seek information and ideas; the right to receive information and ideas; and the right to impart information and ideas.

We did not need any AR to complete any fractal apart from Jade Maw until now.
If they make it so that AR become compulsory then Fotm becomes a grind fest.
An other grind fest.

VOLKON.1290:

Right now 50 is pretty inaccessible for the vast majority of players, probably myself included. It would quite literally take me months to ever see the new content if that were true, and more likely than not I’d simply give up on it as other parts of the game called more loudly. This is back to the accessibility issue. If you make it seemingly out of reach, people won’t bother sticking their hands out to try and grab it. The carrot on a stick doesn’t work if the carrot is so far away you can’t see it.

This is no accessibility issue.
You will get to do Thaumanova Reactor and Molten Furnace and Aetherblade Fractal at your current level even if you are level 1. You won’t miss them. You will be able to play that content as soon as it goes live. What you will be missing is the harder version of those and well if you want to play that it’s pretty fair to ask of you to play the intermediate levels (up to the hard/soft cap level 50) that has been in place for over a year.

What if players could opt of of the leaderboard in order to keep their progress?

The amount of time and effort it takes to get as high as some people have is insane. Past a certain point basically every single monster is a champion.

Nephitis.8201:

Does this mean new contents are gated behind level30? If so what about players that are still haven’t done a single fractal. I always thought that you could experience all fractal content at level 1 or am i wrong?

You can experience all the different Fractals starting at one, it’s the instability that starts at 30 which adds new challenges and changes how things play that start at 30.

Zelyhn.8069:

We did not need any AR to complete any fractal apart from Jade Maw until now.
If they make it so that AR become compulsory then Fotm becomes a grind fest.
An other grind fest.

remember last year they said “because we don’t want people to grind, we want people to feel being a hero”, but this seems like so fake. every release is a kind of grind event.

Sifu.6527:

For WvW, would you be ok if everytime they added new WvW abilities, Anet reset everyone’s WvW back down to 1? Just asking….

This doesn’t even make sense. When they add new abilities they’re not changing content, just adding new abilities that the players can choose from. There is a strong demand for the ability to reset WvW points and change them every so often, but so far that’s not in the works.

HOWEVER!

If they added account-wide WxP instead of character bound you’d find players a lot more willing to give up something if the need arose.

VOLKON.1290:

Nephitis.8201:

Does this mean new contents are gated behind level30? If so what about players that are still haven’t done a single fractal. I always thought that you could experience all fractal content at level 1 or am i wrong?

You can experience all the different Fractals starting at one, it’s the instability that starts at 30 which adds new challenges and changes how things play that start at 30.

Right, so why not reset all levels to 1? You’re not allowing the majority of players to experience the content at 30. All those people under 30 or have never stepped foot into fotm won’t experience.

The people they are hurting are the ones who wanted to do fractals. If you never stepped foot into a fractal or you were only level 10, chances are you probably won’t do the new instability. The people who would grind those and play it all the time, are the players that are raging right now about having all their progress reset.

VOLKON.1290:

Sifu.6527:

For WvW, would you be ok if everytime they added new WvW abilities, Anet reset everyone’s WvW back down to 1? Just asking….

This doesn’t even make sense. When they add new abilities they’re not changing content, just adding new abilities that the players can choose from. There is a strong demand for the ability to reset WvW points and change them every so often, but so far that’s not in the works.

HOWEVER!

If they added account-wide WxP instead of character bound you’d find players a lot more willing to give up something if the need arose.

Reset yes, but you get them all back, it’s not like they are taken away.

New abilities = new content.