Guild Wars 2

The new Fractals of the Mists dungeon saved PvE for this game.

1) It allows for progression: PvE progression was lacking in this game, now it’s here.

2) It’s dynamic: a different run every time, makes it much less boring.

3) It ramps up in difficulty, a person of any skill level can run this dungeon, the casuals and hardcores are appeased.

Anet revolutionized WvW, and now they’re doing the same with PvE. Progression without a holy trinity, and that’s fun. I hope all their dungeons are like this in the future, will certainly give plenty for people to do, and allow for the formation of actual PvE guilds rather than just WvW guilds.

Now we just need a 10 man dungeon like this ;-)

Yea, let’s have a game who’s main PvE aspect is one dungeon!

You want them to come out with 20 dungeons at a time?

Dungeons in this game will never get outdated cause of a set level of gear, meaning it will be viable forever. Imagine if they add in another 3 or 4 of these types of scaling dungeons.

Most MMO’s only have 1-2 viable raids at any given time…imagine this game having 5+ viable dungeons. Or even better if they add in a 10 man dungeon some day, which will probably happen eventually.

I’m saying that most likely runs for the old dungeons will be sparse because their only usefulness now is cosmetics. Maybe a few for stats, sure am glad I got my stat armor before FotM.

man i am left behind as a casual.

i played 175h. i cant compete.

and i WONT grind.

so anet got my money, but im not the addict type they try to hook.
“the WoW slice of the pie” of masochist players theyre looking to grab into a downward spiral

In my book it almost destroyed PvE.

Yes, the individual fractals are fun but the dungeon as a whole is nothing more than a long and stupid grind. What the so-called gear locusts call progression is nothing more than doing the same stuff over and over again until Fortuna decides that she likes you and therefore gives you the drop you need. There is also no clear goal you can work towards since you can’t buy the gear you want via tokens, and to make this even worse everything you need to get ascended items is account bound on pick up so you can’t sell or buy stuff.

The idea is good, but the implementation lacks, what we need is:
- buyable ascended gear for a reasonable amount of tokens (max 300 tokens per item)
- salable craft ingredients
- account wide FotM scale
- FotM scale starting level should be 10 (you can do lower levels if you are not 80 or have nothing boot blue and white items)
- guaranteed infusions every few levels

No more dungeons like this please. “Progression” players get FOTM: new fractals, new bosses- all in that same location.

New dungeons return to story/exp modes with new challenges and token systems, allowing players to play and earn new cosmetic armors and weapons.

I When I tried out the fractals, I was a bit disappointed, as some of the areas could have easily been made into interesting fully fleshed out dungeons. I want a story and a reason that im going into an area to play. Immerse me, do not leave me stranded in a disjointed “fractal dungeon” for “loot”.

MMORPG definition of progression: add +1 to player characters, add +2 to everything else. Progress!

I want more content, not lame systems created to artificially extend content beyond the point of over-saturation. Now, the Fractals are some good content, but it’d be easier to appreciate without gear gating, stat grinding, and content funneling.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

No more dungeons like this please. “Progression” players get FOTM: new fractals, new bosses- all in that same location.

New dungeons return to story/exp modes with new challenges and token systems, allowing players to play and earn new cosmetic armors and weapons.

I When I tried out the fractals, I was a bit disappointed, as some of the areas could have easily been made into interesting fully fleshed out dungeons. I want a story and a reason that im going into an area to play. Immerse me, do not leave me stranded in a disjointed “fractal dungeon” for “loot”.

get what GW2 offers you.
do all the content WITHOUT GRINDING PR
REPEATING CONTENT ONCE.
then you can shelve the game, and youll leave with a good feeling, it is a great game if you take it like that.

when you start to repeat the content over and over again, you should go see a psycologist with people who grind D3 for months.
farming/grinding is a sickness of modern gaming

I personally love the Fractals. But I very much disagree with you that PvE progression was lacking, or that Fractals introduces it in any sort of acceptable form.

Making it take longer to achieve max stat gear is not progression. That’s artificial prolongation, and it’s punishment for characters who haven’t achieved it yet, as content for them will be more difficult. There was plenty of progression before Ascended items, here’s a snapshot:

1) Exotic skins: Some of these were easier to acquire than others, but some were very difficult indeed. Volcanus required over 450 assorted lodestones; how’s that for progression? Cosmetic progression is just as viable as stat progression, and ever more satisfying for two reasons:
A. It doesn’t punish those who do not participate by forcing them to experience content on a more difficult scale.
B. It’s actually a more noticeable form of progression. No one knows if your stuff has higher stats than theirs, and you won’t be constantly reminded of that fact when you look at your character. But when you achieve that rare/hard to acquire skin, EVERYONE knows it.

2) Legendaries: see above, but even rarer and harder to obtain.

3) Titles: while not quite as noticeable as in GW1, titles still exist and confer their own prestige. I have respect for the people with the Dungeon Master title, as they have completed all paths of all dungeons (something I still haven’t gotten around to).

4) PvP rank: Structured PvP is a fun outlet and a great way to earn progression, as the rank system and associated PvP titles distinguish longer-playing/better players from the rest.

5) Map completion: grants a title and a cool star by your name. Not for the faint of heart or easy of rage (WHERE IS THAT LAST POI?! WHERE kitten YOU)

6) WvW: Has its own progression and titles, and contributing to making your server better in the points matchup is quite rewarding for many.

7) Alternate characters: With five races, 8 professions (so far), and 3 orders, there is a LOT of content to be experienced. And if you’re in it for the prestige? Imagine rolling out a maxed out character of every race and profession. Hard to beat that kitten; that’s a true master of the game.

8) Dungeons: rewarding in terms of skins AND money AND experience, and possessed of 1 story mode and 3 explorable modes each (except Arah, which has 4 explorable modes).

9) Dynamic events: Some of these are trivial, but some of these (Shatterer, Jormag’s Claw, Tequatl) are massive, fun, and a huge part of game immersion and completion imo.

10) Jumping puzzles: Wanna show me you’re better than me? Go do all the jumping puzzles. I will readily admit your superior skill; I SUCK at those things. But that’s a lot of content right there, a lot of which is beautiful to look at and fun/humorous to do.

11) Max out your crafting professions. Need two for Legendaries anyway, but you’re not “done” with the game by far if you haven’t gotten all of these finished.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of the “progression” available in this game. Can you honestly give me a real reason why all eleven of those points are completely invalid, and a new set of numbers is what we really needed? Or is it just that you don’t consider these progression because it’s a new kind of progression, and doesn’t match with the ingrained gaming behavior beaten into you by the treadmills of other games?

Wait a week or two as a casual and then can’t pass the gear check, and then come say it saved pve.

revolution! The sucesfully destroyed one of the best PvE enviorments ever with this stupid dungeon. Nice design, k. But its just the typical gear grind every 0815 MMO has to offer. All other parts are non-existent now. Woh, what a revolution man

Pity it kills WvW for those who dislike dungeon grinds and also makes life harder for PVE players who don’t do dungeons.

Yeah I can’t wait for when their revolutionary take on PVE (copying over the gear grind/artificial gating systems of every other MMO) starts completely invalidating all content besides the most current patch. I feel like such a fool for championing Anet and this game.

Deadly Spirit Guy.4769:

Yea, let’s have a game who’s main PvE aspect is one dungeon!

Ironically, Aika Online was dictated by a single dungeon before its first expansion and this was the best time the game ever had, given that it was a low-grind game with good PvP pre-expansion. I enjoyed it heavily.

And let me tell you, Fractals of the Mist is 1000x better than the crap I ran dozens of times back in Aika. Hell, Fractals may just be the best dungeon I’ve ever played.

The fractals are kittenin brilliant. It just needs to allow groups to choose any difficulty level to stop segregating people. it’s fun, engaging, challenging and innovative.

The itemization and grind that came with it, though, is pure garbage. It’s an insult.

Adding numbers =/= Adding content.

This is POWER CREEP, and is going to cost Anet a LOT.

Sweetbread.2679:

Yeah I can’t wait for when their revolutionary take on PVE (copying over the gear grind/artificial gating systems of every other MMO) starts completely invalidating all content besides the most current patch. I feel like such a fool for championing Anet and this game.

What do you mean by wait? Orr is already dead according to this thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/People-still-running-Orr-for-gear/first#post804359

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I think you mistake “replaced” for “saved.”

Anything else people do will be extremely limited.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Adding numbers =/= Adding content.

This is POWER CREEP, and is going to cost Anet a LOT.

I agree with you; however, they did add content in the form of the new area and the Fractals, both of which I think are quite fun. Shame they had to ruin what otherwise would have been a fantastic update with a stat treadmill.

Adding numbers =/= Adding content.

This is POWER CREEP, and is going to cost Anet a LOT.

Make ascended gear unusable (or scaled down to exotic equivalent) in WvW. Until then, don’t say both hardcores and casuals are pleased.

Orion.7264:

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I don’t see it as remarkably better than other dungeons. Why do you feel it is?

Fortuna.7259:

I think you mistake “replaced” for “saved.”

Anything else people do will be extremely limited.

Unfortunately this is quite true. While I enjoy the Fractals and think they’re awesome, I don’t want to do them 24/7. I would like to enjoy all the other aspects of PvE as well, including getting dungeon gear (if not for max stats anymore, still for cosmetics); and both of these areas are hampered by the fact that players are forced into grinding Fractals for top tier gear.

Fortuna.7259:

I think you mistake “replaced” for “saved.”

Anything else people do will be extremely limited.

This is rather true. I wish all rewards were normalized throughout the game. Content shouldn’t need to be incentivized: that should be the acid test for bad content. Let people play, not work.

Most people say they’d do Fractals without the gear, so that means Fractals is pretty great, but I wish it didn’t invalidate the rest of the game.

Personally, I LOVED the Fractals of the Mists and I think that ANet did a great job by adding this dungeon in. The fact that it randomizes the fractals every time you do them is interesting and allows for repeats without the dungeon getting boring extremely fast. They will also probably add more fractals to the dungeon so that it won’t get too boring after a long period of time. I expect that Fractals of the Mists will only get better over time as ANet continues to work hard on this game.
That brings me to my next point that GW2 is new and has only been released for about 2 or 3 months I believe. People have been comparing this game to WoW as long as I have heard of this game, especially in the raids category. I think that if ANet made raids, PvE would be MUCH more enjoyable because it allows for massive teamwork, which the GW2 combat system strongly encourages without “The Holy Trinity”(Revival, combos, etc.).

Fortuna.7259:

Orion.7264:

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I don’t see it as remarkably better than other dungeons. Why do you feel it is?

That’s your opinion and I respect it. Here’s my two cents on why I find them so fun:

1) Not overly long. The entire set of three fractals (plus boss, if you’re on an even number), is about as long as all explorable paths of some dungeons, depending on group skill and composition. However, it’s broken down into smaller chunks of very different content, which makes it feel more dynamic and less grindy overall.

2) Cool mechanics! Rather than just being a bunch of combat with some dodge required, maybe one or two puzzle-like or gimmicky mechanics as in most dungeons, the majority of the fractals revolve around cool or interesting mechanics (cultist hammer in cliffside, fans/guitar hero of death/like charges in uncategorized, DOLPHINS?! in underwater, etc) that bring a fresh new feel, and an intelligent aspect to completing content.

3) Random selection of content: some people may like or dislike this, but I find it exciting to be faced with any of nine different mini-dungeons every time you head in. Keeps things fresh and fun, rather than players simply finding the easiest/quickest path to complete and farming it.

4) The actual content is aesthetically stunning, and a lot of player interactions with mobs and the environment tell little stories, are humorous, or even raises questions about lore that really make you want to get into the immersion. What is that colossus dude? Why is there a crazy cat lady asura abandoned in this facility? I love those little things, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s the best I can sum it up right now, I’d love to add more if I think of it.

Unless you don’t care for dungeons or the baggage that goes with it?

I’d be happy with a new 80th level zone that looks like Queensdale with townsfolk to save and bandits and farmers, and lots of new DEs, but with more money dropping. I have a heck of a time finding that.

I do enjoy WvW a lot, and I’m a self-proclaimed PvP hater, which I’m still trying to reconcile myself. Pretty good money taking a keep. I’d like to see DEs out in the world offer that sort of money. And no, not in Orr, I hate Orr. Depressing place. We need more green.

I don’t know about the whole “saved PvE” thing. I’m not even sure if PvE needed saving.

One thing that FotM did do is ruin the community. Whereas before no one was barred from content, now you have to be a certain difficulty level to play and if you’re level 1-3, good luck finding a group.

It’s counter to the whole ease of access and cooperation design in the rest of the game.

Fractals are a fun design and a creative dungeon type. That said, the sort of gating they introduce has pretty much ensured I’ll never get to see them myself. I didn’t find a tier-1 group over the weekend because I was having fun in Karkaland, and it’s already very difficult to get one put together. By the time I actually have a 2-hour block of free time to play a dungeon, it’ll be like trying to find a group for AC SM.

I’ll just watch run-through videos on YouTube.

“Cursed Shore Nerf Killed PVE”, I could say the same.

notebene.3190:

Unless you don’t care for dungeons or the baggage that goes with it?

I’d be happy with a new 80th level zone that looks like Queensdale with townsfolk to save and bandits and farmers, and lots of new DEs, but with more money dropping. I have a heck of a time finding that.

I do enjoy WvW a lot, and I’m a self-proclaimed PvP hater, which I’m still trying to reconcile myself. Pretty good money taking a keep. I’d like to see DEs out in the world offer that sort of money. And no, not in Orr, I hate Orr. Depressing place. We need more green.

Honestly, the game would have been better if levels were gone completely. It would make every zone equal with no limit to the sandbox before you.

Of course, you could say that downscaling sort of accomplishes this, but it doesn’t work nearly well enough. Higher levels and gear still make lower-level zones laughably easy with lackluster rewards.

Avatar.1923:

when you start to repeat the content over and over again, you should go see a psycologist with people who grind D3 for months.

It is worse than they guys that play Diablo forever, in Diablo type games at least the stat progression is meaningful (as meaningful as endlessly farming stuff for non-existant pixels can ever be), in that they do in effect become more powerful, kill stuff faster, get better magic find, etc.

In MMORPGs, better stats are largely useless, as the next tier of dungeon is simply balanced aimed at these stats, it will still take just as long to kill the boss (or often longer), etc, the only benefit the stats give are for stuff outside the dungeon, which is usually not much use, whoppee! you can kill landscape mobs a bit quicker or old dugneons (again who cares) or in the case of games that let gear progression into PvP just a sure way to kill off PvP.

Orion.7264:

Fortuna.7259:

Orion.7264:

I think one thing that we can all agree on, whether for or against Ascended items, content gating, issues finding parties, or what have you, is this:

The actual content of the Fractals is incredibly good, and quite possibly the most fun aspect of GW2 PvE to date.

I don’t see it as remarkably better than other dungeons. Why do you feel it is?

That’s your opinion and I respect it. Here’s my two cents on why I find them so fun:

1) Not overly long. The entire set of three fractals (plus boss, if you’re on an even number), is about as long as all explorable paths of some dungeons, depending on group skill and composition. However, it’s broken down into smaller chunks of very different content, which makes it feel more dynamic and less grindy overall.

So, they are longer than a single dungeon path, but are better because they aren’t overly long? Not following. I can do different content broken into smaller chunks by doing one path of three of the previous dungeons.

Orion.7264:

2) Cool mechanics! Rather than just being a bunch of combat with some dodge required, maybe one or two puzzle-like or gimmicky mechanics as in most dungeons, the majority of the fractals revolve around cool or interesting mechanics (cultist hammer in cliffside, fans/guitar hero of death/like charges in uncategorized, DOLPHINS?! in underwater, etc) that bring a fresh new feel, and an intelligent aspect to completing content.

I don’t see how destroying a stationary object with a hammer is fundamentally different from, say, having four activation points open a gate. Does it feel new? Sure. But if you swapped the dungeons in which they occur I would not say either was somehow out of place.

Orion.7264:

3) Random selection of content: some people may like or dislike this, but I find it exciting to be faced with any of nine different mini-dungeons every time you head in. Keeps things fresh and fun, rather than players simply finding the easiest/quickest path to complete and farming it.

If you just do one path of a dungeon each day, then I assume you might be pressured to do the easiest one repetitively. But many people want to run all paths. I don’t think it was particularly hard to find a group for different paths and dungeons for some variety. Efficiency was not as big of a concern as it is with FotM.

Orion.7264:

4) The actual content is aesthetically stunning, and a lot of player interactions with mobs and the environment tell little stories, are humorous, or even raises questions about lore that really make you want to get into the immersion. What is that colossus dude? Why is there a crazy cat lady asura abandoned in this facility? I love those little things, to be honest.

Anyway, that’s the best I can sum it up right now, I’d love to add more if I think of it.

Again, I’m not sure of why you think there is a qualitative difference here.

Don’t get me wrong, I think FotM feels as good as any other dungeon. However, putting it as the de facto activity to repeat ad nauseam is expecting far, far too much from this single instance. Because at the end of the day, it is just another dungeon.

I guess Arena Net could have saved alot of cash if they just released the game with a lobby for the FotM and left the rest of the world on the cutting room floor.

It saved P vs E really ? I had the impression there was a wedge being driven between your elite and casual players. Let me get back in-game and check.. oh wait I did and yeah that wedge is getting hammered in there pretty good.

No Walking.6349:

You want them to come out with 20 dungeons at a time?

If dungeons are a focus, they pretty much need to. Also too many qualifying issues to even play dungeons in this game.

What FotM did ? It just killed any other type of pve in the game. How? It offers the best reward per effort, A chance the drop the best gear in the game right now + exotics in pilles!, Its placed in LA the main community hub so you dont have to go through the nags of other dungeons (try to find ppl on 2 different maps-pay money to get to another map-tiresome loading screens-events to open the doors to it), It does not have a lvl restriction, the effort you have to put to get rares and exotics is ridiculously low and the encounters/ dungeon mechanincs in some of those fractals put almost any other dungeon to shame! Compare a CoE run to a fractals run.. (its the one ive ran the most)
Why would you go anywhere else for gold and equipments?! Go CoE see what you get from chests and boss fights. See how much time you have to spend in there and compare it to a lvl 1 fractal. Go farm in Orr for the time that you need to complete a lvl1 fractals run and compare the results.. Go complete an area and get the final rewards and compare those rewards and the time it took you to get them to a fractals lvl1 run.
Unless by “saved” you mean that it put it to rest so now it wont need any more saving.

I definitely wouldn’t count grinding for gear as progression, but I do really like the new fractal dungeons They’re actually somewhat challenging and there’s more to them than killing everything by just whacking away at it. Even if it isn’t complex, the little puzzles that make you use a strategy and environment really add a lot to the experimence.
So fractal: very good. New gear grind: very bad.

Will keep me busy for a month or a little more, dunno after that.

Saved PVE?

Now the new dungeon is nice but the gear grind and the fact that its centred into it basically killed all the other parts of the game.

IMO whoever made this decision really shouldnt be making any more decisions for GW2.

I LOVE THE new dungeon iS EPIC and yes it gives progres !!!! i whant more of those

Yeah it definitely saved the game. I hated when I was logging in and enjoying doing all sorts of different things. What I really wanted to do was just grind a dungeon over and over, according to ANET.

That’s a point of view, the way I see it right now, you need an absurd amount of money to make 1 piece even if you find the material(s) you need. I like the dungeon, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to enjoy difficulty 10+ simply because of 2 main flaws:

1: The materials required to make 1 piece is extremely expensive (251 ectos + another material valued 1g a piece)

2: There’s no Ascended pieces for Rampager, making us Rampagers unable to have Ascended gears (Which I suspect/hopefully is only a temporary flaw and will be added in a later patch)

LotRO once added something similar for new dungeons which was removed later, a lot of people, including myself were against that whole grinding system and just didn’t grind that gear and ignored those dungeons entirely, until they removed it anyways. <- In GW2’s case the grinding comes from having to farm like 75g for a piece of gear.