Guild Wars 2

As a friendly reminder to players…

You shouldn’t overlook players for Fractal runs because they are getting started or a few levels lower than you. In fact, it’s in the community’s best interest to take a little time now and then to help those that might be on the lower end.

The problem you will run in to with the mentality of “LFM FotM lvl10+” is that you are climbing a pyramid. The closer you get to the top, the narrower the pool of potential party members you have. The more you neglect lower level players, the more you contribute to narrowing that pool. When you do finally manage to get a group and you level 3 – 4 more times, all you have done is furthered the gap between yourself and other prospective party members.

A working example…today I seen a person “LF3M Fractal lvl4, 80s only”. I myself am lvl 8, but jumped in a group that could only do lvl3. Now maybe we just got lucky draws, or syngerized well and finished in really good time, but when we exited to LA after a successful run, that same person was now “LF1M Fractal lvl4, 80s only”. I got a group to 4 and we were going in for 5 before he even got started.

Had that player been willing to just party with some people a level or two lower that had time for multiple runs, he would have ended up helping others level, leveling himself, and making money from drops, and expanding the number of potential players for groups. Instead he sat in LA for over an hour spamming chat and accomplishing nothing.

There’s no point in getting to the top if there is no one there to play with.

Players having trouble finding a group:
Look for guilds that tout Fractal leveling and have some good people in them that don’t helping out. I don’t know how many times my guild-mates have “played down” to bring people up to speed, but the investment in time pays off. We know each other, we have voice chat, we play well together. Guild groups should be more efficient than pugs. So it benefits everyone to help your guildies get leveled up so they can help you and reduce down time later.

Guild leaders:
Encourage you members to help one another level up, if they are not. It means more influence. It means more team activity. There is no benefit to your guild if you have five people form a little clique and neglect the other members because they don’t want to “start over”.

Fractal leveling is a nice mechanic that can encourage team work and helpfulness in the community. You help players obtain higher levels, so they can help you and others down the road. If finding groups becomes an issue, it’s not a failure of the design. It’s a failure of the community behaving like a community.

Pretty much everything you said here ;o !

Been thinking about this my self, though you expressed it quite a bit better than I possibly could.

AcidicVision.5498:

Fractal leveling is a nice mechanic that can encourage team work and helpfulness in the community. You help players obtain higher levels, so they can help you and others down the road. If finding groups becomes an issue, it’s not a failure of the design. It’s a failure of the community behaving like a community.

I agree with most of the points in your post, except for this little segment, which I disagree with.

Fractal levels are designed to keep players out of higher difficulty content. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exist at all and you’d be able to pick the level you want regardless of “lowest common group fractal level.”

It takes time to increase a player’s fractal level. Players at a high fractal level have no reason to play at lower levels, except to help other players on the off-chance that they too may get to that level in the future. If the player is a random player they might, or that player might never see them again.

If the fractal level did not lock players out of higher difficulties players would not be blocked from joining groups at all. In fact, this even blocks guild runs because if you want to bring in a guild mate you have to get them up to scratch as well.

I’ve run fractal lvl 1 twice, and completed both of them, with 1 person in each group below 80. If I’m honest they weren’t that great of players either.

There are groups out there for your lvl, just look a little harder.

Actually I don’t care about the levels as long as my guild is doing it together and having fun. If we have to go back and get a guildie up to a level we will. We are casual gamers that just like to have fun. That is the point of GW2 is to have fun and have a great community to work with.

xeph.8410:

Fractal levels are designed to keep players out of content. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exist at all and you’d be able to pick the level you want regardless of “lowest common group fractal level.”

I’m sorry to take one snippet of your otherwise excellent post to disagree with, but I keep seeing it repeated without it being remarked upon.

The content is not locked away behind the fractal levels. Each mini-dungeon is equally accessible despite what level you have achieved in the past.

If your statement had been “Fractal levels are designed to keep players out of higher difficulty content.” then I would have happily agreed with you.

I’m sorry, that was not my intention, I do indeed mean high difficulty content. I will edit my post to read as such.

Should people not be gated from higher difficulty before they’re ready/proved they could do it?

I’m not saying the current system is good, though.

Phy.2913:

Should people not be gated from higher difficulty before they’re ready/proved they could do it?

I’m not saying the current system is good, though.

They should be gated via Real Difficulty™. Not this agony crap.

Yes, it is an artificial barrier. All my guild mates are as geared up as I am and I know we work well together. We’ve cleared every dungeon in the game. I’m at a higher fractal level because I’ve had time to play this weekend, but some of them are working on the weekend.

They come back, and now if we want them to play on our level we need to spend time doing low difficulty levels even though I know for a fact they will be able to handle the level I’m on just fine.

That’s time they could’ve spent doing something else, even if we account for time spent explaining the dungeon and mistakes caused by it being their first run.

So many of you posting with some agenda against the dungeon failing to see the point. Its meant to be “end game” content. A dungeon that escalates in difficulty so it can never really be mastered or memorized and run through routinely.

Agony may seem like an artificial difficulty mechanic, but people are not taking in to account things like the monsters getting extra abilities at higher levels, doing more damage, changing paths or more densely populating areas, environmental traps moving faster, new environmental dangers being added, a familiar boss suddenly being something entirely different. Those are all also part of Fractals.

The level gating is to reward the players that have beaten higher difficulties. Opening it up totally undermines that. So for it’s purpose it works.

My OP was to encourage players against totally discriminating against lower level folks so it’s easier to find groups for everyone down the road. To decrease the instances of lower level players making slower progress because higher level players wont group with them, and higher level players sitting around waiting for groups because there aren’t four other people around at their level. And the higher they get, the more of a problem that will be. If you are spending more time looking for a group than it would take to finish a complete run, maybe its time to help some people get closer to your level.

It is now clear that 47% of GW2’s players are used to getting free stuff. Gifts. That they won’t take responsibility for themselves. That they want to be carried in dungeons and fractals.

Well I say NO MORE. Organize your own party and progress on your own, don’t beg to be carried!

My only thing against helping lower lv fractals is because i don’t have much time to play (or to play at one time) so sometimes i just want to advance… then again i’m only at like lv 3 lol, so it’s not like i’m towering over people being all snobby lol