Guild Wars 2

So I know we’ve had numerous thread s about this (I know there must have been though I haven’t looked for or read them) but here we go; Fractals of the Mist.

I will start out by saying that I absolutely adore this dungeon. The randomized paths give it that slight variation which makes it different every time you do it and that’s a relief. The concept of it is fun and the execution is tops. It is, by far, my favorite dungeon in this game even though I’ve only run it 6 times and am only level 4.

That being said, I wish it didn’t exist. It has damaged the community in ways I never would have believed. No, I’m not talking about Ascended items. I couldn’t care less about those, to be honest. What I am talking about is the shift in what people do in this game.

I’ll explain. Before FotM, people were being forced into realizing that the old genric MMOG was a thing of the past when it came to Guild Wars. You don’t have to grind and, in fact, you are actually punished for doing so. As a result, people would find multiple things to do and no one thing was truly valued over all the others.

Then came the new dungeon. It’s contrary to everything else in this game in that it actually encourages you to grind it. Now I know nobody has to grind it but, let’s be honest, old habits die hard.

Every time I go to Lion’s Arch, I am in overflow now. Main chat is over 75% “Lf2M FotM lvl X” and higher level people will sit there for a long time waiting for a 5th party member. It’s a slew of people who all want to do the same thing but can’t do it together because they are at different difficulty levels.

So here you have all these people who were just starting to break out of the whole “I need to grind this so I can get better gear so I can grind this so I can get better gear so I can….” frame of mind and then you give them exactly that. FotM is a “grind this and your loot will get better” dungeon and I find it unfortunate how many people fell right back into that whole chase-that-carrot mentality. It’s like sticking someone in rehab for 2 months and then dangling heroine in front of them when they come out clean.

Now, I don’t want that dungeon gone. I love it, remember? But what I would love to see is the removal of the difficulty levels and have it set at a static above average difficulty. I would also love to see it moved to Southsun Cove and have it be contestable like most (all?) other dungeons. Last, but not least, apply the DR (I can’t believe I just said that) to it. Maybe put it at the top of the Karka tower (by the rich Orichalcum node) and have that Champion egg layer be the thing that contests it.

I would like to see less people focused on this and back into the spirit of the game which is, in my opinion, you can do anything and everything but don’t do any one thing too much; spread yourself out and find fun wherever you can find it. As it is, it’s really just a drug dealer selling Grind in the middle of a drug free oasis (not that GW2 players are sober, mind you) and I feel like, fun as it may be, it’s just doing more harm than good to the community of this game.

Do people generally agree or disagree with this? Feel free to expand on this or debate it at your leisure.

Don’t think we need another thread on it.

I think a lot of what ArenaNet has attempted to do with GW2 is very clumsy. Some great stuff that’s fouled by short-sightedness and failure to do the homework.

That we can only advance if we’re on a fractal that’s exactly our highest level is the short-sightedness that makes fractals not nearly as good as they should have been.

Just IMHO:
Seems to me its about community pressure and the you cant come if you don’t have this or that kind of thing. Vet mmo players have seen it in many games and you could say that the peer pressure is the old habit that wont go away. Players respond to rewards, that’s the foundation of the addiction. Extend the carrot on the stick too far out and it creates glass walls between people that keep them apart and makes some desperate.

I tend to think ArenaNet pushed this update before they should of.. making a lot of ill-prepared calls and design implementation. I theorized it was all pushed by the Marketing Department. (as everything usually is)