Guild Wars 2

Lots of complaints that GW2 lacks difficult content, sure.

No one means that the fun, gimmicky Living Story updates should be super difficult. SAB was fun because it was nostalgic and well-designed, but relatively easy. It made you feel like you were awesome at platforming. It convinced the player that they were smart, and creative.

I think SAB developers misunderstood what made it so popular the first time.

People are asking for difficult Guild Wars 2 content. Content in the base game where we use our weapons, and skills, and armor, and stats to kill enemies (preferably in instances so we can’t just Zerg it). That’s because at this point, most of us are pretty good at Guild Wars 2. Less so at platforming, it seems.

Everyone was happy with Super Adventure Box’s difficulty. That’s part of why it was so popular.

If I’m going to be doing something grueling, I want a dragon breathing down my neck, not a cute little pixely spider.

Honest mistake from the Dev’s part, and one that can hopefully be fixed pretty easily and going forward. I’m sure this difficulty appeals to some people, and I love that Tribulation mode gives them the option.

Based on how awesome Josh is being on this forum, I feel bad offering something that borders on criticism. But I don’t really think this is a criticism of the content he and the SAB team have designed— it is great for what it is. I’m just trying to explain why the Guild Wars 2 community might be confusingly whiny about the difficulty.

Noticing lots of padding and almost no real content.

This game is amazing and I love it— because of the content that came out at launch through October.

I don’t know if different people are in charge or what— but the direction you’re taking the game in is bad.

Lately, PVE players have been getting upset about the lack of end-game options available to them. New content is ideal, but perhaps Fractals can be tweaked to be more fun and rewarding so that current players can continue to enjoy them, and so that future players can have more fun working towards their rings and back.

Let’s Fix Fractals of the Mist!
****
I am going to focus on 3 things.

1.) Improving the existing Rewards System

2.) Stabilizing the difficulty, time length, and FUN of various fractals.

3.) Taking into account the months of player feedback on specific fractals, bosses, and other issues.

THE REWARDS SYSTEM:

Currently, running Fractals is net loss in terms of Gold for almost everyone. Running COF p1 outpaces it immensely, and to be honest, solo farming Orr probably beats it too.

The obvious tweak is to improve loot, so I’m not going to get into that too much. I do believe that loot in general should be improved from boss chests, and that perhaps an additional item, perhaps a chance at a core or lodestone, should be added to the daily chest above 20, with improving odds of getting a lodestone the higher the level.

Here are some less obvious tweaks. I’m not suggesting that all of these be added, but some would certainly help.
****
Five Fixes for Fractal Rewards:

1.) From Fractal level 30 onward, the Fractal daily chest has the chance to contain Fine Infusions. These are the infusions that offer +5 stat, +5 agony resist. Very few players ever bother to obtain these due to their high cost, and giving us a way to obtain them would get more players seeking their +30 stats they can now obtain through ascended.

2.) From level 40 onward, infused rings have a chance to drop with the Fine Infusion that corresponds to their primary stat. Red Ring of Death drops with a Mighty Infusion, for example.

3.) New Mystic Forge Recipe: 1 Fractal Weapon, 1 Shard of Crystallized Mist Essence, 3 Globs of Condensed Mist Essence, 5 Vials of Condensed Mist Essence. Gives you a random Fractal weapon of any other type than the one originally placed in the mystic forge. Or, if this is hard to program, just random Fractal Weapon, so that we can re-roll until we get the one we want.

4.) Level 40+ has a rare chance to drop Ascended Amulets and Trinkets.

5.) All Ascended Gear, including Rings, will now count as Yellow Armor for Mystic forging Purposes. 3 Ascended Rings + one yellow weapon will be a viable mystic
forge recipe for gambling for exotics/precursors. Four ascended rings will get you back a yellow armor.
****

I’ll make this quick. We want PVE content. More dungeons, especially a dungeon that comes “after” Fractals, or we are going to jump ship to an MMO that provides it.

Moreover, Fractals need to be looked at and tweaked.

Dredge is too long and miserable. The time commitment for Fractals is stupid for how unrewarding it is. Add something more to the Fractal daily chest. Give us more things to buy with Fractal or Pristine Fractal Relics. Make Dredge Fractal shorter, just cut the whole middle part out. Day when I run Fractals without Dredge, pretty fun time. When I get Dredge, I immediately want to leave my party and say to hell with it. It’s not even that hard— it is just long and tedious.

One idea is to make infusions, such as +5 Power, + 5 Agony Resist, to start dropping from Fractal level 30. That way people can start getting their +30 of a stat for a reasonable price if they run fractals.

Here’s all we want in new PVE content:

Something hard, that takes skilled players to do successfully. It is rewarding in terms of gold, skins, t6 mats— something players need— at a level that competes with grinding Orr or running COF. That’s it.

Ideally, you’ll give it interesting mechanics where we don’t just stack for half the fights, and where we can’t just glitch everything for months— and where we don’t have to, because the original fight is challenging not because it has a million HP and goes on forever.

The reason we’re sick of Fractals is because its a waste of time once you have all the gear and don’t want to gamble on skins. It is less profitable to run than almost any regular dungeon in the game due to the insane time commitment compared to the minimal rewards.

The most challenging content should be the most profitable when executed perfectly by a player group. That is not the case. In GW2, the easiest content is the most profitable. Fix the profitability of Fractals to make them more worth running, and add a new dungeon a tier above Fractals. Not necessarily in gear, but in skill and profitability. Rinse and repeat once per year.

Fractals would have lasted a long longer as enjoyable content if it weren’t so tedious, long, and unrewarding.