Guild Wars 2

Regarding rewards, I just wanted to note that I would like to have a “20 Slot Fractal Ascended Equipment Box” (like this). I usually keep my standard equipment in the bottom most box such that temporary holes (equipping 2 1-hand weapons instead of 1 2-hand) don’t get filled up with loot. However, if I switch back (to 1 2-hand weapon), my off-hand weapon drops into the loot-boxes. You know… it is… untidy…

Well, I said it is a convenience fix. Nothing too important. But I guess it only takes 5 minutes or so?

Just had this idea. Don’t know what to do with it. So I decided to post it. This time
Nike-style.

Goals

• Get feedback from players who are not on the forums (it is actually not only in-game, but also in-lore).
• New way to add rewards.

Implementation
Uses normal dialogue system: question above; answers to select from; next choice.

Questions can be related to…

(1) the encountered Fractals
“Which encounter was the most frustrating in the Underground Facility?”

• Keeping this control panel opened
• Blasting this door open
• How did all this Dredge fit into that car?
• Dropping lava at the end

(2) the encountered instability
“Did you notice something odd regarding the weather?”

• You mean, beside this !%$! lightning that hit us all the time and ruined the day?
• Well, we were certainly a bit more energized this time… I actually liked that
• No

(3) the class played (at the end of the boss Fractal)
“What do you think was your main role as a Necromancer in the team?”

• Killing (that’s what we went in for, right?)
• Keeping the others alive
• I was helping the others so that they performed even better

followed by
“Do you think you could handle this role well?”

A player may not receive the same question twice. Some rewards for participating scale with the number of questions (for example, 10 silver per question).

Risks

• People just clicking through in order to get the rewards (this is pretty easy to detect).
• I guess the part with publishing the results is debatable. Numbers are always difficult. It may be better if the “truth” stays at ArenaNet. Although I would love to have a comma-separated file with the data.
• The survey can become too long. I think it should not be longer than 10 questions. That said, if it would be too long (4 new Fractals, 1 new instability, 1 new class), the remaining questions could be postponed to a next survey (especially the class ones).

LordByron.8369:

Wonder why MOST people avoided most instabilities?
Because they are NOT FUN.

Is it really that simple? For example, I found the Mist stalker (Mossman) instability really fun. More funny than fun in the sense of challenging. But nevertheless, I had a great time with my team. Nevertheless, I did not play it again. Perhaps I will someday, but it is rather unlikely. Because why should I do a level 31?
Of the people I play with, rather few are level 50 (me neither). So we prefer to choose a level such that people level up. That is why we often run 49 or 39 (depending on agony resistance). 39, by the way, is also a very funny level (enemies explode on death).

Now, I can’t tell what most people did. But what metric would tell you that I like Mist stalker? I would really prefer it to the 49 one (which you barely even notice… in fact, although 49 should be by now the one I’ve run the most, I just had to look it up what it does). I like some instabilities and dislike others. But most times they are not the reason I choose one level over the other.

For me as a player that enjoys the randomness of Fractals and is in no hurry to finish them, class balance looks fine. As long as people don’t push enemies randomly and are focused on the game, everyone is welcome in our group.
We once had a Necromancer who run some condition damage. We were quite surprised how much damage he did when combined with 25 stacks of might. I think all classes can bring something to Fractals. Guardian is not the only class with reflects and especially not the only class with defense against projectiles.

timmyf.1490:

I’m a strong believer that our different perspectives, if used constructively, can build something better than each of us individually could build.

More minds means better ideas, but the CDI will require us to put down our swords and axes for a few moments and try to find common ground. Not normally the way we react to different opinions on online forums…

Agreed, but how to continue from there on?

Should we build more example encounters like the timmyf-dutchiez-boss (here ff.)?
And, just to note, some of the lore players have still to finish this job.

Should we build more examples of alternative paths like Tub for Snowblind (here)?

What I get from these examples, is that players want more choice. That leads me to a question: how many of you save the Inquest in Crucible of Eternity explorable? Do you like how it is done there? The morally decision aside, you can there choose to get a bomb that drains a good amount of the health of the next boss at the “cost” of an additional encounter. Would you like this in Fractals?

Randomness, on the other hand, seems to be a bit more debatable, as it does not align with speed-running very well. How important is this consideration? Some people here (including me) have spoken for more randomness, other for less.
Can we here find something that both sides are okay with?

I guess a Boss that behaves randomly (upon reaching 50% of his live, Boss will either transform into a kitten or into a puppy… each providing a different sort of challenge!) is also not what speed-runners would appreciate. Or is that okay?

Or what about the availability of alternative paths (see Tub above)? You know, there could be a speed-runners codex that disallows the usage of such paths. People that enjoy to take an opportunity that is given to them, on the other hand, can find the variety that they want. What about something along these lines?

Nike.2631:

Imagine a fractal that is essentially the Wintersday jump puzzle.

I will NEVER succeed on it. If its all 5 make it, we’re going back to Dessa’s lab, because I already know the outcome – failure until our eyes bleed. If the win condition is at least 1 person makes it on the first try, awesome, I can stand at the start and cheer them on. And if we all fail, no problem it automatically moves us on to a new fractal.

I’m not sure if all people share your enthusiasm for standing idle and watching their teammates win the Fractal. I have some players in my guild that dislike Fractals already because of the “jumping puzzles” in it.

But your suggestion of “one-tries” was broader than jumping puzzles. Personally, I really mislike non-repeatable timed encounters. Timed encounters are always stressing for me, even though I know I will probably beat them in half of the available time (if I keep calm). Making it non-repeatable is similar.

It would certainly add to the challenge. But then, there really should be some means to get some training on these Fractals. Because you don’t learn them as fast as you do the others (as you have only one try and do not necessarily experience how you can succeed). And then, how many would care to train on this Fractal beforehand when you don’t know if it shows up?

Maybe we can then just all die once to move to the next Fractal. I would prefer development time put into a regular Fractal.

Nike.2631:

((I mean really, how many people would mind the Underground Facility Fractal being ‘One Try’ for uber-rewards and re-roll if you all wipe?))

And then you have made your way to final boss, someone gets a disconnect, someone makes a mistake and the others die while trying to revive? As you said, if there are one-try Fractals, they better should be short.

Not that I would really dislike the idea. But I think the suggestions so far have been lacking some consideration of implications.

I also think that gambit instabilities should not effect certain build much more than others. It is not as critical as for random instabilities. But if teams can choose gambits that have no effect on them, then what is the point? “So nobody uses poison, chill or confusion? Guess what instability we are going to take!”

This can allow some customization towards the own team. I think ideally, team compositions that are less effective in Fractals could on the other hand handle multiple gambits better. I’m not an expert on this topic. I’m just sceptic about balancing this stuff. Thus it might be nice that when you are playing in different groups, you can do some planning beforehand and choose the best instabilities for your team. If you are staying on the same team, however, you will likely not experience every instability.

Having a minimum gambit requirement might also come with problems. I think especially of teams with “mixed” builds. It will be much harder for them to find an instability that none of them cares about. This would thus give an advantage to “specialized” teams. In this case, I think that it gets more critical that gambits don’t favour certain builds.

As conclusion, I think that gambit instabilities should be build-independent and balanced.

I just wanted to give a “thumbs up” for the designers that you can explain (nearly?) every encounter in Fractals while standing in the vicinity and having a look at the scene. This is really helpful when explaining the encounters.
And while the ice elemental encounter in Snowblind starts immediately, it is certainly not lethal at the start. This is also pretty helpful, as people can see how the knockbacks work and how the campfires are put out. Awesome!

Build-independence
They do not effect certain playstyles more than others. Thus, they do not effect boons, conditions or offensive attributes. A varying effectiveness is already given by different the encounters.

This property is (in my opinion) to some degree necessary for a random selection of instabilities. Currently, you can adjust for the instability you are facing in advance by changing traits (would require gem-shop-item) or selecting the character (impossible for instance owner).

Nevertheless, true build-independence may be too limiting for instabilities and may be acceptable to a small degree. For example, an instability that triggers when characters are too close to each other is probably somewhat harder for melee fighters.

Scalability
Like enemies, the instabilities get harder in higher levels. Well, that was easy.

Open Questions
Now to some questions that still have to be answered (but not in this post).

Starting at level X
When should these instabilities occur? From the level 1 on? You already get the new mechanic of agony at level 10. I guess somewhat later… perhaps already at level 15?

Easy instabilities
Romo suggested instabilities that were more funny than difficult (for example big heads).

Not the same twice
Is it possible to get two times the same instability in one run?

Discovering Instabilities
How much information does the effect in the user interface provide? A short description like the current ones? Perhaps none? Only a counter for “stacks” of the effect? It might also be possible that you can discover instabilities by completing the shard. You will then get the description of the effect when you encounter it again.

Associated Problems

• Random instabilities will again be something undesirable for the speed-runners/speed-clearers.
• Re-rolling will of course also effect random instabilities. If re-rolling will be limited, instabilities should also be considered for this. For example, if it is possible to choose the first shard, it should also be possible to choose the first instability (maybe only if you have discovered it before?) This may then exclude fun instabilities or give less rewards?
• This will probably cost us 1 or 2 maps. Note that this is only a vague guess based on the “would you prefer 1 map or 30 instabilities?” question. I think that something like 15 instabilities would already give a good pool. However, the scalability is likely to cost extra-hours.

Possible Instabilities (Selection)
Some instability triggers/events and effects that look “random ready” to me. I flagged them with (scalable) if they can be adjusted for different levels and (stackable) if the event can trigger multiple times, which can lead to a more severe effect. In higher levels, scalable triggers can trigger more often while scalable effects hit harder.

Triggers

• Time interval (scalable with shorter interval)
• Not moving much for X seconds while in combat (scalable in threshold X, longest skill cast time?; stackable when standing still for even longer time)
• X enemies attacking from front/behind (scalable in X, stackable with multiples of X)
• Players attacking from front
• Enemy death
• Player death/downed
• Player dealing more than X damage over Y seconds (scalable, stackable)
• Player taking more than X damage over Y second (scalable, stackable)
• Attacking X untargeted enemies, but not the targeted one (scalable, stackable)
• Endurance below X (scalable, stackable)
• Player dodges
• Standing close to X other team members for Y seconds (scalable in radius and Y, stackable in Y and X)

Effects

• Damage to player (scalable) Avoidable through dodging?
• Player % overall damage output decrease (scalable)
• Enemy % overall damage output increase (scalable)
• Player % outgoing healing decrease (scalable)
• Player % incoming healing decrease (scalable)
• Player % endurance loss (scalable)
• Player % movement speed reduction (scalable)
• Player % armor reduction (scalable)
• Additional enemy (scales automatically with level)
• Small aoe effect at current player position after 1 second (scalable)

On Daydreaming and Satisfaction
So I guess my attempt on difficulty was not as successful as I hoped.

I was asked to reconsider the amount of challenge and fun content including surprises that Fractals offers at the moment. I still believe that this is a quite good amount. There are some problems with it, like the accessibility of the instabilities to Fractal-beginners. But all in all, I think that Fractals are good in this regard. It can be improved. I think this is the topic of this thread.

Perhaps some won’t believe me that I still find Fractals interesting. I think this is a problem, since we can only have a discussion when we understand each other. I wanted to address this problem in my last post. It seems like I failed.

Perhaps a different try? For example, I found it very difficult to understand that some people consider speed-running high level gameplay. I think by now I can relate better. Nevertheless, why do you think there is even the slightest possibility that there might be someday a game mode that aims running through encounters you do again-and-again as quickly and possible and that is fun?

Honestly, this idea just sounded weird to me 19 pages ago.

Perhaps this allows others to understand my reasoning more.

More (Random?) Instabilities or More Fractals
For me, it would be the instabilities. They have a lot of potential at increasing replayability even further. The more I think of it, the more I like to get one by random. When the ones that screw with your build are left out. While I liked preparing for some of the instabilities, I think this could be really cool. If it changes by shard, you can’t reroll it.

Let’s say we have 20 “random-ready” instabilities.
11 Fractals * 20 instabilities would be 220 combinations. That is already quite nice. How often do you play with the same team composition? I found that some encounters feel quite differently depending on who you have with you. That sounds like a lot of combinations to explore.

There is, however, the problem that instabilities are something that, from what I’ve read, even those who are excited for them, have not reached them yet.

Perhaps instabilities can scale, as well? Instabilities that require you to spread out, can require a greater radius. When they trigger periodically, they can trigger more often. Of course, when an instability hits, it might just hit harder. This would also allow to include the option of a random instability in lower levels.

Teckos.1305:

Proposal Overview
More gameplay diversity.

Goal of Proposal
Even if most fractals take place in different areas, make us fight different enemies, in the end it is all about killing to progress, which makes the experience very repetitive
so even if the surrounding is different in the end there is no real gameplay diversity especially combat diversity.

Proposal Functionality
Tie progressing into the fractals to dynamic events, the trick here is to vary the objective of these events (capture and hold, steal an item in the enemy base, escort…), but also to make the experience tied to choices made by the group (EX: in an escort which route to take) and finally have minors events which could start randomly make all the experience more rewarding(gameplay wise).

Associated Risks
The principal risk would be that it would be a brutal change in the habits not only for the players but also the designers(used to the actual model).
The optional events could be ignored if:
– not well implemented.( solution: ties the random events to the progression
events)
– not rewarding enough.( solution: bonus reward a the end of the fractal)

I’m sorry, but can you please explain again? I don’t understand you proposal.
You say you propose to “Tie progressing into the fractals to dynamic events,” which sounds like mandatory events to me. However, in the risks you state that the events are optional. Also, I think “capture and hold” is already implemented in Urban Battlegrounds/Ascalon. So I don’t understand what this “brutal change” is.

I hope this helps you in stating your proposal more clearly. It would be bad if we miss a good idea because of some misleading words.

Sorry for making you hopes, but I can’t explain it good enough

So here are some ideas on it.

Scenario: mentoring players that used to play lower levels and joined your group for high level play. “Low” depends on the specific case.

• “And now comes this phase, where you can be 50% faster when the players are positioned in an polyhedron with all sides having the same length. So, a bit more to the left… yeah, that’s perfect. Remember where you are for the next time. We don’t want to waste more than 2 seconds on positioning, or else we won’t be able to beat the time <player name> group set up yesterday.”
• “And now comes… what? Now, this was unexpected. Ouch. So, forget about what I just said. Suggestions on how to do this?”
• “And now comes the actual fun part. I know you are bored by all these levels that were just so easy. Believe me, you won’t make it alive through this one if you do any single mistake. Neither would we. So now it is time you show what you’ve learned.”

Feel free to modify them. I guess I’m a bit biased for the second one. They were supposed to all be extreme cases, but I’m not sure if it worked out for all of them.

Also feel free to name them and comment on which one you prefer.

For me, randomness is essential for Fractals. It is where a good part of the fun comes from. For me, high level play (as something to aspire) is not speed-running. From reading this thread, I’ve gathered that some people think differently. There are players that see competitive PvE via comparing time-to-get-through as the end game. I’d more like challenges based on an environment that changes and forces me to rethink. When selecting a shard, a good part of this challenge is taken away from me. I guess, we could still roll a dice every time the selection for the next shard shows up. Nevertheless, I think removing randomness would be a step into the wrong direction.

Now, Fractals are supposed to be end game and I guess the speed-runners deserve some of it, too. However, a separate solution (a separate mode with selection, less randomness and leaderboard stuff) would be much more in my favor.

As I said above, I’d like challenges that force me to rethink. Having a random instability per Fractal would be nice in theory, but some builds are just screwed with some instabilities. A solution would be a method to change trait points. Perhaps only at the start of the shard when you know what instability you are going to face.

An alternative (which would be even better, but might not work), would be instabilities that do not effect specific builds only (extreme example: converting poison to regeneration), but encourage you to play differently. I don’t know how to name it. But the best instability I’ve played with is the one which reduces healing when teammates are close. It does not affect one build more than the other. It just affects positioning. And it has a very severe effect.

For those of you who haven’t played it: when the team stacks up, there is no healing at all. This also applies to reviving teammates. Since even Warbanner is actually a healing skill, it does not revive fallen teammates when others are near them. It completely changed out methods for doing some encounters.

Thus, I would like to have instabilities that focus on similar changes. The group has to stand spread out. The group has to focus a single enemy. The group has to keep moving during fights. Players do only full damage when the rest of their team is nearby. All 20 seconds, one player gets an effect that damages teammates nearby.

And since these instabilities don’t completely mess with builds, I would not mind if one of them is chosen randomly.

Therefore, I think that instabilities are a good method for increasing difficulty in higher tiers. If a better method exists and can be done, they would do well in a gambit-style system.

Also, instabilities should provide some more information to the player. One was already mentioned above: the one where you build up invisible stacks by attacking that damage you on every further attack. Just a small number for the number of stacks. Similar, when I get less healing the more teammates are near me: give me a number on how many are near me.

Not that I would not like to figure out things by myself. When random instabilities are implemented, I guess I’d also enjoy to have no explanation there at all. Just give me a symbol with a small number and let me figure out how I increase/decrease the number and what effect it has.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Fireballs in the volcano
These are perhaps too easy to really call a puzzle. You sort of have to be sleeping to get hit by these.

That’s exactly what we thought. And then, someday, one of the balls tipped the left wall and moved across the path to the right, killing two of our team. Your are never safe!

timmyf.1490:

I guess that brings me to a question for those of you who do a lot of higher-level Fractals: how frequently do you feel the need to remove an infusion, upgrade it, and re-slot it? Are we talking weekly? Monthly? Every 2-3 months? Or is it every AR you can add? Or every 2-3 AR you can add? And how often is that?

I woul not say I do higher-level Fractals a lot, but I guess in this regard it does not matter that much. Since Fractured, I think I also added one “+5” infusion. (Other items had +5 infusions due to the Fractured change.) I prefer the infusions you get from the relic vendor. You can get 70 resistance just by using them, and 75 is everything you need at the moment. I thus have not had any problems with those infusions so far. I guess that will come when higher levels are introduced.

Now that I think of it… I should invest into infusions when new levels are announced…
How about some insider information for people participating in the CDI? “Pssst, we are going to announce new Fractal levels tomorrow!” Just kidding

Wethospu.6437:

I agree with Byron. Design shouldn’t rely on gimmick puzzles because they are usually quite shallow and rarely scale with difficulty. For example wisp running at Swamp should simply be removed and replaced with a boss fight (like Mossman).

And here I could not agree less. While I also think that it is more difficult to leth them scale with difficulty than with fights, I’m not sure if they have to. In the case of wisp running, I don’t think a scaling would be that hard to implement: more traps with longer knockdowns and more enemies with tons of immobilization (such that the other two players also have a job: taking care of these enemies).

I’m sorry that I can’r argue on this in an objective manner, but I just like to solve an “encounter” here and there without fighting. And I guess that would be what distinguishes a puzzle from a non-puzzle: focus on movement versus focus on fighting?

I find myself a bit confused. I really like Fractals, yet I don’t relate to some of the heavily discussed topics.
I get sufficient rewards from Fractals. Not as much as when doing dungeons, but enough to craft my ascended gear (doing some Orrian temple events here and there… some evenings, nothing can beat killing masses of undead just running straight at you).
In the groups I’m in (guild, some friends I’ve met via LFG), we don’t reroll. Well, some days someone doesn’t feel like he wants to be kicked from platforms and we roll again when Uncategorized shows up.

I also tried my best at understanding the speedrunners (Leaderboards, right?), the casual players with less then 2 consecutive hours of playtime, the people that want more lore, the people that want more exploration, the achievement hunters, the Fractal-reset people, the speedclearers, the beginners and the people that do not want to invest virtual valuables into something that “unlocks” a more difficult game mode.

I just wanted to say: I like playing Fractals with my friends. I like to face the challenge that is thrown at me. I completely enjoyed leveling up in Fractals, assuming at each tier that this is the last one I will be able to beat. And I will enjoy it again when new levels are added. I also enjoy that the single shards are short as they are. The sudden environment change is wonderful. I like to hear Dessa talking while I still have a loadscreen. I like how the instabilities affect play. Some you don’t notice much, some make things hard and some are just funny (“The Mossman is behind you!”). I’m not there for competitive play, nor for the rewards, so I don’t mind. If there is a unexperienced player with us, we have the opportunity to take an easier instability. That is great!

I think something we should talk about before the CDI goes to end are the instabilities.

What should they force you to do? How much should they affect you?
There are concerns raised that they should not force you to swap gear (expensive stuff). Can they force you to swap traits? Is it okay if the “optimal” gear changes, as long as the old optimal gear can still make it?

Should they only have negative effects for the players? What about a very strong negative effect, but in addition also a positive one?

Can there be other effects, perhaps on the environment? (“You have to find a hidden stack in each shard before you can continue.”)

This should allow players to train, compete in leaderboards without relying on getting the right shard by chance and give casual players a chance to play as well. This idea should be familiar to the readers of this thread.

This allows casual players to also gain Fractal levels. While you can avoid certain shards if you want to, this costs you a day. Also, doing the normal mode is still valuable, as it is the only method to get at the valuable stuff from the daily chest.

I think that even casual players will sometimes have the time to make a full run and aquire a fractal weapon and alike. This proposal just makes it possible for them to do the leveling also when there is not so much time.

Since re-rolling takes a complete day, I doubt this is a problem. Sure, some will refrain from Dredge or whatever. But there is the incentive of having it today instead of tomorrow.

Associated Problems
Single Shard Mode

• Maybe the rewards for this can be discussed. I think they should stay the same. If you want a fast run to the end chest, it is only a bit faster than rolling for Swamp. If you want loot, the same applies to rolling for Urban Battlegrounds. May, of course, change when something is done to prevent re-rolling.
• Leaderboards might be designed to incorporate total Fractal run time. However, as far as I understand they are “only” of interest to a certain group of players that don’t like the randomness of a full run. (I might be wrong on this.) Thus I assume that leaderboards should be implemented with such a single shard mode in mind and maybe also in addition apply to normal mode.

Daily Fractal Challenge

• Re-rolling for another x-th tier Fractal is pretty simple (but takes a day).
• Balancing of rewards is always a problem. For me the important thing is to provide casual players the opportunity to gain levels such that they can get the good stuff in the case they have some time.

Another possibility would be to increase some rewards explicitely at lower levels. Something that high level players might find useful, but not as useful as the things you get in higher levels. I thought of the +1 agony resistance infusions. So, for example, when you are doing a tier 1 you get 3 per chest and for tier 2 you get 2 per chest. Other tiers would remain 1 per chest (sometimes more). The idea is to allow new players to get agony resistance more quickly. While the high-level players probably have enough resistance, you can never have enough of them (since there will be a patch which adds new tiers). As these are tradeable you could in theory just give more gold, but I think such a “hint” of what is needed in higher levels should be better.

For higher level Fractals I think something like an effect that reads “Uncertainty is just another word for luck: your magic find is increased by <level>” should do a good job. Well, as long as the effect does what it says. I’m not sure about loot tables in low versus in high-level Fractals. I’ve gathered no statistics. Some people say there is no difference. I think it is very difficult to compare. But having such an effect would just state it.

What purpose does agony have?
In my opinion—from what I like it to be, but also what I understood from playing Fractals—it serves the purpose of an adjustable difficulty setting including a step-wise “inflation” of “easyness” in a game with unlimited “difficulty.” It is an adjustable difficulty setting, because you can lower the difficulty by adding more agony resistance (at the cost of gold). The “inflation” comes with game updates that add new means of adding agony resistance. The unlimited difficulty comes with updates that add higher levels.

Why is agony good?

• Players can lower their difficulty at the cost of gold. Even more, a group can run the same level of Fractals with different difficulty settings per player.
• As agony resistance increases in the player base, even players who are not that skillful can reach “high-level” Fractals at some point. However, the skillful players will be “one step ahead.”

What is a problem?

• Unavoidable agony can not be countered by skill but only through resistance.
• At some point, it does not matter if you have 5 more agony resistance or not since agony one-shots you in both cases.
• Since currently enough resistance for the highest Fractal is quite possible to aquire, the skillful players are not one step ahead.
• It is difficult to join a group of regular high-level Fractal players when you are not one of them. Since you are likely to have not much agony resistance, you actually chose for a hard difficulty setting by not doing a heavy investment in gear first.

Associated Problems

• Devalues agony resistance a bit. However, in this proposal I took care to not make it useless. The amount of extra resistance through the surge has to be tuned properly such that it gives the players who use the shield (on top of the actual encounter) the bit of additional resistance they need to
  survive.
• Makes the unavoidable agony at the start of boss Fractals very easy to avoid. You can see it as a training lesson for using the shield
• Placing the shields suitably within the Fractals may also raise concern.
• Using an environmental item might not by all players be seen as skillful, since it does not require class mechanics.
• In the heat of the encounter, things can depend on picking up the shield fast… which is not easy when you have a teammate in the downed state nearby or some jade colossus just dropped you some loot.
• Requirement to time things gives advantage to groups with voice software (Teamspeak).

Associated Problems

• Technical problem: I’m not sure if an achievement can be “expanded.” However, this would be a nice thing to have when no level tiers are added. That is, when new level tiers are added, the main achievement gets new achievement tiers. An alternative would be to create a new achievement that then just starts with “3 tiers completed”.
  Therefore, this should only be a small problem.
• Technical problem: is the information on what instabilities a player has already completed present? I really hope so. As strange as it may sound, my hopes are based on the leaderboards, as in preparation for them, this information might have been tracked. If not and you have to do even the instabilities you already did… well… let’s say some will be unhappy.
• A problematic situation can occur, when you come into a Fractals group with players that have the achievement already completed and don’t want to do it again just so that the new player does get it also.
• Some players cite ArenaNet for some kind of “play like you want” playstyle. Some instabilities have a severe impact on playstyles (like the ones converting boons/conditions). Players may feel forced to change their playstyle for the achievement. On the other hand, one can say that high-level Fractals are not the place for “play like you want.” I guess this is a game-philosophy problem. Maybe not an easy one.

Associated Problems

• Some players might have the opinion that the Rabsovich fight makes the Fractal worth their while, since it awards with a lot of loot. Though this might be an arguable position from a game perspective (it is like “at least I’m paid for this struggle!”), I think it is a valid one. The change will reduce the amount of loot in the Fractal significantly.
• Since you can not run away from Rabsovich in order to fight the Dredge in a more save environment (unlike the doors, Rabsovich would reset his health), the amount of spawning Dredges has to be adjusted. Might be less of a problem when the Dredge spawn in small groups. But…
• If the Dredge spawn often, players will have to kill Dredge while avoiding to hit Rabsovich (or else the Dredge will overrun them). It might be a nice addition as it can give crowd-control skills a moment to shine (by separating Rabsovich from the other Dredge). However, it might be too much for a non-boss-fight.

Associated Problems

• The “additional burden” is not balanced over different fractals. The idea was born for the Solid Ocean Fractal, and that it where I hope it should work like I intended: players meeting in a small zone when agony is about to hit. It is, however, rather trivial when the unavoidable agony is limited to a few hits before the fight even starts (Mai Trin, Molten Duo). In these cases, the additional burden might be too small. I’d say this is a big issue.
• It also affects Fractals of tier 1 to 3. This will probably add some trouble for changing some encounters to be too easy. However, since unavoidable agony is also parts of these tiers (at least the cooling-rod-room in Thaumanova), it should also apply to them. Medium-sized issue in my opinion.
• It also puts limitations on future Fractals. For example, unavoidable agony must never occur while the group is split up (maybe countered by adding multiple devices?).
  Medium-sized issue in my opinion, as it only limits the use of unavoidable agony.
• It can also allow a single (or two/three) player to get an advantage over the other players. Players can choose to just stay in the zone for the agony-immunity. However, if all players stay put in the same zone, most encounters are unforgiving. Therefore a group has to decide who gets to carry the device and to get the protection. This might actually be a nice addition for some groups (helping new players). I’d thus say it is only a small issue.
• Making an environmental weapon crucial for success is very prone to bugs. It probably needs a method to recreate it in case it is lost. Big issue, but maybe easy to solve.
• (added in edit 1) The effect on the agony-instabilities (level 40, 50) is really big. I simply can not foretell how this will work. People would actually be forced to staying together. This is not always possible (pressure plates in Dredge Fractal) and probably not wanted by some players. Big issue. Really big. Even if level 60, 70 and 80 are not similar to 40 and 50.

Considering Fractals are chosen as the next topic.

What role do Fractals have in the bigger picture of Guild Wars 2? High-level player-versus-environment? Dungeons with randomness? Should it be something players can show off when they are good at? Should it make the good players rich?

After that, why was it chosen as a topic? Does it not fulfill its/one of its roles? Can another role be added to please a certain part of the player base? Would that possibly upset another part, so better ask them beforehand?

These questions should be answered in short in the summary, and maybe elaborated later on.