Guild Wars 2

Couldn’t they just insert new levels in wherever shifting the current ones around? So they add a new map, they decide it’s going to be 15, 27, 40, 56, 80, and 99. Now we have 1-106 levels, and everything just shifts around, Old 100 is now 106, old 15 is now 16 etc. We get thrown for a loop as we relearn what number is what map, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing when people are complaining about spamming the same thing.

I don’t see it as too limiting honestly.

Personally speaking, the reason I’ve not tried to get into the tournaments is more because of the more serious nature of them. It’s just a bit too intense for my liking.

I go to the park/beach and play pickup basketball sometimes. Usually it’s a lot of fun, everyone’s just enjoying themselves, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, no big whoop. But, then you get the “tryhards” out there, the guys who start trash talking, they play overly aggressive (i’m all for a little bumping, but the guys who take it to another level), and well, they simply ruin it for me. I like a competitive game, it’s exhilerating when it’s close but even fun when it’s not if everyone has the attitude that’s it’s all in good fun.

To me I loved what GGGG did… now I know it was rude, and while I thought the shoutcasters handled it very well you could sense their displeasure. And, well, that’s kinda my point here. Now, they had no place in that tournament, it was trying to be a serious competition. But, what I’d want is a tournament that they would fit in. One that’s more about the fun and less about winning.

How do you do that, I don’t know, but I think that’s the goal we all have when looking to make it more open to the casual player. Trying to make something more inviting. I do think silly handicaps would create that. I mean how can you get mad at screwing up an Arah skip when you’re forced to RP walk it? Silly things bring levity to a situation. If you went tournament style you could have a list of “gambits” that were all silly/stupid and randomly rolled for the players to have to follow. While the good players would still have an advantage, they’d still be off their game. It’d level the playing field a bit, and promote a more fun environment. I’d love to play a tournament like that.

That’s my 2cents

Eneldiar.9670:

As an almost pure PvE necro, the most common builds I see in dungeons (outside of condition) are the dagger build and the DS build. Variations of both builds can be found on metabattle.com with specializations, rotation explanation, etc.

Dagger build is fairly self-explanatory, berserker’s gear, Dagger/Focus and Warhorn in second weapon slot, use Warhorn 5 and Focus 4 while spamming dagger AA.

The DS build also uses similar weapons (although the axe can be used as a second main-hand if you really want to) and the goal is to be in DS as much as possible, this ones nice because Valkyrie gear (Power, Vitality, Ferocity) is viable because deathly perception (SR grandmaster trait) can boost your crit to nearly 100% which means minimal investment in precision and more survivability.

Either one does very well, or you can make up one and see how it does :p like I said, deeper explanations for both those builds can be found on metabattle.

Don’t you want Staff secondary for DS build to grab that extra weapon damage? So like Dagger/Warhorn (or focus) or maybe Axe then staff secondary to swap to for DS periods.

If I were to make them, I’d put up the first group to do them, Fastest time, and Most done.

Of course the first would never change, but it’d be cool to see who hit level 100 first for example. Fastest would of course increase over time. And most done would change as well, while regularly done ones wouldn’t be impressive the especially kittenes would be cool, who was willing to challenge themselves the most.

5 drink minimum tournament! (i’ll handicap myself with 10)

What Charblaze linked is a better version of what I was using then (finding info on condi builds is tough so that was what I threw together initially before seeing some insight on how to do even better, basically swapped my runes).

He said people may do the same ones but you won’t be rewarded as well as doing a diverse set as well… so… yeah.

Minigrump.4961:

how i imagine anet working on the new fractal content

Depending on how the instabilities and dailies work I could see it really increasing build variety. Increased toughness would really hit the standard setup (i hope it’s not basline for higher fractals an in an instability form). But, no projectile defense for example, now strategies for many encounters change. I’m all for that kind of stuff. Make us play differently. Make us change out strategies. One size fits all just isn’t great, now I’d have prefered new content to make us change, but adjusting the way things works creates different encounters where we can’t just bring what we always have.

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

I’m actually all for a random daily. As phys pointed out I’ve been pushing for choosable fractals for a long time. But, with the caveate of having a daily random series then being able to finish the rest as you pleased 1 by 1 (or forgot the tour and do 1 by 1 with a lesser reward).

Random does add something. But, God I hate doing bad combos at 2am (generally when I start my last for the day). So i see value in that, but overall, I still prefer the new method to the old one. Especially if they reward doing different setups. Personally I’ll still do a good variety of them. I’ll probably do a lot of mai Trin and Grawl Shaman as I find them entertaining, unless they have horrible instabilities or get to a one shot mode I’d probably do them daily just for fun. But, yeah kinda rambling, but I support the idea of an additional full “tour”.

I get why you and others like being able to select, but that being the main way of playing them is very unhealthy for fractals as a whole.

Theres basically gonna be like 3 fractals you can play outside of guild premades

This should just have been a game mode

If they properly reward mixing it up, no. If they fail to do that then yes. Seems they understand the concern so we’ll see what they do.

The more I read it sounds like there is the standard chest, then multiple dailies to accomplish. If they have like 3 dailies requiring different levels and maybe 1 or 2 for any, well, then you’re going to be different ones each day gathering your 3 specific and 1-2 general.

It all depends on the details.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The power of ice bow was fine albeit with the old AI where mobs moved out of stuff, it was intentionally designed to be extremely powerful only being able to land monster damage on occasion, this was with the old enemy AI concept where they made it a lot harder on a player’s ability to corner targets because they ran out of AoEs.

Had the old AI not been nerfed into oblivion, allowing the mob stacking to occur, we would still have Ice Bow in its regular form.

Not really, due to the differences in hit box you can go from a solid 17k to a rediculous 25-30k dps. That’s a bit much.

Ice Bow should still be part of the setup, however that inconsistency allows it to be just crazy. Witht he defiant change Deep Freeze will change which is a good thing, but the damage should still be considered. IMO it should be changed to a barrage like attack (field takes damage rather than multiple strikes) that does equavalent damage to a human sized target. Meteor much the same, though meteor could be troublesome with the radius it had for PVP/WvW so it may need a bit more fine tuning in that regard.

I’m actually all for a random daily. As phys pointed out I’ve been pushing for choosable fractals for a long time. But, with the caveate of having a daily random series then being able to finish the rest as you pleased 1 by 1 (or forgot the tour and do 1 by 1 with a lesser reward).

Random does add something. But, God I hate doing bad combos at 2am (generally when I start my last for the day). So i see value in that, but overall, I still prefer the new method to the old one. Especially if they reward doing different setups. Personally I’ll still do a good variety of them. I’ll probably do a lot of mai Trin and Grawl Shaman as I find them entertaining, unless they have horrible instabilities or get to a one shot mode I’d probably do them daily just for fun. But, yeah kinda rambling, but I support the idea of an additional full “tour”.

Hammerguard.9834:

Such cluelessness and a prime example of why Anet’s probably never going to read this thread. These forums are riddled with diseased comments like yours.

Edit: To be honest, that first part about blast finishers is actually a good idea for an instability. The second part is where your disease kicked in.

I actually like that instability. I think the point of instabilities is to get us out of our comfort zone, make us use different strategies. While the targetting of elementalist I think is fundamentally wrong, I do think the power they hold with Ice Bows is also wrong. i do await the breakbar change to see what that holds though.

As some people have mentioned in other threads, the variable target size is an issue, when you have Elementalists ranging from 17 to 30k damage depending on the size of the target that’s just… well, messed up.

I do think scrambling field combos would be a cool instability. Dark = might, Fire = blind, Light = weakness, Water = Stealth, Smoke = Heal. something like that would be fun. It’d totally change things.

Edit, OK, i suck and didn’t read your edit, but yeah… So we’re on the same page somewhat.

Why not just do multiple fractals each day?

I really hope they make the repeat rewards worthwhile. A standard daily chest for each specific level would AMAZING by that I mean worthwhile one. But it sounds like they’re increasing the reward for the standard chest. Then adding Dailies which will be your “bonus chest” for pristine/ascended/skins.

So doing a set of them hopefully will be worthwhile even if you finish dailies early.

papry.8096:

Dinks.2478:

People will always find something to whine about. Anet tries to give us more progression while making it so we don’t have to spend 40 minutes to do max level fractals and people still find kitten to whine about.

Can you explain to me why asking for non exploitable prestige dungeon is whinning ?

It’s not whining, but you’re wrong about using it to get to 100 outside of powerleveling after the rush is over. The system will force you to do different maps with different instabilities. If I had my way to get your own personal reward level up you’d be unable to skip too. I hope they do that. But, yes I’m sure they’re aware it needs fixing. You make a point there that’s worth repeating as many times as people feel like it.

Personally speaking, as much as I like those types of threads, the Fashion “post your screenshot” threads just don’t seem like sticky threads to me. But, I could see how some disagree, I just think stickies are best left for things that someone new coming here for help should check out before posting… that doesn’t fall into that category.

There is the FAQ which I think has a TON of great info, but it’s a little outdated in spots. No clue if Tarsius is still around, but for example it has a not on merciful intervention that’s incorrect as you now choose who you teleport it just has to be an ally nearby. I wouldn’t say I’d remove that but I would say maybe use your magical powers and add a “Some outdated” or something /shrug, or leave it alone, just felt worth noting as I was looking through.

The hammer one also seemed like it’d be worth taking off, but the OP of it says he plans on updating it once the expansion launches but doesn’t want to do all the work then have to do it all again, which I think is fair and worth leaving. AH Hammer builds are great for new players, a great place to start as you work your way to Obal’s builds.

The Post your Build one to me is like the Post your Screenshot, It’s cool, it’s nice to share, but it’s not the “Hey new players read this!” type thing that I believe stickies should be.

I do think we have a lot of stickies here, it’s kinda awesome, but when I look closely most are worthwhile and really all have a place at least as a starting point for people.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Jerus.4350:

To anyone who finds these guides useful I’d ask that you send a PM to Gaile expressing that. Takes all of 30s and if people express the value they see in these guides I’m sure Gaile will toss it on sticky so it doesn’t get buried.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/Gaile-Gray-6029

Link to PM her. She’s cool, She’s nice, and doesn’t bite too hard.

No need to do that, I already stickied the thread. It seems very current and valuable to me.

\o/ Gaile you rock.

spoj.9672:

The only prestige of worth is items tied to challenging achievements. RNG loot can be good as prestige. But it has to be done right. Which means it cant be accessible easily but it also cant be completely unrealistic to obtain.

So in fractal terms that would be fractal skin drops come in the form of a box where you choose the skin. The chance of obtaining this box is moderate. But its only available in the loot tables if you are fractal 50 and have completed fractal frequenter.

Some basic feedback for this news though. I think progression should only be obtained by completing the relevant scale. This means you cannot skip scales if you want to reach fractal 100. No matter how well you balance the high level instability fractal combos there will definitely be one that gets put on farm by the community to carry bad players up to scale 90+ easily. So lets just avoid the issue entirely this time round and prevent this from happening. Right?

I 100% agree. However, I think you should be able to do a 100 when at whatever personal level given you have the AR.

I don’t want friends cut off because they fell behind. Just we’ll need to go back to level them which I’m fine with.

And yes, that means I do want to see “wtb opener for lvl XX”

phys.7689:

Enko.6123:

well they could make agony resistance from HoT masteries and if you don’t have it, you might be stuck with crafting the +1s into higher and higher levels which would be cost prohibitive.

They could and may do this, but it would be a pretty crappy system, that i imagine would annoy a great many people.

A great many people who haven’t purchased HoT… something they have incentive to do. Again, I hope they won’t, but, it’s a chance to annoy into buying.

phys.7689:

Ayrilana.1396:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Ayrilana.1396:

Maybe one of the masteries will be innate agony resistance that doesn’t require ascended gear.

The entire point of agony is to gate players and make them grind. This would bypass that.

Well the mastery would likely require them to play fractals to progress it. Really no different than grinding gear.

Last time they said masteries is hot only. Unless that changes it cant be the main gate for fractals.

And who’s to say they aren’t going to make doing the highest level fractals basically require HoT? Now, I don’t think it’s a good idea or they will, but it’d be something I’d have considered if I were their higher ups looking to convince people to buy the expansion, especially when so far it’s very lacking for content driven players.

phys.7689:

butch.8136:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Well, all I have to say is everyone (including myself) is making a lot of assumptions. But, we do have ANet posts assuring us that running the same easy fractal over and over will not be the way to go. So it sounds like whatever they’re doing they’re at least making an attempt to avoid the issue we’re all discussing.

Nah running the same fractal over and over will be the best way to progress, and there will be one fractal that is the best time/reward.
And for the daily people will do the same 3 fractals out of 9

The only non repetive element MAY be the new daily that asks for a specific scale.
But thats only one unpredictable fractal per day. And now a fractal is one level.

So you figure 1/3 of the days that random fractal isnt one of the 3 standard fractals everyone runs ad nauseum

And what do you want actually? People have been rerolling anyway if the RNG was against them. People have been running the ‘best’ scales, etc.

You can only reroll the first fractal. And thats out of a pool of 3.

4 I thought, Ascalon, Harpy, Aquatic, Swamp.

Well, all I have to say is everyone (including myself) is making a lot of assumptions. But, we do have ANet posts assuring us that running the same easy fractal over and over will not be the way to go. So it sounds like whatever they’re doing they’re at least making an attempt to avoid the issue we’re all discussing.

Neko.9021:

Because as far as I understand it, that’s basically what this is going to be.

What disincentivizes us from picking the easiest Swamp fractal from Tier 1-20, 21-50, and 51-100, for the Daily Reward at each Tier?

My suggestion, personally, would be that each tier has a random fractal that serves as that tier’s daily. For example, dailies could be:

Do Fractal 7
Do Fractal 31
Do Fractal 64

Because if we’re allowed to simply choose our fractal, then it looks like we’ll only play Swamp for a quick set of the first 3 Fractal Dailies. And that’s already 3 chests right there. Even if there is a variable 4th Daily, that’s still 3 Swamps to one non-Swamp daily at best.

Please reconsider this system.

You’re thinking about it wrong I think.

You do whatever the specific 4th chest is and pick up credit for the other rewards too. So you’re not just getting one more reward for doing that other one, you’re getting double rewards.

Say it’s “do a lvl 1-20, Do a lvl 21-50, Do a 51-100, and Do a lvl 79” Why wouldn’t you do your 79 and pick up two rewards? Even if it’s cliffside you’re spending just a handful of extra minutes to grab 2 chests rather than a couple minutes to do swamp and bypassing a possible reward.

That said as I’m reading it, I’m still confused. It sounds like there will be a set of achievements for 1-20, another set for 21-50, and a thrid for 51-100.

Really wish they’d give a fully detailed sample scenario.

phys.7689:

Basically all they are preventing is people doing the same fractal 3 times. But no problem dojng the 3 easiest ones again and again.

So predictable so farmable so lame.

Did you not read the last part of that quote? There will be a specific level picked out for more rewards. You’d be pretty silly not to do that and grab another reward chest.

While I don’t think I have it fully understood it, it certainly sounds like they understand the issues we’re concerned with and are implementing something to combat it.

–]Anet_Goremond 2 points 41 minutes ago
You will be able to do something similar in the new system. I just wanted to clarify that running swamp forever will not be as rewarding.

from reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3f6ei6/the_brandnew_fractals_of_the_mists_legendary/ctluosv

deSade.9437:

Jerus.4350:

That said, I do hope they don’t make the toughness increase a blanket effect over everything in higher levels otherwise it’ll just knock power builds out of contention.

Do you actually hope that is not going to happen or you’re pulling mah leg?

… you know I know you’re right… :/

But, maybe, just maybe they’ll read the feedback on that and go “ohh kitten, yeah, that’s dumb” in time to change it. The devs aren’t dumb, they’re just overworked by a headless chicken.

TheFantasticGman.9451:

I’ll have the option of never doing Snowblind again? EVER? Awesome.

Yup, I LOVE it SO much.

There are a few major fixes I hope they do to fractals while they’re at this. First, Mossman… kitten fix the water exploit. The next would be moving the Elemental Source’kittenbox back so we can kill the swirler, with the swirler and the wispy thingies plus elementals… too much to be fun when you have the option of suicide running it and dwindling the Source that doesn’t regen.

dutchiez.7502:

So is there a difference between the daily fractal reward we have now, and ones after HoT? Because right now all you get for the daily fractal is a pristine, but in the new system there would be a different category of “Fractal Daily Achievements” or whatever?

From the sounds of it you get the new Fractal whatchamacallit from a completed fractal strait up. Basically like the boss chests at the end, no lockout.

Then you have the daily scale reward, think of this like our bonus chest now, chance at ascended/skin.

Then we’ll have a new daily achievement set for fractals, what the reward is here I either missed or it hasn’t been said.

So to get all 3 you’d have to do the levels that are part of the daily achievement. I hope the daily is worthwhile, but if it isn’t then yes, it’ll create an issue, but if it is worthwhile, well, we’ll be doing different fractals every day if we want our full reward. A particularly nasty daily may be passed up to still get your other rewards, but if you’re up to the challenge you’d be rewarded.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Just remember we went from 3 fractals + 1 boss fractal to 1 fractal to be able to progress through scales.

And also remember that mobs will not only scale from HP + damage but also from precision and toughness. PHIWs will be kittening all over the place from the increased effectiviness of their condition specs.

Why are they acting like they are catering to “hardcores” and “casuals” at the same time, when it’s clearly this only benefits casuals?

First, hardly think its’ fair to throw condi’s in with PHIW at this point. For some professions they’re right up there. Hell I believe Obal’s math showed condi actually winning out when you have multiple targets, and I know Engi’s not far from power.

That said, I do hope they don’t make the toughness increase a blanket effect over everything in higher levels otherwise it’ll just knock power builds out of contention. I do think it’d a good idea as an instability in itself. So some level favor condi builds.

As for catering to casuals, yeah, a lot of it is, but if the instability combinations along with generally more punishing encounters ends up how I think it will, I don’t see casuals completing some stuff. Of course they may be able to hop over the particularly nasty bits with the help of people who have done it to open up later levels.

It’d actually be pretty cool if only the next level would increase your personal reward level, could of course do the others for reward but in doing so someone who could open a 100 would have actually done everything.

dutchiez.7502:

Rising Dusk.2408:

dutchiez.7502:

So instead of farming Swamp forever, we will farm Cliffside forever?

If all you care about is rewards, there will always be one option that is more lucrative than all others from a time cost/reward perspective.

Right, but as it is right now, after swamp there are still 3 random fractals you have to complete which are different every time.

With the new system, if there is one scale that is always the absolute best for rewards, people will only ever run that scale, and since every scale now always has the same island, we would be running the same fractal forever.

There has to be some mechanic that randomizes reward or something to keep this from happening.

There is a mechanic to randomize rewards int he daily achievements.

As Dusk said, why do we all run 40 and 49/50 instead of all those other levels/

And as far as random maps after swamp… tell that to my RNG! ugh snowblind get away from me!

spoj.9672:

Yeah it will be equal. But like from a record point of view. The highest scale with dredge might be 96 and have some really awkward instability. Whereas another shard will have its highest on 94 with a different instability. Which just means we have some extra variables in records. Not really a problem. Just might make some shards really unfun to do on the highest scale.

True some might suck to do, but if they’re static it’d all be the same. It’s not as if we keep track of full fractal runs, we just do individual maps. As a community we could even say “ok screw lvl 96 dredge the instabilities make it a crappy speedrun map, so we’re gonna have the competition on this one be the lvl 78 one”

The Baws.5164:

Ok, my mistake, it still felt much less clunky back then.

Yeah it certainly has it’s issues now, but I do like the little notification icon for it, nice for when I stack other swiftness on top. Overall I’m a fan with the new effects and the swiftness and the whole package, I get more if I more intelligently use it.

dutchiez.7502:

The rewards you get from an island will scale based on the island type. So an island that is typically longer (cliffside) will give more rewards then one that is typically shorter (swamp). This will discourage you from just farming swamp forever.
The new daily achievements will require you complete different fractal scales. You won’t be able to just do swamp X times to complete the achievements.
This might mean a group picks their favorite set of scales (3 to 9 or so islands) to clear each day, but repeatedly farming the same scale or same island will not be as beneficial.

So instead of farming Swamp forever, we will farm Cliffside forever?

From what I’m reading, there is a base reward (sounds better than current), a Daily scale reward (chance at ascended/skin), and a Daily achievement. The daily achievement will be rotating level. So you may just do your favorite within each scale (1-20/21-50/51-100) and get the first two, but to get your third achievement reward you’d be changing your map.

So unless you see the daily achievement as “not worth it” you’ll be changing what you do every day.

Yes on both.

Please make the toughness addition not a baseline increase but part of the instability system. This would have certain maps encouraging condi’s but not all say 80+ maps.

And yes to weakness fully, the RNG part of it has always made it nice but not something you really are overly concerned with because you can’t rely on it. It’s still good in PVP because of the amount of hits it’ll average out on, but in fractals you can go through fights unscathed, so when you do get hit it’s very infrequent meaning it’s potentially a roll of the dice on whether you’ll die or be ok. That’s not fun.

spoj.9672:

So this allows you to balance and tailor mistlock instabilities to scales without worrying about how they effect certain shards more than others? Interesting. I believe Weth mentioned this back in the fractal CDI. Good to see the concern was addressed.

Only problem this creates is a lack of uniform scale for fractal records. Usually we choose the scale with agony and no other mistlock to create a controlled environment. Now it seems like certain records are going to be forced into weird mistlocks.

But, they’ll be the same for everyone. Highest level of each map will create the same playing field. Unless they rotate? which it sounds like some will some won’t… all still pretty confusing.

Maybe create that perfect weekly playing field people have been talking about though.

I mean, that’s cool for while you’re leveling up, but honestly unless the leveling system changes I’m guessing some people will be level 100 within the first couple days if not some insane person on the first day.

My concern and I think many’s is that once we’re not worried about getting our personal level up that we’ll fall into farming the same thing over and over again due to the efficiency.

If there is a swamp option that has the best rewards, guess which option people will choose.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Speedy_Kits

No it didn’t, you just had boon duration if you traited into certain things before most likely.

Arc DLad.2194:

love the new changes , can’t wait to see how they affect fractals but all I can say is :

DO NOT RESET OUR LEVELS BACK TO 1
fractal reset never forget

As spoj linked, already confirmed this won’t happen.

Therodin.2970:

That only sounds depressing if you are doing it to get to the end. I find fractals fun and that second run you listed sounded pretty fun. Cliffside on the other hand i pretty much despise.

And if you did a 30/40/50 in a single night and got cliffside 3 times, how’d you feel?

I’ve averaged somewhere around 60% snowblinds in fractals since I started playing again a few weeks back (I stopped keeping track after the second week, but it was at 80% then, feels like it’s dropped since then though). That’s a lot of the same map. It’s to the point that I’m surprised when snowblind isn’t my second. Which for me is my least favorite (the Source is terribly designed imo, too much knocking around and health doesn’t reset so suicide runs is valid).

There is more resentment than prestige from fractal skins. It’s not “ohh man you’re so good, i’m impressed” it’s more like “god kitten , kitten you, kitten rng, and kitten anet”

The new weapons I imagine would have a bit of prestige in that it sounds like you’ll have to complete content harder than the current stuff. Hell you don’t even have to do 40s/50s to get current skins.

Axelwarrior.9084:

By SW farming you mean chest farming?
That kinda includes RNG though, doesn’kitten

Aye, dungeons are probably the most stable so if RNGzues hates you maybe you have better luck there. But, on average either map hopping and hitting the breach/vw or chest farming will net me on average more than a dungeon pug tour. Now, SE1 is always worth doing, that’s like 5-8 mins for 2-3 gold can never really go wrong.

But, most other dungeon paths can really drag on in PUGs and simply can’t live up to the ~10g/hour that SW will average.

They are FAR more entertaining though.

Cameron Rich.3905:

rhapsody.3615:

Cameron Rich.3905:

To clarify on what the “Static Schedule” means:

Old System:
Every time you load in from Dessa’s Lab, a random fractal is chosen. If you want to play Swamp, you have to leave and re-enter, “rerolling” until you get that fractal.

New System:
Upon loading in from Dessa’s Lab, you are placed in a particular fractal depending on which scale you are playing at. If you want to play Swamp, all you’ll have to do is enter at a scale associated with it.

Hope this helps!

So these will change daily? Or will certain levels always be locked into certain fractals?

Certain Fractal Scales will always be locked to Certain Fractals.

So curious. Will the scales determine challenge and reward? IE will we be wanting to do 100s only? Or will the rewards and general difficulty span a set of ranges such as 91-100 are all at the same general difficulty with the same rewards but each different level has different instabilities and different maps associated with them?

I’m excited but there are a lot of details to understand.

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Done, buying HoT This was enough for me to drop $50. Sounds fun/cool.

I remember you asked for this, so i am not surprised. But if its as it seems, wont you just end up doing 3 swamp runs per day?

Lvl 19 lvl 49 and lvl 90?

Probably not. Ask yourself this. People who run fractals, why do they do it? Most people I play with do it for the fun, we’ll run multiple 50’s back to back. So no, we’d probably run whichever we thought was fun. For the lower level one we’d probably do whatever is fastest though true, just get the daily and move on to the more fun ones.

Sorry man
Rewards and effeciency dominates the way any game is played by most of the players.
A well designed game maximizes fun and incentivizes the most interesting ways of playing the game.

A small select group of fractal players will create their own sub meta thats more entertaining. The vast majority will not.

Most people will play the most effecient ways, and if that becomes boring they will say tbe game sucks and they are actually correct in saying that.

True, and no matter what they do people will find the best and farm that most.

Balancing them better would surely help though. For swamp if they made you kill the tree and the shirtless wonder it’d be pretty well balanced I think. Still only take like 2-3 mins for a guild like SC, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they could do Aetherblade in nearly that as well. And depending on instabilities and the way things drop… yeah devil in the details.

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Done, buying HoT This was enough for me to drop $50. Sounds fun/cool.

I remember you asked for this, so i am not surprised. But if its as it seems, wont you just end up doing 3 swamp runs per day?

Lvl 19 lvl 49 and lvl 90?

Probably not. Ask yourself this. People who run fractals, why do they do it? Most people I play with do it for the fun, we’ll run multiple 50’s back to back. So no, we’d probably run whichever we thought was fun. For the lower level one we’d probably do whatever is fastest though true, just get the daily and move on to the more fun ones.

Silverwastes farming >.<

Really it’s tough to beat that, you can do dungeon tours and with a quick group it’s better, but the second you start pugging, welp, SW wins out.

Personally I just run fractals and some Arah for fun, hoard my supplies till I run out of gold then sell some stuff. Did a small clear of one section of my bank and pulled in 500g a week or so back. You do get a lot of supplies going through Fractals but overall still not anything to get excited about loot wise.

phys.7689:

Fractal run is one fractal and selectable. This makes no sense to me. Sounds like people will just do the easiest fractals over and over.
Get 1-100 doing swamp fractal?

Some people complained about it but the random nature of fractals was integral to its longevity.

Btw 50 fractal levels is the equivalent of 12 old fractals. My feeling until they explain some things is they just killed fractals as entertainment and furthered them as future easy grinds.

This will probably make speed clear people happy, but it destroys fractals as an actual gameplay experience.

That’s one of the things that excited me the most. I have to imagine they understand the issue you bring up. But, how will the instabilities interact? Will they make Swamp harder? Will different loot drops change in a meaningful way depending on level and instability?

Plenty of room for details that could solve that issue… but I’ll no longer be getting the worst combos when it’s 2am and I just want to do a fractal and go to bed \o/

I’m a bit confused ont he reward levels. Sounds like you get a better reward outside the daily per run, but you’re only going to have 3 daily chests for skins/ascended drops? With the 51-100 being all one lumped together where you get the new skins? Pretty huge gap there isn’kitten

Either way, agian details matter and we don’t know them, enough to get me excited though.

Done, buying HoT This was enough for me to drop $50. Sounds fun/cool.

My spelling generally relies on red squiggly lines which don’t help with words like Quaggan (got it right this time I think?)

The way I see it for a random team format. You have 2 options for competition recorded videos and head to head tournament style. If it’s a recorded system having the week to prepare and work together and get your time in would easily be sufficient. I’d even say that the random team makeup would be a good play in reducing the “tryhard” element of banging your head on a path until you had a time you felt was suitable. You’d be limited by the people on your team and how often you could all actually group up and play.

In the tournament setting I really think some time before to at least discuss your tactics maybe do 1 practice run so everyone is on the same page would be great. Nothing is more frustrating than thinking you’re approaching something one way and then half your team doing something else. Maybe that’d add to the chaos and screw some stuff up and make for good watching but I’d have to imagine that it’d be unfun for those who are the victims of it.

Now, tons of forewarning would just become troublesome with people expecting practice runs and others not wanting to (remember we’re talking about injecting a more casual element) so just enough to iron things out IMO would be good. Knowing the Path and your team an hour before “showtime” would easily be enough.

Last member must be the “seeing eye quaggen” remaining in quaggen form the entire run

You don’t need any profession for any dungeon. Rangers aren’t Meta and make less of an impact and with the pesky pet mechanics it takes a lot of micromanaging to prevent issues with that.

BUT, rangers can run Arah and any dungeon/fractal perfectly fine, and are still a solid profession. I highly suggest GS for it’s block/evade which can be invaluable on Lupi if you’re not very proficient with alternatives.

My general tips is like i said GS, but then also keep your pet on passive and hide it when running, the last thing you want is unwanted agro while you’re doing a skip. Reflects are in high demand in Arah so Axe offhand can be quite nice. Worth keeping that on a swap for many bosses.

To anyone who finds these guides useful I’d ask that you send a PM to Gaile expressing that. Takes all of 30s and if people express the value they see in these guides I’m sure Gaile will toss it on sticky so it doesn’t get buried.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/members/Gaile-Gray-6029

Link to PM her. She’s cool, She’s nice, and doesn’t bite too hard.