Guild Wars 2

Definatly feel you’ll get more enjoyment out of greatsword on a warrior, hammer feels alot more comfertable at high lvl fractals etc as guardian.

Lexie.5894:

As an extremely causal gamer who has never played the market or traded on the BLTC, I find the idea of earning 500gp to 700gp “just playing” to be extremely reasonable.

I think I’m going to make 30 to 40 gold a month if I continue my causal play (10 or so hours a week, no guild, don’t read the wiki much), which means I could have the best item in the game after a year of very casual play. That’s insanely easy by MMO standards.

It’s also reasonable to assume gold generation scales. So the people who are playing 60 hours a week should be earning 180 to 240 gold a month, likely much more as I’m sure they are much more skilled and knowledgeable then me when it comes to gold generation.

So in a year you will have enough to pay for the current precusor prices, except the precursors have already risen several hundred percent in half a year, and show no signs of slowing down, more likely is that in a year you’ll have those 500g, and you’ll be about halfway or hell, even one third at this rate.

Even 60 hours a week players might very well get hit in the face when they finish farming 500g in 2 months.

The problem is not that the precursor has a high price, it is that the price is extremly unreliable, and it has a tendency of rising faster then what most hardcores can even hope to keep up with.

Of course this could be somewhat countered by having another event like lost shores, but fact is at the current precursors prices, the players who did not luck out and find a precursor in theyr chest would likely be infuriated, and justifyably so.

As for the arguement that a legendary should take one year to farm because its the best weapon in the game, not its not? in most cases infact you’ll end up having to transmute it because it uses bizare stats that no one in they right mind would roll around with.

Should a legendary be seriously difficult to aquire? hell yes! but it should be a predictable amount of time, not a "Hey I farmed 500g, but now precursor is up to 2000g ) kinda farm.

In all honesty, if you wanted the precursors and legendary as rare as you claim, then you would argue that neither should even be buyable.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

curtegg.5216:

Tell that to a fellow guildie that has done over 150 level 10 and better runs of fractals and still has not gotten one ring.

DR does not affect that reward, and rings drop at higher rates the further you progress into fractals.

Real Question is does it affect in any way chests or mob drops? cause I can tell you it DEFINATLY feels like it, I did 250 ( /3) fractals in one week my first time entering, to get to 30, the loot got progressivly worse further up i got, at such a steady pace that it did not feel like rng, infact my 5 last runs before giving up on fractals, gave me like 2 rares total.. after a weeks break or so i went back now and got reasonable loot.

Im not sitting on the metrics so obviously I can’t say wether DR is for a fact in effect, but the FACT is it FEELS like its in effect, which means it dosnt mean anything if it is or not.. When the rng gets so bad that you do not feel rewarded for runs there is a big loot problem, Rng or Dr which ever it is, it is a massive issue..

There simply is not enough in fractals to justify not having competetive loot.

Infact after doing fractals up to 30, I went to arah for my first time, and p4 felt like a cakewalk in comparrison.. and obviously the loot + silver was FAR superior.

Only thing that made it even somewhat difficult was my teams unwillingnes to listen to common sense for dwayna.

My point is the difficulty of the high level fractals should warrant considerably better loot then it does presently, the fact that a majority of the exos you get once in a blue moon are account bound just makes the mather that much worse…

and Male its completly possible, Im up to about 500 aswell, and I’ve gotten 3-4 total from loot, and 1 skin.

John Smith.4610:

Ursan is correct, there are many, many players who have earned enough money to purchase or create a precursor outside of the TP.

No, the Precursor market is not controlled by goldsellers.

Earning it back when you actually got a decent amount of silver for repeating dungeons? sure, I can see that.

Earning it back when they didnt cost as much as a real life car? sure I can see that also.

Earning it by buying it cheap after lost shores, or by getting it for free in chest at lost shores, sure.

However, I find it highly unlikely that alot of the people that are buying the expensive precursors these days made even a majority of theyr gold from farming.

Only viable way I see of earning one as it is now, is to hope for your mystic toilet, to spit out one, I assume the “mystic” in mystic toilet describes the fact that its working in reverse.

And hoping to make it big by profitting on a patch, like so many have done before me.

Chocolate and black lion chests anyone ?

Coming into the economy of gw2 this late is pretty much a drowning sensation, you missed the gold rush, and now you are feeling the after effects of it.

And sure Ursan, you could have 500g in 50 days, the question is would the precursor be as little as 500g in 50 days? based on previous rises it is VERY unlikely that it will be anywhere close to 500g in 50days.

The chance of getting a fractal weapon weapon you actually want is almost as low as getting a precursor.. and has finite amount of chances per day.

Youll have the back armor and rings before 30, what then? what exactly is the point of doing the highest viable current tier? 30+ ? non.

And Im sure most of us enjoyed it the first time we progressed trough it, that how ever ends abruptly.

While I have no idea if the poster himself even got a legendary, there is little doubt there are quite a few of the ones who defend the current prices, that did infact grabbed them when they were near free, or back when you could make absurd amounts of gold from running dungeons.

Or hell, lost shores event.

I find it to be quite hypocritical to say you want the precursor to be at this price, to keep it difficult to get legendaries, when most of you likely got it at a price that a toddler playing 30 mins a day could have achived back then, not to even mention the fact that other materials were CONSIDERABLY easier to get aswell due to botters, and no DR Bullkitten.

I am not naive enough to expect it to be equally easy for new players to get as it was those who were here from start, however the diffrence in difficulty atm is beyond absurd.

sostronk.8167:

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

Sostronk, perhaps the ability to get items that were previously useful, might have made fractals feel worth while now, but wether its a nerf or not, there is no doubt that fractals are in no way a competetive way of earning gold or globs.

CoF is a better way to earn gold, timewise. But for me I don’t know a better way to farm globs.

gold = glob, so even there cof is far superior, and rares are just as common in cof as in fractals, for me atleast..

Sostronk, perhaps the ability to get items that were previously useful, might have made fractals feel worth while now, but wether its a nerf or not, there is no doubt that fractals are in no way a competetive way of earning gold or globs.

Completly given up on fractals myself, I do in no way feel rewarded for the time or effort it takes to do them.. have had multiple runs without a single rare drop at 20+

Rieselle.5079:

Hellkaiser.6025:

^ the opposition to a skill-based system used by this, honestly made me want to vomit.

I guess that’s what they call thinking with your gut rather than your brain?
Feel free to actually post a considered argument.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

Life is based on rng? may I have some of those muffins your eating? there are very few things in live that are random, if any outside of purposly gambling wether its with coin or with your life.

Considering the single biggest influence of anyone’s life is where you were born and to which parents, I’d say life is pretty heavily influenced by RNG.

Feel free to go be a poor rural girl in afghanistan and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Good “luck” with that.

Where you are born is far from as random as you make it out to be, as to which parents, we are a direct result of our parents genes as such that is also not random.

Ill spare you the flower and bees story, but as soon as the deed is done the result is pretty much already decided, its genetics.

Even if a comet were to hit earth it would not be random, it would be a direct result of the blast radius of the star it belonged to aswell as various other factors.

alcopaul.2156:

I see many people hating on RNG.

BUT..

Life is based on RNG. Your conception was RNG. Out of 375 million sperm cells, one only get to fuse with one eggcell and formed you.

1/375000000. that’s still worse than the mystic forge.

Life is based on rng? may I have some of those muffins your eating? there are very few things in life that are random, if any outside of purposly gambling wether its with coin or with your life.

Rieselle, some rng is expected in games, however there is such a thing as having to many RNG elements, and gw2 definatly does.

has nothing to do with looks at all saulius, the problem is the stats!

Anet won’t give those stats, will make it to obvious how easy it is to overlook loot in this game.

I completly Agree, get rid of it, Its a completly pointless item.

showing our character model with a re-breather under water is one thing, but don’t force us to wear the kitten things statwise.

Bad enough we gotta use these underwater weapons that are more often then not complete and utter rubbish..

Its not even Grind Wars, Its Rng Wars.

I would also like to give Zommoros a serious wedgy, though I expect the developer behind the rng would be more deserving.

If they got rid of the kitten DR system and allowed me to feel rewarded for my playtime, I would gladly pay a monthly sub.. atm, no I would not.

They already do sell them tbh, they “only” cost about 3000$.

I totally agree toxyn, and its more hillarious that they have magic find in a game where you have dr if you farm to long, the two do not mix at all.

Kodans and Dwarves (stone form)

Centaurs would also be sick, but I doubt it would be logical armorwise or camera wise.

Take the DR code, transfer it to a cd, take cd out of computer, break the cd, burn the cd, take the remains of the cd and grind it into dust, put it in a envelope, then mail it to the smurf that came up with the idea of using DR in a mmo loot system.

Excellent point plasmacutter, and completly spot on, stuff like DR has a much greater impact on the average player then it will ever have on people using bots or exploits, they just get more bots, find new exploits, etcetc.. then again more bots does mean more gw2 copies sold, tsktsk.

Another thing that is amusing is that the DR is actually helping bots, sounds crazy right? but with DR the normal player is less inclined to farm, so the prices of these materials that the bots will still farm go up considerably in price, which means bots get more gold per item they find. Which again makes it even more profitable to use bots..

I just don’t see what kind of logic Arena net is following that can possibly make them think theyr dr system makes any sense..

Luchifer.8026:

How many of you would have a legendary weapon now if you’d get a precrouser right now?

If I could get precursor right now, I might have legendary a few months from now.. as it is now I might get a precursor a year from now.

The only problem with the DR system, is that it exists.. It has no place in a gameworld, the entire point of mmos is the ability to do what you want when you want, the DR goes directly against this as it starts punishing you if you do what you want to do, for to long.

The whole arguement anet makes that they need it to stop exploiters, is complete and utter bullkitten, Mmos have been around for well over a decade, and they have survived without these kinda LAZY systems, If something is exploitable you fix the exploit, you don’t try to fix the bloody players!

Infact the few games that have tried anything similar have suffered over time.

If the system is to exist it does infact need a indicator that quantifies what it does and to what degree it does it, but even then the system brings ABSOLUTELY nothing positive to the game experience, it detracts from it.

I would also like to share this:

“Inflation controls could create a more sound economy in the long run, but they would also go against the primary purpose of a video game — fun. To limit the amount of money obtainable in Guild Wars 2, strict inflation controls would have to diminish the volume of rewards players can seek out. Just imagine an MMORPG in which enemies rarely drop valuable items and don’t drop money or “vendor trash” — useless items that can be sold to non-playable characters (NPCs). Players would — very reasonably — get fed up and quit as the experience fails to be quantifiably worthwhile.”

John smith said this, then again isnt this exactly what DR is? a inflation control.. at the very least it has the same negative effects on the playerbase as inflation control would have, people feel unrewarded.. atleast I know I do.

Last two days I did 26+ fractal daily I saw a total of 1 rare.. the only motivation I got left for running fractals are the stupid weapon skins -.- Make chest loot more reliable and fun already!

Nalora.7964:

So essentially a good analogy would be:

You are doing a great job at work. So good that in January we are going to give you a 5% cut in pay.

Next year, another cut. Next year, another cut. Eventually you will work for free.

This is EXACTLY the feeling DR gives you, and that is why it is such an extremly rubbish system, If I got a annual or even monthly pay cut, It would annoy the hell out of me, and I would sure as hell enjoy my work that much less because of it, if I did not decide to quit.

Iruwen, I would be TRUELY and UTTERLY amazed if there are no botters running around in the grawl tunnel in frostgorge on your server.

The only reason why you would notice DR is if you play a unhealthy amount like some of us, unhealthy amount of time or not, that is my time to spend, and I do not want to get punished for spending it in this game.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

ezd.6359:

Logic:
1) DR == anti exploit system
2) DR punish people for playing event on that character they want to
3) playing event on that character they want to == exploit
4) exploit == bannable offence

Why don’t you just ban us for not playing your game the way YOU want?

We’re working on our DR system and looking at new data all the time, and like all things there may be bugs or unexpected quirks in it. If we just outright banned people who got hit by DR, that wouldn’t be practical.
It’s entirely possible that the DR system hitting parked event characters wasn’t intended, but was a result of us fixing an exploit or other problem within the system, and it just happened to slip by us in testing.

And like I said before, DR is a safety net to prevent exploitation. That means (to me at least) that is is not the metric for us to drop the ban hammer on people – we have other data used for that. There’s different ways to possibly unintentionally hit it, and I’d think it rather unfair to ban people over it.

For now DR is hitting parked characters who you don’t do anything else with but that specific thing. To avoid being hit by this, whether it is intentional functionality or a bug, do some other stuff on that character.
I wish we didn’t have to have the system, but when exploits arise players abuse them, so we have to have something. We’ll continue to evaluate its functionality and fine tune it.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but any “safety net” against exploits, that negativly impacts how NORMAL players can play the game are generally not worth having.. theres a reason stuff like DRM has gone down the drain, It may be SAFE and EASIER for the dev, but it has a negative impact on the players ability to play the game..

And Yes, I realise DRM and DR is in no way the same thing, but it has similar problems, it negativly impacts the average joe consumer.

And while you DR system is not the WORST example of this I’ve seen, it most definatly has a negative impact on what options players have when playing, It dosnt become “do what you want to do anymore” It becomes “do what you want in moderation, or we punish you”

DR system or not, I still can’t walk 2 feet in frostgorge without running into a choochoo train of botters that you would have to blind not to see were following a pre-determined path.

Same goes for DR in dungeons tbh, there would be no reason to have DR in dungeons if not for the fact that certain paths are so easy, that they would be to farmable without it, Again DR is used as a shortcut by you as developers, rather then fixing the actual problem.

And like it or not, these pre-dr events happened, and the ones who really pay the price for it are newer players like me, who are now quite limited when it comes to catching up economicaly to other players.

O god, If getting legendaries was ANYTHING like EQ1 Epics, I would ACTUALLY enjoy the hunt for it.

The current Legendaries just feel like a unobtainable goal, and anytime I start considering farming for it, it hits me.. this is not a journey I would in any way enjoy.. It would be a 2000h-1000h long farm fest, only to get the gold required to BUY the components of the Legendary.

Unless ofcourse I was a economical wizard, that enjoyed crunching numbers for hours upon hours, to squeeze the most out of the tp.

That is another problem, the way guild wars 2 TP is constructed it very rarely allows for people like myself who rely on having a keen eye, to get a quick bonus, The users are simply given to much information (may sound stupid), so these bargains rarely ever happen.

I definatly have a grindy personality, I was about 12 when eq1 first came out, and despite its grindy nature I absolutely loved it.. because I always felt I was being rewarded for grinding.. here Anet activly tries to limit the players ability to grind, while ironicaly the item that alot if not most of your endgame revolve around is the biggest grind of them all.

Getting a epic in eq1 was freaking hard, but it was enjoyable, and it did not depend on how big your wallet was.

I still remeber farming raster for 72 hours STRAIGHT, and not getting the component i needed for my monk epic.. funny thing is I look back on that fondly, despite wasting 72 hours getting nothing of value, because there was always a chance of actually get it.

I REALLY want to go for one or more of the legendaries, but the only thing I would be likely to achive is ending up burnt out and fed up with the game.

And before the comment is made “Legendaries arnt for everyone” I am not “everyone”, I am a anti-social person by nature, and I spend more hours infront of the pc then what “normal” people would consider healthy, and even I do not consider the “journey” for the legendaries in theyr current for the be a logical goal.

And It definatly does not help that I joined the game much later then the most of you, I missed out on stuff like: Dungeons without DR, Dungeons where each boss gave 10s++, Lost Shores Precursor rain, and a number of other things.. which is fine.. Except I economicaly suffer because these things once happened, the after effects of these events are easily spotted on the tp.

This is why a Legendary should not have anything to do with money, stuff that effects the market also effects the difficulty of aquiring the legendary, I find it to already be at a unreasonable “difficulty”, and I very much doubt the difficulty will stop increasing any time soon.

Hehe judging by the lack of replies I am gueesing it might have ended up being a bit to long, opps

hardly, that was just the worst of the worst.

At average I get about 1-2g, regardless of the fractal level.. I have run well over 80 fractals in the last week, and that has been the average, with the highest being 5g.

Even the 5g run would come short compared to most cof runs per hour.

If CoF wasnt there to be farmed there would just be somewhere else, infact fractals fall short even compared to just grinding lodestones in frostgorge, or hell even farming grawl in the tunnel.

And yes Dee Jay the Fractal reward diffrences are VERY subtle, the difficulty diffrent from 1-30 however is far from subtle.

fractal loot is better then everywhere else? where do you get that info from? you can run cof p1 6-18 times in the time it takes to finish a fractal, I don’t know what kinda loot what you are getting from fractal but im at 30 and my last run i did the most valueable item i found was a armored scale (28) earned a total of 40s in 90 mins.

loflux, I dunno what patch notes said 2 months ago, I do however know that I’ve seen both globs and vial drop during my 30 daily, especially at jade maw it happens alot.

dosnt mean that at all lof, i’ve had vials drop for me in 28+ with 31 reward lvl, crap drop in high lvl fracs to

Im at 31, and the diffrence seem so small that it can’t really be measured.. when I was running 1-10 I was averaging 1-2g a run, now I average 1-2g a run.. fractal skins is the only reason i bother with fractals anymore.. if you want loot fractals is not the place to be.

4: Hosting and Kicking.

Hosting:

Having a host is completly fine, but kicking everyone out of the instance if he leaves.. COME ON! or if hes a kitten and you have to kick him.. or if he loses his internet a extended duration of time… The role as host really need to swap when host leaves, don’t close down the fractal!

Kicking: While It has never been a issue for me, I completly understand the frustration of the current kicking system.. 2 people is in NO WAY enough to decide who should stay and who goes, honestly kicking should only be possible if all 4 voted yes.. and while i understand that limits your ability to kick groups of 2+, it more importantly limits the ability to grief players who have put the work into completing a fractal only to have it ripped away by jerks.

5: The End:

Basicly these are my opinions of the current state of the fractals, alot of which have been the general opinion of the groups ive been in.

At the moment I don’t at all feel the fractals are really worth running outside of dailies, progression to 40 and for those who play only for the challenge.

I really want the fractals to be viable, but to me they just don’t seem like a viable alternative to dungeons and straight out grinding atm.

However I must say that the fractals have helped me alot when it comes to learning my class, the way the content slowly gets harder really is a brilliant way of giving the player a chance to slowly get better at the game.

I really hope my post was not to much of a pain to read for those who got this far even, and I hope everything was understandable, even though I realise there are probs some misspellings etc here and there.

Agree or Disagree, please feel free to share your opinions.

Also I would like to appologize for how extremly oversized this post became, I am usually not the type to make long posts, and had no idea how long this was until posted it.

H) Raving Asura Themepark:

This fractal is absolutely brilliant, and is has some of the most fun and challenging mechanics of all the fractals.

However on 10+ it has some issue, I am sure everyone realised by now that im speaking of the charged balls of lightning by the harpies, my issue is not the balls themselves, it is that the indicators for them are completly rubbish, a majority of the time you have no chance of seeing the actual indicators because theyr outside the platform your on, if possible the indicators should be a solid red, rather then a red ring.

Also I think it would help alot if the balls themselves were a dark red color or a dark purple color, as it is now they blend to well with the background, and are nearly invisible.

Another issue I have with this fractal is at the early parts of the jumping “puzzle”, after lvl 10 the harpies above you have a really bad habbit of agrooing you really early on, this makes this part of the fractal frustrating because you’ll get spammed with alot more charged balls and dmg then you can handle.

Four bosses: I really enjoy the idea behind this fight, however I can’t help but think that the hp of the shaman and the ettin should be HEAVILY nerfed, by the time you get them alone theyr not difficult, they just take a eternity to actually kill, and this is one fractal that is long enough on its own.

Spinning boss: This is a really solid boss, and the 10+ changes to him actually make him better, having to run the tears requires coordination, and that is awesome, also I like that it rewards you for being smart with where you stand when he starts spinning.

Raving Asura: Really great boss fight, If you make good use of reflection its a breeze, but if you fail at doing so it becomes a REALLY tough fight, I really like that players are rewarded for using theyr arsenal to its fullest in this fight.

I) Jade Maw:

Jade maw is great, but like alot of the above fractals it has issues, one of the main being.. what the hell were Arena net thinking with all the shiney surfaces, and the insane view range.. this fractal is a absolute nightmare for the average computer, even worse then the dredge tunnels..

That said, the boss fight here has some really cool mechanics, though some of them are rather flawed sadly..

And when you learn this fight it dosnt just become easy, it becomes blindfold easy..
to the point where it becomes quite boring…

however the mechanics of the fight is intresting, and it does keep you on your toes if you havnt done it before, I do however wish it added more mechanics on higher tiers rather then just more agony..

One of the main issues i run into here is the bug where if you try to pickup something while running you just keep running, this is super frustrating here, for a fight that completly depends on you being able to pick up a object in a very short span of time, it becomes a very noticeable and annoying problem.

Also I am not at all a fan of how agony works in jademaw, I am fine with it being a instant apply when tentacles respawn, however the duration of it seems to long considering it is completly undodgeable.

What makes it worse is that it eats your heals..

And that is pretty much the fractals.

F) Cliffside:

This fractal have some of the coolest mechanics of all the fractals next to swampland, however it has alot more issues then swampland.

For one having to fight the boss once at start, and then again at the top.. it feels so pointless and its just annoying, cause he has quite the health pool..

And lets face it even without having the boss at start this is one of the longest if not THE longest fractal.

In my opinion boss should be completly removed from the start, and hammer should be ready on a pedestal..

Not much to say about Legs to stomach, other then that I really like how it progresses as you go further up and it becomes more difficult.

Wrists however, these are the single biggest design flaw of all the fractals, I don’t see what kind of absurd logic anet was following when they decided that the mobs would not reset on wipe.. even if you do this carefully it is extremly easy to kill of that one cultist you want alive, and when you do its more or less game over..

Recovering from it is next to impossible, I have only been able to recover from it once or twice at 20+ and that was with some of the finest teamplayers i have ever seen, and even then it was a fluke.

Boss: Overlooking the fact that you have to fight him twice, this is actually a really decent boss fight, Its not at all cheap, and you can definatly get spanked if you make a mistake, and the mechanics are cool and fitting considering the dungeon.

However, there is a certain bug here they need to fix, im sure anet knows what im talking about.
———————————————————————————————————-
G) Volcanic Fractal:

Everytime this pops up i see people sigh, personally I really enjoy this dungeon, but it does have some rather important flaws.

The trash mobs at the start pulling you trough them and into the back groups of grawls, causing instadeath and a double or triple pull, is super cheap, and it its not needed, cause lets face it these trash mobs can be brutal by themselves.

Shaman: This fight has some really cool moments, and the mechanics of it is overall quite good.

However at 28+ it has some issue.. the veteran shamans that you are supposed to stop simply have to much hp, you cannot down them fast enough to keep up even with chain roots, and when they finally break root they gain superhuman speed.

I really enjoyed this encounter before i reached 28+, now its just bleh.

Shaman Evolved: This is without a doubt the most intense boss of all the fractals, however its intense to a point where it becomes a issue.. the difficulty diffrence between this boss and all the other vary so much that this one should be on a entirely diffrent tier..

Don’t get me wrong I really like this fight, but voice over is almost a requirement when doing this at higher lvls, and the increased amount of slugs at higher lvls is a issue, I think increasing the amount of adds per tier on this boss is a mistake, the added dmg from them being higher level already adds PLENTY of challenge.

Also I feel that the agony attack of this boss should have a longer animation, as it is currently by the time you see the animation it is already to late to dodge.

Of course the obvious solution is to spam a and d, but is that really how its supposed to be completed?

D) Swampland

I absolutely LOVE this fractal, IF I don’t have to deal with mossman!

This is without a doubt the fractal with the coolest mechanics, I really like the “puzzle” at there start, however I feel it is a mistake to let people reset it until they get a easy one.. in my opinion dropping the ball to reset should give you a 20-30s wait before they respawned, that way it would be beneficial to try the setup given to you wether it was hard or easy.

Bloomhunger: This is one of the better boss fights, sure he has a kittenload of hp, but he always keeps you on your toes, and the variety in his attacks makes the fight overall quite intresting, and to some challenging, It is also one of those fights that if you master it you are gonna nail it time after time.

Mossman: This is my single least favorite boss of all the fractals, he feels INCREDIBLY cheap..
He has a ABSURD amount of hp, not to mention his wolves eats a majority of the projectiles, he has instakill capabilities that he can use within 0.5 seconds of leaving stealth, and he double taps you with agony, with a attack that already does insane damage.
There are NO clever mechanics here, just a straight up kiteing nightmare, there is absolutely nothing enjoyable in this fight for me, and to this day I have never been in a group that didnt go “Oh no, mossman”.
————————————————————————-
E) Underground Facility:

Personally one of my favorite fractals, despite the fact that is has alot of flaws.

Main flaw is that it is a dredge tunnel, Anet really failed at making these things.. they will strangle the average computer, and kick it while its down, fps is a very real issue in this fractal.

The gate mechanisms at the starting part of this fractal is brilliant, it requires alot of teamwork, especially if you don’t use spy kits, Only thing I dislike about this part is that you can “exploit” past half of it, and I feel that it is such a good design that its a real shame that the possiblity of doing that exists.

Turret Side: This is without a doubt the easier of the two sides, however It always ends up as a “rush in, kill turrets, rush out to reset dredge” for one I don’t think these dredge should reset, but I also do not think they should respawn anywhere near as quickly as they do, atm rushing is the only real option.. Same goes for the door freeze it then run like headless chicken trough the dredge hoping to survive.

Bomb Side: This side is a nightmare, and I don’t know what the hell the devs where thinking.. this pretty much always turns into a kamikaze run, there is no way for a normal group to deal with these dredge, I don’t at all understand why there isnt a limit to how many dredge can spawn here, and how rapidly they can spawn.

The only time I have been able to do this directly was with a 5 guardian grp, we went trough it like a knife trough butter, but I Dont see how a normal group could possibly do it proper.

Rabovich: this fight is sooooo boring, the amount of dredge waves is way over the top, and rabovichs hp is sadistic considering hes not the end boss, I am fine with the damage his attack does, however it is WAY to difficult to spot when hes doing it when you got 5 people hammering him with elemental attacks.

Ice Elemental: I sigh everytime I get this end boss, he is alot easier then the dredge boss, but GOSH is he boring.. trying to get your projectiles past his silly adds is a nightmare, and because of it the fight easily takes 5 times as long as it should..

However other then the adds the boss in him self is actually quite fun, but in my opinion those adds should have hardly any hp.

Dredge Boss: This is one of my favorite boss fights, it has everything, challenging mechanics, fun mechanics, not to much hp, and some really nice counters (feedback).

3: Fractal “Dungeons”

First of here I would like to say that one of the main things that annoy me about these dungeons are how wildly they differ in difficulty, I feel the difficulty should vary based on the fractal level mainly, not based on which fractals you get.
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A) Aquatic Ruins:

This is prob the only fractal I can say this about, it feels way to easy.. there is basicly no risk involved in this fractal, if you get it you know your gonna pass it..

I absolutely LOVE the routes to the boss, the idea behind them is solid and at times challenging.

That said the boss feels like nothing more then a time sink, he has absurd amounts of hp, and a ton of little adds that pick up most of your damage.. He only has one attack that does any damage, and he uses it so rarely that it poses no risk what so ever.. as for his “chomp” attack, it just makes him more of a time sink as it slows down dps while hes doing it.

The mechanics of the fight show some promise, however without using the “lanterns” being mandatory, he is just way to easy, and one of the most boring fights in all of the fractals.
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B) Urban Battleground:

I really like the idea behind this fractal, however I feel the execution leaves alot to be desired.

The overall damage of the trash mobs in this instance is MIND BLOWING, and I realise that we are not supposed to tank them, but equally anet must realise that theyr AI have severe limitations.. And that does not only go for the friendly AI, the trash with oneshoot capabilities also have a tendency of ignoring the friendly npcs.

Like I said I like the idea behind this fractal, but I feel Anet puts way to much stock in theyr npcs ability to tank.

In my opinion the hp of our npcs should decrease, and the dps of the hostile npcs should be considerably lowered.

Other issues with this fractal is that ALOT of the mobs completly ignore wall of reflection and similar abilities, shooting/throwing straight trough it, especially ballistas.

I like the boss fight in this dungeon, even though it is nothing special, it is not boring, Its not a timesink, and its not to easy or to hard.
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C) Snowblind:

This is one of the better fractals in my opinion, it does alot right.

somethings I do not like however is the trash mobs at the big fire, they work great on the lower lvl fractals were there arnt to many of them, but at the higher lvl fractals it just becomes absurd.. at points there are so many of these svanir spinning around knocking of half your health that there is barley any way to avoid them, I feel that the extra npcs are not needed here, the fact that they increase in level already make it considerably more difficult.

another thing I dislike is some of the rng involved in fighting the elemental, when the snowstorm hits you never know where you are gonna end up, and that is fine.. however it is not fine when you end up ontop of 2 elementals, and get chain knockbacked, with no teammates near to help you, I feel either the elementals should spawn some seconds after the storm hits, or you should spawn in a somewhat safe area.

Also not hug fan of the constant knockbacks in this fight, getting chain cced is never fun.

The dark path between elemental and boss is a disappointment, it is such a intresting place, so dark.. but there is absolutely no incentive to not rush trough it like madmen.

Feels like wasted potential.

The boss fight in this fractal is one of my favorite ones, It never feels cheap, the bosses hp is spot on, and it has some rather cool mechanics.

The only real flaw I can find in this fight is the possibility of getting stuck in wall by entrance, and that there is one spot were the Icetaps simply cannot hit you, which cheapens the experience.

This is basicly a thread for me to share what I feel is right and/or wrong with fractals in theyr current state.

I have been thinking of making it for over a week now, but after yet another day of utter frustration at the fruits of my labour I felt it was time to finally do it, especially since todays was even more extreme then usual.

Ill try to avoid “whining”, and try to explain as best I can what I think is wrong, and why I think it is wrong, and hopefully ill bring up a few things that are positive about the fractals.

1: Loot

This for me is the single most negative thing about the fractals, I have run over 80 fractals this last week, and the VERY best run I had, I made about 5g, which would be fine if that was anywhere near the average.

But the sad truth it is not, atleast not for me, and I expect I am not the only one.. for me seems to be 1.5g-2g, which considering the time and effort lvl 20+ fractals require is not a whole lot.

And this latest run (28) I made a stunning 40s, didnt see a single rare item the entire run.

I realise of course that this is RNG, but I will also say this, I have played Mmo’s since EQ1, And I have never EVER felt so underreward for playing the content, even less so in what it supposed to be a “endgame” instance.

Of course I realise that we also get other rewards from fractals like ascended rings, but there comes a point very early on where those rings are nothing but an annoyance, 4s worth of an annoyance i might add.

As it is now, I don’t understand the point of reward levels, either it isnt working or the scaling on it is just horrible.. doing fractal 1 vs doing fractal 29, I feel I have about the same chance at getting junk..

The fractals can only survive so long by handing out redundant tokens, rings and crystallized shards..

As it is the reward from doing fractals can in no way compete with dungeons like CoF, which is rather suprising considering they take 6 times the amount of time and are on a whole diffrent lvl of difficulty.
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2: Infused Backpack.

I will admit that this point is a bit of a whine, though it relates to the overall lack of worthwhile loot..

I do not at all find it to be reasonable that we need to scrape together 250 globs of ectoplasm for a measly 5AR, which are a must to not die at 30+ maw.

It is absolutely FINE when it is for cosmetic upgrades like the later stages, but when it gets in the way of progression it becomes another mather entirely.

just out of curiosity at what fractal lvl are you tanking pretty good?

Also I would say if Empowering Might is your reason for getting crit rate, that would be a mistake.

Svarty.8019:

Ursan.7846:

We’ll see about the Scavenger Hunt though. [..]
And the SH is certainly going to make people who don’t like doing things unhappy (and there are many of them in the forums. “I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS I DON’T LIKE JUMPING PUZZLES I DON’T LIKE WVW”).

People should not be able to get Legendaries if they don’t do those things. Arenanet have dropped the ball on Legendaries. Massively.

The legendaries are supposed to (sic);

• “show off your accomplishments and symbolise all of the things that you’ve been doing” (Lead Designer Isiah Cartwright – in this video) and,
• “show everyone that you are a true master of Guild Wars 2” (quoted from here).

Now it only shows everyone that:

A) You got your bum full of money.
B) Or Your a pro TP flipper
C) Anet gave you pretty precursors for lost shores, “Happy LS DAY!”

So the main “Achivement” that is represented is how well you can play the economy not the game itself, and that is a shame, and it is also the problem

I know I am personally hoping for scavenger hunt, and I am definatly not hoping or expecting it to be easy.

I am a old Eq player, and I very much miss the epic journey the eq1 epics were.

I still remeber camping raster for 72 hours in a row without getting my one measly part of the epic, but even so I always felt I had a real chance at getting it, so I could move onto the next piece.

But I do hope WvW is not a part of it, not because I mind PvP, but simply because the WvW optimization is horrible, and it is not a viable place to go for people with the average pc.

One of my examples were cliffside transformation, primarily I was talking about transforming you into one of the pre-existing races, as they already have the required animations etc for the concern you bring up.

Even as a proffesional in a field you would be dense to think you incapable of overlooking solutions to a problem, in your field of expertise.

Real Life Example: Truck manages to get stuck in a small tunnel, proffesionals work for hours on a solution. A child walks by and sais “Why don’t you let the air out of the tires?”

Amusingly enough this actually happened in the small town I grew up in.

Something can have a obvious solution without that solution being obvious to everyone.

As for it being EASY to implent, never said it was easy.. but it is obviously well within the limitations of the engine based on stuff that is already present in the game.

That it does not take a proffesional to realise.

The reason I felt a need to comment on this in the first place is that based on the devs replies it very much seemed like there were no plans of a actual fix to the current jps, outside of just fixing smoothning, infact the general vibe i got from his comment were that the current jps were already written off.

As such they were obviously missing a very real possibility that is well within the limitations of what they can do.

PS: At this point im just using “obvious” to anoy you :p

It is obvious because char transformations are already clearly possible.

Cliffside, mystery potions, various quests and events etc.

It is also a fact that it is often the most obvious solutions that are the easiest to overlook.

I mean no offense toward the devs ability to create content etc, and I doubt they were offended by my reply.

It is however very cute that you got all hot and bothered about it, and felt you had to protect them from the big bad ignorant wolf.

I want healing stuff also had to settle for the soldier crap, though the vit feels wasted compared to what hp could give me.

As it stands mossman is prob my single least favorite boss, alot of his attacks just feel directly cheap..

Every time I hear someone say “hey, lets reset until we get Jungle or Sea” Im like “have these guys lost theyr bloody minds? dredge or volcano plz!”

In regards to gear you are prob gonna want to have more then one armorset eventually anyways..

And would indeed be useful to know your current gear/traits

I can’t help but think that the solution to the problem with the current jumping is pretty obvius..

Add a npc or a “vending machine” outside the current jumping puzzles that gives the player a 30m buff that decreases his size, or if thats to much work just make it a 30m buff that turns him into a asura.

I don’t see why it has to be made so complicated as reworking the entire JP, or giving up on fixing the current issue.

Am I the only one that find it hillarious that they nerfed SW’s due to shield, but the shield rarely ever dies anyways because it protects itself aswell as the users ? :p

DaedalusDragon.3754:

Maybe I understand the guardian MUCH less than I thought I did. Where are you getting quickness so readily? Are you talking about Tome of Wrath? Because I will take 3 seconds of invulnerability and replenishing my virtues on half the cooldown without any roots any day over that.

And about this “effective health” stuff. You are woefully misinformed. More health is more health. Having less health doesn’t do anything for you. Sure, having less health means you gain more percent of your health back per heal, but that is a bad thing and doesn’t mean you have more survivability. 100% of 12,000 (made up number) is still less than 50% 24,001, and I’d kinda like to have the extra health for when I mess up, because I’m not perfect and I mess up quite often.

I mean, yes, a warrior may never get his health fully healed in a fight but isn’t that a good thing? Overhealing is a major problem for melee, toughness, healing guardians because heals become less effective when they are doing nothing. Also, a warrior can take a big hit and then be at the starting health of a guardian which gives him a lot more leeway compared to taking 2 hits and dying as a guardian by some boss who has immensely powerful attacks.

I appreciate the advice everybody and I’m sorry about that but I had to say it. One last thing, does any other guardian notice the bosses chase you the most? Maybe it is my imagination but the mossman, ascalonian fractal boss, and many others just follow me even though I’m doing minimal damage and my healing isn’t all that great (usually because at the time my AH build isn’t as effective because we are all spread out). Sometimes I feel like Anet made enemies treat the guardian like a tank from class MMOs and then didn’t make the guardian a tank at all. Or I’m making it all up in my head.

I used to use renewed focus to, I only regret not opening my eyes sooner to what a giant crutch it was, having as high vigor uprate as we do, those 3 seconds in invul just feels like a penalty rather then a boon.

Hell, Tome of Wrath used correctly can pretty much obliterate the annoying monk swarms at colossus wrists, if used correctly.

As for renewing virtues, your virtues should be up plenty without it, and that 3 seconds you are in a invul, is 3 seconds your team has to fend for themselves.

For fractals you should in my opinion be using a tome, changing them based on situation.

A Guardians effective health isnt higher because he has less health, its higher because he is able to replenish the health he has fast enough that it is full again or close to full again by the time the next strike hits.

And no overhealing is not a issue, since most of our heals come from regen which almost always either comes with a symbol or other boons, it means you will be using it anyways, especially useful is it that our regen stacks duration.

The only time having more health really mathers is when you get hit by Mossman or Rabovich, but even 30k warrior gets oneshooted by those guys so 15k-30k no diffrence.
and you really shouldnt get hit by them. (though I will admit mossman is batkitten insane after last patch)

It dosnt mather if you have 50k hp if you are not able to replenish it.

As for agroo it seems to be a combination of Regen and proximity that drives the mobs nuts.

On a diffrent note, My old main was a warrior, I pretty much quit playing him because he ACTUALLY felt squishy, and felt i was spending more time in ranged then in melee as a warrior.

Ill admit I was skeptical to the lower health of the guardian at first, but that extra health of the warrior means absolutely nothing.

melee Guardian has no place in fractals? Guardian is absolutely AMAZING in fractals!

Massive Survivability, Superb support (some of the best boons in game), The best and longest lasting reflections in game (spirit shield/wall) and belive me when you learn to use them they make more diffrence in fractals then any other ability!

Hell we even have the ability to give our group quickness for 3 seconds 2 times within 15 seconds, not to even mention the FURY!!!

2! Area of Denial abilities, if used right these make or break an encounter.

And the list goes on.. the guardian has some AMAZING versatility, and POWER in fractals..

The best fractal team I ever had was 5 guardians, we went trough the dredges in the bomb section like butter, not even trying to rush to the door.

and shaman boss could forget about even touching us.

and while this was not 30+, it was still 20+

as for melee guardian? I have yet to meet a situation where I could not melee just fine, if I just played right.

Infact I frown on guardians that join my group equipped with scepter/shield and staff.. Its a crutch, and in the long run IT SHOWS!

Both Healway and AH have no trouble in melee, though for dungeons there could be even better builds.

I realise I went a bit of track in the start of my reply, but the fact is ANY kind of guardian is amazing! (except scepter users because they suck )

Edit: While Warriors have more health then us, that is just more health they need to fill up, if anything it dosnt work in theyr benefit. Effective health will crush actual health any day of the week.

The only mobs that should be destroying you in melee are the ridicilous ones in cliffside, but they are not ment to be tanked by players.. personally I think it is a god awful idea to give these npcs that much dps, but thats how it is.

Oh no! Now ill be forced to join a guild, why do I have to join a guild in guild wars? Why Anet Why!!!!