Guild Wars 2

Arewn.2368:

MatthewMedina.5419:

The content in the Cliffs last year was all very specifically designed to support the story of the election that was happening between Ellen Kiel and Evon Gnashblade. It really wouldn’t have made sense to keep the map open without turning much of that content off, and that would have left the area feeling very empty and lifeless. There are other reasons beyond this, but for maps like this, which are based around a festival or a special event like the election, it just couldn’t have worked to keep it open year round. It’s only a few more days until you all get to play in the map again. I can’t read into the future, but we love the gameplay and the bizaare atmosphere of the bazaar, so I believe it will continue to be a setting we can return to when it fits with the story we’re trying to tell. :-)

Or you can just leave it in, content and all…
I don’t see you removing the Great Jungle Wurm just because scarlet and her probes are gone. I don’t see you removing Arah, just because Zhaitan’s dead and it’s been nearly 2 years since the events there transpired. I don’t see you removing TA Aetherpath, just because we’ve stomped out the forces there and Caithe no longer has a reason to be there. I don’t see you removing the personal story, just because the events are far in the past at this point. I don’t see you closing the path to South Sun Cove, just because the karka and consortium there have been dealt with. I don’t see you shutting down the Straights of Devastation, just because we’ve already done the events there and the lore the related to is long since over.
The reason you gave just isn’t an actual reason. It’s akin to saying “because reasons”, and then removing it. I can understand in the case of yearly festival (wintersday and the like), or for things you plan to permanently re-implant in a better format (Atherblade Retreat, removed and then reintroduced permanently in FotM), but for some things it just leaves me scratching my head. It’s cool content that we could be playing, and that you could add to later if you wanted to mess with it. Instead we sit in a game that is that much emptier as a result of it being removed.

What he’s saying is that during non-festival times, they will have to remove all the people and the Zephyr Sanctum because it flies to other places and trades with them in the story.
If they keep the map open by then, it’s going to be an empty husk with nothing inside of it, kinda like Southsun, but much worse.

To have such an area accessible in the game hurts it alot, especially for people that don’t know why it’s so empty.

Perhaps the Zephyrites will be the ones that bring us the message from Cantha that they need help with Bubbles in a (more or less distant) future.
And perhaps they may be our link to Cantha by then.

Missing any equipped social clothing as far as I can see.

Currently when you use the skin, it will disappear.
After the “feature pack” coming april 15, there will be a wardrobe in the game.
If you have the skin either as an item or on your armor by then, it will get added to your wardrobe and you can copy it as many times as you want for transmutation charges.
The skin cannot be traded.
Before the feature pack, it only works on 1 character and after the pack it works on all (but you still need to pay something for the transmutation charges)

Evon Gnashblade, the Hero of Tyria!

Can’t buy the bunny ears anymore

Kartel.2561:

So then on a related note …is there anything in the works for having an in-game ability to open 250 bags without having to click FIVE HUNDRED times?

Suggested it before, suggesting it again.
Right-click —> Use x… —> 5 / 10 / 50 / all

Deamhan.9538:

I don’t believe that this is against the rules. They just don’t want the game being played by macro. In other words, they don’t want people to perform skill chains with the push of a single button. What you are looking to do (open up bags, consume consumables, etc.) is harmless. Holding down the button for the duration or repeatedly clicking the button for the same duration, does it really matter? Does it give you an unfair advantage? I don’t think so.

It may be harmless for you and me, but what matters is what ANet thinks about it and their policy is 1 click = 1 action.
If you want to go against that policy, feel free, your choice.
But don’t complain if ANet happens to not like it.

If you hold it, you still just click once. It’s however a long click.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Spoj The Second.7680:

The Lost Witch.7601:

If we move towards challenges that don’t really require combat, I’m afraid they would soon become one-dimensional. Since the challenge would basically be the same for these encounters: jump on time/jump far enough/craft as fast as you can. Whereas combat can have more depth, because we have more options available. Combat is what we build our characters for, why we spend a lot of time tweaking builds, finding whatever gear and build suits us best. Fractals is the place where combat becomes the most difficult. High level fractals are the place to be for combat enthousiasts.

There is a place for one-try puzzles though. We already have them in guild missions, bounties and puzzles. I just don’t think that fractals is the right place for them.

Agree with this so much. This is one of the biggest issues i have with the new fractals and the aether path. Too many puzzles. They shouldnt be in dungeons/fractals. Puzzle mechanics in fights are fine (seals on cliffside, agony rotating walls in aetherblade, buckets in dredge, collapsing floor in thaumanova atc). But the pure puzzles within fights without using combat and inbetween fights are just boring (barrage phases in mai trin, weapon test in molten, various puzzles in aether fractal and aetherpath in TA). If a combat element was added which allowed the speeding up of these timegated puzzles then I wouldnt have a problem with them.

Thanks for the feedback Spoj. Personally I am not a huge fan of puzzles but I tend to be a bit of an impatient gamer who just likes to smash things. What does everyone else think?

Chris

Depends on the type of the puzzle and how replayable it is.
If it’s randomly generated, I’d say it will be much better since it won’t be the same all over again.

If it’s a puzzle where you need to gather information for a set of questions, then it’s a pretty bad puzzle since you just need the answers and you’re done.

A better puzzle would be a Portal-style puzzle where you for example get a teleportation rifle and you’re suposed to teleport your way through a randomly generated level with things on the way to interact with, like buttons that open doors or makes surfaces appear that are teleportable or something along the lines. The party only gets one gun in total and has to perhaps give it to eachother in certain checkpoints. Resettable with some button you can press somewhere or some special skill you get that x members of the party needs to use in 60 seconds.

Another could be a floating platform with arrows on it that you stand on in order for the platform to move and you need to move through a randomly generated room with traps that will damage you if you move the platform wrongly.

A randomly generated jumping puzzle with non-combat obstacles (and perhaps also combat obstacles).

A rubiks cube sort of puzzle that you interact with through a series of buttons on the floor. (stolen from Wooden Potatoes I think)

A Dungeons and Dragons -esque fractal where the players gain local skills and stats depending on their GW2 class and stats. You’re supposed to navigate through a randomly generated dungeon and get to the boss but there are different ways there. There could be NPCs that help you if you have enough “charisma” stat. Traps that you spot within a certain distance depending on your “wisdom” stat. Walls that you can break if you have enough “strength”.

Swamp is a sort of puzzle and it works pretty well although it’s a bit boring.

But just like in D&D, alternative ways of progressing that doesn’t include combat also requires you to reward the players in equivalent other ways since you can’t loot monsters.
Extra chests when completing puzzles, perhaps randomly generated hidden loot.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

Update of the ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’ achievement: we’ve identified the issue and are currently working on a fix. Thank you for the information on only two people from the successful maps getting the achievement, that was the final clue we needed! I’ll keep this thread updated as we work on the fix.

What was the problem and how was it fixed?
That’d be quite interesting to know.
Sure, it doesn’t really matter for us but it helps us help you in the future and it helps us understand your difficulty with the problem so that we don’t whine about it as much :P

Bugged indeed, killed them all 3 times after the 25% hp patch on desolation. Each time well within 6 minutes. Did it once on each knight just to be sure but nope, didn’t get it.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

We are currently working on the difficulty of the Assault Knight fights; I realize that sometimes its hard to get a full overflow or that there are non peak hours where server populations will be lighter. Hopefully with the difficulty changes, it will also make it easier for a good server to get ‘Six Minutes to Knightfall’.

Beat it 3 times on Desolation within 6 minutes after the 25% hp patch, one time for each boss, and the Six Minutes to Knightfall is still bugged. You don’t get it by completing the knights within 6 minutes. Very few people claimed that they got it, but most, including me, did not get it.

I fail to see the issue?
Why does the gender matter?
I’d rather ANet thought “Let’s make a fun and/or interesting character” rather than “Oh ok, we have 10 females and 9 males so we have to make a male now”.

Can only use it in cities.

Omadd showed Ceara the Eternal Alchemy.
In it, Ceara saw Mordremoth and Mordremoth saw her and began speaking to her.
Ceara became Scarlet because she went mad after hearing Mordremoth.
Scarlet got out of the machine and killed Omadd on the spot.
As time went past, Scarlet got more and more voices in her head from Mordremoth and she started to research and create a plan to awaken him to get rid of the voices.
She researched dragon energy at Thaumanova, possibly blew it up to disturb the leyline it’s on but it didn’t work.
She gathered her army and placed sonar thumpers to check for a major leyline crossing and found it under Lion’s Arch.
She drilled into the leyline crossing and disturbed it so much that Mordremoth awakened.
Mordremoth is the jungle dragon and “Tyria’s new master”.

Scarlet succeeded but died doing so.

Shakki.3219:

Its not bugged.

Hit on Stage 1: only with Prime Light Attunement… then go afk at safe spot.

Well, if you play like you -should-, you don’t get it. That means it’s bugged.

I can however update the thread with that you are not allowed to get downed. I just cleared it by contributing normally to each phase, making sure I had the right attunement. I also did not get downed. Alot of people in map chat said that if you get downed, you’re out of the game and that seems to be true.

10+ tries, I have about 3 where I know I failed because I got the debuff.
I have around 5 tries where I am 100% certain I did not hit anything I wasn’t attuned for, including condition damage ticks (I checked the guys for damage counters and there were none). I am sure that I didn’t get any retaliation on me either.

I always got loot before the last patch, after that, nothing helps. No way to get loot, full party and all, but no loot.

Not sure how many times I’ve tried getting In Tune.. I’m positively supersure I’ve not hit anything without the right attunement. Turned off autoattack to control what I’m attacking at all times.
Constantly checked my attunement buff for time and stopped attacking fairly long time before it ended, checked the enemies for damage counters after it disappeared and there were none.
Gathered new buffs and rinsed and repeated.
Some runs I did notice I got the debuff and those times I did hit enemies without the buffs. But most of the runs I did not get any debuff at all.
This has to be bugged in some way or another.

People are claiming they get the achievement from attacking for 10 seconds with the white attunement and then afk-ing the rest of the time in all phases. This leads me to think that something’s wrong with either the colored holograms and/or the ultraviolet holograms.

But hey, it could be that I’m just very very bad, although I’d like to think that that’s not the case.

Edit: Another thing is that when you’re downed, it -may- count as if you’re un-attuned when you attack. But not sure. Just an idea.

kgptzac.8419:

How the hell did internal QA not catch this? Assuming of course, ANet indeed has internal QA and actually testing kitten before release.

I have an idea about just that, which is realistic and quite legitimate.
They reset the map they were on each time they tried the event.
This is because they didn’t want to waste so much time waiting for it to reset manually.
And because of that, they didn’t catch the bugs about it not automatically resetting after being active once.

I would guess that the problem is the same as it was for the attunement pools.
They don’t reset properly after they have been out once on a server.
If you haven’t already, you might want to investigate that.
The attempt was the second after the patch, which meant that the event had already happened once on the servers before.

Before the patch, it could never have happened twice on a server since there was the attunement issue, so therefore it wasn’t discovered until now.

The manual reset that was done fixed this run of the event, please continue with that until a patch is in place.

Well, Marjory sure isn’t dead yet so her friend will stick around and help her. It’s not unlikely that a future LS patch will be Marjory trying to find out who it is.

The circles appeared the first run and we killed all of them, got them all and proceeded with the event chain to the final encounter.
The second run, no fields spawned but we didn’t kill all 3 bosses.
The third run, no fields spawned even though we killed all 3 bosses.
It seems they appear only once ever on a single server.
This was on an overflow.

Worked first run for my overflow and we proceeded with the event chain which I’m not gonna spoil, then 2nd and 3rd runs gave no fields at all. I’m guessing the fields only spawn once ever in a single overflow.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Doing something like you have suggested really comes down to man power and global GW2 development priority.

Chris

My personal opinion would be:
Take your time, but do it nice, that will make everybody happy.
I do understand that time does indeed cost money when running a company, but customer happiness level also correlates to the money the company gets back.

I would not want for example GW1 missions in the current fractal system. GW1 missions were very long in comparison and used very large maps unfitting for fractals. The GW1 missions would risk becoming like Aetherblade or Molten, cut down and taken out of it’s context.

I really, really want to press the issue of the format and that it really, really doesn’t fit for something that is meant to be elaborated. Fractals are simple and short and should stay that way.

Therefore I suggest that even if it does take a very long time, develop a real story-telling dungeon-format within the laws of the Mists in that it can show moments frozen in time, like fractals. But make it stable and make it elaborated and interesting. Otherwise I really don’t think you can do the story justice.

Edit: An Abaddon fractal would also be an example. I would want it elaborated and explaining of the events. Not too short to justify the story. Therefore I’m very grateful of the Kiel voters that saved it from that fate. I don’t think the Thaumanova story was made justice in it’s fractal due to it’s size.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris

On a side note, it would be nice if you could make a short summary that lists all the topics you have read and that you are discussing internally.

There have been a bit of a discussion about “ingored subjects” and doing this would show people that you aren’t ignoring them.

This also lets people know if they should bring up a subject again because you might have missed it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

spoj.9672:

That maybe true but its hardly the most pressing issue which is driving players away from fractals. It should be a low priority problem. Lack of rewards and dredge is whats killing fractals for the majority of players, not rolling.

Why not tackle all at once?

The same team might need to fix both Dredge and rolling if they choose an intro tier to be the fix or even if they choose balancing to be a fix and in that case I do see Dredge as a priority. But if they are able to, then absolutely, fix all at once. That would be the best.
All the issues should never the less all be adressed and fixed no matter the priority or order.

Becka Williams.4978:

Yes, why do you want to punish people for doing something that doesn’t affect you in any way?

Because it is a flaw in the design that can be exploited. (Not to get confused with an exploit, which it isn’t).
Because of that you need to fix the flaw so that the content works as intended.
The intention with fractals is that each time you enter, you get a random sequence of fractals that you need to complete.
Currently that is not the case. Currently you get a swamp and never get any of the other tier 1 fractals.

And it does affect me, in fact it does affect everyone who does fractals (I won’t argue if it effects people in a good or bad way though). Every single party that enters fractals will either have swamp ready when you start or they will search for swamp while you join.
This is the golden rule of fractal running.

Also the comment “why fix it if it doesn’t affect you?” I think is quite faulty.
Why set up invisible walls in Arah so that you can’t break out of the map and skip Lupicus? That doesn’t affect you, you can use the normal way if you want.
Or why fix the infinite range on the flamethrower? It doesn’t affect you, you can use it within the intended range if you want.
If you only fix faulty content that affects -me- or “Joe” or “Adrian”, then nothing would ever get fixed.

As for the comment “people are skipping mobs, so why not this?”.
Well, if skipping mobs is not an intended “mechanic”, then they should fix that as well.
If it is an intended mechanic, then the difference is that re-rolling fractals to get a guaranteed first one is not intended while skipping mobs is intended.
There isn’t any other connection between the two really.

However I do agree that fixing Dredge and the Rewards are of a much higher priority.
But this should definitely be fixed since it’s an exploitable flaw (not to get confused with an exploit, which it is not).

Becka Williams.4978:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Becka Williams.4978:

No, it’s not an exploit. Is it an exploit to quit when you hit the dredge fractal and start again? Should we force people to have to play the dredge fractal? Maybe we should make that the unskippable first fractal?

You’re not getting it obviously. The whole point of Fractals is that it surprises you with a different assortment of Fractals every time you play it. Re-rolling for the quickest and easiest fractal bypasses this entire concept… plus it’s rather annoying.

Oh, it’s the cliffside fractal. Re-roll for swamp!

Oh, it’s urban battleground. Re-roll for swamp!

I know we’d all love to reroll every time the dredge fractal comes up, but that’s a problem with the dredge fractal specifically, not with the randomness. People should just play the fractals they’re dealt, and they should all be of comparable difficulty.

I get it. I just don’t think it’s a problem. Why wouldn’t people reroll to get swamp if they get Cliffside or dredge. Cliffside made me quit fractals, because I couldn’t take the stress of wondering if I’d get it, and then have someone bug it out because they can’t be bothered to think any harder than “kill everything.” Why do we care what other people do when it doesn’t affect us in the slightest?

You’re completely allowed to re-roll, just that it has the added penalty of having to redo the first (very small) fractal. Thus the mentality of constantly rerolling for swamp would disappear.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

A good solution would be to insert some fixed fractals of easy difficulty before the swamp, so you can’t re-roll, but all of the fractals you can get at the start are all as short and easy as the swamp is. And of course, fix the dredge fractal.

Indeed, and even if there are several first ones to choose from, they should be so short that it’s not worth rerolling it regardless what you get. But still they should be long enough so that it’s not worth rerolling if you get cliffside or whatever after it.

Proposal: Add a small fractal as the first fractal to stop re-rolling

Overview
Add a small fractal that’s about 1-2 minutes long without an end boss as a guaranteed 1st fractal. After that comes tier 1 fractals and the rest works as usual.
The fractal does give a little bit of loot and perhaps some fractal relics, but not so much loot that it’s worth rerolling and farming it. Just a compensation for the extra time it takes.
The fractal could for example consist of an “interference” that prohibits you from continuing into the real fractals. The interference could be fixed by the players needing to kill a few mobs and take over a capture site that will fix the interference and they can move on.
This provides an obstacle for re-rolling so that re-rolling would take approximately 1-2 minutes per try, thus discouraging it but still leaving it open as a possibility if you want to take the time. For example you might not want swamp as your first fractal if you’re new and run with people who aren’t very familiar with it’s mechanics.
To add some variety, the first short fractal could be one of a few differently themed ones that are all equally short and easy, just with a different theme that’s related to the fractal “universe”.

Goal
To get rid of re-rolling for new fractals.

Functionality
The additional normal fractal is just a new tier, like the other ones, except that it is much much shorter than the normal fractals and doesn’t have a boss in the end.

Associated risks
May get farmed if it contains too much loot.
May make it hard to run fractals solo, but fractals is designed for a party of 5 players so that shouldn’t be an issue.
May seem “out of place” if it’s not tied well into the lore of fractals.
Can be pretty boring if it doesn’t keep people busy during the time they’re there.

What about toggling off enemies? I think it’s immersion breaking that there are enemies running around everywhere.
They are also in the way when I’m trying to explore and do jumping puzzles.

On a serious note, no. You should view the other people as they have chosen to be viewed. There is no point in any unique armor or weapons otherwise.

Edit: If your immersion gets broken by something that is in the game, then that’s your problem. It’s in the world, it’s canon, deal with it. If we go to a space station and it breaks your immersion, pity, it’s part of the game.

Mortifer.2946:

Why not game from 2012?

Most likely because of the overflow system

Suddenflame.2601:

Also Cobalt is a weapon not a world boss

You don’t do Bloodtide wurm much, do you?

Ducky Shine mechanic brown keyboard, plain old Logitech MX518.

Dodge on q
AoE-loot on v
Skills 1-5 on buttons 1-5 as usual
Heal on e
Skills 7-9 on “back” and “forward” on the mouse and on mouse wheel click
Elite skill on c
F1-F4 on F1-F4 as usual.

Makes it all comfy and nice. Easy to reach everything and easy to dodge without straining your thumb.
Comfy keys, backlight so they are visible in the dark.

If NCSoft is still going on about that old business, then Bazaar of the Four Winds was a big middle finger straight to their face.
If not, then that’s why Bazaar of the Four Winds existed, to give us a taste of how Cantha can look.
The architecture of the Zephyr Sanctum is heavilly based on Kaineng and the overall Labyrinthine Cliffs map, dispite being in Tyria, is heavilly Cantha and asian-inspired. The vegetation, the houses, the countless rice lamps.

It could very well be ANet saying “Here take this and be quiet while we work.” as a teaser for what is to come in a future, sooner or later. Although I still have a hard time seeing it come before the end of the dragon era, unless Cantha sends for help to get rid of one of their very own elder dragons, having heard from the Zephyrites that Tyria has the power to slay elder dragons.

Also related: https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/sanctumsprint

ColinJohanson.2394:

Romo.3709:

How about Story Mode fractals, where you could pick a fractal you want to experience. Then upon arriving to said fractal we could experience the story behind thus level hence learning more about the history and idea behind the design of each and every fractal. To make it actually rewarding we could have a achievement system in place for each level, so everyone would play it at least once. And maybe a reward at the end (30s should be sufficient as it would be much shorter than a regular dungeon story mode) and some experience. It would also help new players get a hang of fractals a bit more understanding the layout and mechanics behind every level.

We could do something like this, but when ends up happening is the work involved ends up being a lot of additional work to basically build something people play one or two times and then are done with it. In that time, we could have probably half built another real fractal, which I think probably would be better for the game over-all. Maybe the real question would be -> How do we try and get across better lore and stories with the current fractal system?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the current fractal system is optimal for short content that is fast. I don’t think you can successfully implement story-heavy fractals with the current system. That would make the time it takes to do fractals very unbalanced if you get one of those as opposed to if you don’t.

But if the story isn’t enough elaborated, it just feels bad as a story-dungeon.
If you compare Aetherblade and Molten fractals to the dungeons, in the fractals you really get no idea what they were actually about. They’re too short and butchered. Yes, they are nice fractals, probably as good as you could make them in the fractal system, but not storywise compelling at all.

And as you say, building something that will only be used once isn’t very cost effective.

But have a dungeon system that runs in parallel with the normal fractals that has an explorable and a story mode and use the same maps for both. The reason to do it within fractals is because you can use it as a “story book” and put anything from the past, even from guild wars 1, in it and it would be completely fine lore-wise. You can’t do that in any other part of the game.

I’m not sure if you’ve read it yet and I’m starting to feel bad for reposting the link several times in the forum now… Heh…
But link to the referenced suggestion where I elaborate on this here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3682391

The reason you still develop the normal fractals is because they cater to a different set of people. They’re fast and varied which is interesting.
The story-fractals are interesting and beautiful in story mode and in explorable mode they’re endgame content that is hard to clear, takes longer time and takes alot of skill and practice and thus you cater to those people as well and you reuse the designed content, making it more cost-effective.

The balancing in it was awful since people could stack up on one team..
But if they would utillize the solo queue / party queue system for it and give dishonored to people who quit, but perhaps a softer version of it, then it would be pretty nice and people could play together without much hassle.

Edit:
TL;DR:
Make fractals unique rewards salvageable or make it possible to turn in for other non-bound rewards of significant value to balance out the lack of rewards compared to other content.
/Edit

Nike.2631:

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Functionality
If I can earn 1.5 gold for a 15 minute run of COF or HOTW, I should earn 4x that for a 1 hour run of fractals. Gold reward should be commensurate with the length of time it takes to complete an individual fractal.

If I could score best-in-slot items randomly from even 100 runs through CoF I might think there was a comparison to be made here. But there’s not. Gold is not the only currency in the game, and trying to turn everything into a gold earning competition just adds that many more faucets and debases coin that much more. Five fractal-specific currencies. FIVE. Yes, we need more ways to spend them, but we need to also not ignore that they exist in the rush to throw ourselves on the tender mercies of the Trading Post. Fractals are a separate track. Any number of Dungeon-delvers will tell you the grass is greener on the Fractals side of the fence and that they are the ones being wronged by the differences.

First off, the only BiS Fractals uniquely offer are ascended rings and an ascended backpiece as well as inventory bags. The weapons and armors are dropped everywhere where you can get ascended materials.
But even if we would ignore this, you’re basically saying that when I have BiS gear, I have nothing to get from fractals. You’re saying that I instead should go Frostgorge farming. The endgame content is then not for me anymore.
That’s the extent of your argument.

I don’t think this is how it should be.
BiS only has a value only if you don’t already own it.
When you own it, it has no value at all because you can’t sell it.
I’m not saying you should be able to sell it, maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t.
But what I am saying is that even when I have BiS, I want a reason to go to fractals.
Why “lock people out” because they get a miniscule amount of rewards compared to for example mindless zerging in Frostgorge that takes no skill at all except the skill to make sure you tag the boss before it dies.
Everyone needs money for almost everything. This is what should be scaled, the unique bound rewards should be a bonus. Legendaries – tons and tons of money. Ascended gear – tons of money. Unique skins – tons of money. Gems – real life money or tons of ingame money. Commander title – a small ton of money.

To avoid inflation, alot of the reward could be loot-based with high-value loot that’s constantly in demand, while a small part is money-based. Then it doesn’t add much gold to the game, but you still get gold from selling the loot to other players.
Balance this so that higher difficulty = higher rewards and longer time requirement = higher rewards (for all content). To encourage people to learn to play harder content, the reward scaling could be slightly exponential as opposed to linear or logarithmic. But not “unfairly” so. So higher skill means even higher loot, which encourages people to not go to Frostgorge but instead go to high skill content and learn it.

One easy solution to fix it would be to let people salvage fractal unique rewards into valuable loot that can be sold. Ascended gear could give a large amount of ectoplasm and ascended planks / leather / fabric / metal as well as bonus dark matter, which could be salvageable into other loot as well. Take into account the rarity of ascended gear when doing this.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

Chris-

What are your thoughts about bringing back some of the GW1 Missions as Fractals? Is that something feasible?

I mentioned Aurora Glade as an option before. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aurora_glade

If this is something you would entertain, would it be valuable for us to discuss potential options?

I think this is a cool idea and certainly one worth some proposals and some discusison around said proposals.

Chris

If you’re interested in a way to introduce more lore-based fractals with more elaborated story and missions from Guild Wars 1 and perhaps old Living Story that can’t be accessed anymore, I would suggest you take a look at my suggestion on page 2 that covers this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3682391

A few people seem to suggest similar ideas as well.

I do however think that the current fractal system wouldn’t be able to incorporate such content because fractals are meant to be short.
Hence a stable fractal system that allows for longer content, that runs parallel with the unstable, traditional fractal system.
The flame and frost and aetherblade fractals are a good example of how this limitation is way too limiting. They’re honestly quite butchered. Sure, the most interesting parts are there, but they’re not there in their former glory and they don’t make as much sense in a story perspective as they did in full size.

The Thaumanova fractal is an example of how limiting the limits are as well. While it was a bit interesting and it looks quite nice, you barely see anything of the Thaumanova reactor at all. You get no references at all to the building in Metrica province at all. What would be interesting is to start outside the building, in Metrica, having someone tell you that there is something terribly wrong with the reactor and then you’re tasked with entering the building and navigating to the core avoiding hazards of a reactor that’s breaking apart, clearly seeing references to the actual building as you progress inside.

I do not want lore fractals to be standard sized, I want them to be full dungeon sized at least. And that’s not possible with standard fractals. Hence the suggestion for a stable fractal system to be used as a “story book”.

GoldenTruth.2853:

Proposal Overview
Add a chance at previous living story items tied to specific fractals.

Goal of Proposal
Adding another reward tier for future of fractals and making less desirable/harder fractals more desirable. Allows a way for people to customize their characters with items that are no longer attainable and were tied behind limited-time RnG drops.

Proposal Functionality
At very high level fractals there is a rare chance of getting previous living story items (depending on the fractal rolled). The item would be in the bosses chest at the end of that fractal. Boss fractals would contain the more sought after rewards.

Example of standard fractal rewards:
- Molten Fractal: Chance at Azurite Orbs and Molten Berserker Tonic Recipe
- Aetherblade Fractal: Chance of the Aetherized Tonic Recipe and Oil/Crystal/Stone Recipes.

Example of boss fractal rewards:
- Molten Champs: Chance at Jetpack (if you kill Firestorm first), Chance at Mini Firestorm (if you kill Berserker first).
- Mai Trin: Chance at Monocle

Could also add items that currently don’t exist such as a chance at a Mini Colossus after completing the Colossus fractal.

Associated Risks
Lowers desirability/price of past living story items.

Puts an RnG drop inside an RnG fractal. Can solve this by making the items purchasable for a large amount of fractal relics. The purchased version should be account bound. You should only be able to buy certain items after you pass a certain personal fractal level threshold.

You might find my proposal that contains this subject interesting. You can read it on page 2 here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Fractal-Evolution/3682391
It’s about returning Living Story events, their rewards as rare drops and buyable from “tickets” as well as hardcore endgame content as part of a new expansion to the fractals system.

Stable fractals to show stories and lost history with the added possibility to create hardcore endgame content

Proposal Overview
Add “stable fractals” to Fractals of the Mists.
These fractals can work as a history book for players.
The stable fractals would be slightly modified copies of lost Living Story and interesting lore events in the past.
Having a story mode and explorable mode, both with the same content but different difficulty gives the possibility to incorporate hardcore endgame content and the possibility to regenerate lost living story rewards and to generate new unique rewards and still keep the story accessible for casual players.
Not all of the content has an explorable mode and not all need to have a story mode, thus players aren’t too spread out.
The unique rewards are very very rare drops and can also be bought with (many of) much less rare ticket scraps that are guaranteed loot on completion.

Goal of Proposal

• Retell lost living story to players who weren’t there.
• Tell interesting stories about the lore of GW2 ingame.
• Give hardcore players hard endgame content with unique rewards á la Underworld from gw1.
• Introduce a hardcore lootfarm that gives much loot but requires a lot of skill as opposed to frostgorge farm.
• Reintroduce unique rewards from past Living Story that barely exist anymore.
• Introduce new unique rewards.

Associated Risks

• It doesn’t change anything, it adds new things, so there is no risk in terms of changing old things and making them imbalanced.
• A risk could be that “hardcore” players stop doing normal dungeons and stop farming in frostgorge and go here instead, making the other areas a bit drained of people. LFG tool and multi-server parties counter this as well as the skill gate of the content.
• Another risk is that people will complain if Living Story rewards are regenerated, but in this case it’s done by replaying the actual living story and with much higher difficulty, which justifies it.

• If ANet can’t make it permanent, they could at least increase the halo buff time to as high a number as possible or at least 24h ingame time or something.
• Like a food buff, make it not randomly disappear in battle. That happened for me when killing the wurm yesterday. I turned it on right before the wurm fight, started fighting, it turned off, I turned it on again, it turned off after a while. I do know that it normally will stay on, but during the wurm it didn’t.
• Like a food buff, make it relog-persistant.
  Yes, this would indeed mean that I can give it to my alts and make them have semi-permanent halos as well. But I don’t see that as a bad thing. There was quite alot of work in obtaining it anyways.
• Like a food buff, make it zoning-persistant. There is no reason for it to disappear each time I enter a new map.
• Make it usable in dungeons.
  Currently it is quite inconvenient to use because of the current limitations and as such, I would not recommend people putting in the work to get it. With some changes for a more convenient halo, then it would be very recommended because I think it looks nice.
  It could be a little more visible but I’m fine.

KOPPER.1458:

Why should they be given a flesh tone version at all? The blue bits is what makes it zodiac in the first place…

This basically.
It’s designed to be “ethereal” and that’s why the armor plates show so much of the underlying blue “catsuit”.
The unique part of the armor and why they created it is the blue part.
It will not and should not happen that they remove it either for this or a new version.

I agree that it would be interesting to be able to dye it, however their “zodiac” theme is blue so I don’t think that will happen and personally I’m perfectly fine with blue. Fits my current pink-blue theme and my possible future white-gold. But indeed it doesn’t fit everything in terms of color, which is a bit of a pity.

Posting for informative purposes.
The patch notes claim that the armor now should work properly with phantasms.
Cannot comfirm as I’m not mesmer, but just so you guys know.

At the moment I see no point at all in bothering to get the horn potion… Sadly I’ll probably end up doing it anyways…
But yeah, it’s unlikely that it will get “fixed” since there would most likely be a huge clipping issue.
There might be something in the future that fits perfectly with it though… so yeah..

Seras.5702:

Mikuchan.7261:

They have made an attempt, sure.
But that doesn’t change the fact that there is no direct encouragement for helping citizens. All you see is a number rise, you don’t get anything direct from it.

False. Each milestone of citizens saved gets you a bonus reward bag. The more citizens you save, the more reward bags you get. Also, you get a final reward at the end based on your citizens saved. Again, the more you save, the better the reward.

The fault isn’t with the event. The fault lies with the selfish & lazy zergers who want to autoattack en masse for blue bags rather than win the event. Effort is required to save 1500 instead of 600.

And as for people still zerging and not learning, I recently got my Triple Play achievement yesterday. That’s a zone-wide achievement and it means people are learning how to play properly rather than mindlessly zerging for loot. Anet doesn’t have to spell it out for us. We should have to learn the right mechanics & strategy to win.

Notice the keyword “direct” ?
No? Didn’t think so.
The tiers are indirect encouragement.
You don’t get them directly from rescuing citizen.
You get them when a certain tier of a number of citizen has been rescued.

The encouragement lies in zerging. That’s where the loot is.

And no matter how hard you try to call them selfish, you are actually the selfish one.
You are running around on your own only minding your business.
The majority of the people are helping eachother kill enemies and get loot.
-Helping eachother-
You’re not helping the majority of the players.
If you were, you would be zerging with them.

This is why the event, just like the earlier invasions, is designed completely wrong.
The incentive lies in zerging, not doing the actual content.

I’d still go for “Legendary Defender of Lion’s Arch” but yes, the idea is nice and it could possibly help the event.