Guild Wars 2

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Well i Quit fractals for now because: harder then in past to pug (and don’t give me this ‘guild’ solution, just doesn’t work for everyone).

That and for a month almost all t4 fractals gave me NO ascended apart from materials. Not even infused rings. Sorry but then it ain’t worth it.

Join groups with 1-2 necros and enjoy being carried. T4 fracs are easier than one month ago (release patch of Tiers).

Abricalio.1584:

I repeat, posting about your low HoT drop rates is irrelevant. Post if you DON’T have HoT and you do T4 fractal dailies, or if you KNOW (don’t guess) for sure what Agony Channeler or Recursive Resourcing masteries grant in bonus rewards.

Hey, I have HoT and my drop rate of asc boxes is totally fine for me!

Ryou.2398:

deSade.9437:

Henry.5713:

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Just don’t be a kitten – don’t ask disingenuous, insinuating questions (“Why didn’t you do x [you stoopid scrub]?”) and don’t challenge people you don’t know, because you have no idea how they’re going to respond.
Sometimes people take comments lightly, sometimes they don’t; if you want to minimise unpredictable reactions from strangers, keep your godkitten mouth shut.

I disagree if your to insecure you cannot handle a healthy opinion or criticism then you have no business being online period, how can you handle holding down a job and going out in the world if you cannot handle a comment like that in a game?

Now if your rude about it thats another story, but really if you care about what everyone else thinks then your life will be really hard, its one thing to listen to take criticism as something that might be true about you and another to let everyone else control how you feel.

The thing is people actually don’t care about handling comments or think/don’t think about criticism in daily runs. Because it’s a game not the real world and if you just want to get your fractal content done (which is not very hard) many players won’t need any advice or smart a_sses who know better even though they are doing minor mistakes after a hard day of work or so.
“Healthy opinions” LOL – That could be a broad spectrum and isn’t always clear for everyone. So, it’s better to shut up instead of saying anything that can be turned against you. Believe me, most of the comments/actions of pug players in fractals are just annoying and unnecessary.

Ohoni.6057:

And it has been said enough times that while they may not be hard for you, they are hard for plenty of others, and no matter how easy they may be for you, that is completely irrelevant to those that find it difficult.

And those who claim to not being able to succeed have either not tried hard enough or are just lying.

Ohoni.6057:

It was not the first time that I’ve encountered similar statements, people insisting that repeated failed attempts are the ONLY proper way to learn how to raid, and that any version that can be successfully completed early on would be completely incapable fo teaching anything.

The difference is: Nobody said “ONLY” except you. You turned it, you are the one nit-picking here.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, well you could have just said that instead of blind linking to a 40 minutes video, right? Even if the timer can be bypassed in some way, that isn’t something that a new group is likely to stumble onto, and might even be considered an exploit.

And I’m sure most groups do wipe well before hitting the timer, but that’s at least in part because they are playing knowing there is a timer and that they have to eventually beat it. They gear, build, and play in a way that intended to out-damage the timer, even if they come nowhere close. Removing the timer takes a lot of pressure off. And again, maybe that isn’t true for you, it doesn’t have to be, but it is true for others.

Really a lot of the disagreements around here could be resolved if people were just more willing to accept that their own experiences don’t necessarily apply to everyone else, that what they enjoy, others might not, that what doesn’t upset them might still upset others, etc. Stop spending so much time telling other people how they should handle things to be more like you, and start trying to understand why they don’t want to do that.

No, you are wrong. 100% and absolutely wrong. Training runs aren’t about looking on the timer. You start them without pressuring teammates. Wow, you rly don’t have any clue you are talking about.

And at last, before I quit this inexpressibly discussion with you. Maybe you can also understand that some people don’t want content to be changed like it has been done in so many cases in this game. Again: 99% of all Tyrian content is just faceroll. If people can’t accept that there is 1% content which is not to be dealt easily, they should be excluded. If they don’t want to get their as*es up, they should never ever get any reward. Period!

It has been said enough times: Raids are not that hard as some people like you want to make others believe.

I have seen so many players with low skill having success with bosses in the raid because they listened, changed their gear, brought useful classes, were improving while practicing and learned the encounter. Some examples of them you will find in this forum. I by myself carried Bearbows, Staff-Necros and GS-Mesmers through and we all know about that specific playerbase.
That’s how to do it and still there is no need to bring easier modes or anything like that. If you want to have it, go for it.

Ohoni.6057:

I quoted it right there in my post. Somebody clearly said it.

Yes, it was a simple sentence and you turned it into being a rule of us/someone what is absolutely bs. It’s just that things behave like this in general or most of the attempts when you are trying something new.

Btw. you didn’t understand the 40 minutes video. It was an example that the timer can be bypassed. And I repeat this the 1000th time now: The timer is not responsible for wipes in 99,9% of the attempts on VG. Have you ever lead training runs? You don’t look out for the timer there – never!

Ohoni.6057:

…

Cool, easier stuff…and why? 99% of the game is faceroll content and would only be harder if you set your own difficulties like soloing some stuff (champs, fracs and more) or carrying 4 clueless pugs through instances.

Ohoni.6057:

This is completely 100% wrong.

You do not have to fail to get better, you can succeed, and then do it again and also succeed, and do it better.

This idea that “you must fail to grow” is complete nonsense, I don’t know why some people insist on repeating it.

No, you need not, indeed. And nobody in this thread has ever said it’s a must to fail to become better, nobody followed “an idea of whatever”, dude. You didn’t get the message at all, especially not for GW2, too bad for you.

Just have a look at the average GW2 player. They are horrible and most of them are not willing to learn, practice or even change their gear. So there is no reason to ease this little piece of content where you actually have to use some brain and not only to press 11111.
I won’t go into detail about your suggestions in removing the timer or anything else. Please be informed and you will find out that it will absolutely make no sense to change it like you have described.
Also have a look onto this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_IUQuZuCg

Raids are actually low-manned today and we still see tears and rant. Awkward, in my opinion!
People who cannot beat the raid encounters are just not playing well, that’s all.

I got a full kit twice out of fracs. It definitely drops.

Celine.6857:

You have to be an achievement point hunter to be ‘accepted’ to do a level 13 fractal? Idiotic. I’m having similar issues with raiding. Why should I spend 100s of gold kitting out a character just to try out a raid?

Always smart comparing apples and oranges.

Hints for you:
1. Read lfgs properly
2. Don’t join experienced groups if you have no clue a.k.a. you are new to the raid
3. Join training runs or
4. Make up your own lfg and search for like minded people

This will result in you being able to try out raids. Meanwhile, to have success in raids will be a completely different thing at start. I hope you differentiate here! Experienced players have practiced hours to beat the encounters and it’s obvious and just fair that they won’t carry you through it (for nothing). You have to spent the time by yourself.
(And this is the problem many players are facing. They don’t want to make an effort, fail and succeed with repeat but this is how it’s working.)

Celine.6857:

Plus I have already a set of ascended Rampager’s gear.

Change it via Mystic Forge? As one stated above, you can buy the receipts in Auric Basin.

OnizukaBR.8537:

People fail because of enrage timers, i already been in a lot of pubs that failed.

Wrong. 99% of all wipes are due to mistakes with mechanics.

OnizukaBR.8537:

Nobody wants to practice in a wipe party,

You have to fail to become better. And if you think you are superior to the rest of your group you’ll leave and look for a better one.

OnizukaBR.8537:

and without a timer i can go with a meta build and pratice my rotation, mechanics without worrying if my party members are using the right build.

No, without a timer you will try to tank your way through if you can’t handle the actual requirements leading to a cheezy way and the challenge would be gone.

OnizukaBR.8537:

There are a lot of people that still doesnt raid but would love just having a more relaxing and fun way to do it.

Raids are the challenging PvE end content in this game. It’s not meant to be facerolled like dungeons and fractals. And tbh they aren’t really hard to beat the problem of the big playerbase in GW2 is that the majority isn’t very good in this game.

Harper.4173:

Please don’t make me laugh.
“It wasn’t intended” – this is a joke. Developers should know better and honestly even if they were that bad that they couldn’t have the foresight to anticipate that the classic 56, 67, 77 runs would appear – there’s still no excuse.

Why? Because I and many others told them this would be exactly the case if the random nature of fractals would be changed.
I specifically made the argument people would just do the fractals that had the best reward to work ratio. Nobody cared – nobody listened.

“Hindsight is easier than foresight.” Only because you told them it was not 100% sure that people would take the path we had for about 6 months. I think they had some thoughts about the last daily system but it didn’t pay out. And we also know that the decisionmaking has been very special at Arenanet since release.

Harper.4173:

1. It wasn’t annoying – it didn’t have annoying instabilities – Fractal avengers and other things. This has been partially fixed with the instability rework – but up until the recent patch instabilities were incredibly annoying and unfun.

Yes, but it’s fixed now. Atm I see no problem with instabilities in any of the higher tier fractals.

Harper.4173:

2.The old 50 FOTM you could sell – these ones you can’t. The old 50 was good because you could 3 man it and make a good amount of gold on top of your drops. Now – the new T4s take nearly as much time but you can’t sell anything.
More time in – less stuff out – seems like a nerf to me.

You can still sell fractals and there is also demand for it (Mai Trin 100). It’s soloable. Others are able to low man too without bigger problems.
But ok, you got hit here which leads to a statement Anet has made about selling: As long as it’s possible they don’t forbid to do it but they also won’t support it and if there are changes you cannot rely on the selling part for the future.
To the “more time in – less stuff out”: Did you realize the amount of gold you are making now in just playing fractals without selling? After finishing all T4s (3 islands!) I get at least 10 gold or more + drops. Sometimes the gold is a little bit reduced when getting an asc box – seems very legit to me.

Harper.4173:

I’m just mad people look at a nerf and call it an “improvement”.

Well, regarding the lfg with tons of offers every day and many ingame and guild mates it was a big improvement for most of the players. Seems like you are one of the few that have a different view – can happen.

It’s a buff compared to Pre-HoT and the comparison to Pre-patch cannot be made because it wasn’t intended to run 56-67-77 and get the most possible reward!
Furthermore the most fractals are way easier than lvl 50 in the good old times – even with pugs. As long as it’s not Underground, Thaumanova or Mai Trin 100 together the walkthrough is a joke if you are using condi classes.

For me – sure this is subjective – the drop rate of ascended boxes has increased a lot compared to both status’ (Pre-HoT and Pre-patch) before. Since april, when the patch was installed I have gotten 7 asc boxes and never had such amount during the old fractals with 4 islands and neither the last 6 months.

timmyf.1490:

I’ve heard Fractal pugs are really hit or miss lately, but guildies have definitely shared stories of picking up pugs who clearly don’t have AR in high tier Fractals.

Indeed, those ppl exist. This morning I was pugging Mai Trin 100 and 2 out of 5 died instantly. I rezzed all players, played for one minute and was confronted with several downstates when I decided to wish them a good day and refused to carry them. One of them was laughing about my statement (one without AR) and I left. Sometimes I ask myself what is going on in some player’s brains.
Next group all had 150 AR, less than 10 harmless downstates, smooth run in a time of the achievement range.

bai long.2085:

Actually that’s incorrect. The first raid wing is, by now (by MMO standards) old. Many hardcore players have already left the game because they weren’t being challenged by the raids and there was nothing left for them. I think what you meant was that there are still people who haven’t beaten it.

No, for GW2 standards, and we all know it, even the first raid wing is still new content. No contradiction permitted.

bai long.2085:

I’ve NEVER said that raids are for everybody. What I’ve been saying this entire time is that everyone who’s skilled enough deserves the option to attempt it how they choose.

It is an option for everyone to wear any gear you want in raids but most likely it won’t let you succeed.
Again, wearing nomads gear and facing enemies takes no skill at all. 0,0%! To be a skilled player it also means you have to react to mechanics, learn them and then don’t die. This point is erased by wearing nomads in every other content of the game and you know that.

bai long.2085:

I don’t know how you could possibly make a statement like that. Can I not be a 5’2" person and still shoot a basketball well? Besides, you can’t know how I play, how well I dodge, etc. because you haven’t watched my screen while I play and I don’t have any videos up on youtube. You have to take what I say about myself at face value when you don’t have any way of knowing otherwise. I dodge, evade, block and perform fight mechanics as well as or better than other people (again, not to sound braggadocious).

I don’t care your comparison with basketball because it doesn’t fit here. And yes, I know that you aren’t playing well otherwise you wouldn’t wear full nomads with such an absurd conviction. There are only two arguments for playing nomads:
1. troll/fun build to goof around in the game (can be entertaining of course)
2. you are dying in any other gear which is very antic because even in soldiers gear I tested before HoT when the old tyrian content was “harder” (content was still very easy) without elite spec you couldn’t die except you were brainafk.

bai long.2085:

I may be uniquely qualified to disagree with you (but I won’t say how as it would incite more uneducated responses from other people), so I’ll say that the best way to win is to minimize your risk. You’ve never heard the tale of the tortoise and the hare?

As it’s more of a metaphorical speaking my paragraph wasn’t meant so serious but you gonna take it. I won’t need to reply further to this kitten. ^^

bai long.2085:

This is also false. If you dodge every attack then sure, you live forever. But, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about being able to literally stand there and take the damage IF I WANT TO. Don’t get confused about that statement and think that’s what I actually do in combat. Just because I’m wearing defensive gear doesn’t mean I dodge, block, evade any less than anyone else. It simply means, I can afford not to if need be. If you face-tank Mai Trin with Berserker’s gear you will die. I won’t. That’s my point, though. That’s a terrible way to play.

These words are the reason why I am so happy that Anet would never change their raid content.

bai long.2085:

Your tone makes it seem like maybe you have a degree in statistical analysis because I have no idea how you could know anything about how I play. Maybe you do have that degree. Though even if you did, you still wouldn’t be able to know.

Your post seemed to be more of a jab at me than anything else and I wish I could have pulled something more from it.

You have shown enough insights of your attitude in this thread to give me a good picture of yourself. Players being skilled, taking encounters seriously and making important thoughts wouldn’t behave and argue like you are doing, that’s all.

hornswroggle.8023:

But imagine not a pro player, TS3 coordinated group on scale 97 but rather a casual, exo geared random group on scale 7.
What I want is an easier accessibility and clarity especially for players who are new to Thaumanova or fractals in general.
Take a look at Uncategorized for example: It’s one of the medium length fracs, but your next task is always clear because of how the fractal is built. There is never uncertainty about what to do.
In Thaumanova, like I said in my suggestion, to an unexpierienced group the tasks are not always clear and it may take a few trials and errors to get even one of them done, which is already a source of frustration.
If you want to blink throuh the Heat Chamber because you can: be my guest.
But if you don’t know how to or don’t have the classes necessary the intended solution should not be as clunky and ambiguous as it is right now.

There are explanations in the upper right corner and even in the easiest level you have 3 opportunities from which you have to be successful in 2. It’s not very hard to find out.

bai long.2085:

I’m assuming, then, that none of you have any ideas for improvements to the raids?

Progressive change is healthy. Mind you, “progressive”.

Why so early? Raids are still new and appreciated by many players. It’s not necessary to change anything or optimize something till it’s broken. Some things are good as they are. (Doesn’t mean there are things in current raid wings that have to be improved – but it’s not anything that has to do with nomads gear.)

bai long.2085:

Guild Wars 2 was designed to allow that. I can go into a dungeon or fractal with 5 Cleric’s guardians all wielding maces if I want to and stand a chance, just like people often (or used to anyway) go in with 5 Berserker’s greatsword warriors (which was actually a pretty fast way of getting it done).

I can’t go in to the raid with 10 Cleric’s guardians with maces and shields? If they allowed it to be beaten that way it would be too easy right?

GW2 was designed like this at headstart. But raids are a relatively new thing in this game and Anet already said that it is a little step aside from the “PHIW”-style. This game is so big that raids are just a little percentage of the game. And they were designed for a different player community than the core game is offering. It’s not that I’m against you personally but I’m against that raids are content for everybody because then they wouldn’t be challenging one single second you play them. A very valuable player community would have left the game (many skill-oriented players already have left due to lack of challenging content before) so it was a well thought move of the company to implement raids like they are now.

bai long.2085:

I’m too skilled and too defensive to be killed by anything that exists in any fractals.

Sorry to say, but you are not skilled at all in that gear. Every blind crippled one-handed monkey could facetank fractals in nomads. Skill is the last thing involved here. (No offense to monkeys, they are cute and often funny animals.)

bai long.2085:

If you want to win at something, play it safe right?

Wrong. You won’t win if you don’t risk a thing. That’s a more realistic approach for the real life as well. You are safe on the way home.

bai long.2085:

Should I be allowed to live forever against Mai Trin 100? I don’t think so. It’s a little unfair honestly because I’m like an insurance policy. Since day 1 it’s been about either doing things quickly or doing things safely.

Who cares? Even full offensive groups with zerker/viper only live forever against Mai Trin 100. She hits like cotton wool. You have no point here.

bai long.2085:

I know because I’m that good and I don’t. I have 28k health and it never drops below 24k.

I have to pick it up again: You are not (that) good. It’s the gear giving you false pretences.

At last: You were told to look for a group letting you play in your nomads gear. Maybe you will find like-minded people out there willing to take you with them.
Like Nike wrote before, the content can be low-manned so there is actually room for some (not all) players in “PHIW”-style. I also agree to him that your problems are located elsewhere probably (very probably).

Red Daing.7804:

To OP, please learn how to use statistics before posting. 8,9% chance to have an ascended box (armour or weapon) in T4+T3 +T2 chests is totally wrong.

You cant add percentages….

Edit : In this case and just for armour and weapons :
Master : 3,4% for armour and 1,4% for weapon
Expert : 2,4% for armour and 0,5% for weapon
Adept : 1,2% for armour and 0,2% for weapon

Gives for armour : 3,4+2,4+1,2 = 7 : 3 = 2,3333% chance to get an armour chest from doing a T4 fractal (3 chests)

For weapon : 1,4+0,5+0,2 = 2,1 : 3 = 0,7% chance to get a weapon chest from doing a T4 fractal (3 chests).

Now I know why you were ranting about asc boxes some days ago. Wrong math added to a bad rng is the problem on your side.

STIHL.2489:

What… amazed that one time I said the same things you have, (maybe a whole lot worse) at a different time on a different forum?

Why does that sound absurd to you? Ever stop and think, that maybe, over the course of the last 17 some odd years of seeing months and years of spending time to master the difficult content turn to vapor the second I opted to move on to something else, that maybe, after I have been playing MMO’s long enough, that I learned how futile your stand really is, because I have been there?

Oh I forgot we are talking with Your Majesty. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

STIHL.2489:

I have been raiding in MMO’s, since well, raids existed, I’ve seen them evolve from Mega World Bosses that only spawned once a week into what is an instance based ‘double group’ dungeon that was done on timed rotations. I’ve killed more Raid Bosses then I care to count, but, my first was Lady Vox. Never seem to forget that, after all these years.

None the less, There is a whole legion of worlds out there to experience and I’ve played my share of them.

Anyway, Glad you’re building memories.

Go build a million more of them, just try not to become toxic in the process. Learn to let other people have their fun, get their baubles as you collect whatever paltry shinies you can from this game and you’re next however many.

My GEB’s, RMB’s, and Cloak of Flames are vaporware today, even tho it took me months to get them. My Epic Sword of Shadows is now just a bit code in some other game, means nothing here. I can’t wave it around to you all, and say “Look at me and be impressed” none of you would be, so, I hate to say it, don’t expect any of us to be impressed by what you do in this game, or when the time comes, and you move on, no one is going to care if you dropped Sabatah or got a legendary back scratchier, anymore then you would care that I soloed Shroud on a Bard or that my pally was always wearing an Epic Torq.

Learn that the real value is in fun, the laughs, and the memories, the good times, the thrills and chills you build, not the items you get. Never worth it to become toxic over a game. There will be many other games, but only one you.

Not worth it to poison yourself over digital junk.

So ask yourself, what are you trying to prove here, what was your point to engage me? What did you hope to gain?

You were the one talking bad about raids in GW2 and a toxic environment especially in this community while it’s not debatable that certain communities behaved like this in every online game so far. You had no point here and with your explanation of being a raider in other game your presence here with those written words is just….I don’t know, ridiculous or absurd could be the right words.

Osu.6307:

I have to disagree with you there. Fractals are basically dungeons that scale up in difficulty. With the exception of thaumanova, none of the fractals require much in the way of coordination or chat. With the exception of t1 fracs, everyone expects the other members of the party to know what to do in every fight. RAIDS were not meant to be pugged.

Well, Anet hasn’t implemented an lfg tool when releasing group content so there is no doubt that the intention of the company was to conquer 5-man-content organized e.g. with friends or guild mates.
It was the community that asked for that tool and got it in the end.
And personally I don’t compare fractals with dungeons. Dungeons are a cake walk they were before HoT and afterwards. Fractals are a step higher, a thing between dungeons and raids.
The only official statement of Anet about pugs was during the launch of the raid when they were saying that this content definitely needs a proper group.

STIHL.2489:

How well you do on the Boss, that would remain to be seen however. I remember solo kiting the Boss though Molten Traps while my friend was on the levers all the while the rest of the group took turns rezzing each other, and while it was tedious, it was also a testament to perseverance and skill, as well as a full group is people unwilling to quit, they died by the buckets, but just got back up and keep going at it. It was inspiring, made me and my friend feel great that we could pull that off too. I think they realized they needed some improvement after that, but we still won the fight and walked away with our daily.

To me, that is what the game is about. Those fights that you talk about for years after. Those pulling out the victory from the jaws of defeat. Long after you stopped playing, you sill joke with your friends about some of the most harrowing encounters where it came down to just you (or your friend as the case may be) to be the hero and save the moment.

It’s a game, at some point we will stop playing it, and the digital baubles will be worthless, but those moments, that thrill, that chance to really shine and be able to share that with the people right there with you… that is all the take away you will ever get.

If you get that from raids, kudos.

Well, it’s obvious that you have never taken a serious footstep into raiding. Yes, I do also remember those epic duos in fractals and dungeon with a friend or even soloing Lupicus when all other pugs died and it felt good and yeah, sometimes you felt a bit proud too.
But as a person that has never been in an MMO before and never seen any raid I can tell you that it was much more impressive to get VG down with 10 people some days after release. The atmosphere was thrilling and the feeling way more satisfying than anything else I’ve found out before and I will never forget that ever.

Teach your pugs I would recommend. I/We always write it in the chat to go melee before the bossfight. I am/We are forgiving for the first 2-3 times when people don’t want to read/hear. After these few tries I/we will ask what is wrong with them and if they continue to refuse to communicate or play for success I/we start a vote kick and boot them.

Red Daing.7804:

I only pug (alone) and most of the time all T4 fractals (except swamp and molten duo) take more than 15 mns to complete (can also be a lot longer). That’s a fact.

That’s not a fact for everyone. It is just your single experience from pugging. I repeat myself: Fractals weren’t designed to be pugged in the first place. Be happy that you can. I would always prefer a 5-man group over pugging due to obvious reasons.

Red Daing.7804:

I only do fractals for ascended boxes, wouldnt bother to do this content (did it enough) every day without this reward. I know faster way to make gold if I need it and I dont need T7 mats.

T7 mats are needed to craft asc items tyi. To insist on boxes only is ridiculous and childish. Some people are never satisfied and so the whole point is not debatable for me.
He is right imho:

As someone who has done fractals daily since 2012, I think fractals loot is the best it has ever been right now.

Red Daing.7804:

15 mns with pugs ? You have to be really lucky… Even a good group will need more than 15 mns for T4 underground facility, uncategorized or thaumanova reactor… For the player’s majority, your argument is a joke.

These are the longer ones, ok. But even if we have these 3 together on one day, the next days it’ll be shorter or medium ones ofc.

Look:
Aquatic Ruins = very fast
Swamp = very fast
Aetherblade = very fast
Molten Duo = very fast
Snowblind = (very) fast, only endboss has too many hp
Volcanic = fast
Solid Ocean = fast to medium but very easy
Urban Battleground = very fast to medium (depending on strat), very easy
Molten Furnace = medium but very easy
Mai Trin 100 = medium but easy (she is no threat, seriously!, all pugs except one I ran with beat the challenge by almost 10 minutes left or more and we weren’t even trying)

Thaumanova = “longer” (in pugs) and maybe a bit annyoing when facing the boss
Uncategorized = “longer” but not very hard
Underground = “longer” – can be a pain with pugs but also a blast with good ppl
Cliffside = “longer” but shorter as before, easy to medium till boss, boss is new so ppl have to learn the best strat – let’s evaluate this in 1-2 months

This is just my personal view from pugging along with one friend and some rare runs with another guild mate. Maybe, well coordinated groups will laugh about the list I made up and that’s a key point:
Fractals were never meant to be pugged in the first place. The lfg is an offer that Anet has made for the players. You can’t expect to have a cake walk with ppl you don’t know and with only a tiny chat communication.

Red Daing.7804:

As said before 2,4% for 120 chests, doesnt look like “up and down”, more likely “down” only.

You just have an eye for the asc boxes, I can understand that because it’s the biggest reward besides getting an expensive precursor (what will never happen). But you forget the T7 mats yielding 10-20g depending on which one you get. While I agree that a fractal potion, a single ecto, an unidentified dye or a tome of knowledge is not a proper reward for T4, the rest isn’t as bad as a few ppl want us make believe. Yeah, you can have a bad rng but it’ll pay out for everyone. If you’re really looking for making the best out of your time, you should go farming gold on several maps I won’t mention here. You know them for sure.

Of course it’ll take longer than before if you compare it to “Swamp Of The Mists” which wasn’t intended. SOTM was player driven, a joke and a painful thing to watch for fractal veterans.
At the moment it’s way better plus it feels more rewarding in my opinion. I haven’t had nightmare runs so far. Some bad ones, yes, resulting in 1-2 players leaving but with the new guys it went smooth afterwards. I recommend a friend to run with ya. He doesn’t even have to be very good – I take a great sword mesmer guildie with me – but the communication can prevent complete group wipes and you can rely on each other.

I agree to the rewards like potions, ectos or tomes of knowledge only. I think that should be changed maybe to 10 ectos, a good amount of T6 mats or something comparable to that.

Pugging T2-T3 can be one of the most annoying things if you aren’t skilled enough to solo/duo them because there are a lot of players in these tiers who were running “swamp of the mists” only before HoT. They are there for the fast reward and never bothered about learning encounters or even try to succeed in higher fractals. If they cannot, they will try to cheese/exploit.
In my experience it’s different in T4 where you find way more relaxed players with patience knowing it could last a minute longer here and there.
I recommend to take a guild mate with you, the more the better, fill the rest with pugs
and you will reach T4 very soon.

Scipion.7548:

Are necros accepted in Dungeon and Fractals?

Depressing. I dont know other AAA mmorpgs where you can read that kind of question, “is class X accepted in …”.
Has GW2 the worst community or the worst balance classes ?

Sounds to me that he made bad experiences in others MMOs therefore he is asking this question here before stepping into the same thing.

STIHL.2489:

but this kind of content really seems to bring out the worst among people as opposed to the best in them, and all it ends up doing is divide up the community, as opposed to bring people together.

Well, that’s obviously not true. Have you ever played PvP? Way worse.

Ever farmed on maps like Cursed Shore or Silverwastes? Map chat way worse from time to time. Running dungeons and fractals wasn’t very toxic before HoT. Some got the impression because this content is small scale, you act together with 5 people and you can insult personally while you can only blame a big group of players in open world content. But they weren’t right in blaming the specific dungeon community.
People were not willing to accept speed clear groups and were excluded with their (stupid) cleric heal guards e.g. reacting with “the dungeon community is toxic” instead of just open an own lfg with “everybody welcome”. We all know why they didn’t open that, it was because they knew it would take forever to even kill the spider in AC with that group. So they joined groups without meeting the requirements and blew the whole thing up, every day, every week, every month. But yeah, the dungeon community was still the toxic part in these stories.

The raid groups I joined weren’t harassing at all. Not a single group I’ve joined. And let’s be really honest: Most of the toxic behaviour results from people not reading lfgs or they read them but want to be carried and try to sneak into. And such moves are annoying and an insult itself for players that want their lfg to be accepted. All they get is a disrespectful behaviour of a human being which is, for raids, on purpose.
Yeah, on purpose, because no newer players accidentally rush into a raid lfg.
I am totally against toxic replies towards such disrespectful players but I can understand it because it says the following: I don’t care your lfg and your wishes. I also want to play that content and you will accept my presence whatever you may have determined. In my eyes such characteristic traits have to be punished, not with an insult of course, but they should be punished!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

You might want to take a step back on slinging that “lazy” term around. The vast majority of players no not use the forums. And players do ask questions, here and in game, and do you know what people tell them? Go wiki it. Go youtube it. Go research it. There is a reason people stop bothering after a while. Its the exact same kitten we saw in dungeons and in fractals.

Sorry, but to use youtube, the wiki, doing “research” on google, look for guides is what you have to do. You won’t get everything from the silver plate. Same thing like in real life. If you have a guild it can help in every aspect of the game. There is so much information out there, we are playing an online game so the rest of the big internet is just some klicks away. Why can’t people explore for themselves or just use simple guides which explain very much faster and better how to get certain things done?
And do you know how hard and often frustrating it is to teach decent or bad players some of the content like fractals and dungeons? I am helping in my guild in about 25% of my playtime. It’s a thing I like to do but some of those days I am in a bad mood because players cannot listen and react to the simplest things.

LegACy.1296:

Vinceman.4572:

xrayane.1842:

I saw during the last two days, while look for a group to do Sloth, two announces " 90+ Li only, eternal, gearcheck, killproof – NO FRENCH PLAYER ", " Only eternal +70Li, BE VERY EXP OR EASY KICK FOR NOOBS ", "Exp or kick, no missplays ". No wonder why people think the raiding community is toxic, and I honnestly think it is partialy true, a LOT of raiders are actually very toxic. I think it’s Anet’s role to moderate announces like this in the lfg, and to try to reduce the toxicity, when a player gets reported for insults, he must be looked at and things must be done for this kind of toxic players.

Edit : at the moment I’m posting, a group announces " eternal only, fail once = kick " xD

Yes, these are jokes and no serious requests. You forgot the “+99LI” because it was “+99 LI, eternal only, fail once = kick”.

Huh, why are you so sure they’re jokes? The hardcore-est of player probably already have that number of LI (seriously asking here)

Because it’s the same player having this lfg at the moment:
“VG Only 30k+ap+250 LI+ All Legendaries + All ascended gear + exp + 10k gold + take one dmg = kick”

These are lfgs from desperate players and those who are jealous. ^^

xrayane.1842:

I saw during the last two days, while look for a group to do Sloth, two announces " 90+ Li only, eternal, gearcheck, killproof – NO FRENCH PLAYER ", " Only eternal +70Li, BE VERY EXP OR EASY KICK FOR NOOBS ", "Exp or kick, no missplays ". No wonder why people think the raiding community is toxic, and I honnestly think it is partialy true, a LOT of raiders are actually very toxic. I think it’s Anet’s role to moderate announces like this in the lfg, and to try to reduce the toxicity, when a player gets reported for insults, he must be looked at and things must be done for this kind of toxic players.

Edit : at the moment I’m posting, a group announces " eternal only, fail once = kick " xD

Yes, these are jokes and no serious requests. You forgot the “+99LI” because it was “+99 LI, eternal only, fail once = kick”.

And it’s ok this way because it was never meant to get full rewards from doing 56-67-77 like everybody did before the change.

Sun Lian.4075:

The other day I joined a fractal 40 farm, instantly in chat “necro is so kitteng useless” and I’m out of the group. That’s how ridiculous the meta thing is, while it really matters nothing at all in this case. Can you get how annoying that is when you just like to play your class which is my main, and don’t really have the time or gold to get another character that is in meta, according to them?

While I won’t commenting the other stuff about the raiding issue because all the others here have said enough about it (and they are right, you are not), I’ll say some words about farming level 40 fractals.
Condi Necro isn’t useless for T4 fractals but it’s understandable you were kicked out of a farm run group. These groups want to be very fast to melt down the champion and the duo afterwards and repeat the whole thing over and over again. In this situation a condi necro is one of the classes you don’t want to bring in.
Yeah, this group could have made a more proper lfg (like most of the farming ones are doing) in which they state that they want to have certain classes but you really can’t blame them. And you also can’t take this as an excuse for a bad or toxic meta. Running fractals the usual way is working with a condi necro even if it is T4 or not. Nobody will kick you there at the moment. You just joined a very special one.
I recommend a PS warrior, herald, chrono or an ele to go farm level 40. You can go in with exotic gear and some asc trinkets to achieve enough AR for that level. And you also don’t need to have another main for that just know a good dps rotation, easiest here is warrior imho. In these farm groups there are a lot of players not playing their main and that’s for a reason. It’s just stupid farming, almost brain afk to get money.
Be a little flexible here and be smart that’s all. And don’t add this to a non-existent toxic meta environment.

Well, but there are enough experienced players offering teaching/training runs.
And it’s not toxic if you aren’t willing to spend your short time playing this game to teach people something you are able to do. It’s a gentle offer if you do so nothing more.

In the end you can watch video guides, use proper/meaningful builds/classes, take the right buff food but you have to play on your own. Yes, it can be very frustrating sitting in a group with 1 or more low performers. The amount of bad other players that will never beat the first raid boss in its current state is huge in GW2. You either realize that asap and change your roster or you won’t succeed. This is why I left some raiding groups and guildies I tried to play with. You have to make such hard decisions and of course, it’s kind of egoistic but comprehensible if you want to move on.

reikken.4961:

Sparks The Rescue.5043:

V key

??

V key = dodge key for the most players

I have never said that in particular you belong to those who are getting carried and only raiders are the good ones. But I met a lot of players thinking they were the king of Tyria’s dungeons and fractals wiping around the next corner if an elite mob was only looking at them.
And regarding my daily fractal runs with pugs, it is no wonder that the most experienced and best players with only rare downstates are the ones with “The Eternal” or mastery point numbers way above 100, not to say 163 and 166 (a.k.a. raiders with at least decent succes). Of course, also bad apples with the title (bought raids e.g.) on this side and some good on the other but it’s very common in video/online games that people overestimate themselves so much. MMOs are no exception in this case. It reminds me of the beginning of League of Legends when legions of bronze and silver trash players whining about others being in higher ranked leagues claiming themselves being able to play in higher tiers. Ridiculous! From day to day you picked one up to play with, to check his level, to help and after less than 5 minutes you knew why he was only bronze/silver and couldn’t get out of the bottom trash. That’s it for me in the discussion about being good or bad.

And about your complaint of repetition. Well, it’s the only thing we can advise:
1. Try harder
2. Stop complaining
(3. Become better)

I posted it in another thread: Every player I met that wanted to get in touch with serious raiding has made it. Maybe there are reasons why it won’t work for you. You should reconsider them.
I am no psychologist but your rant about my valid, calm and structured arguments is very enlightening for me why it hasn’t been successful for you till the recent day.

FrostDraco.8306:

And how many training runs does your group run a week? It’s probably zero to three. And even if you did that, you wouldn’t advertise that on LFG now would you?

Why should his group run training runs if they all have managed to clear the raid? Just to help others in the game and be the Good Samaritan? You can’t expect players to offer things for any other player in this game.

FrostDraco.8306:

How is someone supposed to practice raid mechanics when all the groups you try to join wont let you? I have joined 10 raiding guilds this month. They have set times (so they say) for raids. Most of them claim to do a training run every week. Want to know how many i have seen, and how many they have actually done? One. Out of 10 guilds only 1 run, from 1 guild. And that got canceled because the person who was organizing it backed out at the last moment.

Leave the 10 behind, go for the next 10 until you find a group/community that keeps the promise. Like Raizen said earlier before it isn’t easy to find a good and efficient group. It’s (hard) work for very little reward and that is why you need to be a very patient person and be able to accept a lot of frustration.
I am reading my specific forums (german) almost every day just for the informations and I see a lot guild/community offers referring to raids. Last week I tried out one casual offer to see if it is worth to give it a try. I went into raids with them and we had 4 tries on VG with 2 completely new players to this encounter and we got VG to around 20% or less of it’s full hp. It was really astounding and all were very satisfied with this result.
So, my experiences after 1 community are different from your ten.

FrostDraco.8306:

So basically its been nothing but constant lies. Of course I will keep trying (because i want to learn the raid), but to sit here and say that we “joined a group and failed and are QQing here”, well some of us haven’t even gotten to join a group. I spent 2 hrs a night since the patch in the Raid LFG and the aerodrome looking for a single beginner run for raids. Have yet to find one that would take me. Viper necro. Full ascended with 5 condi stat infusions. I spent 200 gold switching from power because no one would accept power reapers. And now that I’m vipers those same people won’t do the training runs they said they would be.

You have 1 asc class? Well, go for at least 1 more, better 2, so you have a bigger diversity to fit into a group.

FrostDraco.8306:

So please spare me the bull about people ‘wanting to blame the raiding community’. The raiding community is what has been doing said action so of course they get the blame. Who else should? SW farmers?

Too much frustration, too much impatience. Maybe raiding is not made for you.

FrostDraco.8306:

I don’t agree with all of the OP’s points, but they arent ‘making up stuff’. Groups will not put what they are looking for in LFG, and then kick you because they expected something else, when they are the ones that didn’t put any requirements in LFG (its happened to me several times).

Then open your own group. Training run groups should fill very fast. But it’s the same thing since people were ranting about dungeon pugs and lfg. They all want to be carried and be as fast as good players. We gave the advices since years: *Put your own lfg with “first time – need help” or someting like this. But we all know why certain people aren’t following this. The reason is that they will meet players that are bad as they are which leads into a long & painful run.

Astralporing.1957:

Thaddeus.4891:

So where is your significant nerf to the rewards?

liquid rewards. Full daily is around the same as before last change in total from daily chests (maybe even a little bit less than befroe), but significant part of it is in T4. There are new rewards that make the wealth gain better (ascended mats, for example), but they are also limited to t4. Also, you’re getting less encryptions now for a full daily.

Don’t forget they “re-nerfed”/buffed dungeon rewards to a huge extent.

Well, for me the system is ok. It’s a legit thing to say you have to craft your first armor to be geared perfectly for the highest fractals and with that you can get more over time for your alts from drops. Keep in mind that there are players out there that never crafted an asc armor and still they have a complete set.
If you lower the chance again it would flood the storage.
And my last point, there are fractals where you don’t need the proper amount of all the AR. My buddy was lacking T4 AR yesterday. The dredge fractal he went upstairs only at the endboss without a problem, Snowblind has 0 AR checks so easy peasy again and volcanic fractal was also no problem. You can constantly working towards your goal, just don’t expect it to be face roll more like it already is.

In terms of good players it doesn’t matter what classes you bring, it’s only a matter of time then. I tend to Moa’s opinion, it depends on the players who are playing the fractals. I beat all tier 4, sometimes only the highest of the high fractals, with different classes and compositions. Too many players out there don’t know how to handle their class properly and to make a fight much easier with little adjustments. It was the case pre-patch when you saw people dying since wisp running at swamps of the mist and now they all run around with the new backpack and shiny other stuff kissing every fricking yellow indicator at arch diviner. It always makes me cry to see that.
It’s not the content that’s hard on higer fracs, it’s the number of pugs you have to carry making it harder in your group.

Torolan.5816:

Care to share the rest of your story with us too?
You know, where you were finally forced to take one of the worse players in then and when because one of your buddies had to run of to shame a violin or an instrument like that by trying to play it and he made you or one of your buddies look bad or was at least much better than you had expected.
Assuming that you are old enough to have played on your own instead of in a Kindergarten or Hort(children from 6 to around 10) like the large majority of children today, you at least had the excuse of nobody caring about social skills.^^

I can asure you that this happens every day between children playing soccer. The kids that can play always kitten and moan when we urge them to take one of the not so good players in their team, but most are pleasantly surprised how that supposed loser fared and how at least one of therir frriends can barely keep pace with the other guy.

Where I fully agree with you is this:
“Appearance and reality – appearance and reality, that’s all need to be said in the end!”

I don’t believe in miracles. Like I said, every person that wants to get in touch with serious raiding will do so and find a group. It has to do with patience and also frustration that not very many players are willing or able to invest.
And sorry, I have no faith in the majority of GW2 players because over the years till today I’ve seen enough horrible players. Maybe here and there you will find a jewel but the huge amount of the playerbase isn’t so it’s just understandable to set (high) requirements and refuse anyone without these.

0/10 – try harder!

Rivindor.7258:

If my dungeon experience has no value in this content then this makes this even better. If I can complete this in pugs, anyone can. If anyone is interested in these runs they may add me.

You’re a little bit wrong here. Dungeons are doable in pugs, raid also but on a completely higher level. Dungeons are kinda faceroll for everyone that can handle their char.
It’s very questionable that everyone could even beat the first raid boss. I’ve been in there with my fun guild, where most of the people are playing open world and some of them will never have the chance to beat the Vale Guardian – never ever. But in dungeons it is no problem for them to run through with some other players.

If my pug is struggling with the ice elemental I just go yolo mode bringing in my cleric heal guard with tons of defense, so my kitten feel warm and healthy at all times. You don’t need AR there so it’s possible to bring whatever char you like.
But I agree on the hp of Lornarr, it’s a bit annoying.

Roundabout 15 Minutes here with an unorganized pug. A necro, a dragonhunter not 100% dps as it seemed, a thief + two warriors.

emma.5967:

Yes I informed myself, that’s why I posted those links. One with the OFFICIAL retailers. I’m not making this up.

Your choice, not mine. Some people call it conservative, some others irrational. Dunno, but personally I can’t see anything wrong with serious sources that selling for a little less than the big players that are draining the wallet of their sticky consumers. That should have been your point in this discussion btw. “The evil ones”.

emma.5967:

It’s not even one and a half year and somewhat around 500hours … so someone with 5000hours should have paid 10x the price? Because we’re not kittening commies, are we?

Funny question aside: Is this why you also don’t vote for Bernie Sanders in US presedential elections? Ah forgot, you are european. ^^
You bought a game that was one and a half year old and to that point of time you haven’t even paid the full price unless you were not so smart to buy an overpriced version. Anet themselves made good offers and since the date of 22nd of august 2013 you have gotten the game for 39,99€ or less and this one was the expensive heroic version. There were also many offers of 10€ for an normal account.
Ah I see, you are lacking the 1.5 years…well the argumentation is the same buying an 1.5 year old car.

emma.5967:

And for sports you’re considering the cost of shoes and clothes – but for an online game you’re taking hardware, internet and electricity out of the equation? Maybe that’s why we’re on different opinions on money and prices.

I haven’t bought my pc for gaming only, it’s also a working place and of course for other purposes. But try to make sports without proper shoes, proper clothes and if it’s not running or anything else, you have to pay way more to adequately do it. For GW2 you just take your game and play it. The pc was there before because the game is the luxury, not the pc.

emma.5967:

Oh, now I get it … you’re just playing with the box! Now it does make sense. And than there is barely any differnce due to the xpac.

I don’t understand this one but ok, I will go on.

emma.5967:

I’m playing fractals most of my time. Pre and post HoT. So if I’m getting excluded from ‘only’ the last 25 levels (those with the challenge and the loot) … yes, if feel neglected. If it we’re the lower 25 levels i would not complain.

Then buy the expac.

emma.5967:

And with higher infusions you’re talking about these?
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/20_Agony_Infusion

I would have 130 AR with three of them. … If you’d send me three of those I will stop complaining on this game … FOREVER!

Go grind or buy the expac then. You WANT to have it, so do something for it. They changed it, omg. They didn’t ask you, well, they could but they didn’t. Get over it and behave like an adult. You have children, be an example and stop complaining. It’s getting more and more ridiculous, like a little kid that doesn’t get the sweets.

emma.5967:

If you can’t see a difference in the PvP builds due to specializations, i can’t take your arguments seriously anymore.

Well, you must have been in the top tier of PvP players then.

Absurdistan at it’s best!

emma.5967:

Oh, I didn’t knew that you’re the one who decides which complaints are important and which are not. But that would explain a lot.

Come on, all I am asking is to be realistic. Sure, everyone has dreams but look around in this forum. Almost nobody complains here about not having HoT. You belong to a minority which is not the case if you look at the issue with SAB and WvW. Be realistic!

emma.5967:

Some people lost their accounts / money because they trusted some shady Internet offers:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Buying-HoT-through-a-3rd-Party-Careful/first#post5175830
https://www.guildwars2.com/retailers/
All GW2 official retailers I get recommended are 40€ and up.

Yeah, you should not choose the first or darkest seller coming along. Inform yourself, like I already stated, Google can help you. It’s not that hard.

emma.5967:

Ok. getting to personal for me here. I don’t have to justify to you how I am spending my money. I don’t think you’ll ever understand that 45€ is a lot of money for some people, as long as you’re not in that position yourself. Yes it is luxury.

Of course, 45€ can be a lot of money, no doubt. But still, the end of the argument is that you either buy yourself extravagant things or not.

emma.5967:

But when I bought the game they stated: You pay once and there will be no additional costs. That was THE unique selling point, they marketed with, to be other than all those other MMO’s. And that was the main reason why I bought the game! Because I can’t afford those other expensive MMO’s.

Let’s suppose you started at release (or even in beta), so you had over 3 (!) years game experience in an online game for a price of around 50€ and not a single cent more. Please calculate the the price per hour and when you’re done compare it to other video games and any other time consuming hobby. Playing cards will be cheaper but even if you do sports, the shoes, the clothes are in addition way more expensive than playing Guild Wars 2.
Now they change and add something in the game, you are only excluded from 25 levels in fractals unless you buy higher infusions which is possible after a certain time and you feel neglected? I don’t take the PvP argument seriously because we have several posters at least in the german forum that are playing without expac and have no issues. Yeah, if you want to compete in the esports scene you have to upgrade, but that has always been a thing in competitions whatever they are.

tl;dr: It’s a bit awkward to complain if you look right into the reality of things.

Yesterday one of our group members got 3 boxes while the other ones got none. I got none either from my pug runs today but it’s ok because the amount of gold and the other “trash” (golden relics, rings, t7 mats, blc etc.) is enough reward.

Just a comment to that:
Don’t expect these groups to clear the first wing or even defeat VG at all. But if that is your goal you have to work very hard in the first place although you and your group members have a decent amount of skill.
And don’t compare dungeons or fractals to raids. The difference is huge. With HoT and the elite specs even pugs shred their way through dungeons like never before, same thing for about the first 50 levels of fracs.

Rednik.3809:

So having mechanics that punishes you for someone else mistakes in content designed with pugging in mind is good for you, I get it.
(And thanks, but I’m not fan of bad console ports.)

First, fractals were designed for groups although you can solo them. They weren’t specially designed for pugging.
Secondly, if we are going after your personal wishes, we have to rework almost every encounter where a pug can make your life harder, not only cliffside. This would be bullkitten. Get your pug straight, explain it to them. Try it several times, if they are too stupid to get it, leave or decide to go on without them.
In my opinion the encounter is fine. It punishes bad players which should be the case therewith not every semi-afk-ranged player can rush through.