Guild Wars 2

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

Fractals are already as boring and tedious as dungeons. As I said above, you can roll a dice when selecting a dungeon path for the same effect. Saying that fractals are based on randomness sounds quite absurd and I would like to see a source if you have any.

If they want to encourage variation they can quite easily add new daily quest with randomly selected dungeon paths / fractal maps to complete. Instead of forcing us to do things they should give us a reason to do those things.

Source: Dictionary

frac·tal
?frakt?l/Submit
MATHEMATICS
noun
plural noun: fractals

a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.

What’s next? A bible? Anyways, I’m up for renaming fractals if we can then have sensible discussion.

You asked for source, I gave you the source. Renaming fractals? What’s next? Fractals are fractals because of their nature. What you’re trying to do is create a whole new content.

I’m not gonna stand by and watch something that I’ve been playing, turn into another speed clearing track. Create an extra mode if you have to, but don’t overhaul the entire system.

Nature or dictionary? Please try to choose.

Anyways, on more serious tune, in my opinion fractals are based on mini dungeons with high difficulty due to scaling. That’s their main mechanic, not random map selection. Lore wise, fractals can also refer to random nature of the maps. They have pretty much nothing in common and there’s no reasoning why we are living exactly those events.

Why do you care so much if others are able to reliably speedclear content? We can already speedclear it, just have to grind until we get lucky with rolls.

phys.7689:

Wethospu.6437:

Could also explain me how your explanation fits “having an incentive to do all content”?

not sure what your question is here, but as for the incentives, i agree they are completely off right now, Along with make changes in variability, they need to change the incentivized behavior from doing the easiest thing as fast as possible.

This is why i suggested earlier, that fractals give out bonus gold/relics/karma based on metrics which consider
*Average time to complete fractal among players in the last 2 weeks
*Average deaths in Fractal in last two weeks
*Average times completed compared to rolled in the last two weeks.

This would mean better rewards for fractals that take longer, are more dangerous, and not often completed.

This would auto correct itself based on current trends for players. If people figure how to make a run easy, its bonus rewards go down.

the addition of an item box for say 100 fractal relics that contains a chance at similar drops to what you get in fractal daily chests, and an option to turn in fractal rewards (like wrong skins,rings, ascended boxes etc) for fractal relics would make fractal relics desireable, and combined with bonus as i mentioned, would make doing hard fractals worthwhile.

Not really a question here. I just would have preferred you answering my whole question instead of cherry picking a part of it.

So if you acknowledge that they can create a system to promote all content then why do we need the random then? At least personally I don’t need any preparations to deal with random map selection. If I get map A I play it. If I get map B I play it.

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

Fractals are already as boring and tedious as dungeons. As I said above, you can roll a dice when selecting a dungeon path for the same effect. Saying that fractals are based on randomness sounds quite absurd and I would like to see a source if you have any.

If they want to encourage variation they can quite easily add new daily quest with randomly selected dungeon paths / fractal maps to complete. Instead of forcing us to do things they should give us a reason to do those things.

Source: Dictionary

frac·tal
?frakt?l/Submit
MATHEMATICS
noun
plural noun: fractals

a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. Fractals are useful in modeling structures (such as eroded coastlines or snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.

What’s next? A bible? Anyways, I’m up for renaming fractals if we can then have sensible discussion.

phys.7689:

—
as for some questions wethospu asked, no adding new content doesnt create variability and replayability, it creates more options, but options in reality boil down to what is optimal. First you take the goal of the player, then based on that you look at the optimal solution, the rest of the possible solutions dont figure in to variability and replayability any more, because they wont be selected.

If someones goal is to beat fractals as fast as possible once per day, the best solution would be to do the easiest/fastest fractals possible repeatedly, all other fractals wont matter. Anything in the level design that takes time, or is sub optimal, wont be done either. Many will become bored, because even if it has 1000 options, people only do 1 option. Even if all the options are the same difficulty, people will choose the one they know best, and others know best. (this is why there are only two champ trains even though many zones have champions)
—

Could also explain me how your explanation fits “having an incentive to do all content”?

Fractals are already as boring and tedious as dungeons. As I said above, you can roll a dice when selecting a dungeon path for the same effect. Saying that fractals are based on randomness sounds quite absurd and I would like to see a source if you have any.

If they want to encourage variation they can quite easily add new daily quest with randomly selected dungeon paths / fractal maps to complete. Instead of forcing us to do things they should give us a reason to do those things.

Conski Deshan.2057:

If I had to choose between loosing the randomness in fractals to allow leader-boards I’d choose to loose leader-boards. I like the randomness it stops it being as mind numbingly repetitive as dungeons.

Also I prefare indirect competition to direct, I.E I have x y z items you only managed to get item x and y as opposed to I am 5 seconds faster than you. being higher on a leader-board than someone else does nothing for me, having something someone else doesn’t is awsome.

Do you realize you could just roll a dice and use it select dungeon and path to run? Nothing forces you to always run same paths.

phys.7689:

—
you dont need fully randomly generated content, you just need random variation, being that there are already examples of this in fractals, and dynamic events in game, it shouldnt be outside of whats possible, or even be that difficult to implement. As far as scope, its tricky to say whats out of scope, nothing and everything is the answer. They can probably do almost anything, the question is what they want to do. But its an MMO, they should be doing something, and big somethings fairly periodically. The genre generally has within it, adding new classes, zones, bosses, game modes, dungeons etc within its design on a yearly basis. for example, GW1 added 18 dungeons in EOTN in about 10 months.

So point is, yeah its within the realms of possibility, it depends heavily on what they want to do.

I still can’t quite grasp why do you need randomness. If you want variation, wouldn’t more content and incentive to do that content achieve the same thing?

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Wethospu.6437:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I can’t get behind the instability system. It’s still the same lame dungeon which you want to complete as fast as possible to get the loot (Yes, that’s grind and GW2 turned into a grindy game) and the instabilities just slow you down. There is not even an explanation for those instabilities storywise.

How are instabilities making that worse? Even without them people ran only same levels for daily.
Why is getting slowed down a bad thing if you find fast clears lame?

Because slow clears are even more lame.
Look, I’ve played this game for over 3k hours now, most times in PvE, I’ve done all dungeons too often to find them entertaining. It bores me. I’m doing those things to get the reward.

Queensdale champion train sounds like a right place for you.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, it would, because the instability-stacking would only apply across a tier. That said, it requires a higher level of AR immediately to go to 40, which would force players without enough AR to be doing 30-39 until they’re ready to move up. I think this way works even if 40 is technically ‘easier’ than 39 because you can create unique experiences within each tier, and I think 30 instabilities stacking would be pretty chaotic and silly. You then could have unique and interesting speed clear runs for L39, L49, and so forth because each would be a different experience. What do you think about that?

I don’t really like the idea of making gear gating even more prevalent. If you have enough gold to craft gear you can just keep doing easy levels over and over while someone has to do all the challenging stuff. Not really my definition of skill based content.

Sure, the levels would be interesting but would anyone really want to run them instead of L40 or L50?

The Lost Witch.7601:

I believe we should look further than the current development resources available. Changes don’t have to happen tomorrow, they can come over the years. More importantly, grand ideas can be adjusted so that they require less work but still offer a lot of the benefits. If we’re only going to offer ideas that are easy to implement, we’re closing our mind to possibilities that come from thinking big.

It is good to point out the flaws in plans, to give them a ‘reality check’, but it should not hold players back from posting their ideas. In a group-brainstorm like this, self-censorship is one of the biggest idea-killers.

I think people should focus on ideas and not idealism. Fun and challenging content is not an idea but an idealism. It’s like a bunch of marketing words telling nothing about the implementation.

When I was a kid I had all these cool, awesome and fun game ideas. But when I tried to implement them I realized it’s not that simple. I couldn’t just code fun or challenge in. Stuff which was meant to be fun was actually boring or easy.

As for ‘There won’t be perfectly challenging and fun content with unique surprises each time you run it.’ – Try to look at it from the perspective of someone who does fractals maybe once a week. He has leveled from 1 to 25 in the past 6 months. Fractals don’t offer anything new anymore. The only changes that came in difficulty were the increase of agony required (booooring) and the harpies tossing him off the platform (interesting/annoying).

Now unique surprises ‘each time you run it.’ would be a lot to ask, but some unique surprises would go a long way. (Say every 5 levels something new can pop up)

If you don’t play fractals every day, or more than once a day, a few surprises do make a difference. While to the veteran, they’re all old stuff.

Couldn’t same be achieved by just adding more content? Without any randomness?

Nearly all the players in my guild are below level 20 fractals. But to many of them, it has already become boring. Because they face the same challenges every time, and it’s going to be more than 10 levels of that still before they’ll reach instabilities. (And some extra grinding for the agony resistance)
—

I think this is a separate issue. Non-random elements can also apply to lower levels.

Scorch der Juengere.7328:

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

So here are some ideas on it.

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

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

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

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

Could you guys seriously stop this daydreaming? There won’t be perfectly challenging and fun content with unique surprises each time you run it.

Sure, it sounds awesome but compare it to what we currently have and think how realistic your scenario is.

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

This will probably come as bit offending but I have to ask. Do you gamble in real life?

We all do in one way or another. I understand it doesn’t feel AS good as winning the lottery, but it still feels good. A small win is still a win. Randomness in levels made it so you never knew what kind of a run you’ll get. Could have be an easy one or a very long one. It gave the element of surprise each time u hit that loading screen. Now it’s a harder one every time you pass that 2nd fractal. Nothing to look forward to at all.

Why it is a good thing that you don’t know what maps you will get? Is random map selection the only way to get those results?

I think the content has partially failed if some maps are there just to make you feel good when you avoid them. What about getting enjoyment for beating levels, etc?

Rising Dusk.2408:

What about the notion of a growing mistlock instability list within a tier, like I suggested above? In this way you could create uniqueness to tiers, and also use it to create difficulty. You might only ever add new creatures if one of the mistlocks was specifically about that… For instance if the entire theme of 30-39 was that Mossman stalked you the whole time. That’d give it a unique feel while simultaneously removing the silliness of people just using the easiest mistlock to rise their personal reward level and raising the difficulty as you moved up in the tiers.

So, for example:

• L30: Agonizing Expedition – Take agony damage periodically
• L31: Mist Stalker – Mossman stalks you. (L30’s Mistlock also applies)
• L32: Outflanked – Enemies do more damage when attacking you from behind or the sides (L30 and L31 still apply, meaning Mossman could sneak attack you for big damage, etc)

And so forth for the entire tier. This creates the theme that the 30-39 tier is all about being stalked and trying to keep your wits about you to unseen threats. Maybe at one point you could in that area have a Mistlock where mobs will periodically stealth themselves to add to that feel, and so forth.

This should also help reduce the burden on you guys, right?

Would this mean that L40 would be easier than L33-L39? Stacking instabilities on top of each other quickly gets out of control.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I can’t get behind the instability system. It’s still the same lame dungeon which you want to complete as fast as possible to get the loot (Yes, that’s grind and GW2 turned into a grindy game) and the instabilities just slow you down. There is not even an explanation for those instabilities storywise.

How are instabilities making that worse? Even without them people ran only same levels for daily.
Why is getting slowed down a bad thing if you find fast clears lame?

Romo.3709:

Wethospu.6437:

This will probably come as bit offending but I have to ask. Do you gamble in real life?

We all do in one way or another. I understand it doesn’t feel AS good as winning the lottery, but it still feels good. A small win is still a win. Randomness in levels made it so you never knew what kind of a run you’ll get. Could have be an easy one or a very long one. It gave the element of surprise each time u hit that loading screen. Now it’s a harder one every time you pass that 2nd fractal. Nothing to look forward to at all.

Why should there be something to look forward to? Why couldn’t you just have a solid run?

Romo.3709:

I remember those moments when we got to the third fractal and we either got Underwater or Swamps. It literally felt like we won a lottery. Everyone’s mood automatically shot up, and the evening was complete. That doesn’t happen anymore. Because whatever we do we always end up with a kitten at the end. Hoping we get one of the lesser evils. Complete randomness with level selection was something that made fractals unique. Given we sometimes got a really bad roll with 2 really long fractals back to back, but it was outweighed by the times we had those fun easy runs. I miss those. Like seriously miss those. I would love to see it go back to that.
—

This will probably come as bit offending but I have to ask. Do you gamble in real life?

Nebilim.5127:

Instabilities are an amazing idea to add variety. And i think it would work better if you added more randomization instead of a fixed one per level. As in the current situation, people avoid all the annoying ones and stick with easy, making the others kinda pointless.

As for raising the difficulty of the content as you progress. Instabilities is also good way to do it. How about mixing up? For instance. Level 30 to 40, we have fixed instabilities. As for level 40 to 50, they start coming randomized for each level, then 60 to 70, it is randomized AND there are more instabilities to pick from, harder, and from there on, you can start adding 2 instabilities at same time per fractal.

—

Do you realize this wouldn’t be a challenge? It would be a RNG-fest.

Lots of you guys seem to ignore that random gets very easily out of control. Randomized systems will always have good and bad rolls. And more you rely on random, more prevalent those rolls become.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

—

Hopefully you read my post about rework as it pretty much addressed everything on your post. I will kind of repeat my post below. Also I’m bit surprised seeing a post like yours. I didn’t expect you guys to consider any kind of rework as you had one while ago.

First of all, I think instabilities are a really good idea (good form of difficulty) but they don’t fit current implementation very well. It’s really tough job to balance instabilities, especially when difficulty may change a lot with different maps. That’s why I would separate progression for each map and tie instabilities with maps. Then have 3-5 instabilities for each map. Each instability should have like 3 different strengths resulting in 9-15 levels. Then you could also mix and match resulting in 64-1024 levels. This probably wouldn’t really help with testing but would allow focusing on more interesting combinations.

Personally I really dislike boring instabilities. “Annoying” ones are actually good because they are meaningful. But I’m not sure how you can make builds without breaking builds. Because that means that you would add a weakness to enemies which would actually make it easier than without the instability.

I think current scaling isn’t very exciting because scaling is so weak. Scale 28 or 29? Barely any difference. Also current implementation has lots of scales until players reach more interesting instabilities. That’s why in my idea the main focus for levels are instabilities and then there’s additional stat scaling with big steps (25%-50% each scale) which allows infinite scaling (while still allowing adding more instabilities).

One drawback for non-random map would be lack of “gambling”. Apparently that gets some people excited. I personally think it adds nothing because once you know the maps there isn’t really any surprises. Your system is quite close to my idea so it sounds good for me! I personally see current implementation quite grindy because lots of scales feel same (especially when most of the stuff is quite easy).

Romo.3709:

Since people talk about Puzzles in fractals, figured I’d chime in myself.

Harpy Puzzle

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I like this one a lot. Nothing wrong with it in any way, except maybe Shield of avenger either wandering off or turn itself off the second orb goes our way.

Harpy stairs

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Another fun part of the puzzle. It tends to help the team by putting the Wall of Reflection at the very top. But after a few runs it really becomes quite fun rather than tedious. Love the fact that it doesn’t break your armor if failed.

Underwater Dolphins

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I agree with The Lost Witch.7601 on this one when it comes to actual meaning of it. Why am I a dolphin? And a switch of some kind would be a nice addition, but not terribly needed. On the other hand I kind of dislike this “puzzle”. Taking off your armor on this one feels mandatory. And double strikes from kraits are unforgiving. Bring it down to one strike per, please.

Underwater Dark

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This one is more in my alley. I always hope to get this one over the dolphins. Making it through alive is hardly ever an issue, even though most teammates never make it though. Lights are spaced well allowing a player to get through from one area to the next without too much damage, but at the same time just barely enough time to rush because the light always seem to run out before you reach the next plant. Makes it feel more on the edge. Good job on this one.

Swamp Whisps

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What’s not to like? Perfect placement of traps and trees that you can climb make this fractal feel like you really have no limits when it comes down to movement and jumping.

Aetherblade puzzles

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Mines can be easily avoided by swimming on the bottom floor, but taking off your armor is a good precaution. Kind of don’t see the point of this area, but it’s not too horrible. Electric floors are cool, but when using a Charr or Norn it tends to be a bit unforgiving because of the character’s size, maybe changing a character’s model for this part because of some field would be an answer to it. The Electric room right after is kind of annoying, but not impossible. Final boss is alright when it comes to difficulty, but I’d definitely consider making the stun a tad shorter.

Shaman Rolling Fire Balls

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The cutscene during the fireballs has to go. It serves no purpose at all and resets every time someone is near the beginning. Worse if someone goes afk for a min or two near the starting area…

Dredge Doors/Pads

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It’s fine, but the dredge inside of the main room should be clear-able. The worst addition to this date when it comes to fractal is “the teleporting off the button” action that the game takes upon player’s death. Why? Why? Why? It’s hard enough as it is. Now all light/medium classes are almost useless on the pads because of inability to stay alive while dredge hit you like trucks on the higher levels. Fix or bring back to the way it was. No reason to make it harder.

Dredge Bomb Room

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I barely ever get this room, but I always hope for it instead of Cannon side. Soloing it on my thief is really fun, but the dredge respawn should be really much more controlled than constantly respawning mobs upon mobs. If trying to clear it feels like for every one dredge we kill, two spawn in its place.

Molten Room

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Stacking makes it kind of boring because of the corner. But the room overall is fun if done properly. Not extremely hard or unforgiving, but fun and enjoyable. It tends to bug if the whole team takes the shortcut through the lava rocks when getting to the room. Making the fractal impossible to complete. Ticket been sent, nothing been done to my knowledge. Therefore I always take a long way around, even though the shortcut is more fun and engaging.

Mai Trin Cannons

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Fun little tactic, but long. Way too long. Sometimes I feel like the whole boss battle is just running away from the cannons, rather than an actual fight.

Thaumanova Reactor Puzzles

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All the areas in this fractal including the boss fight are very fun and engaging. The only issue I have is the shield room. Upon failing, shields stay inside of the room making the area that much harder. A possibility of shields respawning or making them unlimited at the beginning of the room would fix the issue. Other than that, /cheer @ Anet

What I would like to see more of in this game:

More Jumping. More Jumping. More Jumping. Oh and More Jumping.

The format completely stolen and modified for personal purpose from The Lost Witch.7601.
Figured I’d give credit.
;)

You guys are really easy to please. o.O

phys.7689:

Wethospu.6437:

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

its actually a good design that focuses on coordination, and knowledge of the area. But it doesnt scale with difficulty, true.

However these are levels, you have to design levels too, not just boss fights. Im just saying, not everything in a level needs to be a combat related challenge

It barely needs any coordination or knowledge of the area. Once you have done it couple of times it loses all of its challenge. Designing permanent content like this is literally the worst thing they can do for their game.

Core of their game is designed around combat. Once you leave combat out there’s not much left. And basing content on that will make it shallow, like really shallow (as seen with wisp running).

Now imagine you had to fight Mossman there. And every 25% he would become permanently invisible and attack much faster. You would have to use 1-5 Wisps to get rid of it. That would much more dynamic than what we currently have while still needing (at least) same coordination and knowledge of the area.

They definitely should mix other elements with combat. But if you are looking something else than combat I suggest taking a break and playing another game.

Scorch der Juengere.7328:

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

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

The problem with puzzles is that once you have solved them you really can’t solve them again (as you already know the answer).

I don’t mind puzzles if they really scale like combat elements but so far most of their puzzles don’t scale at all. And I have zero reason to believe we would suddenly get scaling puzzles instead of non-scaling ones (especially if scaling is not mentioned).

As I said above, I think the best way would be mixing puzzle elements with combat elements which would automatically give some scaling .

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

Romo.3709:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

To be fair, Conski, if any of those exotics were cavalier armor or weapons, those insignias and inscriptions are worth a fair amount. There’s a good income for you!

Please don’t change Maw, I love it, it’s a gift after dredge.

Maw is a gift. Keep it the way it is. The past 5 runs I did now I keep getting Molten Duo. It’s not hard, but it’s not that fun after 3rd time in a row…

I wouldn’t call Maw a boss or an encounter. It really should be buffed on par with other boss fractals. Preferable with a moving beam of death as we saw on that one fractal trailer.

Then also there should those Irukandji around with immobilizes and stuff (yea, buff them too with anti-skipping skills).

LordByron.8369:

—
That clealry shows that people can t understand how to face fractals….and that due to lack of hints….(swamp is the best….why the hell are there opening passages if you have to jump on trees? 0 sense…….)
—

I would also like to hear an explanation about this. Half of the passages always close if you get near with a wisp.

Probably because no one ever kills Kayeh :P

Optional stuff is completely fine as it can always be skipped.

Sure, random stuff would be designed. But you really can’t expect them to have same quality as non-random stuff, especially if random stuff means extra content.

I think Bloomhunger/Mossman etc. are actually bad. For example Bloomhunger and turret part are much easier than Mossman and bomb part. With some really hard scale and instability some teams may constantly fail at Mossman while they would breeze through Bloomhunger.

Assuming we ever get infinite scaling that would eventually happen to every team in the game. At some point your progression relies entirely on luck…

phys.7689:

Yes, its like you said, the best way to make a fair competitive test, is for it to be completely uniform. Everyone has the same challenges, the same questions, the same tools. However, thats also not a very repeatable test. Because once people know the answers/way to get the answers, it becomes a test of memorization/speed rather than a test of intelligence/adaptability.

It however is probably a way more competitive test, than one where the questions were random, some people would get easy questions, or things they happen to know well.

Essentially i think that something designed to be fair in a competitive way, cant be very variable. but competitive and challenging/interesting are two different things. For example.
A fair competitive test in basketball might be shooting from a specific location repeatedly.
A variable/challenging/replayable one might be scoring versus any player on the opposing team.

The second test is a lot less fair, not a great way to compare to other shooters, but its a lot more variable, every time you do its different, and you may have to shoot from different places, different timing, etc.

As far as one well thought out encounter being fun, im saying i think every fractal should be well thought out, every fractal should be fun. But we both know the fun fractal is not necessarily the fractal that is the one that leads to finishing the daily the fastest.

They don’t have to add repeatable tests as they can add multiple tests. Using your basketball example there can be multiple fair and competitive tests. In some tests the basket might be further way while in some tests the basket might be smaller.

I don’t think using other players in your example is really fair as we are dealing with PvE content. Perhaps my example but with randomized parameters is what you are looking for?

In both cases there are lots of different tests. Only difference is that in my case you are able to choose your test. Similarly they could create a system with lots of different content, focusing more on the quality than the quantity (randomization adds more content but less guarantee that every combination works together).

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Sorry Miku, forums ate my reply and can’t be bothered to rewrite it at the moment (perhaps tomorrow). However, I completely disagree!

Asko.4120:

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And as it has been said many times already by many players, agony is a pointless gearcheck mechanic unless it is drastically reworked:
I’d suggest removing the agony resistance altogether and adding 4 stages to all the boss fights instead with hindurances that pile on each other.
Example:

Boss HP 100-75% – normal fighting
Boss HP 75-50% – endurance regen is reduced by X
Boss HP 50-25% – movement speed is reduced by X, previous effect is stronger
Boss HP 25-0% – weapon skills recharge rate reduced by X, previous effects are stronger

Tbh the examples I came up with are not that good or interesting, but you get the idea. This way agony would require players to adapt their playing style, use dodges and skills very sparingly and mind their positioning better, meaning that agony is now a skill-check mechanic instead of gearcheck.

In my opinion that is horrible encounter design. At start when everyone is alive and at full health the encounter is easy. Then when your health drops and you have skills on cooldown it gets harder. So you have an easy start and a hard end.

If you can complete the encounter then the start is really boring because you are capable of doing it when it’s harder. If you have issues with the hard part then you have to keep grinding the easy part so you can practice (fail) the hard part. In both cases, it’s just waste of a time.

Ideally an encounter would be so hard at the start that people would get downed and even defeated. And then when the players are struggling it would be bit easier. Could be quite easily done with devastating skills with long cooldowns.

Unless you have trust issue, you can always check gw2dungeons.net

Can anyone translate?

You not got aragony in video! Fotomaker!

Asia Skyly.7198:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Title: Reward for not rolling for Fractals

Goal: Encourage the player-base to experience all of the fractals.

Proposal: Add a Magic find, money, or karma reward bonus if all players start a fractal stage at once.

Proposal detail:
Currently, the Underwater Fractal is seldomly done. Swamp is the preferred tier one fractal of the fractal community. To encourage exploration of all that Fractals have to offer, I propose a bonus when the entire party selects a stage together, and completes that stage together.

If the team leaves the fractal stage by going back to the Fractal home base, The bonus is permanently lost and a timed penalty of 30 minutes is implemented. The penalty will prevent people for getting the bonus again for a minimum of 30 minutes.

The bonus can be something simple like a Magic Find Bonus, Karma Bonus at the end, or Money Bonus at the end of the fractal run. The bonus should be good enough to encourage people to stay with their first fractal.

To complete this proposal the tier system needs to be revisited.

Associated Risks:
Player community might dislike the penalty for rolling for a specific fractal.

This was my proposed solution, which was not in the list of “solutions” even when I posted it days and days ago.

No need to get offended if I haven’t read / can’t remember over 600 posts. You aren’t that special.

Problem is that the site IP is starting with 192. This is common internal IP address and some older routers/modems falsely block any external connections to these addresses. I personally had this problem too. You can verify this by trying to access some other site with 192. IP (like www.Techweb.com).

What you have to do is access your modem/router by typing its internal IP address to your browser. Common addresses are 192.168.100.1, 192.168.100.2, 10.0.0.1, 10.0.0.2 but if these won’t work you should press windows+R, write cmd and press enter. Black window should appear. Type ipconfig and press enter. There should be some addresses listed and try them.

Once you got the access you have to login. You should try mix of admin, root, password and see if they work. If not, you may have to reset whole device (but try figure out the login info first!).

If you manage to log in then you should try to find firewall settings. I have no idea which setting actually affects so keep unticking stuff one by one until you find the right one.

Hopefully this helps. Ask if you have problems.

I will try to sum up all current ideas to fix swamp rolling.

Balance maps
Keep tweaking length (priority) and difficulty (if needed) of the maps until there isn’t big incentive to roll. Basically make Swamp longer and make Underground shorter.

Pros:

• Easy to implement, doesn’t require any new mechanics
• Doesn’t really change how the game works (so no one should get kittened)

Cons:

• May need constant tweaking to reach the best result
• May not work with some instability combinations

Balance rewards
Instead of treating all maps equally with one big end reward, split it among the maps. Longer/harder maps would have more chests during the run meaning higher rewards.

Pros:

• Simple to implement, no extra mechanics needed

Cons:

• Removes/alters concept of daily chest (unless it remains)
• May not work with some instability combinations

Force first roll
Basically once you go in, your map selection would be saved and you wouldn’t get any other map until you have completed it.

Pros:

• Would prevent rolling

Cons:

• Doesn’t actually fix the problem, getting bad roll would become even more annoying
• Needs extra mechanics (probably bugs)
• Even less freedom for people to play how they want (for example can’t go practice starting fractals, etc).

Reward first roll
Same as above except you would get some kind of benefit (additional chest, increase magic find) if you went with the first roll

Pros:

• Would keep freedom

Cons:

• Doesn’t actually fix the problem (getting a bad roll)
• Needs extra mechanics (probably bugs)

Add daily quest with map selection
Allow players to take any map they want. Add daily quest to encourage completing specific maps.

Pros:

• Would give more freedom, people could play any map they want (useful when practicing or soloing)

Cons:

• Needs extra mechanics (probably bugs)
• People could do daily only with easy combinations (would need reward tweaking)

Rework
Instead of a run of 4 maps, have a run of 1 map. Allow selection of any map. Tie instabilities directly to the maps. Make progression separate for each map.

For more detail you can check my earlier post

Pros:

• Would remove randomness -> more competitive
• Would reduce time requirement -> more casual
• Would allow better instabilities
• Would eliminate rolling
• Would support very hard content
• Would support infinite scaling while keeping it expandable

Cons:

• Would require big amount of work
• Would require some kind of progression reset/transformation
• Would be a bold change

phys.7689:

Your talking about competition, thats a bit different from replayability. In terms of having a fair competition against other players, random elements wouldnt help you. But in terms of having different/interesting challenges to deal with, and making each playthough different, random helps a lot.

now of course, if you are talking about competition, you have to have the same exact levels for every one, with the same enemies, then you can practice your mastery of learning specific and most effecient techniques, and accurately compare your performance to other people, but if we follow that path what do we have?

People doing the same 3 most effecient, most easy fractals, with the optimal party set ups, The replayability will be extremely low, except if the rewards are so good people feel they must do it.

I personally would give up a good competitive fair test type fractals for a fun/variable/semi unpredictable type fractal in a heart beat. The challenge i look for is more personal than about measuring myself against others. So for me, i dont mind if i have a harder fractal run than someone else, as long as we play well and overcome the challenges. Now, if the reward system rewards actually doing harder things, rather than mastery of the most efficient path, that, i think benefits everyone.

so yeah i think rolling isnt a great thing, i mean its only 1/4 fractals though, so it isnt the end of the world, but it doesnt add anything to fractals.

I mean the proof is there already, every one rolls swamp because it is the fastest fractal. Is it the funnest? not really, is it the most challenging? nope, is it the best designed? nope. Its the fractal that is the quickest stepping stone to getting the daily done as soon as possible.

It’s not about randomness not helping with competition. It’s about randomness completely killing any competitive play. You really can’t have any prestige if luck plays a big role in the outcome. For example, can you truly say you have beaten fractal scale 39 if you didn’t get Cliffside?

If people want only run same maps perhaps issue is with the maps? Increasing length of Swamp and decreasing length of Underground would be very easy to do and help a lot. No point having a bad system and forcing people to use it instead of fixing it.

Could you define fun / variable / semi unpredictable fractal? Why can’t normal fractals be fun? Do you think one well thought encounter would be less fun than a pool of simple encounters? Couldn’t variability come from multiple different instabilities with incentive to play all of them?

phys.7689:

—
taking things to an extent that is illogical, is illogical.
random elements increase variability and test more different types of skill sets. Its pretty hard to make something incredibly replayable without adding uncertainty. Dealing with the unknown, or having every playthrough be different does more for replayability than just having the same thing again and again.

Solving the same problem 100 times is not more of a challenge, or more entertaining than solving 100 different problems.

I am a proponent of more random elements, and unpredictability in fractals. It doesnt have to impede progress, adding random extra goals, events, and very different levels will make it a lot more entertaining and replayable. And fractals is definately the place for it.

If they wanted replayability they could for example add infinite scaling.

I don’t know how many times you have played fractals, but there definitely isn’t any unknown or different playthroughs. Even with rolling “fixed”.

As I have said before, in my opinion randomness doesn’t belong to a high end content. Eventually luck will be the deciding factor whether you can get through or not.

Look, I know you want to promote your “random extra goal” idea but could you please stop mixing it with discussion about rolling? There is a quite big difference between forced and optional randomness.

Purple Miku.7032:

Holy hell, I’ve finally found someone with the same mentality as me. Hello!!!

I’ve been trying to push forth my ideas for implementing randomization methods into dungeons for a long time. Games are much more exciting when you have a whole world to explore and they lose their excitement when you have nothing new left.

Exactly what you said.

Content with great replay value MUST have an element of surprise. Uncertainty is a good thing and makes activities more thought-provoking and engaging rather than arduous and repetative.

And what if dungeons and fractals were truly random? There could literally be zero competition. Difficulty and length of every run would be affected by luck. Lupicus records already suffer from random mob behavior. Also if the content was hard enough, then there would be a risk of getting stuck if you get some hard events.

Do you realize how much content they would have to add to keep an element of surprise? Just few random events there and there wouldn’t do because you would have already seen all of them after couple of runs. If they just tweak some enemy parameters (color, amount) then it barely makes any difference.

Personally I would rather see them working on a more skill based content. Lots of encounters could use some extra mechanics to make them more complex. Also removing linearity would be a big step for competition as it would allow different tactics.

Nike.2631:

Wethospu.6437:

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

We see the soul-crushing monotony that was CoF 1 over and over and over and over and over and over…

Players will gravitate to the easiest way to get the shiney. Sometimes its in the best interest of the game to NOT LET THEM.

Better “fix” dungeons too. Just make that whenever you try to enter a dungeon it randomly teleports you to any dungeon and locks the path selection. Only way to get rid of it is to completely the dungeon without stacking or skipping. Also remove grouping and just party people randomly. Imagine the soul-crushing monotony of playing with same set of friends all the time. We can’t have that.

Seriously, fix root of the problem. If people roll Swamp, make it longer. Like make people spawn at Mossman hut and move Mossman to trap area. Then require players to kill both bosses.

But no, let’s add some weird system which just makes everything more complicated and restricts stuff.

KyleMcLaw.8974:

—
Comments:

I am very against the idea that some people are suggesting: “voting” for fractals. I like the randomness and the ability to not be forced into a common voting scheme that I am sure will develop just as “swamp-only” first fractal developed

I seriously can’t understand what you guy see in randomness.

Rebalancing instabilities should definitely help with the issue. If they are tracking which instability completion they should be able to tweak them relatively easily.

But problem with lethal combinations would still remain. Some instabilities are quite ok on some maps but get on rampage on other maps. I can’t see anyone regularly doing these levels.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I can say that I knew all of this already. Besides, though I could be wrong -and I often am- I don’t think that you get dazed by hitting disaggregators while they’re hitting their gong. They have their own daze attack.
I’ll check next time I get dredge. If you get it before I do, correct me if I’m wrong or edit your post accordingly.

Rabsovish has two blocking stances. One of them dazes you on hit.

You are correct. However Rabs has only one blocking stance. The other one heals him and spawns a veteran Disaggregator (if not alive) but you can freely attack him.

And who is complaining now? Sorry, we did our best but couldn’t please you.

Solypsys.1876:

—

• Please for the love of god remove “rolling,” not only is swamp my least favorite fractal but it is now impossible to get any of the other “initial” fractals such as underwater. A couple of the tier 2 fractals can be dropped to tier 1 (aetherblade hideout) and rolling needs to be eliminated

How would you prevent restarting the run? Even if you could, what about people splitting up and having 5 roll attempts? Very likely to get a favorable map.

To be honest, I would appreciate if people focused on how to implement their ideas. It’s easy to have nice ideas like “fix problems, add fun stuff, make people happy” but actually implementations might be much trickier.

Like all the people telling how dredge or rewards have to be fixed. I’m sure they are well aware of that. But what they would (probably) like to hear is how they should be fixed.

Jalarien.7410:

Wethospu.6437:

Jalarien.7410:

Title: fractured environment

Introduction

How can the Devs make the entire fractal interesting? A boss with huge hp who can oneshot you is not fun at all. What will become of fractals at higher levels? Are the instabilities enough to make a name for fotm, for gw2 endgame, for the future of mmos as a whole?

Proposal overview

Make the fractals more fractured at 50+ by:
1) having mobs from another fractal B appear in fractal A.
2) more randomised branches in the dungeon path (eg Mossman / tree)
3) randomly switch to fractal B while completing fractal A.
—

While this may seem like a cool idea it would probably be really frustrating. I don’t think high end content should be based on randomness. Imagine getting more dredge in your dredge. Imagine getting stuck / spending lots of time because of bad luck. Might be fun couple of times but eventually people would just rage (like now on dredge).

The idea isn’t to multiply trash. It is a way to make challenging content without dragging out fights via huge boss hp bar. Imagine a higher level fractal with the same enemies as a low level fractal, but just moved into a higher level mechanic.

It would be the reverse of Mossman in level 30.

Instead of the boss causing havoc and then disappearing, he stays – you kill him – but the environment changes to, say, snowblind. This forces the players to pay attention and work as a team.

You’re right, it could be rage inducing. But I’m hoping that the combinations get properly tested. The content should to hard enough to justify leaderboards, afterall.

The point wasn’t really about thrash but that you can get a much harder encounter, completely based on luck. For example Snowblind could be really bad on a tough fight because of Frostbite. Imagine having a trouble with a boss and you wipe multiple times. Finally you get it together and it goes pretty well. Suddenly you teleport somewhere, it gets harder and you again wipe.

But if your idea is that it wouldn’t really affect encounters then I’m not sure what this feature would add. And how would even more luck affecting your runs justify leaderboards? If content was truly hard people would just keep grinding until they get lucky roll.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Wethospu.6437:

Problem
The current implementation won’t work with actually hard content. Actually hard content means that the players will struggle to get through and wipe multiple times. With wipes, the run will take way too long without any real reason (maps already break the content to smaller pieces). Also relying on randomness would eventually force people to get lucky rolls to get through (you can’t balance the maps, especially with the instabilities).

snip

I believe that if fractals are to become harder (which I believe is a good idea), there should be a way to save your progress as a team. (Up to the start of a fractal)

That way we can feel happiness and relief after struggling through a seriously hard version of the uncategorized fractal, instead of feeling down because we can’t finish a full run.

Nice idea but what about the implementation?

How would this work on pug teams? Where you aren’t guaranteed to get same team together?

What if someone leaves? Could you invite someone else? Who’s progress would get saved?

Moshari.8570:

Proposal Overview
Improve current Randomness of Fractals
Goal of Proposal
Get Fractals to be more repeatable. I love the random nature of some fractals (dredge end-boss, new Thaumanova reactor), this needs to be increased to increase replayability.
—

BlueDragon.7054:

I also think that the instabilities should be random (for every level, not just the first one and don’t keep it for the other 3, to avoid rerolling) and the gold reward should scale better.
—

As with all “add more random” ideas, these would just make fractals more luck based then skill based. They won’t be able to balance it. For example if the content was really hard people would just roll Swamp until they get Bloomhunger instead of Mossman. Imagine this happening mid-run. You end up with the hardest encounter. Reroll?

Jalarien.7410:

Title: fractured environment

Introduction

How can the Devs make the entire fractal interesting? A boss with huge hp who can oneshot you is not fun at all. What will become of fractals at higher levels? Are the instabilities enough to make a name for fotm, for gw2 endgame, for the future of mmos as a whole?

Proposal overview

Make the fractals more fractured at 50+ by:
1) having mobs from another fractal B appear in fractal A.
2) more randomised branches in the dungeon path (eg Mossman / tree)
3) randomly switch to fractal B while completing fractal A.
—

While this may seem like a cool idea it would probably be really frustrating. I don’t think high end content should be based on randomness. Imagine getting more dredge in your dredge. Imagine getting stuck / spending lots of time because of bad luck. Might be fun couple of times but eventually people would just rage (like now on dredge).

If you don’t plan to ever make fractals actually hard then feel free to ignore rest of this post.

Problem
The current implementation won’t work with actually hard content. Actually hard content means that the players will struggle to get through and wipe multiple times. With wipes, the run will take way too long without any real reason (maps already break the content to smaller pieces). Also relying on randomness would eventually force people to get lucky rolls to get through (you can’t balance the maps, especially with the instabilities).

Basic idea
Personally I would rework the entire thing. Basic idea is that people can choose any map they want but to proceed they would have to complete most of them. This would significantly cut the time needed while completely removing map randomness.

Levels
I think instabilities should be tied to maps because they already have big variance in their effect. This would also allow more fun instabilities (like faster corruption stacks in Cliffside). As a high-end content, base difficulty should be high enough (like current 20-30) and difficulty should come from instabilities. At higher levels the effect of instability should be stronger and there should be multiple instabilities at the same time.

As this may not have enough content, I would keep stat-scaling as backup option. Once people completed all levels they would unlock 150% scaling, after completing those 200% scaling, and so on. This could go all way to infinity while still keeping levels expandable.

Also stat-scaling would allow optional tutorial levels with negative scaling.

Instabilities
For example Cliffside could have Last Laugh I (current), Last Laugh II (increase knock, increase damage), Last Laugh III (decrease delay), Corruptor I (corruption stacks twice as fast), Corruptor II (corruption effects much stronger, picking up deals more damage), Corruptor III (stacks last twice as long), Skillful I-III (enemies have additional skills). Then mixing these up would allow huge amount of unique levels.

Then you could also go nuts on like Urban Battleground and add Chickenator I (increases amount of chicken, chickens are much much more stronger), Chickenator II (chickens attack on sight), Chickenator III (adds patrolling chickens).

Progression
Each map should have a separate tree/line. Completing a level would unlock next level(s) in that tree. If you complete a locked level it would complete the closest unlocked level instead (so you would progress).

Rewards
To promote grouping and daily rewards, they can simply replace current daily chest with a daily quest. Daily quest would include 4-5 levels and you would have to complete 3-4 of them to get the reward. There can be multiple daily quests (like one for lower levels, one for middle and one for higher).

Rewards should be different for each map (swamp vs. underground). Also instability and scaling should affect them. Personally I think rewards should dynamically scale based on how often they are completed.

Risks
Some people might get mad so instead of reseting you should convert existing progress to a new one.

Does anyone remember when Elementalist was also considered thrash?

Also remember resetting AR for everyone, with introduction of leaderboards.

Sorry, I don’t have that much AP.

1) PvE is really easy

2) Faster clear times means more loot

Get it.

It’s not a set amount, initial heal is a set amount. If it was a set amount there is no way you could tank 40 stacks of Corruption from Cultist Hammer or even a shot from a Deadeye.

Any info?

No.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Wethospu.6437:

Can you believe this combat pose?

No fashion. None.

I have never seen such ignorance in my life. Luckily I have mastered multiple styles.

Can you believe this combat pose?

Some info

I wouldn’t mind them being easier. You know, to get you used with the terrain and enemies.

Pointless inconvenient barriers to promote gem store items.

It means that the process of burst skill recharging goes 1% faster per point (similar with other professions).

If you want to know new cooldown with increased recharge speed then you should calculcate “original cooldown” / “new recharge speed”. In this case 10/1.3 = 7.69 ~ 7.75.

I can’t recall exact wording in game but might be a tooltip error.

Sad day in my opinion. -19% less damage is quite big.

In my opinion one (relatively small) improvement would be random parameters. Instead of always having to escort 4 Dolyaks there could 5 or even 6 Dolyaks. Then sometimes they have permanent Swiftness, sometimes Crippled. Sometimes more enemies, sometimes less. Sometimes more veterans, sometimes more normals. And so on.

Then if they want to further expand it they could tie it to event success. More one event gets done, more harder it would become. Similarly, often failed/skipped events would get easier (and perhaps even more rewarding).