Guild Wars 2

No.

Hey guys, I thought I might try summarizing the discussion so far, as it’s reached a length that I think makes it tough for people to jump in and contribute. We’ve seen a few “I don’t have time to read this, but here’s my idea [that has already been discussed]” posts so far.

I’m going to do this differently from the link-heavy versions we’ve had others do here and try to summarize the discussion so far. Hopefully some people find this helpful.

Rewards

Rewards have been a heavy topic of discussion, perhaps the most-discussed topic so far. Opinions on rewards vary, but tend to fall into a few core statements that seem to resonate with the community. Overall, Fractal rewards are insufficient compared to rewards in other game types. Suggestions for improving rewards vary, but include: increasing gold, providing other uses for regular and pristine relics, and adding upgradable Fractal armor (beyond just the backpack).

Time Required, Barriers to Entry, AR, and Dredge

One theme we’ve seen come up a lot, in different ways, is that Fractals represent a relatively large investment of time and perhaps gold. Getting started with Fractals can be challenging as there is not necessarily an easy way to learn the encounters due to the randomness of shard choice. Having 4 Fractals at a time can represent a significant amount of gaming for a group and may exclude players who only have an hour or less to play. Progressing deep into Fractals requires Agony Resistance, but that is bound to a character and can make progressing multiple characters through Fractals difficult and expensive. And worst of all, a quick Fractals run can be sidelined by an unlucky Dredge roll which can take many groups twice as long as other Fractals.

Solutions for fixing these problems vary, but include “saving” Fractal progress so single shards can be done at a time, a Practice Mode that allows groups to choose a single Fractal to attempt, some sort of AR-avoidance mechanism as a group buff or bundle, or even account-bound AR.

Dredge has pages of suggested fixes, but most of them center around reducing the total number of mobs, especially in the “clown car” encounter, or removing one of the 4 “parts” to the Fractal: button, hallway, Champ/clown car, final boss.

Rolling For Swamp

The most controversial discussion so far has been on the topic of “rolling” for the Swamp Fractal. There does not appear to be a consensus on this issue – there isn’t even a consensus that rolling is “bad” – apart from variable rewards depending on Fractal difficulty could be a way to reduce rolling. Some players even suggested allowing the group to vote on the Fractal at every stage.

Additional Fractal Content

There has been discussion surrounding adding new Fractals as a way to introduce new lore into the game or revisit unanswered questions. Suggestions for new Fractals have included using alternate versions of GW1 missions or dungeons as well as Fractal versions of events from the three Guild Wars Novels.

This is my own personal view of what people who might not be following closely should know to “catch up” a bit. There were topics discussed which I left out, some on purpose, others by accident, but I still think this is a relatively representative summary.

Romo.3709:

I, myself, keep forgetting that you guys are in fact players as well. With things you like and dislike about the game. Things you’re passionate about and things you really couldn’t care for less. It’s nice to know that rather than just designing fractals, you guys actually play them as well. Which helps a ten-fold in understanding the frustrations, accomplishments and rewards we all encounter.

I hope this doesn’t come off as Mr. Creepy Stalker or anything, but whenever I see somebody with the Anet badge in-game, I’ll add them to my friends list. You might be surprised at how often they play the game.

There’s a handful of devs on my server (SoR) and most of them play without the Anet badge most of the time I see them running around.

Darmikau.9413:

What if we could send players forward in Fractal time?

I think doing this creates a longetivity expectation. If you can explain the futuristic aspects of the Fractal within the Fractal itself, that’s good. But, with Uncategorized for example, people see an abandoned Rata Sum, speculate that it might be a Rata Sum of the future, and then are stuck waiting for any kind of explanation or in-game event that may never come.

Side note: it’s not Rata Sum. (Which I think makes it even more interesting.)

hunnybun.1380:

Oh. I googled it and a 7 months ago it looks like they were planning to phase out Mf from ascended gear… I guess not. Looks like I have to get 50 more laurels. -_-

You can save 10 laurels by buying the amulet for 20 laurels + 250 Badges of Honor if you do WvW or have badges from chivo chests.

I’d say this: rolling isn’t a problem, it’s the symptom of a problem. That:

1) Despite a tiered system, there are still Fractals which are clearly “better” (read: quicker)
2) With the existing reward system, Faster = More Rewarding most/all of the time

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Just a quick note to let you know i am up to date.

I am assuming that you all feel that for example a Dredge rework is higher priority than say a rework to rolling?

Chris

100% yes. Did Fractals last night and Dredge came up. Took 51 minutes. (We were playing a bit above, maybe 5 scales or so, our normal level and had a few people low on AR, so that could explain part of the length. But still.)

It was much more stress than it was fun for nearly an hour. Ugh.

Out of curiosity, has anybody else timed their Dredge runs? How long does it take you? Without skips/exploits/etc?

Reikou.7068:

timmyf.1490:

If you don’t care about making friends and getting to know the people you play with, yeah, a guild is useless.

You can do that with a friend’s list.

Can you do group chat with your Friends list?

I’ll say what I said above in a slightly different way: if you don’t see the point of a guild, you’re not in a good guild.

If you don’t care about making friends and getting to know the people you play with, yeah, a guild is useless.

Satakal.6971:

ColinJohanson.2394:

What kind of fun ideas can you come up with to help allow us to get more story into the fractal experiences, without the cost of slowing down the core re-playability of the game play that is at the heart of the fractal content?

What about something like Scarlet’s Journal, but for fractals?

You get a book when you complete a fractal, with a little extra snippet about what was going on, and when you have all of them, you combine it into one big book. You could further expand on this by showing Dessa your journal, and asking her for some more information. This would all be text based and available to players whenever, so I think it would minimize interference with the designs of fractals. An issue I can think of is how you can be sure that a player is eligible to get a book when he completes a fractal, so we don’t end up acquiring dozens of them.

This is a really cool idea! It reminds me of something, I just can’t put my finger on it…

Anyway, I’m surprised ArenaNet hadn’t already thought of this YEARS ago!

Mustafa.7684:

timmyf.1490:

Mustafa.7684:

Dont ban people because they outsmart Anet.

If you are attempting to OUTSMART the game developer, that is, by definition, trying to exploit the game.

how so.. if i can create certain build on my character that provide me way higher DPS or healing power or what ever then i can… How many times have they nerf characters traits, or events or anything because they never expected the players to OUTSMART them.

If you can’t see the difference, I’m not sure I can help you.

Mustafa.7684:

Dont ban people because they outsmart Anet.

If you are attempting to OUTSMART the game developer, that is, by definition, trying to exploit the game.

ktbenson.7935:

Thoughts?

Yes. Have a Durmand Priory Historian NPC who you can activate to run along with you and narrate (but avoid combat).

I believe, in the Iron Marches case, there was an event that would endlessly instaspawn mobs if you didn’t complete it. Unlike every other infinite spawn event in the game, the mobs that endlessly instaspawned dropped loot.

That’s my understanding, anyway. When I heard about it, I avoided it entirely because exploit.

I think I’ve felt both frustration and optimism about this game. The way I think about it is this….

Playing Guild Wars 2 is like taking your second-choice date to prom.

You’re happy. You will have a good time. There’s nothing wrong with your date. But it wasn’t the date you really wanted. And the more you think about wanting that other person, the less happy you’ll be.

I think most of us wanted more from GW2. That doesn’t mean the content we got is bad, though. I’ve gone back and forth with the Living World strategy – it reached a high point around the Bazaar stage and I remember saying, “Oh man! They’re getting their feet under them! This is going to be great!”

Then we had a few more disappointing releases and a lot more open-world zergfests.

I believe ArenaNet is a company of smart people who care deeply about this game but are working in a severely limited development environment. I don’t know if it’s because the code is a mess or the tools aren’t quite right or the engine just can’t handle the art they wish they could do or what. I’m utterly perplexed that they haven’t expanded the world we play in yet, 18 months in. I question whether zergy overflow fests are really the way of the future. I mourn the loss of each guild member who leaves (or stops representing) my small community so they can kill Tequatl or Wurm with TTS instead.

All that said, because ArenaNet is full of smart people who care, I think they’re also able to take the feedback we’re giving them and do better. Remember, they’re trying something new and expecting them to get it right the first time is maybe expecting too much.

I think Living World Season 2 will be a bellweather for this game’s future and I really hope they succeed.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

manddras, that’s good feedback. I think the game’s answer is to find a guild. I run training dungeons and Fractals with my guild all the time, and there’s even one that’s sprung up on the forums here. Still, you make good points. The game does not always make it easy to learn mechanics and often leaves it to players to find a way themselves.

manddras.1794:

Proposal Overview
To put Fractals reachable for newcomers and/or making it easily trainable alone

snip

Hi manddras, thanks for the idea! I’d like to make two points:

1) Early in this thread, I proposed a Practice Mode for Fractals where you could choose a single Fractal and do it with a group. Do you think this would help solve some of your problems?

2) The problem with a “solo mode” is that many of the encounters require group coordination, so it wouldn’t work. Think about Swamp, one you seem to know. You need at least 3 players to grab the wisps. Well, maybe solo mode has just one wisp, so that’s solvable. The Dredge Fractal, however, has puzzles which cannot be easily changed to solo versions.

I think we should separate “I want a solo mode” from “Fractals are too difficult to get into” because they are (to me) different problems with different solutions.

I’d like to rephrase Colin’s question in a slightly different way. In Fractals, and in GW2 in general, which of these do you agree with?

a) There is too much story and lore in the game
b) There is about the right amount of lore and is consumable in a way I like
c) There is about the right amount of lore and is not easy or enjoyable for me to consume
d) There is not enough story and lore in the game

I imagine we will get answers all over the map. Not necessarily equal among all, but I bet there are widely varying opinions. Personally, I’d like for there to be more story and lore. The newer Living World instances with extended dialogue between characters? LOVE IT.

That said, it’s not “replayable” in the way Colin is asking. It’s a significant time investment for something the players consume once…

…but it brings SO MUCH depth to the world! Fractals only teases at this with some of Dessa’s comments. That’s why I think a Story Mode (like I suggested above with a Priory Historian) could really help to flesh out the Fractals.

Even if it’s just an NPC that runs with you and has some VO about the Fractal while you do the existing path. That would still be a nice extra piece of story for us to get.

Curious what others think.

I had suggested Story Mode Fractals in the last CDI as part of my Order Missions idea. Here’s what I wrote then, in case anybody is curious.

I think Story Mode Fractals could be built on the same maps as the existing Fractals which would, I think, cut down significantly on the time it takes to build them. Above I suggested having an extra “side-path” though this isn’t a necessity.

Instead of trying to prevent rolling, they could always just make Swamp more difficult to bring it in line with the other Tier 1 Fractals. That falls under the realm of Balancing, a topic the moderator Romo approves for discussion here.

Also, not that I want to change topics, but can we talk for a moment about probabilities and “tough runs?” I do not roll Swamp. I just don’t do it. But I’m a little worried that makes my Fractal runs harder overall (not just on the first.) Here’s why:

There are 5 possible Fractals in Tier 2. Assuming equal probability of each, I should have a 20% chance to get the hardest, Cliffside. If I Roll For Swamp, that’s true.

But let’s say I don’t and I take Uncategorized or Urban Battlegrounds… that means that there are only 4 possible Fractals in Tier 2, so I now have a 25% chance to get Cliffside. After doing one of the longer/harder Tier 1 options.

So having a harder T1 Fractal increases my chances of having a harder T2 Fractals.

Same thing happens with T2-T3. If I get Cliffside as my second Fractal, my chances of getting Dredge third go from 20% to 25%.

Anyway, that means that rolling Swamp (or Underwater) reduces the likelihood of you getting Dredge. (I did some back of the envelope math and found it reduces it from 21.25% to 21% but I’m not entirely sure that’s correct. And it’s a very small effect, if I did that math correctly. Still a little troubled by that system.)

To me, this means that Tiers are okay, but maybe Fractals should only exist in a single tier.

Nike.2631:

I honestly don’t see ‘re-rolling’ for first fractal as all that hard to kill.

Charge each player 1g to enter Fractals. Each player receives an additional 1g at the completion of the first Fractal. (Kicking is disabled during the first Fractal?)

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

On the scope of Fractals as a vulnerable instance:

Why is the instance owner allowed to be kicked? What’s the point in that? Atleast make him immune to kick.

I feel like there could be some karmic justice in this. Also, if you have a group that’s, say, 4 guild members and 1 PUG, the PUG can start the instance as protection against possible kicking later.

Don’t copy that floppy!

In all seriousness, I like the idea of saving progress, but if that’s going to be an option, there needs to be a very simple way of handling it. Lost Witch’s floppy idea will almost certainly lead to some level of floppy farming and groups demanding you bring a Completed Swamp floppy to join their 2-3-4 group.

I hate to be artificially limiting, but I think any sort of Save Progress system should require the same party members to return later.

Harper.4173:

A cool idea – and I agree with this – pre-GW1 stories would be awesome.

A few ideas :

Ascalonians driving back the Charr.
Margonites in the Crystal Desert.
The actual Guild Wars.
The sinking of Orr.
White Mantle vs Invading Charr.

The list could go on – we should have these – they would be epic.

Oh man. How cool would it be to have a Fractal where you fight through an Orrian palace to stop the Vizier from sinking Orr?

We could finally see a cleansed Orr!

Based on the chat log in those screenshots, I consider Qt Spy’s behavior to be even more professional than I had expected.

The fact that another friend of yours specifically asked if you were leeching or AFKing is proof enough that you knew what you were doing.

I don’t think making stacking “unviable” is a great plan, but it wouldn’t be a terrible thing for gameplay if ranged mobs would occasionally create more space. At the very least, it would force the stack to move.

Definitely agree that any Account-Wide Agony Resistance should be in addition to and not a replacement of existing AR.

Also agree that Agony should be avoidable through skilled play and “it’s going to hit you no matter what” AR-gating is a bad thing.

What if you could convert Pristine Fractal Relics into account-bound AR?

Proposal Overview

Use Fractals to expand on three stories which exist in both GW1 and GW2: the White Mantle (yes, they are in GW2!), Glint, and the Titans. This can also be a stepping stone toward more content dealing with the Elder Dragons.

Goal of Proposal

Bring more existing lore into Fractals as well as bringing back some memorable experiences from the original Prophecies franchise.

Proposal Functionality

Three new Fractals. I’ll keep these slightly vague, so use your imagination to fill in the details. And discuss!

In Henge Fractal, a re-imagining of the Aurora Glade mission from GW1, players must simultaneously hold three thorn pedestals while being assaulted by White Mantle. Once the pedestals have been held, players must fight Saul D’Alessio and his Mursaat guards.

In Crystal Fractal, a re-imagining of the Dragon’s Lair mission, players must choose one of three paths, each with different sets of debuffs, on their way to battle the dragon Glint.

In Fire Island Fractal, players must navigate through the core of a volcano while battling back Titans to a dangerous battle with the Undead Lich and his captive Prince Rurik.

I think ArenaNet can come up with details better than I can. What I would like to suggest is that each of these Fractals can integrate with expanded story about an Elder Dragon: Henge can tie into more about the Maguuma jungle and Mordremoth. Crystal ties in with Kralkatorrik. Fire Island ties in with the Titans and Primordius.

It gives a way to tie Fractals together with developments in the Living World.

Associated Risks

For those who want new lore, this could be seen as a disappointment. ArenaNet would have to be careful to tie these Fractals in with new stories. A simple replay of GW1 missions wouldn’t be particularly exciting.

Chris-

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

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

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

Asko.4120:

I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but if you are ‘well aware of’ the player displeasement with the current implementation of the dredge fractal, why haven’t you done anything about it for the last year?

I speculated about this in an earlier post, but my best guess is that there is internal disagreement about this Fractal, but the decision was made to keep it as is and most devs are just trying to avoid making any comment about it at all as they need to present a unified message to players.

This is pretty standard corporate policy. My hope is, over time, ArenaNet feels more comfortable allowing individual developers some leeway in discussing personal feelings which may differ from the official position. I think Josh Foreman is best known for doing so and most of us here have tons of respect for him because of it.

That said: Chris has made it pretty clear that Dredge won’t be discussed, so let’s try to find other topics and move forward.

Myself and a few others advocated for this in the last CDI Process Evolution thread. That’s the appropriate place for this and we should continue to discuss there. (Not that you’re not allowed to make that post here, but we should definitely discuss later as well.)

Lilith Ajit.6173:

timmyf.1490:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I just thought there was a suggested word count of the proposals, and it was 200

So far, that just isn’t happening.

Incorrect. Proposals can have any length. Suggested word count for discussion posts about proposals is 200 or less.

Oh well, there hasn’t been much discussion. Only 5 pages of proposals of “any” length.

With over half of that being variations of “give us more pristines/gold for higher levels and ways to get the Fractal weapon we want without pure RNG.”

Lilith Ajit.6173:

I just thought there was a suggested word count of the proposals, and it was 200

So far, that just isn’t happening.

Incorrect. Proposals can have any length. Suggested word count for discussion posts about proposals is 200 or less.

Nike.2631:

Ahhh. We needed a test of whether tangent-at-best posts would be culled.

We should make a note of the result for our Process Evolution thread. We should also discuss that there are far more proposals than discussion posts for the same topic (specifically rewards) and the proposals all say the same thing, more or less.

Reinforces my belief that a forum for CDI would work best with one thread per proposal.

Leo Paul.1659:

timmyf.1490:

It sucks to not be able to play with guildmates because our server is hardcapped and there’s a dozen people idling by the waypoint.

As i’ve said previously, no one is denying anyone a spot to participate in the event by attending. That’s what overflows are for. You can enter one and have your guildies join you there.

We’ve actually had better luck getting everybody together in main. Overflows cap as well, remember. This has, admittedly, gotten easier, but in the first few days, overflows were capping within seconds.

Also, my server hits 1200 bags basically every time. Overflows are much more of a gamble.

Xar.6185:

I also agree that reusing the LS encounters is a great way to recycle the content. I just think we are selling ourselves short asking for them to be added to fractals. Off the top of my head why not a personal story teller in the home instance that can be used as an interface to ‘remember when I did that cool thing’ or a scrying pool or with assistance from the pale tree. Plus if the LS encounters are used somewhere other than fractals things like the molten facility won’t have to be shortened.

The upside would be every new fractal would be totally new, the downside would be taking longer to see new fractals.

I think expanding the GW2 HoM is a good idea. I think some LW encounters make sense for Fractals, others do not.

My concern is that, if too many of them are added, Fractals lose their “wow, what on earth is this?” feeling. It becomes a very high probability that you’re just replaying old content.

Thaumanova was cool in that regard because it took something we knew about the world and gave us a little more insight into it.

Leo Paul.1659:

timmyf.1490:

Leo Paul.1659:

timmyf.1490:

Here’s a fun thing to try: at 10 past the hour, go to Canal Ward and write down the names of all the players standing there. At 40 past the hour, go back and compare names.

You think it’s innocent, 5-minute AFKing? This should disabuse you of that notion.

And they should be punished because? How about the people who jump overflows to earn several heirlooms?

Is this a cultural thing? Is there a reason that lots of people think this behavior is okay?

I’m confused because this not only seems wrong to me, it seems OBVIOUSLY wrong. To others, it seems OBVIOUSLY okay.

There’s something here that I don’t quite understand that’s leading us to such wildly different conclusions.

Maybe… I dunno either. TBH, I do get why people are upset, but I don’t believe that anyone should be penalized for standing idly.

My problem isn’t just that they idle.

My problem is that that idle in order to get rewards taking up valuable slots on the main server.

It sucks to not be able to play with guildmates because our server is hardcapped and there’s a dozen people idling by the waypoint.

Leo Paul.1659:

timmyf.1490:

Here’s a fun thing to try: at 10 past the hour, go to Canal Ward and write down the names of all the players standing there. At 40 past the hour, go back and compare names.

You think it’s innocent, 5-minute AFKing? This should disabuse you of that notion.

And they should be punished because? How about the people who jump overflows to earn several heirlooms?

Is this a cultural thing? Is there a reason that lots of people think this behavior is okay?

I’m confused because this not only seems wrong to me, it seems OBVIOUSLY wrong. To others, it seems OBVIOUSLY okay.

There’s something here that I don’t quite understand that’s leading us to such wildly different conclusions.

Here’s a fun thing to try: at 10 past the hour, go to Canal Ward and write down the names of all the players standing there. At 40 past the hour, go back and compare names.

You think it’s innocent, 5-minute AFKing? This should disabuse you of that notion.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

But it does seem the playerbase is all on the same page here. It would be beneficial to get some developer interaction to see what page they’re on. (But I can’t imagine trying to soak in this many words at once, so I suspect that’s why we aren’t getting too much red yet).

It’s also not even 7am in Seattle. That’s probably part of it.

I propose we voluntarily hold back any more feedback until Chris returns, catches up, and has a chance to respond. Unless somebody feels they have something new or different to add? I feel like we’ve gotten 10 different versions of the same proposal for how to get existing rewards easier/use up relics/get value for Ascended rings.

Perhaps a pause makes sense until we have some direction forward?

Nike.2631:

timmyf.1490:

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Would you consider some sort of written overview and/or miniature models of the fractals that can be viewed from the Mistlock Observatory map a working alternative? Maybe a second platform you can walk across a bridge to where you then have some in-game guidance you can browse without things trying to kill you?

I think that’s a possibility, but really, this is the scenario I’m thinking about:

I want to train my guildmates so if they PUG and get Dredge, they know what to do.

My guild members wear my guild tag and I feel some level of social responsibility that they are well-behaved and well-trained when they are representing my guild. You can always get an overview of how each Fractal works from gw2dungeons.net. I’d like to do more: I’d like to ensure they can clear the content.

And, to be honest, I think allowing the group to choose a Fractal and play just one at a time is less of an implementation effort than what you’re describing, though that’s just a guess.

Now, what you’ve suggested in addition to a Practice Mode would be even better!

chronometria.3708:

timmyf.1490:

Enemies need to attack faster but with smaller damage spikes. Enemies should also dodge big, telegraphed attacks the same way players would.

Changing AI like that is a very bad idea. This actually happened back in beta, in regards to AOE attacks, to the point where nobody could actually land an aoe attack on a mob and putting aoe on ones self meant that a mob would never engage you in close combat.

I`m a warrior with a rifle…so any change like that would mean that rifle would become a pvp only weapon as my killshots would never land. Some ranged mobs already to to break off frequently and that’s ok for them, but if all mobs did that, for, say, thousand blades, then we may as well all just use auto attacks all day and where is the fun in that?

Or you’d have to learn to stun an enemy before a killshot. Or wait until an enemy has burned its dodges.

You do make good points, though. It’s something that would have to be done carefully.

Harper.4173:

Proposal Overview

Create more fractals that are in some way related to GW1 or GW2 Lore.

Goal of Proposal

More content will incentivize players to start doing or come back to FOTM.

Proposal Functionality

If the added fractals would be related to lore in any way it could attract large numbers of players – we all remember the reaction of the player base to the possibility of a Abaddon fractal.

This is a great idea. I even think there are a couple GW1 missions that could be brought over, slightly modified, as a Fractal. Aurora Glade would be an interesting choice that comes to mind.

Enemies need to attack faster but with smaller damage spikes. Enemies should also dodge big, telegraphed attacks the same way players would.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

A possible solution would be to do something vaguely akin to story dungeons vs. explorable dungeons: Let players choose which fractal they want to play, but in return they will get fewer rewards, or not be able to level up their fractal level, or something like that.

I love all of your post, but just want to chime in: my Practice Mode proposal above would, I think, accomplish this. Would be glad for any feedback.

Top 3:

1) Dredge
2) Ease of getting started with Fractals/Practice Mode (see my proposal)
3) Fractal rewards compared to risk/reward of other game types

Proposal Overview

Create “Practice Mode Fractals” which allow newer players to learn the encounters one Fractal at a time, making it easier for players to get started.

Goal of Proposal

As leader of a small guild, I routinely find that new and experienced players alike have a fear of getting started with Fractals. They don’t know what Fractals are, how they work, or what they should be doing. I’ll offer to take them on some low level runs and explain the maps, but given the large number of Fractals, it can take awhile before we run into certain Fractals.

This makes it considerably harder to get them up to speed.

Also: I do not do higher-level Fractals with instabilities, but I could see this functionality being useful for practicing Instability X with Fractal Y.

Proposal Functionality

By speaking to Dessa, you can take your party into a single, specific Fractal of your choosing. (Over time, as Fractals deactivate, this could also be a way to play Fractals that are no longer in the main rotation.)

Associated Risks

Loot is my primary concern. If Practice Fractals have the same drops and rewards as regular Fractals, I could see them being farmed. I therefore propose that no loot drop AT ALL in Practice Mode Fractals so they are ONLY used for their intended purpose: learning the encounters so you can play regular Fractals with a group.