61 replies to this topic

[ashleigh mcmahon]

My guild and I ran two fractal runs (6 zones) both on difficulty 1 to help people reach difficulty 2.

From memory, the zones we played were:

• Dredge high rise (led into caverns) x2
  
• Winter/Ice Style fractal
  
• Graal Volcanic fractal
  
• Charr v Asaclon fractal (favourite!)
  
• Asuran/Golem Style Fractal

Good:

• Good to see it's not filled with 1000000k hp mobs.
  
• Shorter than normal time in each zone reduces boredom (change of scenary often)
  
• Inventive ways to progress through zones (Jump puzzle fans your in for a treat)
  
• Puzzle like bosses (strategic)
  
• Less worrying about repair costs as there's no WP if you all die (not sure what happens actually, maybe you have to start again, we didn't wipe)
  
• Variation of bosses within each mini dungeon - (Example: In dredge caverns, we done the same path both times round. First we got an Ice Ele boss, second a dredge machine)
  
• Environmental effects and hazards which are fun to avoid/work through
  
• No risen so far!

Bad:

• I can see PUG'ing this will be hard - even finding a group. People won't want to group up with people who have only reached difficulty 2 if they are on difficulty 8 as your whole party has to have completed up to that specific difficulty
  
• I'm worried that as difficulty raises we will be faced with stupid high hp mobs again. Hopefully Anet has found inventive ways to increase difficulty rather than just to buff up a mobs damage and hp
  
• If you DC for any reason you can't rejoin your party in the current fractal.
  
• Had a bit of FPS issues on some of the maps, nothing major though.

All in all, it's a pleasantly refreshing way to go about dungeons than what we were previously limited too. Personally, I disliked the dungeons which we had available until now.

I honestly was loosing faith in seeing GW2 as my long term MMO - this dungeon has completely reversed that faith.

There's my two cents, what you all think of it?

Ash
Edit: Added suggested cons

Edited by ashleigh mcmahon, 17 November 2012 - 01:54 PM.

[lolevy]

I would like to add as a con that if a player d/c (which my own wireless is prone to) or leaves that they are unable to get back in to the fractal until members come back.

[Space]

lolevy, on 17 November 2012 - 01:15 AM, said:

I would like to add as a con that if a player d/c (which my own wireless is prone to) or leaves that they are unable to get back in to the fractal until members come back.

yeah please fix this anet! Otherwise, first impressions are that its great! really varied and fun mini dungeons with awesome looking bosses. The visuals in this game are a real strength,

[NuclearDonut]

Much cooler than the other dungeons, but I've only done 1 run so far.

[Heart Collector]

Haven't done this dungeon yet and probably won't for a while until I'm 80, but it sounds pretty good!

[Ghostwing]

I have to wonder how the upscaling works. I ran one with a random group, had a 71 and a 49, and it was awful. Ran another with all 80s, at least 4/5th of the players had dungeon exotic skins, and it was smooth on difficulty 1--heck, we four-manned the ice map after one guy got disconnected.

The dungeon's really good, but I have to question the design decision to upscale lower levels if their numbers can't perform remotely near a level 80 can.

Edited by Ghostwing, 17 November 2012 - 01:29 AM.

[Nenneth]

ashleigh mcmahon, on 17 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

I can see PUG'ing this will be hard - even finding a group. People won't want to group up with people who have only reached difficulty 2 if they are on difficulty 8 as your whole party has to have completed up to that specific difficulty

This is my biggest problem with it.  I wasn't able to get into any of the groups that were running it in my guild tonight (2 of us left over), so now I'm going to be behind.  I tried pugging it, but the people were impatient and rage quit when we wiped on one bit (as the strategy wasn't obvious to any of us.)  So personally, I'm worried about being left further and further behind.

[Espritdumort]

I see problems in a month or two where it will be hard to find level 1 or 2 groups.  Everyone will want to do the higher ones for better rewards.

Pugging this (especially the Swamp) will be rough.

it seems cool, but I can't see myself grinding away at this.  I hope they release the alternate methods for Ascension gear acquisition sooner than later.

[ashleigh mcmahon]

Heart Collector, on 17 November 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

Haven't done this dungeon yet and probably won't for a while until I'm 80, but it sounds pretty good!

On both runs we only had 2 80's. Each time we took guildies on lower levels (40-60) and we done just fine. They even mentioned the EXP wasn't too bad, so it's possibly a viable way to level up.

[Gli]

I've only played 2 fractals so far, party fell apart because of disconnects at the end of the 2nd one. Luckily we managed to finish because the boss at the end was ridiculously easy.

I can't recall any names. The first one we did was the grawl sacrifice one. Liked it a lot. The second one was the underwater dolphin maze. Terrible, I don't hope to come across it often. It's the kind of thing that'll make me say: "sorry guys, not this rubbish." and exit the instance.

[Heart Collector]

ashleigh mcmahon, on 17 November 2012 - 01:29 AM, said:

On both runs we only had 2 80's. Each time we took guildies on lower levels (40-60) and we done just fine. They even mentioned the EXP wasn't too bad, so it's possibly a viable way to level up.

I know I could go as a lower level... But I think I'd still feel like a liability. I wouldn't want my group to suffer because I'm not up to the task. I know my guildies wouldn't mind having me along but I'd still not feel that comfortable. I'd rather wait until both me and my character have more experience and don't bog the others down

[Levistis]

On the forums ANET has said they'll be fixing the DCing issue shortly.

Cheers!

[Racthoh]

Gli, on 17 November 2012 - 01:33 AM, said:

I can't recall any names. The first one we did was the grawl sacrifice one. Liked it a lot. The second one was the underwater dolphin maze. Terrible, I don't hope to come across it often. It's the kind of thing that'll make me say: "sorry guys, not this rubbish." and exit the instance.

I can very easily see this become the norm. Plow through them, come across one you don't like, exit, and go again. As much fun as the concept is getting a run of the annoying fractals is going to deter people.

[Valkaire]

Ghostwing, on 17 November 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

I have to wonder how the upscaling works. I ran one with a random group, had a 71 and a 49, and it was awful. Ran another with all 80s, at least 4/5th of the players had dungeon exotic skins, and it was smooth on difficulty 1--heck, we four-manned the ice map after one guy got disconnected.

The dungeon's really good, but I have to question the design decision to upscale lower levels if their numbers can't perform remotely near a level 80 can.

Taken from this article

Quote

We’ve employed World vs. World-style sidekicking to make this dungeon accessible to all players. But keep in mind, our aim was to challenge level 80 players. Going in at low levels is not for the faint of heart!

On topic: My guildies and I are loving this, even finding some of the hidden achievements is pretty cool

Edited by Valkaire, 17 November 2012 - 02:43 AM.

[Wordsworth]

Some are really buggy. Dying from falls can result in just... stupidness with teammates not being able to reach you despite being teleported back up.

The charr vs Ascalonians one is absolutely terrible. If I wanted to play a sluggish character without my armor, I'd make a naked norn.

Also the entering instances and division based on level is going to get old, fast.

Edited by Wordsworth, 17 November 2012 - 02:59 AM.

[DennisChr]

I think the dungeon were amazing, I really liked it. Me and my group stopped up several times just to see the area we were in, because it was all so beautiful, Areanet really did use a lot of time on making the areas. I liked the fact that each boss fight was so different, and we were always looking at the boss before going in to put down or strategy.

We hadn't had any problems at all killing any of the bosses. We actually did one of them with 4 man, since I was so stupid falling of a cliff in the beginning (it is kind of weird that you won’t be able to respawn before next fractel), and my teammates could not reach me. Tomorrow we are meeting up again to get even further.  

[Solstice]

Call me pessimistic but I can see the novelty factor of this new dungeon content quickly wearing off, especially as the acquisition mentality kicks in with fractal tokens.

[IDarko]

I love it. They did a good job! Especially the environment artists!

[Wordsworth]

Gah. I'm going to bed and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and see "LFM Fractals Lvl (something higher than I already have)".

[Eon Lilu]

Just wasted an hour doing it, we all didnt get an option to go back to the "hub" to repair, some got disconnected and we lost all our progression...

Not impressed at all. Pretty terrible.

[Deyadissa]

Wordsworth, on 17 November 2012 - 03:08 AM, said:

Gah. I'm going to bed and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and see "LFM Fractals Lvl (something higher than I already have)".

Can't you just simply join their group, there's no way to prove it

Eon Lilu, on 17 November 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

Just wasted an hour doing it, we all didnt get an option to go back to the "hub" to repair, some got disconnected and we lost all our progression...

Not impressed at all. Pretty terrible.

That's the point. If you die too much and need to repair, the entire fractal progress is reset.

Edited by Deyadissa, 17 November 2012 - 03:31 AM.

[Valkaire]

Eon Lilu, on 17 November 2012 - 03:25 AM, said:

Just wasted an hour doing it, we all didnt get an option to go back to the "hub" to repair, some got disconnected and we lost all our progression...

Not impressed at all. Pretty terrible.

You go back to the hub after every third fractal (4th if you get a special/random boss encounter). If your party wipes, you get sent back to lions arch.

[Zhaitan]

ashleigh mcmahon, on 17 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

I can see PUG'ing this will be hard - even finding a group. People won't want to group up with people who have only reached difficulty 2 if they are on difficulty 8 as your whole party has to have completed up to that specific difficulty

I have PuG'd this to difficulty 3 tonight. We had to reset dungeon several times because team members ended up in different version of the instance till we found everyone in the same overflow. Had to reform the team twice as people simply would not like to stick around while we were dealing w/ overflow mess. At Level 3, we had to disband as no one was there to join as we needed 2 more to continue. We did Lvl 1 and 2 w/ 4 people as our Ele DC'd and could not get back.

ashleigh mcmahon, on 17 November 2012 - 01:12 AM, said:

I honestly was loosing faith in seeing GW2 as my long term MMO - this dungeon has completely reversed that faith.

I think ANET just decided to murder its own game by moving the population from already empty zones to a dungeon. Why would you design a game based on open world with dynamic events only to shift it into a dungeon crawler in 3 months? I won't even bother pondering on the increased stats/gear grind etc.

Ghostwing, on 17 November 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

The dungeon's really good, but I have to question the design decision to upscale lower levels if their numbers can't perform remotely near a level 80 can.

Sub-80 is pretty much not doable post lvl 1. I found the environment to be great as usual. The whole setup did not look like something ANET designed in last 2 months based on user response but, it was designed even before the game was launched to deal with content gluttony of a portion of the playerbase. I found the boss fights to be anti-climactic whereas the path leading to the bosses turned out to be somewhat daunting and challenging.

Racthoh, on 17 November 2012 - 02:37 AM, said:

I can very easily see this become the norm. Plow through them, come across one you don't like, exit, and go again. As much fun as the concept is getting a run of the annoying fractals is going to deter people.

Yes, it will be farmed that way. The way this dungeon is set up, it will not be too pug friendly. Best way to do it is just to zone in, check the map, get out if you don't like, try again, rinse and repeat. Maybe the way to counter that should be to reward team with 5,10,15 tokens after each mini-map. I do not see how a team can do 2 or more difficulties in one setting. PUGs will be even harder to manage.

Personally, I am very disappointed in the game's direction. I really hoped for an open world MMO where I will experience it based on dynamic events - good and bad - depending on the people's actions. I really did not hope it to be become a 5 ppl game so soon.

However, I am sure many people are ecstatic about it.

Edited by Zhaitan, 17 November 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[Deyadissa]

Valkaire, on 17 November 2012 - 03:33 AM, said:

You go back to the hub after every third fractal (4th if you get a special/random boss encounter). If your party wipes, you get sent back to lions arch.

If your party wipes, you get sent back to the last checkpoint.

[madmaxII]

Deyadissa, on 17 November 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Can't you just simply join their group, there's no way to prove it

It looks like you can choose the difficulty level when you enter the dungeon but you can't select "3" if one of your party members hasn't completed "2", for example. Not totally sure about it, but that's what the interface suggests.

Edit: The interface says "a group can only select a difficulty scale unlocked by all party members", so I am kinda sure that you can't lie about your rank.

Edited by madmaxII, 17 November 2012 - 03:41 AM.

[Valkaire]

Deyadissa, on 17 November 2012 - 03:35 AM, said:

If your party wipes, you get sent back to the last checkpoint.

Oh, really? My team only wiped once and it was on the Jade Quarry looking level. I guess you only get teleported out on the bonus boss levels then =S

[Deyadissa]

Yea, they need to fix that then.

If they make levels lock out, its going to quickly become impossible to any newer players that happen to join the game, since no one will want to do level 1. (Similiar to Hall of Heroes, you had to have rank to get rank...)

I don't see a reason to lock out groups like that.

[Valkaire]

Deyadissa, on 17 November 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

Yea, they need to fix that then.

If they make levels lock out, its going to quickly become impossible to any newer players that happen to join the game, since no one will want to do level 1. (Similiar to Hall of Heroes, you had to have rank to get rank...)

I don't see a reason to lock out groups like that.

Well, it's not like we were locked out. When you get to the bonus boss levels you've already gone through 3 fractals. I guess the reason is because it is a bonus and it's not supposed to be win through persistence type thing compared to the other ones. (If you're replying to me).

I do worry about the level requirement thing though, but I'm sure some people wouldn't mind doing the lower levels again as you aren't required to have ascended gear at that point.

Edited by Valkaire, 17 November 2012 - 04:14 AM.

[FoxBat]

Deyadissa, on 17 November 2012 - 04:09 AM, said:

Yea, they need to fix that then.

If they make levels lock out, its going to quickly become impossible to any newer players that happen to join the game, since no one will want to do level 1. (Similiar to Hall of Heroes, you had to have rank to get rank...)

I don't see a reason to lock out groups like that.

Infusions more or less do this already, and without inspection or any way to show in trade, people trying to play higher levels are going to need to avoid pugging entirely. Not worth the risk of picking up a lowbie who lies about their infusion progress. The current system isn't necessarily the best, but something is needed.

[Lifeisnotfair]

Wait a minute is the level account bound? Because I have 5 lvl80 it would suck if I have to raise all there dungeon levels.