New Dungeon, Fractals of the Mists

[Cyphran]

I like the game... I still have plenty to do and that keeps me logging in despite having completed my perfect gearset and spec (for now). I'm not really seeing an issue with the new dungeon but I am personally the type of player that likes to be ahead of the pack. Anet tried something new and it clearly hasn't proved as effective as they initially projected. I have no objections to them attempting to introduce new content to entice a specific group of players.

I just want to see what'll happen.

[Kelesti]

I get what you are saying Durzlla. But they could have easily put this "challenge" mode of dungeons without the added gear progression.

Agreed. Better design and challenging content can be done independently of stat inflation. Hell, even Blizzard's noticed this with their implementation of Challenge Mode dungeons. A slightly different focus (speed, efficiency, which you should be striving for in GW2 anyways), but to go back on such a design intent at this stage really makes no sense to those of us who signed up simply because we wanted a system to push our skills, not our stats.

[Sojou]

So would you rather have a loyal and dedicated fanbase, albeit not as many people, or do you want a bigger influx of people that ultimately ends up leaving the game within a few weeks for the next mmo to hop to.

If I was calling the shots and had an invested interest in the game's success beyond being a fan or a hater, I would rather have the influx of players in a F2P MMO like GW2. If you appeal to those types of players (the larger majority of the market) you run a higher risk of maintaining a larger playerbase, spending additional funds in your market, buying additional expansions, etc...

[Kelesti]

The "fun" in mmo's, imo, has always been progressing your character. That kind of ends a few weeks after hitting 80 at the moment. PvE wise that is.

Except there are MMOs out there that don't focus on linear progression. Not everything is a WarCraft clone.

[Newbryn]

I'm not gonna freak out about it guess I'm just surprised, I will stress though more numbers does not equal more difficult, its nothing but an artificial increase in difficulty nothing more.

[Zeek Daniels]

I tend to agree. Isn't locking content behind gear something they specifically said would never happen?

How are they locking content behind gear when the dungeon is accessible to every level 80 on the planet? The dungeon is "beatable" by any geared level 80 with enough knowledge of the encounter and enough skill to complete the encounter. Gear is not a factor in this dungeon to "beat" it.

Now you maybe wondering why i put Beat in quotations and thats because this dungeon is unbeatable because it goes on forever. Content wise theres 9 seperate stages or environments to beat. Once you have beaten that guess what. You beat the content. Now the question is do you want to repeat that content at a higher difficulty. If the answer is yes then you are given that option and are kept being given that option provided you can beat the previous set of events.

There is no content gate behind gear. There is no gear treadmill. There is only a dungeon that never ends that gets harder and harder to beat and a new set of armor that can come as a reward that is slightly better than exotic armor but judging by how stats increase with each tier in GW2 your not going to all of a sudden be able to get further in the dungeon.

Would you guys all be happier with this same dungeon that keeps getting harder infinitely with exotics level items as a reward? I think the public outcry would then be "Anet why are you making a dungeon where no one can progress past 20x completion, the mobs hit too hard, They have too much Health, We dont do enough dmg, We need better gea.. Oh wait...."

Then maybe this dungeon type isn't a good design decision or GW2, hhmmmm?

You know that thing I have to repeat in every thread due to the sheer density of the average video gamer; bad design is exemplified by conflicting systems.

This is also what the real problem is. The whole gear treadmill outcry isnt because of what the outcryers are saying it is, its because the dungeon is flawed by design. You cant have this dungeon in its current infinite difficulty design without introducing a higher set of gear. Just because eventually your exotic set is going to hit a wall. Maybe at 15x difficulty or 25x difficulty or even 100x difficulty. So if thats the case then maybe with even 1 or 2 of the new pieces you can extend that difficulty by 1 more. Stats increases are not much in GW2 so its not going to help that much.

But again the dungeon design is flawed in that it needs to provide higher stats on gear in order to progress through the highest of difficulty that is reachable with the current gear.

Would still like to reiterate that the dungeon is still complete able in blue level 80 gear and that there is no treadmill.

[Ravenblade]

Maybe we will need that gear because Fractals of the Mist will throw Mandelbrot dragons at us while we are trying to climb an infinite tower via jumping over non-uniform blocks and those stats will be highly esoteric like +10 to Complexity

[Valeron]

Maybe the ascended/infused gear will allow us to fall further and jump higher.

[Beefsquatch]

Except there are MMOs out there that don't focus on linear progression. Not everything is a WarCraft clone.

So just because an MMO uses a similar structure to another's, it's considered a clone? GW2 is very different from WoW. Just because they are modifying character progression/endgame to something that works and will bring them more players, doesn't mean it's turning into a WoW clone. The playing for shits and giggles philosophy is awesome, but it doesn't hold people long term. There are more fun games to play for the sake of it, like CoD, Super Mario etc. MMOs are all about character progression. They want people playing not leaving after a few weeks and only coming back for big events. Gear treadmills are a cheap tactic to keeping players playing, I will admit that. But like I mentioned before, if done right it can be fun and not feel grindy. We'll just have to wait and see how they go about it. If they make it that the stats on the gear ONLY increase inside that certain dungeon (or dungeons for the future), that would be extremely awesome. It's a win win and people wouldn't need to complain, they would be catering to most types of gamers.

[KCguy]

The key words are "long term". Are they going to keep doing the MMO model that is currently in the game? Where do they go from here? There's a lot of questions. If they keep it as is and continue to, people will get very bored of it. They need to mix things up, pretty much how Blizzard does with WoW. Some thing have worked, so haven't, but at least they're trying different things. Such as new features, different ways to earn gear etc. This isn't a WoW vs Gw2 debate, merely pointing out how it's good to mix it up. Keeping things the same gets very stale.

[Lemmiwink]

I think while they're at it that they should introduce some kind of way to tank efficiently so that they can make raids as well. Getting sick of just zerging everything and getting one-shotted by completely unavoidable damage. Tank/healer/DPS is a working formula, you can still use dodge etc. to make combat more fluid/action oriented. This "the holy trinity is gone" doesn't work equally good to the holy trinity imo

[Kelesti]

^... "and so it begins"

[Valeron]

^... "and so it begins"

Aye...

We could call it Guild Wars 2: World of Guildcraft

...I jest...well maybe a little

[Durzlla]

^... "and so it begins"

Kel quick ban him before it spreads...

[Fencers]

How you and fencers aren't grasping this I beyond me it's in ONE instance that's infinite!! If you want to grin endlessly to get past wave 10 more power to you but those extra progression stats if you don't want to chase a carrot fine! Do it! But you don't get past wave 10 in an INFINITE AND RANDOMLY GENERATRD INSTANCE

They want GW2 to have something for everyone, and so far they really only are lacking in the mindless gear treadmill runners, throw them a bone, give them 1 stupid instance where they can get infusions in gear that you get better ones at higher lv so they can feel like they're constantly stronger, and how they have set the instance up all they'd need to do is throw more dungeon segments and boss fights in there to keep them happy.

That's nice and all that I am being thrown a bone like a dog. But ya know, how does that gesture resolve linear gear progression being contradictory to everything in the Guild Wars series to date?

That is my point of contention; if this patch introduces such a thing by all objective reason Arena.net are hypocrites. And they would have expressly created a badly designed feature. Whether or not it is game wide or confined to one instance.

In a design sense confining linear gear progression to one area is more problematic than being game wide. That is definitively bimodal.


Durz, think it through man! I know you play Guild Wars 1. I know you aren't strictly some Johnny Come-Lately with an axe to grind about their Warlock in World of Warcraft and other associated low class fanaticism.

Think it through!

;P

[Ravenblade]

I think while they're at it that they should introduce some kind of way to tank efficiently so that they can make raids as well. Getting sick of just zerging everything and getting one-shotted by completely unavoidable damage. Tank/healer/DPS is a working formula, you can still use dodge etc. to make combat more fluid/action oriented. This "the holy trinity is gone" doesn't work equally good to the holy trinity imo

I'd rather have them explaining how aggro is determined (even though their own wiki has an entry about it). Then I would reserve high damage abilities to special timed self-boons with cooldown rather than having it as innate ability. I'd also advertise combo field use better. I often find that people don't play enough with them. I like dropping fire bomb and then activating magnetic inversion in a crowd of ranged to bounce away mobs and give them +3 might.

There's many ways to get around it without trying to introduce holy trinity. Actually that's the kind of slippery slope I exactly don't want. I would go back to WoW or SW:TOR if I wanted that. Played tanks and healers in both games.

Also mind you if you're implementing that then people will finally compare GW2 with other MMORPGs following the classical design scheme on 1:1 basis and you know what? It would be a right thing to do then as the system would lend itself to be compared with these games.

[Valeron]

Well if are talking about group mechanics they should make the combo system stand out more. Be more important so we can utilize that.

[Durzlla]

That's nice and all that I am being thrown a bone like a dog. But ya know, how does that gesture resolve linear gear progression being contradictory to everything in the Guild Wars series to date?

That is my point of contention; if this patch introduces such a thing by all objective reason Arena.net are hypocrites. And they would have expressly created a badly designed feature. Whether or not it is game wide or confined to one instance.

In a design sense confining linear gear progression to one area is more problematic than being game wide. That is definitively bimodal.


Durz, think it through man! I know you play Guild Wars 1. I know you aren't strictly some Johnny Come-Lately with an axe to grind about their Warlock in World of Warcraft and other associated low class fanaticism.

Think it through!

;P

Lol I think we have entirerly different views on Ascension gear... I'm thinking of it more like when you hit X wave you get Y% more stats (like moral boost) an then the whole GW1 infusion system, not like a progression like in wow....

[Kelesti]

Well if are talking about group mechanics they should make the combo system stand out more. Be more important so we can utilize that.

The Guardian I've been running alongside has been learning to Blast finisher my Ethereal fields (especially when melee heavy). It applies Chaos Armor to anyone nearby, and is pretty awesome/effective.

Combos could definitely stand out more, but if you're running with some friends regularily, you already know which ones work really well for your comp, and what you need to do to take advantage of them.

[Ravenblade]

Lol I think we have entirerly different views on Ascension gear... I'm thinking of it more like when you hit X wave you get Y% more stats (like moral boost) an then the whole GW1 infusion system, not like a progression like in wow....

I was thinking something along the lines but plain stat boost is sort of akin to a perma-boon in that way so maybe there is a visual component to it as well. Like...you glow more in the dark Or maybe a special proc or series of special procs or sub-skills gets added which you could switch between transitions by buying runes from vendors. I think the idea of plain stat boosts would be fairly boring by comparison considering what you could do with it if just limiting to a dungeon.