About fractals

Fractals in themselves are a really cool part of GW2, I'm not speaking about instabilities but more about the fractal design (map and story (at least objectives and how it leads you to the end)). Several of them are beautiful like shattered observatory, cliffside, thaumanova or chaos isles. It definitely add something to the game, of course they aren't as big as dungeons but they are okay. Thaumanova is for me mini - Crucible of Eternity. And urban battleground can be linked with ascalonian catacombs.

We have 100 difficulty scales within fractals divided into 4 tiers so 25 fractals per tier BUT we only have 20 different fractals. So here I come, why not completing those last five "unused" slots with real fractals? Dunno several ideas are possible: Largos fractal, Tengu fractal, Mursaat fractal, Sylvrai fractal, Fall of Quora Sum fractal....

And so was wondering, we could save more free slots for new fractals:Example 1: Aetherblade fractal fusion with Captain Mai Trin fractal like the original dungeon.Example 2: Molten furnace fractal fusion with Molten Boss Fractal.That way we save 2 more slots for new fractals.

Now about instabilities: I don't really see what value they bring to fractals. I really feel like any tier is the same only AR is changing, whereas it would be more challenging if higher tier = More foes and some veterans are turned into champions. It could add some stunning mechanics, like as example with swampland fractal: If you play it at T3/T4 they are thick fogs everywhere making hard to see anything. for aetherblade fractal they are waiting for us with lightning cannons in some corners...

This thread could be about suggesting new fractals, but firstly was created to discuss about how fractals can be enhanced. I definitely think adding more and more instabilities isn't the solution. Of course it doesn't annoy me to play with flux bomb or last laugh, but now it's a mess.

No please, don't make them longer, the beauty of fractals is they are shortand Yes please, remove instabilities and boost bosses HP +attack speedNot a fun of fighting trash champions tbh unless they drop something worth my time :)

We're in fractals, so champions could at least drop relics. Some chance of T6 materials. And very rare/ quite rare drop of Ascended crates.I also agree they should be short, but frankly, mai trin is very small, only the fight, so adding aetherblades, would make aetherblade 5 mins longer.Twilight oasis as example isn't short and take a serious amount of time. Molten facility too. But maybe the longer is uncategorized because you have to climb and do all the jumping parts. ^^

Don't you dare touch Mai Trin.

OP you do know that they add new fractal from time to time right?

@Linken.6345 said:OP you do know that they add new fractal from time to time right?

sure, that's why I made that post '-' I know new fractals will be added, but the question is, would they add them until reaching the critical number of 25 or would they change them into 100 unique? (definitely more 1st option)

@hugo.4705 said:

@Linken.6345 said:OP you do know that they add new fractal from time to time right?

It's going to be 2+ years before they reach 25 unique levels. The devs have said they are already thinking about how they might handle that.

They could:

• Change the size of tiers
• Add a tier
• Rotate fractals in & out.
• Have uneven tiers, e.g. Solid Ocean might appear in Tiers 1-3, but not T4, while Shattered appears in T2-4, but not 1.
• Replace the fractal level system, since the historical reasons for its existence are moot or superseded. It's also unnecessarily complicated for determining loot & agony.

For the last idea, it might be something like T1 requires 0 AR, T4 Requires 150, with T2 &T3 in between. Each tier has its own bonus rewards. The instabilities are already randomized. So today's dailies would be:

• Mutliloot Rewards: Nightmare, Snowblind, & Solid Ocean (we'd still get four boxes at T4, but only one if doing the T1 version)
• Journal Recommendations: T3: Urban; T2: Siren's Reef, T1: Volcanic

And best of all, it wouldn't matter at all how many different fractals there are. They'd just have to adjust the rotation to include the new ones. Each tier could have 25, 30, 50, even over 9000 fractals, and the system would still work.

The Devs answered that in either one of the AMAs, Forum Chats, or the Fractal/Dungeon/Raid sub-forum.

@"phs.6089" said:No please, don't make them longer, the beauty of fractals is they are short

I would like to stress a little bit more. Fractals, in its current setup, are meant to be run in threes (excluding your daily CMs), whether it's your dailies and/or the recommended Fractals. This was a design that was implemented from the very introduction of the game mode. Making multiple long-duration Fractals will simply make the entire experience more of a chore. Duration can be due to difficulty, but these days it's mainly prolonged by cutscenes (e.g. Molten Furnace), thrash mobs (e.g. Elite Sandbinders and multiple boss phases in Twilight Oasis), or "tutorial" stages to explain a complex boss fight (e.g. Siren's Reef). These long, dragged out experiences can be compounded when ANet--once again--overlook their Fractal rotations and leave godawful setups like Day 12 rotations which include:

Dailies

• Siren's Reef (long duration, large difficulty variance due to instabilities)
• Molten Furnace (long duration due to drawn out cutscenes)
• Deepstone (long duration due to trap rooms and boss phases)

Recommendeds

• T1 Nightmare
• T2 Solid Ocean (competent groups are "punished" with lots of down time)
• T3 Shattered Observatory (long duration due to cutscenes)

Yeah also I wanted to say that the length doesn't mean anything, I love shattered observatory and chaos isles. I agree about cinematics, maybe it could be nice to have a bot at the beginning to toggle cinematics.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@hugo.4705 said:

@Linken.6345 said:OP you do know that they add new fractal from time to time right?

• Change the size of tiers
• Add a tier
• Rotate fractals in & out.
• Have uneven tiers, e.g. Solid Ocean might appear in Tiers 1-3, but not T4, while Shattered appears in T2-4, but not 1.
• Replace the fractal level system, since the historical reasons for its existence are moot or superseded. It's also unnecessarily complicated for determining loot & agony.

• Mutliloot Rewards: Nightmare, Snowblind, & Solid Ocean (we'd still get four boxes at T4, but only one if doing the T1 version)
• Journal Recommendations: T3: Urban; T2: Siren's Reef, T1: Volcanic

WHAT 9000?!?!?