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New Aquatic Fractal


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Some sarcasm ahead:

Same as other old fractal reworks, 0 fun value, no challenge, just pure, high grade annoyance.

Mai - just camp on boss, spam heals, spam cc and dps, 0 brain required

Swampland - 284902489420 mobs to kill with irrelevant champs, super fun and engaging fractal with very challenging mechanics, just stack with group and no need to think

Molten Boss - just skip to bridge, kill 2 mobs, then rush into corner, kill 28940820974092724 mobs (super fun and engaging - especially those protectors which can protect enemy npcs through walls far away... ugh...), then just kill champ (which is not that bad), kill another 28490824 mobs and then hardest part of whole fractal, kill 2 legendary bosses - oh also there are more adds but they are so irrelevant, I guess it's fun and challenging part for parties where everyone is using soldier gear

ANet's scheme for old fractal rework: add 4948565971423 trash mobs (and now ones which you can't rally off, mobs that you have to kill since they can catch you up as fast as friendly npcs, mobs that have broken damages and abilities, spam weakness, chill, cripple and other conditions to make things more fun and challenging, right?).Add champs that block progress (which is kinda understandable, but like why putting it in every rework now... how original), add phases to final boss to prolong combat duration (would be ok if the combat itself wasn't boring/annoying as hell). In case of Aquatic and Molten Furnace also remove break bars so there is no damage bonus when breakbar is broken.

Also, notice how instability rework did not solve anything, but added more annoyance instead. The old Social Awkwardness was probably the most annoying and hated instability. Now what? We have like 2-3 more annoying ones instead. Wohooo, super fun!

Sarcasm turned off now:100 and 99 CMs were salvation of FotM. Those CMs are what the peak of endgame repeatable content should look like! It is still fun after all this time (after getting above 1k 100cm kp), it was challenging when doing it like first 20 times. The challenge of course drops when doing certain content so many times, so that is why fun aspect is crucial to keep this repeatable content enjoyable.The instabilities rework we got few months ago, was underwhelming, non-creative and resulted in annoyance and unfun of some daily clears. Take for example Frailty, Outflanked, Boon Overload or We Bleed Fire instabilities. Those instabilites do not make things challenging at all. They just force players to use healers in most groups who deal with the negative effects of instabilities. What about positive effects of those instabilities? The positive effects are pretty much useless and they don't contribute anything to fun gameplay. Mists Convergence instability spawns enemies which are really annoying in certain situations (rabbit stripping mistlock singularity, tentacle spamming aoe cc, Mossman throwing axe and making one stuck in combat for longer time, ...), but when it spawns ally npc, it is useless... like... completely useless.Instabilities need another rework and this time, much more effort and creativity needs to be put into it. Instabilities are very important for especially non-CM fractals, to keep them interesting, enjoyable and fun. Removing instabilities would result in fractals getting boring after a while. However, there should be option to do any fractal without any instability but with no or very little reward after completing it.Anyway... please less aids reworks and more fun gameplay :)

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@KidRoleplay.3615 said:

@"Aaron Forestman.4758" said:Today's difficulties with it had to do with getting Afflicted as an instability. He's supposed to just pulse some light damage during the invulnerable phases, but Anet forgot to make that not trigger afflicted. Thus we get tons of unavoidable condis.

Begs the question, will it trigger Outflanked in the future, or Stick Together, or Sugar Rush?

Stick Together apparently isn't supposed to trigger in Aquatic, according to this wiki:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractals_of_the_Mists#Mistlock_Instability

Neither should Vengeance have been by the way. I forgot to check what instabilities we actually got, but I read above that we did get it today. Perhaps a bug?

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@"Angelweave.1856" said:Been trying to get the new jellyfish with 4 seperate teams... we can not get past the 2nd phase. The fish does not follow into the electricity. What is the mechanic now?

For Deep Water (dark path)?Move as a group and continuously pickup luminous plants as you go to refresh the duration. Move along the right wall to avoid jellyfish patrols (getting hit will remove the "light"/luminious plant you're currently holding). Dodging forward does propels you faster and might be forced to do so to reach the final safe spot; batch of luminious plant before the Champion Krait.

Champion Krait.Contrary to many believe, luminous plants doesn't play any role in this fight (the zone around the champion is free from piranha). Stacking in 1 spot will just get your party obliterated by an aoe field (the animation is hardly noticeable, invisible at times/due to camera angle :angry:). Move away asap if you notice high damage/condi stacking up(confusion). Condi cleanse and CC helps.

Jellyfish.Never tried moving it therefore could be wrong here, but felt this boss is now stationary. But you want to be in melee range in order for it to devour one of your party members. For the devoured player, will need a considerable reaction speed to press the correct buttons (5 times in T4?) to be freed which. This will apply "weakness" debuff to the Boss making it vulnerable to damage. Failure will be rewarded with death (NO downstate) :anguished:. CC is useless for this fight.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Asum.4960 said:It feels like an actual Fractal now and once people adjust and come prepared with a somewhat decent underwater build to swap to, it's really not bad.

I keep hearing that every time there's a change to a fractal. And in the end what happens is always one of two things:if the difficulty remains the same, but the fractal just requires slightly different changes to the strategy, players do adjust, and eventually everything works exactly as before. No meaningful change happens.If the new version actually requires more effort/commitments, players
do not
adjust. Some of them just start skipping on that fractal from now on (and i don;t mean people dropping to a lower fractal tier - most of them actually just don't bother to do the fractal at all anymore). Average skill level of players doing it rises, but only because the least skilled ones are removed from the equation.
Not
because players got more skilled, because the improvement curve of each individual player remains unchanged - they keep improving at exactly the same rate they improved when the older version was present.

So, the end result is just a reduced population of players doing the content. But hey, at least it "feels like an actual fractal now".

What alternative do you propose? Every fractal is swim/walk to a boss and then use random skills you didn't even bother to read what they do and comfortably beat the encounter on the highest difficulty available?No, balancing to average difficulty (and not insisting on everything being exactly the same) would have been perfectly fine. It's okay of some fractals are a bit easier, just as it is okay that some are a bit harder. Instead, Anet prefers to balance
up
now, both on the difficulty and completion length scale. Remember, when each fractal was supposed to be a relatively short experience? I do, but Anet seems to have forgotten.If you want harder difficulty content there, that's what CMs are for.

Also, not touching Underwater fractal until after you've polished underwater combat and made it something more finished than an early beta would probably be another great idea.

When you change content that way, all you achieve is sending a message to all people that were fine with it up until now, but are no longer fine after the change. The message is "we don't want you there". That's not a good message to send to your players.

Then we maybe have population, for a time, but just like story and open world no actual enjoyable and engaging content to play with.

If people don't actually want to play the game and just get loot for menial tasks that just require time as opposed to effort, then what is the point of playing? And what do you do once you got the shinies you want if the content is just mind numbing easy and unenjoyable in of itself?I didn't consider it unenjoying. It started being that way only after Anet started messing with difficulty levels.

At least the people who still play after those Fractals are made more interesting and engaging are there to play and improve.And i am sure it will be more interesting and engaging for them up until the point Anet abandons fractals due to population getting too low to bother. And only then the screams will start, and everyone will be surprised.

In this case specifically, the Instabilities were causing more trouble than anything else and I gladly take a bet that most groups who struggled with it today didn't bring boon rip and condi cleanses for NPNG, Vengeance and Afflicted. That wasn't even the fractal being too difficult, just people refusing to bring appropriate tools.Well, yeah, instabilities are another problem that should be addressed. They originally were meant to offer some slight variations to fractal runs, in order to shake things up and make them more interesting. Instead those are something that has almost no impact on the top 10% of fractal runners (as those groups can pretty much ignore them). on the other hand, for average (and below average) groups, there are some instabilities that can easily turn an usual smooth run into a complete nightmare. Afflicted is near the top of that list on any fractal with more than just a few enemies.

Like before, they are another case of Anet forgetting the community doesn't consist of only highly skilled players.

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@Asum.4960 said:

What alternative do you propose? Every fractal is swim/walk to a boss and then use random skills you didn't even bother to read what they do and comfortably beat the encounter on the highest difficulty available?

I never intended for this thread to be an opportunity for complaining about the new difficulty. In fact, the exact opposite. I said in more than one way that difficulty doesn't enter the equation, because this fractal isn't difficult. Wasn't before, isn't now. It requires zero change in strategy. You can still just mindlessly brute force it with a druid like every other T4 fractal provided the bare minimum of situational awareness. The issue is it's a pointless change that serves to add nothing engaging or compelling to what was already the worst fractal in the roster - it's simply padding out the least developed form of content in GW2 which feels more like a gimmick or seasonal minigame than anything else. All this change has done is force you to spend longer in a boring scenario without any increase in satisfaction or tangible reward while mired in new mechanics which only frustrate.

An addendum: Imagine if they took Solid Ocean, a fractal which requires no concentration or skill, and increased the Jade Maw's health by 5000%. They've not added anything meaningful to the fractal. It's just padding nobody cares about, forcing you to spend longer on a fight that largely plays itself. That's how Aquatic was before, that's how it is now, the only difference is you have to change targets a grand total of seven times while suffering constant radial condi you can do nothing to avoid. Frankly, if they'd insisted on changing old fractals Solid Ocean deserves it far more than Aquatic. Aquatic's problem is fundamental and any solution is a waste of time. Molten Furnace was in my opinion a good change. Doing similar to Solid Ocean would have been vastly better than this Aquatic change.

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My team GG twice and manage to get through Aquatic T4 on the 3rd try.The Conditions you get during the Elite Krait phase can be counter with Guardian's Trident4, Shield Avenger, Sanctuary. It is the floating "black hand" that gives you the condition. Hence, any projectile absorb will neutralize the threat I think xD.Conditions cleansing skills are great for that phase too.The new aquatic fractal is quite enjoyable for me. Kudos to arena developers.

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For those claiming the new changes are good and makes thing challenging, it doesn't...it makes it DUMBER. See, there's a difference between challenge and...whatever this is. Challenge is when you're pushed to adapt and get better. This....this is just tedious...this doesn't challenge people, it just annoys them. There's just not much you can do underwater: movement is really slow and static and classes don't even have access to some of their skills! Without any sort of fix to underwater, you're pretty much just kneecapping players for no reason!

Gigantic thumbs down on this change. Aquatic Ruins will now be cemented as the WORST fractal in the game.

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@"JTGuevara.9018" said:For those claiming the new changes are good and makes thing challenging, it doesn't...it makes it DUMBER. See, there's a difference between challenge and...whatever this is. Challenge is when you're pushed to adapt and get better. This....this is just tedious...this doesn't challenge people, it just annoys them. There's just not much you can do underwater: movement is really slow and static and classes don't even have access to some of their skills! Without any sort of fix to underwater, you're pretty much just kneecapping players for no reason!

Gigantic thumbs down on this change. Aquatic Ruins will now be cemented as the WORST fractal in the game.

Actually, this is challenging by your own definition. As people are now required to adapt and get better. You can no longer just spam #1 while watching netflix on the side.Now, fractal actually requires your attention, group coordination, proper gear and potential build modification (depending on profession)

Also, movement isn't slow underwater. As far as I know, almost all professions have some sort of gap closer on their weapon or utility. And you are not even required to move that much for this particular fractal. This fractal is first underwater content that actually will force people to learn their underwater skills instead of just going "12345" while yawning.

Also, the change to "struggle" while you are consumed by Jellyfish is extra dicey. Now your skill number changes, so this can actually kill you if you are not paying attention. More fractals should have this mechanic, not less

I give this fractal 22/22 water-skis and a bag of mandarins

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@"kasoki.5180" said:Now, fractal actually requires your attention, group coordination, proper gear and potential build modification (depending on profession)Why should anyone invest in this crappy underwater gear just for ONE fractal encounter ??????????????????????????TF underwater crap is doing in "high end" pve content ? Had enough of this in pve/story.Inb4 they make underwater expansion and raid bosses, LOL.

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@praqtos.9035 said:

@"kasoki.5180" said:Now, fractal actually requires your attention, group coordination, proper gear and potential build modification (depending on profession)Why should anyone invest in this crappy underwater gear just for ONE fractal encounter ??????????????????????????TF underwater kitten is doing in "high end" pve content ? Had enough of this in pve/story.Inb4 they make underwater expansion and raid bosses, LOL.

You don't have to. But then don't complain if you cant do the content that "requires" better gear than the one you have. Also, saying that you need to "invest" into underwater gear is way to much of an overstatement. You need to get literally two items (which shouldn't be a problem if you are doing T4 anyhow) + one rune to complete your rune set

Boy, what a investment. How dares an MMORPG demand that i get better gear if I want to do content /s

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2 suggestions:

The condition damage scale from the elite stages needs to go down (Afflicted was especially brutal). Our poor ele just couldn't live past a few seconds with his low health pool.

Once all elite krait are dead, the dead of the group ought to revive a la Nightmare fractal,

Otherwise I'm fine with the changes.

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@kasoki.5180 said:

@kasoki.5180 said:Now, fractal actually requires your attention, group coordination, proper gear and potential build modification (depending on profession)Why should anyone invest in this crappy underwater gear just for ONE fractal encounter ??????????????????????????TF underwater kitten is doing in "high end" pve content ? Had enough of this in pve/story.Inb4 they make underwater expansion and raid bosses, LOL.

You don't have to. But then don't complain if you cant do the content that "requires" better gear than the one you have. Also, saying that you need to "invest" into underwater gear is way to much of an overstatement. You need to get literally two items (which shouldn't be a problem if you are doing T4 anyhow) + one rune to complete your rune set

Boy, what a investment. How dares an MMORPG demand that i get better gear if I want to do content /sThat wasnt the main point(that you ignored, I love such people /s) that I dont want to waste any gold for badly designed crap like this underwater fractal(and underwater combat in general).Underwater combat present only during core part of the game and its the worst part of it, many skills are disabled underwater. High quality content /s
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@Astralporing.1957 said:No, balancing to average difficulty (and not insisting on everything being exactly the same) would have been perfectly fine. It's okay of some fractals are a bit easier, just as it is okay that some are a bit harder. Instead, Anet prefers to balance up now, both on the difficulty and completion length scale. Remember, when each fractal was supposed to be a relatively short experience? I do, but Anet seems to have forgotten.If you want harder difficulty content there, that's what CMs are for.

And there are still some Fractals that are easier, Aquatic being still one of them, having been brought up to be still under the average difficulty considering proper gear and builds like one would assume people have for endgame content, like all other Fractals.Every time Anet changes anything ppl cry to the mists about it just to then wonder why they do so little sweeping changes which a lot of stuff desperately needs.Fractals take 5-8 Minutes, CM's take 10-15 minutes each. That's a short experience.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Also, not touching Underwater fractal until after you've polished underwater combat and made it something more finished than an early beta would probably be another great idea.

They did touch up underwater combat significantly quite a while ago. DPS is about the same as on land now and most Utility you might need is available.

@Astralporing.1957 said:When you change content that way, all you achieve is sending a message to all people that were fine with it up until now, but are no longer fine after the change. The message is "we don't want you there". That's not a good message to send to your players.

Well if that is the message you get then I'm sorry. The message I get is "We haven't forgotten about you, yea this was boring, we still want you to play this so we are going to update it, here's an opportunity to grow as player, have fun!"If people wouldn't be so incredibly negative about any update in every gamemode all the time, maybe anet wouldn't have gone so silent and stagnant for all these past years.It seems like no matter what they change and how, people are there already waiting to hate it.

@Astralporing.1957 said:And i am sure it will be more interesting and engaging for them up until the point Anet abandons fractals due to population getting too low to bother. And only then the screams will start, and everyone will be surprised.

Population has been dipping for quite some time by keeping easy and boring Fractals around. Updating old content and trying to improve and vary experiences isn't exactly going to make that much worse, if not the opposite.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Well, yeah, instabilities are another problem that should be addressed. They originally were meant to offer some slight variations to fractal runs, in order to shake things up and make them more interesting. Instead those are something that has almost no impact on the top 10% of fractal runners (as those groups can pretty much ignore them). on the other hand, for average (and below average) groups, there are some instabilities that can easily turn an usual smooth run into a complete nightmare. Afflicted is near the top of that list on any fractal with more than just a few enemies.

Like before, they are another case of Anet forgetting the community doesn't consist of only highly skilled players.

In fact some of these Instabilities do that job quite well and my group and I find myself swapping some skills and Traits almost every Fractal to deal with things like We Bleed Fire, Afflicted and No Pain No Gain which is quite fun and engaging. So clearly at least some of those actually do their job well.Of course those are some of the most complained about Instabilities, because people don't want variation or engagement, but just a static brainless farm.But imo, that's not what Fractals are supposed to be.

@Saracen.2691 said:I never intended for this thread to be an opportunity for complaining about the new difficulty. In fact, the exact opposite. I said in more than one way that difficulty doesn't enter the equation, because this fractal isn't difficult. Wasn't before, isn't now. It requires zero change in strategy. You can still just mindlessly brute force it with a druid like every other T4 fractal provided the bare minimum of situational awareness.

I agree that it isn't difficult, but clearly some people are struggling with it and it does require some change of Strategy, even if it's just that you can't burst the boss in 5-15 seconds running 5 DPS anymore. If there wasn't any change nobody would complain.This Fractal got farmed in literally a minute. Is it perfect now? No. But it's better.

@Saracen.2691 said:An addendum: Imagine if they took Solid Ocean, a fractal which requires no concentration or skill, and increased the Jade Maw's health by 5000%. They've not added anything meaningful to the fractal. It's just padding nobody cares about, forcing you to spend longer on a fight that largely plays itself. That's how Aquatic was before, that's how it is now, the only difference is you have to change targets a grand total of seven times while suffering constant radial condi you can do nothing to avoid. Frankly, if they'd insisted on changing old fractals Solid Ocean deserves it far more than Aquatic. Aquatic's problem is fundamental and any solution is a waste of time. Molten Furnace was in my opinion a good change. Doing similar to Solid Ocean would have been vastly better than this Aquatic change.

Solid Ocean does need some changes, yes. But SO isn't completed in a minute so padding out health isn't what's needed, nor equivalent to what they have done with Aquatic.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:And i am sure it will be more interesting and engaging for them up until the point Anet abandons fractals due to population getting too low to bother. And only then the screams will start, and everyone will be surprised.

Population has been dipping for quite some time by keeping easy and boring Fractals around. Updating old content and trying to improve and vary experiences isn't exactly going to make that much worse, if not the opposite.Sure. Which is why the first visible significant dip in population happened around the time Anet introduced Nightmare, and then Shattered Observatory. The two easiest and most boring fractals so far...oh wait.

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@Katary.7096 said:It used to be mostly boring, now it is mostly annoying. I can't really say which I like less.

Obviously neither is optimal, but at least annoying is an indication that you are being challenged in some way and something you can possibly overcome with the right mentality. Maybe there are some builds/skills you can bring to make it less annoying after you identify what the issue is, turning initial annoyance into engagement with the content.

Boredom is the sometimes slow but sure death of any game that's supposed to be played for fun.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:And i am sure it will be more interesting and engaging for them up until the point Anet abandons fractals due to population getting too low to bother. And only then the screams will start, and everyone will be surprised.

Population has been dipping for quite some time by keeping easy and boring Fractals around. Updating old content and trying to improve and vary experiences isn't exactly going to make that much worse, if not the opposite.Sure. Which is why the first visible significant dip in population happened around the time Anet introduced Nightmare, and then Shattered Observatory. The two easiest and most boring fractals so far...oh wait.

Well, they are by far the two best Fractals, especially the CM's. Considering a large part of this community is allergic to good and challenging content and rather presses F on things in the open world, I wouldn't even be surprised if that were true.Were they really the demographic for challenging endgame content in the first place then though, or just there for some easy farm which they are just doing somewhere else now?At least the people who enjoy the content for what it is were and are very happy with those additions and I don't think Fractals still would have any hardcore community at all anymore without them.

You can't dumb all content down to the lowest denominator for the sake of "population". This is like the "Jobs" be all end all argument in rl. It doesn't work out if you want to make at least someone happy or have any sort of progress some are going to be unhappy or left behind. The alternative is worse.

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:Challenging or not, hard or easy, annoying or superannoying... all that doesn't really matter when you are talking of a SINGLE FIGHT that takes 20 minutes of spam combat. Too many phases, too many HP.

Again, that's not a problem with the Fractal, but the lack of proper builds/gear.The Jellyfish really shouldn't take more than 2-5 minutes on T4 still, or there is something wrong on your groups end.

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I'm fine with most of the changes but all the recent fractals have sources of unavoidable damage. There is no mechanic you have to do properly to avoid it. The aura on the jelly fight even triggered afflicted which required our ren to spam ressistance the entire fight.They really want to make healers a thing in fractals but then the incoming damage is too low to make it challening. There is no threat at all with a healing Fb in the group but recent design almost requires some kind of healer.

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@Asum.4960 said:Obviously neither is optimal, but at least annoying is an indication that you are being challenged in some way and something you can possibly overcome with the right mentality. Maybe there are some builds/skills you can bring to make it less annoying after you identify what the issue is, turning initial annoyance into engagement with the content.It really wasn't though. Yesterday was the first time that I got to play the new aquatic fractal and we cleared it on the first attempt. [pug group] That didn't feel like a challenge. It would obviously be unfair to compare it to CM Nightmare or CM Shattered Observatory, since it isn't a CM, but that is how to create an engaging challenge in GW2 fractals. Reworked aquatic isn't that. And I think we have a different understanding of annoying. Getting sand in your eyes is clearly annoying, but I don't exactly think of washing it out as an exciting challenge to overcome.Boredom is the sometimes slow but sure death of any game that's supposed to be played for fun.I will give them credit for recognizing that the old aquatic was a problem, but I won't agree that this rework is a success.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:Challenging or not, hard or easy, annoying or superannoying... all that doesn't really matter when you are talking of a SINGLE FIGHT that takes 20 minutes of spam combat. Too many phases, too many HP.

Again, that's not a problem with the Fractal, but the lack of proper builds/gear.The Jellyfish really shouldn't take more than 2-5 minutes on T4 still, or there is something wrong on your groups end.

Again, it takes 20 minutes for a regular pug in regular gear (in my case, full ascended).

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@Pirindolo.9427 said:

@Pirindolo.9427 said:Challenging or not, hard or easy, annoying or superannoying... all that doesn't really matter when you are talking of a SINGLE FIGHT that takes 20 minutes of spam combat. Too many phases, too many HP.

Again, that's not a problem with the Fractal, but the lack of proper builds/gear.The Jellyfish really shouldn't take more than 2-5 minutes on T4 still, or there is something wrong on your groups end.

Again, it takes 20 minutes for a regular pug in regular gear (in my case, full ascended).

Since I somehow doubt the Jellyfish, including adds, has 100 million HP (2-5 times the amount of a 10 man Raid boss) or more, you must be doing something drastically wrong build wise then.Otherwise that's just not possible, probably even if just autoattacking.

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@Asum.4960 said:Solid Ocean does need some changes, yes. But SO isn't completed in a minute so padding out health isn't what's needed, nor equivalent to what they have done with Aquatic.Except it is. They added a Champion guarding the entrance - absolutely no challenge whatsoever, just more HP to chew through. They removed boss's CC bar and gave him 3 invulnerability stages, which accounts to 6 Elite Krait if I remember correctly? These do radial damage which you cannot avoid = no engaging content so far, just more and more HP added into the fight, people are still standing around the boss spamming random keys. The only actually fun thing they added was the mechanic of breaking free from when you get caged by the boss, which is no longer a boring 1-key spam. That hardly makes this a good update imo.

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@Asum.4960 said:Obviously neither is optimal, but at least annoying is an indication that you are being challenged in some way and something you can possibly overcome with the right mentality. Maybe there are some builds/skills you can bring to make it less annoying after you identify what the issue is, turning initial annoyance into engagement with the content.

I'd argue that's not true in the least. Annoying =/= challenged. Naturally, this depends on mindset to some an extent, but as someone who advocates for fractals being made more difficult through mechanics that actually require your attention or can be affected by your personal participation I can only think Aquatic is a bad example for both cases. 99CM and 100CM I'd consider legitimate challenges and a perfect implementation of what I'd want and I've never been annoyed or even frustrated with the fractals themselves - the players I'm grouped with, certainly, but that doesn't mean anything mechanically is off with those fractals. Annoyance only comes from repeated failure or letting yourself down when knowing you're not performing as well as you should be when an encounter is done properly. For Aquatic, it comes in the form of things like being subjected to a pulsing condi field with the range of a solar system, having to avoid melee if you don't want to spend five seconds CC into oblivion every half a minute, grinding through a neverending supply of health bars which throw things at you allowing no counter-play including the bare minimum of CC phases. None of those are things which plague 99CM or 100CM despite a significantly higher difficulty. Key difference as I see it is one's underwater and thus its problems I'm left believing are symptomatic, and the other two are in the vein of what ANet had gotten good at designing.

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