The immense success of Fractals : Applied to the future of Raids

[maddoctor.2738]

@xDudisx.5914 said:As for fractals we have several achievements with higher than 70%, some with even 80%. Even 99CM is higher than most raid achievements (14,9%). Fractal master (76-100) is 17.7%, also higher than most raid achievements from w1-4 and higher than all achievements from w5-7.

Fractal CMs were released before Path of Fire, in fact Nightmare (99CM) was released 3 months before Bastion of the Penitent. W4 most unlocked achievement: 23,95%, least unlocked (non CM): 14.706%, Nightmare CM99 most unlocked : 14.900%. Shattered Observatory CM is at 9.678%, released 5 months after Bastion of the Penitent (23.95%/14.706%) and 4 months before Hall of Chains (10.078%/7.122%). If you check the Fractal CMs compared to Raid wings released in a nearby timeframe you'll notice that Fractal CMs are very much comparable.

Fractal Master was available for much longer than the Path of Fire raid wings. In fact players had fractal master before the first Raid was even released.

You just cherry picked VG and W1 stats to support your assumption.

The Heart of Thorns Raids were much better received than the Path of Fire ones, there are many reasons why Path of Fire raids were a complete failure, including lack of good rewards, too low difficulty (W6 and W7) and the abysmal release schedule.

Also keep in the mind that the overall population of gw2efficiency users (and by many anecdotal evidence the actual game's too) is reduced over the years, this means earlier raids (and fractals) had a larger playerbase to work with, while all registered players count for percentage statistics.

For example:59.515% finished Out of Shadows35.988% finished War Eternal

That's a rather large completion drop.

You should re-read my original comment:

It's interesting to note that Vale Guardian has the same statistic as Fractal level 75 (73 is the exact value, at 30.5%), meaning less players proceeded to Fractal T4, than killed Vale Guardian. Also worth noting is that those beating Sabetha and reaching Fractal level 100 have the same number (20%).

I didn't cherry pick anything, less players proceeded to Fractal T4 than killed Vale Guardian and the same number of players reached Fractal 100 and killed Sabetha. Both comparable achievements with a similar playerbase, comparing an achievement available before Raids even existed with a Raid released during the hardest hour for Raids (and the game) isn't really fair.

edit: The achievement of the first Strike Mission is at 13%

[Solitude.2097]

I dont think you should use the first boss in W1 in the metric .When Raids where laucned , the company had locked our XP bar for progressing , for 4 months .Either you should have killed a single boss , so once again you can get Spirit Shards (transform them into gold) each time you lvl up , or w8 4-5 months after they disabled the requirmentsThere was a lot of moaning back then

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Solitude.2097" said:I dont think you should use the first boss in W1 in the metric .When Raids where laucned , the company had locked our XP bar for progressing , for 4 months .Either you should have killed a single boss to get Spirit Shards (transform them into gold) each timke you lvl up , or w8 4-5 months after they disabled the requirmentsThere was a lot of moaning back then

Well Fractals are the only way to finish precursor collections and the best/easiest way to get ascended gear in the game. Further, at higher levels, they are the best source of income too. External reasons, that aren't among the ones given in the OP for the "immense success of Fractals". Would Fractals be in any way successful if they weren't the single best source of ascended gear, precursors and gold in the game? Who knows.

But what kills this entire discussion of the "success of Fractals" over Raids is that in a recent interview the developers said that no Raid OR Fractal will come in the next few episodes. So whatever future they have planned for Raids is probably similar to the future of Fractals, they have the actual data and should know why.

[Westenev.5289]

Two (or more) groups in the same instance sounds interesting on paper, but what if one group goes afk or can't kill their boss? It's a stall waiting to happen.

Might be best to leave 10+ player lane mechanics to map meta's, who generally have the numbers to not worry about afkers or bad players.

[Mitch.4781]

No fractals on the horizon