Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Suggestions For Fracs To Help Newer Or Late Frac Players Progress


Recommended Posts

Even though what I'm about to mention is common sense to me but evident, it slips the conscious of most developers. I’ve always felt adding game modes to MMORPGs was something you can’t take lightly and have to look at it from all angles, even the effects of long term game play.

I’ve notice and it’s fairly evident, it’s not easy at all for new or late Frac players to find other players who are on their Frac level. That’s because most older players have moved on to higher tier Fracs and not looking to help another player make it up the tiers.

Can you blame these older players? No.... They made it to tier 6 or what ever so that’s what they’re going to run for better rewards.

So what can you do if you’re a player who is still at tier 1 of 1-25 Fracs?

Honestly, nothing....and this hurts because if you're going to achieve better things in-game, you need Fracs.

Sure you can spend hours a day just waiting around in hopes of getting a “pug” but that’s a waste of time, boring and no fun.

There’s no all Frac guilds you can join either. Even if players tell you their guild run those, you will most likely not run any Fracs when you join those guilds because guilds as they stand, are lacking imagination. Too many players in a single guild for one thing.

Two things can be done by the Developers to not only solve the Frac problem I’m writing about, but also make the Fracs way cooler.

Solution 1....

Remember how in GW1 you could hire mercenaries to party with instead of real people? That concept would be major in Fracs for those players who are left behind by the older, higher tier players. This would allow lower tier players to rapidly run Fracs on their own until they catch up with the older players and can then start partying with real players. In order for this solution to work, you can’t hide it behind a major gold sink because the NPC team system will be used too frequently by lower Frac players and will cost too much if it’s place behind a gold sink.

I like solution 1 best.

Solution 2....

Introduce a single player mode into Fracs where the dificulty is lowered enough to challenge one player.

Again, I like solution one because that’ll actually bring back memories for anyone who played GW1 and know what the mercenary for hire thing is all about.

Now I know GW fan boys and girls are going to attack this post but solution 1 would take nothing away from the game, it’ll only make Fracs way more fun and stress free as far as finding a group. If you can’t find real players, no sweat, just hire mercenaries. As it stands right now, finding a group at tier 1 is a chore and nearly impossible.

Just go to “looking for group” for Fracs 1-25 for tier 1.... IT’S EMPTY!!!! and rightfully so.

I hope the “Devs” see this and really consider adding the NPC mercenaries for higher to the Fracs of Mists. That was one of the coolest things about GW1 and can’t hurt bringing it to Fracs.

Hell, don’t stop there... Do it for five man dungeons too.

Man.... Fracs would be WIDE open if solution 1 is implemented! Not to mention, such an addition to the game would bring GW2 to a higher level of over all game polish.

Sorry for any "typos."

You may now attack......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's 8:54 a.m. on a Wednesday (GMT+1). There are multiple people on LFG looking for players for T1 fractals on EU right now. One of the groups is at 3/5 with "daily" as only hint to what they are aiming to do.

Sure you have been using the correct LFG tab?

EDIT: 3/5 group just went up to 4/5 in the time I way typing the response.

EDIT 2: initial 3/5 group is off the LFG, probably filled up. One of the other 1/5 groups has advanced to 3/5. Using that message T1 - all dailies + rec :)EDIT 3: and that group filled up too. LFG empty now. 9:03 GMT+1.EDIT 4:So I decided to keep an eye on the T1 LFG (atm catching up on DRM missions on my main and afking the preevents, might as well keep the LFG open). Here are all the listings for the past 15 minutes:Time LFG description (initial party size and fill rate)9:06 - 9:08 T1 rec 4/59:09 - 9:12 t1 dailies (filled to 4/5 in less than 1 minute)9:14 - 9:16 T1 Dailies and rec 3/59:19 - 9:20 8 (4/5)9:19 - 9:26 3,7,15 (1/5, 2/5 at 9:22, 3/5 and 4/5 at 9:24)9:23 - 9:26 5 (was probably removed without filling)9:27 - 9:27 t1 dailies (4/5)9:27 - 9:29 T1 +reck (2/5, 3/5 at 9:28, 4/5 and full at 9:29)9:29 Dailies 3,7,8,15 (2/5, 3/5 at 9:30, 4/5 at 9:31)

On a work day, in the morning. Dunno, seems okay to me. What I got from this short observation (and adding some of my personal fractal experience): groups fill up rather fast. Not daily fractals are more seldomly run. There are gaps of no listings occasionally minutes at a time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you on NA? I keep seeing people on this forum saying it's impossible to get groups together for stuff, especially through LFG but on EU I've never had a problem. I'm starting to wonder if it's a difference between the two regions, although I'm not sure how or why that would happen.

But whilst I'd always recommend starting your own group if you don't see one for what you want to do I especially recommend doing that for T1 Fractals, because a lot of people looking to join in won't be familiar with it and so won't want to start their own group. I only do Fractals when I need something specific from it for an achievement or collection or whatever so I always want to do a specific one and don't want to wait for it to be the daily, so I usually need to start my own group because the chances that someone else will be forming one for the Fractal I need to do when I want to do it is pretty much zero. But even then it fills up quickly. I always make the description something like "[Fractal name & number] for achievement - casual run, everyone welcome" and I usually get a split of 2-3 people who are new to it and haven't done that one yet or also need it for some reason and 1-2 who clearly know it inside out and presumable decided to join to help out what they knew would be a group of newbies. (Oddly they're the ones I'm most wary of. Most of the time they're great, but sometimes they seem to have forgotten they're not doing T4 and start demanding everyone change builds or even professions and join their Discord when that's really not necessary if you just want to complete T1.)

On the other hand if you want to keep progressing through Fractals it's probably best to look for a guild which does it regularly and will recruit and train new members, because I've heard once you get to T3 it does get harder to find groups because you need people who know what they're doing and do have the right builds but who haven't yet progressed to T4 or are willing to do T3 as well.

I'm not sure NPC mercenaries would be much help in Fractals. Maybe for T1, but I doubt the AI would be good enough for anything beyond that. GW1 had NPCs you could customise and trying to give them a build the AI could use was a whole skill set in it's own right. It took a lot of practice, trial and error and often micro-managing them to get an AI team that was comparable to a mediocre group of human players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Horace.3184" said:There’s no all Frac guilds you can join either. Even if players tell you their guild run those, you will most likely not run any Fracs when you join those guilds because guilds as they stand, are lacking imagination. Too many players in a single guild for one thing.

if you've been hanging around the GW2 discord, there's guilds recruiting and advertising as PVE with Fractal/Strike/Raid Training sessions every now and then.

check the channel: #guild-ads over at https://discord.com/invite/guildwars2

going to our own forums here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/categories/looking-for-guildi took a few picks i found on the front page (page 1)https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/124683/na-cafe-raids-and-strikes-training-grouphttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/105186/eu-raids-fractals-pve-the-white-tower-is-looking-for-active-membershttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/41960/liar-longtime-guild-looking-for-friendly-diverse-players-over-10-years-activehttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/123579/na-pvx-eye-of-ascalon-eye-is-now-recruitinghttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/123697/dancing-with-deimos-dwd-pve-guild-looking-for-sea-oce-membershttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/37726/na-tc-casual-pvx-bunny-foofoo-belly-button-lint-fuzz-lf-social-bugshttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/123916/uk-eu-pve-lgbtq-guild-wanderers-haven-waha-newly-created-by-experienced-players-recruitinghttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/124700/eu-pve-sunspear-order-so-is-looking-for-active-membershttps://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/115414/eu-casual-training-pve-guild-thracians-thr-is-recruiting

now not all of those guilds i listed and randomly picked offer fractals for tier1 progression going to tier4 -- but surely though if they offered strike or raid trainings you could also ask if anyone is happy to teach fractals in their spare time or they would atleast offer advise since it is also PvE


if you try any one of those guilds, join their discord, participate and socialise im pretty sure you'll land a group that would help you. it may not happen right away and you may need to hop and drop a few guilds before you find one, but there's definitely one out there (a lot of them)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It mostly seems to be a problem in NA, not in EU. I think the game has lost alot of popularity here, because EU players always talk about having full LFGs, full meta maps, even having full tiers and queues in WvW (which is extremely rare here).

I think that too many players in NA have moved to that other game, which shall not be mentioned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Played my very first fractals today. First map I came in at the end just finishing of a boss. Second map team wipe in 1.5 minutes of entering. Left fractals.The beginning maps are a bit hard aren't they? I suppose they have to be for the rewards. Anyway, I didn't really have a clue what I was, or was suppose to be doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’m in NA and while I do not regularly run fractals, when I do it’s T1 or T2. I rarely have to wait more than 10 minutes to fill a group, time of day doesn’t matter.

That aside, being able to solo group content by having Helper NPCs seems to defeat the purpose of playing group content! This game has many many ways to connect with players who are at your skill level wanting to play the same content as you. Adding new systems to get around grouping with other players does not make the game more MMO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Joote.4081 said:Played my very first fractals today. First map I came in at the end just finishing of a boss. Second map team wipe in 1.5 minutes of entering. Left fractals.The beginning maps are a bit hard aren't they? I suppose they have to be for the rewards. Anyway, I didn't really have a clue what I was, or was suppose to be doing.

No they are incredible easy. Most players new to fractals run useless builds though.In eu finding t1 groups is only a problem during the night.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Joote.4081 said:Played my very first fractals today. First map I came in at the end just finishing of a boss. Second map team wipe in 1.5 minutes of entering. Left fractals.
The beginning maps are a bit hard aren't they
? I suppose they have to be for the rewards. Anyway, I didn't really have a clue what I was, or was suppose to be doing.

No they are incredible easy. Most players new to fractals run useless builds though.In eu finding t1 groups is only a problem during the night.

The second map were you have to jump up those little platforms to get into the cave. By the time I had managed to do the jump puzzle everyone was dead. :)

Question: Is there a option to turn the parties flashing lights off. I can't see a thing when fighting in groups.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If someone makes it past the harpies and others are struggling, they will /gg and wait for you to get out of combat. Then they can respawn at the checkpoint you just reached which saves time and frustration if they are just learning what to do/not do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do the tier 1 dailies, and ask others in the group if they'd like to run another non-daily fractal. People are usually quite congenial, or make a group in LFG, be surprised how many people are new or wanting to try fractals. Also, many guilds are more than willing to take beginners on fractal runs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder how much of this issue is with players being too nervous to start their own groups. I'll admit I suffer from it on occasion but every time I've wanted a fractal group I couldn't find and posted to start my own it's filled and I've gotten pretty decent results. Imagine that there are a dozen or so people looking at the same empty list thinking how they wish someone would open a group so they could play but nobody wants to take the responsibility.

Edit: I use the term responsibility lightly as well, the person who starts a group for fractals has no extra duties except maybe being expected to post for replacements if someone leaves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@XDeathShadowX.2619 said:I wonder how much of this issue is with players being too nervous to start their own groups. I'll admit I suffer from it on occasion but every time I've wanted a fractal group I couldn't find and posted to start my own it's filled and I've gotten pretty decent results. Imagine that there are a dozen or so people looking at the same empty list thinking how they wish someone would open a group so they could play but nobody wants to take the responsibility.

Edit: I use the term responsibility lightly as well, the person who starts a group for fractals has no extra duties except maybe being expected to post for replacements if someone leaves.

Not even that since after there is 2 ppl in group the rest joining dont know who started it to begin with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Joote.4081 said:

@Joote.4081 said:Played my very first fractals today. First map I came in at the end just finishing of a boss. Second map team wipe in 1.5 minutes of entering. Left fractals.
The beginning maps are a bit hard aren't they
? I suppose they have to be for the rewards. Anyway, I didn't really have a clue what I was, or was suppose to be doing.

No they are incredible easy. Most players new to fractals run useless builds though.In eu finding t1 groups is only a problem during the night.

The second map were you have to jump up those little platforms to get into the cave. By the time I had managed to do the jump puzzle everyone was dead. :)

Question: Is there a option to turn the parties flashing lights off. I can't see a thing when fighting in groups.

Sadly there is no real way to disabe the animations. However they are kinda helpful sometimes if you know what other classes do and learn to read those animations. Meanwhile you could turn off the camera shaking, it is annoying, and might help seeing things better.I guess the fractal you were in was the one named "Uncategorized". You should have killed the mobs on platforms one by one to progress easier, and there are ways to bypass those parts completely by blinking up with certain classes. Usually if you have trouble on those jumping puzzles I would suggest using a hotkey for something called "action camera" you turn that on when you do Jumping Puzzles then turn off. It helps a lot. Also if you find yourself crippled or chilled try condi cleansing or waiting a little to get rid out of them before leaping to the next platfrom. The movement speed works same on jumping.Anyway, don't give up, just find yourself a good build, learn to play it and try learning the mechanics in those fractals. Also you should know that nearly all the fractals in t1 at least are soloable. With 5 players t1 fractals are piece of cake if at least 1 person knows what they are doing. And you learn that by failing time after time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...