What even is the point of "fractal personal level"

[Valisha.8650]

I understand the AR is there to make sure we put some effort into getting to higher tier fractals, but then what on earth is the purpose of "personal level"? We already have T3 and T4 gatekeeped by AR and ascended gear requirements, why bother putting another lock in place?

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

So you actually do the Fractal atleast once before progressing.

[Valisha.8650]

6 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

So you actually do the Fractal atleast once before progressing.

You don't get that for raids - Straight into 100% difficulty.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

4 minutes ago, Valisha.8650 said:

You don't get that for raids - Straight into 100% difficulty.

Raids don't have 4 different Tiers and AR either, nor do Strikes, or Dungeons, or DRMs. 

You know what Fractals don't have? Training runs, those 4 tiers and that Fractal level makes you learn on your own by not throwing you into the deep water, it instead slowly ramps up.

Edited September 25, 2022 by IAmNotMatthew.1058

[Valisha.8650]

3 minutes ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

Raids don't have 4 different Tiers and AR either, nor do Strikes, or Dungeons, or DRMs. 

You know what Fractals don't have? Training runs, those 4 tiers and that Fractal level makes you learn on your own by not throwing you into the deep water, it instead slowly ramps up.

Raids by default are like T4 difficulty with all the mechanics. Besides, guilds organize fractal training runs.

Edited September 25, 2022 by Valisha.8650

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

Just now, Valisha.8650 said:

Raids by default are like T4 difficulty with all the mechanics. 

And that's why there are training runs for them.

Just now, Valisha.8650 said:

 Besides, guild organize fractal training runs.

For CMs, yes, which require you to finish all achievement for 98/99/100.

[Bakeneko.5826]

2 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

You don't get that for raids - Straight into 100% difficulty.

Tell me again, how popular are raids in pugs?

[Vidit.7108]

Fractals were designed to slowly get you into high-end group play. Tier 1 is pretty important to getting people acclimated to level 80 play, imo. It's very non-threatening except for a few bad fractals. The treadmill has gotten steeper over time mostly due to that gw2's new player growth has slowed down and there isn't enough incentive for experienced players to drop down. Without an influx of new people we've arrived at a bottleneck in the tier 3, the trashfire tier, which is where everyone gets pretty frustrated with the tier system.

Mechanic introduction has gotten messier over time as new fractals were added (looking at you Sunqua) and struggled to follow a consistent formula for adding mechanics each tier. But each tier adds new instabs and instab possibilities, you might see an instab in #34 and not in #35 but then in tier 3 both will have it alongside a new one. Prior to the instab update this was really important because those "unintended damage spikes" were something you could only become aware of by climbing the ladder and suddenly noticing certain combinations would just full kill people or come close to it. I'm not sure how necessary it is to see every combination to really qualify as "experienced" since the rework but I would still say Afflicted is pretty transforming since most newbie groups don't think about cleansing very often. When We Bleed Fire was still around it could sometimes have the power to change how you played a fractal because it was so uniquely disruptive to the regular flow of play.

Anyway if you are stuck you can form a group for the specific purpose of getting out of t3 and you can make that climb easier on yourselves by finding someone who will let you into t4 so you can do an easier fractal over and over to level up. Groups like this pop up form time to time in LFG and are likely to have players more serious about playing fractals than a daily pug group

[ugrakarma.9416]

- u can easily bypass the level requirment just joining a group.

i got the mistwild gretsword(some t4 fractal) that way.

- fractals is a so balanced game mode, that any small change to it can create  a huge mess and kill the game mode.

the best advice to Anet about fractals is: don't touch it.

Edited September 26, 2022 by ugrakarma.9416

[Moradorin.6217]

On 9/25/2022 at 11:15 AM, Valisha.8650 said:

I understand the AR is there to make sure we put some effort into getting to higher tier fractals, but then what on earth is the purpose of "personal level"? We already have T3 and T4 gatekeeped by AR and ascended gear requirements, why bother putting another lock in place?

So like check this out. Untill they redid fractals and added more new ones (cm 99, 98, etc iirc) the progessive fractal level cap was 50 not 100, BUT you had to level PER TOON. Yes you had to actually progress EACH toon from 1-50. ALSO each fractal level was not simply doing one fractal map instance and done, No, No... It was 3 RANDOM fractal maps + jade maw. It always eneded in Jade maw, you had no choice in which other fractals you would get. It was random. At best you could reroll after seeing the 1st of 3 maps if it was a long/bad one.

Also AR is HELLA cheap now compared to what it cost before they added the armory because it reduced how many infusions people need.

So Just let me tell you kiddo! You have it EASY doing fractals now. Its not hard to progress & AR is cheap. You only have to do it once per account, big deal.

 

Just remember people who have played since release and who started fractals duing the fractured event in season 1 about 10 yr ago collected the base fractals skins in that old mode, we got 1 pristine fractal relic for those 3 + maw runs not 4 like you would get now (1 per map) We got less relics, less loot and had to do more to progress on a per toon basis. So its really hard to feel for your point of view.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractured

 

Basically before this: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-changes-for-the-fractals-of-the-mists/

Edited September 27, 2022 by Moradorin.6217

[Bakeneko.5826]

3 hours ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

It was 3 RANDOM fractal maps + jade maw. It

It didn't though? It was 2 random fractals and one of the boss fractals

[Moradorin.6217]

7 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

It didn't though? It was 2 random fractals and one of the boss fractals

Yea I guess Jade maw was the 3rd. I think ur right. I was half thinking it when I wrote my post but it was so long ago and such a brief period overall it was hard to remember which was the case. ty. Im glad other ppl are around who remember that era.

 

The point I want to make tho is that it seems pretty fine right now to make people go through leveling up. The hardest part for me on alt accounts trying to level up to 100 is when you are close to the next tier you have a few levels it gets kinda hard to find a daily group that would give you progress from T2 -> t3 and again from t3 > t4. It didnt seem too bad but I guess if the lfg scale was a bit more open between those tiers people would spend less time doing fractals without gaining levels as they progress which could make it feel smoother, faster, easier, while still requiring they go through the learning process.

 

Again, I think its fine as is. However, I dont think it would be bad if they smoothed out LFG tier access so that people have an easier time finding a daily pug in lfg that would give them fractal level progress when that is as close to thier present level as possible without making it a pain.  Meaning, some times a player is almost to T3/T4 but cannot yet use the next tier LFG. This means allot of the maps they might do for daily will not give them progression on level. It would be nice if that progression was smoother for people just grabbing a pug for daily.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Moradorin.6217

[stormemperor.3745]

On 9/25/2022 at 9:15 PM, Valisha.8650 said:

I understand the AR is there to make sure we put some effort into getting to higher tier fractals, but then what on earth is the purpose of "personal level"? We already have T3 and T4 gatekeeped by AR and ascended gear requirements, why bother putting another lock in place?

1- Anet too lazy to remove, better nerf xxx

2- Gives more rewards

3- t3 filled with people who don't know what to do, please climb from bottom for best experience and learn some mechanics. skip t3 though.

[Valisha.8650]

14 hours ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

So like check this out. Untill they redid fractals and added more new ones (cm 99, 98, etc iirc) the progessive fractal level cap was 50 not 100, BUT you had to level PER TOON. Yes you had to actually progress EACH toon from 1-50. ALSO each fractal level was not simply doing one fractal map instance and done, No, No... It was 3 RANDOM fractal maps + jade maw. It always eneded in Jade maw, you had no choice in which other fractals you would get. It was random. At best you could reroll after seeing the 1st of 3 maps if it was a long/bad one.

Also AR is HELLA cheap now compared to what it cost before they added the armory because it reduced how many infusions people need.

So Just let me tell you kiddo! You have it EASY doing fractals now. Its not hard to progress & AR is cheap. You only have to do it once per account, big deal.

 

Just remember people who have played since release and who started fractals duing the fractured event in season 1 about 10 yr ago collected the base fractals skins in that old mode, we got 1 pristine fractal relic for those 3 + maw runs not 4 like you would get now (1 per map) We got less relics, less loot and had to do more to progress on a per toon basis. So its really hard to feel for your point of view.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fractured

 

Basically before this: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/upcoming-changes-for-the-fractals-of-the-mists/

"People in ancient Rome had no electricity, therefore everyone nowadays has it easy" type of response.

Like, I appreciate the gw2 history lesson, but issues of the past truly have no meaning. What was a dream X years ago is now a common thing, and what's just a dream nowadays will become common after a certain time passes.

Let me tell you kiddo; As Buddha and Heraclitus said, nothing in life is constant, except for the constant change.

[Valisha.8650]

2 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

1- Anet too lazy to remove, better nerf xxx

Yes, in all honesty, I think this answers my question.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

2 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

Let me tell you kiddo; As Buddha and Heraclitus said, nothing in life is constant, except for the constant change.

Being condescending to others isn't a good way to get people to agree with you. 

Here's a tip: If you want people to agree with you say your opinion or idea without belittling others. It has been proven more successful.

But yeah, as said. Go through the levels to learn what to do, there's a reason why noone does trainings for normal Fractals despite Tier 3/4 is harder than some Raid encounters. People go through the levels, the game puts the extra mechanics on slowly and they learn.

Claiming that Raids have no Raid level or something as a reason to get rid of Fractal level is perfectly ignoring the complaints in Raids, KP and difficulty jump, which is yet again why people do trainings even on bosses that are easier than Fractals(Cairn, MO, Sama, Cardinals).

[Moradorin.6217]

2 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

"People in ancient Rome had no electricity, therefore everyone nowadays has it easy" type of response.

Like, I appreciate the gw2 history lesson, but issues of the past truly have no meaning. What was a dream X years ago is now a common thing, and what's just a dream nowadays will become common after a certain time passes.

Let me tell you kiddo; As Buddha and Heraclitus said, nothing in life is constant, except for the constant change.

You just sound Lazy! Get Gud!

Is that better?? *smirk j/k*

 

I gave a legitimate response. I was trying to put your suggested change into perspective to demonstrate why some people may not be sympathetic to your position. I also tried to point out that I have leveled multiple accounts up in fractals both back in 2012-2013 era and in the present last 2 years era. So I understand the process and its challenges. I actually made a suggestion I hoped might move the topic to a solution that would actually benefit you and others trying to level while still respecting that to remove it would be a slight in a way to those who did the work already.

 

You dont have to agree or even understand why I mentioned the way it was already changed in the past to make it easier for people to level. You also dont have to be rude. People can just ignore and laugh at your post instead of trying to post constructive suggestions. I know it can be easy to get upset and react harshly. I have been guilty of it many times so its all good. Just saying I dobt you will find a solution, let alone satisfaction if you maintain that attitude toward others.

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

Yes, in all honesty, I think this answers my question.

Nah, it's just an account-wide fractal difficulty progression system. AR isn't a difficulty progression system, it's a gold gate/sink.

[JTGuevara.9018]

So first off, because that lock is actually useful so you don't get in over your head and you actually practice the fractal consistently before you're ready to climb the tiers. You WILL need that skill in t3s and t4s. AR is not enough.

There's been too many situations where new or new-ish players gets geared up by a friend or a guild, rolls right up into t4 and gets shanked.