Is it just me, or does the new fractal boss have WAY too much health?

[soul.9651]

Honestly, all they need to do is to fix the bugs... After getting used to the new cm it doesnt seem that it needs any hp or any nerfs rly, they can nerf non cm versions if casuals are that unhappy but please dont make cm itself a casual content.. current cm feels the same as sunqua cm at this point..

[Nimris.3781]

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Nope, but you have reading comprehension issues: the second last quote was in regards to EoD and most of those where in my initial responses until I realized your wierd fixation on HoT.

thats all i am gonna say about fixation on HoT:  

On 7/27/2023 at 5:53 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

Yes powercreep. The benchmark used to be sub 30k with early HoT (except elementalist).

🤣🤣🤣

 

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Ah thanks, and lowering that skill floor does what then? You just enjoy hearing yourself talk don't you?

You don't magically change the skill floor, it requires actual changes.

i literally gave you example at the end:    making pet skill autocast. people that already did that in rotation would see no increase in dps, people that had trouble with it will immediately see increase and max benchmarks doesnt change at all.

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

For example: increasing or shifting more damage to auto attack will lower the skill floor for a class.

yea no.  increasing auto dmg is straight up buff as it doesnt impact rotation. you still have to press the exact same buttons to hit benchmark numbers as before. lowering skill floor means removing something from rotation or making interaction simpler  (i.e how hard it is to do proper rotation)

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It will make it easier to achieve those 70%. It will also increase the performance for everyone above 70%

again, no. if we have spec with 42k bench and ~29,5k as 70% and unskilled player doing ~20k dps.       if buffing auto adds 3k dps and we get 45k bench with ~31,5k as 70%.      its straight up buff and will not help our unskilled player reach 70% as he will be doing ~ 23k. thats example of buffing class, not lowering skill floor. absolute values will change, but skill floor/ceiling is about percentages/performance

 

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I made it more easily readable (and gave top end and medium) and stuck to major content patches. Now go and make a graph. What will that graph look like, can you guess? Which direction is the line heading? Please explain.

more readable by cherry picking numbers that suit your narrative? 

we had average ~2:15 times in PoF, than it dropped to 1:55 in early IBS and 1:48 soon after and than ttk stayed close to that number, swinging up and down. EoD hit 2:00 and than it went back to ~1:50 times. important marks:

• 1:55 and 1:48 in IBS could be due to changes to Meta, discovery of more efficient tactic for pug etc. which are not related to powercreep.  this is also main reason why i said multiple times that whenever you look too far back in past, you miss multiple factors not related to raw output of classes 
• EoD release is very bad data point as players were obviously doing new content, not focusing on raids. you can see that by ttk of patch just before and after EoD release.
• change of ttk was also for sure affected by general changes to supports. first removal of 0-dps supports and than setup of support classes (no longer run druid+rene +2xquick etc.).  support roles are now way more flexible
• overall ttk changes are barely noticible and could be attributed to Meta changes. we had spec's hit 42k benches for years now and ttk will likely stay around that 1:48 +/- few sec for quite some time.

 

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You did and forgot to look at where the numbers are heading.

• 1.46 - may 2023
• 1.42 - june 2023
• 1.44 - july 2023

look like numbers are heading back to ~1:48, we had big swing down, now its going up again. or you already know balance from SotO?

 

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/ai

Top: 5m39s  Med:7m45s

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/kana

Top: 5m10s  Med: 9m52s

what is this AI kill without /gg   data? who does that? thats low kp/xp groups that want DwD. weaver from top kill had ~13.7k dps in elemental Ai phase. with all respect to that player, my random 10k ufe pug does 20k dps in elemental AI fight. i dont even want to know whats happening in Med kills (10k dps'es, lol?)

also Ai has really really long cutscene (over 1 min, lol) between phases

here, actual numbers:

Elemetal Ai

• Top 2:31    Med 3:31

Dark Ai

• Top 1:05   Med 2:16

Total Med for Sunqua Peak: 5:47  even if you add 10-15s for /gg+ taking mistlock again, your average pug group does ~6m run for Sunqua.

Kanaxai

• Top 5:10   Med 9:52

 

~6m run  vs  ~10m   and you call it about as long? Silent Surf also has adds + cutescene + First Mate Dolus which are way too long. (~1:30-2m?)

so in total Silent Surf takes twice as long to complete... far from "about as long"

10 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Have you even completed this fight yet? Going to repeat EXACTLY what I said as to not have any confusions here:

based on what data you have shown and your conclusion, i doubt you completed it yourself. i even doubt you know how pugs do cm Sunqua at this point...

Edited August 2, 2023 by Nimris.3781

[Cyninja.2954]

4 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

 

yea no.  increasing auto dmg is straight up buff as it doesnt impact rotation. you still have to press the exact same buttons to hit benchmark numbers as before. lowering skill floor means removing something from rotation or making interaction simpler  (i.e how hard it is to do proper rotation)

again, no. if we have spec with 42k bench and ~29,5k as 70% and unskilled player doing ~20k dps.       if buffing auto adds 3k dps and we get 45k bench with ~31,5k as 70%.      its straight up buff and will not help our unskilled player reach 70% as he will be doing ~ 23k. thats example of buffing class, not lowering skill floor. absolute values will change, but skill floor/ceiling is about percentages/performance

That's your custom definition.

What you are not accounting for is:

Disproportionate buffs happening via autoattack buffs, necause weaker players will usually auto attack more, thus the benefit to them is larger.

The net change versus the content. If the required output drops relative to what is possible, that weaker player doesn't have to reach 70% of the benchmark any more.

Thus the skill floor was lowered.

4 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

more readable by cherry picking numbers that suit your narrative? 

we had average ~2:15 times in PoF, than it dropped to 1:55 in early IBS and 1:48 soon after and than ttk stayed close to that number, swinging up and down. EoD hit 2:00 and than it went back to ~1:50 times. important marks:

• 1:55 and 1:48 in IBS could be due to changes to Meta, discovery of more efficient tactic for pug etc. which are not related to powercreep.  this is also main reason why i said multiple times that whenever you look too far back in past, you miss multiple factors not related to raw output of classes 
• EoD release is very bad data point as players were obviously doing new content, not focusing on raids. you can see that by ttk of patch just before and after EoD release.
• change of ttk was also for sure affected by general changes to supports. first removal of 0-dps supports and than setup of support classes (no longer run druid+rene +2xquick etc.).  support roles are now way more flexible
• overall ttk changes are barely noticible and could be attributed to Meta changes. we had spec's hit 42k benches for years now and ttk will likely stay around that 1:48 +/- few sec for quite some time.

 

• 1.46 - may 2023
• 1.42 - june 2023
• 1.44 - july 2023

look like numbers are heading back to ~1:48, we had big swing down, now its going up again. or you already know balance from SotO?

I guess you didn't graph this out. Fine by me, I am done convincing you that power creep is a thing. Myth or not, clear times have dropped on most content, as has the difficulty to actually achieve those clear times.

4 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

what is this AI kill without /gg   data? who does that? thats low kp/xp groups that want DwD. weaver from top kill had ~13.7k dps in elemental Ai phase. with all respect to that player, my random 10k ufe pug does 20k dps in elemental AI fight. i dont even want to know whats happening in Med kills (10k dps'es, lol?)

also Ai has really really long cutscene (over 1 min, lol) between phases

here, actual numbers:

Elemetal Ai

• Top 2:31    Med 3:31

Dark Ai

• Top 1:05   Med 2:16

Total Med for Sunqua Peak: 5:47  even if you add 10-15s for /gg+ taking mistlock again, your average pug group does ~6m run for Sunqua.

Kanaxai

• Top 5:10   Med 9:52

 

~6m run  vs  ~10m   and you call it about as long? Silent Surf also has adds + cutescene + First Mate Dolus which are way too long. (~1:30-2m?)

so in total Silent Surf takes twice as long to complete... far from "about as long"

based on what data you have shown and your conclusion, i doubt you completed it yourself. i even doubt you know how pugs do cm Sunqua at this point...

You are correct, I don't run PUG fractals any more, haven't in years because the content is gold farm daily chores at best by now. I occasionally run with guildies and clear in 45-55 minutes CMs+T4 (and occasioanlly recs). Not a steller time but good to chill out while chatting.

As to 100cm, all doney every achievement, multiple times. Stopped because now no one in my social circle feels the urge to do the fight if it gets nerfed any way.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i'll never understand players in this game.

 

i can understand "i want it harder" in regards to open-world, dungeons, or other extremely easy content. but "i want it harder", with the latest content is gating it more and more towards minorities, thus reducing the chance of ever getting this content again because the reality is the majority of players can't perform well enough to clear it often enough for arenanet's metrics to say "this was worth the dev time".

 

i'm a veteran player, i've been playing the game for over a decade and i've cleared every type of content except a few challenge motes like harvest temple, but the reality is that newer content is becoming increasingly out of reach for me because my benchmark is only 35k on reaper (which is considered the easiest class), as i have severe nerve damage in my hands and i can't manage my rotations perfectly. this isn't uncommon either, almost everyone i know my age has some kind of issue with their hands and wrists, even if its not as bad as mine. many are also colorblind, etc.

 

yes, i do want the game to be harder, and the truth is i think most of the game is an absolute joke at this point (especially icebrood saga ez 3 strikes), but health sponges and powercreep increasing the difference between skill levels isn't the way to do it. for some classes its raises the skill floor, making the content more accessible, but for other classes it raises the skill ceiling, widening the gap. in a perfect world we would have balance, but that doesn't exist in pve and its certainly never going to exist for the competitive modes. (i've played enough pvp games to know its impossible.)

 

i'm not trying to make an argument here, i'm just trying to be direct. if you want content added to the game, if you want that content to not be dead on arrival, if you want that content to be repeatable years from now and not just for the first few weeks or months, it must be accessible, and that includes being accessible in regards to dps checks and heal checks, even if this means you don't get as much of a challenge.

 

this is especially bad for encounters like silent surf, where its not even difficult but just intentionally a powercreep gate. it has no interesting mechanics, and it doesn't add anything to the game. its just a slog for the sake of being a slog.

 

i'm not trying to make the game worse for all of you, i'm trying to help it survive long after you've moved onto something else.

Edited August 2, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Baseleader.4128]

4 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm a veteran player, i've been playing the game for over a decade and i've cleared every type of content except a few challenge motes like harvest temple, but the reality is that newer content is becoming increasingly out of reach for me because my benchmark is only 35k on reaper (which is considered the easiest class), as i have severe nerve damage in my hands and i can't manage my rotations perfectly. this isn't uncommon either, almost everyone i know my age has some kind of issue with their hands and wrists, even if its not as bad as mine. many are also colorblind, etc.

There is not a single piece of content in the game where that kind of dps wouldn't be enough, including Harvest Temple CM. If you can do 35k reaper bench, congratulations, you can pass every dps check in the game.

I've never come closer than 2k below the Soulbeast benchmark and when I play endgame content (with high kp) I beat the vast majority of other players. 

[Nephalem.8921]

On 8/2/2023 at 8:12 PM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'll never understand players in this game.

 

i can understand "i want it harder" in regards to open-world, dungeons, or other extremely easy content. but "i want it harder", with the latest content is gating it more and more towards minorities, thus reducing the chance of ever getting this content again because the reality is the majority of players can't perform well enough to clear it often enough for arenanet's metrics to say "this was worth the dev time".

Latest content is kanaxai and olc. OLC is bearable but i dont know a single "hardcore" player who likes 100cm. Both of these fights are scourge and cvirtu fiestas. Both of these specs are casual player favourites and anet designed these fights specifically for them.

On 8/2/2023 at 8:12 PM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm a veteran player, i've been playing the game for over a decade and i've cleared every type of content except a few challenge motes like harvest temple, but the reality is that newer content is becoming increasingly out of reach for me because my benchmark is only 35k on reaper (which is considered the easiest class), as i have severe nerve damage in my hands and i can't manage my rotations perfectly. this isn't uncommon either, almost everyone i know my age has some kind of issue with their hands and wrists, even if its not as bad as mine. many are also colorblind, etc.

Reaper benchmark is 40k now and one of the best specs in ht cm. If you have severe nerve damage in one hand you could try to use foot pedals. Like i wrote earlier. If you balance the game for handycapped people you make it too easy for healthy people. Besides that there are some one handed people who cleared ht cm.

On 8/2/2023 at 8:12 PM, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

yes, i do want the game to be harder, and the truth is i think most of the game is an absolute joke at this point (especially icebrood saga ez 3 strikes), but health sponges and powercreep increasing the difference between skill levels isn't the way to do it. for some classes its raises the skill floor, making the content more accessible, but for other classes it raises the skill ceiling, widening the gap. in a perfect world we would have balance, but that doesn't exist in pve and its certainly never going to exist for the competitive modes. (i've played enough pvp games to know its impossible.)

 

i'm not trying to make an argument here, i'm just trying to be direct. if you want content added to the game, if you want that content to not be dead on arrival, if you want that content to be repeatable years from now and not just for the first few weeks or months, it must be accessible, and that includes being accessible in regards to dps checks and heal checks, even if this means you don't get as much of a challenge.

 

this is especially bad for encounters like silent surf, where its not even difficult but just intentionally a powercreep gate. it has no interesting mechanics, and it doesn't add anything to the game. its just a slog for the sake of being a slog.

 

i'm not trying to make the game worse for all of you, i'm trying to help it survive long after you've moved onto something else.

You need high hp to prevent this from happening. They have 2sec to 9sec boss phases and this was 2 years ago before the latest powercreep. Now it would be even faster. Most of the time in that fight is spend waiting on orbs to become pushable. that is not fun either. 

[Cyninja.2954]

On 8/2/2023 at 5:43 PM, Nimris.3781 said:

snip

FYI, Scourge is hitting 50k on live content (Sabetha), elementalist has 60k benchmarks, other classes are up everywhere too.

Now I am sure the balance patch coming up will address some of this. I am also sure we will NOT end up lower (hahaha) or at the same level as before. In short: again power creep.

Do I get to say: I was right?

Edited August 25, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Nimris.3781]

3 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

FYI, Scourge is hitting 50k on live content (Sabetha), elementalist has 60k benchmarks, other classes are up everywhere too.

Now I am sure the balance patch coming up will address some of this. I am also sure we will NOT end up lower (hahaha) or at the same level as before. In short: again power creep.

Do I get to say: I was right?

its not even powercreep, its complete chaos. they only nerfed hammer for power slb (lol) and that was it, 0 other balance changes while we already knew that scourge, specter, deadeye, weaver, etc. would definitely end up broken. like... are they blind and deaf? what was that beta ~ month ago for? where balance patch?

currently most power dps still sit at ~40k as they lost 6th bonus and power relics are mostly awful and some condi dps's gained almost nothing, but we have few outliers completly destroying stuff....

guess i should create scourge finally and wait for proper balance patch before doing any judgment. maybe if 90% people play scourge they will address it faster, lol

Edited August 25, 2023 by Nimris.3781

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Nimris.3781 said:

what was that beta ~ month ago for?

As all of these beta tests, that was just to test if the code works, or if it's bugged.

From what I can tell, the damage numbers never have been a concern for these betas.

[Nimris.3781]

29 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

As all of these beta tests, that was just to test if the code works, or if it's bugged.

From what I can tell, the damage numbers never have been a concern for these betas.

but they did nerf hammer for slb by a lot with Soto release, so why not even touch other specs?  hammer power slb wasnt even biggest offender in beta (but was one of them)

Edited August 25, 2023 by Nimris.3781

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Nimris.3781 said:

but they did nerf hammer for slb by a lot with Soto release, so why not even touch other specs?  hammer power slb wasnt even biggest offender in beta (but was one of them)

As always, I just assume those changes were simply done for the sake of changing things.

Or maybe they pre-emptively shaved it down, because it has two modes.

Or maybe it was a pre-emptive hit to ensure hammer Elementalists remain the best hammer users.

[Nimris.3781]

33 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Or maybe they pre-emptively shaved it down, because it has two modes.

they have seen beta numbers so preemptively they should have nerfed about 5+spec  (thats what i expected at the very least)   and 2 modes doesnt mean much as not unleashed mode has poor dps anyway and you just pick almost all unleashed skill

they did 0 balancing with release which is terrible, tho looking at current fractals cm's state thats like whatever  (nearly every boss is bugged in some way, kanaxai... oh god...)

like i said earlier, i am waiting for balancing patch (and huge bug fix patch) to make any judgement, as currently its complete mess

 

[MrUnderwood.2349]

Love this thread. 

People who don't play tier 1 complain that people who do play tier 1 and aren't happy with the hp of the boss are cry babies. 

Typical mmo 🥰

[Fueki.4753]

9 minutes ago, MrUnderwood.2349 said:

Love this thread.

I don't see what's to love here.

I think it's sad that "high tier" players are against "low tier" players actually having the lower tiers properly adjusted towards them.

Edited March 9 by Fueki.4753

[Cyninja.2954]

15 hours ago, MrUnderwood.2349 said:

Love this thread. 

People who don't play tier 1 complain that people who do play tier 1 and aren't happy with the hp of the boss are cry babies. 

Typical mmo 🥰

Let's skip the part where we can talk about experience and how an experienced player might be better able to judge what difficulty might be more applicable where.

Those are a lot of assumptions on your part. Who says players that do Tier 4 or CMs don't play tier 1? Last I checked players sometimes do recommended fractals, of which there is a T1. Players might occasionally play with more casual friends or guildies, which might run lower tier fractals. Players might occasionally join on lower tier fractals for a dailiy or some achievement.

There is only 1 good reason for changing Sunqua or Silent Surf in T1, which is:: how uninformed should players be allowed to be when transitioning from T1 to T2? Which is actually an argument, given many T1 players will be lacking understanding of boons, breakbars, proper builds, to some extent gear, etc. and one could question if this knowledge should be expected this early.

Eventually though those players WILL have to start improving if they want to progress through fractals. The usual spot used to be "Tier 3 hell" (still is) where groups/players which do not understand boons, builds, breakbars, encounters, etc. will struggle.

Now instead of compounding 2 issues, a "challenging" boss fight and the necessity to understand basic game mechanics, into 1 tier, this is split into 2. Tier 1 players are free to skip 99 and 100, continue on into T2s "easier" fractals and eventually face T3 requirements, or improve earlier on and have an easier time later.

Edited March 10 by Cyninja.2954

[TheNurgle.4825]

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

There is only 1 good reason for changing Sunqua or Silent Surf in T1, which is:: how uninformed should players be allowed to be when transitioning from T1 to T2? Which is actually an argument, given many T1 players will be lacking understanding of boons, breakbars, proper builds, to some extent gear, etc. and one could question if this knowledge should be expected this early.

Eventually though those players WILL have to start improving if they want to progress through fractals. The usual spot used to be "Tier 3 hell" (still is) where groups/players which do not understand boons, builds, breakbars, encounters, etc. will struggle.

This is bigger issue than most ppl and ANET want to admit. Players not knowing about basic mechanics in the game like breakbars, boons, builds and gear. There was push from ANET to fix part of it in EoD that one heart with combo fields, breakbar and dodges and story instance with combo field "mechanic". Good idea with terrible implementation.

PS I saw ppl running T4 and ignoring breakbars since almost all of it can be brute forced anyway.

 

Edited March 10 by TheNurgle.4825
spelling

[zeyeti.8347]

Too much health 😁 ... say that to poor Skorvald who can't even finish his speech before phasing and isn't allowed to enter super sayan mode before getting completely demolished.

The "new" fractal bosses are made to follow the power creep , and even Ai from 99 get phased a lot before doing a lot of mechanics , the only one sturdy enough to have his whole dialog used is kannaxai.

But i find these dialogs overlap quite funny , dessa having two voices at once, Skorvald doing the bad boy like a dbz character and 2 sec after having a headache , especially when you do t1 recs , it's like the game scenario can't keep up with your group , and that's quite fun.

If you diminish health of those bosses some people will just zoom in fractals like a formula 1 and get it done in few minutes.

But yes Kannaxai seems to have a lot of health in lower tier fractals , maybe because he has a lot of mechanics , and for him to show them off , he needs a lot of time , also this combat greatly favors ranged dps and long range boon application , you are split almost 33% of the time.

Edited March 12 by zeyeti.8347

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

The "new" fractal bosses are made to follow the power creep , and even Ai from 99 get phased a lot before doing a lot of mechanics , the only one sturdy enough to have his whole dialog used is kannaxai.

And this train of thought completely ignores that most players primarily playing T1 (and to some extend T2 players) do not "follow the powercreep".

They certainly get the occasional bump in power increase, if something they use happens to be buffed, but most of them (at least in my experience) do not adhere to the power-creeped builds and play styles that Arenanet promotes with their changes.

Thus, the bloated HP bars in T1 (and to an extend T2) completely fail to be tailored towards most players that primarily play T1 (and T2).

[Mukizo.1269]

The best way to make bosses more challenging without adding more hp is to make 2 phases of the boss, similar to Ai. First phase lower hp and an introduction to more forgiving mechanics, second phase take everything from the first and crank it up to the max. Only the first phase is in normal mode, second and first in challenge mode (first phase harder there too ofc.)

[Solvar.7953]

I totally get that power creep has resulted in higher DPS, and a group with optimized builds and high DPS will breeze through some bosses quickly.

The problem is that groups that have less than ideal DPS now find these fights long and boring.  And I have a feeling that there are more people/groups in this category than in the optimized DPS category.

The danger I see is that if Anet continues to design fractals for the high DPS parties, this may alienate the more typical DPS groups who will find those fractals long and boring, and choose not to play them.  Them Anet sees that not many people are not playing those new fractals and thinks there is a lack of interest in new fractals, and decides to stop making any new ones.  Which is not the actual problem - it is just the new ones with high HP or annoying mechanics are not popular.

[zeyeti.8347]

21 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And this train of thought completely ignores that most players primarily playing T1 (and to some extend T2 players) do not "follow the powercreep".

They certainly get the occasional bump in power increase, if something they use happens to be buffed, but most of them (at least in my experience) do not adhere to the power-creeped builds and play styles that Arenanet promotes with their changes.

Thus, the bloated HP bars in T1 (and to an extend T2) completely fail to be tailored towards most players that primarily play T1 (and T2).

23 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

But yes Kannaxai seems to have a lot of health in lower tier fractals , maybe because he has a lot of mechanics , and for him to show them off , he needs a lot of time , also this combat greatly favors ranged dps and long range boon application , you are split almost 33% of the time.

Learn to read a whole post before starting to write , fella ...

[Cyninja.2954]

14 hours ago, Solvar.7953 said:

I totally get that power creep has resulted in higher DPS, and a group with optimized builds and high DPS will breeze through some bosses quickly.

I cleared level 24 with a group of friends which:

1. were level 72-74 (thus getting scaled up)

2. had no access to elite specializations (due to sub 80)

3. where wearing leveling gear, some of it 10+ levels below their level (this will affect scaling) because I had sent them some crafting materials prior for the 80 push

4. I was on heal alac necro just providing barrier because we lacked agony resistance and at 15 agony, most attacks were close to 1 shots

 

We still managed to skip most skip able phases, cleared the fight second try (after I swapped to heal alac necro, first try was to 40%). These were in part completely new players which had never seen this fight, nor much of any instanced content besides fractal ranks 1-10 in GW2.

That should put a bit of a perspective on how "challenging" tier 1 fractals are or question what players not facing these obstacles which struggle are doing wrong (and before anyone goes "god gamers", these are friends with families which get to play this game 2 hours on a Monday each week).

Edited March 13 by Cyninja.2954

[Vinceman.4572]

On 3/12/2024 at 10:37 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

And this train of thought completely ignores that most players primarily playing T1 (and to some extend T2 players) do not "follow the powercreep".

They certainly get the occasional bump in power increase, if something they use happens to be buffed, but most of them (at least in my experience) do not adhere to the power-creeped builds and play styles that Arenanet promotes with their changes.

Thus, the bloated HP bars in T1 (and to an extend T2) completely fail to be tailored towards most players that primarily play T1 (and T2).

The T1-Only playerbase is somewhat extremely small compared to the regular fractal community which is T4 and CM + T4 in the LFG range 75-100.  Nevertheless a decent intelligent person running T1 will recognise that there are differences between fractals from level 1 to 24. And they will understand that they have to face certain situations or scenarios they have to adapt to. I mean, I saw groups going down on ooze in Thaumanova lvl 15 (me included cuz yolo) and then learned a little. Not much but the idea that bad things can happen there. Same with Urban Battlegrounds when dying to The Gate and Dulfy. This is the game.
When we started GW2 and were running Arah (dungeon) for the first times we had the worst gear ever for Lupicus (the big dog if ppl dont know anymore) and after phase one everybody was running in circles screaming and hoping not to die while ranging him and hitting him with soft diapers. The thing is if you like the content - here: fractals - you will run them again and you will improve plus you will change your gear making all fights a lot easier at once. Or you just skip it when it is daily and can live with the fact that you left one fractal out this day. On a 15 day schedule it is 2 times in the rotation. So from 45 fractals you leave 2 out. Not a big deal in my opinion.
(Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Template:Daily_Fractal_Schedule)

On 3/12/2024 at 6:35 PM, Solvar.7953 said:

I totally get that power creep has resulted in higher DPS, and a group with optimized builds and high DPS will breeze through some bosses quickly.

The problem is that groups that have less than ideal DPS now find these fights long and boring.  And I have a feeling that there are more people/groups in this category than in the optimized DPS category.

The danger I see is that if Anet continues to design fractals for the high DPS parties, this may alienate the more typical DPS groups who will find those fractals long and boring, and choose not to play them.  Them Anet sees that not many people are not playing those new fractals and thinks there is a lack of interest in new fractals, and decides to stop making any new ones.  Which is not the actual problem - it is just the new ones with high HP or annoying mechanics are not popular.

Your feeling is wrong here. Most of the groups in the lfg are either: aDPS + qHeal + 3 DPS or qDPS + aHeal + 3 DPS. It doesn't matter if your group has ideal DPS. The kill time obviously differs but it's not that those fights are getting very stale or very boring. The most problematic thing on lvl 100 is that players die. If your heal is braindead, smashing buttons and not realizing that he has to stay in the middle to keep the group alive than this is a player issue not a design issue because most of the groups can handle that fight. If (dps) players just do their rotations, not bringing out axes, stepping onto every bigger circle and hugging the boss (the nearest player is getting the aggro and will constantly eat lots of melee dmg) it is also a player issue.
If you tune boss hp down that fight will become almost obsolete for the average group. The challenge on this fight is to keep up the mechanics over time but compared to CM even the normal mode is kinda easy. People just need to practice and learn. Both things are seen less and less in gaming overall.

[Fueki.4753]

10 hours ago, Vinceman.4572 said:

The T1-Only playerbase is somewhat extremely small compared to the regular fractal community which is T4 and CM + T4 in the LFG range 75-100.  Nevertheless a decent intelligent person running T1 will recognise that there are differences between fractals from level 1 to 24. And they will understand that they have to face certain situations or scenarios they have to adapt to. I mean, I saw groups going down on ooze in Thaumanova lvl 15 (me included cuz yolo) and then learned a little. Not much but the idea that bad things can happen there. Same with Urban Battlegrounds when dying to The Gate and Dulfy. This is the game.
When we started GW2 and were running Arah (dungeon) for the first times we had the worst gear ever for Lupicus (the big dog if ppl dont know anymore) and after phase one everybody was running in circles screaming and hoping not to die while ranging him and hitting him with soft diapers. The thing is if you like the content - here: fractals - you will run them again and you will improve plus you will change your gear making all fights a lot easier at once. Or you just skip it when it is daily and can live with the fact that you left one fractal out this day. On a 15 day schedule it is 2 times in the rotation. So from 45 fractals you leave 2 out. Not a big deal in my opinion.

Learning the mechanics of bosses and playing around those is fine. At least to me that's fine.

But that's fundamentally different from bloating the HP bars of the most recent fractal bosses. A bloated HP bar is not a mechanic. It's an arbitrarily over-sized number that tries to goad players into high performing builds, rather than the builds they personally enjoy playing. And that should not be the case in T1 (and only to a limited extend in T2). Yet sadly, this is the case and thus turns away players, who could otherwise enjoy fractals.

Edited March 19 by Fueki.4753

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 3/12/2024 at 11:35 AM, Solvar.7953 said:

I totally get that power creep has resulted in higher DPS, and a group with optimized builds and high DPS will breeze through some bosses quickly.

The problem is that groups that have less than ideal DPS now find these fights long and boring.  And I have a feeling that there are more people/groups in this category than in the optimized DPS category.

The danger I see is that if Anet continues to design fractals for the high DPS parties, this may alienate the more typical DPS groups who will find those fractals long and boring, and choose not to play them.  Them Anet sees that not many people are not playing those new fractals and thinks there is a lack of interest in new fractals, and decides to stop making any new ones.  Which is not the actual problem - it is just the new ones with high HP or annoying mechanics are not popular.

You know what else will make it seem like players aren't interested in fractals?  A 3 year gap before releasing a new fractal.