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

[Shadow Chaser.1948]

7 hours ago, PacoXI.7690 said:

How are lower tier supposed to learn that things like boons are valuable if encounters aren't designed to promote those things? Lower tier players will see that the boss is taking a while or mechanics are getting messy. That (should) prompt them to reexamine their builds. The game presents a challenge and the play uses the tools given to beat it. 

 

Mechanics at tier 1-3 are not overly punishing while not just letting players skirt pass them without a little bit of effort. I think that's fair. 

same way you learned. If people are interested in T4 + CM, they will figure it out. But, for casual to just have fun in T1 and T2, why does it matter?

[Luthan.5236]

Did it the 2nd time. Again I only joined at the boss lol. (4 people in lfg popped up - I guess one left.) Still need to experience the jumping part. Was yesterday when it was on daily. And I did it for the 2nd manifest weapon. (To save resources I only buy one of the unlock items weekly. I mean I want to train the new fractal anyways.)

It was on T1 only. (Where the complaints where about health of the boss.) Did not look at the clock but from comparing some chat messages in map chat from LA before the fractal it seems it did not take more than 8-9 minutes. We had experienced players. (3 with agony resistance at around 120 or 150 one with 20 only and I am at 80-90 ... have played up to tier 2 / fractal scale 50 so far.)

Again no deaths. No wipe. Only a few downed. Faster and less downed people than my previous try a few days ago. (Similar experienced people according to agony resistance they used.) The wiki has better description now. (I understand more about the mechanics.) I was (since I do not max in dps ... mainly 8-9k only at the bot without any buffs and if i set me to full might and 25 vulnerability it barely goes higher - for the raid training bot) surprised that I could kill the thing that appeared (first thing at 66 percent or so). I think it was only one (for me) at that stage - and for the t1 fractal. Second time I did not see anyone. (Must have appeared for the others.) But the attack did not stop to channel. So they might have failed. (I think I managed to dodge or block but lost the buff for avoiding that special attack then.)

The recommendation to ignore the mechanics seems more boring. (Someone suggested this to max dps.) There also might still be people that want to do it for the mechanics. (Sadly I also missed one time where it was about avoiding the fear mechanics.) But I will have more tries.

In Sunqua - even at T1 and when joining at boss and with people with high agony resistance sometimes (where you'd expext experienced people) there still seem to be more wipes. (The ... "one guy failing at meteor and others tryign to rez when the main attack hits" thing that leads to multiple deaths lol.)

[willow.8209]

I am not very experienced in fractals but I thought this new one was significantly more lengthy than the other fractals we played that day. It wasn't more difficult as far as mechanics go, just took an extremely long time to wear down the last boss. 

The jumping took me a few tries but was interesting. I don't mind repeating stuff if it's interesting. 

[Edu.6984]

This HP on the final boss is too much and needs to be reduced. The same group that completes other fractals ins 15min can easily take 30min on this one. It is overtuned. Let the big hp sponges to CM only

[soul.9651]

Just go and play open world instead 🙂 .. Game has so much powercreep yet you all cry that it dies too slow which means you just cant do decent dps for some reason or deal with the simple game mechanics like cc...

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

12 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

Just go and play open world instead 🙂 .. Game has so much powercreep yet you all cry that it dies too slow which means you just cant do decent dps for some reason or deal with the simple game mechanics like cc...

i am almost a fractal goddess, i have the infinite potion, ad infinitum and most of the skin unlocks which means i have run these things thousands of times. while the discussions i put forth here were about it being over the top in the lower tiers for newer players, i also don't like having to skip it because it turns my efficient daily run into a slog. the existing long fractals like sunqua (even cm) were already bad about this, we didn't need to make it worse.

 

please don't try to frame an argument against health sponges as just being "bad players complaining". this design was originally used for dungeon bosses at release, and there's a very good reason it was abandoned for later encounters: it's boring.

Edited July 8, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[soul.9651]

4 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i am almost a fractal goddess, i have the infinite potion, ad infinitum and most of the skin unlocks which means i have run these things thousands of times. while the discussions i put forth here were about it being over the top in the lower tiers for newer players, i also don't like having to skip it because it turns my efficient daily run into a slog. the existing long fractals like sunqua were already bad about this, we didn't need to make it worse.

 

please don't try to frame an argument against health sponges as just being "bad players complaining".

If you do your daily run with the party u did your cms and its people who know what they are doing its still gonna be efficient run. The only slow part in that fractal is the jp and who knows maybe people will find a way to skip it just like they found plenty of skips in other fractals, plus i can bet cm version is probably gonna start straight at the boss like sunqua. And for lower tiers, why people with no dps should still be able to one shot everything? Lets leave open world gameplay at open world...

[SlayerXX.7138]

2 hours ago, soul.9651 said:

Game has so much powercreep yet you all cry that it dies too slow which means you just cant do decent dps for some reason or deal with the simple game mechanics like cc...

Power creep is not that big, if you don't send it through the dozens of multiplier a normal meta combo has. For people who act like they are good at the game, it seems they understand very little of it. If you don't have an elite spec, 25Might, quickness and so on, damage is not that crazy.
For example, Power Daredevil is just a flat out upgrade of a 25% multiplier over a Power core thief with a better weapon on top of that. Quickness is probably a little lower then 30% multiplicative extra damage. That alone is 60%+ difference, multiplicative of course. Now equip the second or third best weapon, have only 10 might stack instead of 25 and so on. Damage drops of quick.
T1 is not the place, where you should bring meta to be able to enjoy it. Also the difference in HP between T1 and T4 seems comical small.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

1 hour ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Power creep is not that big, if you don't send it through the dozens of multiplier a normal meta combo has. 

Years ago the thought of being able to deal ~25k DPS just by pressing a few buttons while being able to provide yourself with an insane amount of boons was a wild thought. Now that thought is just an LI build.
The powercreep is big.

[Shaogin.2679]

So, just so I am clear, the argument is that low dps groups with little to no boon uptime are struggling to kill the boss in a reasonable amount of time on tier 1 and 2 fractals, right? If so, then yeah I can see that being an issue and perhaps the hp should be nerfed. Tier 1 and 2 should be fairly quick and easy encounters for those that are still learning the ripes or play at a more casual level. By tier 3 though you really should be able to grasp the mechanics of boons and how to create a decent build, otherwise you are going to jump into tier 4 afterwards and grief everyone.

[Hotride.2187]

4 hours ago, Shaogin.2679 said:

By tier 3 though you really should be able to grasp the mechanics of boons and how to create a decent build, otherwise you are going to jump into tier 4 afterwards and grief everyone.

T3 as rec takes too long though. Sunqua had that problem already, the new 75 rec is even worse. Really only T4 is fine and it also could use a HP nerf. Or at least a 50% boss hp checkpoint or something.

[Shaogin.2679]

21 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

T3 as rec takes too long though. Sunqua had that problem already, the new 75 rec is even worse. Really only T4 is fine and it also could use a HP nerf. Or at least a 50% boss hp checkpoint or something.

Is it taking too long with competent groups pulling decent dps and boon uptime though? When I went through at tier 3 I don't remember the fight being all that long at all, but I play with guild members.

[LichOverlord.6329]

On 7/8/2023 at 8:05 AM, soul.9651 said:

Just go and play open world instead 🙂 .. Game has so much powercreep yet you all cry that it dies too slow which means you just cant do decent dps for some reason or deal with the simple game mechanics like cc...

It's literally a tier one boss

The game has powercreep, yes, but it's TIER 1

Come on, guys

Tier 1 is literally made to be accessible to everyone. I have guild mates that don't even have access to EoD and have played the game for less than 1000 hours

Are they not entitled to be able to play a low-level fractal meant to serve as an intro to small-scale group content

What, should they wait 'till they play IBS to do strikes? Fractals were introduced back in LWS1... in 2013... 

It's not fair to expect my friends to play 2000 hours of the game to do low-tier fractals with me. I'm not going to throw my friends into situations theyre not familiar with and expect them to do 40k dps. *I* have all ascended and some legendary pieces and a good build, sure, but I can't expect to get friends into this game and expect them to play at my level.

At a certain point, there needs to be instanced content in the game meant to be accessible to casuals, because otherwise they'll never be anything but casual. Open world metas won't cut it because they're not learning anything, they're just getting carried through events by myself and other experienced players. That's not fun for them, and thats not going to teach them squat. There needs to be an accessible way to get into instanced group content that doesn't require 10 people, or access to a specific living world season with a story that takes place years into the timeline. There needs to be a place to start.

If Tier 1 isn't the place to start..... where is? 

 

[soul.9651]

8 hours ago, LichOverlord.6329 said:

It's literally a tier one boss

The game has powercreep, yes, but it's TIER 1

Come on, guys

Tier 1 is literally made to be accessible to everyone. I have guild mates that don't even have access to EoD and have played the game for less than 1000 hours

Are they not entitled to be able to play a low-level fractal meant to serve as an intro to small-scale group content

What, should they wait 'till they play IBS to do strikes? Fractals were introduced back in LWS1... in 2013... 

It's not fair to expect my friends to play 2000 hours of the game to do low-tier fractals with me. I'm not going to throw my friends into situations theyre not familiar with and expect them to do 40k dps. *I* have all ascended and some legendary pieces and a good build, sure, but I can't expect to get friends into this game and expect them to play at my level.

At a certain point, there needs to be instanced content in the game meant to be accessible to casuals, because otherwise they'll never be anything but casual. Open world metas won't cut it because they're not learning anything, they're just getting carried through events by myself and other experienced players. That's not fun for them, and thats not going to teach them squat. There needs to be an accessible way to get into instanced group content that doesn't require 10 people, or access to a specific living world season with a story that takes place years into the timeline. There needs to be a place to start.

If Tier 1 isn't the place to start..... where is? 

 

So you are saying that open world metas are too easy since people are getting carried but yet you wanna easier t1? Which if they made it easier i can only see it becoming as easy as open world.. and where is any learning in that? When it doesnt challenge you in any way even a little.. plus look at which fractal level the new fract is placed, its a 25, the last fractal before t2 which means it is supposed to be the hardest one in this tier.. and it needs some agony too(idk if i remember its just 17) so maybe people dying to that..so again fix that and you will be good to go (since if you are dead your dps is 0 btw...)

[LichOverlord.6329]

1 hour ago, soul.9651 said:

So you are saying that open world metas are too easy since people are getting carried but yet you wanna easier t1? Which if they made it easier i can only see it becoming as easy as open world.. and where is any learning in that? When it doesnt challenge you in any way even a little.. plus look at which fractal level the new fract is placed, its a 25, the last fractal before t2 which means it is supposed to be the hardest one in this tier.. and it needs some agony too(idk if i remember its just 17) so maybe people dying to that..so again fix that and you will be good to go (since if you are dead your dps is 0 btw...)

What do you mean "where is any learning in that"?

Unlike a meta, you're not being carried, and youre not in a huge 40+ person group - that forces players to actually engage with mechanics and learn the fight with a small group

And yes, its supposed to be the hardest one in the tier, but having a health pool that eclipses the sorceress in Sunqua doesn't make it harder - it just makes it take longer

Your original argument was in bad faith, too - saying that rather than calling out bad design for what it is, we should just go do something else... that's how you get bad design in the first place.

This isn't the only thread where this sentiment was shared. I've seen it on the forums. I've seen it online and on places like reddit. Kanaxai is overturned, and he needs to have his health brought down a bit. That's all there is to it.

Edited July 10, 2023 by LichOverlord.6329

[soul.9651]

17 minutes ago, LichOverlord.6329 said:

What do you mean "where is any learning in that"?

Unlike a meta, you're not being carried, and youre not in a huge 40+ person group - that forces players to actually engage with mechanics and learn the fight with a small group

And yes, its supposed to be the hardest one in the tier, but having a health pool that eclipses the sorceress in Sunqua doesn't make it harder - it just makes it take longer

So make up your mind which is it then. First you complain about the accessibility

 

10 hours ago, LichOverlord.6329 said:

It's not fair to expect my friends to play 2000 hours of the game to do low-tier fractals with me. I'm not going to throw my friends into situations theyre not familiar with and expect them to do 40k dps.

And now you are saying that its not hard, its just a longer fight? Again if its not that challenging for begginers anyway then whats the point of touching the fractal for devs? Plus if the person is new to fractals they wont care if the fight takes 10 or 15mins for them or idk 20if they are slower because news flash they are investing time in learning the fight not speedruning it. Rn i only see that its the veterans who are crying at this point that "oh no anetttt my daily runs are gonna take 5mins longer, this is UNACCEPTABLE waaaaahhh"....

Edited July 10, 2023 by soul.9651

[LichOverlord.6329]

10 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

So make up your mind which is it then. First you complain about the accessibility

 

And now you are saying that its not hard, its just a longer fight? Again if its not that challenging for begginers anyway then whats the point of touching the fractal for devs? Plus if the person is new to fractals they wont care if the fight takes 10 or 15mins for them or idk 20if they are slower because news flash they are investing time in learning the fight not speedruning it. Rn i only see that its the veterans who are crying at this point that "oh no anetttt my daily runs are gonna take 5mins longer, this is UNACCEPTABLE waaaaahhh"....

I never said he needed less health because difficulty - I said he needed less health because he was overturned. You just assumed that meant it was too difficult.

As for people "not caring" - news flash - yes, they do. If a fight takes a group of new players 20 minutes per pull and leaves them with headaches and fatigue, the fight is too long. The end.

I'm going to stop replying to you because it's clear you have no intention about having a conversation in good faith, and are resorting to childish mockery.

[soul.9651]

2 minutes ago, LichOverlord.6329 said:

 

As for people "not caring" - news flash - yes, they do. If a fight takes a group of new players 20 minutes per pull and leaves them with headaches and fatigue, the fight is too long. The end.

 

*Looks at eod strikes* 

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I am pretty sure the health spung effect is so peoples cc skills can recharge. A good group could easily get back to back ccs by exploiting the exposed windowed. I can tell you, the most annoying part of ko cm is having to stop dps on the boss.  It is not fun to be punished for having too high dps.

[SlayerXX.7138]

9 hours ago, soul.9651 said:

*Looks at eod strikes* 

Strikes? You mean the new main group content that started existing, because the easy IBS Strikes pulled many players in?
EoD Strikes are populated with people on meta builds in a Meta composition not comparable to a T1 fractal PuG.
The EoD strikes that are still less popular then IBS despite being newer and more profitable.

Edited July 10, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Nephalem.8921]

On 7/10/2023 at 9:10 AM, LichOverlord.6329 said:

I never said he needed less health because difficulty - I said he needed less health because he was overturned. You just assumed that meant it was too difficult.

As for people "not caring" - news flash - yes, they do. If a fight takes a group of new players 20 minutes per pull and leaves them with headaches and fatigue, the fight is too long. The end.

I'm going to stop replying to you because it's clear you have no intention about having a conversation in good faith, and are resorting to childish mockery.

The game has to tell players at one point that their builds and playstyle are not suited for pve. Not everything has to be completed first try without a screen. This makes the game in fact incredible boring.

Maybe some players might ask themselves if a 20min bossfight is really intended or if they are doing something wrong. Doing damage is a mechanic too. 3 healers in magi gear in a group should not be able to faceroll through t1.

The upper scales of a tier can be harder. Why not? I would appreciate a solo test or a time trial before you can advance a tier anyways. Any kind of test so players are not hitting a brick wall when they reach t3 or t4 where everything feels "spongy" while experienced players have to face 10 second encounters. Other games have door bosses and like a wrote earlier you would have to do sub 3k dps per player to achieve a 20min kill. Should a full group of 3k dps players be allowed to advance a tier?

[Hotride.2187]

On 7/9/2023 at 10:37 PM, Shaogin.2679 said:

Is it taking too long with competent groups pulling decent dps and boon uptime though? When I went through at tier 3 I don't remember the fight being all that long at all, but I play with guild members.

When compared to T3 sunqua its taking a bit longer, which is to say, way too long for a rec. I dont want to spend 12-15 min doing a single rec.

[Nimris.3781]

I feel like some people here have long forgotten what type of players play T1.

They are not playing T1 because they want to slowly learn mechanics, they are there because agony limits them. As new players they have mostly exotics, most of the time berserker/assassin stats. Dont expect boon-dps as diviner/ritualist exotics are harder to get then ascends, also dont expect proper boon-heal for simmilar reason. Some attribute combinations are gated behind LW, long grind or are quite expensive/hard to get. This means their boon uptime will be terrible if any. We are talking here about 4 dd classes with no more than 5k dps and maybe “sort of heal” with not enough concentration.

Moreover, they wont have fractal pots, (% bonuses and flat stats), food and utility etc.

Finally, I am sure they will struggle understanding whats going on (eye mechanic, adds, dodging). They will not figure out if it is intended or something is missing (boons, rotation, etc.) as they wont have any comparison and gw is unique mmo in terms of boon system.

As a bonus “cherry on a top” their paycheck for T1 is going to be laughable, about ~2-3g for T1 daily

- but wait, fast farming says 4.5g! - yeah, they assume you have 3rdfractal mastery (which 99% players dont know, but makes fractal encryption have way more value inside), which new players definitely wont have and they also add value of spirit shard. So yeah, 3x daily, 30+min for less than 3g... amazing profit!

Also to give you some comparison between other fractals of T1, most bosses there have just a few mil. of hp, even as low as about 1-2mil in single boss instance, and yet anet has thrown 17.5m hp sponge in T1, lol... people saying its fine are out of touch with reality, this should be cut by solid 60-70%.

 

 

Now regarding T4, and this is coming from person with enourmous fractal experience, Kanaxai HP is overtuned as well while his boss mechanics are boring af, here is why:

you can ignore most of mechanics, heal eye, dodge big smash at 66% etc. the only real danger is his number's mechanic, outside of that you can just stand and fight him like a golem, occasionaly moving and with his HP pool, spreading mechanic and some other factors reducing dps/boon uptime it takes a lot of time

1. eye mechanic should not just dmg you, but also place debuff reducing dmg done by e.g 50% for like 10-15sec to make ignoring it inefficient. ( this would promore not ignoring mechanics and allow for reducing his hp)

2. 66/33% Add mechanic is a joke if you can just dodge last hit, also entire fight would benefit a lot if intermission phase took longer, while Kanaxai HP was lower ( more in line with light AI fight). not to mention that this phase could be a lot more intresting, like 2 types of Aspects (ghosts), where one type has to be killed, other cc'ed etc. and players get their type randomly.

3. later in the fight he is spamming his numbers/eye mechanic/other crap so often that you constantly have to move/stop dps. There are no clear burst windows that you can get ready for making fight quite annoying and completely locking out power classes out of it.

 

I dont know how will CM look like, but normal Silent Surf definitely did not impress me.

Edit: there is so much more you can do with adds on platforms, like overlaping colours: split party into 2 groups, say red and blue, each group see only adds of their colour, platform that has add that both groups see is safe, on the rest you get hit by attack. you can also moddify it based on tier, like T1 - only 1 deadly platform, T4 only 1 safe platform.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Nimris.3781

[LichOverlord.6329]

On 7/11/2023 at 12:04 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

The game has to tell players at one point that their builds and playstyle are not suited for pve. Not everything has to be completed first try without a screen. This makes the game in fact incredible boring.

Maybe some players might ask themselves if a 20min bossfight is really intended or if they are doing something wrong. Doing damage is a mechanic too. 3 healers in magi gear in a group should not be able to faceroll through t1.

The upper scales of a tier can be harder. Why not? I would appreciate a solo test or a time trial before you can advance a tier anyways. Any kind of test so players are not hitting a brick wall when they reach t3 or t4 where everything feels "spongy" while experienced players have to face 10 second encounters. Other games have door bosses and like a wrote earlier you would have to do sub 3k dps per player to achieve a 20min kill. Should a full group of 3k dps players be allowed to advance a tier?

Tier 1 isn't made for people like you or me, who can solo fights or clear them in magi gear

Tier 1 is made for people like my guild mates, who are irl friends I convinced to play this game with me who have very little prior mmo experience, and have not been playing this game long - you know, new players.

First of all, if you do want to teach these new players that their builds aren't cutting it, I think it should be gradual, rather than a brick wall all at once. But even if it is a brick wall, make it the first fight of tier 2, not the last fight of tier 1.

Every other boss in tier 1 has like a million or two - not 17. A boss suddenly having like 8 times the health of the bosses before him is just not okay for tier 1. Have it be tier 2 at least, to show players theyre not ready for the big leagues yet. But don't deprive them of clearing tier 1 after they've worked hard through 24 fractals only to be denied the 25th. That's just mean. No reason to do new players dirty like that.

Yes, I get you think otherwise - but try to put yourself in the shoes of a newbie. You were a new player once, too, no?

[LichOverlord.6329]

On 7/12/2023 at 12:42 PM, Nimris.3781 said:

I feel like some people here have long forgotten what type of players play T1.

They are not playing T1 because they want to slowly learn mechanics, they are there because agony limits them. As new players they have mostly exotics, most of the time berserker/assassin stats. Dont expect boon-dps as diviner/ritualist exotics are harder to get then ascends, also dont expect proper boon-heal for simmilar reason. Some attribute combinations are gated behind LW, long grind or are quite expensive/hard to get. This means their boon uptime will be terrible if any. We are talking here about 4 dd classes with no more than 5k dps and maybe “sort of heal” with not enough concentration.

Moreover, they wont have fractal pots, (% bonuses and flat stats), food and utility etc.

Finally, I am sure they will struggle understanding whats going on (eye mechanic, adds, dodging). They will not figure out if it is intended or something is missing (boons, rotation, etc.) as they wont have any comparison and gw is unique mmo in terms of boon system.

As a bonus “cherry on a top” their paycheck for T1 is going to be laughable, about ~2-3g for T1 daily

- but wait, fast farming says 4.5g! - yeah, they assume you have 3rdfractal mastery (which 99% players dont know, but makes fractal encryption have way more value inside), which new players definitely wont have and they also add value of spirit shard. So yeah, 3x daily, 30+min for less than 3g... amazing profit!

Also to give you some comparison between other fractals of T1, most bosses there have just a few mil. of hp, even as low as about 1-2mil in single boss instance, and yet anet has thrown 17.5m hp sponge in T1, lol... people saying its fine are out of touch with reality, this should be cut by solid 60-70%.

 

 

Now regarding T4, and this is coming from person with enourmous fractal experience, Kanaxai HP is overtuned as well while his boss mechanics are boring af, here is why:

you can ignore most of mechanics, heal eye, dodge big smash at 66% etc. the only real danger is his number's mechanic, outside of that you can just stand and fight him like a golem, occasionaly moving and with his HP pool, spreading mechanic and some other factors reducing dps/boon uptime it takes a lot of time

1. eye mechanic should not just dmg you, but also place debuff reducing dmg done by e.g 50% for like 10-15sec to make ignoring it inefficient. ( this would promore not ignoring mechanics and allow for reducing his hp)

2. 66/33% Add mechanic is a joke if you can just dodge last hit, also entire fight would benefit a lot if intermission phase took longer, while Kanaxai HP was lower ( more in line with light AI fight). not to mention that this phase could be a lot more intresting, like 2 types of Aspects (ghosts), where one type has to be killed, other cc'ed etc. and players get their type randomly.

3. later in the fight he is spamming his numbers/eye mechanic/other crap so often that you constantly have to move/stop dps. There are no clear burst windows that you can get ready for making fight quite annoying and completely locking out power classes out of it.

 

I dont know how will CM look like, but normal Silent Surf definitely did not impress me.

Edit: there is so much more you can do with adds on platforms, like overlaping colours: split party into 2 groups, say red and blue, each group see only adds of their colour, platform that has add that both groups see is safe, on the rest you get hit by attack. you can also moddify it based on tier, like T1 - only 1 deadly platform, T4 only 1 safe platform.

I couldn't agree more. Tier 1 needs to be tuned down, and Tier 4 needs to be tuned up.

It honestly feels like rather than designing 4 different versions of a fight, they just designed one fight and tweaked the numbers just a touch - "okay we have 4 tiers now. Let's push it to live."

So as a result you get a super spongy spongy fight for tier 1 and a super boring fight for tier 4, because surprise! - the fight is actually really similar across all tiers. Idk I'm hoping that's not actually the case and there's more to it then that, because that just feels kind of lazy...