Silent Surf / Kanaxai CM Feedback (Likes, Dislikes/suggestions, Bugs)

[Poobah.6254]

Wanted to give a more balanced feedback post about the good and bad of this fractal/boss fight since anything remotely positive gets downvoted on reddit by the salty echo chamber over there having a cry.

Positives:

Overall I quite like the fight. It rewards high levels of personal awareness and requires a lot of attention and focus not to make a mistakes, which it punishes harshly. The core concept is pretty fun and I strongly like that it disrupts the standard fractal speed clear meta of "lol just stack and have massive burst, what even are mechanics?" (which is why my hardcore fractal friends are so salty).

I like that the fight mechanics engage with boons - for a core system of GW2 precious few PvE fights engage at all with boon rip/strip/stealing/corrupt/etc. and I think this is a good way to do it too that also rewards player skill.

It does favour ranged a bit but I think it's not nearly as bad as people are making out (I think it's very hard not to in GW2 with how the game works if you want a fight that's engaging, and really either if you don't make people spread out for stuff they'll complain that stacking is boring anyway so what can you do). It seems like most people haven't figured out that the axes are baited on to the furthest players which can than be controlled to leave one or two melee players pretty high up time.

Kanaxai is an iconic GW1 boss and I'm glad to see him back (Urgoz when?). That said while I like the fight I don't really feel like it's deserving of the top / 100 cm spot. It's not as visually impressive and diverse as Ai/Sunqua or tied to the main fractal story in the way that Arkk/Shattered Observatory is. It's too long to have a second phase but it really is lacking that little je ne sais quoi to make it feel like a fitting 100 CM. Though really I feel like we're getting to a point, certainly when you add the fifth CM with the new fractal in SotO where the Fractal CMs should go into their own category away from / above the regular T4s which would kinda solve that issue.

Suggestions/dislikes:

Dread Visage - this is something I'm more relaying from friends because it's something I'm ok at conceptualising but a bunch of my friends have complained about a lack of indicator for if you have any of the aspects of Kanaxi in your LoS and have pointed out that Artsariiv for instance shows a beam to you if you're looking at her. I think it'd be a good QoL to add one.

Rending Storm aka Axes - This could really use an expanding circle so you know when it's going to drop. I'll be back to talk about this skill again in the bugs section.

The tethering/Phantasmagoria for the split phases is very janky - there doesn't seem to be any reliable way to get them to target specific players such as proximity, and if any player interrupts one of the tethers in any way (there seems to be several from evading /blocking it to running through someone else's) and causes the aspects to have to re-target it's basically a guaranteed wipe because they take so long to do it. This is highly frustrating and feels unfair and unfun, especially because often people can't see the tether lines on other players and they are staggered/don't all happen at the same time. Something needs to change about this. Maybe have Kanaxi not start charging his attack until everybody has a tether (this could be exploited I suppose, but people are already escaping the boss arena to avoid this so shrug) or just make it take a little longer, the aspects definitely need to be much faster when they lose their target for whatever reason and need to find a new one to tether. The tether also shouldn't be blockable or anything like that.

A lot of people are saying that it feels pretty bad that there's very little counterplay to Frightening Speed and I kinda agree, though I get what you all at anet were going for with it being undodgeable damage that people will need to cope with via healing or barrier and that maybe making it able to be dodged would invalidate it completely so IDK. Personally I kinda feel like invuls should work at least against the initial damage (though you should still get flagged that if you get hit again by someone else's number you're executed) but actually my main feedback about this is that for a skill called Frightening Speed it's really really slow. I think even unchanged people would be a lot happier if it didn't take so long to go off, it's just a huge amount of down time, especially below 33% where you have to look away too so you're literally doing nothing.

Go straight to the boss - you guys figured this out with Sunqua, so the regression to making us fight a meaningless trash pack and champion feels bad? Which brings us along to my biggest frustration with this fractal - the title eligibility not being tracked only in the fight but across the whole instance, thus forcing us to reset the instance every pull and re-kill that stupid trash pack is giga frustrating and terrible.

The Grappling Hook I haven't had as much difficulty with this as some - one of my friends who uses a lower camera height literally can't target the highest platform even - but I still think that again it's very janky, my biggest issue is getting stuck on the bundle or then ending up swapping to the wrong weapon set because I'm mashing drop bundle. Honestly ya'll made those super nice "olden days" ziplines just for this fractal why not put those in so people can reliably get out to the platforms and do away with the bundle.

Bugs:

Regeneration & Phases - Now the boon ripping from pets is mostly fixed this is the other big one we got hit with a couple of times - If the boss gets regeneration when he's phasing the whole fight breaks pretty much because the phases trigger again.

Tethers/Phantasmagoria - Gonna repeat here that I've seen a bunch of people say that they can fail due to blocking or dodging which very much feels like a bug to me. Also often you can't see other people's tethers, leading to accidental running in to and them breaking them and generally ruining any chances of coordination.

Rending Storm  - Again most of the time you can't see the visual for the axes being on another player making it hard to react and coordinate.

Thanks!

[SidewayS.3789]

Still it's a trash strike beaten to be a fractal. Period. No matter what you said there, they should go back to the board and redo this kitten so call fractal.

[mikko.4013]

I managed to achieve a title run, with a full PUG party (30kUFE + ping Inf req).

I still don't like this fractal, even in CM. I will stand with my first opinion : much too long + annoying mechanics (zero fun)

10 min for a boring fight, even with a relatively experienced party... it doesn't cut it for me = I won't do 100CM in my daily CM routine, unless ANet redesign it.

https://dps.report/ICvr-20230722-124702_kana (dps.report has not been updated yet, that's why it says "failure", but you can replay the fight and see that no one died and boss got 0 HP)

I warmly thank these people who commited to trying for 1 hour.

[zeyeti.8347]

Matter of taste about the fight , i think it's far from sunqa cm , the grappling hook doesnt make you land everytime where you target (especially on higher grounds) and the "thetering" is awfull as it is now , sometimes the adds are locked in a rapid fire shooting animation making someone of the group thetered very late , and have no time to kill the add , maybe give us bouncing shrooms instead of the grappling and make add fresh respawn once 66 and 33% so they immediately start the thetering.

Without those two bugs/features i don't know ... fractal would be alright (fight is not great , but matter of taste) and plz ...+-42 000 000 hp ....  that would be alright if it was more interesting , maybe a 21 000 000 hp but a phase two , if fractal stay like that i will do title run then i am off , never going there again .

Anet staff has not tested this fractal cm or else such weird mechanics would not appear , i really don't understand why someone wanna be a dev and don't even play his own game, at least for the endgame content , i know they play open baby world.

Edited July 22, 2023 by zeyeti.8347

[maxwelgm.4315]

Quote

 

 It rewards high levels of personal awareness and requires a lot of attention and focus not to make a mistakes, which it punishes harshly. The core concept is pretty fun and I strongly like that it disrupts the standard fractal speed clear meta of "lol just stack and have massive burst, what even are mechanics?" (which is why my hardcore fractal friends are so salty).

 

I have to repeat my post from the other topic in this forum about the CM, because I dearly hope Anet does not think for a moment they have correctly "disrupted" anything other than the fun of doing daily fractal CMs with experienced groups. The mechanics of the other fractals are CM are not only better and more impactful but also much larger in number and variety. It's plain out dishonest to say this is an improvement in preventing stack and slap fights when all 3 previous CM do this better than Kanaxai does (what are anomalies, what are orb phases, what are Sorrows and Fears, what are eye lasers, what are CC phases, what are spreading shockwaves, what are disappearing platforms, and I could go on and on). Anyway, here's all of it again:

The fight is very lackluster compared to other CMs. Look at any of the previous 3 fractal CMs and all the bosses have well delimited phases with sometimes even visual changes in between and a whole ongoing "in-gameplay storyline" such as the case of Arkk and Ai. Kanaxai is the exact same fight as NM while having more insta death mechanics, which is pretty disappointing. Knocking out Ai from the 100th fractal spot when she's the one to have an actual second phase exclusive to the CM is pretty underwhelming from a thematic standpoint but most importantly from a gameplay standpoint too.

I strongly disagree the fight is busy, difficult or punishing - the constant spreading is creating the illusion that you are always on the move when in reality there is no other CM fractal where you have so much downtime - you are waiting the numbers mechanic to end while trying to heal it up, you're waiting for the eyes to pop next to the edge of the arena because of their unreliable timing and actual coverage, you are waiting for people to finish the 66/33 World Cleaver without anything else to do meanwhile, and so on. They've already gotten spread mechanics correctly in Kaineng AND Sunqua so it's baffling they pulled it out so badly here.

Targeting all allied entities for boonstrip is a hilarious oversight that's just a consequence of the overall lack of "love" that was put into this. Someone really wanted to develop a strike but was forced into releasing a fractal.  Again, all fractal CMs focus on quickly swapping around mechanics and progression as the boss HP lowers such that it feels impactful to get through each phase. Here there's not really many additions past 66%/33% and the entire fight feels same-y all across the 10 or so minutes it will take to burn through the 40+ million HP.

In summary this fractal actually made me quite unhappy. It lacks the presentation that Sunqua Peak CM had and made it really impactful (and bearable to go through everyday in farm mode), while not really having engaging gameplay to make up for the lack of theme and storytelling. It can be modified to look more like a proper fractal 100 CM, but currently it's just meh next to its siblings Arkk and Ai.

[Sirius.4510]

5 hours ago, Poobah.6254 said:

Rending Storm  - Again most of the time you can't see the visual for the axes being on another player making it hard to react and coordinate.

Wanted to signal-boost this. I was progging this CM with some folks from my guild last night and this bug bit us more times than I care to count. You can kinda work around it with communication and/or "mind reading" why people are going off stack, but ideally you shouldn't have to, especially if you're playing the fractal with people you don't know.

Clean up the bugs, consider cutting the boss HP by half, and I think this one will be a good addition to the catalog. At the moment it's not something I can see folks wanting to go back to much.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Sirius.4510
It's not a strike, it's a fractal... Freudian slip? :)

[Xentera.4560]

 Silent Surf CM is plagued by clunky mechanics that have left players frustrated and disheartened. The lack of fluidity and responsiveness in gameplay hampers the overall experience, leading to a constant struggle for many. Movement and skill interactions feel awkward and unpolished, making combat encounters a source of annoyance rather than enjoyment. Additionally, the unclear objectives and poorly communicated mechanics only exacerbate the problem, leaving players to figure things out through trial and error.

To salvage this fractal and make it worth revisiting, urgent rework is imperative. ANet should prioritize optimizing the mechanics to ensure smooth and seamless gameplay. Clear and concise explanations of objectives and mechanics would greatly enhance the experience, allowing players to focus on the fun rather than deciphering obscure instructions. A more engaging and dynamic encounter design could inject excitement and challenge into "Silent Surf," rekindling player interest and encouraging repeated clears.

By listening to player feedback and investing in a comprehensive overhaul, ANet can redeem this fractal and restore faith in their ability to deliver compelling content.

[oCynder.5136]

Asides from the bugs and mechanical issues with the boss, it's a fairly interesting fight, but although a lot of personal awareness. Spreading out mechanics are fine and regroupping immediately is fine. I have no issues with that as it really forces the idea of spread out and regroup immediately rather sitting there and facetank everything and mash button like 11111111111.

What makes this Silent Surf CM boss fight difficult is the tether breaking/resetting, late tethers, regen bug that re-procs 33/66 phases, and axe aoes from players not being shown. Oh, one last thing, I don't like the idea you cannot revive after your friend is dead. I also don't like the idea that you NEED 5 players to be alive if you choose to ignore aspects pre/post 33/66 phases. Out of all my runs if you actually do the post 33/66 aspects (not phased 33/66), a minimum at 33/66 phase you get like 3.

I have to put this in bold as it is the most absolute worst thing of all. Actually two things. HOOKSHOT and ONE PILLAR BEING HIGHER THAN THE OTHERS. The hookshot is so janky that even if you place it perfectly, it sometimes does not pull you all the way through. They could just put a zipline to resolve this issue as it is so much easier to press interact key. And you cant press SAK again to drop the bundle so it feels weird not using SAK to drop bundle. One pillar that is the highest is the worst and gets most players even myself. They just need to lower this pillar. Or better yet, add the zipline so it is like a less frustrating experience.

I do agree that Anet need to redesign this fight to be more entertaining and less frustrating mechanics. And bugs do need to be fixed to make this feel better.

[JhonnyCatwolf.9042]

So I played this a couple of time, watched some CM videos (I have no interest in doing this on CM, maybe once for completion). I'm not gonna go in a in depth analysis of everything wrong with it since people above my post with more game knowledge and experience have already done this to a great degree of accuracy. I'm just gonna say how this feels like.

1. This is not a cohesive encounter. You have the first part, which is a janky "puzzle" section which is completely disconnected from the boss fight and serves no purpose.

2. Fractals generally try to teach you mechanics in their design along the way for the final boss encounter... the JP teaches you nothing. You have the parachute, the hook and the exploding bomb... 2 of these are utterly useless for the final part... so why even add them to the fractal? This mismatch gives you the same feeling that everyone's favorite fractal - Solid Ocean - does... namely the first part does nothing for the experience.

3. The final boss fight hook mechanic is sooo janky... and this becomes so much more punishing in CM... I've accidentally hit the mushroom and got bounced back so many times. As someone said, put in zip lines, or hang a rock above each platform so you can hook to that reliably. Imagine doing Sabir, and each time you would get bounced from platform to platform you have a 50% of dying just cause the landing platform is moving, or has a bouncing mushroom on it... not so fun

4. The story is not there... sure there's an achievement for discovering the story... but this is so barebones... It's not even like Sunqua where the full story is a bit obscure and only get the whole thing if you beat the CM... but you can generally guess what it is. Meanwhile Silent Surf feel more like Dark Souls storytelling (which is fine btw, but this isn't Dark Souls, it's GW2). And honestly this is coming from someone who played all fractals before even finishing vanilla... and I could enjoy mostly all fractals for their storytelling...

5. This fractal (especially the CM) forces you to not do anything for a while... And yes I do mean the split mechanics (roman numerals), the go be a good boy and wait for the eyes and the wait for me to charge my big boy attack... which makes that it kills the flow of the fight, especially in CM where in the later phases, the demon also goes to a platform and has an eye which is de-synched from the rest. This does not make for a fluid fight... It's like driving a car, going up to 100 then stopping for like 5-7 seconds, then back to 100... This in the long run can become very tiring (considering how tanky the boss is) and just... not fun. It's like the downtime on Samarog while you wait for the human to be pushed, or the Fraenir IBS strike, while the iceelemental is invulnerable... Everyone loves that, no?

And yes there are other fights and CM's that force some sort of downtime (Like the bomb in CM 98, the Red ball phase in CM 97 etc.) but the difference is that this fractal forces a long period of inactivity...

6. WHY in gods name would you not be able to dodge the roman numeral dmg mechanic? Is dodging not considered skill expression any longer?

7. This is a pet peeve of mine... but forcing 4 people in T4 to have to do the JP in order to unlock the next checkpoint is just unfractal like. I'm not advocating that the community be allowed to exploit game design and skip content... but let's be real, one of the fun facts about fractals is that if one or multiple people have the skills, a lot of fractal parts can be skipped via the checkpoint system and this is just skill expression, and also just fun. This adds an entire new dimension to playing fractals, sure it was unintended, but it's a really fun part, which makes fractals fast and dynamic.

I do have 1 plus about the fractal: The boss design looks cool.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, thank you for releasing a jankier Solid Ocean, with a lot of buisy-work unchallenging mechanics, and a marvellous jp, but can you do us a favor Anet and move this to Strikes where it belongs?

Thanks

[Nimris.3781]

I'd like to address a couple of things here

On 7/22/2023 at 3:27 PM, Poobah.6254 said:

Overall I quite like the fight. It rewards high levels of personal awareness and requires a lot of attention and focus not to make a mistakes, which it punishes harshly. The core concept is pretty fun and I strongly like that it disrupts the standard fractal speed clear meta of "lol just stack and have massive burst, what even are mechanics?" (which is why my hardcore fractal friends are so salty).

1)  first of, you confuse dynamic/fluid with speed clear. because 97/98/99 are well designed and fights are fuild, advanced groups can speed clear it - this is also incentive for everyone to improve (perform better, get faster clear time), however even with weak group all 3 cms still feel ok and can be finished (with minor ressing).     silent surf is opposite, every single mechanic forces you to wait/move away, with no counterplay.  there is nothing you can do better/smarter in moving out and turning back.  you cant even stack axes  etc. and death = /gg as no ressing allowed, mistlock saves from almost nothing.

2) group stacking is core to endgame content beacuse of boons, its fine with occasional movement/spread (leaving aoe outside) but this entire fight is filled with spreading/moving away. you spent more time walking/waiting than actually fighting:  axes? move away,     numbers? spread    eye?  move away turn back    boon steal? move again! 3 times in a row!      failed cc? you guessed it, move out to kill add...

3) i cannot call "insta-kills" a "punishing harshly", especially if everything is instakill. in 97/98/99 there are only 3 instances of insta wipes/deaths (Skorvald channel during annomalies+falling down,  Arkk pillars and  Light AI air phase) and each of 3 are major mechanics and group effort.   e.g for punishing harshly mechanic:   dark AI sorrows if you ignore them, party wide downstate - but hey you ignored add channeling big spell for solid 10 sec.  same with doom - someone had big red skull over head.   Kanaxai? looked 0.5 sec too early and desync add on opposite side fear you to death... that just very poor design.

4) also about "disrupts the standard fractal speed clear meta"  imagine now Anet implementing strike mission with jp, multiple trash packs, escort and second boss inbetween them.  i am sure it would end up being called "raid in disguise", no one ever doing it and everyone saying "move that crap to W8".  people love fractals as they are dynamic, skill/mastery allows you to dodge cartain mechanics and checkpoint skipping is art of its own.  silent surf has nothing to do with it, it just doesnt belong to fractals at all.

On 7/22/2023 at 3:27 PM, Poobah.6254 said:

It does favour ranged a bit but I think it's not nearly as bad as people are making out

try playing as melee (maybe power as well?) before posting something like this. the experience is absolutely terrible.

 

This entire cm should look completly different, not a normal mode with some instakills slapped on to it. instakill is never hard and engagning, its just stupid and annoying.      some quick ideas how to make this fight more intresting:

- in cm after bringing Kanaxai to 66% and surviving his world-cleaver he should have different story lines and change to new "cm only mode" (enhance both aesthetics and mechanics)

- axes could slowly rotate around area ( but no more than 2-3 axes! )

- numbers mechanic could leave shadow behind repeating his spin after several seconds with much smaller range ( numbers also should happen less frequently)  and no stupid eyes under 33% during numbers

- after 33% fight could be again altered/enhanced in cm to not feel like boring and repetitive  (but no instakills!)

 

overall: difficulty comes from pressure, when mechanics are challenging but gives you options to outsmart them and punish you when you completly fail them. insta-kill on normal mechanic is not punishment, its just stupid.  (party wipe on 33/66% world-cleaver is fine).    also boss mechanics shouldnt make you feel annoyed, they should make you want to "respect them" ( numbers are fine, you dont want to invade others space.   numbers with eye are stupid and annoying - fight doesnt feel harder, but frustrating) i could take many good examples from other cm's but than this post would turn into few pages long

also the entire fight is not clear on whats going on - you dont know radius of eye mechanic ( no indication), tether jumps from player to player for no reason, adds from cc can overlap with 33/66%.  you dont see axes on other players, eye mechanic desyncs for whatever reason, if boss steals regen before 66%, world cleaver repeats.   and "hook"...

tldr: this fractal is terrible and overall design is extreamly poor. it was never tested as seen from both, long long list of bugs (steal from pets, regen on 66%, tether, hook etc.) and long list of stuff that shouldnt be allowed ( like mist convergence instability, getting out of world-cleaver range etc. ).  the fight casues frustration, not engagement due to challange and it should have at least 10-15m hp less to fit fractal design

after doing all achivs, i am not stepping there back unless they revamp it

Edited July 23, 2023 by Nimris.3781

[Nero.7369]

All bugs, bad quality and similar stuff aside...

Really disappointed in the fractal and it's CM. It feels like a strike... Not a fractal. 2-3 Boss encounters per fractal  and some exploring are a nice thing.

Lore wise I really love to see Kanaxai I expected them for some time already.. sadly the story telling falls a bit short, but I guess that's because the time you could spent in the depth in gw1 was way longer than in this fractal

CM Mechanics and instant kills are okay... Removing all sort of effective dodges, blocks and invul just feels bad tho. I like that you can't cheese thru it with orbs.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Nero.7369

[Monarch.7241]

On 7/22/2023 at 11:43 PM, Xentera.4560 said:

 Silent Surf CM is plagued by clunky mechanics that have left players frustrated and disheartened. The lack of fluidity and responsiveness in gameplay hampers the overall experience, leading to a constant struggle for many. Movement and skill interactions feel awkward and unpolished, making combat encounters a source of annoyance rather than enjoyment. Additionally, the unclear objectives and poorly communicated mechanics only exacerbate the problem, leaving players to figure things out through trial and error.

To salvage this fractal and make it worth revisiting, urgent rework is imperative. ANet should prioritize optimizing the mechanics to ensure smooth and seamless gameplay. Clear and concise explanations of objectives and mechanics would greatly enhance the experience, allowing players to focus on the fun rather than deciphering obscure instructions. A more engaging and dynamic encounter design could inject excitement and challenge into "Silent Surf," rekindling player interest and encouraging repeated clears.

By listening to player feedback and investing in a comprehensive overhaul, ANet can redeem this fractal and restore faith in their ability to deliver compelling content.

I still dont know what exactly the dark circle well alike is used for. I only know that stepping on this usually kills my party, why? Dont know, and from the 3 videos I watched, nobody explains exactly this. I also cant find the name of the mechanic in gw2wiki, which is sad. Atleast after watching the videos now I know what I have to know about the tethering. Killing the archers on the platforms is not that hard, even with heal scourge, you unload all your kitten pistol and torch skills on the target and the add is gone. Usually when im about to go on platforms, I start with dagger warhorn for the small but keyish cc and the small damage burst, its small, but important to kill that thing as a healer. Thank god im full harrier, atleast my power is awesome.