Updates coming to Silent Surf August 22

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i want to try and get my point across one more time in the low chance a developer might still read this thread.

 

what i mean when i say i want difficult content:

i want enemies in open-world to not evaporate when i touch them. i want story bosses to actually have time to say their lines before phasing and overlapping all their dialogue. i want more meta events like dragon's stand and less like gyala delves. i want dungeons to actually require a group of five players again. i want fractals to have real challenge motes available for all fractals on all tiers (e.g t3 sunqua cm rec). i want raids to have multiple difficulty tiers besides just challenge on or off (emboldened is a joke). i want to see more actual raid mechanics in strike missions. i want more strike missions like boneskinner and less like keining overlook.

 

what arenanet thinks i mean when i say i want difficulty:

none of the above, instead the boss just has 1,000,000,000,000 health and all attacks are undodgeable and kill me. also you have to use a bundle that replaces your skills and doesn't work very well in order to not die. there's also a mandatory jumping puzzle.

 

this is called "artificial difficulty", and many games that rely on it have (very infamously) been failures.

 

what is upsetting me at this point is, besides the severe deviation from the fractal formula, we've already done it. we've already refined all the encounters, we've already seen what works and what doesn't, we've grinded the entire process down to a food-grade salt. yet, with each new piece of content, each new system, we're right back to the drawing board as if the last decade of the game never even happened, and it makes me really sad because i love this game.

 

some lack of consistency is understandable, but an entire lack of consistency is inexcuseable.

Edited August 9, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Ashantara.8731]

6 hours ago, Poki.8235 said:

You can puke on the enemies to do damage.

Yes... in a coordinated team, which is not a given with PUGs. 😄

[Baseleader.4128]

3 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

e.g t3 sunqua cm rec

Why on earth would this be necessary?
The idea of the lower tiers is lower difficulty to teach the fight, get people into fractals. What could possibly be the reason to add a CHallenge mote to sth that is specifically intended to be a stepping stone.

You follow this up with another weird sentence imo. You say you want more raid mechanics in strikes but then say you want more Boneskinner strikes as opposed to KO, when it's pretty clear to me that KO is much more like a raid boss than Boneskinner is. It actually has complicated mechanics that require coordination to figure out and beat.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

18 hours ago, Baseleader.4128 said:

Why on earth would this be necessary?
The idea of the lower tiers is lower difficulty to teach the fight, get people into fractals. What could possibly be the reason to add a CHallenge mote to sth that is specifically intended to be a stepping stone.

You follow this up with another weird sentence imo. You say you want more raid mechanics in strikes but then say you want more Boneskinner strikes as opposed to KO, when it's pretty clear to me that KO is much more like a raid boss than Boneskinner is. It actually has complicated mechanics that require coordination to figure out and beat.

the challenge mote allows you to skip the dialogue so the fight is actually shorter and easier (since you can retry sooner) than on normal mode. on top of that, in case you don't know, veterans have to do recommended fractals every day to get their potions and reach fractal god. this means the majority of groups doing recs are going to be veterans and not newbies, who only benefit marginally from the rewards.

 

(the potions aren't super helpful outside of late t3 and all of t4 and the cm's.)

 

keining is nothing like a raid boss. it requires no crowd control, reflects aren't needed, and cleanses and stability are barely needed. its basically just a huge health sponge encounter in which only dps matters (you can even dps through all the mechanics, like separating the tanks, rather than doing them). pretty much the only thing in it that is similar to raids is separating on orange and then stacking on green; the only mechanic you can't ignore.

 

compare this to something like qadim the peerless (just normal mode) and its not even in the same ballpark. even xera would be considered leagues beyond this encounter in difficulty, and most wipes in that fight are from ley line gliding, not the boss.

Edited August 10, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Anvar.5673]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:03 PM, Player.2475 said:

This crappy fractal is the reason I refuse to play the game any day it's daily. I cleared it several times, but it's such a slog and not at all rewarding.

I think they did an error with making more fractals. Each fractal is more and more bad received than the previous one.

They have lost this expertise they had at the begining when fractals where more simple, short and engaging.

They lost more and more player after the release of Siren's Reef, Sunqua Peak and Silent Surf fractals, alongside the rework of the Molten Boss one.

They should better focus on strikes missions since they have reworked their organisation to develop them with more flexibility.

It's so obvious that the new Silent Surf fractal was thought and developed like a strike mission.

[Baseleader.4128]

7 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

keining is nothing like a raid boss. it requires no crowd control, reflects aren't needed, and cleanses and stability are barely needed. its basically just a huge health sponge encounter in which only dps matters (you can even dps through all the mechanics, like separating the tanks, rather than doing them). pretty much the only thing in it that is similar to raids is separating on orange and then stacking on green; the only mechanic you can't ignore.

Ah yeah the normal mode. This is kind of true. But then Boneskinner is also absolutely nothing like say Qadim so I dont really understand that comparison still.

I was thinking more of the CM which is a lot more like a raidboss. Requires CC, stability and actually a lot of coordination.

[Apolo.5942]

This fixes nothing, i have no issue with the boss. Its the dungeon that is the problem, its unclear how to traverse it. It does not work right and on a personal note i realy dislike JP and you just made it into the most important fractal.

In all honesty i would rather you just took it off the rotation entirely.

This is daily farmable content, i dont want to think about, i dont want to stress about it, i want to relax and get it done. Everything that works against this makes it worse.

If you want to add difficult complicated content, Raids is the place where it belongs.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Apolo.5942

[baseendje.8452]

On 7/25/2023 at 7:33 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi all, I want to let you know that we've been reading your feedback about Silent Surf and have some updates incoming.

So for me, the hardest mechanic is landing on the platform with the grappling hook. In particular, for the higher platforms, I cannot grapple to them as there is no top surface area I can see to land the skill on. Placing the grapple less than perfectly will have you bounce back immediately from the mushroom. It is kind of frustrating to be able to navigate through all CM mechanics but this base fractal mechanic has the team whipe because of the clunkiness of the grapple mechanic.

It would be great if you could do something about that.

[TonySu.7942]

The HP for the final boss is too high not only in CM but also for all the other tiers. It’s not harder but just takes so long.

Edited September 3, 2023 by TonySu.7942

[tim.4596]

Hey, is there an ETA for the next batch of fix regarding 100, 99 and 98CM?

- Kanaxai always seem to bug the first time you get to 66% after freshly opening the instance. The same archer will target multiple people with its tether.
- Phantasmagoria is still not working as intended, and will often remain as a buff/debuff on your character after killing the corresponding add.

- Light AI phase 1 has been disabled. The boss simply remains in the middle of the arena.

- Artsariiv phase 2 and 3 are also disabled. She attempts to cast a spell bust seems to get interrupted.

[TonySu.7942]

I would prefer 3 new strikes instead of 2 strikes and 1 new fractal.

[soul.9651]

1 hour ago, TonySu.7942 said:

I would prefer 3 new strikes instead of 2 strikes and 1 new fractal.

Well some people would also prefer 3 new fractals and 0 strikes

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 10/30/2023 at 2:12 PM, soul.9651 said:

Well some people would also prefer 3 new fractals and 0 strikes

Although my preference is fractals, I'd prefer to see more of both and raids as well.  But in terms of quality, SotO strikes and fractal were a very weak showing. 

The mechanics on the strikes don't feel very interesting or impactful.  The mechanics on the fractal do, but then they just repeat the same thing over and over while also punishing the heck out of melee builds.

Call me unreasonable, but I expect better quality instanced content and more of it.