Is there a reason for the increasing escalation of mechanics and difficulty of fractals?

[Cyninja.2954]

@Rennie.6750 said:One thing is sure, increased difficulty doesn't work well for the average LFG parties. As I have no interest in joining a pve guild, the day the average t4 party can't complete dailies within a more than reasonable 45-60 mins time frame is the day I stop doing fractals, unless the rewards are substantially improved. That's not a threat or anything, it's a fact.

A reasonable decision. If you aren't enjoying the content, you shouldn't play it. If you aren't interested to use all options available to you (like joinig a pve guild in a MMO) then do expect that in a well designed MMO you will get eventually locked out of content.

@Rennie.6750 said:I won't go down tiers to earn trash rewards, I won't beg or buy my way, I won't "get better", this isn't about me, it's about what the average LFG player can do without wiping, as I have litte interest in slowly going through some daily routine content. At some point with enough practice, anything becomes easy in your eyes so the challenge part is a moot point. I don't even see how it's relevant to this discussion given how subjective this is.

The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

@Rennie.6750 said:

Look. This game is insanely grindy. More than some pay to win asian games i've played in the past in a lot of aspects. There are just too many absurdly slow progression paths all over the place, and fractals are just a part of that. If the devs start designing them around people who only play fractals then there's no point for me in playing that anymore. IMO the increased duration for the daily grind with mediocre rewards is an issue that is often overlooked, but it's a serious issue for a lot of people. When I say that asian pay to win games had better drop rates for BiS gear this isn't a joke, I do recall having more than one good drop a week playing the same kind of content, and 12g per day for 1h-1h30 (with recs) of play is already a pittance, there's no need to make things worse because of some delusional narrative that somehow, challenges are not relative and does not disappear with enough practice.

The game is exactly as grindy as you make it out to be. Want to be fully decked out in legendary gear in less than 1 month? Better get that credit card ready cause you'll have a hard time grinding that much (unless you are a TP god).

Want a perfectly fine endgame character? Get exotic armor and ascended weapons with ascended trinkets. All of which take less than 1 week of semi casual play if utilizing quests, achievements, the TP and Living World Season 3. That is NOT grindy for a MMO.

[apharma.3741]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I hope Anet stops listening to loud minority and start thinking about playerbase as a whole. We are the core of the game, not raiders.

Raids & fractals (especially t4) are intended to be challenging group content. The intended audience is a minority of the playerbase. The core of the game is designed to appeal to the majority of players (how well ANet succeeded in this can be debated, of course); fractals & raids don't need to be designed for everyone.

Raids and CMs. T4s are supposed to be a bit higher yet still casual dungeon-like experience for people not interested in raiding mess :)

Actually there’s a reposted dev comment where they once again explicitly stated raids were supposed to be the most challenging content in the game.

This means if T4s or T4 CMs ever surpass raids in difficulty they have failed at their mission statement. We can also conclude that T4s are not supposed to be as difficult as raids.

[Rennie.6750]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

You can get slightly reduced reward chests in T3 if you find T4 too hard.

[Rennie.6750]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

You can get slightly reduced reward chests in T3 if you find T4 too hard.

Do you even read the posts you're answering to?

[maddoctor.2738]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

You can get slightly reduced reward chests in T3 if you find T4 too hard.

Do you even read the posts you're answering to?

I read it and I don't give a damn if you only want the rewards of T4 even though it's beyond your skill level. So the advice is still the same, play T3 if you find T4 too hard

[Cyninja.2954]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

[apharma.3741]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

TLDR: We need heroes like in GW1 so we truly can solo content :smile:

[Cyninja.2954]

@apharma.3741 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

TLDR: We need heroes like in GW1 so we truly can solo content :smile:

I was actually very sad when they scrapped the idea of your personal assistant hero pet in the very early stages of GW2s development. :'( :)

[Feanor.2358]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

Actually the drop in the skill level of the "average t4 player" is mostly because a new tier formed, t4+cms, and the players of higher skill moved there. The more casual players failed to adapt for a variety of reasons and were excluded. Fractal guilds and title/kp requirements in LFG emerged to make sure you're playing with players of the same tier. And since it left in t4 the players who performed worse, the average skill level dropped. It started with Nightmare and became a lot more pronounced with Shattered.

I can sort of understand their frustration. They used to play in better parties overall and they no longer can unless they improve, which they are not willing to do. But... I play this game to have my fun, not to provide someone else's. And I'm not going back, except for players in my guilds or friend list. For the rest, I can only give the notorious "get gud" advice. Seriously. The game is a lot more fun to play on a higher level.

[Rennie.6750]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

Actually the drop in the skill level of the "average t4 player" is mostly because a new tier formed, t4+cms, and the players of higher skill moved there. The more casual players failed to adapt for a variety of reasons and were excluded. Fractal guilds and title/kp requirements in LFG emerged to make sure you're playing with players of the same tier. And since it left in t4 the players who performed worse, the average skill level dropped. It started with Nightmare and became a lot more pronounced with Shattered.

I can sort of understand their frustration. They used to play in better parties overall and they no longer can unless they improve, which they are not willing to do. But... I play this game to have my fun, not to provide someone else's. And I'm not going back, except for players in my guilds or friend list. For the rest, I can only give the notorious "get gud" advice. Seriously. The game is a lot more fun to play on a higher level.

LFG parties acquire KPs in the first week of the release, if you miss that window of opportunity you're excluded of all further LFG parties for the rest of the game's lifetime. It's less complicated than you think it is.

[Feanor.2358]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The average LFG player didn't care about fractals when rewards were kitten and ascended rings were the only ascended available. No one had a problem with the difficulty. Somehow ever since ascended boxes became available everyone is expecting this content to appeal to their skill level.

If you are unwilling to play fractals at your own level, that's your choice. Expecting T4 loot for no performance is a matter of game balance.

It's not about "my level", I'm often the one having to /gg because the rest of the party died to some obscure mechanics they do not understand. If anything, I'm often the last one standing with my 11k hp guardian. It really is about the average LFG party. The average player isn't very good, and that's fine, I don't care as long as we pop that rewards chest without wiping too much.

I don't believe you're qualified either to say that joining a guild is an option for me when it's not.

Oh I agree, the average T4 fractal player has gone down skill wise tremendously over the last years. A direct result of this content not getting attention and re-balance.

Sure I do, I never said I was qualified to say if you should join a guild or not since quite frankly I have no idea what your personal situation is. I am qualified to say though that this game is a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAME and no one should set their expectations to be able to complete all content solo. The fact that over 90% of the game can be completed this way is very comfortable for many casual players, and at the same time in direct violation or contradiction what this game is ment to be.

Simply put: if you are judging the difficulty of the games content (especially the supposedly challenging content) based on how well single individuals are able to complete it, you are in the wrong game.

Actually the drop in the skill level of the "average t4 player" is mostly because a new tier formed, t4+cms, and the players of higher skill moved there. The more casual players failed to adapt for a variety of reasons and were excluded. Fractal guilds and title/kp requirements in LFG emerged to make sure you're playing with players of the same tier. And since it left in t4 the players who performed worse, the average skill level dropped. It started with Nightmare and became a lot more pronounced with Shattered.

I can sort of understand their frustration. They used to play in better parties overall and they no longer can unless they improve, which they are not willing to do. But... I play this game to have my fun, not to provide someone else's. And I'm not going back, except for players in my guilds or friend list. For the rest, I can only give the notorious "get gud" advice. Seriously. The game is a lot more fun to play on a higher level.

LFG parties acquire KPs in the first week of the release, if you miss that window of opportunity you're excluded of all further LFG parties for the rest of the game's lifetime. It's less complicated than you think it is.

That's demonstrably false. I didn't start doing Shattered CM immediately after its release. True, it was harder to find the first few parties, and I didn't really play it on a daily basis for a while (which put me even more behind). But eventually I caught up with the KP requirements.

And I never said it's complicated.

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

[Rennie.6750]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

You can perma stealth the bomb part with the vents provided in the dungeon. It literally becomes a:

• pick up bomb
• walk under steam/dust vent -> become stealthed (duration is quite long)
• walk past golems while avoiding their detection circle
• deliver bomb
• walk under steam/dust vent at the top for more stealth
• walk back to start
• repeat

That's actually how the fractal part is ment to be completed currently. Hardly any more difficult than walking past some ground aoe.

[maddoctor.2738]

At least the "Fractals are supposed to be casual like Dungeons" kind of comments can now finally disappear.

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

Its ok for difficulty to vary quite a bit between different fractals, but T1 should always be super easy, and difficulty should always escalate per tier.

[Rennie.6750]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

You can perma stealth the bomb part with the vents provided in the dungeon. It literally becomes a:

• pick up bomb
• walk under steam/dust vent -> become stealthed (duration is quite long)
• walk past golems while avoiding their detection circle
• deliver bomb
• walk under steam/dust vent at the top for more stealth
• walk back to start
• repeat

That's actually how the fractal part is ment to be completed currently. Hardly any more difficult than walking past some ground aoe.

I was talking about the boss itself and the 5-10 elementals doing 3k damage each every few seconds, I knew about the corridor mechanics but thanks for the reminder anyway. It's the only fractal that I really have trouble doing on my guardian without a competent healer.

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

Its ok for difficulty to vary quite a bit between different fractals, but T1 should always be super easy, and difficulty should always escalate per tier.

Thanks for your answer, at least I know what kind of feedback I should provide now.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

As long as shattered observatory raid mess won't be repeated I am satisfied with your post :)

[Vyrulisse.1246]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

What makes Amala hard is the fact that she spams insane AoE all the time. This wouldn't be an issue if it didn't grind PC's to a halt and fill your screen with clutter. Are you all there aware of this issue people are having? More mechanics are alright but absolutely destroying your screen to accomplish it isn't. I feel like I'm fighting effects more than I'm fighting the actual boss and this has been a growing trend in the game at large. It's becoming too much for me and a lot of people. I'm just curious is if you are going to be more sensitive to this explosion of visual clutter in the future?

Don't get me wrong it looks cool but there comes a point where looking cool isn't worth sacrificing the gameplay experience.

[Randulf.7614]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:There's a lot of bickering and people slinging things as facts that aren't, so let me clarify something. Internally we want T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty. T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids. CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish). Saying T4 Amala is as hard as a raid is simply not true.

OK that's fair. One question if you don't mind, is the difficulty throughout a tier supposed to be somewhat consistent or are you okay if it wildly varies as long as it increases with tiers? One small (and I hope not too controversial these days) example I have in mind is underground facility. The end boss has two different paths, one with bombs, one with elementals, and the one with elementals is quite a bit more difficult than the bomb one due to the very high damage pressure, especially on heavy armor professions which tend to have aggro by default, while bombs simply require us to stay away from some small stuff on the ground.

Its ok for difficulty to vary quite a bit between different fractals, but T1 should always be super easy, and difficulty should always escalate per tier.

100% agree with this as a predominantly T1 player (I occasionally treat myself to a t2..woo!). I would personally say Shattered Observatory did not meet this criteria at all and was too overwhelming at t1 vs other fractals. I still haven't tried the new yet largely because of what appeared to be a change of philosophy after playing S.O., but if what you say is indeed the approach going forward, then I'll give it a whirl next opportunity

ALso, thank you for the consistent interaction with the community. Much appreciated!

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:

• T2 fractals to be similar to core tyria dungeons in difficulty.
• T4 fractals should be the hardest 5 man PvE content in the game other than CMs, but notably easier than raids.
• CMs should be very close to raid difficulty, but not quite there (this is tough to accomplish).
• ...difficulty [will] vary quite a bit between different fractals... T1 should always be super easy, and difficulty should always escalate per tier.

Thanks for (again) clarifying this

---

The OP asked a slightly different question which was:

Is there a reason for the increasing escalation of mechanics and difficulty of fractals?

The speculation (from the self-described better players in the thread) is that it's to maintain par with the increasing efficiency of players, as we become more familiar with the game's mechanics, i.e. T4 should not only be the most difficult 5-person PvE content in the game, ANet also wants it to maintain that degree of difficulty relative to how good players have become. Or as someone put it, "because otherwise people would fall asleep."

Is that fair description of the reasoning? Or would you disagree with the idea that the mechanics are increasing in difficulty?

My personal take is that it's a combination of things: to keep us on our feet, to be interesting for you guys to code (and play), and because we simply aren't used to the changes. Chaos has been out a while, but I see people use the old style technique (which work mostly, except at boss)

edit: rephrased. I meant, "is that a fair description" not "is that fair for the game"

[TexZero.7910]

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:The OP asked a slightly different question which was:

Is there a reason for the increasing escalation of mechanics and difficulty of fractals?

The speculation (from the self-described better players in the thread) is that it's to maintain par with the increasing efficiency of players, as we become more familiar with the game's mechanics, i.e. T4 should not only be the most difficult 5-person PvE content in the game, ANet also wants it to maintain that degree of difficulty relative to how good players have become. Or as someone put it, "because otherwise people would fall asleep."

Is that fair? Or would you disagree with the idea that the mechanics are increasing in difficulty?

My personal take is that it's a combination of things: to keep us on our feet, to be interesting for you guys to code (and play), and because we simply aren't used to the changes. Chaos has been out a while, but I see people use the old style technique (which work mostly, except at boss)

Is it fair to say we've had an increase of mechanics ?I don't think anyone can deny that when we went from fights like Molten/Mai to Shattered/Nightmare.

I think the question should be where the cut-off should be for multiple mechanics on screen / how much knowledge you expect players to have in T4. So far i feel it's about right, baring some outliers and some polish (CM Arkk).

It's also worth noting that the mechanics of fractals also scale with tier so if people really don't like the mechanically escalation they can and probably should drop down a tier until they are comfortable with everything in the previous tier.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Randulf.7614 said:100% agree with this as a predominantly T1 player (I occasionally treat myself to a t2..woo!). I would personally say Shattered Observatory did not meet this criteria at all and was too overwhelming at t1 vs other fractals.It was rebalanced later on to make that problem less visible, but still t3 SO is on a difficulty level that would easily fit within t4 difficulty tier (and not even at the bottom of it).

[Randulf.7614]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:100% agree with this as a predominantly T1 player (I occasionally treat myself to a t2..woo!). I would personally say Shattered Observatory did not meet this criteria at all and was too overwhelming at t1 vs other fractals.It was rebalanced later on to make that problem less visible, but still t3 SO is on a difficulty level that would easily fit within t4 difficulty tier (and not even at the bottom of it).

Ah right - how long ago was that re-balance? It is possible after my initial bad experience with that fractal I missed an update to it