New Fractal 100 Lonely Tower - NM Easy? - CM Too Hard? - Fat Discussion & Guide For Completing The CM

[Roxianna.2563]

Tier 1 should just be for fun for more casual players. The Eparch fight was not for many of the reasons already explained here.

I enjoyed the "prequel" aspect, but I still don't know the story because we could never finish.

[frazazel.7501]

Tier 1 is pretty easy if you can consistently break Eparch's breakbar, since he loses all his orb buffs if you break it. But a ragtag bunch of random pugs are probably going to fail at that pretty often, and if you don't break it, he completely wrecks you if you haven't kept on top of the orbs.

So this fight is kinda weird. It teaches you that you can ignore the orbs, and focus hard on CC. Or you can do orbs so that failing the CC isn't as punishing.

[Altriba.8092]

My issue with this fractal is having an achievement that punishes the group if a player dies, and having the achievement force the group to restart the whole thing entirely on top of that death punishment.

The CM ach should be for a successful, no deaths run of the Eparch fight, and should reset the eligibility if the group /gg's or wipes to start over.

Group dependent one time per instance achs are, always have been and always will be a horrible design idea.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

26 minutes ago, Altriba.8092 said:

My issue with this fractal is having an achievement that punishes the group if a player dies, and having the achievement force the group to restart the whole thing entirely on top of that death punishment.

The CM ach should be for a successful, no deaths run of the Eparch fight, and should reset the eligibility if the group /gg's or wipes to start over.

Group dependent one time per instance achs are, always have been and always will be a horrible design idea.

The issue is the cm was quickly slap together, a good way to tell is the harbringer does not laugh when you turn it on, like every other cm.

There is no reason to do the puzzle or the demon brothers in cm. There should a portal straight to eparch like in silent surf and suqua peak. Also the fight is even worse now with the fixes. Eparch boss health is not bad now, but the split phases are still awful, and are 100% the reason the fight succeeds or fails.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

The fight is WAY better now with Envy changes.
32m/37m, I really dont care, sure the add phase is long AND boring, cud use a lot more work.
But as it stands, the fight is no longer "oops Eparch is RNG consuming our Envy person, he got 2 stacks before 65, GG!".

NM is finally in an okish spot, and CM just needs to tone down the Add phase on 65/35, along with more bug fixes, then it shud be ok.
 

[Xerxez.7361]

On 7/6/2024 at 10:36 PM, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

The fight is WAY better now with Envy changes.
32m/37m, I really dont care, sure the add phase is long AND boring, cud use a lot more work.
But as it stands, the fight is no longer "oops Eparch is RNG consuming our Envy person, he got 2 stacks before 65, GG!".

NM is finally in an okish spot, and CM just needs to tone down the Add phase on 65/35, along with more bug fixes, then it shud be ok.
 

Biggest change I would ask for is when closing the final Portal on CM, Eparch shouldn't consume the Remaining Spites. With the spawn rates for the final portal it feels like an endless task of clearing Spites out and trying to close the portal without any remaining alive.

[Kozumi.5816]

On 5/27/2024 at 9:16 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Aight, this is ridiculous. People really are avoiding 100, even CM/NA groups.

Like I'm having a hard time finding groups who are willing to run this fractal. This is silly.

They all insist on HB meta, don't want to break it, and are bullheadedly avoiding 100, even when it's a daily.

I mean this is not difficult to run if you just bring aheal scourge. It really really isn't.

They needed to stop adding fractals years ago, and made a new form of content.

All they have done is destroy farming fractals for dailies. They give the same rewards, yet are 10x harder now.

Makes zero sense.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Welp, someone bumped this thread so I guess I'll ask:

Why are so many CM groups still avoiding 100? Is it really still too difficult and/or seemingly a waste of time?

I took a break from fractals for a few weeks, came back after nerf, and I'm still seeing most groups avoiding 100.

[Kozumi.5816]

19 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Welp, someone bumped this thread so I guess I'll ask:

Can't bump a thread already on the first page...

[Kozumi.5816]

On 6/8/2024 at 9:35 PM, Radiancee.6537 said:

And holy kitten .. could ArenaNet finally stop releasing extremely bugged content? How about a PTS for actual playtesting?

Not while players still stupidly test it for free.

  

On 6/9/2024 at 4:26 AM, Kunavi.2407 said:

Regardless whether or not people find this or Surf CM easy(Some people find TOP or DRS in FFXIV easy for them)- The design they're going for isn't a good fit for GW2 even if they polish it. One recurring worry I've been having is that ANet may be trying to FFXIVise their encounter design, for lack of a better term. If I wanted that, guess which MMO I'd still be playing...

Yep, If I wanted to play FFXIV I'd go play the game, stop trying to turn GW2 into that trash can of a game.

  

On 6/10/2024 at 8:08 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

and usually allows you to play melee everywhere.

Not difficult to play melee when bosses hitboxes are the entire size of the tiny square room arena(100% of the games content is a tiny square room arena).

Your adamant defense and ignorance over how this games instance design is literally 1:1 FF14 is baffling at this point.

Edited July 19 by Kozumi.5816

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

On 7/20/2024 at 2:31 AM, Kozumi.5816 said:

All they have done is destroy farming fractals for dailies. They give the same rewards, yet are 10x harder now.

Makes zero sense.

Seconding this. Yeah the casual daily fractal crowd got much more scarce after these 2 recent releases.

Surf was already stretching everyone's patience to the very limit. It used to be that T4 Surf days were the days people skipped recs (since Sunqua was also T1 rec on those days), but it was a rotten apple in the cycle and could be worked around. 

Now people skip Fractal altogether if Tower shows up in the T4s (there are 2 of these days in the cycle, and Tower is always accompanied by another annoying Fractal, Aquatic or Siren), and likely to skip recs if Tower shows up in the T3 rec (since T1 rec same day is Surf).  

 

[andreiblue.8231]

The solution is simple: instead of 2 or 3 portals during the splitphase there should be only 1 on the west side (the farthest) and there should be some marker of where the ads shouldnt get, some circle or something were they shouldnt get to and the add could all come from that one portal instead of 3 different ones with 2 of them being really close to where the adds are eaten (i think cuz you cant see where is the place they shouldnt reach). This way the group wouldnt have to split. Also the CM should give you a direct portal to eparch or at least to the twins

[andreiblue.8231]

20 hours ago, andreiblue.8231 said:

The solution is simple: instead of 2 or 3 portals during the splitphase there should be only 1 on the west side (the farthest) and there should be some marker of where the ads shouldnt get, some circle or something were they shouldnt get to and the add could all come from that one portal instead of 3 different ones with 2 of them being really close to where the adds are eaten (i think cuz you cant see where is the place they shouldnt reach). This way the group wouldnt have to split. Also the CM should give you a direct portal to eparch or at least to the twins

Dunno what's confusing about this, the numbers of mobs may need to be reduced as well and cc-ing Eparch should reduce more stacks considering how easily he gains them.

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

On 7/20/2024 at 12:48 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Why are so many CM groups still avoiding 100? Is it really still too difficult and/or seemingly a waste of time?

It’s still too complicated. I tried a run for the title recently. Hell, there’s so much coordination needed for the last fight. I can’t do that on daily basis.

In Nightmare, you should place a target for Siax, but you can still manage without it, and in Shattered Observatory, alac should do the marble. If you fail CC on Ai or Kanaxai, it’s not good, but not fatal—but beware, if one takes the wrong orbs! And you can’t/won’t even fight Eparch with full stacks, since it gets pointless. It’s a hidden early game over without instant death.

I guess, we have to wait for two more circles of power creep, so players don’t have to care about Eparch’s stacks any more.

Edited July 27 by AllNightPlayer.1286

[Xentera.4560]

Another patch and nothing about LTCM. I guess anet will just continue to pretend that there is nothing wrong with it despite the overwhelming feedback to the contrary. Knowing well that nine out of 10 of all CMs group forming nightly don’t even bother with it.

Hope everyone is enjoying that “CMs-100” LFG post because it’s pretty much the norm now.

[Kozumi.5816]

On 7/30/2024 at 4:18 PM, Xentera.4560 said:

Another patch and nothing about LTCM. I guess anet will just continue to pretend that there is nothing wrong with it despite the overwhelming feedback to the contrary. Knowing well that nine out of 10 of all CMs group forming nightly don’t even bother with it.

Hope everyone is enjoying that “CMs-100” LFG post because it’s pretty much the norm now.

Every new fractal added in the past 5 years has just made the content worse.

[Xentera.4560]

I would say that since the release of deepstone, the direction and quality of fractals have taken a noticeable turn to the worse. A lot of the newer fractals have parts that feel they belong more in a game like Roblox than a high fantasy MMORPG. Think mazes, and puzzles that are there only to waste your time and provide no challenge or any fun factor.
Having said that, lonely tower is in its own special league of kitteness.

[Serperior.6541]

 Lonely Tower releases, buggy overtuned mess, pugs avoid it. It is fine (it's not) Silent Surf wasn't much different anet will adjust the fractal

comeback after a break

 pugs still avoid the fight.

 bruh

Edited August 28 by Serperior.6541

[Wuffy.9732]

1 hour ago, Serperior.6541 said:

 Lonely Tower releases, buggy overtuned mess, pugs avoid it. It is fine (it's not) Silent Surf wasn't much different anet will adjust the fractal

comeback after a break

 pugs still avoid the fight.

 bruh

Anet really hasn't done anything with it... it's still the same mess since June, lol. They also made it kind of worse, after nerfing the gluttony tactic... And I don't bother doing it much either tbh, since too many pug groups avoid it entirely.

So yea, that's the current fractal meta rn~

Edited August 28 by Wuffy.9732

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

lol I come back 3 months later and this thread is still being discussed.

I'll drop my updates on the matter:

1. Yeah, we tried hard on initial release to complete the very challenging content, and it was fun.
2. Later, after everyone did the same thing just to get KE, no one wanted to run this fractal anymore.
3. Three months later, even after the nerf, 9/10 CM groups still avoid this fractal. Actually in recent weeks, I've not once seen a single CM group posting to do 100. Even the sweatiest try-hards are realizing that it's just too much of a hassle and not worth the rewards for the effort/time involved. I've had to accept the fact that players really want to avoid this fractal at all costs. Players even avoid this on normal mode non-CMs. Even rec groups just straight skip this fractal.

It seems to me that Arenanet should either greatly enhance the rewards for Lonely Tower completions, especially 100 CM, or gut out some of Eparch's orb mechanics entirely. I don't mean nerf them, I mean remove them. In the long haul it's proven to be too scattered & complex for a 5 man party to deal with. Seriously though, when the sweatiest of the sweaty are avoiding something like this, that content needs to be fixed.

It is annoying though, when Lonely Tower pops up for dailies/recs and everyone wants to skip it. I see why, it's just disappointing when you have to a miss a daily or rec complete due to this fractal being in the list. I'd dare say that if Arenanet doesn't want to fix it, just remove it. It has made daily fractal runs feel a great deal less fun than before it was added. Fractals might actually be the most important asset they have for getting players to want to log in and do something fun in pve that is lucrative for the day. You'd think they'd take this issue seriously and want to clean it up asap. Doesn't seem like it'd be very hard to clean up Eparch in a single quick fix.

[Katary.7096]

11 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

1. Yeah, we tried hard on initial release to complete the very challenging content, and it was fun.
2. Later, after everyone did the same thing just to get KE, no one wanted to run this fractal anymore.
3. Three months later, even after the nerf, 9/10 CM groups still avoid this fractal. Actually in recent weeks, I've not once seen a single CM group posting to do 100. Even the sweatiest try-hards are realizing that it's just too much of a hassle and not worth the rewards for the effort/time involved. I've had to accept the fact that players really want to avoid this fractal at all costs. Players even avoid this on normal mode non-CMs. Even rec groups just straight skip this fractal.

I have found more success by splitting my daily runs into one CMs(-100)+T4 and one 100CM group instead of trying to put together a single group for all of it. Just my personal experience of course, but I tend to spend less time in lfg and get smoother 100CM clears this way.

[Xentera.4560]

On 9/1/2024 at 9:11 PM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

lol I come back 3 months later and this thread is still being discussed.

I'll drop my updates on the matter:

1. Yeah, we tried hard on initial release to complete the very challenging content, and it was fun.
2. Later, after everyone did the same thing just to get KE, no one wanted to run this fractal anymore.
3. Three months later, even after the nerf, 9/10 CM groups still avoid this fractal. Actually in recent weeks, I've not once seen a single CM group posting to do 100. Even the sweatiest try-hards are realizing that it's just too much of a hassle and not worth the rewards for the effort/time involved. I've had to accept the fact that players really want to avoid this fractal at all costs. Players even avoid this on normal mode non-CMs. Even rec groups just straight skip this fractal.

It seems to me that Arenanet should either greatly enhance the rewards for Lonely Tower completions, especially 100 CM, or gut out some of Eparch's orb mechanics entirely. I don't mean nerf them, I mean remove them. In the long haul it's proven to be too scattered & complex for a 5 man party to deal with. Seriously though, when the sweatiest of the sweaty are avoiding something like this, that content needs to be fixed.

It is annoying though, when Lonely Tower pops up for dailies/recs and everyone wants to skip it. I see why, it's just disappointing when you have to a miss a daily or rec complete due to this fractal being in the list. I'd dare say that if Arenanet doesn't want to fix it, just remove it. It has made daily fractal runs feel a great deal less fun than before it was added. Fractals might actually be the most important asset they have for getting players to want to log in and do something fun in pve that is lucrative for the day. You'd think they'd take this issue seriously and want to clean it up asap. Doesn't seem like it'd be very hard to clean up Eparch in a single quick fix.

It would be nice of we actually get a response. Like Anet announcing: " LTCM is fine, no further changes planned". So (?almost) everyone will just continue to ignore that LT exists as a fractal and continue on with their lives. Or they can announce that they heard the overwhelming feedback from the fractals CMs community and the matter is being reviewed.

It is just very disappointing that we keep giving suggestions on what needs to be done, and hoping to see something done with every patch; only to be disappointed.

And yes, @Trevor Boyer.6524 the vast majority of the CMs statics will continue doing CMs(-100) till then. LTCM is neither fun, nor rewarding in its current state.

Edited September 3 by Xentera.4560

[the krytan assassin.9235]

I honestly dont think the fractal is that problematic in its current state (despite its very low playrate). I feel like alot of people have never really bothered to learn the fractal and have just given up on it. All you basically need is a decent class for glut (wb/cata/Reaper) and the fractal becomes a walk in the park.

One of the major problems with the fractal is the pre event imo. With roughly 6 mins pre event and 5 mins bossfight the gold/hour is quite bad. Since the pre event doesnt give any challenge/reward, anet shouldve just shortened the CM to eparch only.