New Fractal Format Should Be A New Seperate Form Of Content

[Wild.1705]

Fractals are not Strikes nor Alerts.

I have recently started playing fractals over the last 3 months. I quickly worked my way up to T4 with the help of friends, and have done the dailies on a semi regular basis since. The new fractals do not feel like the older ones.

 

What is a fractal?

A fractal is a quick and simple instanced based piece of content designed for 5 players. They often have weak mobs of enemies, small jumping puzzles, non-combat based tasks, and simple bosses with easy to understand and clear mechanics. They are made to be relaxing, quick, and an easy way to farm gold.

 

What is a Strike?

Strikes are instanced based mechanically heavy combat encounters in which 10 players often need to know the mechanics beforehand. The punishment for not knowing the mechanics will often results in death for one or more party members.

 

What is an Alert?

An alert is an instanced based piece of content that combines the non combat elements of fractals with the mechanically heavy combat elements of strike missions. They also... don't exist in GW2. These were present in a previous MMO that I played.

 

Fractals and Alerts are a differient forms of content. Silent Surf and Lonely Tower do not feel like the other fractals. They feel like a differient form of content that currently does not have a separation from Fractals and Strikes. On top of that, they a harder and some players are struggling with them.

Now I want to pick apart something that Mr. Boyer said.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 Sup man! I'm going to debate some things you said in another post.

11 hours ago, 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.

1. Lonely Tower is often longer to finish than other Fractals. Same with Silent Surf.

2. Many players that can clear the other Fractals just fine, are struggling with Lonely Tower. It is a harder Fractal. I have failed countless times even on the T3 version which has never occurred on earlier fractals minus Silent Surf (also a new "Fractal"). You have almost no chance of failing the older Fractals. The new ones are not on the same difficulty level. They also don't feel like Fractals at all. Probably because they are more like Alerts (Which do not formally exist in this game yet).

11 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

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.

All other fractals I have played are just fine with with a Firebrand healer (Heal Brand). I have a friend who regularly heals fractals and she doesn't play necromancer, she plays guardian. This hasn't been a problem for her when playing Fractals because fractals are made to be rather simple. (See above for my definition of a Fractal).

The fact that you even suggest that a player would be better off changing their class is outside the bounds of what all previous Fractals were.

 

I like like Silent Surf and Lonely Tower; however, I dont want to do them as part of my daily Fractals. They should be their own unique content type seperte from Fractals, Strikes, or Raids.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

8 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

Sup man! I'm going to debate some things you said in another post.

Ok.

8 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

I have recently started playing fractals over the last 3 months.

^ This is important to remember.

8 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

A fractal is a quick and simple instanced based piece of content designed for 5 players. They often have weak mobs of enemies, small jumping puzzles, non-combat based tasks, and simple bosses with easy to understand and clear mechanics. They are made to be relaxing, quick, and an easy way to farm gold.

The biggest fundamental misunderstanding you have on "what a fractal is" comes from how you've only been playing them for 3 months. Back when fractals first released, it was ALL very difficult. In fact, the fractals were the original extra difficult end-game content. Dungeons were difficult, but fractals were like CM dungeons. But what happened is over the years, power-creep to class meta kept occurring. The more power creep that occurred, the easier the fractals became. Then they started adding new fractals that had actual designated CM modes to them. Nightmare was the first CM. When Nightmare first released, I guarantee you that Siax alone was more difficult than the boss of Lonely Tower is now.

People complained & cried about Siax, because this one boss was the FIRST boss in the game that had a formula where 4 great players couldn't carry 1 bad player through. ALL the players in the party had to be running top notch flawless DPS on their class and be good at their DPS rotations, to be able to pass Siax N W E S phase, or the party wipes. This one boss truly separated the elite from everyone else. If there was someone in the party who wasn't good enough to carry their own weight, they must be vote kicked to find a better player or it was quite seriously impossible to pass the Siax N W E S phase. It took a long time for people to learn how to run Nightmare CM. It was a new formula we hadn't seen before. Ensolyss was a sustain check, and Siax was a high precision DPS check. But over the years power creep occurred and Nightmare became easy.

Shattered Observatory releases, and all the bosses were serious business, and everyone cried about it. It took a long time for players to learn how to run Shattered Observatory on CM. Arkk was a serious boss for awhile, that again separated the elite from everyone else. There needed to be mandatory vote kicking again, because if players weren't keeping up, Arkk was insurmountable. But instead of fat DPS check, Arkk was a pure mechanical check. If players couldn't wrap their mind around the new formula of mechanics and remember them/run them correctly, they simply had to be vote kicked if the party wanted to complete the fractal. But over the years power creep occurs and Arkk becomes easy.

Sunqua Peak releases, and again we have a very difficult boss that is very difficult to complete on CM. Everyone cried about it. Just like Arkk, this boss is another raw mechanics check. If players couldn't wrap their minds around the mechanics and remember/run them correctly, they simply had to be vote kicked or we get parties wiping at tidal bargains or something because someone doesn't swap their tether ect ect and the fractal is impassable. Even to this day, Sunqua isn't that old, and despite power creep since its release, it's still difficult enough to where it isn't so easy to carry bad players through this fractal. Not quite yet. But eventually it will be.

Silent Surf releases and everyone cried about Kanaxai. This is still new and no real power creep has occurred since its release. It is still the quintessential KP marker for the formation of elite groups, asking for "NA" title. This boss is in my opinion the most punishing pure mechanical check that there is in fractals, but not necessarily the most difficult. This boss isn't about DPS or sustain at all, it is 100% PURELY about running the mechanics correctly, even more so than Sunqua or Shattered, or you just die like instantly. Strangely enough though, when players learn the mechanics of this CM, it's actually a lot easier than Sunqua or Shattered. This fractal is a strange formula and it will age differently than the previous fractals because there are no real attribute-tied checks here, it's just all mechanical l2p stuff. For example, it doesn't matter how tanky you are or how good your support is, if the eye catches you twice you automaically die, or if you are too slow or fumble on your "kill the add phase" the party just automatically wipes regardless of sustain or invuln skills. So no matter how much power creep occurs, this fractal will always maintain a certain level of difficulty due to these auto wipes that cannot be avoided with sustain options if players fail mechanics.

Lonely Tower releases and now everyone is crying about Eparch. Another fractal with a new formula that is difficult on its release. The only difference here is that Eparch is a simple attribute check, similar to Ensolyss as a sustain check. The mechanics on Eparch so far are not complex. The mechanics here are the least complex out of even the normal modes of Nightmare, Shattered, Sunqua, Surf. It's just that Eparch is throwing around A LOT of damage that can't be avoided. It is a simple sustain check, and it's taking a minute for people to figure this out, same as it did for people to figure out the formulas of the previously released fractals. But Eparch won't age well because his mechanics are too simple. If Arenanet continues with the power creep, there will come a day when Eparch is just easy, because supports will get more and more bloated barrier/heal and even players who suck at mechanics will be able to DPS Eparch while their supports carry them. There will likely come a day when Kanaxai is the only difficult fractal boss, because his mechanics don't care about how much barrier/heal/aegis/invuln you have.

So in other words, if you had played fractal for 10+ years like some of us have, you'd realize that fractals were ALWAYS difficult, and that every new released fractal was always intended to be a new very difficult challenge. The only reason why you think that "a fractal is a casual relaxing walk through" is because you started playing in 2024 power creep, and from what you've said here, it sounds like you aren't even running CMs yet. You were not there to see how difficult things like Mai Trinn were on the initial release. In fact, speaking of Mai Trinn, the initial release of that fractal was as difficult or more difficult than Eparch is now. It used a very similar formula, where there was just A LOT of extremely difficult to avoid ground AoE being thrown around. That fractal and how its mechanics work was changed several times over the years. The original mechanics of Mai Trinn were insane back before all the power creep. She was the original final fractal boss, before they added Nightmare and CMs into the mix.

So you see, nothing is different here in terms of the ultimate formula for how fractals release. They are supposed to be difficult when released.

However, I can vouch that this fractal is unusually difficult for being considered "normal non-CM mode". I am personally excited to see the CM for this fractal and to have a real challenge again, but it is unusual and formula breaking to see a fractal that is this difficult on its normal mode. As of now, all normal T4 players are just avoiding this fractal entirely. It's actually causing problems with LFG formations which is inconvenient for everyone, because it's splitting the community into "people who want to run 100" and then "people who want to avoid 100" which effectively is making it take twice as long to form groups lately. Arenanet should considering downing Eparch's damage output just a weeeeeee bit for the normal mode. When normal T4 guys are just avoiding it completely like it's a full-on CM mote, that's not normal.

I think that if Arenanet wants to maintain the ultimate formula that has made fractals a successful mode, they need to make 100 normal mode easy enough for normal T4 players to include it in ther LFG clear routines. This is a problem because the idea of forming LFG groups with "T4 dailies + Recs" where everyone can gauge the difficulty between normal fractals and CM fractals, is important. The very reason why fractals are so successful is because forming groups for them with the LFG is easy to do. The problem occurs when we get a normal T4 fractal that's nearly as hard as a CM. Now the lines drawn between what a normal fractal is and what a CM fractal is, becomes blurred. Now we have complex LFG listings like "T4 dailies + Recs" vs. "T4 dailies no 100 + Recs" vs. "CMs + T4s" vs. "CMs + T4s no 100" vs. "Old CMs no 100" vs. "Old CMs 100 is not a CM I mean no 99" ect ect. It's getting to be complex where people aren't really sure if 100 is a normal fractal or if it should be considered a CM, and people really aren't sure what the LFGs mean lately, which compromises the one thing that made fractal successful, and that was easy formations through the LFG. There really is a lot of confusion in the LFG lately. Even if people know what the LFG means, it's separating the community into too many different demographics of players now, which makes it difficult to form/find groups. Arenanet should probably nerf 100 normal a bit for the normal T4 players, and then focus on making sure the CM is the difficult version. This would the fix formation problems here ^

But in response to some other things you've said:

8 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

All other fractals I have played are just fine with with a Firebrand healer (Heal Brand). I have a friend who regularly heals fractals and she doesn't play necromancer, she plays guardian. This hasn't been a problem for her when playing Fractals because fractals are made to be rather simple. (See above for my definition of a Fractal).

The fact that you even suggest that a player would be better off changing their class is outside the bounds of what all previous Fractals were.

This is simply not true. There still is and always has been places where it's better to run build (B) than it is to run build (A).

People who run the DPS role, have to frequently swap between say power or condi DPS, or when it is better to bring ranged pressure, ect ect. That is nothing new.

The only thing that's different here with Eparch, is he put the favorite child Healbrand into check. It's about time that happened actually. Most older players would agree with me. I don't feel like getting all into the plethora of reasons of why that is, but I will say one thing: Healbrand is like the only thing that has sat unchallenged in its role for going on nearly a decade now. It's so dominant of a support that even when they enabled support on other things, there is rarely reason to ever use a different type of a support over Healbrand because Healbrand was always that good. But Eparch has introduced a type of formula that actually gives very real reason to use a different type of support over the Healbrand. This is healthy my dude. We want more dynamic in games, not less.

Edited May 28 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Nash.2681]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 you bring up some good points and the rundown of the fractal history is something to consider. But I like to add a few things:

When fractals were released (only 50 random lvls with a boss lvl on even numbers), there were no such things as healers, quickness and alacrtiy were also not existant. Best support one could hope for was a well timed aegis or some stab. It was basicly 100% individual player skill. The moment healing became a valid (carry) option, coupled with the omnipresent powercreep, thrashed the difficulty of old fractals to the ground. And this is the main issue with fractals imo- new fractals get developed with the current player tools in mind (most groups running a heal support, bloated powercreep) to provide the challenge fractals once used to, while all the old fractals become more and more trivial.

And this is where I tend to agree with the OP, it might be a good idea to remove the new fractals from the current list and put them into something new. Maybe a new tier 5 exclusively for Sunqua, Silent Surf and Lonely Tower (and may be the "old" CMs). That way you have the rather chill levels for players to get the hang of instanced group content, improve and later farm in a relaxed manner. And for those who like a challenge, you have the separate set of the new fractals.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 minutes ago, Nash.2681 said:

it might be a good idea to remove the new fractals from the current list and put them into something new. Maybe a new tier 5 exclusively for Sunqua, Silent Surf and Lonely Tower (and may be the "old" CMs). That way you have the rather chill levels for players to get the hang of instanced group content, improve and later farm in a relaxed manner. And for those who like a challenge, you have the separate set of the new fractals.

That's actually not a bad idea.

[Supernova Starr.2069]

11 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

I have failed countless times even on the T3 version

Skill issue

[Supernova Starr.2069]

11 hours ago, Wild.1705 said:

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

Got a clear yesterday on 2 attempt, I was playing HB

The fight it's just different, and people don't like different.

Tips to beat this fractal:

1- It's a mele fight, where the healer supposed to outheal Eparch dmg output instead of running around trying avoid mechanics

2- Have your boondps collecting all orbs, putting his boon/dps role in second (class with high mobility is preferred)

3- Rage orb (red) buffs power dmg output, if you have one of those in the group, tell them to collect those alongside boondps

4- Envy orb (green) buffs condi dmg output, tell condi dps to collect those but everyone should prioritize and collect these as in 1 single stack will make Eparch boon corrupt in every single  attack

5- Cross mechanic will not corrupt your boons if you stand right on Eparch's feet (or dodge)

6- Healer should bring tons of cleanse

7- Do not stack stability as in those turn into fear in corruption

8- Dodge

[Luthan.5236]

I have only played fractals since 1-2 years. And only up to T3. (Where 75 already was hard at Silent Surf. For Sunqua it was okay though.) It's obvious though that they were supposed to have been harder. Especially when you see how easy the golem in the Uncategorized fractal can be killed - without having to do the mechanic.

What I dislike though is when people claim you have to "learn rotations" when you do just T1 and talk (in another thread) about how the Lonely Tower boss is a hp sponge. Imo they should keep it harder at the higher tiers (at T3 and higher maybe T2 still not too hard regarding the dps requirements to do it in a reasonable time). Yes: Maybe a pro player can to 100k and more dps on the tower boss. So what? A pro player will do the higher tiers then (for more/better rewards). There is no reason to inflate the hp to make it lenghty to a pro player won't kill it fast on T1. That conters the whole purpose of actually having differen tiers.

Personally I prefer mechanics over maxing dps. Fractals have their own mechanics (instabilities). The Sunqua has the too long phase before the last boss. And the Observatory I find boring in general. I liked Nightmare cause it was fast to do. Bosses not too interesting. For the mechanics with the different phases the Sunqua boss I liked (only up to T3 played so far though) - and Silent Surf as well.

Trevor mentioned the Silent Surf boss is ignoring certain stuff (that pro players can max in their builds - uptime for certain boons). I don't dislike that. Better to design bosses that way. To maybe even encourage to change the usual build. Or do people really think it is intereresting and "fun" to get one build that maxes dps - then just using one healer to keep the dps maxesd glassy guys alive ... and kill down every boss quickly where the boss just requireds you do doge a lil bit every now and then?

Low hp on the bosses themselves with them having more mechanics (or dps) to kill the player - to make the difficulty there. Not difficulty = maxing dps to kill it fast and do rotations like a robot. (Unless they want to just cater to the people that do like certain stuff ... which then might not get a lot/more players into fractals. Even the fractal rush then might have problems.)

---

Stuff like the tower boss actually might have been fun as a mode similar to Dragon Storm. 😄
I don't think there are new content types (names for that content) needed. ArenaNet just should not try to always make new stuff cause power creep makes older stuff too easy for certain types of people. (Maybe they just should not introduce more power creep then.) CMs are the thing they can adjust for people that like it harder.

Imagine new players trying stuff without having all expansions (or even just core) where they do not have access to certain stuff considered strong among the later elite specs.

[Nimris.3781]

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The biggest fundamental misunderstanding you have on "what a fractal is" comes from how you've only been playing them for 3 months.

i am playing fractals for 3+ years and some people i know play gw since gw1. and we all say, its worst designed fractal boss so far.

besides what is that argument? "you are playing for not too long, so you cannot understand this". everyone can post his opinion

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Back when fractals first released, ...

are you seriously bringing here stuff that happened 8-12 years ago, 4 expanions ago? rly? game has change so much since than, to the point that this part is basically irrelevant.

2 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

[..] It took a long time for people to learn how to run Nightmare CM. It was a new formula we hadn't seen before. Ensolyss was a sustain check, and Siax was a high precision DPS check. But over the years power creep occurred and Nightmare became easy.

Shattered Observatory releases, and all the bosses were serious business, and everyone cried about it. It took a long time for players to learn how to run Shattered Observatory on CM. [...] 

Sunqua Peak releases, and again we have a very difficult boss that is very difficult to complete on CM. Everyone cried about it. Just like Arkk, this boss is another raw mechanics check. [...]

why are you comparing CM fractals to normal T4? whats the point? obviously CM were kind of hard on release. is Lonely Tower CM? no, right? maybe we should compare it to normal T4 than?

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Silent Surf releases and everyone cried about Kanaxai. [.. ] Strangely enough though, when players learn the mechanics of this CM, it's actually a lot easier than Sunqua or Shattered. [...]

people didnt complain about difficulty itself, it was the insane amount of bugs, desync on eye, quickness/regen on boss, obligatory wipe and so on making this fight horrible. i myself reported solid 20+ bugs, some of which are still not fixed. only few bad people complained about difficulty

also you are again comparing CM fractal, to regular T4. when T4 silent surf got released, there were not many complains, forums got flooded after CM release

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Lonely Tower releases and now everyone is crying about Eparch

probably because its even harder than some CM's? it has incomparable amount of aoe's and has absolutely disgusting amount of boon corrupt, and its just normal T4...  (hell, T1 is equally bad in that regard)

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

So in other words, if you had played fractal for 10+ years like some of us have,

lol...

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

So you see, nothing is different here in terms of the ultimate formula for how fractals release. They are supposed to be difficult when released.

yes, nothing is different except comparing CM's and NM 100. just to remind you, NM Silent Surf was literally tanked in middle, Eye was ignored (resistance) and 66/33% was just dodged, noone bothered with adds. overall all NM T4 (96-99 included) are not hard if you have even semi-compitent group.

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

However, I can vouch that this fractal is unusually difficult for being considered "normal non-CM mode". I am personally excited to see the CM for this fractal and to have a real challenge again, but it is unusual and formula breaking to see a fractal that is this difficult on its normal mode. As of now, all normal T4 players are just avoiding this fractal entirely. 

after huge wall of text you noticed that this is T4? is it really surprising that people avoid T4 thats harder than CM's?

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

I think that if Arenanet wants to maintain the ultimate formula that has made fractals a successful mode, they need to make 100 normal mode easy enough for normal T4 players to include it in ther LFG clear routines. This is a problem because the idea of forming LFG groups with "T4 dailies + Recs" where everyone can gauge the difficulty between normal fractals and CM fractals, is important. The very reason why fractals are so successful is because forming groups for them with the LFG is easy to do. The problem occurs when we get a normal T4 fractal that's nearly as hard as a CM [...] Arenanet should probably nerf 100 normal a bit for the normal T4 players, and then focus on making sure the CM is the difficult version.

finally part worth reading, but i dont get it wht it took you week to understand why people complain about difficulty. if this fight was CM, my only complain (beside bugs) would be "boon corrupt everywhere" which is absolutly not fun to play against and is unfair vs some specs.

but as T4? man.. this fight terrible, i can easily throw 10+ thing thats wrong with it for T4 fight.

3 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The only thing that's different here with Eparch, is he put the favorite child Healbrand into check.

the fight that actually puts HFB in check is Silent Surf. it has plenty of spread so its impossible to keep up quick and you cant play full tank minstrel or you will fail add. good support relogs to herald.

but Eparch? its just silly amounts of boon corrupt that make some specs unplayable. for example, i can easily keep up 80-90% quick on herald, not because of range, but because herald pulses quick every second so it partialy solves corrupt issue.  renegade on the other hand has 16s cd on alac, i am not sure if i would be able to pass 50% alac on this fight ( probably not). simply put, you cannot have boon corrupt as regular part of fight so frequently or it makes some specs unplayable and overall fight becomes unfun (there is also issue with stability)

so yeah, just like i wrote in every post i did in past week, this fractal is jsut bad.

[Asuran.5469]

@Nimris.3781

you made yourself look dumb when you acted like you couldn't understand the points made

[Nimris.3781]

1 hour ago, Asuran.5469 said:

@Nimris.3781

you made yourself look dumb when you acted like you couldn't understand the points made

oh, so you also think that comparing NM Lonely Tower to CM Silent Surf and CM Sunqua is totaly fine, no issues with that, definitely not biased/manipulation?

surely i am the dumb one, yeah...

[Nash.2681]

13 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

oh, so you also think that comparing NM Lonely Tower to CM Silent Surf and CM Sunqua is totaly fine, no issues with that, definitely not biased/manipulation?

surely i am the dumb one, yeah...

If you don't see how looking at the big picture, considering the evolution of fractals as a whole, including the changes in their design while also acknowledging the shifts of the game itselfs (read: powercreep and its influence on team comps) is a big part of the topic OP brought up, well... it seems as if you either didn't read thoroughly or understand what was written. /shrug

[Mic.1897]

The newer fractal is how they were all supposed to be.

Power creep has just turned most of the old ones into afk snoozefests where you can ignore a lot of mechanics and end boss phases with a single power dps burst rotation. That's a quicker way to get your daily rewards, but that's not good content.

[Nimris.3781]

6 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

If you don't see how looking at the big picture, considering the evolution of fractals as a whole, including the changes in their design while also acknowledging the shifts of the game itselfs (read: powercreep and its influence on team comps) is a big part of the topic OP brought up, well... it seems as if you either didn't read thoroughly or understand what was written. /shrug

Lonely Tower is regular (non-cm) T4 and it appears in daily rotation, it should not require voice comm, excess role asigns or specifically tailored team with niche specs to have a chance at beating it. on a top of that, boon corupt to this extend is terrible, regardless of difficulty.

and thats without even touching rec's topic...

i dont know, if you cant see past your nose, than maybe month of empty lfg on 100 daily days will teach you something?

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

5 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

Lonely Tower is regular (non-cm) T4 and it appears in daily rotation, it should not require voice comm, excess role asigns or specifically tailored team with niche specs to have a chance at beating it. on a top of that, boon corupt to this extend is terrible, regardless of difficulty.

and thats without even touching rec's topic...

i dont know, if you cant see past your nose, than maybe month of empty lfg on 100 daily days will teach you something?

Very true. It's fair for it to take a little bit for the community to figure it out and run it reliably, but T4s should be doable by the average group of well geared and practiced players without necessitating swapping the whole party comp or having a drastic step up in difficulty. This fight would be concerning already if it was a CM, following a trend of melee hate in new strikes and fractals that's really hurting build diversity, but it's not a CM.

[Nash.2681]

On 5/29/2024 at 5:08 PM, Nimris.3781 said:

Lonely Tower is regular (non-cm) T4 and it appears in daily rotation, it should not require voice comm, excess role asigns or specifically tailored team with niche specs to have a chance at beating it. on a top of that, boon corupt to this extend is terrible, regardless of difficulty.

and thats without even touching rec's topic...

i dont know, if you cant see past your nose, than maybe month of empty lfg on 100 daily days will teach you something?

Alright, at this point you're either trolling or you're really unable to understand the points made. To make it easier for you, I'll try to use short and simple words:

• OP suggests to scratch the new fractals and make them a new game mode
• people think about this suggestion and took their time to elaborate the current state of fractals
• current state of fractals summed up is:  
  • fractals were always supposed to be hard content
  • over time the game changed, players became much stronger because of heavy powercreep, fractals stayed the same = fractals became easier
  • new fractals stick to the original formula and are difficult = big difficulty gap between new fractals and the old ones
• considering all of the above, I suggested to add a new fractal tier 5 exclusive for the new fractals and the old CMs

So much from me, OP made an interesting point, it was fun to stop for a moment and think about fractals in their current state thoroughly, I shared my thoughts and gave an idea how to handle the issue at hand. I even took the time to give you a reading comprehension, but now I'm out of this thread.

[Nimris.3781]

3 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

Alright, at this point you're either trolling or you're really unable to understand the points made.

you straight up ignore all concerns people have with this fractal and push your outdated view of fractals on everyone

3 hours ago, Nash.2681 said:

current state of fractals summed up is:  

• fractals were always supposed to be hard content
• over time the game changed, players became much stronger because of heavy powercreep, fractals stayed the same = fractals became easier
• new fractals stick to the original formula and are difficult = big difficulty gap between new fractals and the old ones

 

fractals (normal) are not supposed to be hard, maybe 12 years ago when they were new and people were just bad it appeared as hard, but just like OP wrote fractals should be quick, dynamic, with a bit of JP or other non-combat task, rather chilll content for experienced people. this is no longer supported beliefs of yours, stop living in past

powercreep has nothing to do with concerns/problems people have with this fractal, did you even read what others said? 

To make it easier for you, I'll try to use short and simple words:

• this fight is extremely melee unfriendly with its aoes and essence collection, it heavily promotes ranged builds
• frequent boon corrupt especially on stability is beyond annoying
• boon corrupt also excludes some suppports and fight is very restrictive on what spec are viable
• Eparch sometimes drop essence ~2s before collecting them, if its envy.. unlucky you!
• plenty of attacks visual doesnt match actual hit-box of attack (wave, arrows, fissures), be it bug or wrong telegraph
• essences require very complex assigning or voice-comm, unsuitable for lfg and everyday pugging
• fight has 0 phases and plenty of hp, nothing changes from 100 to 0% on how you play, its boring as hell
• on some less combat related, cerus and deimos are copy-paste with 0 voice lines, just 2 golems
• 95% of tower textures is copy-pasted
• overall fight is just unfun

i probably missed some, but given that its just T4 that appears on daily rotation, and on a top of all listed issues its difficulty is above 96-99cm's. it should be clear that this fractal is overtuned number wise and bad design wise, but you would have to read peoples comments over few topics to understand that, not ignoring them and pushing blindly your view point.

throwing 5th tier or making it new content (that would have single instance, lol) is just silly. its better to properly balance this fractal

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

5 hours ago, Nimris.3781 said:

you straight up ignore all concerns people have with this fractal and push your outdated view of fractals on everyone

No, @Nash.2681 is simply pointing out the obvious to you, which you are choosing to ignore.

In fact, it doesn't even look like there is an argument happening to me. It looks to me like YOU think there is some kind of argument to win, but really what's happening is someone is trying to explain to you what you missed about the conversation.

Edited May 31 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Nimris.3781]

17 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

No, @Nash.2681 is simply pointing out the obvious to you, which you are choosing to ignore.

In fact, it doesn't even look like there is an argument happening to me. It looks to me like YOU think there is some kind of argument to win, but really what's happening is someone is trying to explain to you what you missed about the conversation.

what did he point out? making lonely tower new form of content? new content with single instance?

or you mean bringing in history of fractals thats irrrelevant ~10 years and 4 expansion later?

or maybe that silly idea of creating T5 just for lonely tower?

i purposefully skipped these suggestions as they are simply put, stupid. not to mention that none of these solve the fight itself and all the issues this fractal has.

over last few days you are ignoring all the concerns people have and trying to force on everyone viewpoint that this fight is good/fun and cannot accept fact that people disagree with you. whats worst is you ignore everything that doesnt support you, even clear as day bugs that ruin fight, and just repeat blindly mantra "its good fight, you guys dont understand!"

[Asuran.5469]

On 5/28/2024 at 2:42 PM, Nimris.3781 said:

oh, so you also think that comparing NM Lonely Tower to CM Silent Surf and CM Sunqua is totaly fine, no issues with that, definitely not biased/manipulation?

surely i am the dumb one, yeah...

made yourself look dumb when acted like you didn't look dumb

[Hotride.2187]

I played fractals (t4+recs, no cms) daily for 3 years until silent surf, though honestly I was very very tired of sunqua even before that. Shattered observatory as the one longer fractal before sunqua got released was fine. Then with sunqua it got more tedious but w/e. With turf I just stopped doing 100 and soon after just stopped doing fractals altogether. The gold is not worth the effort and annoyance factor anymore, not for me at least. I've not even tried the new 100, turf release just wrapped up fractals for me.

Edited June 16 by Hotride.2187

[Inssengrimm.7924]

They do not need a separate form of content.

What they need is to hire proper encounter designers, this fractal is literally like a child making up a story as it goes: "and now he uses that power! and then that power! and then another power!" give me a break. The sheer amount of visual clutter just speaks volumes about amateur designers. Can't make content actually challenging so lets clutter the screen of the players with random non-sense for 99% of the fight.

This fractal is not challenging, is not hard, is just awfully bad. Bad design is not fair difficulty.

XIV has a lot of shiny lights going on at all times on it's instanced encounters, kitten, some fights you don't see the ground at all among all of the things that are going on - And yet you can fight, because it has rythm and those are actually, carefully crafted, encounters. By comparison this fractal just looks amateourish, clearly showing a developer team that either don't care anymore or doesn't know the game they are working on or how the community engages with this kind of content. 

Edited June 17 by Inssengrimm.7924

[Smol.7985]

We even have different lfg for Fractals and Strikes xd go figure