Content Priorities

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@"andyhens.4172" said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

[andyhens.4172]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@"andyhens.4172" said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

The decision has been made, however I don't see any reason why Anet couldn't in future say "we've restructured our priorities/aims in term of 5-man content and are going to add a couple of dungeons in the next expansion". It's not like they CANNOT decide to do something else.

You kinda missed my (joke) there, that the Raid team is very quiet and non-commital on timescales and whatnot. That is all that was meant by that sentence. I'm sure if Anet did decide to 50/50 Fractals and Dungeons, then it would be the fractal team which either got split or does both.

Main differences between fractals and dungeons: Agony requirement means unless you play a lot or spend RL cash you likely can only used 1 or 2 characters in there, story - most of the fractals have none, have to be L80 so you can't take a lowbie character or similar in. (I do know you can avoid a lot of agony inflicting attacks but lets be real, it's not gonna be a smooth ride if you don't take a L80 and appropriate AR)

Edit: I'm aware fractals scales you up to 80, but a scaled up char is worse than an actual 80.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@andyhens.4172 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

The decision has been made, however I don't see any reason why Anet couldn't in future say "we've restructured our priorities/aims in term of 5-man content and are going to add a couple of dungeons in the next expansion". It's not like they CANNOT decide to do something else.

Sure, they could. You would have to ask yourself, though, what fundamental thing has changed to make the technology used to build dungeons -- the stuff so complex they couldn't avoid screwups -- better today? Alternately, how would the new dungeons differ from fractals, the thing where the technology to build similar 5-person instances is simple enough to let them work reliably?

You kinda missed my (joke) there, that the Raid team is very quiet and non-commital on timescales and whatnot. That is all that was meant by that sentence. I'm sure if Anet did decide to 50/50 Fractals and Dungeons, then it would be the fractal team which either got split or does both.

I completely did, yes, sorry.

Main differences between fractals and dungeons: Agony requirement means unless you play a lot or spend RL cash you likely can only used 1 or 2 characters in there, story - most of the fractals have none, have to be L80 so you can't take a lowbie character or similar in. (I do know you can avoid a lot of agony inflicting attacks but lets be real, it's not gonna be a smooth ride if you don't take a L80 and appropriate AR)

Hrm. OK. I certainly found that AR was basically delivered by the fractals if you played them roughly in order; the drops at each tier would reward enough infusions and gold (via the "junk" items) to let you be at or above the next tier. I'm sympathetic to that though.

Fractals also have the overarching story, but not in individual instances. I'm curious, after the first few runs, does that make a significant difference to you? I certainly found that story-heavy dungeons I just stopped paying attention after a couple runs. Maybe you don't?

Oh, and thank you for explaining. It is good to understand the concern. Hopefully ANet reading this will also consider that. I definitely wouldn't object to a second set of "more like dungeons" fractals, parallel to the current ones.

[Tyson.5160]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

The decision has been made, however I don't see any reason why Anet couldn't in future say "we've restructured our priorities/aims in term of 5-man content and are going to add a couple of dungeons in the next expansion". It's not like they CANNOT decide to do something else.

Sure, they could. You would have to ask yourself, though, what fundamental thing has changed to make the technology used to build dungeons -- the stuff so complex they couldn't avoid screwups -- better today? Alternately, how would the new dungeons differ from fractals, the thing where the technology to build similar 5-person instances is simple enough to let them work reliably?

You kinda missed my (joke) there, that the Raid team is very quiet and non-commital on timescales and whatnot. That is all that was meant by that sentence. I'm sure if Anet did decide to 50/50 Fractals and Dungeons, then it would be the fractal team which either got split or does both.

I completely did, yes, sorry.

Main differences between fractals and dungeons: Agony

requirement

means unless you play a lot or spend RL cash you likely can only used 1 or 2 characters in there, story - most of the fractals have none,

have

to be L80 so you can't take a lowbie character or similar in. (I do know you can avoid a lot of agony inflicting attacks but lets be real, it's not gonna be a smooth ride if you don't take a L80 and appropriate AR)

Hrm. OK. I certainly found that AR was basically delivered by the fractals if you played them roughly in order; the drops at each tier would reward enough infusions and gold (via the "junk" items) to let you be at or above the next tier. I'm sympathetic to that though.

Fractals also have the overarching story, but not in individual instances. I'm curious, after the first few runs, does that make a significant difference to you? I certainly found that story-heavy dungeons I just stopped paying attention after a couple runs. Maybe you don't?

Oh, and thank you for explaining. It is good to understand the concern. Hopefully ANet reading this will also consider that. I definitely wouldn't

object

to a second set of "more like dungeons" fractals, parallel to the current ones.

I loved the format of dungeons in gw2, that is not really being satisfied with fractals. I liked having a large instance with multiple paths and story running from a hub. I thought it was really neat and would hope they would add more to tackle things that are too big for fractals like Malyck. Imagine if we had a new dungeon with Malyck with us as we go through multiple paths and discover what happened to his tree?

[Astralporing.1957]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:Hrm. OK. I certainly found that AR was basically delivered by the fractals if you played them roughly in order; the drops at each tier would reward enough infusions and gold (via the "junk" items) to let you be at or above the next tier. I'm sympathetic to that though.It may work for the first character (although the cost for gearing up in ascended is probably still prohibitive for relatively new players). Once you get through the fractal levels once, however, you won't be repeating that experience for your next characers. And if you were ever thinking of experimenting with new classes/builds, you better be an old fractal veteran with ton of stuff in your bank.

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:Fractals also have the overarching story, but not in individual instances. I'm curious, after the first few runs, does that make a significant difference to you?

Yes, it still does. I may skip parts of the story, but i know it's there, and that it's relevant to the world. That's what raids have, but fractals (for the most part) don't.There's also the (not so unimportant) difference between being part of the story, and watching it unfold. In fractals, it's not your story.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

FFS, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again: nothing is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

[Feanor.2358]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They did introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we are seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They

did

introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we

are

seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

Yes I like fractals, but I also understand the points OP mentioned: it is not as immersive as having a dungeon connected to the actual story and environment. And hence I could imagine they will revert back to dungeons. I don't think it is very likely, but I just don't like the argument of 'they are dead, it will never happen'. Just making a point.

[Feanor.2358]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They

did

introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we

are

seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

Yes I like fractals, but I also understand the points OP mentioned: it is not as immersive as having a dungeon connected to the actual story and environment. And hence I could imagine they will revert back to dungeons. I don't think it is very likely, but I just don't like the argument of 'they are dead, it will never happen'. Just making a point.

It's a simplification for the sake of conciseness. I can elaborate (and have in the past) why, I just didn't think it was necessary to do it again in this particular case.

[Tyson.5160]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They

did

introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we

are

seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

Yes I like fractals, but I also understand the points OP mentioned: it is not as immersive as having a dungeon connected to the actual story and environment. And hence I could imagine they will revert back to dungeons. I don't think it is very likely, but I just don't like the argument of 'they are dead, it will never happen'. Just making a point.

It's a simplification for the sake of conciseness. I can elaborate (and have in the past) why, I just didn't think it was necessary to do it again in this particular case.

Which is, disappointing... I like the way that the dungeons worked. They feel very different from Fractals and raids. Dungeons had their own uniqueness and charm.

[Feanor.2358]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They

did

introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we

are

seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

Yes I like fractals, but I also understand the points OP mentioned: it is not as immersive as having a dungeon connected to the actual story and environment. And hence I could imagine they will revert back to dungeons. I don't think it is very likely, but I just don't like the argument of 'they are dead, it will never happen'. Just making a point.

It's a simplification for the sake of conciseness. I can elaborate (and have in the past) why, I just didn't think it was necessary to do it again in this particular case.

Which is, disappointing... I like the way that the dungeons worked. They feel very different from Fractals and raids. Dungeons had their own uniqueness and charm.

You can always find someone who likes a particular piece of content. But the devs have to look at the bigger picture. They moved on to different format because it would work better on average. Plus the players who feel nostalgic can always jump into the dungeons from time to time. Like I do.

[Tyson.5160]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:Lots of discussion over lack of a new raid and I just wanted to chime in. I have a couple of points of view on this:

a.) I think we should be getting regular dungeons over raids for the most part. 10 man content is more niche than 5 man content and they're over-relying on FotM for the latter (another one of Colin's bad calls years ago that inappropriately persists as an unchallenged status quo).

The game is really starved for full-sized, immersive world dungeons for 5 players without huge entry barriers.

Think of how awesome a "cave of wonders" style dungeon hidden in the Crystal Desert somewhere with its own armor/weapon set would have been. Huge missed opportunity for PoF (just like not getting land spears.)

b.)

BUT

People do like raids, and there's room for them too, which brings me to my follow up point. I'm starting to think they focus too much on open world PvE and they need to divert more of those resources into instanced content in general. The problem with too much emphasis on open world PvE is that competing metas will eventually spread the player base too thin. It already is a small problem and is very likely to grow into a bigger one over time. New zones should mostly be exploration focused, with map-wide metas being a minority of new zone content (arguably a mistake in HoT). Perhaps the primary focus of the LW should shift away from new zones with map-wide metas in favor if exploration areas combined with instanced content.

So, in short, I say we're at a point where some resources need to be diverted away from open world stuff and toward instanced content including Fractal mini-dungeons, full scale world dungeons, and the occasional raid.

a) Dungeons are dead. We will not see any, ever. Because they're abandoned, replaced by newer, better instanced systems - FotM and raids.

kitten, please stop with this shallow non-argument over and over. Sorry to pick you, it could be anyone who comes with this sentence. Nothing is set in stone. I remind you of the 'dead horse' called mounts. And then they were a thing. Again:

nothing

is set in stone. So are dungeons not dead. They could introduce something like many other games. They could re-allocated people from raid or fractals to dungeons. Meaning 'they are abandoned' and the 'the dungeon team doesn't exist anymore' is so plain and empty of any reasonable argumentation that I am getting angry when I hear it over and over.

They

did

introduce something - the fractals and the raids. Both filling in and expanding the niche that used to be dungeons. They are both the same thing, only much, MUCH better. So no, we won't be seeing any. Or if you prefer to view it another way, we

are

seeing new. Deepstone was just released.

Yes I like fractals, but I also understand the points OP mentioned: it is not as immersive as having a dungeon connected to the actual story and environment. And hence I could imagine they will revert back to dungeons. I don't think it is very likely, but I just don't like the argument of 'they are dead, it will never happen'. Just making a point.

It's a simplification for the sake of conciseness. I can elaborate (and have in the past) why, I just didn't think it was necessary to do it again in this particular case.

Which is, disappointing... I like the way that the dungeons worked. They feel very different from Fractals and raids. Dungeons had their own uniqueness and charm.

You can always find someone who likes a particular piece of content. But the devs have to look at the bigger picture. They moved on to different format because it would work better on average. Plus the players who feel nostalgic can always jump into the dungeons from time to time. Like I do.

Maybe it will become a new feature again in an expansion or two, when fractals maps are all complete.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

The decision has been made, however I don't see any reason why Anet couldn't in future say "we've restructured our priorities/aims in term of 5-man content and are going to add a couple of dungeons in the next expansion". It's not like they CANNOT decide to do something else.

Sure, they could. You would have to ask yourself, though, what fundamental thing has changed to make the technology used to build dungeons -- the stuff so complex they couldn't avoid screwups -- better today? Alternately, how would the new dungeons differ from fractals, the thing where the technology to build similar 5-person instances is simple enough to let them work reliably?

You kinda missed my (joke) there, that the Raid team is very quiet and non-commital on timescales and whatnot. That is all that was meant by that sentence. I'm sure if Anet did decide to 50/50 Fractals and Dungeons, then it would be the fractal team which either got split or does both.

I completely did, yes, sorry.

Main differences between fractals and dungeons: Agony

requirement

means unless you play a lot or spend RL cash you likely can only used 1 or 2 characters in there, story - most of the fractals have none,

have

to be L80 so you can't take a lowbie character or similar in. (I do know you can avoid a lot of agony inflicting attacks but lets be real, it's not gonna be a smooth ride if you don't take a L80 and appropriate AR)

Hrm. OK. I certainly found that AR was basically delivered by the fractals if you played them roughly in order; the drops at each tier would reward enough infusions and gold (via the "junk" items) to let you be at or above the next tier. I'm sympathetic to that though.

Fractals also have the overarching story, but not in individual instances. I'm curious, after the first few runs, does that make a significant difference to you? I certainly found that story-heavy dungeons I just stopped paying attention after a couple runs. Maybe you don't?

Oh, and thank you for explaining. It is good to understand the concern. Hopefully ANet reading this will also consider that. I definitely wouldn't

object

to a second set of "more like dungeons" fractals, parallel to the current ones.

I loved the format of dungeons in gw2, that is not really being satisfied with fractals. I liked having a large instance with multiple paths and story running from a hub. I thought it was really neat and would hope they would add more to tackle things that are too big for fractals like Malyck. Imagine if we had a new dungeon with Malyck with us as we go through multiple paths and discover what happened to his tree?

Hrm. So, would you be satisfied if -- and please, be kind to this not really thoroughly thought out idea -- we had something akin to a fractal lobby for Malyck, and it branched you out to three or four different story-oriented "fractals" that focused on that same story? Basically, use fractals as the engine, but dungeons as the style / structure they were attached to?

I'm tossing this out there, btw, because I think that'd actually be a pretty good thing to have, and I'd enjoy that sort of structure myself. I like the lore connection, but if it needs to be fractal-ish for technical reasons, I'd be happy with the content structure regardless of engine. (eg: I don't really care if "choose a path" requires me to walk through a portal, rather than being in-instance, as I don't think that is a critical part of the dungeon experience.)

Plus, if it wouldn't work for you -- and I hope ANet read this and take my suggestion, of course -- it'd be useful to know why because, well, see the hope. ;)

[maddoctor.2738]

@Tyson.5160 said:I loved the format of dungeons in gw2, that is not really being satisfied with fractals. I liked having a large instance with multiple paths and story running from a hub. I thought it was really neat and would hope they would add more to tackle things that are too big for fractals like Malyck. Imagine if we had a new dungeon with Malyck with us as we go through multiple paths and discover what happened to his tree?

Malyck's story will never be continued. Arenanet devs stated that content that happens only in one racial story won't be continued. Which is the reason why we never saw Malyck's tree in Heart of Thorns. Malyck's tree is like dungeons, a dead horse.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:Hrm. So, would you be satisfied if -- and please, be kind to this not really thoroughly thought out idea -- we had something akin to a fractal lobby for Malyck, and it branched you out to three or four different story-oriented "fractals" that focused on that same story? Basically, use fractals as the engine, but dungeons as the style / structure they were attached to?It doesn't really work out that well in practice, due to certain fractal considerations that dungeons didn't have.

For fractals, there can't be too much variance in terms of difficulty and (most importantly) length. A fractal that takes twice as much time as other fractals is simply badly designed, while for dungeons it was perfectly all right for Ascalonian Catacombs to exist alongside Arah. So, anything Anet does for fractals needs to be constrained within a certain timeframe.

They've already ran into it before. And doing Molten Duo/mai Trin on one day, and Molten Forge/Aether on another is just not the same experience as doing Molten dungeon/aether dungeon was when they were live. Additionally with dungeons they could finetune rewards to difficulty, while each fractal gives the same reward as another in the same tier (even if one is underwater, and the other is Shattered Observatory), which is also not so ideal.

Now, they could probably build completely new dungeons using the underlying fractal engine, without them being fractals. From programmers' point of view they'd be something completely different than dungeons of old, but for players they'd still have the same magic. Unfortunately, they could do nothing that way for current dungeons (as that would require rewriting them from ground up, which is way too much work).

[Tyson.5160]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@andyhens.4172 said:I'd rather have a new dungeon every so often, or at least as part of an expansion, than never ending fractals which are looking more and more like raid wings.

That has long been established as something that will never happen, ever.

I have a number of friends who simply don't like fractals, or can't raid (ability or interest/time), and have no new dungeons to play. The focus on LS maps and fractals rather than dungeons is madness, and I'm amazed hasn't been overturned considering how long ago that decision was made.

Split the introduction of dungeons and fractals 50/50 going forward and let the raid team keep not doing whatever they're supposed to be doing.

The "raid team" are not in control of the fractals, or whatever you imagine is going on here. Fractals are designed as, well, fractals. Raids as raids.

I'm sure your friends really do dislike fractals, but like dungeons for whatever reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why. What is the difference -- for your friends -- between fractals and dungeons? How are they different?

The decision has been made, however I don't see any reason why Anet couldn't in future say "we've restructured our priorities/aims in term of 5-man content and are going to add a couple of dungeons in the next expansion". It's not like they CANNOT decide to do something else.

Sure, they could. You would have to ask yourself, though, what fundamental thing has changed to make the technology used to build dungeons -- the stuff so complex they couldn't avoid screwups -- better today? Alternately, how would the new dungeons differ from fractals, the thing where the technology to build similar 5-person instances is simple enough to let them work reliably?

You kinda missed my (joke) there, that the Raid team is very quiet and non-commital on timescales and whatnot. That is all that was meant by that sentence. I'm sure if Anet did decide to 50/50 Fractals and Dungeons, then it would be the fractal team which either got split or does both.

I completely did, yes, sorry.

Main differences between fractals and dungeons: Agony

requirement

means unless you play a lot or spend RL cash you likely can only used 1 or 2 characters in there, story - most of the fractals have none,

have

to be L80 so you can't take a lowbie character or similar in. (I do know you can avoid a lot of agony inflicting attacks but lets be real, it's not gonna be a smooth ride if you don't take a L80 and appropriate AR)

Hrm. OK. I certainly found that AR was basically delivered by the fractals if you played them roughly in order; the drops at each tier would reward enough infusions and gold (via the "junk" items) to let you be at or above the next tier. I'm sympathetic to that though.

Fractals also have the overarching story, but not in individual instances. I'm curious, after the first few runs, does that make a significant difference to you? I certainly found that story-heavy dungeons I just stopped paying attention after a couple runs. Maybe you don't?

Oh, and thank you for explaining. It is good to understand the concern. Hopefully ANet reading this will also consider that. I definitely wouldn't

object

to a second set of "more like dungeons" fractals, parallel to the current ones.

I loved the format of dungeons in gw2, that is not really being satisfied with fractals. I liked having a large instance with multiple paths and story running from a hub. I thought it was really neat and would hope they would add more to tackle things that are too big for fractals like Malyck. Imagine if we had a new dungeon with Malyck with us as we go through multiple paths and discover what happened to his tree?

Hrm. So, would you be satisfied if -- and please, be kind to this not really thoroughly thought out idea -- we had something akin to a fractal lobby for Malyck, and it branched you out to three or four different story-oriented "fractals" that focused on that same story? Basically, use fractals as the engine, but dungeons as the style / structure they were attached to?

I'm tossing this out there, btw, because I think that'd actually be a pretty good thing to have, and I'd enjoy that sort of structure myself. I like the lore connection, but if it needs to be fractal-ish for technical reasons, I'd be happy with the content structure regardless of engine. (eg: I don't really care if "choose a path" requires me to walk through a portal, rather than being in-instance, as I don't think that is a critical part of the dungeon experience.)

Plus, if it wouldn't work for you -- and I hope ANet read this and take my suggestion, of course -- it'd be useful to know why because, well, see the hope. ;)

I do like your idea, I just don’t know if they could implement it properly in Fractals.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"SlippyCheeze.5483" said:Hrm. So, would you be satisfied if -- and please, be kind to this not really thoroughly thought out idea -- we had something akin to a fractal lobby for Malyck, and it branched you out to three or four different story-oriented "fractals" that focused on that same story? Basically, use fractals as the engine, but dungeons as the style / structure they were attached to?It doesn't really work out that well in practice, due to certain fractal considerations that dungeons didn't have.

In the current fractal system, yes. I was positing a second, parallel, set of "dungeon-like fractals" that would not need to be part of the current structure. (eg: would be accessed differently from the current fractal lobby, wouldn't be part of the daily fractal rotation, etc.)

That is, acknowledging the current structure of fractals is not compatible with the points you raise, and placing this new thing outside that structure so that the common point is the technology, and the focus of design, rather than the exact model current fractals have. I theorize from the developer comments WRT dungeons that, in part, Fractals single path focus is part of what makes them more robust, thus the technology and focus would need to be retained, even if they were designed to be more like dungeons in terms of the story structure.

My thinking on the "different lobby" for example would be something more akin to, you guessed it, the in-world placement of current dungeons. :)

Again, this is really just handwaving. I'm sure there are plenty of technical details that would need to be worked out, but ... I don't know the fundamental idea of something where you had multiple paths in a small story, like dungeons, would be interesting to play within.