Sunqua Peak Guild Chat: We want your questions!

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

Now that you've all had time to play through the new fractal, on tomorrow's Guild Chat we're going behind the scenes of development with five members of the teams who worked on it. Our dev guest lineup is:

Cameron Rich, Game DesignerLee Bledsoe, VFX LeadMeagan Glennon, Map ArtistMatthew Burke, QA AnalystJasmine Serrano, Sound Design Apprentice

If you have questions about the fractal for any of the dev guests, drop them here (try to keep them concise--think the length of a tweet--so we have time to read it on the air) and we'll answer as many as we have time for.

[Andy.5981]

Why was the decision made to class this as the level 100 Fractal when it is appears to be far easier on T4 mode than Shattered Observatory, Nightmare, Mai Trin, Twilight Oasis and Siren's reef?

[Randulf.7614]

How often will we (hope) to see more fractals (no promises to be held to) and are any reworks to some of the longer ones likely, at least for lower tiers?

[Fueki.4753]

Why did you think it was a good idea to put so much of that's hated by many players into another fractal boss?Wasn't the overwhelmingly negative reception towards Warden Amala, Arabella Crowe and The Voice enough evidence that it's better not to do such bosses?

[Fenom.9457]

I love it, only gripe I have is I wish the Abyssal Infusion was easier to get. I know it's meant to be a CM reward, not saying add it to the regular runs, but maybe make it cost less of the currency? As it is now, it would take 42 CM runs to be able to afford it, which is a lot for the people who will feel motivated to get into fractals for this reward. I feel like it's awesome and will pull a lot of old and new players deeper into fractals (myself included), but the requirement is just high enough I think it'll push players away instead.

[hugo.4705]

I wish the abyssal weapons were accessible for T1-2 they are exotics, not legendary! And they require ton of unstable cosmic energies, what was idea behind that, making the players doing lower tiers be even more sad?

[VariableFlame.6384]

I absolutely love the new fractal (especially on CM). The difficulty is in a good place, and the fight itself is super fun and engaging. What was the motivation for removing Unstable Cosmic Essences? Was it specifically to prevent their use as kill-proofs among the community, or was it more to consolidate the reward structure of CMs?

[videoboy.4162]

@hugo.4705 said:I wish the abyssal weapons were accessible for T1-2 they are exotics, not legendary! And they require ton of unstable cosmic energies, what was idea behind that, making the players doing lower tiers be even more sad?

This is my thought too. I don't think I'm good enough to do the challenges to unlock them and buy them.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

How often can we expect to see fractals from hereon out?

Was this a one-time fractal story, or will it be like Chaos Isles/Nightmare/Shattered Observatory and continued on (e.g., witnessing part of Usoku's campaign with Li Bo)?

There seems to be a typo with the monuments' dates for the graves, in that they appear to be 1020 years off. An odd kind of typo. Was this intentional?

Is the dark force in Ai during CM an external influence. or is it meant to be a generic emotional darkness manifested?

Will we ever learn more about the Harbinger of Woe and why it would set us up to properly solve Ai's issues?

Lastly, can we expect new fractal backpack skins (capacitors and/or legendary) in the Gold and Abyssal designs in the future?

[Dreggon.6598]

Sound: Ai's inner voices sound like they're coming in over the radio (like Dessa) - intentional?

Balance: Instabilities kind of detract from the CM experience a bit, any chance of turning them off? The Vengeance one in particular applies Weakness to players due to a bug, and I need my dodges :(

[Arckange.8251]

What's the reasoning behind the removal of Unstable Cosmic Essence drops from the Shattered Observatory CM? Since they primary acted as kill proofs, it means that there is now no reliable way to show how experienced you are when joining CM groups. At least for newer people who didn't have many of these before the change. Is it an oversight? Was it made on purpose to try to change people's behavior in relation to asking KPs for doing CMs? Why were Unstable Cosmic Essence left in players inventories and not automatically converted to put everyone on the same level?

[SdoRy.6839]

@Fueki.4753 said:Why did you think it was a good idea to put so much of that's hated by many players into another fractal boss?Wasn't the overwhelmingly negative reception towards Warden Amala, Arabella Crowe and The Voice enough evidence that it's better not to do such bosses?

Talk for yourself, I absolutely love the new fractal boss and its design. And it's vastly different from cluster-effs like Amala and Siren's Reef. And most people I talked to who regularly do fractals and/or raids very much enjoyed the fractal just as much, especially the cm.The whole update seemed to be directed more towards the high-end-pve-players, weekly fractal achievement, weekly raid achievements, weekly cm's... those are, I would assume, players where most of them do enjoy the new fractal.

@Andy.5981 said:Why was the decision made to class this as the level 100 Fractal when it is appears to be far easier on T4 mode than Shattered Observatory, Nightmare, Mai Trin, Twilight Oasis and Siren's reef?

I would assume because the CM seems to be quite a bit harder for the average pug than the other cm's (and ofc, nm's). So 100cm is still the hardest encounter after all.

[Fueki.4753]

@DesiRe.1348 said:Talk for yourself, I absolutely love the new fractal boss and its design. And it's vastly different from cluster-effs like Amala and Siren's Reef. And most people I talked to who regularly do fractals and/or raids very much enjoyed the fractal just as much, especially the cm.The fact that you play T4s and do CMs alone explains why you feel such a difference in reception.While top end players may love that challenge, average and below players (at least the ones I played with) feel the opposite.

The whole update seemed to be directed more towards the high-end-pve-playersAnd that's the problem.

The boss doesn't even scale properly for the tiers, leaving the tier 1 version at a difficulty far above what T1 should be.When a boss at T1 feels like a T3 boss, then something definitely is not right.

[CerealNumber.9348]

Is the current instabilities that we have on T4 No Pain No Gain, Vengeance and Boon Overload permanent? It hasn't changed in 4 days :x

[videoboy.4162]

Is the Sad Lady a bit of a preview for what Ele Specializations might look like in Cantha?

[morsdood.1987]

For Cameron: what are your thoughts regarding groups using CC consumables(shovels, metal rods etc.) for the CM breakbars?

I ask because I wonder if it was something that was foreseen and is thus a feature or if its an oversight, it seems odd to me that a Challenge Mode would promote stacks of consumables over player skill and class knowledge

[JJRousseauJr.3592]

Did the developers consider signaling the "tidal bargain" effect with an colored head icon, like the hammer one at Cliffside?Since we have to react to our colleagues stacks of it, it would be more useful here than on the hammer...

[JJRousseauJr.3592]

Is the boon stripping at the start of the final boss something one-off on only this fractal, or something we should expect on new fractals and reworks?

[ollbirtan.2915]

Why did you decide to add even more visual noise and clunky animations ON TOP of the JP? Honestly, the boss fight is way too much visual clutter - even worse than Siren's Reef and Amala. The 'warm up' phase of the fractal is nice to look at but it gets incredible boring quickly.

[Dandaros.8491]

For Cameron: CM related. Were you thinking to put something more mechanics in the water intermission at 33%? While there is tether management, there is nothing really to do outside of that. The water phase after (where Ai envelops herself in a watery tornado of some sort) does have line AoEs shooting out that makes it I think more engaging.

Other than that, great fractal and very fun mechanics to overcome even on CM :) . DwD was also a really fun challenge to overcome so really great job either way.

[Randulf.7614]

Just for reference guys, they are well into the stream now.

It looks like quite a long stream, but I just caught some interesting boss mechanic design info from Cameron.

I can't stay to watch the rest, so if anyone catches the answers to any questions (or picks up any other neat info), I'd be interested to hear about it

[36F0A0BB-7480-4A73-8575-EE]

@Killerbot.8645 said:For Cameron: what are your thoughts regarding groups using CC consumables(shovels, metal rods etc.) for the CM breakbars?

I ask because I wonder if it was something that was foreseen and is thus a feature or if its an oversight, it seems odd to me that a Challenge Mode would promote stacks of consumables over player skill and class knowledge

i agree with you.Why would it be an absolute necessity to use consumables for cm breakbars?They are used in other cms to speed up the process (like portals in shattered observatory 1st boss and metal rods/boulders 2nd boss), but they are not mendatory.

[lare.5129]

good balanced fractal, may be cms too hot, but may be people just not adapt.Very good that chooses 100 number, it make cms mode more valid.after strange ship weapon on sirena this is fractal is great solid job. Thanks!

[TheQuickFox.3826]

It would be nice if we could get back to the beginning of the fractal after completing it to allow players to find the letters (achievement) without bothering the other party members.