20 replies to this topic

[LiveSpartan235]

https://www.guildwar...vember-26-2013/

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November 26, 2013

Delve Into the Fractals of the Mists

Explore great moments from Tyria’s past and test your battle skills in this never-ending chain of dungeons that become more and more challenging the farther you go! Begin your battle through time and space in this infinitely challenging series of dungeons!

• Promises Kept
  
  Ellen Kiel, who recently earned a seat on the Captain’s Council of Lion’s Arch after a cutthroat campaign, has made good on her promises to her supporters! By sponsoring research in the Fractals of the Mists, Kiel has opened up a momentous event from Tyria’s recent history, the Thaumanova Reactor meltdown, for exploration!
  
• Inside the Reactor
  
  Head through the Fractals asura gate near Fort Marriner in Lion’s Arch (right next to the
  Consortium Gift Shop) to meet up with Kiel for a special story instance of the new Thaumanova Reactor Fractal. Experience the explosion of the reactor first-hand and discover its mysteries!
  
• The Nightmare Continues
  
  The Tower of Nightmares is heading towards its collapse, but the fight isn’t over yet! Join in the fight against the vile Toxic Alliance and destroy the foul structure. Bring it to ruin before its evil spreads any further! Learn more.
  
• Developer Livestream – November 27
  
  Take an inside look at the Fractured release with ArenaNet devs during a livestream on our Twitch channel on Wednesday, November 27, at 12PM PST.

REWARDS

Fractal Reward Updates

The Fractals of the Mists are becoming more rewarding! As a daily fractal reward, you’ll not only be earning Empyreal Fragments, Fractal Relics, and Pristine Fractal Relics at all levels, you’ll also earn a gold or more! Learn more.


Fractal Tonic

A new, infinite tonic with the ability to transform you into any number of friends and foes from within the Mists, the Fractal Tonic is a rare reward found within the Fractals of the Mists.


New Runes and Sigils

Those braving the dangers of the most difficult fractals will find that their bravery is well-rewarded by a chance at brand-new sigils and runes to adorn their gear!

FEATURES


Three New Fractals

In addition to illuminating the strange circumstances of the Thaumanova Reactor meltdown, you can experience two more historical events thanks to further Fractals research. Relive the daring raids on the Molten Alliance facilities with the Molten Furnace Fractal! Infiltrate the Aetherblade’s old base of villainy with the treacherous Aetherblade Fractal!


Two New Boss Fractals!

The Jade Maw of the Solid Ocean Fractal is no longer the only challenge awaiting you when you make it to the end of each set of three fractals! Special boss encounters with the Aetherblade captain Mai Trin and the two Molten Alliance champions from the Molten Facility have been added to the rotation.


Agony Resist Updates

We’re reworking the way Agony Resistance works on items. You’ll now be able to collect drops that grant you Agony Resistance and combine them to continually increase your level of Agony Resistence. Learn more.


Announcing Fractals of the Mists Leaderboards

Soon you can earn the envy and adulation of your friends and total strangers through our new leaderboards, which show off the players with the highest fractal levels! As part of the introduction of leaderboards, everyone whose current personal reward level for the Fractals of the Mists is above 30 will be reset to 30 so the competition can begin in earnest.


Fractal Progression Changes

The difficulty curve in fractals levels one through 30 is being adjusted, and fractals beyond level 30 have new, special challenges. Every fractal you enter above fractal level 30 will have a special Mistlock Instability which will add new difficulties to that level, or change the way you and your teammates play within it. Learn more.

Obsidian Sanctum Update

The Eternal Battlegrounds jumping puzzle, the Obsidian Sanctum, is receiving some changes! Along with being able to enter the jumping puzzle from inside your world’s keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds, you’ll now be able to enter the map directly through the WvW menu. Along with that, we’ve added a new arena space to the Obsidian Sanctum where opposing groups of players can meet up for combat. The Borderlands Bloodlust buff will no longer apply in the Obsidian Sanctum.

Fractal Difficulty is now Account wide too

[CriticKitten]

I love how they're trying to make these changes sound like vast sweeping improvements across the board.  They're really mostly negative IMO.

1) Upgradeable infusions for added flexibility sound great....up until you hear that the infusions come in units of +1, and you have to fuse two identically-tiered ones together to make the next unit up (two +2s and one reagent = one +3).

2) Three new Fractals and two new bosses....yet only one of the Fractals is actually "new".  The rest is bits and pieces shredded out of old dungeons they've previously removed from the game.

3) They want you to think they're increasing the rewards for Fractals....and they are, if you only run one per day.  If you previously ran multiple Fractals per day, your income has actually been significantly nerfed by this change.  And yet another time-gate has been added to the game, by the way.

4) Mistlock Instabilities are likely to end up making Lvl 30+ Fractals more gimmicky, rather than more challenging.  They'll likely be akin to the "gambits" from the Gauntlet, adding some additional gimmick onto the Fractal in exchange for the higher rewards of that Fractal tier.

5) "If your Fractal level was 30+, it's now being reduced to 30 because we wanted to make leaderboards out of your PvE experience!  Everyone loves leaderboards, right?  And where there's leaderboards, there's ESPORTSSSSSSSSSSSS!"

The sigil and rune sound interesting, at least, and the Fractals being account-bound is long overdue.  But otherwise, this patch sounds like they're trying to make Fractals and Agony more of a grind than they used to be, and trying to separate Fractals and Agony from Ascended gear in general (probably in preparation for Ascended armor).

[Reina Takayama]

some thoughts:

thaumanova mystery better be important and answer some questions as a lot of current lore has to do with the same rift and portal concepts

Molten and aetherblade… I thought ppl were tired of scarlet so I wonder how much complaining there would be , and

resetting to lvl 30 might piss a lot of ppl off….

and yay GvG area is here?

[Rassy]

I like most of it.

lv64 reward -> lv30?



Arnold knows.

My fractal group left GW2 a few months ago, so it's not like I was going to do anything beyond PUGing for the living story 'chieves anyways, but I certainly don't appreciate them cutting my fractals ePeen in half.

Oh god, I'm going to have to pug fractals.

Have you ever pug'd fractals? I've pug'd fractals. Don't pug fractals.

Also, don't take FTF into fractals. I mean the good ones from the days of olde, not the FA dirtbags. Well, don't take them either, obviously.

[(TEW)Thunder]

Rassy, about 10 members of my guild TEW were doing fractal 48s (they did have much higher reward levels though) daily and if you've got the experience and have no problem with folks who like to laugh and have fun while doing fractals I'll get you in touch with them.

[Craig]

DIE is part of the wvw beta ATM and we got to see the colosseum they are adding. It's fucking cray cray.

We have a link on the guild forum but I'm on my phone, ill try to link it

[Craig]

http://m.youtube.com...253DkjXa8scW_Uc

There's the stupid mobile version... Idk if it will send you to the desktop automatically? It's just a small clip, we will have more after the next test!

[Rassy]

(TEW)Thunder, on 20 November 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

Rassy, about 10 members of my guild TEW were doing fractal 48s (they did have much higher reward levels though) daily and if you've got the experience and have no problem with folks who like to laugh and have fun while doing fractals I'll get you in touch with them.

Oh, thanks!
But, I've since found a few from my current...wuvwuv guild (ohgodno)... who are willing to be herded through a few fractals. They're achievement whores, so they probably won't bail on me, but if they do I'll drop you guys a line.

[QueenEtna]

Great another useless update with even more crappy items I don't want, Thanks arena net! Now release ascended armor crafting before I bonk you on the head with my gigantic boobies.

[Heylo]

Well I'm excited for something, finally. Kind of.

[Palerider]

Heylo, on 20 November 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

Well I'm excited for something, finally. Kind of.

u got me bro. Been playing regularly again. Come roll faces with us.

[henez RS]

I'll need fractals group for this,
<pro fractaler that has carried the entire dungeon in full whites (I was poor)(running fractals with FTF was the best...)
Ples, friends, run me through fractals when did comes out

[CriticKitten]

Proof of concept as to how much this change will suck ass as far as grinding goes:

In order to level up any Agony Resist infusion, you need two of the tier below it (two +2s = one +3) and a 15s reagent.

Therefore, the formula 2 ^ (n-1) represents the number of +1 infusions you'd need to get any particular tier, where n = the quality of the infusion.  Also, the formula 15*(2^n - 1) represents the cost, in silver, of the reagents you'll need.  This assumes that you only need one reagent per tier and that you need only two of any infusion to level, of course.  If the higher tiers change their reqs, then this will become even harder to accomplish.

So as an example:

One +5 infusion will require 2^(5-1) = 16 of the +1 infusions, and will cost you 15*(2^5 - 1) = 4.65 gold to create.

On top of this, there is no indication that you can remove an infusion once you slot it.  Meaning that if you slot a +4 infusion, you can't remove it and use it again later to help you craft a +5 infusion.  You'd have to start all over with a new set of +1 infusions, and then overwrite your +4 infusion with the new +5 infusion (thus effectively wasting all the time you spent making the +4).

Of course, they have stated that other tiers can drop from the Fractals chests, so if you're fortunate then you can skip a lot of that extra grind.  Everyone else, however, is just going to be sinking gold and time into this, all for no particularly significant gain.

So unless this patch also comes with a meta, I'll probably not bother trying any of this patch's changes out.

[henez RS]

Lol wut &quot;living story&quot; update w/o cheivz

[Unholy]

CriticKitten, on 21 November 2013 - 12:11 AM, said:

stuff

Additionally, those who inherently infused their backpieces and rings, through their respective recipes, to have a +5 AR in addition to another open infusion slot will, to my understanding, still have two slots on their items. Meaning you'd have to create two +5 infusions as opposed to one +10 infusion for max AR. Easier in the long run, I suppose.

[CriticKitten]

Unholy, on 23 November 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

Additionally, those who inherently infused their backpieces and rings, through their respective recipes, to have a +5 AR in addition to another open infusion slot will, to my understanding, still have two slots on their items. Meaning you'd have to create two +5 infusions as opposed to one +10 infusion for max AR. Easier in the long run, I suppose.

Not quite.

Agony has been relegated to its own infusion slot, to be attached only to rings and back pieces (IIRC).  The AR from other stuff is being yoinked out, IIRC.  Will double check on that but I'm pretty sure that's what they said.

EDIT: Nope, they're keeping Agony resist on the existing stuff, I guess.  At least that's the implication.

All the same, it means the Agony resist slot is still going to be a pain to continue leveling, because there's been no indication that you can remove previously used infusions.


EDIT 2, Electric Boogaloo:

So I made the mistake of reading the ANet forums again.  I was exploring the Living Story forums.  In particular, the ones for "Fractured".  It hurt my head.

....but hey, I came back with a lot of delicious lines to post for your enjoyment!  Or to hurt your heads, too, because if I've gotta suffer then so do you.  Now color-coded for your convenience!  Dev responses in red, players in blue.



Player response to a discussion about how some classes feel harder to play in the Tower of Nightmares than others:

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While guardians are powerful they are not really that good anymore. Like 90% of the changes to guardian since beta have been nerfs.

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Devs hate guardians. Just saying.

Dev response to an engineer complaining that Rune of Resistance is useless to the engineer class:

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Shall we give Kits to all other professions so they can properly utilize Rune of the Engineer?

Player response to a player asking about all of the promised updates that devs said would be out before the end of the year:

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And people wonder why we don’t get more updates or comments from the Devs….with “fans” like you, what do they have to gain by saying ANYTHING?
YOUR updates!? Holy crud, how friggin’ entitled can you get?

Player response to another player asking if the players who are getting their Fractal level dropped to 30 will get any form of compensation:

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I bought a car for 50,000 dollars. It’s now 20,000 dollars and comes with more stuff. RABBLE RABBLE I WANT A REFUND FOR MY HIGHER EXPENDATURES AND I WANT A FREE CAR WITH ALL THE NEW BELLS AND WHISTLES FOR MY TROUBLE!!
No.

Player post asking for a "Scarlet related update" to Fractals (WIN):

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Anet would it be possible to create a fractal that goes back into the past to kill scarlet before she was born and just wipe out all the scarlet living story?

Pretty Please?

Dev post in regards to difficulty in Fractals:

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We fixed a number of bugs and made lots of balance changes to existing fractals. Also the difficulty scaling has been tweaked overall to create a slightly less difficult curve up to 50.

[Gatita]

I had this horrible feeling that they could somehow drag Scarlet into the Thaumanova fractal and make her responsible

Also, from what I understand, the rings/backpieces mystic toilet infused with +5 AR will keep that, but Anet is reverting the +5 infusion you put in from vendors, due to the new options there are with infusion and the fact you can now gain +10 ar in those slots, or something like that. It sounds like it will be better in the long run, but I have no clue, the way they worded it was a little strange.

[Sorrows]

CriticKitten, on 21 November 2013 - 12:11 AM, said:

Proof of concept as to how much this change will suck ass as far as grinding goes:

In order to level up any Agony Resist infusion, you need two of the tier below it (two +2s = one +3) and a 15s reagent.

Therefore, the formula 2 ^ (n-1) represents the number of +1 infusions you'd need to get any particular tier, where n = the quality of the infusion.  Also, the formula 15*(2^n - 1) represents the cost, in silver, of the reagents you'll need.  This assumes that you only need one reagent per tier and that you need only two of any infusion to level, of course.  If the higher tiers change their reqs, then this will become even harder to accomplish.

So as an example:

One +5 infusion will require 2^(5-1) = 16 of the +1 infusions, and will cost you 15*(2^5 - 1) = 4.65 gold to create.

You made the same math error I made on the first day. It's 14.98s per 10 reagents, not 1. They stated it would only take 1 reagent to upgrade the infusions thus making it 46.5 silver for a +5. Also, they used the word  "commonly" to refer to how often the +1s drop, plus every fractal chests will have at least 1 of them, so I'm guessing 16 infusions is nothing really if you did one a day for the first few days. (Then again its Arenanet we're talking about)

I made a few inquiring posts on the forums first day myself on the subject of removing existing ones etc. From what I understand is they basically want you to alternate your upgrades as you go up in AR. As of now, only the infused rings and the FULLY UPGRADED infused back items have the +infinite slot on them. Arenanet designed the additional AR system wanting you to maximize your use of these slots. Meaning:

https://forum-en.gui...rst#post3228481

Basically you would alternate your upgrades through these slots. My guess being something like (assuming you already have a back item and 2 rings infused before the update [+5  that are on these will automatically get a +5 infusion in the +infinite slot]) making a couple +7s or 8s for your rings then making a +10 for your black item before making +10s for your rings. Nothing says you have to upgrade the slots 1 by 1.

[CriticKitten]

Did they confirm that it's only ONE reagent, though, and not one SET of them?

All crafting recipes to date have required a pack of 10.  It seems odd that they'd break from that.

[Sorrows]

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• Artificers of at least 100 skill will be able to combine two infusions of the same level with a Thermocatalytic Reagent to make an infusion of the next level. For example, you could take two +2 infusions, combine them with a Thermocatalytic Reagent, and create a +3 infusion.

By the use of "a" and no "s" on Reagent. I would safely assume one. Also, the recipe is a lvl 100 recipe not a 450. I bet the 10 per would a hard price to pay for someone low as 100 artificer. They're not that evil I would hope.