cesmode.4257

I simply don't think this change is a good one. Its too complicated and can create too many problems. I say scrap it and come up with something else 😞 The server cluster idea, I think, is OK. Create alliances within that across servers within your server cluster. Whats wrong with this?

I know I know, I already posted saying that I saw everyones point (once finishing). Damnit! hahah.

@Cyninja.2954I can see we are at a stalemate and thats good! Let me end by asking, if they added this option for people and kept the current system in place so that you can still manually form groups, does this impact you negatively in any way? Does opening up content for more people and potentially making it more enjoyable impact you from running fractals the way you would want to? I dont see how doing this would matter to people that dont want to partake in it.

Dungeon finder came out with 2.0.1, TBC. Classic did great, TBC did better, WOTLK was nearly the pinnacle for WoW. Biggest changes? Making more content accessible to more players. Yes, WoW has been on the decline for many years but again, in terms of player concurrancy etc, its the most played MMO (until recently). Why the decline? It probably has something to do with being out of touch with its player base and refusing to innovate (and keep its own innovations instead of making them expansion specific) like it did back in the earlier expansions.

Respectfully, I disagree. Theres a reason why, until very recently, WoW has been unchallenged in the MMO market in terms of player concurrency and $$ to its dev. When it launched, MMOs were still a rather new concept but it was a very playable game on lower end machines. When TBC came out, they also released LFG eventually which lowered barrier to entry for a lot of content and they have expanded on this throughout the years making more content accessible, and thus grew their game, thus funding their game for future content. WOTLK took this to another level and became one of their most successful expansions ever. Your gaming experience and mileage might vary and you may not view it as an improvement to experience but subscribers and $$, it was a game changer. Theres no arguing that and considering this, its not a strange example to use when you look at where it was and where it went with these changes. Agreed. This is also a slight toxic area of the game. You get into a group currently, get booted if you dont have the right class they want. Or sometimes you die to one or two mechanics, they boot especially if the other members are buds. Happens all the time. Let them continue to use LFG tool as is, open it up a bit more by allowing us to join public groups without issue. I personally think fractals are very fun, challenging, rewarding. But I dont want to spend 20 minutes looking for a group.

I think so too. Obviously, the fractal cant begin until you have a group unlike DRMs. I floated this idea when fractals first came out YEARS ago. Anet seemed to be resistant to the idea of matchmaking, but now they have a psuedo system in place for other game modes. Doesnt make sense to keep it from fractals. I dont understand this need for gaming communities to shy away from Quality of Life improvements and lowering the barrier to entry for certain pieces of content. A lot of us were active players during Vanilla WoW, for example, and while we look back with rose tinted glasses, it was often a freaking chore to do anything with a group.

Usually now and around 11pm or 12am est. I cant ffind a group unless Im on at 9 or 9:30pm around reset...wait too long and groups are sparse. And even if groups werent sparse, I dont see the harm it making it easier. We have these soft LFG systems for DRM and strikes, why not for fractals.

So we have strikes and dragon response missions where you can select 'Join Public Game' or 'Join private'. Can we have an option for joining a public game for fractals as well, at least for the daily fractals? I'd imagine it wouldnt be a tall order to make the various daily fractal options unavailable unless you have the minimum agony resistance requirement. What this fixes is issues looking for group. I often find that I sign on a few hours after nightly reset or in the AM and look for a fractal group, I cannot find one. It seems most people get them done at reset within the first hour or two and it just becomes a hassle.

Darn. A lot of the current outfits are down right ugly lol

Does anyone know how often the outfits and mount skins, etc, that are currently available for purchase refresh? And when will the next bunch be available? Is it on some set schedule or timer, or just when anet refreshes it?

Drizzlewood is a fantastic addition to the game and I hope they add more zones and content like that. Its almost like a WvW zone inside of PVE. YEARS ago, when GW2 was struggling a bit and the then CEO (I think Mike Obrien??, not sure if he is still around) was holding AMA sessions, I had floated the idea to him/arenanet/anyone that would listen on forums that overworld PVE needs a cohesive system where We choose to participate in events in any zone throughout the world. Our participation and completing events successfuly moves a bar in one direction in our favor globally (across all zones). If you log in and see that Queensdale needs a bit of help, go do events there, move the global bar of progress in a positive direction because more events are being completed and more zones are under OUR control by players. The more events that fail, the bar moves in the other direction. We lose control, our rewards are diminished. Our individual participation plus our "player-wide team effort" is rewarded according to how we do as a playerbase. The intent was to get everyone into the zones they want to play in and have fun in, and contributing in some way. While this isnt fully realized, I do see some of that general idea in drizzlewood and in the metas overall, especially how they have taken shape over the years.

I now see your point 🙂 I can only surmise the redundant, repetitive, flat, and unimaginative nature of the last episode in the saga is due to covid restrictions... not being able to collaborate as easily, maybe less access to resources, etc. Because if not, if someone genuinely thought this is a good idea even under normal circumstances...good god. 3 or 4 of these would be OK. These missions seemingly never end and the story has fallen nearly (I say nearly because there is some, SOME substance) flat. The prologue plus episodes through Jormag Rising were absolutely fantastic. And now this 😞 lol And I wanted to get this done by yesterday. MAYBE if I no -life I can get it done by end of the weekend.

You are 100% correct. I just looked at one of my older character from a few years ago, he has ascended gear with runes... stupid me.

I understand ascended gear is not needed for 90% of the content in the game, primarily for high end fractals. However, are people running full ascended gear at this point in open world PVE(meta events etc) and WvW? If so, wouldnt the infusion slots be kind of limiting? Correct me if Im wrong but Im looking at infusions at the high end that cost several hundred to thousands of gold for +5 power and +agony resist. Wouldnt a full exotic set with a full exotic rune set be far superior than the increased stats found on ascended gear plus the miniscule amount of stats on the infusions? Because you cant slot anything but infusions into ascended gear, correct? Or am I wrong there...

I believe I still have 2-3 episodes left, but this is by far the best content addition, with the exception of expansions (and I might even put this above PoF honestly) that GW2 has had. Back in the day, I HATED living story and living world content because it was such a small drop of story and content. 1-2 hours and done. Back to doing whatever it is i was doing. I was one of those people that felt it detracted from other parts of the game, and I still believe that (see neglected areas of the game... dungeons, wvw etc). But I am glad and happy to see that arenanet has evolved and matured in their development of living story and living world to make it entire zones, with massive meta events and evolving stories that ebb and flow depending on time and player involvement in that map. The legion war episode that I am on now is a fantastic example of that. Very well done. Looking forward to seeing how it ends.