Some changes are coming to Guild Wars 2’s 5-man dungeon end-game content, Fractal of the Mists, developer ArenaNet announced today.
The changes in question are designed with the goal to make Fractal of the Mists more accessible to more people, while increasing the difficulty level at higher levels for more experienced players looking for more of a challenge.
“One of the core changes we’re making is that each fractal run will only consist of one island from a static list instead of the current rotation of three random islands with a random boss fractal,” Guild Wars 2 game design lead Mike Zadorojny said. “This change to ‘1 fractal = 1 island’ means that you’ll be able to run a fractal over your lunch break but still have the flexibility of running three or four fractals in the evening with your friends just like before. It also means that there will be a lot less pressure to find a group of people who can commit to 30–60 minutes in a single sitting or over 90 minutes on longer runs.”
He added: “The lower scales will be adjusted to help make them more approachable to players to aid them in learning the mechanics of individual fractals before they scale up and become too difficult.”
While making the lower level fractals more approachable, ArenaNet also wants to make sure experienced players are not left out of Fractals of the Mists by this new change.
“To start with, we’re raising the maximum fractal scale from 50 to 100. In addition, after scale 50, the difficulty curve will change to adjust not only the health and outgoing damage of creatures but also other stats like precision and toughness. The combination of these changes will increase the viability of different builds and give players more to think about when attempting to overcome a particular scale.”
Check out the full post from Zadorojny on Guild Wars 2’s official website for more details on these and other changes coming to the game.
Guild Wars 2’s first expansion pack, Heart of Thorns, doesn’t have a specific release date other than sometime this year, but the expansion is available for pre-purchase in standard ($49.99), deluxe ($74.99), and ultimate editions ($99.99). All three editions come with the base Guild Wars 2 game, but those who purchased the base game prior to January 23, 2015 and pre-purchase Heart of Thorns will be granted an extra character slot free of charge. Heart of Thorns will add a new character class, The Revenant, access to the Maguuma Jungle, and more.
