What is the point of the agony mechanic?

[ArchonWing.9480]

Agony is a self-contained grind. You only do it if you want to grind fractals as it offers no benefits elsewhere. You can still experience the content @ t1. Also fractals will drop all the infusions and rings that are needed just by playing.

If you're not willing to commit to fractals, there's no real reason to worry about it.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:My only gripe about AR is you don't need it in the open world.

The only time you see the Agony debuff at all is on the Awakened during the portal events, and I think the game would've been better if it was more integrated since I think its actually an excellent mechanic and would've changed how some fights are approached by players, instead we have lots of similar mechanics like Nightmare Toxin and Frostbite that have no standardisation or defense.

Imagine if we had Agony at world bosses, during high-level metas or in elite dungeons..We did imagine it then (in fact, this was a plan - Anet did mean to follow up with other uses for agony and other similar effects in other parts of the game). The general player response however, both to this (or to anything that would make ascended gear more needed in other parts of the game) was, for the most part, vastly negative. In the end, that idea got dropped.

Seriously, if we had agony mechanic at world bosses, it would mean people would be required to run ascended gear there. No, thank you.

Agony was only a cheap and unimaginative way of extending the content then, and it would be a cheap and unimaginative way of extending the content now. Nothing more.

It would simply mean that Exotic gear would need infusion slots, and some (rare) Exotics already have them.

Ascended gear is never taken for the infusion slots, even in Fractals. Sure, its a neccessity at higher levels, but almost everyone takes Ascended gear because its BiS and thus is optimal for the meta, it has little to nothing to do with AR.

You'll find most raiders and WvWs take full Ascended too, for best results.

[Bassdeff.1895]

The purpose is to gate fractal progression

[Styopa.2538]

On 2/11/2020 at 6:51 PM, Hannelore.8153 said:

 

Agony was only a cheap and unimaginative way of extending the content then, and it would be a cheap and unimaginative way of extending the content now. Nothing more.

 

 

I wondered if it was just me that thought Agony was lazy AF game mechanic? 

[Fuchslein.8639]

1 hour ago, Styopa.2538 said:

 

I wondered if it was just me that thought Agony was lazy AF game mechanic? 

 

What makes it lazy in comparison to other game-mechaniks? The time-gate?

[Styopa.2538]

15 hours ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

 

What makes it lazy in comparison to other game-mechaniks? The time-gate?

 

Slapping a climbing non-dispellable debuff on people doesn't mean running the same content hundreds of times isn't still dull af.  It's a lazy way to reuse content, claiming "it's harder".

[Fuchslein.8639]

3 hours ago, Styopa.2538 said:

 

Slapping a climbing non-dispellable debuff on people doesn't mean running the same content hundreds of times isn't still dull af.  It's a lazy way to reuse content, claiming "it's harder".

T4 Fractals give one of the best rewards for just 45 max 1h of Play-time + Ascended Gear and skins when your'e lucky.

Therefore, for me, the asc armor and infusions were the least of the effort. I got back what I invested within a week.

[Firebeard.1746]

On 10/23/2018 at 6:21 PM, FizCap.6573 said:

Just seems like a lazy way to have players grind for gold just so they don't get one shot by a boss. I wouldn't have a problem with it if all agony could be dodged, but some bosses force you into agony and you have no way to avoid it which is just stupid, people will say they like agony progression and all that weak argument kitten, but in a game sense it literally makes no sense to have an agony system.

 

I always get more gold from fracs than it costs to upgrade my infusions, so i'm not vibing with your first statement. 

 

The payoff for getting a character that can do t4s is actually pretty huge. Fairly frequently you'll get ascended gear boxes from the higher daily chests, a decent chance at mcs (in theory my luck doesn't match the rates).

 

Also note that for gaining pristine fractal relics doing just the higher tier daily gives all the boxes for the lower tiers as well. And each fractal encryption key is 20s, so a single daily fractal gives almost 1g in addition to everything else. 

 

It's also entirely optional if you don't want to bother, but you're missing out on the rewards.

 

This entire game is build like a gift that keeps on giving: you put in some time and/or gold and it will benefit you moving forward. This is no different. The AR is basically your effort to make the game mode pay massive dividends.

[Fangoth.4503]

why quoting 2020 or 2018 posts?

[Sobx.1758]

On 8/25/2021 at 2:21 PM, Styopa.2538 said:

Slapping a climbing non-dispellable debuff on people doesn't mean running the same content hundreds of times isn't still dull af.  It's a lazy way to reuse content, claiming "it's harder".

The difficulty level in fractals raises. With difficulty levels, so do the rewards. I guess agony makes it harder for people to just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards. If you don't think it's worth the effort then it's perfectly fine, you can just not do that content and do something else. And I'm saying that as someone who doesn't farm fractals or even regularly go for dailies, just going there from time to time inbetween playing other content -agony didn't seem to be a big deal for me in the past, just made sure I didn't skip previous difficulty levels.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

At least we know the search function works and some people use it 😉

 

On 8/25/2021 at 8:21 AM, Styopa.2538 said:

 

Slapping a climbing non-dispellable debuff on people doesn't mean running the same content hundreds of times isn't still dull af.  It's a lazy way to reuse content, claiming "it's harder".

The relevant question here isn't why Agony is there ... it's why you are wasting your time playing 'Dull AF' content. I mean, you don't need to do fractals if you don't enjoy it or doesn't meet whatever other criteria is important to you to play it. 

 

Let's put a different spin on it ... do you think Anet is going to 'fix' fractals because you think it's lazy design? I'm going to bet ... nope.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Astralporing.1957]

On 8/28/2021 at 5:22 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

The difficulty level in fractals raises. With difficulty levels, so do the rewards.

Agony is not difficulty, though. It's just a crude form of gating the content behind a grind (either time or gold investment).

 

On 8/28/2021 at 5:22 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

And I'm saying that as someone who doesn't farm fractals or even regularly go for dailies, just going there from time to time inbetween playing other content -agony didn't seem to be a big deal for me in the past, just made sure I didn't skip previous difficulty levels.

Precisely - because it is not a difficulty. It doesn't make things harder, it just forces the grind to get enough AR to make it a non-issue. It just artificially extends the content, without having any interesting function at all.

[Fuchslein.8639]

"Grind" ... Skyscale is grind, Legendary's are grind, Fractal agony+asc armor are a walk on the see.

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

"Grind" ... Skyscale is grind, Legendary's are grind, Fractal agony+asc armor are a walk on the see.

It may not be the same scale of grind as some other things, but it is grind. Agony and agony reduction are a gatekeeping mechanic, nothing else. Something that is meant to slow down progress by means of gear progression (without actually introducing classic gear progression). And the only good thing we can say about them is that so badly received that Anet gave up on the original idea of replicating that mechanic in later content (yes, when they released fractals they were talking about different types of agony-like mechanics, each with its own kind of infusions, to be introduced later).

Edited September 7, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Fuchslein.8639]

18 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

It may not be the same scale of grind as some other things, but it is grind. Agony and agony reduction are a gatekeeping mechanic, nothing else. Something that is meant to slow down progress by means of gear progression (without actually introducing classic gear progression). And the only good thing we can say about them is that so badly received that Anet gave up on the original idea of replicating that mechanic in later content (yes, when they released fractals they were talking about different types of agony-like mechanics, each with its own kind of infusions, to be introduced later).

 

Yeah thats the great gw2 community, such stuff as Skyscale is okay but a bit normal mmo-grind to get top rewards? Nahh~, "me want free" :D.

[Astralporing.1957]

5 hours ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

 

Yeah thats the great gw2 community, such stuff as Skyscale is okay but a bit normal mmo-grind to get top rewards? Nahh~, "me want free" :D.

Except it is not a "normal mmo grind to get top rewards". Its a grind to access the content.

Attunement mechanics are practically never liked, no matter the MMORPG.

[anbujackson.9564]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Except it is not a "normal mmo grind to get top rewards". Its a grind to access the content.

Attunement mechanics are practically never liked, no matter the MMORPG.

You cant even call it a grind. The infusions can be bought from the TP. The only thing you need is ascended gear, which players want anyway (starting with weapons and trinkets). Instantly playing t4 as a new player is kind of stupid since you dont know anything about the content.

 

Also back in time when I started progressing fractals it was normal to play from 1 to 100 step by step and repeatably to raise your personal fractal level. Doing that gave you a lot of stuff. Not sure if its different nowadays.

[Sobx.1758]

On 9/7/2021 at 12:38 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Agony is not difficulty, though. It's just a crude form of gating the content behind a grind (either time or gold investment).

 

Precisely - because it is not a difficulty. It doesn't make things harder, it just forces the grind to get enough AR to make it a non-issue. It just artificially extends the content, without having any interesting function at all.

Great, because that's not what I said. And you might have noticed that, because you've carefully cut out the sentence from the middle of my post that said what it seems it does instead. Not sure why you feel the need to pretend I said something I didn't, but if you respond to my posts, try actually responding to what I wrote, thank you. And if you think it's not an interesting function or isn't worth the attention/effort for whatever reason, then you're free to not do it.

 

In case you didn't do that on purpose, here's that carefully avoided sentence from my previous post: I guess agony makes it harder for people to just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards.

 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

35 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

In case you didn't do that on purpose, here's that carefully avoided sentence from my previous post: I guess agony makes it harder for people to just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards.

Anything that restricts access to the content in any way makes it harder for people to "just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards", that's true. The one thing you don't mention is that it also makes it harder to access the content for everyone else as well, and to the same degree. It just restricts access for everyone. With the group you singled out being a tiny minority among the people affected. And with that group you brought up already being restricted way better by either KP requirements, or even by the simple expediency of getting kicked from the groups they try to exploit.

[Sobx.1758]

23 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Anything that restricts access to the content in any way makes it harder for people to "just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards", that's true. The one thing you don't mention is that it also makes it harder to access the content for everyone else as well, and to the same degree. It just restricts access for everyone. With the group you singled out being a tiny minority among the people affected. And with that group you brought up already being restricted way better by either KP requirements, or even by the simple expediency of getting kicked from the groups they try to exploit.

As far as I know, you don't need to make some significant invesments as long as you relatively follow the progression curve laid out by levels/tiers along with completing dailies. You use the reasources you gain from the content you complete to be able to participate in the higher ones. So how does it "restrict access for everyone"? How/for whom exactly is this problematic?

Edited September 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Tails.9372]

52 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I guess agony makes it harder for people to just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards.

 

That would be case if access to infusions with AR was restricted to the player having to play low level fractals for a certain amount of time which is not the case.

[Sobx.1758]

4 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

That would be case if access to infusions with AR was restricted to the player having to play low level fractals for a certain amount of time which is not the case.

Sure, but if you want to skip it, THEN it requires significant investment. So yes, you have that possibility and with that in mind, I guess this is not so limiting for the people that are already... "well established" in the game -for example while gearing up alts. But again, I don't see how that's somehow supposed to be a bad thing?

Edited September 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Also back in time when I started progressing fractals it was normal to play from 1 to 100 step by step and repeatably to raise your personal fractal level. Doing that gave you a lot of stuff. Not sure if its different nowadays.

Yes, it is. While you still cannot open a fractal that exceeds your fractal level, you can now enter (and run) one if someone else in your group did the opening. And doing that also progresses your fractal level (so, to get your personal fractal level to 100, you can, instead of climbing slowly through the tiers, just keep doing t4 fractals for a total of 99 times).

 

And this change happened exactly because people didn't like this way of locking out content.

 

Notice also, that Anet mentioned several times that they did want to ease on agony mechanic (or at least make it account-wide), and said that they didn't do it only because they didn't know how to do that without invalidating all prior investment of players that already stocked up on infusions (and affecting the economy of all the infusions that are already on the market).

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Notice also, that Anet mentioned several times that they did want to ease on agony mechanic (or at least make it account-wide), and said that they didn't do it only because they didn't know how to do that without invalidating all prior investment of players that already stocked up on infusions (and affecting the economy of all the infusions that are already on the market).

Where?

[Bakeneko.5826]

14 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Anything that restricts access to the content in any way makes it harder for people to "just hop into higher levels for the sake of trying to use other people to gain rewards", that's true. The one thing you don't mention is that it also makes it harder to access the content for everyone else as well, and to the same degree. It just restricts access for everyone. With the group you singled out being a tiny minority among the people affected. And with that group you brought up already being restricted way better by either KP requirements, or even by the simple expediency of getting kicked from the groups they try to exploit.

It literally rains AR infusions in fractals AND lower levels are there for you to learn. And it restricts nothing for players, who do fractals at least from time to time. And KP is player set restriction, it's not same as AR, where game forces you to learn encounters so by the time you hit Tier 4 you ain't floor wipe