Agony Resistance and the Removal of Daily Login Rewards

[Malus.2184]

This can backfire enormously. There are important systems gated behind the login rewards. They're more than just free stuff you get for new players. For example. Players with only access to SotO and Core will be unable to get the stuff that grants agony infusion slots from any other place than the laurel vendor in preparation for the higher tier Fractals practically become an impossible thing, unless they're really lucky with the chests, if they have no interest or ability to get to the things that give the currency, thus forcing them to engage in the content they've no desire to do to be able to advance in the content they do want to do. A good example of this is Preach who has no interest in ever doing IBS strike again. He's effectively unable to get Ascended Gear that way.

Imagine that a player only wants to do Fractals, just the thought of doing them on higher tiers makes them giddy. The thought of doing PvP makes them want to uninstall the game (and I can understand that sentiment since PvP is designed in a way that makes it extremely unpleasant to play even without chat). If the PvE stuff for Astral Claim is outside of their reach then they're forced to do PvP stuff which they have a decided antipathy toward.

The same goes with Infusions in WvW though that is of less consequence since WvW requires level 60 so, players would still have some PvE access. They are more of a perk, a gap closer than the necessity that Agony Resistance is for doing Fractals.

I would be fully on board with this if Agony Resistance was something you got as an Attunement without the need for Ascended gear (it would also make the system immensely more player friendly) and the lottery infusions were just visual effects rather than visual effects and stat sticks. Please make Agoiy Resistance an Attunement sooner rather than later.

[Ashen.2907]

Honest question here....how does the new system prevent people from getting AR infusions?

I got mine by collecting large amounts of +1 to then make higher tier....or by buying them on the TP. Perhaps I am missing something?

Edited August 15, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Lycorascence.2986]

What is being asked about is the ascended equipment to get slots for agony resistance. Not the infusions themselves.

To which, the jump from rings + accessories gotten from daily fractal chests via Pristine Fractal Relics and the PFR golem + crafting ascended armor has always been a bit painful. The login rewards might've alleviated it slightly, but the path is still there. Accessories would definitely be more of a sour point with possible lower laurel accumulation without LS3/LS4/Saga materials though.

[Malus.2184]

23 minutes ago, Lycorascence.2986 said:

What is being asked about is the ascended equipment to get slots for agony resistance. Not the infusions themselves.

To which, the jump from rings + accessories gotten from daily fractal chests via Pristine Fractal Relics and the PFR golem + crafting ascended armor has always been a bit painful. The login rewards might've alleviated it slightly, but the path is still there. Accessories would definitely be more of a sour point with possible lower laurel accumulation without LS3/LS4/Saga materials though.

Exactly. SotO is designed to be a stand-alone that you can play if you have just the Core game. With just the Core Game and SotO getting those Agony Infusion slots will be an absolute pain since you can no longer save up Laurels in advance. If AR 3 was changed to an account-wide Attunement instead it would be of little issue since the price could be adjusted to be around what the player had of small Infusions one AR was required. And the system could also be expanded endlessly. I just saw that Silent Surf has an Agony 151. Slots are limited to the maximum amount of slots you can get. And it would be so nice to just be able to go there with any character and any build instead of getting screwed over by a lack of AR.

45 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Honest question here....how does the new system prevent people from getting AR infusions?

I got mine by collecting large amounts of +1 to then make higher tier....or by buying them on the TP. Perhaps I am missing something?

The Infusions themselves will be no issue, getting something to put the Infusions in will. Two Attuned rings with +9 AR Infusions and the potion Mastery will get you up to Fractal #41.  With two Ascended rings and no potion Mastery, you can finish t1 comfortably. In one month of slow leveling a character will have enough Laurels to buy two rings and be able to jump right in without feeling restrained or forced to do stuff they have no desire to. With the change, they can easily end up having to do stuff they either have no access to or desire to do. Any Astral Ward task that requires one to kill a raid boss is impossible to do unless you have HoT. Any task that requires doing things in a given zone is also practically unavailable unless they somehow have the zone as the game never informs new players that they can use LA as a transit hub.

[Megametzler.5729]

In the pinned thread it says laurels will be available for purchase for these new daily currencies.

[Malus.2184]

25 minutes ago, Megametzler.5729 said:

In the pinned thread it says laurels will be available for purchase for these new daily currencies.

You missed the point. Unless people have the ability and/or desire to participate in these tasks then getting those laurels will be really difficult.

[Parasite.5389]

"The Wizard’s Vault replaces the existing daily login rewards and daily achievements—specifically the generic Daily category. Other categories (like Daily Fractals, Daily End of Dragons, etc.) will still be around in the achievements panel. You’ll continue to receive progress toward Daily Completionist by completing Wizard’s Vault daily objectives and achievement points from the Wizard’s Vault Daily Completionist achievement."

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/discover-the-wonders-within-the-wizards-vault-in-guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure/

[Shuzuru.3651]

26 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

You missed the point. Unless people have the ability and/or desire to participate in these tasks then getting those laurels will be really difficult.

Well, they will do other task then, the screen for the weekly showed 0/6 but you could see that there were more than 6 task in the list. 

The daily have always being lenient (you have to 3 out of 12, right now), so no reason that won't be the same.

We could also assumed the game won't require task you can't do (no raid if you don't have hot or pof, for example), as it's already the case right now.

And about ascended equipment, it always has been possible to get it from core, you cited laurels but remember pristine fractal relics are also a thing (10 for a ring, 100 for accessories) 

[Danikat.8537]

You're forgetting that Fractals were the original source of ascended equipment, it used to be the only place you could get it. If for some reason a player only wants to play Fractals and nothing else they can still get ascended equipment from the vendors in the Fractal lobby, or as drops in the Fractals themselves. It might not be as quick as using all the available methods, but that's true of everything.

[enigmatic.3576]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

You missed the point. Unless people have the ability and/or desire to participate in these tasks then getting those laurels will be really difficult.

You're just moving the goalpost now.

[HeliosMagi.9867]

2 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

You missed the point. Unless people have the ability and/or desire to participate in these tasks then getting those laurels will be really difficult.

In other words people have to want and be able to *gasp* play the game to earn them!

[Malus.2184]

10 hours ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

Well, they will do other task then, the screen for the weekly showed 0/6 but you could see that there were more than 6 task in the list. 

The daily have always being lenient (you have to 3 out of 12, right now), so no reason that won't be the same.

We could also assumed the game won't require task you can't do (no raid if you don't have hot or pof, for example), as it's already the case right now.

And about ascended equipment, it always has been possible to get it from core, you cited laurels but remember pristine fractal relics are also a thing (10 for a ring, 100 for accessories) 

There are plenty of things you can theoretically do without being able to practically do them. For example. if an Asura whose level appropriate for Metrica Province gets a daily to go a do stuff in Plains of Ashford it's plausible that it's unrealistic for them to do. The game does nothing to inform you that you can use LA as a midway station and a hub to get to every starter zone, likewise, you're never told that you have the WP for every starter zone, and it's (low probability granted) plausible that the player has too little money to get back and forth if the gold reward goes away as well, as it's implied that it does as it says hat the rewards are replaced with Astral Claim.

9 hours ago, enigmatic.3576 said:

You're just moving the goalpost now.

How is it moving the goalpost when I mention the same thing in my original post? I just repeated it here for emphasis. 

8 hours ago, HeliosMagi.9867 said:

In other words people have to want and be able to *gasp* play the game to earn them!

People loathe to do things they feel forced to do. If they have no interest in PvP and the only way they can practically get Astral Claim then they're going to resent every moment they're doing PvP. 

Personally, when I saw the existence of a PvP weekly that requires a lot of time spent I could feel the bile rising in me even though I know that I can just skip it since I find PvP to be an unbalanced mess that I in no way find fun.

And while this is anecdotal I'm quite sure that there are other people who have similar sentiments since this is psychological science that has been studied extensively to the point that it was in my textbooks and education.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

30 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

For example. if an Asura whose level appropriate for Metrica Province gets a daily to go a do stuff in Plains of Ashford it's plausible that it's unrealistic for them to do

Whole system unlocks at 80, so if your only character is an asura that is level appropriate for Metrica Province, you will not get any dailies in the first place.

[Malus.2184]

19 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Whole system unlocks at 80, so if your only character is an asura that is level appropriate for Metrica Province, you will not get any dailies in the first place.

Incorrect. The system is available at LVL 2. You only unlock the full system at LVL 80. At LVL 2 you get the PvE and PvP dailies with the WvW ones coming in at the LVL where you can go into WvW. And you do get Dailies that are outside of the zones you have to nudge you to explore.

[Shuzuru.3651]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

There are plenty of things you can theoretically do without being able to practically do them. For example. if an Asura whose level appropriate for Metrica Province gets a daily to go a do stuff in Plains of Ashford it's plausible that it's unrealistic for them to do. The game does nothing to inform you that you can use LA as a midway station and a hub to get to every starter zone, likewise, you're never told that you have the WP for every starter zone, and it's (low probability granted) plausible that the player has too little money to get back and forth if the gold reward goes away as well, as it's implied that it does as it says hat the rewards are replaced with Astral Claim.

To be fair, if a player is so little involved with the game that it didn't light up his brain a bit to figure out those type of simple task, it didn't deserve any reward.

That's not unrealistic, that's laziness.

I'm pretty sure the game won't force you into any difficult task, but if you don't bother to do the easy ones, we have to put limits at some point... 

[Danikat.8537]

28 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Incorrect. The system is available at LVL 2. You only unlock the full system at LVL 80. At LVL 2 you get the PvE and PvP dailies with the WvW ones coming in at the LVL where you can go into WvW. And you do get Dailies that are outside of the zones you have to nudge you to explore.

You're talking about the existing dailies. The article about the Wizard's Vault specifically says the system only becomes available at level 80. "Once one of your characters reaches level 80, the Wizard’s Vault UI will be accessible to all characters on your account, regardless of which expansions you own."
 

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

There are plenty of things you can theoretically do without being able to practically do them. For example. if an Asura whose level appropriate for Metrica Province gets a daily to go a do stuff in Plains of Ashford it's plausible that it's unrealistic for them to do. The game does nothing to inform you that you can use LA as a midway station and a hub to get to every starter zone, likewise, you're never told that you have the WP for every starter zone, and it's (low probability granted) plausible that the player has too little money to get back and forth if the gold reward goes away as well, as it's implied that it does as it says hat the rewards are replaced with Astral Claim.

The game tells you about asura gates at level 18 and that you can find them in each major city. Going through the one in your home city will take you to LA where you'll see all the gates - at that point the fact that it's a hub is self-explanatory. Also it's a multiplayer game, if someone wants to get to a distant location and doesn't know how they can just ask in chat and someone will tell them.

As for ending up with no money the solution there is to either find something in your inventory or bank you can sell to a merchant, kill something and sell whatever drops or gather some crafting materials. (Or again ask in chat and someone can tell you that you can go to the Heart of the Mists via the PvP menu from anywhere in the game, and use that asura gate to get to LA and then to your home city, or any other city you want to go to.)

I understand the game has a lot of mechanics and processes to learn, but when the vast majority of existing players clearly figured it out one way or another I think it's reasonable to assume new players will be able to do the same.

[Malus.2184]

44 minutes ago, Danikat.8537 said:

You're talking about the existing dailies. The article about the Wizard's Vault specifically says the system only becomes available at level 80. "Once one of your characters reaches level 80, the Wizard’s Vault UI will be accessible to all characters on your account, regardless of which expansions you own."
 

The game tells you about asura gates at level 18 and that you can find them in each major city. Going through the one in your home city will take you to LA where you'll see all the gates - at that point the fact that it's a hub is self-explanatory. Also it's a multiplayer game, if someone wants to get to a distant location and doesn't know how they can just ask in chat and someone will tell them.

As for ending up with no money the solution there is to either find something in your inventory or bank you can sell to a merchant, kill something and sell whatever drops or gather some crafting materials. (Or again ask in chat and someone can tell you that you can go to the Heart of the Mists via the PvP menu from anywhere in the game, and use that asura gate to get to LA and then to your home city, or any other city you want to go to.)

I understand the game has a lot of mechanics and processes to learn, but when the vast majority of existing players clearly figured it out one way or another I think it's reasonable to assume new players will be able to do the same.

My initial argument still stands as people can plausibly have no money. It's unusual for people who know the game and have no money. I'm talking about new players though and even amongst veterans there are issues with knowing how the game economy works so them being confused is natural, especially if they come from a game like WoW where the money just flows.

And telling you what Asura gates are and where they are is all good and people need to be told and shown explicitly how they work and shown where to find them and how they're connected to each other. Most people will legit never give it a second thought to where an Asura gate leads if told, "You can find them in major cities," since, unless they have multiple characters of different races they only know one. It's the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon.

And no, new players will in most cases be unable to as their habitual way of thinking is different as they've yet to learn all the tips and tricks. This is literally a theory within developmental psychology called the Zone of Proximal Development that's 80+ years old and is continuously being expanded upon as we learn more about how humans do t and learn things since the base theory is rock-solid. 

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

Incorrect. The system is available at LVL 2. You only unlock the full system at LVL 80. At LVL 2 you get the PvE and PvP dailies with the WvW ones coming in at the LVL where you can go into WvW. And you do get Dailies that are outside of the zones you have to nudge you to explore.

Quote

Once one of your characters reaches level 80, the Wizard’s Vault UI will be accessible to all characters on your account,

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/discover-the-wonders-within-the-wizards-vault-in-guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure/

yes, current dailies are available sooner than that, but the Wizard's vault is specifically stated that it will start getting accessible when you get at least one lvl 80.

 

Just now, Malus.2184 said:

And telling you what Asura gates are and where they are is all good and people need to be told and shown explicitly how they work and shown where to find them and how they're connected to each other.

story step introducing them literally has it going you from your race home city to LA, where you can see other gates to other races home cities.

[Malus.2184]

1 minute ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/discover-the-wonders-within-the-wizards-vault-in-guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure/

yes, current dailies are available sooner than that, but the Wizard's vault is specifically stated that it will start getting accessible when you get at least one lvl 80.

 

story step introducing them literally has it going you from your race home city to LA, where you can see other gates to other races home cities.

That's even worse as it means you get nothing at all while leveling up, which would delay participation even more.

And it's possible to utterly ignore the story. And yes, some people do. Unlikely and still plausible.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

1 minute ago, Malus.2184 said:

That's even worse as it means you get nothing at all while leveling up, which would delay participation even more.

And it's possible to utterly ignore the story. And yes, some people do. Unlikely and still plausible.

To be perfectly fair, while argument of removing sub80lvl dailies is it's own separate discussion, I do not think that people should be obsessing over dailies while they are still learning basics of the game. So that may be actually a good change in lessening systems overload on new players (at least those whom did not fall into the lvl 80 booster trap)

[Danikat.8537]

2 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

My initial argument still stands as people can plausibly have no money. It's unusual for people who know the game and have no money. I'm talking about new players though and even amongst veterans there are issues with knowing how the game economy works so them being confused is natural, especially if they come from a game like WoW where the money just flows.

And telling you what Asura gates are and where they are is all good and people need to be told and shown explicitly how they work and shown where to find them and how they're connected to each other. Most people will legit never give it a second thought to where an Asura gate leads if told, "You can find them in major cities," since, unless they have multiple characters of different races they only know one. It's the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon.

And no, new players will in most cases be unable to as their habitual way of thinking is different as they've yet to learn all the tips and tricks. This is literally a theory within developmental psychology called the Zone of Proximal Development that's 80+ years old and is continuously being expanded upon as we learn more about how humans do t and learn things since the base theory is rock-solid. 

I know players can end up with no money, it's happened to me 3 times that I remember, including once when I was new. That's why I know it's a simple problem to solve, because I've had to solve it and I did it in exactly the way I described - I ran around the area I was in (I think it was Kessex Hills the first time) killing enemies and sold whatever dropped to a merchant until I had enough to pay for a waypoint to where I was going. (I could have also just run back to Divinity's Reach, but at the time that seemed like a very long way to go.)

I also think you're not giving new players enough credit and missing the point that the ones incapable of comprehending what an asura gate is and how to use it are likely to be equally incapable of comprehending how daily achievements work and so aren't going to be worrying about how to get 1/2 way across the world to do them. Most new GW2 players are adults (legally they have to be at least 12 and as far as I know most the younger ones play with parental supervision) and it's extremely unlikely it will be anyone's first game or even first RPG. They will understand there are things they need to figure out. Look at the kind of questions actual new players ask, either in chat or here on the forum. No one is struggling to comprehend the idea that a modern game has a fast travel system, the nearest we get is people getting mixed up with the terminology from previous games they've played.

[Cuks.8241]

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

People loathe to do things they feel forced to do. If they have no interest in PvP and the only way they can practically get Astral Claim then they're going to resent every moment they're doing PvP. 

Personally, when I saw the existence of a PvP weekly that requires a lot of time spent I could feel the bile rising in me even though I know that I can just skip it since I find PvP to be an unbalanced mess that I in no way find fun.

And while this is anecdotal I'm quite sure that there are other people who have similar sentiments since this is psychological science that has been studied extensively to the point that it was in my textbooks and education.

Pvp dailies already exist. They are in the same category as all other dailies. How is this any different? You want to remove the ability for pvp players to complete the "battle pass"?

I'm quite sure you will be able to get all the rewards by playing only the game mode you like. 

[Danikat.8537]

9 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I'm quite sure you will be able to get all the rewards by playing only the game mode you like. 

The announcement already said we'll be able to choose if we want to do PvE, PvP, WvW or all 3: "One of the goals for the Wizard’s Vault as a system is to give suggestions to players looking for something to do in the game. To that end, we have daily, weekly, and special objectives related to PvE, WvW, and PvP. Those three categories are presented as checkbox options so you can choose from one, two, or all three categories."

[enigmatic.3576]

The OP is making an issue out of nothing.  There are numerous ways to obtain ascended trinkets; many available since before laurels were even a thing.  AR is only relevant in fractals which you can earn directly from fractals.  Players cannot access the LFG sections for the various tiers until they've increased their fractal level up to certain thresholds. 

They also seem to use the whole "well if the players chooses not to do A, B, C... X, Y, Z" argument to back themselves up.  Yes, if someone chooses to not do any of the available options then of course they won't get ascended equipment but that is on them because they made that choice.

Edited August 16, 2023 by enigmatic.3576

[Rubi Bayer.8493]

On 8/16/2023 at 4:06 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

The announcement already said we'll be able to choose if we want to do PvE, PvP, WvW or all 3: "One of the goals for the Wizard’s Vault as a system is to give suggestions to players looking for something to do in the game. To that end, we have daily, weekly, and special objectives related to PvE, WvW, and PvP. Those three categories are presented as checkbox options so you can choose from one, two, or all three categories."

I want to jump in briefly and emphasize this. Here's a little peek (peak? 😉  iykyk)  at what that looks like in game. The system is pretty flexible so you can focus on content that you like to do!