Agony Resistance and the Removal of Daily Login Rewards

[Ashen.2907]

4 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

No they dont all cost laurels you can BUY-2046 PFR by just playing fractals or get  them from drops in there as core only aswell.

 

My thought as w3ll. For the most part my laurels were used to get gold while I earned most of my ascended trinkets in fractals or wvw.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Malus.2184]

14 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

No, they don't. Really, make sure you actually check the list instead of guessing. Hint: you were talking about fractals. So... check the fractal vendors.
Inb4 "but I need it now!" -no, you don't and new players start at tier 1 anyways. Nothing about what I said is in any way a "strawman", those are simply solutions you want to dismiss because you want to use your false claim as a springboard for AR change.
And, again, you're free to want and propose AR system change, but the reasoning you've tried using here is not correct. And really, all the reasoning you need for the AR change is "I don't like it because it's not account wide and/or it makes it hard to use AR when swapping characters".

 

...what do you need agony resistance for if not for high level fractals? "Strawman" how? 😐

This would take forever and effectively be out of reach for most people since it requires a lot of gold in addition to buying the Agony Infusions. And then you have to repeat it all if you want to try another build. Again, an argument completely stripped of context and once more ignoring the solution I explicitly stated would solve this issue forever. And you need AR even for the high t1 else you die. Buying AR pots will only reduce the damage instead of negating it.

[Malus.2184]

18 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

No they dont all cost laurels you can BUY-2046 PFR by just playing fractals or get  them from drops in there as core only aswell.

 

Huge costs for gold and random drops. Arguments without context are technical truths and technical truths are in essence no different than lies of omission.

[Linken.6345]

4 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Huge costs for gold and random drops. Arguments without context are technical truths and technical truths are in essence no different than lies of omission.

How is 10 pristine fractal relics huge gold cost?

Edit

And yea I would not say 6g15s per trinket is a huge gold cost either.

It is timgated by the 15 pristine relics tho

Edited August 21, 2023 by Linken.6345

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

This would take forever and effectively be out of reach for most people since it requires a lot of gold in addition to buying the Agony Infusions. And then you have to repeat it all if you want to try another build.

What "would take forever and effecively be out of reach for most people"? 10 pristine fractal relics? Doing dailies? Neither of these would take forver or is somehow "out of reach" for anyone.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Trejgon.9367]

6 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

This would take forever and effectively be out of reach for most people since it requires a lot of gold in addition to buying the Agony Infusions. And then you have to repeat it all if you want to try another build. Again, an argument completely stripped of context and once more ignoring the solution I explicitly stated would solve this issue forever. And you need AR even for the high t1 else you die. Buying AR pots will only reduce the damage instead of negating it.

Speaking of misrepresenting data or omission of facts - up to scale level 20, Spectral Agony does not kick in.

Initial scale 20 agony ticks for 10% of your max health per tick - this with some sensible modicum of managing - and coupled with that fact that alot of spectral agony mechanics can be dodged (skipping application of it completely) recomended agony resistance for this level is 8 (!) by which agony ticles.

At the highest level that is still T1, the recomended agony resistance is 17. And "recomended" in here btw means minimal resistance value at which agony is reduced to it's minimal value.

I have personally run high T2 fractals in the past with sub20 agony resistance with guildmates. We were able to clear without me dragging the team down, by the virtue of knowing mechnics, where and when and how agony is applied, and then dodging agony applying strikes.

As for the last sentence - that's how ALL AR works - it reduces spectral agony damage, but never nullifies it, it will always deal at least 1% of your total hp per tick.

Reworking AR to be account wide progression instead of being tied to specific gear piece is a discussion on it's own, that could be argumented for, but removal of daily login rewards does not make anyone unable to progress "as intended" with the base fractal system.

[Malus.2184]

15 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Speaking of misrepresenting data or omission of facts - up to scale level 20, Spectral Agony does not kick in.

How is including this omitting facts?

Quote

And you need AR even for the high t1 else you die. Buying AR pots will only reduce the damage instead of negating it.

I feel you're just repeating what I say to do "I'm rubber and you're glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

18 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

How is 10 pristine fractal relics huge gold cost?

Edit

And yea I would not say 6g15s per trinket is a huge gold cost either.

It is timgated by the 15 pristine relics tho

My post never said anything about gold cost, so you bringing it up as a counter-argument is silly. And if you get into a situation where the Recs are the high ones the player is caught in a Catch-22 where they need the AR to do the content and can only get the AR if they do the content.

[nolasthitnotomorrow.8563]

On 8/16/2023 at 7:39 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

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!

 

This is great and it actually might make me want to play more WvW than sPVP. I played only sPvP since original release, then tried some pve and wvw, but it feels unrewarding.
With reward tracks I do what I enjoy and I get some rewards for that (in sPVP) I even managed to craft 4 legendary pieces doing that, while being quite a casual. 
Having better dailies in wvw might be just what I want.

[Trejgon.9367]

28 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

I feel you're just repeating what I say to do "I'm rubber and you're glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you."

If that is what you took from it, then the only recommendation I can give is to go back and re-read it, because a simple sentence of "And you need AR even for the high t1 else you die. Buying AR pots will only reduce the damage instead of negating it." is misleading, and in that post what I did was presenting a proper data breakdown on how T1 fractals and spectral agony mechanic are structured. Which shows quite clearly that:

1. There is a decent chunk of the scale where you can tun those fractals without any agony and receive exactly 0 damage from the mechanics, because it doesn't kick in there at all,

2. Agony requirement for "high" T1 is small,

3. all AR resistance reduces the agony damage and none "negate it" (completely) so implication of AR pots being there somehow inferior to infusions is also a misleading statement

4. There is also a decent range of scales, where even without any or with less than recommended AR agony damage is perfectly manageable

5. A lot of fractals have agony resistance applied in a way, where you can virtually "just dodge" at proper timing and not receive it at all, meaning that you could challenge those fractals at higher levels without dying

In other words:

"you need AR even for high t1 else you die" is misleading on the front "or else you die" - because mechanically it is avoidable, and it never one shots, so it could be outhealed (either by yourself or the party healer), structure of the sentence implies that it is a big requirement, but in fact the amount needed to reduce the agony ticks to their minimum can be easily achieved with just a single ascended item with a single infusion, that does not cost that high.

I do understand that perhaps my original wording could be too convoluted for some, so here this post presents the core points in a simplified and more clear way. Have a nice day.

[Ashen.2907]

On 8/21/2023 at 1:07 AM, Malus.2184 said:

Huge costs for gold and random drops. Arguments without context are technical truths and technical truths are in essence no different than lies of omission.

 

3 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

My post never said anything about gold cost, so you bringing it up as a counter-argument is silly. 

Accusing others of lies while claiming to have said nothing about gold cost after directly commenting about gold cost is an interesting choice.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Ashen.2907

[Malus.2184]

3 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

 

Accusing others of lies while claiming to have said nothing about gold cost after directly commenting about gold cost is an interesting choice.

Yes, a huge cost in gold, you still have to pay that unless you get disgustingly lucky. Even if you can buy rings and you still end up in the Catch-22. I've no issue with doing something giving you currency to be able to do more of that stuff. This is just a bad design that an unrelated currency allows you to advance.

[Malus.2184]

6 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

If that is what you took from it, then the only recommendation I can give is to go back and re-read it, because a simple sentence of "And you need AR even for the high t1 else you die. Buying AR pots will only reduce the damage instead of negating it." is misleading, and in that post what I did was presenting a proper data breakdown on how T1 fractals and spectral agony mechanic are structured. Which shows quite clearly that:

1. There is a decent chunk of the scale where you can tun those fractals without any agony and receive exactly 0 damage from the mechanics, because it doesn't kick in there at all,

2. Agony requirement for "high" T1 is small,

3. all AR resistance reduces the agony damage and none "negate it" (completely) so implication of AR pots being there somehow inferior to infusions is also a misleading statement

4. There is also a decent range of scales, where even without any or with less than recommended AR agony damage is perfectly manageable

5. A lot of fractals have agony resistance applied in a way, where you can virtually "just dodge" at proper timing and not receive it at all, meaning that you could challenge those fractals at higher levels without dying

In other words:

"you need AR even for high t1 else you die" is misleading on the front "or else you die" - because mechanically it is avoidable, and it never one shots, so it could be outhealed (either by yourself or the party healer), structure of the sentence implies that it is a big requirement, but in fact the amount needed to reduce the agony ticks to their minimum can be easily achieved with just a single ascended item with a single infusion, that does not cost that high.

I do understand that perhaps my original wording could be too convoluted for some, so here this post presents the core points in a simplified and more clear way. Have a nice day.

1, People always say that, and then we have to scrape them off the floor constantly.

2. And it still exists.

3. I think you're thinking of when you activate the CM on 100, 99, 97, and 97. I've personally never taken Agony Damage from anything else while having enough AR.

4. And those should allow you to get better AR organically so you could do higher Fractals. The system is that you need a third currency.

5. You already expressed similar in 1 so my answer will be the same.

 

[Sobx.1758]

24 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

[excuses]

If you don't want to play the game then don't expect the rewards, not much else to say here. "But what if I only have time to log in and out?!" -well, then apparently you don't have time to play any game at all. Do dailies and you get laurels, easy. There's about 0% chance someone wanting to play high fractals is somehow unable to complete dailies.

[Trejgon.9367]

1 hour ago, Malus.2184 said:

I think you're thinking of when you activate the CM on 100, 99, 97, and 97. I've personally never taken Agony Damage from anything else while having enough AR.

With recomended or above AR, agony damage per tick is 1% of your total hp - it is easilly missable, but it is there. This is universal mechanic not tied to CMs.

[Druhim.9743]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If you don't want to play the game then don't expect the rewards, not much else to say here. "But what if I only have time to log in and out?!" -well, then apparently you don't have time to play any game at all. Do dailies and you get laurels, easy. There's about 0% chance someone wanting to play high fractals is somehow unable to complete dailies.

Not to mention that you do get 5 AA just for logging in, and a bag of laurels only costs 10 AA..

[Anyandrell.6238]

On 8/15/2023 at 2:03 PM, Malus.2184 said:

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.

Gee I wonder how were we doing it when only core was released....

[Jash.3104]

So it turned out there actually is less choice now.

[Malus.2184]

21 hours ago, Anyandrell.6238 said:

Gee I wonder how were we doing it when only core was released....

Before or after login rewards became a thing? Or before or after Fractals became an organised thing?

[Anyandrell.6238]

On 8/23/2023 at 9:47 AM, Malus.2184 said:

Before or after login rewards became a thing? Or before or after Fractals became an organised thing?

Before anything. Plain core.

[Malus.2184]

On 9/5/2023 at 3:37 PM, Anyandrell.6238 said:

Before anything. Plain core.

So, before they became an organised thing. While comparing something to how it was in the past is a natural thing for humans it's also a fallacious process. Everything in the past is by default okay or better because it was in the past. In the specific moment we tend to focus on the negative as an evolutionary trait since by doing that there's a higher chance we survive. It's a leftover from a time when the negative reactions to things could easily be the difference between life and death. Over time we forget the negative and only remember the positive, this is in pop culture called "nostalgia goggles" and is in the subfield of psychology called psychological phenomenology how we remember things habitually. This ensures continuity of kind and reverence to the past so we avoid the chaos of a completely unpredictable future, again a thing from the evolutionary process and a leftover from the time were we lived in small tribes as it helped maintain group cohesion, and we are social animals after all.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

32 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

So, before they became an organised thing. While comparing something to how it was in the past is a natural thing for humans it's also a fallacious process. Everything in the past is by default okay or better because it was in the past. In the specific moment we tend to focus on the negative as an evolutionary trait since by doing that there's a higher chance we survive. It's a leftover from a time when the negative reactions to things could easily be the difference between life and death. Over time we forget the negative and only remember the positive, this is in pop culture called "nostalgia goggles" and is in the subfield of psychology called psychological phenomenology how we remember things habitually. This ensures continuity of kind and reverence to the past so we avoid the chaos of a completely unpredictable future, again a thing from the evolutionary process and a leftover from the time were we lived in small tribes as it helped maintain group cohesion, and we are social animals after all.

Pretty pointless. The interesting question is, what were the negatives in your opinion. Surely you remember them?

[Malus.2184]

5 hours ago, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

Pretty pointless. The interesting question is, what were the negatives in your opinion. Surely you remember them?

The same as it is now. It was a nightmare to get Agony Resistance, especially if you wanted it on multiple builds. And I remember it being even harder due to the difficulty of obtaining Agony Resistance slots.

Nothing has changed in that regard except for the availability of AR slots. And we have the reality we have now. Comparing it to the reality that was is...quite silly. Analogy. Would you ever accept an argument about the speed of cars by using the early development as a standard?

[Manasa Devi.7958]

37 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

The same as it is now. It was a nightmare to get Agony Resistance, especially if you wanted it on multiple builds. And I remember it being even harder due to the difficulty of obtaining Agony Resistance slots.

Nothing has changed in that regard except for the availability of AR slots. And we have the reality we have now. Comparing it to the reality that was is...quite silly. Analogy. Would you ever accept an argument about the speed of cars by using the early development as a standard?

If nothing changed in a system that worked fine for many people engaging with it, it seems to me that the emerging problem is with player attitude, not the system.

Having to accomplish certain things to be able to engage with other things is a staple element for MMOs. Guild Wars 2 has already made quite a lot of additional ways to increase agony resistance available. I guess it's never enough for some.

Also, who are these mythical players who care about nothing except playing high level fractals straight out of the gate? I've never met one. How would one even begin to become aware of the concept before having engaged with the game more broadly? This whole issue seems to be a lot of manufactured discontent just for the sake of being contrary. Certainly after it has become clear that the original concern was wholly unfounded when it turned out that there's a potentially far larger number of laurels to be earned over time by means of trivial gameplay than there has ever been before.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Manasa Devi.7958

[Malus.2184]

15 minutes ago, Manasa Devi.7958 said:

If nothing changed in a system that worked fine for many people engaging with it, it seems to me that the emerging problem is with player attitude, not the system.

Having to accomplish certain things to be able to engage with other things is a staple element for MMOs. Guild Wars 2 has already made quite a lot of additional ways to increase agony resistance available. I guess it's never enough for some.

Also, who are these mythical players who care about nothing except playing high level fractals straight out of the gate? I've never met one. How would one even begin to become aware of the concept before having engaged with the game more broadly? This whole issue seems to be a lot of manufactured discontent just for the sake of being contrary. Certainly after it has become clear that the original concern was wholly unfounded when it turned out that there's a potentially far larger number of laurels to be earned over time by means of trivial gameplay than there has ever been before.

Categorical error. Just because something works in no way means that it works well. You should always keep the two separate. And there are only really ways now with SotO and the Wizard's Vault as I think that Ascended gear is available regardless of what version of the game you have. One of my initial arguments where that if you had no access to those things then they're impossible to get. You're making the mistake of making yourself the standard of what others should have/be able to. If I did that only around 8 million of the human population would be normal if I took my standard as being the average.

And just because you never met one has no impact on their existence. Your experience is a self-selecting bias. And I know a t least one. I in no way see them as the norm and I know they exist.

[Manasa Devi.7958]

50 minutes ago, Malus.2184 said:

Categorical error. Just because something works in no way means that it works well. You should always keep the two separate. And there are only really ways now with SotO and the Wizard's Vault as I think that Ascended gear is available regardless of what version of the game you have. One of my initial arguments where that if you had no access to those things then they're impossible to get. You're making the mistake of making yourself the standard of what others should have/be able to. If I did that only around 8 million of the human population would be normal if I took my standard as being the average.

And just because you never met one has no impact on their existence. Your experience is a self-selecting bias. And I know a t least one. I in no way see them as the norm and I know they exist.

I do feel it works well. You don't. Your mistake is that for you, your dislike of the system implies that it doesn't work well. That is not an absolute, that's just opinion. I'm not making anyone the standard, I'm just finding it glaring;y obvious that anyone who can meaningfully engage with high level fractals can also do what it takes to acquire the means to do so. It is like that now and it has always been. The problem can only be an unwillingness, and an unwillingness to adhere to the ways of the game just raises the question of why one desires to play the game at all. Fractals are a stated end game activity and as with all games, it takes some playing to get to the end game.

So you know someone who is a radical outlier. Games aren't designed around such people.

You want an example of how little effort is required? Here's one regardless. I have a core only account with 1 character I ever played. I made this account when the game went free to play, to sample the experience of playing that way. I managed to get a free code eventually that made it equal to a paid account, through some bubble tea advertisement. I used it for a while to get extra login rewards but I soon gave that up because it wasn't worth the bother. I logged it in after 5 years of inactivity (which I could tell from my private guild's roster) to, once again, sample a new experience, being the Wizard's Vault. I did trivially simple dailies and weeklies for 2 weeks, having maybe spent 2 hours altogether during those weeks, on a hardly developed character. It now has 3 ascended armor pieces, an ascended weapon and a few hundred astral acclaim remaining. For the second weekly I did a tier 25 fractal, with ease. Long story short, there is absolutely no issue with how the game lets its players progress into fractals. Any conceivable issue is with the individual.

If you want a real life simile, as you seem to be fond of those, you're claiming that there are people who insist to run, but they can't be bothered to even attempt to walk.

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by Manasa Devi.7958