Passerbye.6291 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) I'd be fine with agony resistance being removed from the game, but then I'd expect them to put back the old system where you can only increase your fractal levels 1 by 1 so I don't get any more people who are at T4 while they clearly don't belong there. There is a reason why T3 is a pug hell like Zephidel mentioned. People slap on a few pieces of ascended gear, usually accessories with laurels/specialization weapons, and most recently the wizard's vault, then grab some +9s from the TP and immediately roll into T3 without any understanding of their character, the game or fractals and become an absolute burden to the group. This very fact leads to T3 commonly being the worst fractal experience in the game. About ascended gear being gated etc. the game practically throws ascended gear at you the moment you start doing any form of endgame content, just doing easy IBS 3 daily will likely get you enough ascended gear to progress through fractal tiers by the time you are ready to handle higher tiers, and there are many more things you can do to expedite ascended acquisition. If a player in this game thinks ascended is hard to get or is too much of a time gate, they have no business playing T4. The chances that they are somehow a good player with sufficient knowledge of their own character and the encounters is minimal at best. About giving incentives to veteran players to help low level players in lower tiers, why do the playerbase in this game require handholding every step of the way? Just grab a few more people who are new to the content, have some synergy, you know, slap on some group healing skills, boons etc. to create the bare minimum of synergy and you'll have a great time learning mechanics and making progress. The moment I join a T1 to help people as a healer, I immediately remove all fun from those encounters. I either have to press buttons with my nose to diminish my output enough to make it look like they have to do mechanics, or I overheal and buff them so much that they get this false sense of security and start ignoring everything. On this note, reading your post, I get the impression that you think gear is what separates people in T1 and T4, but I'm pretty sure anyone who does T4s or CMs daily can outperform the vast majority of people who "can't get ascended" with green gear. Edited January 20 by Passerbye.6291 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZephidelGRS.9520 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 18 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: But the grind tends to not have much to do with teaching how to play or how the mechanics work, that is the issue I have with it. I also did not say for veterans to carry new players but to teach and guide them, using external rewards to motivate veterans to teach in pugs groups. Since anet is bad at teaching the mechanics in fractals, I think that making the community organically get involved would help. It would be even better not to have the gold tax grind that just serves nothing more than a gold sink if it does not teach/help new player learn the mechanics. Grinding does not equate to learning. As said: Astralporing.1957 replied to ronkul.1320's topic in Instanced Group Content And that's the point - it does not force them to learn anything. The only thing it "forces" them to do is earn and spend gold. And difficulty is already monitored and gated through fractal levels theoretically not through gear or agony resistance grind. If a person gets carried and then becomes a bad pug later on it is the way the system and content was made that didn't teach the players how to play in the first place while being carried. Hard disagree. The only case where a player didn't learn anything is when they choose to not learn. Unless you meant teaching and guiding as in literally being lectured in a classroom, if your group is repeatedly blasted to smithereens by Amala's lightnings then someone has to start wondering: Wow this is hard, how do I avoid dying here? Turns out all you need to do is pressing your Special Action Key to avoid her lightnings. And if you hover over the button, it actually says "USE THIS TO SURVIVE". Same with the last boss in Deepstone. The success difference between groups actually pressing the Special Action Key and groups that don't and wipe is insane. Yet this Fractal does spend a good amount of time before going in the boss to teach you that pressing the key = more tiles to stand on = less dying. And if you hover over the button, guess what it says? "USE THIS TO SURVIVE". Most Tier 3 pugs fear the beach ball boss in Shattered Observatory. Usually because of the ball part: if you drop the ball, the group dies. How do they know that? Because dying too many times teach them that dropping the ball is dangerous. That's why you then have a bunch of clueless players trying to chase after the ball, but often failing and then dying. But if you hover over the Special Action Key, do you know what it says? "USE THIS TO SURVIVE". And if you think that's not fair, this Fractal does spend a good amount of time just before that to teach you the beach ball game and what the special button does. I can go on, but people choosing to not learn and being spoonfed the information is not a failure on the game's part. Yes the game doesn't "force" you to learn, but if you die too many times can you honestly say the game doesn't make you have to learn the mechanics? And if you ask me "but I'm new, how am I supposed to know these things?", you already have the answer. You learn these in the lower levels where the pressure is not as high and you actually have time to read everything. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Yes I agree with you guys to learn these mechanics at lower levels, but as I said before the gating should be systematic like the old system of fractals that you guys mentioned and I suggested before to turn back to that version with a few tweaks (like having the lowest fractal level determine the fractal group level but if you are personally within 5-10 fractal levels of that group level your fractal level still advances). This will keep lower fractal level players from suddenly bandwagoning to the highest fractal level when their personal level is still at fractal level 1 or something like that. Ascended gear and agony resistance is just an unnecessary gold tax (which is a reward for fractals, so the chicken and egg problem - you need to get ascended gear through grind to get faster ascended gear). Also players being encouraged to play with a wide range of player levels to help each other is one of the pillars the game came with. I agree that players should not be forced to play with lower level fractal players and get better rewards doing so but they should have some good incentives to do that ("want to" not "need to"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Also I agree with the beach ball boss, also the death tag mechanic is a must too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) 2 hours ago, ronkul.1320 said: The agony mechanic is a hard gate through a loophole called the gold tax. There is only one recommended fractal per tier making grouping with others less often in lower tiers compared to the 3 dailies that auto completes lower tier dailies. You are forgetting the loot per fractal: the fractal encryptions, which go for 25s a piece. There is 1 recommended and 3 dailies, even in tier 1. Completing all of those 4 fractals per day, adding in the loot, results in at least 6-10g per day. That's from fractals alone. Now add the daily, the weekly, the low gold and mystic coin wizard vault items, the laurels and a player can, without excessively farming, reach enough gold to get past any gold gate there is. 2 hours ago, ronkul.1320 said: Bridge to legendary: https://www.pcgamer.com/arenanet-guild-wars-2-ascended/ https://www.engadget.com/2012-11-13-arenanet-explains-new-ascended-item-tier.html https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/ Yes I agreed with you that ascended was retroactively added in my previous posts to try to retain the hard core or grinders that were streaming out the game. Since legendaries were considered the ultimate goals from beginning (as cosmetics) to end (as utility gear), anet made them the last tier after ascended got introduced as you said to please the ones who went for or are going for them. Ascended would still have less functionality than legendary gear just more than exotic gear so they would still be a mid goal to the end goal of legendaries. I stand corrected on their communication. My bad. 2 hours ago, ronkul.1320 said: The majority of players may not want certain horizontal progression systems (like having too many currencies) but they were adamantly opposed to the vertical gear setup of the introduced ascended gear. On the forums and reddit they stated they didn't want a gear treadmill or similar vertical progression systems (like harder to get BIS gear) and it created a bigger exodus of players after the hard core/grinders left (there was "no end game") for a time until it cooled down with anet trying to promise not to introduced new tiers. Anet tried pleasing both crowds and ended up pissing off both crowds. Also I said that to make exotics closer are same base stats state wise to ascended/legendary gear to balance (as you said) the gears in exchange for my utility from ascended gear and legendary gear (which would only make them superior in a utility sense and not a stat sense to exotic gear). One could argue that they have again mobed the goal post. Giving legendary gear the amount of utility it has, has resulted in de facto making legendary even better than any of the gear tiers before. The only reason no one complains is because many players enjoy having that goal and convenience. Again there is simply no need to reduce the stat difference here. Neither is the game designed or balanced around ascended/legendary, nor is increasing the utility of ascended/legendary horizontal. It's just a different type of vertical progression, and in you example even both. Edited January 20 by Cyninja.2954 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 5 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said: You are forgetting the loot per fractal: the fractal encryptions, which go for 25s a piece. There is 1 recommended and 3 dailies, even in tier 1. Completing all of those 4 fractals per day, adding in the loot, results in at least 6-10g per day. That's from fractals alone. Now add the daily, the weekly, the low gold and mystic coin wizard vault items, the laurels and a player can, without excessively farming, reach enough gold to get past any gold gate there is. I stand corrected on their communication. My bad. One could argue that they have again mobed the goal post. Giving legendary gear the amount of utility it has, has resulted in de facto making legendary even better than any of the gear tiers before. The only reason no one complains is because many players enjoy having that goal and convenience. Again there is simply no need to reduce the stat difference here. Neither is the game designed or balanced around ascended/legendary, nor is increasing the utility of ascended/legendary horizontal. It's just a different type of vertical progression, and in you example even both. However completing those lower level dailies is harder for new people because fractals is group content and as said more of the population is in t4. Also the game designers did keep in mind the power of ascended stats (maybe not for a full balance but as dps checks) when they first designed raids and to and extent CM fractals and strikes. So yes most of the game is designed around exotics but not the top of the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 16 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: Yes I agree with you guys to learn these mechanics at lower levels, but as I said before the gating should be systematic like the old system of fractals that you guys mentioned and I suggested before to turn back to that version with a few tweaks (like having the lowest fractal level determine the fractal group level but if you are personally within 5-10 fractal levels of that group level your fractal level still advances). The old system was a hard gate, and it was worse and far less fun in every way. 16 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: This will keep lower fractal level players from suddenly bandwagoning to the highest fractal level when their personal level is still at fractal level 1 or something like that. Ascended gear and agony resistance is just an unnecessary gold tax (which is a reward for fractals, so the chicken and egg problem - you need to get ascended gear through grind to get faster ascended gear). Again, this gold tax is non existant when factoring for rewards versus cost. It would make far more sense to rework fractal agony infusions to be more in line with every type of content, aka an infusion rework. 16 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: Also players being encouraged to play with a wide range of player levels to help each other is one of the pillars the game came with. Every player should be allowed to retain their freedom to choose whom they want to play with. If a player decides to help new players, there is nothing stopping them from doing so now. On the contrary, the reward incentive is already there. 16 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: I agree that players should not be forced to play with lower level fractal players and get better rewards doing so but they should have some good incentives to do that ("want to" not "need to"). Already happening while not making it to "easy" for new players to get carried. If a new player joins a T4 or T4+CM group doing "recs", there is a high chance no one will care if they underperform. That new player will also not learn anything by being carried. In order for players to learn, they have to have a learning process actually take place. Getting carried through content, and changing the design to encourage carrying pthers, doesn't solve the issue of "helping". 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Of course fractals have the agony resistance so ascended gear is not needed stat wise for them but mechanically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) 6 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: However completing those lower level dailies is harder for new people because fractals is group content and as said more of the population is in t4. You have never done T1 daily+recommended I assume. The group fills pretty fast to this day. Once that is not the case, we can discuss. Hasn't happened in the close to 10 years by now. 6 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: Also the game designers did keep in mind the power of ascended stats (maybe not for a full balance but as dps checks) when they first designed raids and to and extent CM fractals and strikes. Raids have been completed in all greens. Strikes are mot significantly harder. The most recent steile CMs and feactal CMs are the odd ones out. Why are we discussing 2-3 encounters at the top top top end when it comes to gearing? Those fights are even more a reason to keep the gating in place given how they are absolutely untelated to gear in the first place. They are completely skill dependant and the assumption is that any player attempting the content has no issue clearing the gear required. 6 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: So yes most of the game is designed around exotics but not the top of the top. Yes, means there is no reason to adjust the gear when it worls for essentially everything. Edited January 20 by Cyninja.2954 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 (edited) I believe that hard gating is not necessary a bad thing if done right if it addresses the issues previous replies postulated about low fractal level players suddenly getting boosted to high end fractals thus creating "t3 pug hell." Edited January 20 by ronkul.1320 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Also I did play t1 dailies and recs a while back too, yes the groups do fill up fast but they are only in certain times of the day and it is because of the imbalance of the population due to the different tiers and fractal levels of the playerbase. WvW restructuring is also a way to combat WvW population imbalances. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Just now, ronkul.1320 said: I believe that hard gating is not necessary a bad thing is done right if it addresses the issues previous replies postulated about low fractal level players suddenly getting boosted to high end fractals thus creating "t3 pug hell." You can't solve skill issues with hard gating. You can postpone or encourage players become more skilled at the fame, but you can't "fix" this. Introducing a hard gate would indeed weed out more inexperienced players. It would also make this entire aspect less fun. I am unsure how a hard gate is superior and more fun than what we have now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Hard gating may not be more fun but may balance out the population issues if done with some more (but not better) incentives to do lower level tiers too. It is a population spread issue than anything. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 1 minute ago, ronkul.1320 said: Also I did play t1 dailies and recs a while back too, yes the groups do fill up fast but they are only in certain times of the day and it is because of the imbalance of the population due to the different tiers and fractal levels of the playerbase. WvW restructuring is also a way to combat WvW population imbalances. No, it's because of lower player activity and sure, having more total players will make this effect slightly weaker. WvW restructuring fixes a completely different issue most notably player stacking for maximizing rewards (and ironically does not fix time zone and thus player activity issues, which you are complaining about). So I am unsure how this is related to your suggestions here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Also the gold tax for the cost vs. reward issue is true in a way but the cost is upfront first then the reward is after you get the gear to do the content for the reward. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 1 minute ago, ronkul.1320 said: Hard gating may not be more fun but may balance out the population issues if done with some more (but not better) incentives to do lower level tiers too. It is a population spread issue than anything. No it wouldn't. Eventually every player would cap out at where ever they feel comfortable. Not wanting to progress is the only thing keeping players ar a certakn fractal level. No temporary gate will change this. Players already have the choice to play which ever fractal rank they want to. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Yea the time zone issue with the world restructuring has to be iron out I agree with you on that. Anet will probably have to input in player play time metrics for that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Well hard gating is more to keep the newbies from going too far deep right away. The incentives would spread the population. Sorry about that sentence merger before. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyninja.2954 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) 4 minutes ago, ronkul.1320 said: Also the gold tax for the cost vs. reward issue is true in a way but the cost is upfront first then the reward is after you get the gear to do the content for the reward. I've commented enough on this. The gold tax is insignificant in todays day and age. Sure, when ascended was introduced back in the day and a set cost 600-900 gold, things were different. Sorry but as someone mentioned, your suggestions merely read as:"I don't want to get ascended gear" or "one of my friends refuses to get ascended gear but I want to play T4 fracrals with them". I'm not seeing any benefit in your suggestions to the mode. Then only thing I agree with is that agony in general needs a rework, because it is not necessarily fun. I still think it serves its purpose well though for fractals. Going to bow out here, we are going in circles. Edited January 20 by Cyninja.2954 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 Well an agony rework would also eliminate the "gold tax" if done right where infusions are not the hard gate (if you don't have the gold). So yes you are right, ascended does not need to be eliminated if the core mechanic of agony was changed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronkul.1320 Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 I also do not think agony serves its purpose as a good gating mechanic through fractals anymore because it can be easily be bypassed with gold. There should be a better gating mechanic that is viable and not too unfun for keeping players from going in too deep on their first try. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Passerbye.6291 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) 1 hour ago, ronkul.1320 said: Well an agony rework would also eliminate the "gold tax" if done right where infusions are not the hard gate (if you don't have the gold). So yes you are right, ascended does not need to be eliminated if the core mechanic of agony was changed. Except there is no reason for there to not be an investment requirement for high tier fractals. We've come to a point in this game where we have builds doing 25-30k dps literally auto attacking, gear with best in slot stats literally being handed for doing your dailies (5-10 mins a day), the single most useful mount being farmable in a single day. All of these were results of people constantly complaining about things being too hard or grindy. People have been coming up with excuses to not play the game for years. Any guesses what that did in the end? People are still complaining about ascended somehow being too hard to get, about skyscale being too grindy, endgame instanced content requiring 4 brain cells held together by glue. People keep arguing about this or that being arbitrary, the whole game is arbitrary brother, a game is something you play in your spare time to entertain yourself and pass the time, stop trying to steer everything towards instant gratification, this MMO is not a hamster wheel, you have all the time in the world to do things at a reasonable pace, sit back and enjoy the journey. If you keep chasing the next thing every step of the way, you'll be faced with utter disappointment in the end in this game. I see this a lot with WoW players in this game. they come to the game with the preconceived notion that they must have the gear with the highest stats possible and rush to grab ascended gear, then feel burnt out because suddenly they are left aimless, seeing no purpose in even doing content with the gear they acquired because there is no next thing to acquire. Edited January 20 by Passerbye.6291 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashantara.8731 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 On 1/19/2024 at 10:09 AM, Parasite.5389 said: is there a TL:DR for this, because i had to turn on narrator to read this and it still makes no sense What, you don't enjoy walls of text with few to no paragraphs? 😄 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parasite.5389 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 24 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said: What, you don't enjoy walls of text with few to no paragraphs? 😄 I'll be fair, i've had more fun at an eye exam 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gop.8713 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 I think this thread and the ai thread are related ; ) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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