Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, let me start off with saying that I like the whole idea of “leveling up” your fractals for better rewards. It adds another sense of progression to the game that gives it more life.

However, what I have grown to hate is how agony works, and this is why. Your fractal reward level is decided by what YOUR current progression in the fractals are. So if you are at level 12, even if you do a level 27 dungeon with people, you will only get level 12 rewards…that’s fine. The problem is that since the method of acquiring agony resistance (AR) is grinding fractals, the agony in the level 27 dungeon will probably kill you since you didn’t do enough fractals to achieve the requisite AR.

There is really nothing you can do about that too, no skills like block or endure pain affect agony, and at least in my experience, you can’t even heal while being hit by it. The main issue here is that if you have friends that are at a higher fractal level than you, you essentially can’t play with them…even though you wouldn’t even get a better reward for the higher difficulty fractal. So agony right now is an exclusionary mechanic that stops friends from playing with friends.

I think the easy solution to this is to simply make agony damage scale with PERSONAL reward level, not the actual fractal level. This would mean that it would at least be possible for someone at level 12 fractal to group with their friends at level 29 fractal.

Otherwise, the only options for friends to play together are for either the higher level friends to play lower level fractals and sacrifice their rewards, or for the lower level friend to try to grind their way up to their higher level friends fractals…which will probably not happen because it’s a moving target.

I think that this idea would really help friends play fractals together without really giving anything away. Let me know what you guys think.

I don’t agree with this.

You should not be doing a fractal that much higher than your personal reward level, imho. Unless you are experienced, in which case your reward level would be higher, you probably can not handle the higher level fractal and will be a burden to your team more times than not.

And while your end rewards will be lower because of your personal rewards level (which we all know is BS because these rewards suck and are about the same at all levels it seems), you still get the benefit of the loot from those mobs at the higher levels.

The best option for you to play with your friends is to grind out a few more fractal levels and catch up to your friends.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I don’t agree with this.

You should not be doing a fractal that much higher than your personal reward level, imho. Unless you are experienced, in which case your reward level would be higher, you probably can not handle the higher level fractal and will be a burden to your team more times than not.

And while your end rewards will be lower because of your personal rewards level (which we all know is BS because these rewards suck and are about the same at all levels it seems), you still get the benefit of the loot from those mobs at the higher levels.

The best option for you to play with your friends is to grind out a few more fractal levels and catch up to your friends.

A few things…

First, if you don’t count unavoidable agony kills, I really don’t think most decent GW2 players need to go through the fractals 20 times to be able to handle the increased difficulty. I am fractal level 12, and was in a fractal level 23 the other day. Compared to many other party members, that were appropriately fractal-leveled, I went down a whole lot less. And mind you this was with me getting hid a lot harder by boss attacks that inflict agony. Some people just still haven’t learned to dodge or otherwise avoid attacks. Point is, I think that any GW2 player that is decent at the game can probably do the higher difficulty fractals if you don’t count the fact that the agony will just outright kill them.

Second, I don’t think that the monster loot is that big of a deal, but if it is, then the monster loot could be scaled to personal reward level as well (if it isn’t already).

Third, I will never catch my friends in fractal levels. The reason being that they tend to play more than me. While I am leveling up my fractals, they will be leveling up theirs as well, i.e. the rate of increase in their fractal levels is higher than mine.

It’s not fair to ask either me to have to go on a multi-day fractal grinding binge or my friends to stop playing just so we can play together. This whole agony thing is an exclusionary mechanic that stops friends from playing together and it represents a flaw from other MMORPGs that I thought GW2 wanted to “fix.”

I guess my issue with this is that even if your prl is 50, you still gain a chance for weapons and ascended when you do a 20 something. People like to try multiple times… So why wouldn’t people want to run the lower levels too, if they have the time? It’s nice the way they made the tiers, I think, and it already gives incentives for higher prls to help (karma, more ascended, etc)

LittleLepton.8915:

I guess my issue with this is that even if your prl is 50, you still gain a chance for weapons and ascended when you do a 20 something. People like to try multiple times… So why wouldn’t people want to run the lower levels too, if they have the time? It’s nice the way they made the tiers, I think, and it already gives incentives for higher prls to help (karma, more ascended, etc)

In my experience, most players will do whatever gives them the greatest reward for the least cost. And they don’t really want to do things that are going to give them a sub-par reward.

While it’s true that some players may want to do lower level fractals…this is specifically about friends trying to play together. And unless your friends do multiple fractals constantly, it makes it really difficult.

I know there may be some workarounds for this, but I really don’t see the great harm in scaling agony with personal reward level, and I think it would really help.

As is right now, the only reason I want to do fractals is to play with my friends and I have zero desire to go on a huge fractal grinding binge to try to catch up with them.

Creslin.1758:

LittleLepton.8915:

I guess my issue with this is that even if your prl is 50, you still gain a chance for weapons and ascended when you do a 20 something. People like to try multiple times… So why wouldn’t people want to run the lower levels too, if they have the time? It’s nice the way they made the tiers, I think, and it already gives incentives for higher prls to help (karma, more ascended, etc)

In my experience, most players will do whatever gives them the greatest reward for the least cost. And they don’t really want to do things that are going to give them a sub-par reward.

While it’s true that some players may want to do lower level fractals…this is specifically about friends trying to play together. And unless your friends do multiple fractals constantly, it makes it really difficult.

I know there may be some workarounds for this, but I really don’t see the great harm in scaling agony with personal reward level, and I think it would really help.

As is right now, the only reason I want to do fractals is to play with my friends and I have zero desire to go on a huge fractal grinding binge to try to catch up with them.

Most people who do fractals do multiple per day, a 40, 30, and a 20. The daily reward is sometimes worth it.

I just don’t see why other folks should be able to run higher level fractals without earning them… That’s my opinion. I mean, I can run 40s, I’ve worked hard for it. Why should people just be able to without agony damage mitigation?

I respect your opinions and I’m fine with your post, I just have my own opinion, so please don’t think I’m trying to start anything.

LittleLepton.8915:

Creslin.1758:

LittleLepton.8915:

I guess my issue with this is that even if your prl is 50, you still gain a chance for weapons and ascended when you do a 20 something. People like to try multiple times… So why wouldn’t people want to run the lower levels too, if they have the time? It’s nice the way they made the tiers, I think, and it already gives incentives for higher prls to help (karma, more ascended, etc)

In my experience, most players will do whatever gives them the greatest reward for the least cost. And they don’t really want to do things that are going to give them a sub-par reward.

While it’s true that some players may want to do lower level fractals…this is specifically about friends trying to play together. And unless your friends do multiple fractals constantly, it makes it really difficult.

I know there may be some workarounds for this, but I really don’t see the great harm in scaling agony with personal reward level, and I think it would really help.

As is right now, the only reason I want to do fractals is to play with my friends and I have zero desire to go on a huge fractal grinding binge to try to catch up with them.

Most people who do fractals do multiple per day, a 40, 30, and a 20. The daily reward is sometimes worth it.

I just don’t see why other folks should be able to run higher level fractals without earning them… That’s my opinion. I mean, I can run 40s, I’ve worked hard for it. Why should people just be able to without agony damage mitigation?

I respect your opinions and I’m fine with your post, I just have my own opinion, so please don’t think I’m trying to start anything.

From the perspective of someone that has to run higher level fractals than my reward level, I really, really wish I could just do the ones my level lol. I don’t really see it as something I earned because I literally get no additional benefit from doing it.

It’s just something that is much more difficult for the same reward I would have got before. But hey, it’s worth it to play with my friends. Now though it’s got to the point where I can’t even do them because the agony is an unavoidable kill.

Also, I don’t agree that most people do fractals several times a day. A lot of us have professional or personal committments and only have time to do maybe 3 fractal runs a week.

I get that the higher level fractals are an achivement, but at least to me, the increased rewards are the achivement. Not the higher difficulty.

Fractal progression would lose all meaning other than for rewards. You’d have level 1 players trying to join level 49 runs. It’ll create a mess as people will think they can do higher level fractals when they can’t. There’s a lot that you can faceroll in the earlier levels that you can’t when you get higher.

You can easily get 20 AR which will let you do fractals in the 20’s. If they’re really your friends, they should have no problem running fractals with you. If they’re choosing not to run with you because there’s nothing in it for them then you may want to think about that.

Ayrilana.1396:

Fractal progression would lose all meaning other than for rewards. You’d have level 1 players trying to join level 49 runs. It’ll create a mess as people will think they can do higher level fractals when they can’t. There’s a lot that you can faceroll in the earlier levels that you can’t when you get higher.

You can easily get 20 AR which will let you do fractals in the 20’s. If they’re really your friends, they should have no problem running fractals with you. If they’re choosing not to run with you because there’s nothing in it for them then you may want to think about that.

I’m sure they would run lower fractals if I asked them, but honestly I’d rather not be the guy slowing everyone down lol. To get 20 AR you need ascended items correct? I have one lol.

And I don’t know, maybe it’s because I mainly play PvP but I just don’t find the PvE that hard. I fail to see this great difficulty gap you guys are talking about.

I might die a few times when I first encounter a new mechanic, but then after that I know it and it’s just GW2 playing from there…dodge the big attacks, use your skills appropriately etc. Most of succeeding in PvE isn’t “skill” it’s knowledge. As in knowing that the panels in the Inquest level disappear when they turn purple. Once you know that, the boss isn’t that bad provided you are a decent player.

And it really doesn’t take that long to acquire that knowldge, it’s not like you need to practice that fight over and over again.

Creslin.1758:

I’m sure they would run lower fractals if I asked them, but honestly I’d rather not be the guy slowing everyone down lol.

A friend wouldn’t have a problem helping you to catch up. Ask them. If you were my friend, that’s what I’d do.

when I was levelling my fractal PR bprepatch I ran with my friends in 28s/38s with very little AR. they had to take me since there was nobody else around and would just res me at maw every time the irresistable agony killed me. most other sources of agony are fairly avoidable/one-shot you anyway, so the only big problem was at maw (and maw is completely faceroll).

then again, the new boss fractals are apparently quite challenging (never did mai trin before stopping fotm but heard horror stories about her) and I assume that any party would want every member to be alive at the start of the fight.

AR comes from ascended gear + some fractal relics.
Ascended gear sources → fractals, guild missions, laurels, WvW, crafting, regular drops, boss chest drops, Tequatl drops.
The number of relics needed is minuscule.

Get accessories with guild commendations, amulet with laurels, and a weapon with crafting. Keep doing 10~19 fractals until you get the rings you want.
Easy enough as it is.

Your problem seems to be reliance on pug groups. Join an active guild where people are happy to run lower FotM together to help guildies out, or set up your own group on the lfg tool, and set it for your personal level.

Grind out some fractal levels for yourself. With or without your friend’s help. It really won’t take you that long if you are as good as you say. I know it is tedious, but all of us had to do it. It’s part of the price you have to pay.

And while you may be good enough to do a level 23 fractal while still at level 12, there are many more that aren’t. Not everyone is the same and some can handle it, but level 23 is very different in terms of difficulty than level 12. And I’ve pugged enough to know that the majority of ‘average’ pugs can’t handle that increase in difficulty. For the average player, I’d suggest not going much more than 5-6 levels above your current personal reward level while running. Your results may vary.

I drop down and do lower level fractal runs all the time. Mainly to help out guild mates level up.

And the current system is much better than the initial implementation. Allowing players to group up with higher level fractal groups allows players to more easily and faster find groups to play with. The initial implementation only allowed the party to enter the fractals with the highest attained reward level of everyone. Meaning a player with a level 12 fractal reward level trying to join a party for a level 23 fractal would cause the run to be a level 12 run. The current system allows friends to party up with lower level players who can handle the content and allow them to level up their personal reward level more easily.

The problem is that since the method of acquiring agony resistance (AR) is grinding fractals, the agony in the level 27 dungeon will probably kill you since you didn’t do enough fractals to achieve the requisite AR

There is agony resist on the TP you can buy as well as from fractal relics that are really cheap. If you don’t have the slots for resist then that’s a different ball game.