Guild Wars 2

Hey Anet, typically I am not one of those enrage guys. But lately I ran into a lot of situations which were just kitten annoying. So here’s my feedback about fotm and agony.

The first few weeks I actually enjoyed the fotm. Basically about 9 new dungeon to discover and on top of that some new shiny loot. The first 10 lvls were a quick thing to do and I was curious about hitting level 10 and getting the chance for an ascended ring.

When I did lvl 10 the first time, the agony part basically didn’t make anything harder, it was just a normal fractal run. And in the end I got a ring in my first run, luckily even the ring I wanted.

I played on until I reached about lvl 15 when I decided to buy my first infusion. The daily search for a PUG went slower and slower. And about every second run, somebody got disconnected, kitten off, or rage quit. Basically every second run was just 2-3 hours wasted time, because of disconnection.

I am even ok with this it’s just the nature of MMOs. I just don’t understand how a simple fix (deserves a hotfix imho) for the dc issue could take so long.

So I reached lvl 20 after spending more time quitting fotm because of dc issues, but I finally made it to lvl 20. I even got my second ring and bought an infusion aswell. So I had 10 Agony resistance now.

From lvl 20 on, everyone wants people with rarely AR15+ and commonly AR20+ or AR25+.
After checking the wiki(why is there no explanation in game?) I learned that I can craft a backpiece of ascended gear worth of like ~50g (lulz, shut up and take my money). Seriously? I have to spend 50g for the same trivial easymode bosses and mobs which involve no tactics apart from having AR? Grind stuff because of pityful dungeon design? C’mon you can do better. Then I read about that prototype fractal blabla… 1850 fractal relics really? Thats basically …. i didn’t calculate… but like 20 fractal runs I already did(because i can’t advance lvl 20+ because of AR).

So basically kill those noobish bosses I already showed who the boss is again like 20 times because of a) bad calculated token prices and b) a really unpolished dungeon design regarding AR.

Having some specific amount of AR is not a tactic, it doesn’t involve skill, the only thing which will bring you the AR is grind. So when you asked yourself if this is fun you clearly missed some points

And yes I know I can upgrade my rings to have +10 AR(after studying the wiki) but loot gods don’t like me, i simple don’t have enough of those mist essence bla bla to upgrade even one ring. And no, I didn’t skip any mobs in fotm with my groups, I even did half of them 2 times because of dc issues.

I just ignored AR and played with 10AR lvl 20 and we made it. We didn’t made it because of me … we made it despite of me(rest of the team was ar20+). Not that I am a bad player, but there are some unavoidable agony debuffs which killed me a lot. I didn’t felt to be of much help for my team although I played well.

So to conclude:

- dc issues are annoying(will be fixed[tooooo late])
- I did as much successful runs as fail runs because of dc(about 40-50 hours wasted time)
- what is the purpose of agony?
- Agony doesn’t make content harder
- Agony makes content repititive
- It feels stupid to repeat content just because of Agony
- The progress in difficulty is really low(some more hp, some more dmg, sometimes more trash, rarely a new skill, I start to ask myself why I should continue playing fotm when the only challange is, to repeat the content to take the gear hurdling)
- I expected the challange to be something like trying new tactics, rebuilding my char for specific situations and stuff … but that just didn’t happen. It’s just fast facerolling to get your relics as fast as you can because you want to advance to get some new challange.

And at this point I don’t see the difference between hundreds of other mmo games and Guild Wars 2. I really enjoy this game but here Anet just copies the really poor dungeon design of other games aka gear treadmill…. And I know you can do better. I’m really bored of showing developers that I can take that gear hurdling(because anyone can if patient enough) I would much more enjoy to play incredibly hard content instead of incredibly repetitive.

Sorry for bad grammar and stuff, english isn’t my first language, but I guess you get my point.

Cheers

Agony doesn’t make content harder

Sure it does. It puts emphasis on avoiding the attacks that apply it.

Agony makes content repititive

No, their difficulty system makes it repetitive.

It feels stupid to repeat content just because of Agony

I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.

The progress in difficulty is really low

Again, that’s their difficulty system, not agony.

I expected the challange to be something like trying new tactics, rebuilding my char for specific situations and stuff … but that just didn’t happen.

The tactics do change as levels get higher, but it mostly involves learning how to avoid agony more effectively.

I’m not really sure what your argument is. It sounds to me like you’re just annoyed that you got killed by an agony attack and decided to make a forum post.

Pinch.4273:

I have no idea what you’re trying to say here.

I’m not really sure what your argument is. It sounds to me like you’re just annoyed that you got killed by an agony attack and decided to make a forum post.

You have to repeat stuff(lots of times) you already did to buy the gear.

No it’s not about making mistakes its more like:

AR20+ or gtfo.

And i would like to know how i can avoid jade maw agony (which is not the issue im talking about)

You’re talking about pugging it. That’s not a Fractals problem, that’s a pug problem.

As for Jade Maw, at your level, you can get by with 0 AR and a self heal.

Pinch.4273:

You’re talking about pugging it. That’s not a Fractals problem, that’s a pug problem.

As for Jade Maw, at your level, you can get by with 0 AR and a self heal.

How? I tried dodging it → impossible. Heal while agony ticks(started with full hp) will kill me, waiting for the agony to run off and heal later will kill me to. Using distortion doesn’t work. So from my understanding, its not possible to survive at lvl 20 with 0 AR

gorma.3725:

Pinch.4273:

You’re talking about pugging it. That’s not a Fractals problem, that’s a pug problem.

As for Jade Maw, at your level, you can get by with 0 AR and a self heal.

How? I tried dodging it -> impossible. Heal while agony ticks(started with full hp) will kill me, waiting for the agony to run off and heal later will kill me to. Using distortion doesn’t work. So from my understanding, its not possible to survive at lvl 20 with 0 AR

Just have people revive you.

All the agony other than the last boss is easily avoidable. If you didn’t die enough that you become a liability for the rest of the group, nobody would really mind picking you up during Maw.

just look at gw2lfg…. they all want ar20+… that has nothing to do with me.

one time you say avoid agony one time you say it cannot be avoided, then you say you have to to be rezzed … wow elite tactics, rezzing people because they did no mistake just because of bad dungeon design. thats not challanging. i really would like to see a group of 5 people with 0 AR like suggested above rezzing each other after getting hit by the agony in ocean fractal for example.

the point with agony is: its sometimes challanging to avoid it sometimes impossible. but you don’t get that it isn’t meant to avoided at all. you are supposed to mitigate it by having AR. because of this you can’t avoid it anymore by using skills like distortion. i’m 100% sure that they don’t want you to avoid agony by staying at range or dodging at all, its just poorly implemented so it is possible ….. just like the agony system in general.

gorma.3725:

just look at gw2lfg…. they all want ar20+… that has nothing to do with me.

one time you say avoid agony one time you say it cannot be avoided, then you say you have to to be rezzed … wow elite tactics, rezzing people because they did no mistake just because of bad dungeon design. thats not challanging.

Maw before 40 is basically just free loot. Most people probably won’t even notice anything if you only died on Maw.

The idea for fractals is that for the first 39 levels you learn how to dodge properly and use mitigation to avoid damage. There are plenty people who run at 20+ with 0 AR and dying only on the Maw because they learned to dodge.

Bugs aside, Fractals are much better design than human wave attack on a dummy with large HP pool after crawling through Silver vets with no drops.

I fully understand what you mean. I know how to avoid the agony and only died in this fractal(yeah some drama about being no help for my team …) because of agony multiple times during multiple wipes. No difference to lvl 19 apart from the agony part. You get my point?

a) ocean fractal is bugged because you cant avoid agony here

or

b) agony itself is bugged, it isn’t meant to be avoided at all but mitigated through AR. I say this because they changed the way how skills like distortion work(dont work anymore on agony) and how agony works in the ocean fractal

There’s no logic, one time you need the AR to succeed and one time you don’t need AR at all because you can avoid it.

gorma.3725:

I fully understand what you mean. I know how to avoid the agony and only died in this fractal(yeah some drama about being no help for my team …) because of agony multiple times during multiple wipes. No difference to lvl 19 apart from the agony part. You get my point?

a) ocean fractal is bugged because you cant avoid agony here

or

b) agony itself is bugged, it isn’t meant to be avoided at all but mitigated through AR. I say this because they changed the way how skills like distortion work(dont work anymore on agony) and how agony works in the ocean fractal

There’s no logic, one time you need the AR to succeed and one time you don’t need AR at all because you can avoid it.

Agony on Maw is applied directly as a hard gate for your party. There is no avoiding it. Either someone in your party survives it, in which case you are allowed to clear the level, or you don’t clear the level.

It’s meant as a gate to prevent people from going beyond level 39. 5 people with 0 AR on 20 can still keep one person alive to res the rest of the party if they pool their group healing. The same 5 with 30 AR cannot do the same for level 40.

Which would break their manifesto about roles and healing …. And the hard gate …. thats what i’m talking about the whole time. Doing that stupid repetitive grinding instead of challanging content.

The only thing i can do right now is to cheat my teammates on my AR and hope nobody notice or grind low lvl fractals until i got enough ar or grind gold for crafted AR.

gorma.3725:

Which would break their manifesto about roles and healing …. And the hard gate …. thats what i’m talking about the whole time. Doing that stupid repetitive grinding instead of challanging content.

The only thing i can do right now is to cheat my teammates on my AR and hope nobody notice or grind low lvl fractals until i got enough ar or grind gold for crafted AR.

Pretty much. There will come a time for you to be thankful that you learned how to dodge.

DancingPenguins.9875:

gorma.3725:

I fully understand what you mean. I know how to avoid the agony and only died in this fractal(yeah some drama about being no help for my team …) because of agony multiple times during multiple wipes. No difference to lvl 19 apart from the agony part. You get my point?

a) ocean fractal is bugged because you cant avoid agony here

or

b) agony itself is bugged, it isn’t meant to be avoided at all but mitigated through AR. I say this because they changed the way how skills like distortion work(dont work anymore on agony) and how agony works in the ocean fractal

There’s no logic, one time you need the AR to succeed and one time you don’t need AR at all because you can avoid it.

Agony on Maw is applied directly as a hard gate for your party. There is no avoiding it. Either someone in your party survives it, in which case you are allowed to clear the level, or you don’t clear the level.

It’s meant as a gate to prevent people from going beyond level 39. 5 people with 0 AR on 20 can still keep one person alive to res the rest of the party if they pool their group healing. The same 5 with 30 AR cannot do the same for level 40.

I’m fine with Jade Maw agony being a hard gate on the party as long as it’s possible for AR to mitigate it but at Frac ~40-50+ Jade Maw dishes out agony that is beyond 30 AR + all heals in the game.

99% res. It takes effort to fail it.

Just a thing in case anet read the elitist that finds everything easy because their 2 guardians Group makes the run smooth…..

Most party relies on “glitches” (*) or to items to skip or get past some parts with items like spykits.

I’d like to see groups survive dredges first part without spykits…..

Also most people cannot seem to survive lava shaman…
Having a balanced and a glasscannon i can understand its harder for some builds….(despite the fact if i know i cannot do a fractal i don t go on higher levels until i am experienced enough….to avoid groups losing hours -.-).

So wouldn t say that fotm are so easy like a very small part of players with fixed groups pretend.
Infact yu don t find many groups on gw2lfg at 30+

*dunno if cliffside spawn is a glitch or is intended.

you can get 20 AR easy with 2 infused rings, with simple infusion.

Its gonna cost you: 2 rings, 2 shards, 6 globs and 10 vials.

Stigma.7869:

DancingPenguins.9875:

gorma.3725:

I fully understand what you mean. I know how to avoid the agony and only died in this fractal(yeah some drama about being no help for my team …) because of agony multiple times during multiple wipes. No difference to lvl 19 apart from the agony part. You get my point?

a) ocean fractal is bugged because you cant avoid agony here

or

b) agony itself is bugged, it isn’t meant to be avoided at all but mitigated through AR. I say this because they changed the way how skills like distortion work(dont work anymore on agony) and how agony works in the ocean fractal

There’s no logic, one time you need the AR to succeed and one time you don’t need AR at all because you can avoid it.

Agony on Maw is applied directly as a hard gate for your party. There is no avoiding it. Either someone in your party survives it, in which case you are allowed to clear the level, or you don’t clear the level.

It’s meant as a gate to prevent people from going beyond level 39. 5 people with 0 AR on 20 can still keep one person alive to res the rest of the party if they pool their group healing. The same 5 with 30 AR cannot do the same for level 40.

I’m fine with Jade Maw agony being a hard gate on the party as long as it’s possible for AR to mitigate it but at Frac ~40-50+ Jade Maw dishes out agony that is beyond 30 AR + all heals in the game.

We appear to be in luck on that, since on the 28th they’re adding an ascended amulet.