Guild Wars 2

Recently I’ve been in more and more groups where people are doing higher level fractals with little to no AR, and it resulting in a disaster.

I got in a group at level 26 or so where 3 of the people hadn’t even been in the fractals before.

Most recently, I had a guy in the group who didn’t talk at all, even when questioned. It was fractals 30 and it was quite obvious he had little to no AR since he kept getting insta-defeated. It was the third fractal and in the end we just had to kick him, which would have sucked for him. (edit: The reason we had to kick him was because we couldn’t get passed the asura boss, trying many times. As soon as we got in a new player, we finished it with ease)

I really hate kicking people or giving up on a group, but due to how FotM works (and it works well IMO), if you don’t have the minimal AR you really shouldn’t be doing high level fractals.

So why does this happen? Should there be a ‘suggested AR level’ popup when you enter at certain levels? Is there not enough information about AR in-game?

I can understand peoples need in groups to enforce players linking their ascended gear before entering the fractal. Avoids much frustration and wasting of time.

problem with the ar/level system is that “anyone” can just jump in without knowing the basics of how fotm works. A suggest ar system might help, but honestly it would be better if you had a wiki pop up appear when they first enter with no ar and an explanation. Also getting ar isn’t readily accessible to someone who just jumps in. They have to go through the hoops to get guild comms or pristine relics or rings or laurels for amulet.

When you get down to it, it’s not about the ar in other fractals it’s the players skill. If they aren’t skilled enough to dodge boss agony attacks they die. The only times when a player should die (without having the ar) is jade fractal.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Agony all you need

Uhm I’ve had people join and blatantly lie about their AR. I can only assume they want to be carried through a free fractal personal level +1. I wouldn’t mind carrying under level 38, but leeching past 40 when each party member increasingly needs to contribute as much as they can is just unacceptable.

Yeah, when you get to something like the Grawl Shaman boss (a boss where you need everyone to pull their weight), having players with no AR can be a progression blocker to the rest of the team. I’ve been in several groups where one bad player had to be replaced by someone with proper gear and competence.

Maybe there should be an AR warning at higher Fractal levels.

There should be a way to see players AR and MF it make the rest of the group have to work harder to compensate their lack of skill. Or even make it so you cannot join 5 levels higher than you’re personal level but then at least make personal level account bound.

I’m a little bit torn between two opinions on this. I really dislike gear inspection, and I don’t think people should be discriminated against for having slightly less AR. Hell, I’ve been kicked out of groups for not having enough AR for Fractal level 15, which is perfectly doable, even without no AR at all. On the other hand, at some point the Fractals do become impossible to do without AR. So being able to tell if someone qualifies for that Fractal level, would help alleviate a lot of these problems.

I’m hesitant to commit to one definitive solution for this. But I recognize the problem is there, and that there are two sides to it.

The old system of gradual level progression was fine. And actually prepared people to deal with fractals as they leveled up.

Now it’s so stupid, first-timers joining to lvl 30 with their laurel-bought gear and doing the dumbest things ever.

I’d prefer anet to return the old system, but make fractal levels account bound instead.

AR isn’t the problem, lack of experience is.

You can avoid every bit of agony damage except for Jade Maw by dodging, interrupting and reflect skills. There’s nothing wrong with joining high level groups despite having low AR. If you do well, nobody will notice if you have 40AR or 0.

So let allow ppl with 0 AR run together. When I make team and search for team mates I want them to have appropriate AR resistance for level that we are doing.

We cannot possibly know the skill of the pug who joins our team, that is why we make sure they have the AR, so when/if they kitten up (they pretty much always do) they are covered.

Gear checking is really all you can do.

/scumbag swiftpaw at it again with her gear checking shenanigans.

I run 0AR in L48 FotM all the time with my friends for the personal challenge. The only time I ever get downed against an agony-inflicting attack is against maw thanks to how much I play Fractals, but I certainly wouldn’t do that in pubs. The only reason I mention this is because AR doesn’t mean anything if you’re a good player, and as a result of that I don’t gear check other players ever.

How a player plays is more important than their AR. I’ve been in groups where a player with 45AR dies more than anyone else and cannot dodge to save their life, and I’ve been with players who have 0 AR and play perfectly. If a player I am with is particularly awful and is holding the team back from succeeding, I will kick them and replace them mid-run, but I always give players the benefit of the doubt before we get in and actually see how they play.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I run 0AR in L48 FotM all the time with my friends for the personal challenge. The only time I ever get downed against an agony-inflicting attack is against maw thanks to how much I play Fractals, but I certainly wouldn’t do that in pubs. The only reason I mention this is because AR doesn’t mean anything if you’re a good player, and as a result of that I don’t gear check other players ever.

How a player plays is more important than their AR. I’ve been in groups where a player with 45AR dies more than anyone else and cannot dodge to save their life, and I’ve been with players who have 0 AR and play perfectly. If a player I am with is particularly awful and is holding the team back from succeeding, I will kick them and replace them mid-run, but I always give players the benefit of the doubt before we get in and actually see how they play.

Tell me more.

kikittener.9578:

Rising Dusk.2408:

I run 0AR in L48 FotM all the time with my friends for the personal challenge. The only time I ever get downed against an agony-inflicting attack is against maw thanks to how much I play Fractals, but I certainly wouldn’t do that in pubs. The only reason I mention this is because AR doesn’t mean anything if you’re a good player, and as a result of that I don’t gear check other players ever.

How a player plays is more important than their AR. I’ve been in groups where a player with 45AR dies more than anyone else and cannot dodge to save their life, and I’ve been with players who have 0 AR and play perfectly. If a player I am with is particularly awful and is holding the team back from succeeding, I will kick them and replace them mid-run, but I always give players the benefit of the doubt before we get in and actually see how they play.

Tell me more.

They have multiple guardians. If you get focused enough, dodging will not save you.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I run 0AR in L48 FotM all the time with my friends for the personal challenge. The only time I ever get downed against an agony-inflicting attack is against maw thanks to how much I play Fractals, but I certainly wouldn’t do that in pubs. The only reason I mention this is because AR doesn’t mean anything if you’re a good player, and as a result of that I don’t gear check other players ever.

How a player plays is more important than their AR. I’ve been in groups where a player with 45AR dies more than anyone else and cannot dodge to save their life, and I’ve been with players who have 0 AR and play perfectly. If a player I am with is particularly awful and is holding the team back from succeeding, I will kick them and replace them mid-run, but I always give players the benefit of the doubt before we get in and actually see how they play.

Of course if the player has absolutely no problem dodging agony then I’m sure OP wouldn’t initialize the kick.

Unlike say cof p1 zerker check, I think it is good to have some AR check, or experience check for fractal. Either by verbal between players or by system itself.

I personally believe, after lvl15 or so, players start to understand the mechanics & tactics & of course having some AR. And I don’t believe anyone would intentionally go to a higher tier fractal (in pug) just for the sake of it.

So OP’s problem, I think starts all the way when he/she composes the team. Why would there be 3 newbies in a lvl26 group? I think some acknowledgment is missing before going in fotm.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I run 0AR in L48 FotM all the time with my friends for the personal challenge. The only time I ever get downed against an agony-inflicting attack is against maw thanks to how much I play Fractals, but I certainly wouldn’t do that in pubs. The only reason I mention this is because AR doesn’t mean anything if you’re a good player, and as a result of that I don’t gear check other players ever.

How a player plays is more important than their AR. I’ve been in groups where a player with 45AR dies more than anyone else and cannot dodge to save their life, and I’ve been with players who have 0 AR and play perfectly. If a player I am with is particularly awful and is holding the team back from succeeding, I will kick them and replace them mid-run, but I always give players the benefit of the doubt before we get in and actually see how they play.

That’s great and all, but seriously, I have seen way too much stupid T_T. Even at the higher levels, for me to waste time. You can say you’ve been in teams with people with 0 ar and been fine, that’s great… but I’ve been in teams with people with 0 AR and it’s been absolutely atrocious. It’s all random on what kind of player you are going to get and I feel I minimize the risk with a geared one somewhat more than if I took a non- geared. I myself ran with no AR for ages back when fotm first started up, so yeh I know it’s do-able.

But Imo it’s better safe than sorry, especially when it’s people who you don’t know and have never played with and so cannot make a judgement on skill. I’m one of those people, that once in, if someone is really bad, I hesitate and cant bring myself to kick them, then my bf gets kitten off at me because I’m being too nice and we get into an argument -.-

It takes a couple mins to gear check and it can save hours of screw ups. Plus finding a replacement at 48 can take a while and it’s annoying. Usually I am just checking for magic finders (and god I’ve seen alot), but every so often you see a guy with little to no AR, and when asked about it, they admit they are new or just want to see what happens.. which isn’t really my cup of tea to bring into a lvl 48.

AR helps alot; even the best players make mistakes. Anyone who says otherwise is full of themselves. That being said skill is more valuable than ar.. to a point. I do not condone some type of ar check; if someone sucks then just kick them.

I think, in these cases, because a specific attribute is needed at higher levels, that it should tell those in your group how much AR you have, maybe your current reward level and maybe even the status of your fractal frequenter achievement.

I’m not for gear checks (or build checks or DPS checks for that mater) in general, but I think fractals are an exception, but only for the mechanic specific to fractals alone, meaning agony resistance.

Nikaido.3457:

Player Character.9467:

They have multiple guardians. If you get focused enough, dodging will not save you.

here’s a part of the video where I got focused while the group rezzed someone at 48 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_hp7-3AQZw&t=2m26s

kitten about me saying multiple guardians -> links to video with 3 guardians

Dodging didn’t save you, you clearly have an invuln on your utility, a blocking weapon, an endurance regen sigil (2:47), and endurance regen utility, your food might even be endurance related too. Not all classes can get away with using all their defensive abilities to kite, have a thief use stealth to help them not get hit and see what happens.

It’s “possible” for one mistake to snowball into other mistakes even to the best. AR “helps mitigate” that; to argue otherwise is foolish.

protip: pay attention to the quoted parts before arguing for arguments sake.

I do see quite a few frequent visitors to this forum who love arguing for the sake of arguing. And the pattern they tend to follow is they hold on to a certain point very dearly, and are able to divert any sort of non-related topics to that particular argument.

This skill and gear thing was really sort of getting old, a very long time ago. You can’t extract and proof of skill the first meeting someone, best you can do is extrapolate that from proof of experience, such as gears, achievement points, titles etc. And of course experience doesn’t necessarily always correlate to actual skill, it’s not about saying something like only the geared and experienced players are good, it’s about working with what information there is and taking the best chances.

And yea of course there are good players out there at either end of the scale, and I’m sure your friend’s friend’s nephew’s grandson’s BFF can do anything with 0AR, but hello data points? When someone is pugging they are selecting someone from a crowed, you look at the general characteristics of the crowed, not the exceptions. And in general people with better gear more achievement points more AR do tend to be more competent.

It’s not even like I’m for gear checking and fluffykittens like that, I actually hate it. It’s just there are just so many misconceptions and pigeon hole arguments everywhere. I never put link your gear link your tokens link your AR, just experienced when intending a fast run. I will try to believe it when they say they are experienced, then they are experienced. Not just a few times I run into people with 800 achievement points when calling for a very experienced Arah/FotM group, I might ask them if he/she is a fresh 80, and sometimes they tell me there is nothing to worry about he/she’s done this countless time, so I’ll be like, -alright-, and prepared to be either impressed or.. um, unimpressed. If it’s the latter, (which turn out to be most of the times really) then the actions depends, maybe a seat on the blocklist if his attitude and extent of dishonesty deserves it, and call it a day. We’re taking chances with pugs after all.

Work day afternoon sucks, such a slow day too. Let’s argue more about GW2.

I have no problem about low AR in my fractal lv48 guild run, but if pug use signet build or I see a Sigil of Luck. /instant kick

You can be a noob like me and have an invulnerable to fall back on if you get hit with agony. Renewed focus, mesmer sword #2, mist form, etc. I do this for fractal 48 if I fail to dodge since it negates the agony ticks.

I wouldn’t really consider 26 or 30 high levels either. Do 40+ and you see what high levels are. AR doesn’t matter there since you will be downed if you get hit regardless unless you use an invulnerable skill immediately after like I suggested. I laugh at posts that require 40 and 45 ar on gw2lfg. I started out with 30 there and don’t notice much of a difference with 45. It’s all about dodging. If you can’t do it you shouldn’t go above 39.

I don’t post ar requirements when I go. I do hope they have high ar though since I tend to scratch my head and wonder how some pugs got to be in 20-40s and not know how to do fractals, dodge the attacks, and refuse to pick up the hammer after doing the dungeon 20+ timesAt least the ar will be there to save them below 40 but they will possibly make a 40 run take over an hour longer as they spend half or more of the time down/dead at ever boss since it won’t save them there.. If it’s people on my friends list I really don’t care since I know they can dodge and handle not having ar to save them.

AR is a really bad mechanic to make people feel like they " accomplished" something. Companies have tried this same mechanic is pretty much all other MMO’s and eventually gets thrown out the window because it segregates the community. AR will be thrown out sooner rather than later or they will pretty much hand out AR gear…bet ya.

obal.3218:

I don’t post ar requirements when I go. I do hope they have high ar though since I tend to scratch my head and wonder how some pugs got to be in 20-40s and not know how to do fractals, dodge the attacks, and refuse to pick up the hammer after doing the dungeon 20+ timesAt least the ar will be there to save them below 40 but they will possibly make a 40 run take over an hour longer as they spend half or more of the time down/dead at ever boss since it won’t save them there.. If it’s people on my friends list I really don’t care since I know they can dodge and handle not having ar to save them.

I’m gonna check if I’m on your list when I get home XD

Amun Ra.6435:

AR is a really bad mechanic to make people feel like they " accomplished" something. Companies have tried this same mechanic is pretty much all other MMO’s and eventually gets thrown out the window because it segregates the community. AR will be thrown out sooner rather than later or they will pretty much hand out AR gear…bet ya.

they have dug a pretty deep hole now. Either continue with AR and segregate the community further, or throw them out of the window which basically backhands anyone who spent those stacks of ectos to upgrade their capacitors

If you can’t manage to get AR you really wouldn’t be capable of running the higher fractals, it’s super easy to get…

Just a side question, but how DO you avoid the Agony at the ice elemental or mining suit bosses? Often when I’m operating the lava buckets, that agony just hits me out of nowhere. I don’t see any attack that can be dodged. Its like an effect that seems to hit the whole map, regardless of how close you are to any of these two bosses. If its a visual effect I’m supposed to look out for, then I’d really like to hear what it is.

This is of course not the red circles that I’m referring to, those are easily dodged.

Nikaido.3457:

You’re talking about the mining suit, not the ice ele (whose agony only hits inside red circles). You need to target it and watch for its boon bar, when the mining suit gets stability you double dodge it, or use a block.

Thanks! I had been wondering about that for a long time.

Player Character.9467:

If you can’t manage to get AR you really wouldn’t be capable of running the higher fractals, it’s super easy to get…

I’m fairly new to fractal & have 2 chars one at 18 and one at 30, trying to level up both to 48 with my friends. I’m just a bit above average player & my 2 chars are all under AR for the fractals we are running to level up (10AR for the 18 running 20+ levels, & 20AR for the 30 running 30+ levels) because I couldn’t figure out the secret Anet handing out shards, globs & mists to players like you so they are sooo capable running high level FoTM. On the other hands, players like me could only get poor share of loots like 2 shards, 1 glob & 1 mists so far (but I have very good luck of obtaining skins, 4 in less than 10 runs, all usable for my 2 toons). I also get several rings but they don’t match my build so I don’t use it. Can you share me your secret how to get shards, mists or proper rings every run so I can upgrade my trinkets and become awesome in fractal?

Oh wait, you can also get AR trinkets by doing dailies & guild missions. Hmm, I guess that could count to improve your fighting skills in Fractal. I didn’t do many of these & I don’t die that much in any fractals but mostly at the Jade Maw, falling by terrible skill at jumping puzzle or by stupid dolphin tricks. Maybe I was carried by my friends in all fractal after all & the bosses took a pity so they didn’t dis Agony attack on me but the Jade Maw. Kitten the heartless worm.

The problem with AR is people are too serious about grading up their skills when they load up AR for their levels and assuming that’s the answer for everything. Once a weakest link shows up, or at a level max AR won’t give much comfortable cushion, the whole thing falls apart.
Asking for a minimum AR is an indication of a weak party already. Subconciously, they just hope the whole thing doesn’t degrade further to an unbearable experience, which is an legitimate concern for those parties.

SkyChef.5432:

Player Character.9467:

If you can’t manage to get AR you really wouldn’t be capable of running the higher fractals, it’s super easy to get…

(10AR for the 18 running 20+ levels, & 20AR for the 30 running 30+ levels)

Both of those are perfectly fine, but your lower level shoulda been running under lvl 20’s and not 20+ (due to personal reward level). Clearly you did manage to get enough AR, you’re just thinking you need way more than enough.

Now I did take a careful look at the Agony table then, with the exception at Jade Maw in all levels, at level 20+ and below, AR isn’t a requirement if people can dodge. On level 30+, 15AR is minimum and at 40+, 35AR is a minimum so you won’t die by a 1 hit wonder, as in no one is perfect. If people can’t dodge, then if they don’t die by the boss they will die by the mob. Anyone who asks other more than a minimum requirement must be … ahem … by themselves.
BTW, thanks to point that out so I can lower my suggestion to others who are greener than me.

Nik: I think he said due to personal reward level. And it’s perfect reasonable to suggest that due to risk & reward scenario. He has no way to know that reward isn’t my priority while leveling up.

Nikaido.3457:

Player Character.9467:

Both of those are perfectly fine, but your lower level shoulda been running under lvl 20’s and not 20+ (due to personal reward level).

Not if he ran with people he knew who needed higher level runs to lvl up. I ran with him on a few occasions and we always started at the highest level of the group. Or are you suggesting it’s better to pug a lvl 10 than run a 20 with people you know and trust?

You are all formidable in this thread when it comes to telling people what they “should” do and “shouldn’t” do. Me, I’ll just avoid AR checking kittens and kick them from my runs if they ping their own gear on /join.

lol you wanna play this game?

So instead of helping him run 18’s and getting an additional daily yourself you make him run your top daily on your schedule having to put up with your difficulty level to get reduced loot? Two way street my friend.

I have 45 AR, a karma neck, and a gold find neck, that doesn’t keep me from running lvl 18’s for guild members.

Player Character.9467:

…
lol you wanna play this game?

So instead of helping him run 18’s and getting an additional daily yourself you make him run your top daily on your schedule having to put up with your difficulty level to get reduced loot? Two way street my friend.

I have 45 AR, a karma neck, and a gold find neck, that doesn’t keep me from running lvl 18’s for guild members.

You guys dig a big hole that isn’t there. I asked him to run whatever level is appropriate so I can level up. Reward & daily isn’t the priority. As a matter of fact, if I can get enough AR for level 40+, I would bypass all the BS & jump right into it.