Agony is not innovative.
“The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.”
So seen as this passive gear is only obtainable through the Mystic Forge and able to be equipped to Ascended-Gear.
Am i to guess that the mats for these upgrades will require rare drops and / or ones sold on the TP/ On-line store?
So those who inevitably Dupe items / Buy gold or Sink funds into the online store will be the first ones enjoying the new content as they can quickly meet this gear check.
While the rest of us grind away , that does not equal difficulty.
Gear checks do help with difficulty though. It works like this. They make something nearly impossible to do. Then they gradually improve your gear. When you do it it will be due to skill though. Why? Because you did it at the earliest possible moment. The gear made it perfectly tailored to you. Yes it will make it easier afterwards but that’s so others can get their moment too.
Honestly, they should make some skill-based method to avoid agony, on top of the infusions.
I have a stupid handle, didn’t know what I was thinking.
honestly skill in a mmo like this in Pve dungeon is a misnomer. the only thing a vet has over a novice is experience..where to stand, what button to push, how far you can keep them apart, when to use the doodad to weaken the thingamabob, how to position the mob etc. None of this is true skill, its simply experience.
Agony implementation is a repeat of a mistake already made by ANet and then subsequently corrected in the first Guild Wars.
Read up on it in the wiki:
honestly skill in a mmo like this in Pve dungeon is a misnomer. the only thing a vet has over a novice is experience..where to stand, what button to push, how far you can keep them apart, when to use the doodad to weaken the thingamabob, how to position the mob etc. None of this is true skill, its simply experience.
Not sure if you’ve played Rockman/Megaman before on any of the old Nintendo platforms. Those bosses required skill. Those bosses were true difficulty. Those bosses, even if you’ve cleared them will still pose a challenge to you if you’ve forgotten how to do the fight or you are unfocused. Agony will NOT accomplish that because you can mitigate it with gear.
megaman is a platformer…and I played the original and beat the original. It was difficult, but mostly because of platform aspects and learning how to fight the boss..and many of the bosses had a rock paper scissors effect. Difficulty in a game where most aspects are abstract is very difficult because it comes down to experience. Only so much you can do with puzzles, chain pulling, position, dodging, skill useage, bundles at the right time or etc while at the same time making content everyone can do.
The fractals have no limit, no cap. They have infinite levels. If the player start now with the new ascended gear laden with first level infusion, they will hit an impassable wall on a certain level of the fractals. To pass the wall you need more infusion. Therefore Arenanet has to provide an unlimited amount of infusion to pass the unlimited amount of walls the players will face to.
Since you increase the amount of infusion step by step, you trivialise an increasing number of levels of fractals. This will cause boredom for the first levels – an increasing amount of boredom.
How will this system live for a long time? It will crah very soon.
Its simply gear check. Those bosses promised at the end of the FotM dungeon MIGHT be innovative, but this Agony feature really shouldn’t be advertised as some great idea on their part to make dungeons difficult.
Here’s why:
If a certain piece of content is truly ‘difficult’ it should require the player to learn methods of overcoming said content. On a day when a veteran of this content is not focused and paying attention, that content should still pose difficulty to that player.Agony is not this. Why? Because it is solved passively through gear check. Once I have certain gear, this content will cease to remain difficult.
Fits the way they made dungeons: tank n spank. Just they left out the tank, making it rather “spank and roll like a dork”. Actually, I’ve never had such a lame PvE experience, even grind games aren’t as poor and bland. Adding a gear check that will simply kill you sooner or later is just the way to go for ANet.
As long as there are actual boss fights with actual mechanics, and it’s challenging and fun, I frankly don’t care lol.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT… I’m not counting on it.
The reason I like Agony is because it’s an idea from Guild Wars 1 that makes sense to span into Guild Wars 2.
It’ll probably tie into Mursaat somehow, and that would amazing.
Quote from wiki: ArenaNet has “some really cool plans” for the mursaat in Guild Wars 2.
So while I don’t agree on everything ArenaNet is doing, this meltdown complaining has to stop, calm the kitten down.
Fort Aspenwood
Kireta
Kireta
As long as there are actual boss fights with actual mechanics, and it’s challenging and fun, I frankly don’t care lol.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT… I’m not counting on it.
This. Arenanet’s new mini dungeon has shown some promise. Fights like the Vexa’s lab boss is really quite fun. Some other boss fights really should get updated. Most of the HotW bosses; I’m looking at you.
Sounds like Agony/Infusion is GW2’s version of resistances in WoW. And we all remember how fun it was to grind resistance gear right? Right….
As long as there are actual boss fights with actual mechanics, and it’s challenging and fun, I frankly don’t care lol.
BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT… I’m not counting on it.
This. Arenanet’s new mini dungeon has shown some promise. Fights like the Vexa’s lab boss is really quite fun. Some other boss fights really should get updated. Most of the HotW bosses; I’m looking at you.
This is what annoys me. They’ve shown they CAN make good fights.
Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan (while easy) was awesome, that bullet spray move.
Agony implementation is a repeat of a mistake already made by ANet and then subsequently corrected in the first Guild Wars.
Read up on it in the wiki:
Wow. That makes this whole thing even more bizarre. It’s hard not to see similarities between the last line, “Prior to the June 8, 2005 update, it took five runs to infuse a set of armor,” and what we have here, which is running a dungeon multiple times to get infused gear.
“Please find my dear friends… Dead or Alive” -redmakoto
I’m withholding judgement until I see the actual dungeon.
Agony is definitely a not an innovative mechanic and I agree with the OP.
Current mechanics are a combination of gear and skill (damage mitigation comes from defensive stats and proper use of abilities/rolling, dps is augmented by proper trait and spell selection, use of combo fields as well as raw damage stats).
Agony, on the other hand, has zero play strategy components and is purely mitigated through equipment. This is really a terrible idea because there is no differentiation or achievement based on play, only on gear. There is no sense of accomplishment in that.
honestly skill in a mmo like this in Pve dungeon is a misnomer. the only thing a vet has over a novice is experience..where to stand, what button to push, how far you can keep them apart, when to use the doodad to weaken the thingamabob, how to position the mob etc. None of this is true skill, its simply experience.
Pattern recognition and knowledge of how to counter mechanics are definitely skills that differentiate players in GW2. Dungeons require pattern recognition and memory.
Many games that require ‘skill’ are highly based on pattern recognition and memory, such as chess.