49 replies to this topic

[Soki]

Resolve, on 13 November 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

So why was this a bad system in LoTORO?

Because it artificially adds length to content that everybody would otherwise be able to do immediately.

[Traveller]

Having played LoTRO when this system came into function I can say it was a stupid, stupid idea from the get-go. I've always hated gear gating and radiance was the very definition of it. Player skill no longer mattered in group forming, everyone just said "must have xx radiance". You could not do raids if you didn't have enough radiance from your gear, I mean, like, physically. You'd just cower at the door. Later on they added an armor system where you could buy a set piece if you had done a certain wing of a raid, which is more or less the same but executed better.

It went on for a couple of expansions until they finally pulled the plug on radiance admitting it was a novel idea but the execution sucked. Partly why it lasted so long was the the LoTRO devs admitted they just didn't want to admit to themselves their grand design idea which the Moria (and Mirkwood) expansion was based around sucked so much.

Now, in GW2 gear gating is not something that should be, is not something that the devs said there would be and is still something that I hate. Is this system a gear gate? I guess time will tell. So far, you need infusion for one armor, but I have no doubts it will be a permanent mechanic in the future as well. We'll have to wait and see.

Edited by Traveller, 13 November 2012 - 02:47 PM.

[GSSB Lunaspike]

meeks, on 13 November 2012 - 01:57 PM, said:

I played GW1 since the day it was released and I am aware that they had infusion also.  However the mechanics between GW1 infusion and the proposed agony are completely different.  GW1 was something you did once, during your story, and then completely forgot about.  It was not something that constantly scaled up requiring you to get stronger infusions.  It was not used as a driver of item progression.

It may have the same name as infusions form GW1 but the new system is modeled on radiance.

I don't get how you can play GW1 since release and not know how infusing armor originally worked? Originally (when I did it) we had to get EACH INDIVIDUAL PIECE  of armor infused. That was 5 different runs to get our armor infused. Sure they changed it later to make it easier, but again when some of us did it it required 5 runs.

I think it was a good change to make it so that all of your armor was infused. Not saying it wasn't, but originally they did put it in so that you had to run it multiple times. You also had to go back and do it again to get new armor infused even after they made it so that it infused all armor at once.

http://wiki.guildwar.../Spectral_Agony

Which makes it similar to what they are doing here. Apparently just having the infusion will reduce the agony penalty. Looks interesting, maybe it's going back a little to what made GW1 so great.

Edited by GSSB Lunaspike, 13 November 2012 - 03:40 PM.

[meeks]

GSSB Lunaspike, on 13 November 2012 - 03:36 PM, said:

I don't get how you can play GW1 since release and not know how infusing armor originally worked? Originally (when I did it) we had to get EACH INDIVIDUAL PIECE  of armor infused. That was 5 different runs to get our armor infused. Sure they changed it later to make it easier, but again when some of us did it it required 5 runs.

I think it was a good change to make it so that all of your armor was infused. Not saying it wasn't, but originally they did put it in so that you had to run it multiple times. You also had to go back and do it again to get new armor infused even after they made it so that it infused all armor at once.

http://wiki.guildwar.../Spectral_Agony

Which makes it similar to what they are doing here. Apparently just having the infusion will reduce the agony penalty. Looks interesting, maybe it's going back a little to what made GW1 so great.

Yes, you had to do it 5 times but it was easy, could be done solo and once it was done it was done for good.  I am not arguing that this was a fun system, in fact it was pretty silly when you had to do it 5 times.  They are taking a bad concept and merging it with the structure of an even worse system.  I have played GW1 infusion and have played LOTRO radiance and reading about agony just makes me cringe.

[GSSB Lunaspike]

meeks, on 13 November 2012 - 04:16 PM, said:

Yes, you had to do it 5 times but it was easy, could be done solo and once it was done it was done for good.  I am not arguing that this was a fun system, in fact it was pretty silly when you had to do it 5 times.  They are taking a bad concept and merging it with the structure of an even worse system.  I have played GW1 infusion and have played LOTRO radiance and reading about agony just makes me cringe.

Well remember when they updated it so you had to only do it once. After that they never redid it. Maybe they learned from their mistake in 1 and this will be different. I'm not sure because I haven't tested it. Maybe you guys are right, again I don't know. I just hope they are slowly getting back to gw1 more. I miss that game, but love the new graphics, wvw etc.

[Valkaire]

As long as they don't take this any further and infusion is only needed for the truly deep levels of the dungeon I'm fine. My big issues with gear-treadmill games is being locked out of content because of gear. So far, you won't even need infusions until you get into the really high difficulty, and I'm betting you can have at least one or two pieces of ascended armor by then (backpack is from the mystic forge).

  Content is still available to people who are just starting the dungeon, the hardcore players get their gear grind when they go deep into it. Although I am curious as to how they'll implement the difficulty scaling with people at different levels in the same group, I hope they don't go wrong.

  The one reason why I wouldn't compare this system to radiance in LotR and why I'll keep comparing it to Infusion vs Spectral Agony in GW is because it does not lock you out of content. Until you grind the dungeon enough that you start getting into the difficult stages of the dungeon is when you need infusion.

  At the root of it all, I don't see how you can compare it to Radiance/Dread. From what you guys have said dread makes you unable to move and radiance makes you able to move, and that it locked you out of content. Agony (or Spectral agony) deals damage, infusions reduce that damage. One makes you lose control of your character, the other doesn't. Agony/Infusion does not lock you out of this content as it's only needed for the deeper levels (and you need to do the dungeon a lot to get to those levels).

[meeks]

Valkaire, on 13 November 2012 - 05:49 PM, said:

At the root of it all, I don't see how you can compare it to Radiance/Dread. From what you guys have said dread makes you unable to move and radiance makes you able to move, and that it locked you out of content. Agony (or Spectral agony) deals damage, infusions reduce that damage. One makes you lose control of your character, the other doesn't. Agony/Infusion does not lock you out of this content as it's only needed for the deeper levels (and you need to do the dungeon a lot to get to those levels).

We have been sparing the exact details of dread/radiance but it did work like that.  For the first 4 points of dread you lost 5% max hp, -1% healing received, 1% increased damage received and -5% damage dealt per point.  It was only at 5 points of dread that you started to 'cower in fear'.  Dread was something that built up and eventually overpowered you unless you had the right gear.  Even with max radiance the hardest bosses still generally took you to 4 dread.  So while the delivery system is different it is doing almost exactly the same thing in general.

[lmaonade]

meeks, on 13 November 2012 - 05:37 AM, said:

From the description of Ascended items it looks like a.net has essentially copied the radiance system from LOTRO.  If you did not play LOTRO bosses has a stat called dread and if you did not have enough radiance you would lose a bunch of max life and get constantly feared.  Radiance did absolutely nothing for you other than counter dread and allow you to be able to fight the boss.

This system was so terrible that even Lotro developers after doing everything they could think of to improve the system eventually scrapped.  A.net has not only broken a fundamental promise that there were be no gear progression but they are incorporating the failed design of one of the more terrible MMOs out there.

I am sorry if I am not exactly excited about this.

If you've read the article at all, it comes from GW1

and if you've played GW1 at all, you'd know it is basically "Spectral Agony" from Mursaat mobs

it has nothing to do with Lotro, besides maybe implementation into GW2 from GW1.

Also, bad thread is bad, another speculation thread decrying Anet for implementing bad mechanics when we have absolutely no specifics on how it works yet

Edited by lmaonade, 13 November 2012 - 06:16 PM.

[IDarko]

In GW1, it was part of a story mission. So who gives a sh*t? Unless you skipped 90% of the missions and simply wanted the green weapon from completing the story, you would have infused armor anyways because you would do the mission xD Also, the mission only took a short time and could even be ran in 10 minutes. While the name and design of " Infusion" is the same in GW2, it's not entirely the same.

[Runkleford]

I never played LOTR so I can't comment on the radiance mechanic. However I played GW1 for 7 years and can comment on infusion. It was a gimmick and added nothing of real value to the game except a pointless task especially early on when you had to infuse each piece of armor separately. It wasn't game breaking at all but again it added nothing of value. GW2 was supposed to be the game that streamlined all the pointless and unfun mechanics out of the typical MMO.

[Daesu]

Traveller, on 13 November 2012 - 02:44 PM, said:

Now, in GW2 gear gating is not something that should be, is not something that the devs said there would be and is still something that I hate. Is this system a gear gate? I guess time will tell. So far, you need infusion for one armor, but I have no doubts it will be a permanent mechanic in the future as well. We'll have to wait and see.

From their released info, this new Infusion and Agony mechanism sound like the Infusion and "Spectral Agony" in GW1.  If they are similar then I would say it IS probably a gear gate to the new content.  You REALLY NEED  Infusion to combat "Spectral Agony" in GW1, otherwise you are quite useless and might as well "cower at the door".

How much of a gate Infusion would be, would depend on how easy it is to get your gear infused.  In GW1, it is easy as pie.  That doesn't sound like the case in GW2 but I would wait and see.

Edited by Daesu, 13 November 2012 - 06:30 PM.

[Valkaire]

meeks, on 13 November 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

We have been sparing the exact details of dread/radiance but it did work like that.  For the first 4 points of dread you lost 5% max hp, -1% healing received, 1% increased damage received and -5% damage dealt per point.  It was only at 5 points of dread that you started to 'cower in fear'.  Dread was something that built up and eventually overpowered you unless you had the right gear.  Even with max radiance the hardest bosses still generally took you to 4 dread.  So while the delivery system is different it is doing almost exactly the same thing in general.

Except healing received, damage dealt and max hp aren't affected with agony. You don't take more damage per hit, you take straight damage from the effect. Still different.

[Daesu]

Valkaire, on 13 November 2012 - 06:29 PM, said:

Except healing received, damage dealt and max hp aren't affected with agony. You don't take more damage per hit, you take straight damage from the effect. Still different.

Whatever the effect is, if it is like GW1 Spectral Agony, you would really need Infusion to combat Agony.  Thus, it is a gear gate.

GW1 healing from monks is more powerful than most of the healing skills you have in GW2, yet without Infusion, it is hard to keep someone alive against a mob of Spectral Agony monsters (e.g. Mursaats).  I think the new content would be initially very hard without the proper gear.

What concerns me are builds that depend on minions and pets like a MM necro or ranger.  Would the minions and pets be infused?  When GW1 was first released, they were not and that puts them in a disadvantage.

Edited by Daesu, 13 November 2012 - 06:40 PM.

[Longasc]

A lot of commenters seem to know neither GW1 nor LOTRO.

"Radiance" in LOTRO was indeed so immensely unpopular that it got removed after year long protests.
The "Agony" mechanic that gets countered with "Ascended" gear is exactly the same kind of gating mechanic. But it is not so similar to "Infusion" and "Spectral Agony" in GW1.

Now why does GW2 really need or want this shitty system?
Right now it is only the "Fractals" dungeon. But if they continue adding "Agony" for future content... ugh.

They didn't DARE to take away with levels, but added tons of mechanics to level people up or down.
But they DARE to copy one of the worst gating mechanics in MMOs ever. One that got abolished.

Is this their solution to the not that stellar GW2 "endgame"? Who really likes this kind of solution, I think it only makes things worse.

[Valkaire]

Daesu, on 13 November 2012 - 06:35 PM, said:

Whatever the effect is, if it is like GW1 Spectral Agony, you would really need Infusion to combat Agony.  Thus, it is a gear gate.

GW1 healing from monks is more powerful than most of the healing skills you have in GW2, yet without Infusion, it is hard to keep someone alive against a mob of Spectral Agony monsters (e.g. Mursaats).  I think the new content would be initially very hard without the proper gear.

What concerns me are builds that depend on minions and pets like a MM necro or ranger.  Would the minions and pets be infused?  When GW1 was first released, they were not and that puts them in a disadvantage.

I don't think it will be initially hard without the gear as they've said agony/infusion only come into play after you've done it quite a bit and get down into the higher difficulty levels of the dungeon. It sounds like it will still be available for the people that have just started doing it or don't do it a lot which is really the only reason I'm accepting this. The minion/pet thing is a worry for me too, and I'm not exactly sure if they share stats but I know there's a ranger trait that shares your stats with your pet, who knows. Maybe they've designed it so that the effect doesn't affect pets?

[Capn_Crass]

Resolve, on 13 November 2012 - 02:24 PM, said:

So why was this a bad system in LoTORO?

For those of you not familiar with LotRO's Radiance system, let me try to explain:

From launch LotRO had a system in place to represent the presence of strong evil or good. Powerful evil areas/critters had a Dread aura, which would 1) reduce your effective level, reducing your max hit points and Power/mana/whatever (by quite a lot; was like -70% at full Dread), damage, accuracy, avoidance rate, and increasing your incoming damage and susceptibility to status effects and 2) cause your character to randomly cower for several seconds, locking out all your skills and movement for the duration. Both got stronger as Dread levels increased, but cowering only started to happen at high Dread levels (5+ on a scale of 0-10, if memory serves). Operating at high Dread levels pretty much prevented you from taking any action. Counter to Dread was Hope, which was given off by good NPCs and certain readily-available (and AoE) consumables and a handful of class skills. It worked exactly the opposite way as Dread, increasing your effective level and preventing cowering. These two mechanics were on a +10 to -10 scale, and would counteract each other. If you were in a 5 Dread area and had 3 Hope, you were affected as if you were only in a 2 Dread area. In the base game, these mechanics were very well balanced; you could counteract any amount of Dread well enough to at least function.

With the Moria expansion, Turbine added Radiance/Gloom in addition to Hope/Dread. It functioned the exact same way, and stacked with Hope/Dread. Here's where the problem comes in:

Radiance was only available on raid-acquired armor, and Gloom levels were set so that no matter how much Hope you stacked, you still needed Radiance gear to stay above the "cower line" (most of the final bosses were set so you needed max Hope and max Radiance to stay viable). Also, they continued to escalate Gloom levels as new group content was released, so the Radiance gear you acquired for Dungeon 1 wasn't powerful enough to allow you to function in Dungeon 2. In order to participate in new content, you were required to throw away your old gear and get the current best set.

Also, itemization was a huge problem. Initially, there was a single set of viable Radiance gear for the latest dungeon, so there were only two gear builds: The newest full Radiance set or Worthless Gimp. There was zero customization available, and it absolutely killed any build theorycrafting or "specialized" builds (full defense, full offense, balanced, gimmick, etc.). Gearing your character became following a very short checklist rather than making a spreadsheet to compare advantages and disadvantages of different builds. Later on (as in the last Radiance set to be released before they scrapped the system) they added an alternate version of the armor, so your options became Full Radiance Set A, Full Radiance Set B, or Worthless Gimp.

Short version: Radiance was required for your character to do anything other than stand in one place and die, the Radiance set you got last week was worthless in this week's endgame, and the itemization was such that there was a single build that absolutely everyone was required to use if they wanted to participate in that content.

It was seriously the worst gating system I have ever seen implemented.

===

Relevance to GW:

As long as ANet isn't as stupid with itemization as Turbine was (and I could write pages upon pages of just how stupid and/or incompetent Turbine is), the "gate stat" concept isn't a bad one. If the gear is fairly readily available (multiple avenues of acquisition, so everyone can acquire it with a reasonable amount of effort) and itemized in such a way that there are still viable build options, it shouldn't be too bad.

I am a bit leery of the "power creep" this could represent. If they don't handle this very carefully, it could easily compromise a lot of the ideas the game was supposed to be based on.

[Featherman]

It was a terrible idea and the company that implemented it should apologize. Oh wait... Well it's a good thing it happened in a game I didn't care for because at least a company that I enjoy has an example of what not to do. Oh wait...

Edited by Featherman, 13 November 2012 - 10:54 PM.

[LasraelLarson]

Capn_Crass, on 13 November 2012 - 10:13 PM, said:

It was seriously the worst gating system I have ever seen implemented.

Well intended hand-holding, that nose-dived.  Every attempt to fix it, failed as well.

I never played original GW, but a gear check mechanic reeks of gimmick, rather than good game design.  Did a spectral agony gear check really add anything meaningful?  Because to me it just sounds like a time sink hoop to jump through.

Having read the official blog post from Arenanet on the implementation, this sounds a whole lot more involved than the original spectral agony gear check.  Having lived through the fiasco of radiance in Lotro... Anet really seem to have walked onto the edge of a knife.  There are just soo many ways in which this could fail miserably.

[Featherman]

LasraelLarson, on 13 November 2012 - 11:15 PM, said:

Well intended hand-holding, that nose-dived.  Every attempt to fix it, failed as well.

I never played original GW, but a gear check mechanic reeks of gimmick, rather than good game design.  Did a spectral agony gear check really add anything meaningful?  Because to me it just sounds like a time sink hoop to jump through.

Having read the official blog post from Arenanet on the implementation, this sounds a whole lot more involved than the original spectral agony gear check.  Having lived through the fiasco of radiance in Lotro... Anet really seem to have walked onto the edge of a knife.  There are just soo many ways in which this could fail miserably.

In guild wars 1 you were only required to do it once for story reasons. It was painless, thematic and you could get some cool effects on any set of armor your choice. Afaik it's a gimmick in GW2. We'll have to wait and see however, but the signs are all there.

Edited by Featherman, 13 November 2012 - 11:19 PM.

[Leyana]

Because this needed a thread all on it's own and could not be posted here: http://www.guildwars...ascended-items/?

Please use the existing discussion.