Agony cannot go above Agony 2

[Don B Babby]

Agony cannot go above agony 2 on the third map. I am killing the final boss on agony 2 and cannot finish my achievements since the last update ?

[Diggsworth]

Currently experiencing the same issue.

[AquaineBay]

The third and fourth map are the hardest to get your agony up. Usually you have to go in with a plan/build of some sort that kills enemies quickly. If I recall sorceress and shield maiden are the two you need to complete on map 3.

Shield Maiden, if you go all block, the shield(shield dmg scales off block) itself should be enough(if not grabbing Radiant Aura will definitely do the trick).

The Sorceress is a bit harder due to low defenses. You can go electric build, with Kugelblitz and Astronomer orbs(Electrify Orbs upgrade and Inner Orbs upgrade) which provides good protection and kills really quick.

[Chronamancer]

have the same prob in fozen depths....i kill ♥♥♥♥ even offscreen or the moment it enters the screen but agony level then still goes back from slightly over 3 to 1....broken mechanic

[onyxum]

The last patch destroyed the agony system. Extremely boring now.

[Remnant Melody]

I may have to actually concur a bit with all the above. I played a couple of random rounds on agony (finishing up my herb collection I kept forgetting about) and before, I could get to A3 pretty decently, usually mid way thru. Prior to patch I've gotten to 5 a few times when I had very good builds.. but not frequently.

Now? I got it to 2 at max and then watched it plummet back down. I'm unsure why? I was doin' murders pretty decently. So the entire runs of both a Haunted Cavern and Ember just left me hanging between 1-2 max Agony. It definitely decays way more now. Am I missing something? I figured Agony was based on how well you were doing.. i.e not taking damage and mowing down fiends? Is there more to it? Didn't feel like it was before.

Ah, but I'm expecting growing pains with them finding the right spot they want Agony to be in. It certainly is a lot less exciting. Perhaps its meant for those who can reach 50mil+ damages to really utilize it as my average is around 25-30mil. I'm just unsure where to go with it.

I maintain trust in the Dev's vision. Trust the process. We'll get a good spot eventually. :)

[Ulyaoth]

Here are some inputs for Synergy Builds, that can help you reach AgonyIII.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3038035307

[Remnant Melody]

I super appreciate the indepth guides.. but as a game of this size, I'd much rather just discover things on my own. Its not that I don't understand how abilities and stats synergize.. i just don't care to overtly min/max in my chill game. I don't find it fun to have other people lead me by the hand. I thought I was making better progress, but with the recent update I guess not. I'll learn on my own..

I will say that if its only doable with reading guides, then there is a bit of a flaw in design. IMHO intuitive design gets the player learning on their own without having to search wikis, guides.. etc. That process comes in later if one is having no luck finding 'secret' or such. Example, I couldn't figure out where the last to alchemy ingredients I needed were.. and the one time I took the necklace into an agony stage- there were no directions to herbs (Because Viaduct didn't have any) and I thought that meant no herbs on Agony. And, I was wrong.

Your guide could use that info too, btw. :) I had to wiki that bit of info. It'd be useful in your guide of overtly teaching people to abuse potions.

[Ulyaoth]

Originally posted by SassyKitKats:

I totally understand your POV.

Guess what, when I started playing the game there were no guides or a Wiki, so someone has to start with some, since not everyone want to dive deep into the materia.

About ingredient farming:
There was no guide neccessary, since one could have read the patch notes, to get the information that after some patches, some ingredients went into Agony to mix things up.
I guess this is the curse of early access, when things change over alot.

So for one who doesnt want to figure everything out himself:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3034282250

[Mara]

Hey, thanks for your feedback on Agony and we'll adjust the balancing according to it. As a recap how Agony should work:


Agony Increases constantly over time, without you doing anything.
The fastest you can reach the Agony levels are (4/8/12/16/20) Minutes.

Agony every decreases for 2 reasons.
- You died -> -1 Agony Level
- A monsters are alive for 12.5 seconds (or 20s+ on Frozen Depths)
- The decay rate from this depends on the stage/monsters
- Champions, Elites and Bosses have longer times before they decay Agony.


If you clear the screen and need to wait for monsters to appear and still drop, then there must be bug we aren't aware of, because technically it should be impossible for any decay to happen, unless you kill yourself and revive.

Why?

Base waves are configured that the maximum spawn amount is reached after 3-5 seconds, special waves after 10-15s. Even if you take 3 times the time it takes to fill up the screen to clear monsters, Agony should still rise. (special conditions may apply as for example letting few strong monsters left alive forever)


---

On an additional note: We can't spawn much more enemies (for example through more agony levels), only make their defense higher and take them longer to kill. Rising enemy amount means that we'll have more performance issues and with the strong sentiment of performance not being good enough, we'll try to avoid making any decisions that would feed into it.

[Polygonal Reptile]

AGONY DECREASING

I haven't died once, im 12 minutes in and my agony bar keeps dropping

[Ulyaoth]

You are probably killing not fast enough or somewehere is an enemy stuck and draining your agony, which can happen especially on Stage 4.

[Confused]

Originally posted by Aayph:

Hey, thanks for your feedback on Agony and we'll adjust the balancing according to it. As a recap how Agony should work:


Agony Increases constantly over time, without you doing anything.
The fastest you can reach the Agony levels are (4/8/12/16/20) Minutes.

Agony every decreases for 2 reasons.
- You died -> -1 Agony Level
- A monsters are alive for 12.5 seconds (or 20s+ on Frozen Depths)
- The decay rate from this depends on the stage/monsters
- Champions, Elites and Bosses have longer times before they decay Agony.


If you clear the screen and need to wait for monsters to appear and still drop, then there must be bug we aren't aware of, because technically it should be impossible for any decay to happen, unless you kill yourself and revive.

Why?

Base waves are configured that the maximum spawn amount is reached after 3-5 seconds, special waves after 10-15s. Even if you take 3 times the time it takes to fill up the screen to clear monsters, Agony should still rise. (special conditions may apply as for example letting few strong monsters left alive forever)


---

On an additional note: We can't spawn much more enemies (for example through more agony levels), only make their defense higher and take them longer to kill. Rising enemy amount means that we'll have more performance issues and with the strong sentiment of performance not being good enough, we'll try to avoid making any decisions that would feed into it.

I'm having the same issue when playing Norseman on Frozen Depths. I was using a build with a slow kick-start so I did not achieve agony level 1 in the first 15 minutes, and it seemed to have become unachievable since then. In the last ten minutes I practically outright deleted every single minion that entered my screen and killed elites within ten seconds, yet the agony level just kept going down to zero. I'm not sure if this is intended, but it doesn't feel right.

[A Bunny]

Yeah, there is some kind of bug, even on the other levels, with agony dropping hard right after or before you achieve Agony 3. Don't know what's causing it.

[MAGNOƎLƎKTR0NIK]

Yeah, i noticed the agony meter didn't even move for me in Frozen depths. Not enough enemies i guess. The enemy density seems way lower than in previous maps.

[PutridMeat]

Originally posted by Aayph:

- A monsters are alive for 12.5 seconds (or 20s+ on Frozen Depths)

This must be the problem I'm running into but I don't really understand why. I ran the Sorceress (who is crazy OP, just sayin'!) and dumped all kinds of levels into multi-strike, crits, affinity, etc. Three of my spells were double-evolved. It is so AWESOME how fast I was melting enemies on the Viaduct. Bosses got misted in 20-30 seconds of focused attack. The Lord got absolutely pulverized in maybe 2 minutes tops. But I only got to Agony 1.

Do I need to push the min-max even further? Seems like I am already crushing everything on the screen.

Sweet game, BTW!