We really need an Agent Fatigue Meter Indicator

Secret World Legends General Discussion
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Now that the cost to revive an agent from incapacitation is being restored I think we need to discuss a few things. Here are my opinions on them.

First and foremost, there is no warning when it happens. From the website and in-game help blurb, it states theres simply a chance it happens upon each mission completion. With each mission ran increasing those odds and not being on a mission descreasing them.

Yet what are my options when I have only one agent (as the majority of fresh level 15’s will for quite a while). Obviously I would simply not send them on a mission, but for how long?
How does each mission affect this chance? Does one 1 hour mission not equal four 15m missions? Wouldn’t an 8 hour mission guarantee I am incapacitated for the next 8 hours? It doesn’t of course, but how can I do a single 8 hour mission and be fine but upwards of ten 15m minute missions is almost definitely too many (from my experience).

More importantly, with only a single agent under level 5 to utilize, why is the penalty so high? 8 hours (or pay the mof cost which is another matter) of being unable to use an agent after sending it on 6 or so 15m missions in a row feels a bit on the extreme side of things.

Let’s talk abou that cost btw, I don’t recall the exact amount, but it was about 7,000 marks of favour. That is nearly the same amount it costs to completely alter your hair and face markings at the barber!

It is also not a small amount for a brand new level 15 player. Sure its nothing to most of us now, being level 50 we all likely have lots saved up.
Still that is more than half the amount we generate daily from challenges and I play a few hours a day. I’d be paying that at least 3 times daily, quite a net loss.
So then don’t do only 15m missions right? Do a couple 4 hour ones and ignore it otherwise? That doesn’t feel very immersive to me, especially for this grand new system we waited for.
I also don’t want this to be a bullying reason to “just buy boosters until you get one” or “just wait until the market is saturated, the prices will go down”. I don’t see the prices of agents (currently 200k or more) ever really being under 20k ~ 50k even after we all have 20+ agents to use (which will take months at this rate).

Regardless of all that, 8 hour penalty cooldowns just appears brutal to me, perhaps I’m alone in this opinion and I’ll just have to suck it up but whatever. Doing five 15m missions in a row, then paying 8k or waiting 8 hours at the start of my game day isn’t how I want to progress. Its more likely to make me just want to log out and not play the rest of the day.

Especially when it will happen every single day that I play and use the Agent Network as part of my daily routine. Even when we do have multiple agents at our disposal, we will clearly have favorites or those we want to level faster. This will do nothing but discourage our progression in a way we want to take it, nothing more.

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I wanted to add a couple suggestions other than the fatigue meter, since its random and may not even be calculable in that way.

  • A warning in advance
    Perhaps a little red light around that agent when they are nearing their breaking point. That at least should be measurable in some way.
  • Smaller time-out durations
    Obviously I would really prefer it be a lot less severe. Perhaps one or two hours, which the price to fix it instantly being 500 - 1k.
    But thats not a penalty you say, well considering how often we are likely to have to pay it, it will add up (in a lets spend MOF sink kinda way) far faster than expecting people to pay 7~8k a day, many times a day.
  • Add agents to daily challenges (and daily login bonuses), daily it would perhaps grant a modifier, that once you complete all challenges you get a 30 minute boost to drop rates.
    What if the final day login reward was a guaranteed agent or a couple gear items.
  • Add agent distillates (change the name), something we can use directly on our agents to give minor exp boosts. Make them world drops. Or hey, let us convert our item fodder from missions into agent exp somehow.

That’s all I got for now.

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Agree, for the early levels of the Agent system, the penalty is really harsh. Once you have several Agents, it won’t matter as much, since you can just cycle through them, but for new players, it’ll basically kill it. They should probably start with a smaller incapacitated and increase it over time.

It’s new though, I’m sure they’ll make adjustments.

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Also a Mission Finished Icon on the characters on the character selection screen! :sunglasses::ok_hand:

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The “fatigue” system just needs to be scrapped, period. Penalized for simply using the Agent System? What kind of crap is that? Sure, let incapacitatation be risk of failing a mission, but just for simply using an agent is stupid.

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Be aware guys, that right now all you have to do is click a button, and for 0 MoF recover your agent instantly.
(unless they fixed it some more)

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Only until Monday.

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Agree with your point too, Darxide, but they do SAY that there’s lower chance for fatigue for passed missions and higher chance for failed ones. If we all had more than one agent it might not be such a sore spot…

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I haven’t failed any and get incapacitated roughly every 3rd mission.

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Yeah, its fixed and will be full cost after Monday. In any case with one or two agents rotating (3 for patrons) you are using every agent ideally as often as possible, elsewise it’d take ages to level them up.

Forcing an 8 hour penalty just for using the agent with no real indication of how often we can use them before being penalized tends to take the wind out of the sails so to speak. The price almost guarantees people will just wait it out, I for one will not being paying 8k mof every hour for every agent 3 or 4 times a day.

At that rate it will either cost 50k a day with an agent per slot available or only allow 3 or 4 (or 1 8h) missions a day. Thats some serious progression blocking IMO.

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I’ve only done 100% missions, so ??? on why they’re incapacitated with no warning. If they’d failed a mission - you already get nothing right? So why should they be incapacitated on top of that?

It makes no sense.

A meter of some sort indicating they’re getting fatigued should be in game. And paying MoF or shards to get them back to health or let them rest would be fine. But not knowing - I know FC loves RNG but really ???

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I’d also be interested in some clarity on what ‘not being on a mission’ means. If I start a 4 hour mission, log off for the day, and log in the same time next day, did my agent complete his mission and spend 20-ish hours resting? Or is he considered ‘on mission’ until I bring it up and click ‘Accept’ on the results?

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My guess so far is he is on mission until you click the Accept button.

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I agree, just yesterday clicked on one of those 4-hr missions that ‘completed’ almost 20 hrs ago… poof Agent incapacitated/red. So rest time is actually ‘agent is available but I am not sending him on a mission’ time.

Which makes having one agent (80+ missions, no drops so far) and no indication of his fatigue state or how much he has recovered, that much worse.

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+1 to “incapacitation needs to go the way of the Dodo”. That system has no redeeming quality whatsoever.

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We need something, but why a fatigue meter? From what I’ve played, it seems like every ‘X’ missions taken/completed will cause the downtime, whether you complete the last mission now, or a day from now…it seems like you’ll still get the cool down regardless. I may be wrong, but do we actually know if you lay off the missions that this cool-down will reset or diminish over time?

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Free incapacitate healing is now gone. My first mission? Incapacitated. 10 hours or 8800 MoF. I’ll just use some of the other agents I’ve got until my main one heals up… OH WAIT. :kappa:

We don’t need an indicator, we just need “fatigue” gone entirely. Leave incapacitation down to mission failures. If you fail, you have x% chance to be incapacitated. At least then you add an extra layer of depth to the agent system (which it doesn’t have a lot of). You then weigh the consequences of running lower affinity missions with high rewards vs taking the safe bet for lower rewards.

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The longer they are in a mission the higher the chance, the longer they are not in a mission it reduces that chance over time. At least that was the impression I got. Personally I like to know its about to happen before it does, not have it thrust upon me with no warning.

If there is a better solution, I am all for it, just thought I’d throw an idea out there as I sincerely doubt they’d scrap fatigue altogether. But hey if they do, hurrah.

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The essential difficulty is that there are 2 opposing interests here.

  1. Funcom wants to make as much money as possible.
  2. Players want to achieve as much as possible for the least financial investment.
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Agreed, but not making agent booster pack loot tradable is not helping FC bottomline caus eppl buy less; Afterall, half the plasure of whaling is to sell duplicates and spare stuff to make gold.

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