Guild Wars 2

How Ascended gear is not at all alt friendly:

1: I noticed today while playing my level 26 Guardian that I didn’t receive a single bit of the materials from killing the bosses I normally kill in low level zones on this toon but I do normally receive those materials on my level 80 that had been downscaled to that zone. This doesn’t bode well for players with multiple toons especially for those with 8 that are not all level 80.

2: Dailies only add 1 laurel because there’s only 1 daily per account. Back when this was added it was the same problem, people wanting to get this gear because of WvW concerns had to spend extra months trying to get the pieces you did offer from the Laurel vendor, now that the rest of the gear is coming, this problem still exists.

3: There are no alternate ways of gathering the materials one needs to craft the ascended other than those listed. No rich veins at the very least which should carry the ore needed to make such weapons and armor can be found. So what does this mean? It means that for people who are doing 8 characters they have to now do 8 sets of these bosses to get enough dragonite ore to make the items they need to remain competitive in WvW/fractals.

I don’t suppose anyone over there brought up this concern considering we’re supposed to believe the devs are actually gamer’s and understand gamer’s concerns. One of the biggest part of any mmo gaming community are those who play multiple alts. Many times I’ve read in the forums how people have enjoyed the diversity of this game so much that they’ve made 8 characters each a different class. Surely people can see that this system works against them.

It’s more alt friendly than WXP is… at least once you hit 500 it’s not too hard to get the mats and shove the weapons onto your 80 alts. It’s not so great for trying to do while leveling up and alt though, I agree.

I don’t really even want to count how long it will take to equip my 9 lvl 80’s. Dragonite isn’t the problem, the Empyreal Shards are my personal grief.

And this is just weapons. Soon they all want new armor too…

Garambola.2461:

I don’t really even want to count how long it will take to equip my 9 lvl 80’s. Dragonite isn’t the problem, the Empyreal Shards are my personal grief.

And this is just weapons. Soon they all want new armor too…

It definitely wouldn’t be so daunting if Empyreal shards were easier to come by. I did nearly more CoF than I can stomach to get the first ascneded. It’s going to be a while before I gather the willpower to make another one.

My only complaint is that you do not get the materials while leveling. You need to wait tell level 80 to start getting the materials.

This makes me less and less want to level my alts. Not because it takes too long but because gathering those materials takes time out of my alt play. Now I have to decide what goal I want first. All my characters to 80 or ascended gear. I can’t work on them at the same time.

I really wish they dropped on lower level characters also. This is also helpful for new players as they would be somewhat on the way to getting their ascended.

I don’t even know how people find the time to level 4+ alts and actually enjoy the game at the same time. If Anet stay true to their words then it’s a good thing Ascended is much harder to get than Exotic, cause while it may be a challenge to those who wants 1 of each profession and gear to play every spec possible. It’s still a reasonable goal for a casual who can only manage to play 2-3 character tops. Otherwise we’ll just have completely geared out toons and complain about lack of end game goals.

The Empyreal shards are the bummer but after I found out that you can get them in fractals, I just run more fractals (on 48 you get around 30+ – 40).

In addition it seems high level fractals do have a not abysmal chance to drop the weapon boxes. In my last runs I have seen 3 boxes drop for various players on 48 (I got one too)

After 1 week of this new content I have 3 characters equipped with Ascended Weapons (of which 2 were crafted) So its not impossible but personally I would welcome a change that the weapons only require 250 of the materials because its a pita to farm so many for my 8 chars (I will need 40+ weapons in the long run so its insane and then there will be armors)

Keiel.7489:

I don’t even know how people find the time to level 4+ alts and actually enjoy the game at the same time. If Anet stay true to their words then it’s a good thing Ascended is much harder to get than Exotic, cause while it may be a challenge to those who wants 1 of each profession and gear to play every spec possible. It’s still a reasonable goal for a casual who can only manage to play 2-3 character tops. Otherwise we’ll just have completely geared out toons and complain about lack of end game goals.

Most people have 1-2 level 80s and the rest are under level 80. A lot of people do it to try out other professions play the story or level crafting. Some people also have more time then others. Also a lot of players don’t want top gear for each alt. Some like me would like to play my alt however and still get mats while leveling.

Don’t complain, GW2 is far more alt friendly than other MMOs. And BTW: gw1 wasn’t alt friendly either (all the title coupled skills…).

Keep in mind that you still can easily play the game with exotics. And if the time comes you get your ascended weapon.

Also, if you play a lot of alts, then it is natural that you have to work longer if you want all the BiS gear. It is still an MMO. I always complained in GW1 how easy it was to get the max stats gear. It was so boring afterwards (still a great game though).

ProtoGunner.4953:

Don’t complain, GW2 is far more alt friendly than other MMOs. And BTW: gw1 wasn’t alt friendly either (all the title coupled skills…).

Keep in mind that you still can easily play the game with exotics. And if the time comes you get your ascended weapon.

Also, if you play a lot of alts, then it is natural that you have to work longer if you want all the BiS gear. It is still an MMO. I always complained in GW1 how easy it was to get the max stats gear. It was so boring afterwards (still a great game though).

That is vary true. GW1 was not vary alt friendly. I would argue even more unfriendly Ascended armor is not required to play the game. Skills and staying in meta is.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Don’t complain, GW2 is far more alt friendly than other MMOs. And BTW: gw1 wasn’t alt friendly either (all the title coupled skills…).

Keep in mind that you still can easily play the game with exotics. And if the time comes you get your ascended weapon.

Also, if you play a lot of alts, then it is natural that you have to work longer if you want all the BiS gear. It is still an MMO. I always complained in GW1 how easy it was to get the max stats gear. It was so boring afterwards (still a great game though).

Others games doing it worse is not a justification for this one to do it poorly as well.

There are many places in this game which actively detour playing alts. WxP, dungeons, fractals, ascended gear, world events, SAB, and time gating as applied in this game all combine to hinder those who enjoy the variety that playing alts provides.

The variety alts provide help to extend content. I know I for one would have burnt out on content much sooner in both gw1 and gw2 if it were not for alts.

You’ve decided to make alts. You knew kitten well that having a lot of alts is a disadvantage when you want to gear them all up. It’s only natural that those with 3 characters has to work harder to all gear them to the max compared to someone with 1 character.

These kind of threads is basically full with people begging for free stuff.

As multiple alt user (all in full exotics, which at least you can trade for) the biggest issue I have is the non-tradeable and time gating aspect of it all.

If the crafting materials were tradable I wouldn’t have a problem with ascended weapons.

As it is, I now have to spend yet more time standing in LA levelling up crafts I never wanted and spending a large sum of either gold to buy the mats needed or mindless farming to get the mats to get to 500, then yet more time gating and that’s one weapon.

Then I get to repeat the mindless grind 40+ times if I want to equip my alts with even one of their weapon sets, and that’s before ascended gear comes in.

Good to hear that as usual fractals (don’t you die of boredom repeating the same actions 400 times?) gives great amounts, standing at the side of a dragon gives 20-30 dragonite (I went and made coffee at the last one, got the reward from auto attack to first interupt), but actually playing out in the maps or killing players rewards nothing.

So basically, if you mash 1 you win, if you want to do something challenging you lose.

GG Anet.

And no, people with multiple alts don’t want free stuff- you get that from scarlet 30+ champ boxes, dragon 30 dragonite, etc. They just want a system that enables them to equip their toons in a reasonable timescale.

Personally I’ve already given up on getting ascended stuff any time soon, and will just carry on playing the way I want to until the difference becomes too noticable in terms of survivability, at which point hopefully something better will have come out.

Retsuko.2035:

You’ve decided to make alts. You knew kitten well that having a lot of alts is a disadvantage when you want to gear them all up. It’s only natural that those with 3 characters has to work harder to all gear them to the max compared to someone with 1 character.

These kind of threads is basically full with people begging for free stuff.

Actually that’s not true at all. When exotic was the max level gear it was no trouble to collect karma and then spend it. Even with the limitations of dailies and without the karma boost to bottles it was still easily done. Now they time gated everything. It’s not a solution, they are pretty much replacing a problem some of us had already.

The old magic find system had some kind of flaw in it that would cause people even at 250% to just get nothing most of the time, sometimes it was so bad that bags would stop dropping entirely (those that had T6 mats for runes/sigils). Then they placed the limitation of 1 daily per account when dailies started which if used for crafting bags would only yield certain random T6 materials, now they have time gated not only the acquisition of materials but also the crafting level to make the BoA items.

It’s not done correctly and it’s another example of how this wasn’t tested (PTR) or thought about at length before put into play. Basically what they’ve done is replaced one way of time gating (or completely cutting certain people off from these materials entirely) for another.

I feel sorry for any new person that comes into this title and expects this to be simple especially since during the leveling process you don’t collect a single piece of the materials needed until you reach level 80.

Retsuko.2035:

These kind of threads is basically full with people begging for free stuff.

No. Not free. But to be allowed work on more than one character’s items at the same time.

I’ll get it when I get it, is my philosophy. Sure, standing around with a pretty pink weapon on all my characters would be nice, but it isn’t mandatory for me to enjoy the game. Also, lower level alts do not obtain level 80 crafting mats for doing low level bosses. The loot is designed to scale with your characters original level, not the scaled down level. So, asking for ascended materials to drop for your low level alts breaks the loot distribution of the entire game.

I have no problems spending the time to acquire stuff in the game. For me it isn’t a race to get everything, it is about enjoying the game. If getting everything as fast as possible is how you enjoy the game, then you might want to see if there is another game for you, or if you can tolerate how the devs have designed their game.

Andrew… there is a difference between just wanting it as fast as possible and being able to gear up all of some ones characters within the year…

As a fellow altoholic, I completely sympathise with the OP’s situation. The way GW2 is designed makes it quite alt-unfriendly, and I’ve basically come to the conclusion that fully equipping all of my 5 characters with Ascended/Legendary gear is a pipe dream. (For all I know I’ll have moved on to another game by then!) The only consolation is that Ascended gear is pretty much only there for players who like grinding their hearts out for BiS equipment; the endgame was, and still is, designed around level 80’s with Exotics. Ascended gear is not a necessity for endgame play, unless you’re planning on farming high-end Fractals. (Of course, if ANet makes Ascended gear required for future end-game content, there’ll be a lot of disgruntled players around…)