Hello,
The recent implementation of ascended items has been extremely disappointing to me from the perspective of someone who liked the no-gear-grind nature of the original Guild Wars. While I appreciate Arena.net’s intentions as well as the existence of the fractal dungeon, some of the decisions made while implementing it seem counter to the general philosophy of the game.
Instead of simply criticizing you, however, I’ve decided to provide a suggestion for how to fit Ascended items into the game in a more interesting, pleasant, rewarding, and lore-friendly manner.
Note: The following includes spoilers of some of the content from the original Guild Wars. If you’ve never finished that game and wish to remain unspoiled, please stop reading now.
Simply put: Bring back Seers, from the original Guild Wars: Prophecies campaign. For those of you unfamiliar with these creatures, they were strange, floaty beings who professed being ancient enemies of the Mursaat. The purpose of bringing back these creatures is that they provide the same service they did to the ancient heroes of the original Guild Wars: They infuse armor with resistance to Spectral Agony. The Mursaat may be (?) gone, but as we can see from the existence of Agony in the Fractal Dungeon, some of their power remains. I therefore suggest:
1. Put several ‘seer’ NPCs in difficult-to-reach parts of existing maps across Tyria, especially in places relatively seldom visited (to encourage people to explore Tyria). Events to unlock them might be appropriate, for example defeating creatures tainted by remnants of Mursaat magic or simply navigating a difficult-to-reach cave. These NPCs will imbue your armor and weapons (each seer might be capable of imbuing a different armor or weapon slot), but first the player must gather materials for the enchantment and/or prove their good intent to the Seer.
2. Implement world bosses similar to the eidolon or ice beast from which we can acquire these materials, in addition to others (dusts might be appropriate, for example). These need not be particularly difficult, merely challenging to find or get to, or requiring some other chain of events (that lower-level characters in the area can help with) to unfold in order to unlock.
Once again the purpose is to provide players interim goals between exotics and legendaries, so requiring vast quantities of materials is counter to that goal (as these are required for legendaries). This suggestion is aimed at allowing players to progress from exotics to Ascended items slowly but surely on an individual basis, as well as getting players of different levels to interact together and 80s to do more than spend their time in Orr or Dungeons so that the world can continue to feel lively years after release.
Thank you for reading.