Guild Wars 2

So with ArenaNet’s new update. I’ve been seeing alot of backlash from players. Mostly alot of “BEEETRAAAAAED!” comments. (Where is spoony when you need him, eh?) My initial reaction was one of meh, didn’t really seem like a bad thing. However, thinking deeper into this I have found why many people feel betrayed and why the update is a bad idea…. so let’s fix it!

Agony = Good. Ascended Armor = Bad.

First, let me make my reasonings clear. Fractals of the Mists should be treated as a Elite Side Quest. Some examples of Elite Side Quests: Final Fantasy bonus bosses, like FF7’s Ruby Weapon, Emerald Weapon, Ultima Weapon. These bosses kicked your butt 12 ways to sunday, they needed the best armor and weapons to kill. And once you killed them you could brag to your friends you did it. Yet, they didn’t -need- to be killed. It didn’t advance the story, it wasn’t part of the final fight, you could still finish FF7 without killing the Weapon bosses. THAT is what Fractals of the Mists should be. So, let me explane the title now…

Agony: A good idea. It’s a grading system for the dungeon. It means you can go on deeper and deeper and deeper. Just, keep it exclusive to FotM. It makes the dungeon harder and harder giving more of a challange and heavy hitting end game + bragging rights to people who can acomplish it.

Ascended Armor: A bad idea. This is not a good idea at all. It took me a while to understand but I realize this is a terrible idea. See, Arena, here is why: Ascended Armor at the moment can only come from FotM, where as Exotic can come from multiple sources: Crafting, Dungeon Tokens, ect. Basicly, you’ve turned the game into a Pyramid: The bottem has many paths to take when getting better gear, yet, the top has only one obvious path if you want to reach it. That is not good. Players shouldn’t be funnled into somthing they may or may not like. Now, you could say to your selves: It’s just a minor stat increase? Well, maby, maby, yet even a Minor one is still a stat increase. Example: The MMO That Shall Not Be Named had a endgame with alot of undead, A Class Similar to the Guardian was good at killing them, even had items that could increase damage to them by 1%. Even though it was just 1%, some people demanded the class use it. Just to make things go faster. That is what a “slight” stat increase will do. No matter how small. It makes anything lower obsolete. This is why Ascended armor is bad, it can only be gained from FotM at the moment. And people will demand you get full ascended as it comes out, just to be at the pinnical of your game.

Solution: Remove Ascended armor, or lower it’s stats down to Exotic. Make Armor with two upgrade slots: One for a Rune. One for a Infusion. Just don’t make it slightly stronger then Exotics. Keep the stat wall at Exotics. However, if you really want to keep Ascended armor the way it is: Open up different paths to get it, destroy the Pyramid Cap. Make it craftable or Dungeon Tokens from Arah Explorable.

Hold on, now what would the reasoning to do FotM be then? Some people want rewards not a challange?

I’m happy you asked Billy! See, there are many rewards you can give players for doing FotM, here are a few I came up with (Continued in part two)

Part Two

Essence of the Mists

This would be a legendary item that drops from the currently hardest boss of the FotM dungeon, every time you update the game with somthing like Lost Shores (Of course, you would still keep Monthly Content updates for more the FotM i’m sure.), you add a few new Fractals that are harder then the current ones. What would the item do? Simple, you would put it and only it in The Mystic Forge, and get a Legendary Item in return, random, of course. But what these would be is recollored or remoddled items of the current Legendarys. Like take Byfrost: Right now it is a white staff with a rainbow essence around it. Let’s say the essence creates a clone through the Forge, only this one looks twisted, a staff of thorns surounded by necromatic aura. This would give the “Hardcore” players somthing to do, and a reward to boot, while keeping the people who worked there butts off for the Crafted Legendarys still feeling acomplished and ….well legendary.

Slayer of Mists Boss Title

Some people don’t seem to care for “pretty” items. No offense, but I am sure to them they could be playing the game with white boxes on a superflat white plane, and be happy as long as there stats are still there. So, what do you give them? A Title. Somthing like God Walking Among Mere Mortals in Guild Wars One, only this one is more of a Slayer Title. It would show people they worked long and hard to fight in FotM to become legendary in there own right, not by getting a weapon.

Force of the Mists

Now, this reward might seem crazy. And next to impossible to do. However, hear me out: This item would function just like the essence at the Mystic Forge, however, rather then a weapon. It gives you a new skill. NOW HOLD EVERYTHING DON’T GO SHOOTING OFF ALARMS AND YELLING ABOUT BALANCING ISSUES!!!!! Ok, the skill would do nothing stat wise. It would be like Transmutation for your skills, only visual, not statistic. Like, you know the Ghosts in Ascalon? There Elementalist can shoot Ghostly Blue Fireballs. Why not have a item that turns a Elementalist Fireball into that? Or somthing that gives a Mesmer effect to a warrior when he swings his weapons? You could, of course, switch back to your normal looking skills at any time out of combat. It would just be a dropdown bar that holds the recollored skills like with Utilities.

Well, these rewards sound cool and all, but what about us players who don’t want to do FotM? Are we stuck in the dark with our normal stuff while the Elite get all the cool toys?

Why, not at all! This was a issue I came up with while thinking. And the only thing out of all of it that would be exclusive to FotM is the title’s. Everything else could be obtained by the player. However, it would involve a invest ment. Not a investment like running the Dungeon and getting Infusions, more of a time invest ment. Hear me out: Say some Asura set up ub lab in Ruins of Ahra, there they found Mist Power seeping out via tiny cracks. You could go on a solo questline to help make a machine that will absorb this power, yet… it’s very minute power. It’ll take a long time to get enough to make somthing like a Essence or Force item. I don’t have a exact frame, but it should take 3x as long as it takes a runner of FotM to get the there Essence or Force. So the trade off goes like this: Work = Time and Time = Work. If you don’t want to put in the work, you’ll have to wait longer to get it. In my opinion, if you’re a casual player that is simple. Just set up the machine in Arah, aaaaaannnd wait. Eventuly you’ll have Essence or Force of the Mists and can make one of the rewards! However, you can’t do both. Once you start FotM, you can’t use the Machine in Arah and Vice Versa. It’s one or the other.

So, that compleates my ideas. I hope the people reading this like it! If you do or don’t, please feel free to put down constructive feedback.

Note: Constructive does not equal “This sucks! Horrible idea, I hate it, you know nothing about the game!!!!”

The major issue with your suggestion that you’re going to find that they most likely will not budge on is simply this: They’ve been developing Ascended gear for a while, they’re not removing it.

Hmmm, well if that is the case. Arena could just make it easy to get Ascended gear. As I mentiond, open it up for Crafting or Dungeon Tokens, or hell something else. Just don’t force a player into FotM to get the gear. It then basicly deamnds that the player do the dungeon, rather then have a choice in the matter.

And from what I can tell, we all have choices and multiple paths that you can follow to get to level 80 and be maxxed gear. So, it is jarring to say “Only this” after getting alot of freedom.

They did say that it would be available by other means(such as crafting and WvW). They just didn’t say when.