Guild Wars 2

There are many people who are very upset that the Ascended items and Infusions have the same difference in stats as Rare->Exotic has. And I agree with them. It sets the bar higher and the fact that these things can only be obtained through a form of gated content is against what ANET has been promising for many years now.

With that said, I enjoy the Fractals, it’s fun and many of them are honestly inspired. My proposed solution is to change it so that Exotics are still the top tier items. Ascended and Infused items will only effect the Fractals and NO OTHER AREAS OF THE GAME.

How do you accomplish this?

Keep the mechanics in the Fractal dungeons which require some form of passive protection in the form of an upgrade to your gear. This can scale as infinitely as you like. As you get to higher levels of the dungeon you need more and more protection but not stats. The Agony mechanic does this, I suggest mixing it up a bit with other similar mechanics just for flavor and variety.

Make Ascended gear similar to how it was in Guild Wars. It’s a passive upgrade that only negates some potentially severely dangerous thing. Spectral Agony would nearly one shot most characters, getting your gear Infused by running a mission made it so that Spectral Agony did pretty much nothing.

This can be accomplished by reducing Ascended items down to Exotic level stats. You then adjust it so that an Ascended item is merely an upgraded Exotic item which offers stats that grant some form of protection against the negative effects of Fractals. Infusions would be more of the same. This creates the gated content that players who enjoy grinding (the group dubbed ‘hardcore’ by the community) love so much without impacting WvWvW or PvE as the effects that Ascension and Infusion provide protection for simply do not exist outside of Fractals.

Now, to make sure Fractals are still accessible to those who do not enjoy gated content or grinding (the group dubbed ‘casuals’ by the community) you simply make it so the first few difficulties do not apply the negative effects or the negative effects are not as severe. Say levels 1-5. At that point you will need Ascended gear to negate the negative effects of 10-15.

Ascending gear could be accomplished by putting various Fractal-only drops and rewards (such as the Fractal Cores) into the Mystic Forge along with an Exotic/Legendary item to be upgraded. Infusing gear would follow the same process, just requiring the that the item be Infused instead.

Alternatively Infusions could be effects applied to Ascended gear, sort of like a second upgrade slot. As stated before Infusions wouldn’t grant any stats that are not directly related to negating some impairment within the higher difficulties of the Fractal dungeons.

As for making the ‘gear treadmill’ you simply make higher quality Infusions which provide greater protection. I believe this would be best accomplished by adding more negative effects then Agony. Perhaps an effect that reduces your damage, healing, increases cooldowns, or causes you to take more damage. Each of these effects can be, theoretically, infinitely increased requiring greater and greater levels of protection.

As for the rewards for delving deep into the Fractals? Unique skins, and mini-pets. One could even add a special Transmutation Stone for transmuting Ascended items, this should help increase Gem Store usage.

I thank you for your time in reading this and apologize for the somewhat unstructured nature of the document. Writing isn’t my forte. :P

I have to agree. As things stand now I have absolutely no motivation to get ascended gear or even play at all, as what’s the point? How do we know that they won’t simply release another tier of gear a month later, and a month after that. A-Net has already broken their promise that there would not be a constant treadmill for the highest level gear, and de-level ascended gear to the same level as exotic or do said changes more eruditely explained above, there is really little interest in drawing me back to an otherwise excellent game.

Since writing this I have had several more ideas for potential Infusions. The ideas above are based only on systems and effects that we have already seen in action within the game. If we extend this to having buffs which are only active within certain zones then the Infusions for items can also give players the higher numbers to reach for.

For example, an Infusion could grant the extra stats that the Ascended items already have. They could have chance based effects like many Runes and Sigils already do, only expanded some. Rather then having a chance to make a basic lightning strike (Sigil of Air) it could be a more powerful version that applies Weakness and/or Vulnerability. Possibly extend the chance for effect to all attacks rather then just crits.

The point is, in theory, Infusions could grant ever higher stats while engaging in Fractals. However I do not believe there is any system in the game which grants passive bonuses conditional upon which zone you are in. Nor do I know of a way to make this idea work. I’m not a programmer nor do I have knowledge of the inner workings of the game.

As for incentives to DO the Fractal content you could place unique skins, both bound and unbound. Materials required to craft upgrade armor and craft Infusions. You could even make it so that at the higher levels there is a chance for a precursor to drop, possibly even a unique set of precursors. Maybe a set of titles? I don’t know, I’m not really sure what kind of aesthetic rewards one could place within there.

As for the players which have already gotten Ascended gear let them keep it, their gear will gain an upgrade slot with an upgrade appropriate to the ‘upgrade’ built into the item. It would keep the Infusion slot and any Infusion that is already slotted.

Edit: Added an explanation for the new Infusion ideas.

I don’t think restricting the gear progression to just dungeons will be enough to satisfy those that want vertical progression.

phanmc.6759:

I don’t think restricting the gear progression to just dungeons will be enough to satisfy those that want vertical progression.

I don’t know if it will satisfy them or not. I just know, with it’s current implementation many who enjoy WvWvW but prefer not to engage in Dungeons or general PvE content will be inferior. I feel that if the Ascended items continue to have higher stats then Exotic items that all future content will most likely be balanced against a playing having Ascended gear.

I know that I came to this game because of the promise of horizontal progression. The MMOs I have played the most had this type of progression for a very long time and did very well. Those games being Guild Wars and City of Heroes. (They did add vertical progression later into City of Heroes but only the content which required it was balanced around it. It also had no effect on PvP if I remember correctly.)

Oh, I’m in absolute agreement with you. However, the problem is ANet wants expand/retain their user base and gear progression is a major point of contention for a significant amount of their user base.

Unfortunately, I think the two play styles (vertical vs horizontal progression) are mutually exclusive and the token gear grind in dungeons only won’t be enough.

ANet really do have to choose which fan base they wanted to pursue, sitting on the fence will only alienate both groups.

i just posted this elsewhere, but i thought i would share it here, as well.

“bring back the “Infusion by Seer” system, present in Guild Wars 1. that way, all it takes is some Karka Essence to “infuse” our armor. that way, exotics stay awesome, players keep their current sets, and players have a cheap way to combat future content, without grind.

make it some kind of hour-long event chain, or something, so it feels awesome and worth it. or tie it in with the possibly repeating "Karka chain " over the weekend. Chest drops and karka infuse essence.

note: karka essence, if dropped from karka ancient, required should be like, 2 essences (ancient drop when it dies) max for currently equipped gear (everything, armor, accessories, weapons, etc). that way, it makes it not much of a grind – two 3 hour event chains – easy stuff guys! or one essence per piece, which makes it 6 for just armor, not trinkets/accessories."

or, upon ancient’s death from lava hole, the seer shows up, advertises infusion, and for a small fee of 2 copper + a skillpoint for each item, can infuse all your gear after a brief interaction with the NPC.

rgrwng.4072:

“bring back the “Infusion by Seer” system, present in Guild Wars 1.

Agree with this…not sure why they even changed it from GW1! It clearly has the same roots. It would probably be a different Seer in most likely a different location because I doubt the Iron Mines of Moladune still exist..heh.

It’s still a crumby system that bases advancement through high-end content on your level of grind rather than your own skill. And even then if that were removed it still segregates the population based on your unlocked difficulty making it more difficult to find groups than necessary, especially if you don’t start grinding out the tiers at the start of the week.

I’m sorry but this doesn’t get to the core of the issue that this system is vertical progression with gating. It may be “just for the dungeon” but this dungeon is now our high-end endgame, just because you don’t want to play at the highest levels doesn’t mean it’s problem solved if you don’t feel you have to. There are those of us who do and we will still have to deal with all of the negatives of these archaic and lazy design mechanisms.

And no, real hardcore players aren’t the ones that need their success at content to be defined by how long they’ve spent adding numbers to their gear. They want an even playing field because there’s no other way to gauge your skill against others.

vox.5019:

It’s still a crumby system that bases advancement through high-end content on your level of grind rather than your own skill. And even then if that were removed it still segregates the population based on your unlocked difficulty making it more difficult to find groups than necessary, especially if you don’t start grinding out the tiers at the start of the week.

There have been posts by ANET confirming that your Fractal level does not reset each week. I cannot remember where they are but you can find them. And I agree that it doesn’t solve the problem of finding groups.

I feel those issues can be resolved by adding a cross server channel to Lions Arch with a limit on how often one can send a message. It would allow you to advertise or keep an eye out for other groups. As for the needing to be in the same instance to get into the Fractal dungeon well that’s a tougher nut that would be solved by Guesting or the ability to put yourself into an overflow regardless of your zone population.

vox.5019:

I’m sorry but this doesn’t get to the core of the issue that this system is vertical progression with gating. It may be “just for the dungeon” but this dungeon is now our high-end endgame, just because you don’t want to play at the highest levels doesn’t mean it’s problem solved if you don’t feel you have to. There are those of us who do and we will still have to deal with all of the negatives of these archaic and lazy design mechanisms.

And no, real hardcore players aren’t the ones that need their success at content to be defined by how long they’ve spent adding numbers to their gear. They want an even playing field because there’s no other way to gauge your skill against others.

I apologize for my misuse of the term, no offense was intended. I do not what to call the group of people who want to chase after items with higher stats but the Ascended seem to be a method of appeasing them.

Or it’s gating. I don’t know, raids and whatnot are not really something within my realm of experience. I myself, due to gating and vertical progression, and solo tendencies have never been able to do such high end content because I never had the gear I needed to complete the thing that required the gear in it.

As for the infinitely higher numbers if the proposed Infusions are only defensive or negating in nature then the playing field might be even, once you reach Exotic Infusions.