Guild Wars 2

Alright, I really wanted to get this off my chest. So here ya go, my 2 cents.

In terms of people freaking out that Anet is going back on their manifesto by bringing back a gear treadmill.
No.

A gear treadmill would imply that Anet will be pumping out updates like this periodically, adding more and more powerful gear each time, thereby forcing you to grind old dungeons to get gear that would make it possible to complete new content.

This is all based on the assumption they will continue to add future tiers of gear, which I do not think they will. Infact, the reason I do not think future tiers will be added is the same reason I think ascended is being added.
There is currently no level 80 only tier!
The highest current tier in the game is exotic which is for level 60’s to 80’s. But as I said before,
There is currently no level 80 only tier!
This leads me to believe ascended is going to be added for level 80 only and fill the last gap for high level gear, after which there will be no additional reason to add additional tiers.

How would adding this final piece of the tier puzzle ruin the game in any way or even create more of a gear treadmill/ grind then there was before? Exotics in the current meta are expensive! and rare! So anyone who has a set likely grinded (ground… idk) mobs or dungeons for a fair amount of time. How does this make the exotic sets that everyone seems to be alright with any better or worse than the new ascended sets?

Let me offer an alternative reality that we may explore.

The game is launched with 6 tiers of gear. Namely normal, fine, masterwork, rare, exotic and ascended. Ascended, the highest gear tier is level 80 exclusive. The game is released and all is well with the world. Players reach level 80 and grind dungeons and orr for their ascended sets.
Arenanet never adds future gear tiers, as they already have an appropriate set for each level. All is well in the world and there was much rejoicing.

The point of mentioning this alternate circumstance is to shed light on the fact that if they choose to release the game with ascended, no one would care, as It would be the same thing as if they launched with exotics (as they actually did) as the highest tier.

Granted I am making the fair (in my mind) assumption that they will add no future tiers beyond a lvl 80 exclusive tier. Also, if they choose to raise the max level, my points are obviously moot, but that will probably not happen for a while (if ever).

Alright, thanks for reading that (you did read the whole thing, didn’t you?). I would love to hear everyone’s opinion on this topic, as there may be things I have overlooked completely that would cause me to not be freaking out and quitting the game like a surprising amount of other fans. I only ask that If you feel compelled to respond, please read my post so you don’t sound like an idiot.

Thanks,

Jollyjolly0

Well, everyone will likely have to farm new WvW sets and junk the old ones and may or may not have to transmute them all over again.

Anyone who karma farmed for maxed level gear likely wasted their time.

Lots of issues with crafting and runes, depending on how these work with the new items.

Potential for needing more sets of armor for WvW and spending more money to change the armor for every balance update. One set of equipment for a build is at least 13 soulbound items. That is a lot of inventory and bank space.

They could have just made new interesting and fun content with new skins and stat combinations.

Even if they never put newer tiers into the game or raise the level cap, ascended gear has now set the precedent for new tiers being added to the game.

I figure it this way, with legendary weapons floating around…I have indeed wondered if there was going to be legendary armor sets. This sorta thing seemed rather expected to me.

What I hope doesn’t happen going forward is an introduction to actual legendary armor.

Now that I think about it, not exactly sure how I feel about this route.

OP does have a point, this would be lvl 80 exclusive armor/weps.

“OP does have a point, this would be lvl 80 exclusive armor/weps.”

They could have made Ascended “Legendaries” right away then. Legendaries are 80 only and hard to get, and no stat increase. Thusly they’d have fit in perfectly with everything as Legendaries are 80 only already.

For me, the big deal is that one of the things that made gw great (for me) was that I could leave for six months (or a year, or 18 months), come back, and be able to play new content immediately, rather than first getting new gear.

That wouldn’t be a huge problem if this were guaranteed:

This leads me to believe ascended is going to be added for level 80 only and fill the last gap for high level gear, after which there will be no additional reason to add additional tiers.

But there’s no reason to be led to believe this. It could be true, of course. But it could also be false. We don’t have any evidence either way. They can always create new reasons to add more gear, simply by adding new content where it helps (like they’ve done this time). Will they? We can’t possibly tell.

@ pregnable, Yes, I didn’t mention that, but it is true it will cause some anxiety amongst players who already worked for an exotic set, but if they didn’t do updates because it would cause some players to get annoyed, they wouldn’t get anything done. Ever. Also the rest of your points seem to be speculation (granted thats all we can do), and its unfair to not like an update because you don’t know how they will work it in with crafting.

Ant to others saying that they might indeed add additional tiers: Arenanet are fairly smart people. This is exactly the same thing they said they would not be doing in their manifesto, so instead of freaking out like every other player, I realized they probably had a reason for doing this. I realized that there was no level 80 exclusive tier and it seemed to fit. They very well could have simply not had time to add these in the initial release.
Currently, we have no evidence indicating that additional tiers will be added, and the points I stated above are worth at least something. So imo, there is some evidence they will not add future tiers, and no evidence they will.

(On my post i will assume we cant get gear many ways , which could be wrong since the update is not out yet)

The point is not only the stats. Is the in theory fact you can only get the gear from the dungeon itself.

Now , it was obvius they would add gear with better stats at some point , did anyone really tought you would use gear from the game start forever? BUT the game was always about getting max stats many ways. Now it is about grinding dungeons … all over again.

The tale will be told in the differences between sigils and infusions.

If infusions give no stats just defenses, ascended gear and exotic gear are equal in stats.

jollyjolly.3516:

@ pregnable, Yes, I didn’t mention that, but it is true it will cause some anxiety amongst players who already worked for an exotic set, but if they didn’t do updates because it would cause some players to get annoyed, they wouldn’t get anything done. Ever. Also the rest of your points seem to be speculation (granted thats all we can do), and its unfair to not like an update because you don’t know how they will work it in with crafting.

Ant to others saying that they might indeed add additional tiers: Arenanet are fairly smart people. This is exactly the same thing they said they would not be doing in their manifesto, so instead of freaking out like every other player, I realized they probably had a reason for doing this. I realized that there was no level 80 exclusive tier and it seemed to fit. They very well could have simply not had time to add these in the initial release.
Currently, we have no evidence indicating that additional tiers will be added, and the points I stated above are worth at least something. So imo, there is some evidence they will not add future tiers, and no evidence they will.

But why add a new tier that has increased stats of the all ready lvl 80 exotics, thus forcing everyone to grind for these better gear. There is already a Lvl 80 exclusive called Legendary, why not just make legendary armor? Then there would be a Fully exclusive lvl 80 tier, but still people wouldn’t be forced to grind.

These quotes are the reason Ascended is a big deal:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

– Colin Johanson

Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral.

-Mike O’Brien

Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.

Yeah pretty much , well i got : 400 hours +- played atm , spent $100 total.

So if they do add this system im leaving to wait for the next big MMO title , no hard feelings , 400 hours for $100 is not bad.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.

So Ascended gear “looks like” is breaking these promises… But what it really is <0.5% (example ring gives 2 more power which is 0.2% of 1000 – pretty low for level 80) better stats and some PvE specific attributes (like magic find and ifusions).

HiddenNick.7206:

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.

So Ascended gear “looks like” is breaking these promises… But what it really is <0.5% (example ring gives 2 more power which is 0.2% of 1000 – pretty low for level 80) better stats and some PvE specific attributes (like magic find and ifusions).

The ring gives 5 additional power and precision (And these are Minor stats, the difference would be bigger with Major stats) an increase by 8% ( 5/63=8%) And the major stat (in this case MF) have an increase by 42% (this will probably be lower if Power/precision would’ve been the major stats)

So full Ascended will have quite some more stats than full Exotic.

Komuflage.2307:

The ring gives 5 additional power and precision (And these are Minor stats, the difference would be bigger with Major stats) an increase by 8% ( 5/63=8%)

You didn’t get my point… My level 80 guardian has 1500 vitality with BLUE SET! So 5 points are 0,003 of that and that 3 at end does not matter! And MF is just PvE specific stat so it does not affect character power or anything.

Ascended gear is just something you achieve when you overcome new challenges.

Komuflage.2307:

But why add a new tier that has increased stats of the all ready lvl 80 exotics, thus forcing everyone to grind for these better gear. There is already a Lvl 80 exclusive called Legendary, why not just make legendary armor? Then there would be a Fully exclusive lvl 80 tier, but still people wouldn’t be forced to grind.

You have a very strange mindset. You believe that by offering armor with slight stat increases they are "forcing " players to get it and grind? With that mindset, does the game force everyone into getting a full exotic set?
Stat boosts this minor will in no way be able to trivialize content, or be necessary to complete more difficult content. This means that the game is not forcing you to get this armor in any way, so i do not know what is “forcing” anyone to get this gear.
(This is again assuming they do not add further tiers, for if they did, these small stat buffs would be compounded until it was enough to trivialize content)

jollyjolly.3516:

You have a very strange mindset. You believe that by offering armor with slight stat increases they are "forcing " players to get it and grind? With that mindset, does the game force everyone into getting a full exotic set?
Stat boosts this minor will in no way be able to trivialize content, or be necessary to complete more difficult content. This means that the game is not forcing you to get this armor in any way, so i do not know what is “forcing” anyone to get this gear.
(This is again assuming they do not add further tiers, for if they did, these small stat buffs would be compounded until it was enough to trivialize content)

Honestly im still waiting to check out how it will work once it is actually implemented , but i wont take any excuse for better stat gear that comes only from dungeons that is for sure. If Anet cant keep their word , i will try the next company , maybe they can.

So if by going by the example ring given, does this now make jewels, sigils and runes now obsolete at 80 because it looks like to me that the ring already has a jewel stat included with only an infusion spot.

Makes little sense to me if it goes that way.

Never thought I’d see people complain so much about 5+5 stats extra. Besides if people hadn’t noticed it’s an infusion slot, this is 100% PvE focused.

There is a level 80 tier. It’s called level 80.

Exotics at level 80 are better than exotics at level 60.

Next, all content in this game is already trivial. I beat it within a few weeks of release, and I was slow. This just makes already trivial content a little bit easier.

Now, as for gear progression, this is adding a whole new set that is *REQUIRED* to be worn to progress in new dungeon content. Let me quote Linsey for those who didn’t read it themselves: "In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony. This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. Instead of upgrade slots, Ascended gear has Infusion slots, and rarer versions of the items also come with additional Agony Resistance built into them."

So, there will simply be a point where you *NEED* to have Ascended gear, with infusions, to take part in content. What is the difference between that, and a regular old required Gearscore in WoW?

Next, this quote: "As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content)" is saying that new content will introduce new Ascended gear. Each piece bringing more of the *REQUIRED* infusion. So, each bit of new content replaces more and more of your old gear. That’s kind of the definition of the Treadmill.

A-net is messing up bad here. This will be mistake number four in the seven (soon to be 8) years I’ve been with them.

TL:DR
We are being told that without this gear, we *WILL NOT* be able to participate in content at a specific point. Does that sound like: "The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game" to you?

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

These quotes are the reason Ascended is a big deal:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

– Colin Johanson

Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral.

-Mike O’Brien

Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.

Please tell me how this is different from an exotic set? I have a full set of rares and if i want full exotics, I will have to grind for gear that does not give solely cosmetic benefits.

According to what I’m seeing people say on the forums against ascended gear, people should be of the opinion that exotics are horrible and that Arenanet broke these promises on launch day because it requires a grind to acquire exotic gear. But we all know that is not the case. People seem to be alright with exotics. The reason being is that people do not seem to have a full understanding of the difference between gear and gear treadmill, and this update was worded in such a way that, if taken at face value, can appear to be treadmill-y.

In a traditional MMO, the gear treadmill is meant to be an endless cycle of grinding gear, only to use it to grind the next set, and the next set, and the next set etc etc. The reason this is a problem (aside from the monotony), is that it restricts the content available at any given time. For example, in a treadmill based game, some content will be trivialized by the high-powered gear the player will have, and other content will be unavailable because they have not grinded (should this be ground?…) enough dungeons to have gear powerful enough to progress.

In Anet’s case, we do not have this treadmill, because ascended (again, I am making the assumption that no future tiers will be added) will be the final tier. And once people have their max gear, they are not forced into grinding more gear to continue to experience new content as they would in a treadmill MMO.

3 months is a very short amount of time. This game didn’t even have a real beta, so 3 months into release is practically when the “real” beta would have ended had they done one.

Suffice to say, 3 months after release is extremely short of a time interval.

And here we are with the first step forward on the treadmill. If this had happened a year out I would say you have a point, but to begin the endless upgrading of gear 3 months after release is a shock.

I would say that it all depends on implementation. One of the major problems with the Ascended gear as we understand it is that it is earned in a very limited way namely grinding the new dungeon.

If they decided to add it purely to fill the gap between legendarys and exotics and didn’t add new tiers after it I don’t think it would really be a problem. The concern is that it sets a precedent for after the Ascended gear they will add another tier then another and so on.

What Anet should do is add a variety of methods to get Ascended gear outside of dungeons making them harder to attain then exotics but easier then legendarys then don’t add any more tiers.

Can we just skip the middle man and buy them from the shop? After all this is where this is heading right p2w.
Since nothing is sacrosanct anymore lets just get this over with and put it in the shop.
I just want to know how much this new mechanism is going to cost me.

jollyjolly.3516:

Please tell me how this is different from an exotic set? I have a full set of rares and if i want full exotics, I will have to grind for gear that does not give solely cosmetic benefits.

According to what I’m seeing people say on the forums against ascended gear, people should be of the opinion that exotics are horrible and that Arenanet broke these promises on launch day because it requires a grind to acquire exotic gear. But we all know that is not the case. People seem to be alright with exotics. The reason being is that people do not seem to have a full understanding of the difference between gear and gear treadmill, and this update was worded in such a way that, if taken at face value, can appear to be treadmill-y.

In a traditional MMO, the gear treadmill is meant to be an endless cycle of grinding gear, only to use it to grind the next set, and the next set, and the next set etc etc. The reason this is a problem (aside from the monotony), is that it restricts the content available at any given time. For example, in a treadmill based game, some content will be trivialized by the high-powered gear the player will have, and other content will be unavailable because they have not grinded (should this be ground?…) enough dungeons to have gear powerful enough to progress.

In Anet’s case, we do not have this treadmill, because ascended (again, I am making the assumption that no future tiers will be added) will be the final tier. And once people have their max gear, they are not forced into grinding more gear to continue to experience new content as they would in a treadmill MMO.

Jolly, at no point are you required to have exotics to participate in content in the game. That’s the difference.

I can do any content in this game, and as long as I have a group of level appropriate people who press at least two buttons, I can complete it. With this new gear that we’ve been told will be “a must” to complete dungeons, it’s a direct flip on the previous idea that you can play the game without worrying about any form of gearscore.

JBleezz.2697:

I would say that it all depends on implementation. One of the major problems with the Ascended gear as we understand it is that it is earned in a very limited way namely grinding the new dungeon.

If they decided to add it purely to fill the gap between legendarys and exotics and didn’t add new tiers after it I don’t think it would really be a problem. The concern is that it sets a precedent for after the Ascended gear they will add another tier then another and so on.

What Anet should do is add a variety of methods to get Ascended gear outside of dungeons making them harder to attain then exotics but easier then legendarys then don’t add any more tiers.

The problem, Jbleezz, is that if it’s harder to attain than exotics, then you are forced to grind harder to get gear that is required to participate in new content. It’s not that there’s new gear. If they had made new gear with slightly better stats, it wouldn’t matter to anyone at all.

It’s the NEW stat, the one that we’ve been told straight from A-net will be required in order to play the new dungeons beyond a specific point. Instead of “Item Level” your ability to perform in new dungeons will be measured entirely by how much of the new stat you have.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

JBleezz.2697:

I would say that it all depends on implementation. One of the major problems with the Ascended gear as we understand it is that it is earned in a very limited way namely grinding the new dungeon.

If they decided to add it purely to fill the gap between legendarys and exotics and didn’t add new tiers after it I don’t think it would really be a problem. The concern is that it sets a precedent for after the Ascended gear they will add another tier then another and so on.

What Anet should do is add a variety of methods to get Ascended gear outside of dungeons making them harder to attain then exotics but easier then legendarys then don’t add any more tiers.

The problem, Jbleezz, is that if it’s harder to attain than exotics, then you are forced to grind harder to get gear that is required to participate in new content. It’s not that there’s new gear. If they had made new gear with slightly better stats, it wouldn’t matter to anyone at all.

It’s the NEW stat, the one that we’ve been told straight from A-net will be required in order to play the new dungeons beyond a specific point. Instead of “Item Level” your ability to perform in new dungeons will be measured entirely by how much of the new stat you have.

You’re acting as if it’s hard to get exotic gear, it’s actually painfully easy.

Just because it’s stupidly easy to get exotics doesn’t change the fact that if you make the new, *required* gear harder to get than what we’ve already got, you’re doing something exactly opposing to what we were told we’d be getting.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

JBleezz.2697:

I would say that it all depends on implementation. One of the major problems with the Ascended gear as we understand it is that it is earned in a very limited way namely grinding the new dungeon.

If they decided to add it purely to fill the gap between legendarys and exotics and didn’t add new tiers after it I don’t think it would really be a problem. The concern is that it sets a precedent for after the Ascended gear they will add another tier then another and so on.

What Anet should do is add a variety of methods to get Ascended gear outside of dungeons making them harder to attain then exotics but easier then legendarys then don’t add any more tiers.

The problem, Jbleezz, is that if it’s harder to attain than exotics, then you are forced to grind harder to get gear that is required to participate in new content. It’s not that there’s new gear. If they had made new gear with slightly better stats, it wouldn’t matter to anyone at all.

It’s the NEW stat, the one that we’ve been told straight from A-net will be required in order to play the new dungeons beyond a specific point. Instead of “Item Level” your ability to perform in new dungeons will be measured entirely by how much of the new stat you have.

Fair point. I didn’t really touch on the infusion part of it mainly because I am not sure how they plan on making that work. If indeed it is a sort of thing that you need X gear to have any chance in future dungeons and results in a gear grind then I do have to agree that would be a serious concern. However if it only affects this one dungeon then I could probably live with it since it wouldn’t be required for future content.

Honestly I would prefer they drop the whole infusion thing since it seems to only serve the purpose of forcing grind to see future content. And if they do go that route then I doubt I will take part in those dungeons simply because I don’t have the time or patients to keep up with a gear tredmill.

"This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.
As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

So, you’ll be required to have infusion, from Ascended gear in order to progress through the content. In the future, more Ascended gear will be added, and high end infusions will be added. Following in trend, more Infusion will be required to progress through the newer content.

Right now, you craft the Back slot in the Forge, and then grind the dungeon for the Ring. To make new content more challenging, and keep you wanting to keep going, you’ll likely be required to have the Back and Ring pieces in order to take part in the next dungeon, that will give you the Gloves and Boots. And then, even more, when you get in to the place that gives you Head and Shoulders. And even more when you finally get your Chest and Leggings.

Grind more infusion to take part in new dungeons to grind more infusion to take part in new dungeons.

The Problem with the introduction of ascended i see is the following :
normal gear at Level 80has 3 stats plus 3 on the slot
all those stats had fixed combination
with what i saw this is now broken
we have items with specific combination now!
I foresee a scenario like this:
"i really need prec Touch healing, i must run this dungeon at least ten times
until i reach my Maximum!"
before we could just Farm karma or money and get that gear
the dungeons were for pure bragging rights. There were other ways to acquire the gear
I understand what ascended is supposed to Do:
a progression towards a specific playstyle ; an exclusive area for those who deserved it, for the ascended
But why this system
i hope these dungeons work on a single token system that allows us to just do any ascended dungeons and then get the items.
I really hope they know what they are doing

sorry for the bad Format
i am posting from a phone

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

“This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.
As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

So, you’ll be required to have infusion, from Ascended gear in order to progress through the content. In the future, more Ascended gear will be added, and high end infusions will be added. Following in trend, more Infusion will be required to progress through the newer content.

Right now, you craft the Back slot in the Forge, and then grind the dungeon for the Ring. To make new content more challenging, and keep you wanting to keep going, you’ll likely be required to have the Back and Ring pieces in order to take part in the next dungeon, that will give you the Gloves and Boots. And then, even more, when you get in to the place that gives you Head and Shoulders. And even more when you finally get your Chest and Leggings.

Grind more infusion to take part in new dungeons to grind more infusion to take part in new dungeons.

I highly doubt you NEED back piece to do it initially, so if you did the first path without it, you still need the ring for completing it(Even this is shady because we don’t have the entire picture) I don’t know about you, but I have a friend and 3 others already committing to doing it back piece or not. When the patch hits and you have the full information on how it’ll work and if they are actually NEEDED, please do tell me because at the moment, we’re just guessing.

I have a lot of faith in A-net. They’ve only screwed up three times so far, about to make four, in about eight years.

But, they are going to screw this up. It’s got all the classic signs of everything A-net does before A-net screws up. Will it ruin the game, probably not. Will a lot of people quit, maybe. Will most of those people come back for holidays, very likely. That doesn’t change the point that they’re going to screw this up.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

I have a lot of faith in A-net. They’ve only screwed up three times so far, about to make four, in about eight years.

But, they are going to screw this up. It’s got all the classic signs of everything A-net does before A-net screws up. Will it ruin the game, probably not. Will a lot of people quit, maybe. Will most of those people come back for holidays, very likely. That doesn’t change the point that they’re going to screw this up.

Will people quit? Lol yes.
Will more people come back? Yes. A lot more.

But I strongly believe more people will be playing after the patch then before and is that a bad thing?

Cloud.7613:

I highly doubt you NEED back piece to do it initially, so if you did the first path without it, you still need the ring for completing it(Even this is shady because we don’t have the entire picture) I don’t know about you, but I have a friend and 3 others already committing to doing it back piece or not. When the patch hits and you have the full information on how it’ll work and if they are actually NEEDED, please do tell me because at the moment, we’re just guessing.

“Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.”

What is shady about that? It says, in unmistakable wording, that you will reach a point where defense against agony is a must.

“The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions”

So, you need defense against Agony, which is only available through Infusions.

“Infusions are a special new type of Upgrade Component that can only be slotted into special Infusion slots on gear… Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.”

So, to get infusions, you need Ascended armor.

Now, from those quotes, from Linsey, the way this works is:
You will, at some point, be required to have some Ascended gear in order to participate in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon.

As for more people playing, I think you’ve got it all wrong. You throw in gear progression to a game that’s already been called World of Charrcraft since shortly after Utopia was scrapped, and you don’t get more players. Out of an actual poll of a little over a thousand GW2 players, 52% have said they will leave the game if ascended items are continued.

Think we’d actually make up 52% of the playerbase, when quite honestly, there’s no reason anyone should ever buy this game except for the hope that A-net might do something right?

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

Cloud.7613:

I highly doubt you NEED back piece to do it initially, so if you did the first path without it, you still need the ring for completing it(Even this is shady because we don’t have the entire picture) I don’t know about you, but I have a friend and 3 others already committing to doing it back piece or not. When the patch hits and you have the full information on how it’ll work and if they are actually NEEDED, please do tell me because at the moment, we’re just guessing.

“Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.”

What is shady about that? It says, in unmistakable wording, that you will reach a point where defense against agony is a must.

“The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions”

So, you need defense against Agony, which is only available through Infusions.

“Infusions are a special new type of Upgrade Component that can only be slotted into special Infusion slots on gear… Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.”

So, to get infusions, you need Ascended armor.

Now, from those quotes, from Linsey, the way this works is:
You will, at some point, be required to have some Ascended gear in order to participate in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon.

As for more people playing, I think you’ve got it all wrong. You throw in gear progression to a game that’s already been called World of Charrcraft since shortly after Utopia was scrapped, and you don’t get more players. Out of an actual poll of a little over a thousand GW2 players, 52% have said they will leave the game if ascended items are continued.

Think we’d actually make up 52% of the playerbase, when quite honestly, there’s no reason anyone should ever buy this game except for the hope that A-net might do something right?

Firstly, in my post, I was mostly touching on the gear itself. The dungeon and corresponding infusion stuff will be isolated, meaning it will not affect a player’s ability to take part in future content, however, I do see your point about how that is a bit treadmill-y. I honestly believe this is a knee jerk/quick fix to people complaining about a lack of endgame.

By the way, I’d love to see this mystical and elusive poll of 1000 players in which 520 of them said they would quit the game because of a new reward from a new type of dungeon on a new island within a new zone discovered through a new massive chain of meta events all released through a completely free content patch for a subscription-less game.
(That’s me calling bullcrap mate, links or GTFO)

http://poll.pollcode.com/zryv2e_result

That’s the poll, it originally came from a forum topic that is now merged in the General Discussion sub-forum.

And really, new content for free is something we’re used to from A-net. It’s not special that they’re giving us the game that they sold us. This isn’t a big expansion, it’s part of the unfinished product that you bought months ago.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

http://poll.pollcode.com/zryv2e_result

That’s the poll, it originally came from a forum topic that is now merged in the General Discussion sub-forum.

And really, new content for free is something we’re used to from A-net. It’s not special that they’re giving us the game that they sold us. This isn’t a big expansion, it’s part of the unfinished product that you bought months ago.

Or it could actually be a new part of the game. Don’t be so quick to judge.

This isn’t a new part of the game, and I’m not being quick to judge. The map was full of areas that we can’t go, with plenty of content to be released over time, in order to keep you playing until whole expansions/campaigns roll out.

This is how A-net works, it’s how they’ve been working for almost 8 years now.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

This isn’t a new part of the game, and I’m not being quick to judge. The map was full of areas that we can’t go, with plenty of content to be released over time, in order to keep you playing until whole expansions/campaigns roll out.

This is how A-net works, it’s how they’ve been working for almost 8 years now.

So you know for a fact that X area was complete and they pulled a bioware day 1 DLC stunt?

I’m sorry but where’s your proof?

lvl 20 infused monk LFG HM!… seems a lot like it the level 20 gear from proph to me. infusions= insfused agony=spectral agony (only mursaat and only in phoph) ascended= max armor. I still trust a-net and that poll looks like a load of horse _ to me. I will agree that the game was published before completion, the devs did say that people were completing in weeks what they expected to take months (guess they thought no one would play 14 hrs a day). Makes me think that they were planning on rolling out “endgame” a bit later after release and letting us play what they already have while we wait. most of you are already grinding dungeons for cosmetics. why do you care about grinding one for the ability to crawl further into it?

I say first person to the end of the dungeon should get a prize… or maybe make it ever increasing stacks of agony so there is no end just better rewards the higher the agony stacks go; maybe a chance to see a precursor plop on the ground, sure would feel more legendary to me than throwing TP trash at a djin… PLEASE, I REALLY WANT THAT NOW!

So, you think that this game, in development since the scrapping of Utopia in 2006, was just that small. That in the 6 years that this has been a project, they only made 25 zones, drew the entire map, and left most of it empty and unfinished, put in npcs at the borders to the empty spots that said it would happen soon in their actual dialogue...

Then, they put out a new zone twice as fast as they had been averaging for six years, while busy with a holiday event and keeping the live game going, and it just happens to be at the point when a significant amount of the playerbase is getting ready to leave for other stuff, as the holiday season approaches?

No. A-net doesn’t do that. Just look at their old timeline:
Sometime in 2000: A-net is started.
April, 2005: Prophecies release.
April, 2006: Utopia found out. Factions released.
May, 2006: Utopia "Well under way"
June 2006: Utopia confirmed to be canceled.
October 2006: Nightfall released.
March, 2007: GW2 Announced.
August 2007: Eye of the North released.
April 2010: Guild Wars Beyond begins.
August 2012: Guild Wars 2 released.

In 2005-2006, they made three stand-alone campaigns, and had a fourth "well under way" before scrapping it and beginning work on GW2/EotN/Beyond. Then, over six more years, they make one expansion, three quest chains, and GW2.

And, after years of asking ’em "is it done yet?", and being told "when it’s ready", they release GW2, unfinished, short, and empty?

That’s just nothing like the trend A-net has set over the last decade, and highly unlikely.

BlueStoat.9157:

lvl 20 infused monk LFG HM!… seems a lot like it the level 20 gear from proph to me. infusions= insfused agony=spectral agony (only mursaat and only in phoph) ascended= max armor. I still trust a-net and that poll looks like a load of horse _ to me. I will agree that the game was published before completion, the devs did say that people were completing in weeks what they expected to take months (guess they thought no one would play 14 hrs a day). Makes me think that they were planning on rolling out “endgame” a bit later after release and letting us play what they already have while we wait. most of you are already grinding dungeons for cosmetics. why do you care about grinding one for the ability to crawl further into it?

I say first person to the end of the dungeon should get a prize… or maybe make it ever increasing stacks of agony so there is no end just better rewards the higher the agony stacks go; maybe a chance to see a precursor plop on the ground, sure would feel more legendary to me than throwing TP trash at a djin… PLEASE, I REALLY WANT THAT NOW!

Poll was here straight out of our forums.
And of course infusion and agony is a throwback to the Mursaat, Linsey said so.
And the game was released unfinished for a reason. If they release new content little by little, it keeps the people like myself, and many others, from getting too bored. After all, we did finish this game in a couple weeks.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

So, you think that this game, in development since the scrapping of Utopia in 2006, was just that small. That in the 6 years that this has been a project, they only made 25 zones, drew the entire map, and left most of it empty and unfinished, put in npcs at the borders to the empty spots that said it would happen soon in their actual dialogue…

Then, they put out a new zone twice as fast as they had been averaging for six years, while busy with a holiday event and keeping the live game going, and it just happens to be at the point when a significant amount of the playerbase is getting ready to leave for other stuff, as the holiday season approaches?

No. A-net doesn’t do that. Just look at their old timeline:
Sometime in 2000: A-net is started.
April, 2005: Prophecies release.
April, 2006: Utopia found out. Factions released.
May, 2006: Utopia “Well under way”
June 2006: Utopia confirmed to be canceled.
October 2006: Nightfall released.
March, 2007: GW2 Announced.
August 2007: Eye of the North released.
April 2010: Guild Wars Beyond begins.
August 2012: Guild Wars 2 released.

In 2005-2006, they made three stand-alone campaigns, and had a fourth “well under way” before scrapping it and beginning work on GW2/EotN/Beyond. Then, over six more years, they make one expansion, three quest chains, and GW2.

And, after years of asking ‘em “is it done yet?”, and being told "when it’s ready", they release GW2, unfinished, short, and empty?

That’s just nothing like the trend A-net has set over the last decade, and highly unlikely.

Looks about right to me, but you are missing the overhaul of the GW2 project which too the projected release from 2008 to this year. Well worth the wait if you ask me. I like the slow release of content for the individual campaign. the way I see it we have to possibility to do three dragons before this release campaign is done (Jormag and Crack-a-whats-its-name are shiverpeaks and desert, both well within the first map) or at least get to push into a gw beyond type story to prep for the release of the complete campaign. remember when ToPK went into torment? f’n EPIC and just to set us up for nightfall, GWEN and beyond to prep for GW2 launch now we have dynamic events to kick off a new zone and dungeons! I expect something huge leading into a full new campaign. I am fully expecting to pass a brick or two.

Just look at your map, and then the actual map.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Tyria.jpg

That whole world map, from a globe in game, shows Tyria, attatched to Elona, Cantha in the southern sea, and the mysterious aztec continent from Utopia mentioned in Nightfall by the trade prince, in the west (east from elona). Along with an absolutely huge area of Tyria that we’ve never even seen before.

There’s a lot more content, and a lot of it isn’t finished. But, a lot more than you see right now is. That’s just how A-net does things.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

http://poll.pollcode.com/zryv2e_result

That’s the poll, it originally came from a forum topic that is now merged in the General Discussion sub-forum.

And really, new content for free is something we’re used to from A-net. It’s not special that they’re giving us the game that they sold us. This isn’t a big expansion, it’s part of the unfinished product that you bought months ago.

Honestly, I cant believe that. People have a tendency to exaggerate things to convey their point, this effect is amplified on the internet where there is no accountability.
But disregarding that, even if we assume that all 550 of those people will quit the game if this goes through (very unlikely), it is unfair to extrapolate those results beyond the numbers sampled. That type of poll would obviously only be viewed by a very specific group of people. That is, those who are already very angry about this update and we’re pissed enough to create/search for polls about the update.

You’re not forced to do the dungeon and I’m sorry but that poll is laughable, the people who leave are the people who have never played an MMO or probably don’t even play this game any more. Besides, I’m amazed more people didn’t vote no on that poll because those are the only people who are complaining about it I bet. Else they’d be enjoying the game, which, 99% of the population is. I know I am!

Besides, the stat boost is almost insignificant for the work it sounds like you need to put into it AND the Infusion slots are for the dungeon itself – they’re NOT gem slots.

Cloud, you’re missing the entire point. Stat boosts don’t matter in a game you can play naked. The obvious slap in the face to the basic design philosophy is the problem. I know, you don’t really know A-net. I get that. But please read, look, and listen, then speak. Or just go back to WoW, where they would like you.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

Cloud, you’re missing the entire point. Stat boosts don’t matter in a game you can play naked. The obvious slap in the face to the basic design philosophy is the problem. I know, you don’t really know A-net. I get that. But please read, look, and listen, then speak. Or just go back to WoW, where they would like you.

So you’re saying Arena Net doesn’t like its player base? And you act like you know Arena Net? Because I’m part of the player base, sup?

Besides, when this patch hits, like it will, I’ll still be there, will you? No. Because after the first sign of danger, you’ll have moved on.

Instead of getting personal, bring hard evidence that this will lose them players and maybe they’ll listen to you.

Cloud.7613:

You’re not forced to do the dungeon and I’m sorry but that poll is laughable, the people who leave are the people who have never played an MMO or probably don’t even play this game any more. Besides, I’m amazed more people didn’t vote no on that poll because those are the only people who are complaining about it I bet. Else they’d be enjoying the game, which, 99% of the population is. I know I am!

Besides, the stat boost is almost insignificant for the work it sounds like you need to put into it AND the Infusion slots are for the dungeon itself – they’re NOT gem slots.

First , i play this game , over 400 hours atm while i know that is not much , it is not that low either , and second played tons of MMOs before GW2 , from free to paid.

Will still quit if the only way to get max stats gear is from dungeons , no considerations to be made. It is exactly because i played so many MMOs that , first i cant stand companies not keeping their word again and second i know another big MMO will launch “soon” anyway.

99% are happy ? .Only if a miracle is happening and the reason so many quit everyday is actually some ghost effect … they are still there we just cant see right?

That said , i will wait and see how this will actually develop , i saw a post saying we will be able to get the gear many ways , all that is left is confirm it.