Guild Wars 2

The question in this thread “will ascended gear reduce the value and purpose of crafting”? is based on my understanding of below unedited quotes from Ms. Linsey Murdock’s blog post:

“Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon”
“[…] Ascended items. This new rarity type falls between Exotic and Legendary on the spectrum of rarity and has slightly higher stats than Exotics.”
“For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.”

Question no. 1: what will happen to crafting, and crafting materials?

Very simple: what will happen to crafting? Will it be for skins only? People fear this development will crash the market, and rightfully so. Players will always go for the best item, in the fastest way possible. Any grade you can skip to get the highest grade item will be skipped. Items of “in-between” quality will plummet in value on the TP. Crafting materials needed to craft “in-between” gear will do the same.

Question no. 2: what will happen to (insanely expensive) mystic forge items?

Corollary to the first question: some mystic forge items are insanely expensive. They are listed on the offical wiki page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

These are not legendary items. Will these items simply be reduced to act as skins to ascended weapons? Please note that one of these items, as other posters have mentioned, is an insanely expensive pendant, which is not a skin but an item.

Possible solution?

- Please let the new dungeon drop an item which allows players to bump their EXISTING exotics to ascended stats.
- Please let the new dungeon drop an(other) item which allows players to create an infusion slot on EXISTING gear.

There. Still “progression”, but crafting market slightly saved. Somewhat.

My background: I came from two MMO’s where crafting was killed through bad decisions. Directly following those decisions, in both MMO’s, the community left very quickly, and by the thousands. If a dev/community rep reads this and is interested in the story, I am happy to elaborate on what happened in those MMO’s. For the purposes of this dicsussion, however, my background is irrelevant.

Again, all this angst based on the stats of one pink ring. And we don´t even know if they are final.

Fact: current gear has a freely usable slot
Fact: ascendant gear doesn´t
Fact: infusion is useless outside of Fractal Dungeon

This actually makes current gear overpowered. Please Anet, don´t nerf exotics!

HawkMeister.4758:

Again, all this angst based on the stats of one pink ring. And we don´t even know if they are final.

Fact: current gear has a freely usable slot
Fact: ascendant gear doesn´t

Fact: ascendant gear has the slot upgrade already factored to stats.
Fact: ascendant “slot upgrade” values are better than exotic equivalent

HawkMeister.4758:

Fact: infusion is useless outside of Fractal Dungeon

Unknown. Existence of different kinds of infusion (offensive, defensive) suggests that they do a bit more than just help resist Agony effect.

Astralporing.1957:

HawkMeister.4758:

Again, all this angst based on the stats of one pink ring. And we don´t even know if they are final.

Fact: ascendant gear has the slot upgrade already factored to stats.
Fact: ascendant “slot upgrade” values are better than exotic equivalent

HawkMeister.4758:

Fact: infusion is useless outside of Fractal Dungeon

Unknown. Existence of different kinds of infusion (offensive, defensive) suggests that they do a bit more than just help resist Agony effect.

Now you´re just making stuff up to suit your fear of the mythical UBER ascendant gear.
Infusions only counter agony.

HawkMeister.4758:

Now you´re just making stuff up to suit your fear of the mythical UBER ascendant gear.
Infusions only counter agony.

There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Infusions really come in different varieties. If they were just for agony resistance there wouldn’t be a need to have three distinct types with different naming (offensive, defensive, and omni). Now, this doesn’t necessarily entail different stats, but it does entail a difference. It could be the offensive infusions increase damage against mobs with a special defense that only occurs in the dungeon, defensive is for agony reistance, and omni does both..

Well there are going to be about 200 new recipes and new gathering nodes if i read the stuff correctly, so i’m sure Anet had crafting in mind for this patch. So i think crafters will be okay.
Edit: maybe not 200 new recipes but there’s new stuff for crafters.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/november-2012/
release highlights under the weekend event section.
edit again: the wiki says there will be 200 new recipes
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Lost_Shores

I really hope that Arena Net thinks about all the people that invested their time and money and lets us use our crafted exotics as materials for the next tier.

Arena Net messed up big time making Legendaries such a far away accomplishment I hope they go with more of a stepping stone approach without punishing the people that reached the previous gear max.

Lost Shores is introducing a new “resource node”, and 200 new recipes, so my belief is that this new resource will allow crafters to craft their own Ascended items and Infusions. It’s just speculation at this point, but it just seems like a logical step. (Or if not, then we can always petition ANet to include this functionality at some point in the future.)