So no more gear grind but we can’t say there won’t be more gear grind just in case we change our mind
Also known as: Were looking at FoTM data and seeing how many people go for shinies – If it is enough we will slowly roll out the full set to delay the inevitable. Once players are full ascended we will look at drop rate – We will decided then if we need to add another Tier.
They probably will as well. People that quit on exotics I doubt will stay for Ascended….unless we get Ascended T2
Chris stated:
1: I would prefer that we never say never but our intention is that in terms of ‘Named Tier (Rarity) of Loot’ Ascended will be with us for a long time and we will not introduce a higher tier of loot for the foreseeable future. There will be loot with different stats and new infusions within the current tier that will be spread over long periods of time (for example Ascended gear will be deployed over the whole of next year). 2: Ascended gear will be obtainable throughout the whole of the game aside from sPvP and in retrospect it would have been better to have rolled different acquisition methods out at the smae time os the FotM.
“Hi Samurai,
I am going to take a quick break then answer one of your questions at a time then go pick another and come back to this list. Time permitting i will try to get as many done as possible.
Chris”
The list of questions is going to be tackled, just give him some time to go through it.
Ahh well, i was doing a deditcated thread for all the questions that have been answered for easy viewing, it’s now been merged and is all over the place.
That sucks. I had your thread open on a separate tab so that I could track the Q&A but apparently that was too easy so it had to go. O’well. It really should have remained its own thread for clarity and post-AMA discussion.
Hmm I can’t seem to find the forum post outside this one that had the AMA questions and answers (that have already been answered). Can someone please link that here again? I thought it may have been folded into this one but I was wrong.
I think you mean my thread, yeah it was merged into this one – the questions/answered are now spread around page 1 and 2. As such i don’t see the point in doing it now as it’s all over the place.
“Hi Samurai,
I am going to take a quick break then answer one of your questions at a time then go pick another and come back to this list. Time permitting i will try to get as many done as possible.
Chris”
The list of questions is going to be tackled, just give him some time to go through it.
Good. Before we were just being fed “Please only ask one question at a time” so it’s nice to know there will be some effort directed at the elephant in the room.
vince.5937 — Tarnished Coast — Les Saintes
R.I.P. City of Heroes, 2004-2012 Long Live Atlas Park 33
Ahh well, i was doing a deditcated thread for all the questions that have been answered for easy viewing, it’s now been merged and is all over the place.
although not here in the forum, should serve the same purpose
I was doing it for the people who don’t like to use reddit (like me), all that was posted was the questions that had answers and nothing more – all in 1 go. After the merge the posts aren’t in line anymore (there are random posts inbetween) and it even made it look like i was spamming (as it randomly appeared i was posting “reserved” and “updated”).
This is the problem with blanket mergers, it can ruin actully useful threads just for having the same sort of name.
Can you not see his posting history without an account? Sorry, i legitimately do not know, as my account is constantly logged in.
Is it only me, or is Chris an extremly slow chatter?! I mean, if this would be a conversation it would be over after 5 minutes, concerning the answers he has given so far in over 1 hour.
I am sure he is not alone in this. each question is chosen, the answer carefully crafted, and then delivered. This takes time.
Sure there are a room of PR people round him discussing the answer then getting the approval of Nexon : ) Oh no I went there.
I’m hoping one of those various ways to get ascended gear will be completing personal story events and world completion. I’m hoping even more that the ascended gear from world completion, if any, will be tuned to the player character rather than the staff and light armor piece my ranger got the other day.
this is unfortunately unlikely as players will always got for the most efficient method to obtain the maximum reward for time spent, if you can get ascended gear through methods easier than farming fractals etc, players would just do that, and that ruins the RNG reliant Skinner box they are building.
i wish the devs had a consistent vision and didn’t push out content they know is flawed
(sigh) They merged the very helpful and streamlined Q&A thread with this discussion thread. Now we have a jumbled mess. I hate when they do that. It may make the forum look cleaner but it sure doesn’t do us any favors with sorting through all the different conversations suddenly mixed together.
9: Good point Nacho. We are currently discussing these particular items and it is fair to say that we don’t want have such big hikes in requirements moving forward.
Why roll it out with such requirements then? Especially when there are reports of players already coming up against the agony mechanic with no infused ascended items and being unable to progress. Did no-one at anet question this?
Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
Hmm I can’t seem to find the forum post outside this one that had the AMA questions and answers (that have already been answered). Can someone please link that here again? I thought it may have been folded into this one but I was wrong.
Gotta say Reddit is a piece of cat to follow, not sure who in their right mind would use it – given you have official forums to begin with. Hopefully he just gets around to answering the already assembled questions here:
Wish they’d just remove the currently accessible Ascended items from drops (you can keep em if you make them or already have them) and just re-release them when the rest of the acquisition methods are ready because as it stands they’ve got a pretty dead world.
Joseph,
Someone posted this link earlier in this thread. It has made my search for questions answered much, much easier as it features Chris Whiteside’s responses. (Note that you can click on “context” to see the question being responded to. Newest answers are appearing at the top of the page.) I hope you and others will find it helpful as well.
Chris isnt alone there.
its a whole meeting room with many elfs working, feeding the information and checking on this exact thread too.
its normal.
its a big game, its many players, its a big reputation, and putting their name on the line like this is tuff.
you have to give them that.
they lied, they changed their minds, they readjusted, they make it more viable…
Hmm I can’t seem to find the forum post outside this one that had the AMA questions and answers (that have already been answered). Can someone please link that here again? I thought it may have been folded into this one but I was wrong.
I think you mean my thread, yeah it was merged into this one – the questions/answered are now spread around page 1 and 2. As such i don’t see the point in doing it now as it’s all over the place.
Yup yup! I suppose the mods are doing all they can to obfuscate the replies further. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong and compile the question and answer list you already had though and put it in a nice clean thread afterwards?
No account or anything. I tap F5 every five minutes and get updated. What is everyone’s problem with how this is being done? I honestly don’t think having the AMA on the forums would be any easier to follow.
I’d rather regret something I’d done than regret doing nothing. [Profession Synonym] Lexxi [ANGL] – Tarnished Coast
(sigh) They merged the very helpful and streamlined Q&A thread with this discussion thread. Now we have a jumbled mess. I hate when they do that. It may make the forum look cleaner but it sure doesn’t do us any favors with sorting through all the different conversations suddenly mixed together.
Right? Should have been stickied instead of merged.
Guess my request that we all calm down and not jump the gun should have been directed at the mods as well.
Can you not see his posting history without an account? Sorry, i legitimately do not know, as my account is constantly logged in.
You can, but you have to open each answer to see each question (context), and you have to filter out any random posts (posts that have nothing to do with questions).
I just thought a nice simple question with answers thread would help people (and Anet) out, it was nice easy way to see the querstions and answers without having to do any work at all and without leaving the official forum.
Anyways, it’s been done and that’s it i guess – hopefully Anet or a mod will do the same thing after the AMA is over.
Hmm I can’t seem to find the forum post outside this one that had the AMA questions and answers (that have already been answered). Can someone please link that here again? I thought it may have been folded into this one but I was wrong.
Gotta say Reddit is a piece of cat to follow, not sure who in their right mind would use it – given you have official forums to begin with. Hopefully he just gets around to answering the already assembled questions here:
Wish they’d just remove the currently accessible Ascended items from drops (you can keep em if you make them or already have them) and just re-release them when the rest of the acquisition methods are ready because as it stands they’ve got a pretty dead world.
Joseph,
Someone posted this link earlier in this thread. It has made my search for questions answered much, much easier as it features Chris Whiteside’s responses. (Note that you can click on “context” to see the question being responded to. Newest answers are appearing at the top of the page.) I hope you and others will find it helpful as well.
Thanks Debsylvania, but it’s not good enough for me. I can’t see the specific question he was answering in that view. The more I look at reddit, the less I like it.
No account or anything. I tap F5 every five minutes and get updated. What is everyone’s problem with how this is being done? I honestly don’t think having the AMA on the forums would be any easier to follow.
Because it’s a piece of poooooooooooooooooooooop. <- that’s gonna be kitten isn’t it.
No seriously, I go there and there are answers like:
Hi Plaid,
I agree whole heatedly and this is something we have and are continuing to have multiple discussions about.
No account or anything. I tap F5 every five minutes and get updated. What is everyone’s problem with how this is being done? I honestly don’t think having the AMA on the forums would be any easier to follow.
Because it’s a piece of poooooooooooooooooooooop. <- that’s gonna be kitten isn’t it.
No seriously, I go there and there are answers like:
Hi Plaid,
I agree whole heatedly and this is something we have and are continuing to have multiple discussions about.
Chris
——————-
Oh. That’s nice. WTF was the question? o.o
Press the context button, and it shows you the exact question asked, with nothing else to litter the page.
Hmm I can’t seem to find the forum post outside this one that had the AMA questions and answers (that have already been answered). Can someone please link that here again? I thought it may have been folded into this one but I was wrong.
Gotta say Reddit is a piece of cat to follow, not sure who in their right mind would use it – given you have official forums to begin with. Hopefully he just gets around to answering the already assembled questions here:
Wish they’d just remove the currently accessible Ascended items from drops (you can keep em if you make them or already have them) and just re-release them when the rest of the acquisition methods are ready because as it stands they’ve got a pretty dead world.
Joseph,
Someone posted this link earlier in this thread. It has made my search for questions answered much, much easier as it features Chris Whiteside’s responses. (Note that you can click on “context” to see the question being responded to. Newest answers are appearing at the top of the page.) I hope you and others will find it helpful as well.
Thanks Debsylvania, but it’s not good enough for me. I can’t see the specific question he was answering in that view. The more I look at reddit, the less I like it.
Joseph,
You can see the question by clicking on “context”. When you’re done reading that question, you can just hit the “back” button to go up the list to the next one.
It’s really very easy to follow.
Deb ~The Chewbacca Defense [TCD];
Waiting For Death [WFD]
@ Borlis Pass Server
9: Good point Nacho. We are currently discussing these particular items and it is fair to say that we don’t want have such big hikes in requirements moving forward.
Why roll it out with such requirements then? Especially when there are reports of players already coming up against the agony mechanic with no infused ascended items and being unable to progress. Did no-one at anet question this?
I don’t think they realized how fast content locust’s can burn through content.
“We don’t need to make gear treadmills”
Colin Johanson on how arenanet measures success
No account or anything. I tap F5 every five minutes and get updated. What is everyone’s problem with how this is being done? I honestly don’t think having the AMA on the forums would be any easier to follow.
Because it’s a piece of poooooooooooooooooooooop. <- that’s gonna be kitten isn’t it.
No seriously, I go there and there are answers like:
Hi Plaid,
I agree whole heatedly and this is something we have and are continuing to have multiple discussions about.
Chris
——————-
Oh. That’s nice. WTF was the question? o.o
Click “Context.”
vince.5937 — Tarnished Coast — Les Saintes
R.I.P. City of Heroes, 2004-2012 Long Live Atlas Park 33
Meh its just more PR spin, the funny thing is once the math is explained the ascended items probably will have very little impact over exotics but anet won’t actually come out and explain the math.
Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
I’m hoping one of those various ways to get ascended gear will be completing personal story events and world completion. I’m hoping even more that the ascended gear from world completion, if any, will be tuned to the player character rather than the staff and light armor piece my ranger got the other day.
this is unfortunately unlikely as players will always got for the most efficient method to obtain the maximum reward for time spent, if you can get ascended gear through methods easier than farming fractals etc, players would just do that, and that ruins the RNG reliant Skinner box they are building.
Not necessarily.
There are many players out there that just love one part of the game and will do that to the exclusion of others. For example, I love WvW…dungeons are okay, but they aren’t typically my first choice.
If I could get Ascended items in WvW…even if it was more inefficient than dungeons…I would probably still just do WvW.
Ahha – thank you to all who told me about the context thingy.
Didn’t realize I needed to learn to use Reddit to discuss or listen in to things about GW2. Seems I should have studied before hand! :P
Meh its just more PR spin, the funny thing is once the math is explained the ascended items probably will have very little impact over exotics but anet won’t actually come out and explain the math.
People have tried to explain the math, and the difference comes to around 1% increase to your total stat pool. People either ignored it, or said it was plain wrong because it didnt match the increase of the individual item increase of a backpiece.
Ahha – thank you to all who told me about the context thingy.
Didn’t realize I needed to learn to use Reddit to discuss or listen in to things about GW2. Seems I should have studied before hand! :P
I’d suggest learning reddit for more than just this AMA. It can be a valuable informational tool about pretty much anything, and posts you make have high potential for traffic. People have used it to get new indie games out into the market, or get their blogs known.
Mistake me if i’m wrong, but doesn’t legendary weapon’s have the same stat/damage value as exotic’s? And if so how is bringing out another tier of gear gonna help? Won’t the same people that say there is nothing to do say the same thing after getting all the new gear?
As far as I know Legendary weapons will be increased in strength so that ascended fits in between them and exotic.
Yeah I know, Legendary’s used to be an optional grind but now if you want BiS gear you need to grind for a legendary…..
Or you could get the ascended weapons? You didn’t “need” to grind legendaries when exotics were the best stats?
The concern is this: as long as ANet intends to continue to bump the stats of legendary equipment up for free so that they’re always “best in slot” (as they will with the release of ascended gear), then the only true way to make yourself immune to the gear chase (at least with weapons) is to get a legendary. And at that point legendary weapons start to feel a whole lot less optional.
So what you want is for legendaries that take 500-700 hours worth of material to create to not be bumped up into best in slot.
Can someone ask how they justify DR in this ‘zero grind’ philosophy of theirs ?
I don’t think the zero grind statement rises to a philosophy. A personal or corporate philosophy would be expected to guide a person or a company to some extent, the same as a manifesto would. When he mentioned vertical progression and zero grind in the same sentence I recognized that the words of Anet, at this point, are more about shaping our language and logic than the game itself. I would no longer expect there to be any necessary connection between what they say and the game they develop.
Ahha – thank you to all who told me about the context thingy.
Didn’t realize I needed to learn to use Reddit to discuss or listen in to things about GW2. Seems I should have studied before hand! :P
I’d suggest learning reddit for more than just this AMA. It can be a valuable informational tool about pretty much anything, and posts you make have high potential for traffic. People have used it to get new indie games out into the market, or get their blogs known.
Hmm sounds like something I -should- look into then. Maybe it’ll grow on me (still unconvinced right now though)? Thanks for the tip.
Meh its just more PR spin, the funny thing is once the math is explained the ascended items probably will have very little impact over exotics but anet won’t actually come out and explain the math.
People have tried to explain the math, and the difference comes to around 1% increase to your total stat pool. People either ignored it, or said it was plain wrong because it didnt match the increase of the individual item increase of a backpiece.
Yeah but its not anet explaining it. Coming from someone in authority does make a difference.
Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro
This is an interesting quote
“In retrospect Ascended should have been deployed pre launch and earn able throughout most activities in the game (which is how we are moving forward).”
Which seems to imply this was in the pot pre-launch. But it also raises further questions.
1. Arenanet was surely aware of the perception of Horizontal progression statements. Why was’nt this perception corrected at the time
2. If a mild vertical progression was in mind pre-launch why was’nt this feature announced before time and as part of the advertising.
3. If the game was launched ‘When it was ready’ why were features as critical not even mentioned.
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.
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.
I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.
.. ja, just LOW,
but threadmill we never ever would install to the game…
Some positiv feedback: i am thankful for this statement. It can’t get more clear. What more proof is needed that anet did a 180° turn. Manifestos negation. Saying one thing at the start and admitting to do the opposit after…everyone knows how to call that. On one hand i am sad, cause i thought “them” to be different, on the other hand it’s speculations end. Now players can choose without not knowing how this game will evolve.
if the step to get ascended gear would have been just a little above the step to go from rare to exotic.
it would make sense.
its normal for a classic rpg to have progression.
problem is the huge grind that comes with the ascended gears.
that grind was put there for a certain group of people, for “damage control” and keep them on the treadmill.
but now everyone playing 2h a week is doing that treadmill too… and thats a problem.
There’s simply no way to reconcile the statements promoting/reiterating (1) “zero grind”, “non-grindy”, “play the game your way”, and “rewards distributed throughout game content” with (2) the FoTM/Ascended implementation.
Well, we got our answers. May not be what we would have preferred, but it was what I expected.
While it’s still easier to point the finger and blame than to accept the upcoming plans with gear, I must admit that overall, I’m reasonably satisfied.
Yes, there will be new gear coming out all the time. Yes, it will have better stats and yes, we will have to keep playing to keep up.
But also, it will be relatively easy to get. No more endless fractal grinding. We will again be able to play the game the way we like and come across ascended gear while we play.
Even if grinds are relative, I hope it won’t be that much harder to get compared to current exotics. Because enough is enough.
Like I said, it’s easy to start arguing again but for now, I’m a bit more at ease than I used to be.
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
Glad they pointedly brushed off the list of questions the playerbase has been working on for 2 weeks. Thanks for your effort, samuraikitten88. Sorry they were in vain.
that list would take weeks…its like 100 questions long..its naive to expect him to stop, ignore any questions live people are asking just to answer those.
And it has questions the majority of the forum-visiting playerbase has been asking. If they answer those, far fewer people will be posting their questions. And there’s about 50 questions.
I agree. Given the choice I would rather have then just answer these questions and post it on the forums rather then this whole Reddit thing.
You see, Reddit gives them a chance to pick and choose what they answer. Its all politics.
This is a PR thing..putting answers on a forum for people who are already fans or customers isnt as good of a PR move. He is answering the questions and not dodging even the more difficult ones though.
That’s why I didn’t bother, its like a scripted rehearsal. These guys have probably been practicing the past weekend for this. I also didn’t need to ask any questions because everyone else is asking the very same questions I would have asked.
protest this travesty of a patch -
Get it taken down -
Do whatever it takes if you care about this game -
Mike OBrien just responded to my question, but it’s being hidden by a lot of other replies right now:
Hi! I’ll respond to the top part since it’s a quote from me.
Obviously the key phrase I’m going to point you to in that quote is, “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 really is the litmus test we’ve used. That’s why, at ship, we gave better stats to exotic gear and didn’t give better stats to legendary gear.
More generally, I hope we’ve been clear that GW2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like GW1 was. That’s why GW2 shipped with a higher level cap, and with a hard separation between PvE and PvP. In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn’t allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2.
That’s why we’ve always said that GW2 rewards players through both progression and collection, whereas GW1 primarily rewarded through collection. Presumably players aren’t shocked that GW2 rewards through progression, since it has a level 80 cap.
I wonder if the core sentiment is more this: It’s only been two-and-a-half months! We don’t even all have exotics yet, and already you’re introducing another tier. Is this the start of a power progression curve that I’ll never be able to keep up with?
I certainly appreciate that worry. I myself don’t want a constant struggle, as exists in some other games, to keep my equipment viable.
Then we’re left with a balancing act. Some progression is ok, but pushing players onto gear treadmill isn’t ok and isn’t what the game is about.
So I would ask you to judge us by details, and not by making slippery-slope arguments. We introduced a ton of new content in November, and the sum total of new progression rewards we added to go with it provided a 5-10% stat increase in 2 of 12 slots. I hope you’ll agree that that kind of very shallow and gradual progression does not force people onto a gear treadmill.
I think it’s important for GW2 to be able to have this kind of gradual progression. Of course we made some mistakes with the way we introduced ascended gear. (See ChrisW’s answers for details.) But those are addressable issues. I don’t think they invalidate the fundamental concept that GW2 can have gradual stat progression without being a gear treadmill game.
It kinda does’nt matter if they said ‘we never said’ the vast majority of players percieved that they did.
Customer perception is a key step to customer satisfaction and the moment you have to point out ‘we never said’ is the moment you’ve lost their trust and confidence.
EDIT: These questions came from the non-redditing official forums community, and are not solely one persons input. Take as much time as necessary to answer them, we’ll wait a week if we have to~
… What happened to half of the list? My question was part of the future updates section. Well, so much for my question getting an answer. :/
While it’s still easier to point the finger and blame than to accept the upcoming plans with gear, I must admit that overall, I’m reasonably satisfied.
Yes, there will be new gear coming out all the time. Yes, it will have better stats and yes, we will have to keep playing to keep up.
But also, it will be relatively easy to get. No more endless fractal grinding. We will again be able to play the game the way we like and come across ascended gear while we play.
Even if grinds are relative, I hope it won’t be that much harder to get compared to current exotics. Because enough is enough.
Like I said, it’s easy to start arguing again but for now, I’m a bit more at ease than I used to be.
This is what they seem to be saying. I hope they actually mean it. I will wait and see. No sub fee means it won’t cost me a dime to find out.
“…we don’t expect you to be forced into dungeons at endgame.”
Mike OBrien just responded to my question, but it’s being hidden by a lot of other replies right now:
Hi! I’ll respond to the top part since it’s a quote from me.
Obviously the key phrase I’m going to point you to in that quote is, “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 really is the litmus test we’ve used. That’s why, at ship, we gave better stats to exotic gear and didn’t give better stats to legendary gear.
More generally, I hope we’ve been clear that GW2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like GW1 was. That’s why GW2 shipped with a higher level cap, and with a hard separation between PvE and PvP. In GW1 we never advanced the level cap through four campaigns/expansions. The game design didn’t allow for it. But GW2 was designed without those restrictions, and we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2.
That’s why we’ve always said that GW2 rewards players through both progression and collection, whereas GW1 primarily rewarded through collection. Presumably players aren’t shocked that GW2 rewards through progression, since it has a level 80 cap.
I wonder if the core sentiment is more this: It’s only been two-and-a-half months! We don’t even all have exotics yet, and already you’re introducing another tier. Is this the start of a power progression curve that I’ll never be able to keep up with?
I certainly appreciate that worry. I myself don’t want a constant struggle, as exists in some other games, to keep my equipment viable.
Then we’re left with a balancing act. Some progression is ok, but pushing players onto gear treadmill isn’t ok and isn’t what the game is about.
So I would ask you to judge us by details, and not by making slippery-slope arguments. We introduced a ton of new content in November, and the sum total of new progression rewards we added to go with it provided a 5-10% stat increase in 2 of 12 slots. I hope you’ll agree that that kind of very shallow and gradual progression does not force people onto a gear treadmill.
I think it’s important for GW2 to be able to have this kind of gradual progression. Of course we made some mistakes with the way we introduced ascended gear. (See ChrisW’s answers for details.) But those are addressable issues. I don’t think they invalidate the fundamental concept that GW2 can have gradual stat progression without being a gear treadmill game.
~ MO
I’m quoting this specifically so it has a better chance of being seen. I think this is probably one of the best answers provided about the whole ascended item issue.
this is a good answer, we need more answers like this
“Right i am back. Thanks for being so patient. I intend to answer questions well into the night so please bear with me.
E1: Can we get a direct, on-the-record answer on where vertical progression will be headed? Specifically as it applies to gear-checks, gated content, and the addition of gear tiers? Will there be an amendment to the manifesto, or plans to retro-actively align with the manifesto again?
First of all in retrospect it would have been better to have included Ascended Gear at launch. It is designed to give users a progression path that is between Exotic and Legendary (Legendary Items will be at the same power level as Ascended) and the gap between them in terms of time is very large.
So to the question of vertical progression. So as we know there is already vertical progression in the game and we do intend to keep moving forward with this philosophy. However we have no intention of adding a new Rarity of Gear such as Ascended. Instead and as we evolve the game existing Rarity’s will evolve over time. However these will not be common occurrences, for example full Ascended gear will be introduced over a long period of time and will be earn able through lots of different parts/activities of the game. We had intended for example for the first release of acsended items come from other parts of the game but sadly it did not work out this way. Moving forward this is how it will work however.
In regard to gear checks specifically all increases in the power curve will be minimal and therefore there should be no straying from the intended power curve that you see in the game now, in terms of trajectory.
In regard to gated content via gear then i think that this is something we are going to give more thought to. Specifically if the reward at the end of the activity applies to players that are not just looking to do a specific type of content. Note that this statement is somewhat contradictory to the philosophy laid out above if the required items do not drop elsewhere or the ultimate rewards don’t either. This is something we are going to fix.
Personally i do not feel that the latest changes are against what we said in the manifesto. I do however feel that we do have to be very careful in regard to progression design turning into grind and i believe there are some instances of this kind of grind that predate the launch of the game. It is for this reason that we are looking to revamp some aspects of the game whilst connecting other parts increase the overall experience of fun in our progression mechanics.
ok so there is one answer (-: I am going to head over to another question and then come back. Thanks for your patience and any typos.
Chris "
i wish the devs had a consistent vision and didn’t push out content they know is flawed
), all that was posted was the questions that had answers and nothing more – all in 1 go. After the merge the posts aren’t in line anymore (there are random posts inbetween) and it even made it look like i was spamming (as it randomly appeared i was posting “reserved” and “updated”).
