Guild Wars 2

nachtnebel.9168:

EgonVenkman.1907:

You are misinterpreting their words again…. They NEVER said grind = time sink. Those are your words. His words were:

“I think grind is repetitive game play leading to a goal where the activity of progression isn’t fun whether it not be fun initially or it suffers from diminishing returns over a period of time.”

His words are almost exactly the definition of time sink. Collection 250 t6 craft mats is not fun, it’s grind. Doing FotM over and over again isn’t fun, it’s grind. Killing mobs till you have enough gold to afford ascended gear isn’t fun, it’s grind.
If he uses the word grind he should use it in the common way: Doing something multiple times to (maybe) reach a goal.

An acceptable amount of time for a single piece of ascended gear would probably be 90 minutes. Everything longer than that is grind.

Well, you should be happy then, because if you read the AMA, you would see the following:

Chris Whiteside

nacho

With regard to minimal Grind, how is going from 5 Ectos to 50 Ectos for a piece of gear minimal? 5 T6 items to 250 T6 items, minimal?

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.
Chris

plasmacutter.2709:

Well, you should be happy then, because if you read the AMA, you would see the following:

Chris Whiteside

nacho

With regard to minimal Grind, how is going from 5 Ectos to 50 Ectos for a piece of gear minimal? 5 T6 items to 250 T6 items, minimal?

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.
Chris

I’m almost happy, I would be happy if he had said how much they will reduce the costs for the back pieces (in my book it should go down to 10 ectos and 25 or 35 t6 mats).

plasmacutter.2709:

nachtnebel.9168:

EgonVenkman.1907:

You are misinterpreting their words again…. They NEVER said grind = time sink. Those are your words. His words were:

“I think grind is repetitive game play leading to a goal where the activity of progression isn’t fun whether it not be fun initially or it suffers from diminishing returns over a period of time.”

His words are almost exactly the definition of time sink. Collection 250 t6 craft mats is not fun, it’s grind. Doing FotM over and over again isn’t fun, it’s grind. Killing mobs till you have enough gold to afford ascended gear isn’t fun, it’s grind.
If he uses the word grind he should use it in the common way: Doing something multiple times to (maybe) reach a goal.

An acceptable amount of time for a single piece of ascended gear would probably be 90 minutes. Everything longer than that is grind.

Well, you should be happy then, because if you read the AMA, you would see the following:

Chris Whiteside

nacho

With regard to minimal Grind, how is going from 5 Ectos to 50 Ectos for a piece of gear minimal? 5 T6 items to 250 T6 items, minimal?

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.
Chris

More wishful interpreting.

The key phrase here is “Moving Forward”. The theme of the night. They did not say they would lower the price of existing items at all, but that the price hike would not continue in the future.

As much as I wish they would truly fix their mistakes… only time will tell. They will have to work hard to earn back the respect and/or trust of this player. Their whole manifest/responses have been up to this point in my opinion:

“We may have implied something, but since we didn’t specifically say it, we are going to do whatever we want anyway.”

Rin.1046:

I understand and agree with that, Heimlich. But the impression I got from the AMA was that they intend to make it so that Ascended gear will be easier to get than it currently is. I could be wrong of course, but if it becomes a real problem I’m sure they will adjust things.

The big question mark here is how easy will they make it? They have already stated that ascended gear was to be an in-between tier between exotics (too quickly) and legendary (too long) in terms of time investment, how will they balance it so that it is still a viable in-between tier while making it less of a grind?

Will those with the time be able to grind the ascended gear much faster than those that acquires them through regular play?

I’m waiting on clarification on that as it leads directly to my long-term concern. Since vertical progression is in and will likely be added at major content updates like expansions along with level progression, will that mean a casual player like me who won’t be able invest as much time to achieve new levels of ascended gear be at a disadvantage against those that do every time there is an update/expansion?

MechanicalMind.9126:

Flynch.6034:

Look, they balls’d up. You don’t try to bait and switch, then send someone on for 8 hours to represent and answer questions to then bait and switch again. That’s idiotic.

Logged in just to reply to this.

Oh, please. Seriously. They HAD to send in someone to do an AMA. I would argue that it was specifically because of the backlash they did it and nothing else. It’s basically a fireman to a fire.

Just because one person says they are going to “fix it” doesn’t mean they wont try other ways of practicing it in the future. I mean kitten they even said they had meant to do it and that it was staying.

In any case, logic please?

Of course they had to send someone in to deal with it. I’m not saying that it wasn’t required or that it was some sort of altruism on Anet’s part.

My point was simple. If you have wrecked something and caused a great deal of damage to the community through lack of transparency, you don’t then set up an AMA with further deception at its heart.

They would have done less damage by doing nothing at all than they would have by further (personally I don’t believe they did) baiting and switching in the AMA.

Alright, I see how it is. vertical progression here to stay, increased level cap on the way, etc. I see the direction this is going and I don’t like it at all. Debate all you like about the manifesto, I don’t really care. Right now I’ve pretty much lost motivation. I won’t delete my account, ask for a refund or uninstall like some people have done; I might still log in now and then… but this isn’t the game I paid for, or even the game I waited for.

Something has come between us and we’ll never be the same again…

Or, as Plinx would say, “I’m done with this.”

This relationship has run its course. R.I.P. August 10, 2005-Nov 15, 2012

I think the AMA was a genuine recognition on their part that they’d made mistakes (and that Chris personally had made a bad call – that’s why he got stuck with the AMA I bet). And a genuine attempt to communicate where they see the game going and engage with fans. I don’t think it was a bait and switch. Everyone makes mistakes. Owning up to a mistake is a lot rarer, and doing that for hours in a Reddit AMA takes guts. Just the fact that ANet is obviously working on making things better makes me more willing to invest and pay for their stuff.

GW2 isn’t the best, but it’s good, and they’re trying. I can’t ask for more than that, because I can’t give more than that. I’m willing to keep playing and see what happens.

After mulling over this for a day, they seem like total liars.

The truth is simple, adding more horizontal progression would be expensive. Sticking in crummy vertical progression was cheap and easy.

Sadly, the people they pissed off most were their diehard fans from gw1.

nachtnebel.9168:

plasmacutter.2709:

Well, you should be happy then, because if you read the AMA, you would see the following:

Chris Whiteside

nacho

With regard to minimal Grind, how is going from 5 Ectos to 50 Ectos for a piece of gear minimal? 5 T6 items to 250 T6 items, minimal?

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.
Chris

I’m almost happy, I would be happy if he had said how much they will reduce the costs for the back pieces (in my book it should go down to 10 ectos and 25 or 35 t6 mats).

I expect 49 ecto & 249 T6 mats.

I’ve yet to touch Fractals due to the Ascended gear issue and the fact that I’ve been having more fun exploring the map in PvE, but I’m glad they said they’re looking over this again. If they added ascended gear (and no additional tiers of gear in the future!!!!) to the other dungeons, then I’d be ok. Why can’t they have certain pieces of ascended gear drop in each dungeon across the map? That way people can still enjoy Fractals and there will also be motivation to run the other dungeons as well. I can get groups for story mode in most dungeons, but I noticed it’s been a little slower lately.

Just the fact that they added ascended gear and are moving further away from implementing horizontal progression would imply that they had a change in philosophy and a different group of designers is in charge of implementing such ideas since this would never have happened in GW1. It is rather deceitful since they have been taking advantage of the old Arenanet reputation to promote this game and to try and soothe the old players concerns over new changes for the last few years.

I am however, glad that they continue to tell us where they are in the reiteration process and I can’t fault them for saying things like, “we will be addressing blah blah blah.” At least they talk about it, most companies don’t even bother to respond to players until they’ve lost a significant portion of their player base and even then communication can be sketchy at best.

Gilosean.3805:

I think the AMA was a genuine recognition on their part that they’d made mistakes (and that Chris personally had made a bad call – that’s why he got stuck with the AMA I bet). And a genuine attempt to communicate where they see the game going and engage with fans. I don’t think it was a bait and switch. Everyone makes mistakes. Owning up to a mistake is a lot rarer, and doing that for hours in a Reddit AMA takes guts. Just the fact that ANet is obviously working on making things better makes me more willing to invest and pay for their stuff.

GW2 isn’t the best, but it’s good, and they’re trying. I can’t ask for more than that, because I can’t give more than that. I’m willing to keep playing and see what happens.

I watched the reddit thread unfold and have a different impression from you. If you read the transcript from bottom to top (it’s in reverse-chronological order), he tried to address only positive comments at first until it became glaringly obvious that he didn’t want to touch the wall-of-questions-that-people-actually-care-about.

Harbard.5738:

That said, I’m personally not convinced the game is going anywhere good. Not because i think they’re liars or the such. I’m just not sure they know what they’re doing. They are definitely not being that innovative about things, as they jump in the statflation road. It really bugs the crap out of me, because it make is it really impossible to have fun and gear up alts and have multiple sets for different builds.

This is a huge problem. My personal take is that they just showed that they don’t have a vision or a roadmap. It is like they just told everyone that marketing will make the design decisions from now on, according to what their analysis says will turn the best quarterly profit. This is like a political candidate with no agenda and no backbone taking the popular position of the hour. They may get a lot of votes, but sensible people know to keep away.

for all of swtor’s failings at least it still did what it did without doing a 180. it was vanilla wow with no endgame but since release its been heavily supported and is growing very slowly in numbers.

throw in TESO and ArcheAge coming out in the next year or two and gw2 will become another cliched dress up game defended by the rabids.

Relentliss.2170:

After mulling over this for a day, they seem like total liars.

The truth is simple, adding more horizontal progression would be expensive. Sticking in crummy vertical progression was cheap and easy.

Sadly, the people they pissed off most were their diehard fans from gw1.

This is what I think is truly the issue. All Gw1 fans believe they should be catered to first and any other fans second, at least this is how most of you act.

InfiniteRetro.9865:

for all of swtor’s failings at least it still did what it did without doing a 180. it was vanilla wow with no endgame but since release its been heavily supported and is growing very slowly in numbers.

throw in TESO and ArcheAge coming out in the next year or two and gw2 will become another cliched dress up game defended by the rabids.

archeage is coming out for like..China next year..it wont be here for ages. TESO..doesnt look like anything spectacular for me, I think the main points of that series that makes it great is that YOU are the hero..having other heroes makes the entire world seem fake.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

SHM.7628:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Tachenon.5270:

Flynch.6034:

The man spent 8 hours answering questions. I honestly don’t know what he could have said to appease you.

Well, he could have said “Everything we say is a lie.”

I imagine the reaction here would be something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuYbDP2kDfg

Actually, that’s probably pretty accurate…

I have perhaps grown cynical in my old age, but I tend to take anything and everything a game developer says (even the ones I like) with a cargo freighter (or two) of salt, so there’s not much he could have said beyond something like “Yeah, we intentionally mislead the horizontal GW1 type guys with our manifesto video and stuff so they’d buy the game, and now that we have their money we’re switching gears in an attempt to grab some quick cash from the folks out there who prefer the grindy vertical stuff and when that’s played out we’ll switch gears again and go for yet another crowd. Maybe even… your crowd! So stick around. Lots and lots of fun stuff yet to come!” that would have impressed me. Heck, if he’d said that I’d be tempted to spend moar $$$ on the game!

The only thing that stops me from laughing at this post is the realization people seriously expected malice where stupidity (even momentary stupidity) can explain it just as well. They had what they thought was a neat idea, developed it, and didn’t stop to think about the ramifications.

And it was after they proudly put it forth that it started to sink in . . . “oh no…”

Could they have known better? Probably, very much so. Unfortunately, this has happened, and it’s time to deal with it and move on. We can’t roll it back and pretend it never happened, we can’t not acknowledge it, because it did happen. And they made it clear they’re going forward with Ascended existing in the future, there’s not much changing that.

So it’s time to move on from it. Harsh, perhaps, but it’s okay if you want to leave over this. The game isn’t what you thought it would be, that’s fine. Go back to waiting for the one you want, just know this game is still here if you feel like coming back to kill time.

And you know what, if you are on my server or see me on an Overflow and don’t violently object to grouping up, I’ll happily go do some stuff with your group. All right? Fair enough?

Maybe it was stupidity on their part like you suggested. Perhaps it was just office politics. Like you said, its over. It’s time to either accept it or leave. However, Tachenon was right. Claiming that they didn’t stray from their manifesto and break their promises is another slap in the face. It happened. (a two year old could figure that out.)

No.

The strayed from YOUR interpretation of THEIR manifesto.

That is a big difference people don’t seem quite to be getting.

It wasn’t just his interpretation. It was the interpretation of many people. The evidence of that is on display here on the forums and by the questions asked in the AMA. What is worse, Anet was apparently aware of this (mis?)interpretation and let it propagate. Why else would they have anticipated a backlash?

Well, that’s it. One-time events will continue, FoTM gear gating is as intended, and vertical progression will be crammed down our throats whether we like it or not. Nevermind that you may have bought the game looking to avoid such things – you know, because it was marketed that way, despite the revisionist claims otherwise being presented now.

I won’t be around for it. Arenanet, you’ve lost a loyal eight-year customer…no, not only that. You’ve lost someone who loved the world of Tyria, who spent years of my life in a state of sustained excitement over GW2, who obsessively followed every detail of its development, who had faith in your words and your vision, who spent hundreds of hours filling my Hall of Monuments to be ready for when it finally, finally, finally arrived.

Now the dream is over. Those years of excitement have all blown away, like they never existed. You can spin it however you like, but this is not the game you told us you were making. The only thing left to say is that I won’t be the only one to feel this way, and that I sincerely hope you feel the consequences of betraying so completely your actual “most dedicated players”.

Goodbye, and in the words of the lingering ghosts of the past,

“May you find the path home.”

I hope you will, someday.

mantrunks.4810:

I agree with the GW1 Stagnant statement. After being in a top 20 guild for a couple of years, and running HoH every day became boring and the reason I quit. The next expansions released new worlds and skins, which were fun for a couple of hours, and then back to PVP most people went. Sure, new skills were released, but the number of useful skills were small and new strategies/builds were figured out a couple of weeks into each expansion.

This is really irrelevant. So running HOH every day against changing opposition in a changing metagame became stagnant? And I suppose grinding the same dungeon every day for some higher numbers on your gear will NOT become stagnant? Please. Higher numbers add nothing to the mix other than being a cattle prod to keep you moving.

Fortuna.7259:

mantrunks.4810:

I agree with the GW1 Stagnant statement. After being in a top 20 guild for a couple of years, and running HoH every day became boring and the reason I quit. The next expansions released new worlds and skins, which were fun for a couple of hours, and then back to PVP most people went. Sure, new skills were released, but the number of useful skills were small and new strategies/builds were figured out a couple of weeks into each expansion.

This is really irrelevant. So running HOH every day against changing opposition in a changing metagame became stagnant? And I suppose grinding the same dungeon every day for some higher numbers on your gear will NOT become stagnant? Please. Higher numbers add nothing to the mix other than being a cattle prod to keep you moving.

and skills that do basically the same thing do? you push other buttons..great..so its not a skinner box..its a simon simulation lol…

I think GvG was GW1’s saving grace..we need more of things like that. GvG, let me own a city in the world, let me own something or take something that is significant. Thats horizontal progression..anything involving the character including new skills is still vertical progression, its just got its rails hidden a bit better.

Ditton.3149:

and skills that do basically the same thing do? you push other buttons..great..so its not a skinner box..its a simon simulation lol…

I think GvG was GW1’s saving grace..we need more of things like that. GvG, let me own a city in the world, let me own something or take something that is significant. Thats horizontal progression..anything involving the character including new skills is still vertical progression, its just got its rails hidden a bit better.

I don’t understand your point. New skills that require some experience about how to use, counter, and put into builds has more to it than changing your sword +26 to a sword +32. I wasn’t even claiming it was enough… but the new line is that GW1 was “static”, and that is to justify higher numbers that do NOTHING to make anything fresh. That line is clearly flawed. Also I do not see controlling an entire town as “horizontal” since it is clearly beyond your previous scope of power. Such things are generally open to being contested and as such is “horizontal” only by the sense that it is ephemeral.

Im pleased Arenanet is already showing they are going to deliver on stuff mentioned in the AMA….the new wintersday stuff will make players want to visit the other major cities. I know that giving players a reason to visit the other major cities is something players have wanted!

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

I won’t be around for it. Arenanet, you’ve lost a loyal eight-year customer…no, not only that. You’ve lost someone who loved the world of Tyria, who spent years of my life in a state of sustained excitement over GW2, who obsessively followed every detail of its development, who had faith in your words and your vision, who spent hundreds of hours filling my Hall of Monuments to be ready for when it finally, finally, finally arrived.

Now the dream is over. Those years of excitement have all blown away, like they never existed. You can spin it however you like, but this is not the game you told us you were making. The only thing left to say is that I won’t be the only one to feel this way, and that I sincerely hope you feel the consequences of betraying so completely your actual “most dedicated players”.

Really sad to see that. If following the game for one year pre-release was already bad, I can only feel really bad for this guy/girl.

Why are people hating on Trahearne, he has united the races, he has lead winning battles, and most importantly, has been victorious against the undead. Without his guidance we would of become undead.

wildcode.5403:

Why are people hating on Trahearne, he has united the races, he has lead winning battles, and most importantly, has been victorious against the undead. Without his guidance we would of become undead.

I don’t know about others, but i think he’s boring as hell as a character and he’s the epicenter of a bad story that’s not personal, but about him. I think that question on the ama was pretty negative, though. I mean, ok story fell really short, but c’mon, no need to humiliate whoever came up with the character and the story with such an aggressive question that they knew wouldn’t be answered.

I am trying to read the reddit AMA but that site is literally giving me a headache. I may be getting old (not even 30 yet) but that site blows my mind. It feels as if there is no rhyme or reason to the structure. /shrug

Anyway, I would be forever in debt to someone that can take it and make it readable for people like me.

Example:

Question: Do you like pie?
Answer from Anet: Pie is gross.

Thanks! Also, if this already exists, point me in the right direction!

Already done. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Chris-Whitesite-AMA-11-26-2012-Transcript/first

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By5N0A9US01BOUVpUkFXVm10Vm8/edit?pli=1

@Timebomb – that is blocked by my works proxy.
@Fuz – says that doesn’t exist.

felivear.1536:

@Timebomb – that is blocked by my works proxy.
@Fuz – says that doesn’t exist.

Alternative link: http://jsbin.com/utoges/1/

Okay, so I’ve read the AMA transcripts. And I have to say that, as someone who was very “meh” overall on the Lost Shores patch, I’m actually somewhat satisfied with what I see.

Here’s what I got out of the AMA that I like:
1) The staff realize that the ascended gear is too grindy and the RNG factor is causing problems of its own, and is working on a fix for both.
2) As they stated earlier, ascended gear will appear in other locations, not just Fractals, so we won’t be forced to farm Fractals to get them.
3) The “gating” that is occurring in Fractals has been noticed by the staff and they’re brainstorming options to address it.
4) One-time events are being looked into, to try to make them more inclusive.

And here’s some things that worry me:
1) The level cap will eventually be raised. This is concerning to me because a lot of the game’s build mechanics are designed around 80 being the final level (for example, the game was designed to award exactly 70 trait points, and all exotic/ascended/legendary tier gear is Lvl 80). How will these things be addressed when the cap is raised? Will we be able to gain more trait points (potentially increasing the lack of balance already present)? Will legendary gear be bumped up to the new max level (making it unusable to players who rightfully earned it until they grind out more levels) or kept at the same level (making legendaries no longer the top tier of equipment)? I think raising the level cap offers too many complications that aren’t worth the effort.
2) “We do not intend to deploy another tier/rarity of loot such as Rare>Exotic. However we also do not intend to make promises that can be misinterpreted moving forward.” This worries me because it’s not the straightforward answer I (and many others) wanted. I’d like to interpret that as “no more new tiers” but the second part, combined with other answers that mention “gradual progression” make me suspect that this isn’t set in stone, and send mixed signals to us as players. I really think ANet should just be straightforward on this subject and say “yes, there will be more new tiers” or “no, there will be no more new tiers” just to end all of the arguments and speculation about it.

All in all, I’m actually pretty satisfied with the AMA, though there are some areas of concern I have going forward. What are your thoughts on the AMA?

The amount of times they said “it didn’t roll out the way we had originally intended.” makes them look amateurish and incompetent.

@Silentstorm
For the game’s sake I really hope you are right about that new gamers will come, but I seriously have my doubts that there will be enough of them to fix the damage that was done with the Lost Shore patch.
GuildWars 2 has no monthly fee, so the number of people playing the game is totally irrelevant, it all comes down to the number of people spending money on the gem shop. And this number probably got reduced by a significant margin. I don’t know that for sure, but in my book it is very likely that those that came from GuildWars 1 – and spend lots of money on that game – and are now disappointed cause GuildWars 2 didn’t take what they loved about GuildWars 1 and put it into a persistent world (direct quote) and therefor won’t spend much more money on GuildWars 2.

Yes, AMA and previous blog posts and interviews repeated the same thing over and over again. There was nothing really new about it, expect for the apology, but this doesn’t make the disappointment some of us feel go away. A lot of those who are still complaining will probably leave the game in the next few days or weeks and the forums will get quite again. The aftermath of the Lost Shore patch will cease and eventually vanish. But only time will tell if what remains is a solid game or just scorched ground. I really hope it’s the first one, since some aspects of the game are really fun.

Maybe it was stupidity on their part like you suggested. Perhaps it was just office politics. Like you said, its over. It’s time to either accept it or leave. However, Tachenon was right. Claiming that they didn’t stray from their manifesto and break their promises is another slap in the face. It happened. (a two year old could figure that out.)[/quote]

No.

The strayed from YOUR interpretation of THEIR manifesto.

That is a big difference people don’t seem quite to be getting.[/quote]

It wasn’t just his interpretation. It was the interpretation of many people. The evidence of that is on display here on the forums and by the questions asked in the AMA. What is worse, Anet was apparently aware of this (mis?)interpretation and let it propagate. Why else would they have anticipated a backlash?
[/quote]

The Manifesto was only the start of the Blogs that Anet did. This one by Colin Johanson specifically talks about gear progression.

Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success
By Colin Johanson June 19th, 2012

It’s easy to tell if a subscription-based game is hitting its metric of success, you simply look at the number of subscriptions; fun is much harder to define. To accomplish this, we’ve had to fundamentally redefine our development process of content in Guild Wars 2 around this concept of fun, and it starts with asking a very simple question that surprisingly isn’t asked that often in game development: “Are you having fun?”

This metric of success impacted a lot of our early content-related design decisions for Guild Wars 2. Some examples include:

•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.

•Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

Now, would someone like to tell me how I misinterpreted that to mean something other than no vertical gear progression? Would someone like to explain to me how vertical gear progression was always a part of the plan? I read everything that came out from Anet prior to purchase, including this. It’s still on the Blog site.

holska.4127:

It’s very ignorant / stubborn (sorry no native english speaker, looking for right word without offense :P) to still compare the vertical progression to WoW after the provided answers. Adding a tier over the course of a year and no plans to add a new tier for at least a looooong period of time isn’t really “ala WoW” where each patch contains a new gear set.

actually comparing to Wow is apt this is pretty much exactly the same as the rollout of ICC where they released the raid, but you could only do the first area and 4 bosses, then a month later they let you do 3 more, then 3 more, then the end ones with the loot at the end better than the loot at the beginning so at the end you have more stats than when you started and than people who only went part way

thus in guild wars its do fotm for first 3 ascended , a few months later do new instance for 3 more ascended etc till your in full ascended, this is basically not only gear gating due to the stated planned increase in prevalence of agony its also time gating by dragging the deployment out, thus you are prevented from getting it all at once and must do the piece you have been drip fed again and again till they drip feed you a new piece. combined with rng this just drags content out over much longer than it would normally take to complete.

stpetemermaid.5947:

Now, would someone like to tell me how I misinterpreted that to mean something other than no vertical gear progression? Would someone like to explain to me how vertical gear progression was always a part of the plan? I read everything that came out from Anet prior to purchase, including this. It’s still on the Blog site.

You didn’t misinterpret it. It is exactly what they meant at the time. Some time between launch and now something changed and that is exactly why they raised the vertical bar. Whatever the change was, they are not being straightforward about it and instead are trying to re-define their own manifesto. In doing so they appear dishonest at worst and misleading at best.

Archmortal.1027:

You didn’t misinterpret it. It is exactly what they meant at the time. Some time between launch and now something changed and that is exactly why they raised the vertical bar. Whatever the change was, they are not being straightforward about it and instead are trying to re-define their own manifesto. In doing so they appear dishonest at worst and misleading at best.

Agree 100%, and it is truly disappointing that they abandoned things so quickly. No gear grind was something that was thrown around a LOT, and yet here we have it. Worse, the fractals are splitting the community, rather than bringing it together. It feels like WoW dungeon grouping with the group spam in LA. They might as well go the whole way and have a dungeon finder as well.

Heimlich.3065:

nachtnebel.9168:

Chris also said their is currently too much grind involved. And since grind equals time sink there is a chance that ascended gear will become less time consuming to get. But even if that’s right, I doubt that they will reduce the grind enough to make ascended gear reachable for casuals.

He doesn’t use the same definition of grind that you do. It’s not clear that they what the intend the time-cost on max-stat crap to be. It’s far from clear that it’ll be what normal people consider “reasonable” when applied over a full set of stuff.

Yeah I said this early on in the thread I get the feeling that what they consider grind and what I do is far apart and I have no confidence that they will bring the cost of ascended items down to what I consider an acceptable level.

For those who missed the AMA, Mike O’Brien and Chris Whiteside keep mentioning a “shallow power increase”.

Yes or no, is this a good idea?

As far as I’m concerned: no. Bad idea. Keep this power increase bs out of the game.

Also hypothetical level increases were mentioned. Give your opinion.

For me, also a big no. If I stop for a year and come back, I don’t want to find an outdated character.

Yet, this is exactly what you will find if you come back in a year. c: Have fun.

I have another question: If we accept powercreep as a fact in GW2, what is worse?

Grinding for gear that has bigger stat differences as in other MMO games or grinding for gear that has a very small stat increase? It seems unrewarding especially since it’s clear pretty much everybody who’s still playing will get this gear.

I was against the whole concept for GW2 but now that it is here to stay, I just wonder if doing a lot of work for such small increase is actually worth it….

Ok the only problem with ascended gear so far was that there was only one way to get it, it was not sellable, and that one way was the worst part of the game. PvE Dungeon grinding.

They have already said that was a mistake. In the future you will be able to earn things in as many ways as you can earn exotics. If you play this game even 5 hours a week you should be able to have a full set of exotics in a month or less.

Having tiny requirements in effort to increase tiny amounts of stats in gear progression is not horrible. If you have played this game at all past 80 you should have the best gear.

top it off with the fact that ((if doing fractals as of now)) thay have made it even easyer to get a set of exotics quickly and masterwork even faster than that

The grind is huge. The reward is minimal and unrewarding, but at the same time, the reward is artificially inflated to “essential” due to agony.

“Agony” faithfully describes the ascended grind, by the way.

I’ve never played an asiagrinder so far and thus, GW2 is on its way to becoming the most grindy, unrewarding MMO I’ve ever played. To paraphrase the Treehorn: “This isn’t going to end well. Moving on.” Someone mentioned Firefall on this forum, taday. Bethesda needs no mention.

Firefall is an FPS and Bethesda isn’t making an MMO ((your thinking zenimark)

and i have yet to actualy have to Grind to get gear in GW2 mabby im just lucky but all i do is play the game.

Tiny power creeps – costing one ecto? Because I’m okay with that. Anything larger than my arbitrary bar is UNACCEPTABLE!

marnick.4305:

For those who missed the AMA, Mike O’Brien and Chris Whiteside keep mentioning a “shallow power increase”.

Yes or no, is this a good idea?

As far as I’m concerned: no. Bad idea. Keep this power increase bs out of the game.

Also hypothetical level increases were mentioned. Give your opinion.

For me, also a big no. If I stop for a year and come back, I don’t want to find an outdated character.

A shallow power increase is nothing really to worry about.

You finding an outdated character is going to be inevitable anyways. There was never any avoiding it. They said back in 2011 that they would increase the level cap, and again during the AMA they said it. The intention was always there, and they have said it during development. It was a fact that was ignored or glossed over. An increased level cap will mean that your character will inevitably be outdated.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/19873-level-cap-increase-in-expansions/

I mean we have to factor in that Ascended hasn’t been fully implemented, so we have no idea what the other methods of getting it will be… I mean if exotics could only be obtained from RNG running dungeons, people would’ve been just as peeved.

Also the AMA said Ascended, once fully implemented, is slated to be around for at least a year. I guess we’ll see whether or not that statement holds true. We also know that nothing isn’t scaled to the Ascended level gear in terms of stats, rather agony resistance (and only in the fractals)… So wearing blues is still fine and exotics are ok as well. As far as I know, I’ve not been turned away from a fractal for lack of exotics (more a lack of resistance).

TBH, I’d rather they fix some of the issues that have been plaguing this game from the start. Much easier to create content moving forward when all the core functions are working properly.

Let’s summerize: Ascended gear is here to stay. More infusions/gear will be rolled out over the course of next year. When players are finally done with all that nonsense they will raise the level cap, with that = new gear.

Last but not least, We imagined that this would be a low grind game. We must have misinterpreted the manifesto because they clearly think they did nothing wrong. Have fun in your game guys, I won’t be there to join you. I have something called a life. I refuse to endlessly grind gear that wil become obsolete.

tkalamba.2541:

marnick.4305:

For those who missed the AMA, Mike O’Brien and Chris Whiteside keep mentioning a “shallow power increase”.

Yes or no, is this a good idea?

As far as I’m concerned: no. Bad idea. Keep this power increase bs out of the game.

Also hypothetical level increases were mentioned. Give your opinion.

For me, also a big no. If I stop for a year and come back, I don’t want to find an outdated character.

A shallow power increase is nothing really to worry about.

You finding an outdated character is going to be inevitable anyways. There was never any avoiding it. They said back in 2011 that they would increase the level cap, and again during the AMA they said it. The intention was always there, and they have said it during development. It was a fact that was ignored or glossed over. An increased level cap will mean that your character will inevitably be outdated.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/19873-level-cap-increase-in-expansions/

the thing about GW2 level though is it will NEVER get any harder to level than it already is as the level curve is FLAT

I have a friend who just started playing only about 2 weeks ago, yesterday he was say “man i just hit level 40… I ONLY PLAY FOR LIKE at most 2 hours a day! Thats awesome!!!”

as long as you do your leveling in area’s built for your level it will always take a short time

Fortuna.7259:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

SHM.7628:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Tachenon.5270:

Flynch.6034:

The man spent 8 hours answering questions. I honestly don’t know what he could have said to appease you.

Well, he could have said “Everything we say is a lie.”

I imagine the reaction here would be something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuYbDP2kDfg

Actually, that’s probably pretty accurate…

I have perhaps grown cynical in my old age, but I tend to take anything and everything a game developer says (even the ones I like) with a cargo freighter (or two) of salt, so there’s not much he could have said beyond something like “Yeah, we intentionally mislead the horizontal GW1 type guys with our manifesto video and stuff so they’d buy the game, and now that we have their money we’re switching gears in an attempt to grab some quick cash from the folks out there who prefer the grindy vertical stuff and when that’s played out we’ll switch gears again and go for yet another crowd. Maybe even… your crowd! So stick around. Lots and lots of fun stuff yet to come!” that would have impressed me. Heck, if he’d said that I’d be tempted to spend moar $$$ on the game!

The only thing that stops me from laughing at this post is the realization people seriously expected malice where stupidity (even momentary stupidity) can explain it just as well. They had what they thought was a neat idea, developed it, and didn’t stop to think about the ramifications.

And it was after they proudly put it forth that it started to sink in . . . “oh no…”

Could they have known better? Probably, very much so. Unfortunately, this has happened, and it’s time to deal with it and move on. We can’t roll it back and pretend it never happened, we can’t not acknowledge it, because it did happen. And they made it clear they’re going forward with Ascended existing in the future, there’s not much changing that.

So it’s time to move on from it. Harsh, perhaps, but it’s okay if you want to leave over this. The game isn’t what you thought it would be, that’s fine. Go back to waiting for the one you want, just know this game is still here if you feel like coming back to kill time.

And you know what, if you are on my server or see me on an Overflow and don’t violently object to grouping up, I’ll happily go do some stuff with your group. All right? Fair enough?

Maybe it was stupidity on their part like you suggested. Perhaps it was just office politics. Like you said, its over. It’s time to either accept it or leave. However, Tachenon was right. Claiming that they didn’t stray from their manifesto and break their promises is another slap in the face. It happened. (a two year old could figure that out.)

No.

The strayed from YOUR interpretation of THEIR manifesto.

That is a big difference people don’t seem quite to be getting.

It wasn’t just his interpretation. It was the interpretation of many people. The evidence of that is on display here on the forums and by the questions asked in the AMA. What is worse, Anet was apparently aware of this (mis?)interpretation and let it propagate. Why else would they have anticipated a backlash?

I saw no reason to reply to his post. I am not going to sit here and argue that the sky is blue with someone who thinks its red. perhaps he was reading a different document? I have a hard time believing anyone could read the manifesto and draw his conclusion.