Guild Wars 2

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

For me, it basically boils down to this. They have about 6 months (maybe less) to fix the fiasco with Ascended gear. And that basically means making Ascended gear as easy-to-obtain as needed for proper non-grindy horizontal progression. Or in other words, about as easy to get as max-stat gear was in GW:Prophecies. Otherwise, I’m gone. This current BS is not what I was promised and not what I signed up for. If they want more of my money then they need to deliver what they advertised.

Why is max-stat gear so important to you when it by and large doesn’t affect your gameplay in the slightest?

That’s a completely meaningless argument. If higher stats on gear doesn’t affect gameplay, there’s absolutely no reason to put it in the game at all. But you see, it does, because even small increases on stats make content easier. And most players like content to be easier. That’s the whole point of getting better gear in RPGs, always has been. It changes the risk/reward ratio and improves it in your favor.

But that’s all kind of aside to the whole issue at hand, which is the gear treadmill.

What makes a gear treadmill isn’t just specifically having gear with better stats in the game. It’s adding gear with better stats after the fact, where that gear can be obtained without extreme difficulty by the average player, but with an excessive time requirement. As a result, you’re expected to obtain it (and new content is thus balanced around the better gear) no matter how frustratingly long it takes to get it. This is where old games like EQ were different. There was very rare gear with better stats… but it was so rare that the average player wasn’t really expected to ever get it, and there was no content designed around it. And then, of course, the ongoing gear treadmill is add more better gear, rinse and repeat. In the end for the average player as in WoW you spend ALL your time simply grinding better gear and no time actually just doing whatever the hell you want. And all the signs are there that this is what they have planned for GW2. As a former GW1 player and based on what they told us GW2 would be, this is not acceptable at all.

DocHolliday.5921:

In the end for the average player as in WoW you spend ALL your time simply grinding better gear and no time actually just doing whatever the hell you want. And all the signs are there that this is what they have planned for GW2.

I figure I fall into the “average” category as an ex-wow junkie who burnt out from the gear treadmill (a real gear treadmill, not some philosophical potential for one). I play about 10 hours a week, maybe.

I see no reason to spend my time “grinding” better gear than my exotics. I don’t play high-level fractals, and I can do any part of the game I please. There’s no incentive to grind the max gear besides the fact that it has higher stats. Those higher stats are negligible to me.

Now, why do higher stats matter to you?

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

In the end for the average player as in WoW you spend ALL your time simply grinding better gear and no time actually just doing whatever the hell you want. And all the signs are there that this is what they have planned for GW2.

I figure I fall into the “average” category as an ex-wow junkie who burnt out from the gear treadmill (a real gear treadmill, not some philosophical potential for one). I play about 10 hours a week, maybe.

I see no reason to spend my time “grinding” better gear than my exotics. I don’t play high-level fractals, and I can do any part of the game I please. There’s no incentive to grind the max gear besides the fact that it has higher stats. Those higher stats are negligible to me.

Now, why do higher stats matter to you?

Really? Seriously? I’m not even going to bother copy-pasting. READ my previous post. I already answered that.

DocHolliday.5921:

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

In the end for the average player as in WoW you spend ALL your time simply grinding better gear and no time actually just doing whatever the hell you want. And all the signs are there that this is what they have planned for GW2.

I figure I fall into the “average” category as an ex-wow junkie who burnt out from the gear treadmill (a real gear treadmill, not some philosophical potential for one). I play about 10 hours a week, maybe.

I see no reason to spend my time “grinding” better gear than my exotics. I don’t play high-level fractals, and I can do any part of the game I please. There’s no incentive to grind the max gear besides the fact that it has higher stats. Those higher stats are negligible to me.

Now, why do higher stats matter to you?

Really? Seriously? I’m not even going to bother copy-pasting. READ my previous post. I already answered that.

Except you didn’t, you explained how it affects “gameplay” and how it affects “the average player” but not how it affects you personally, which is what I was asking.

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

Magistrella.6970:

1.Laurels are account bound and you see the icon in your Inventory next to karma

Just to clarify, laurels are account bound, karma is soulbound to the character who earned it, for those new to the game, don’t want there to be a misunderstanding.

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

In the end for the average player as in WoW you spend ALL your time simply grinding better gear and no time actually just doing whatever the hell you want. And all the signs are there that this is what they have planned for GW2.

I figure I fall into the “average” category as an ex-wow junkie who burnt out from the gear treadmill (a real gear treadmill, not some philosophical potential for one). I play about 10 hours a week, maybe.

I see no reason to spend my time “grinding” better gear than my exotics. I don’t play high-level fractals, and I can do any part of the game I please. There’s no incentive to grind the max gear besides the fact that it has higher stats. Those higher stats are negligible to me.

Now, why do higher stats matter to you?

Really? Seriously? I’m not even going to bother copy-pasting. READ my previous post. I already answered that.

Except you didn’t, you explained how it affects “gameplay” and how it affects “the average player” but not how it affects you personally, which is what I was asking.

Yes I did. You’re trying to demand that I spell out everything word for word because you just want to argue. Sorry, but I don’t play that game, and you’ve posted nothing worthwhile to earn you that kind of respect. In fact, you’ve posted nothing worthwhile at all.

rgrwng.4072:

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

You’re totally missing the point. Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about spending lots of time acquiring gear based on stats, yet that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. You can’t even see the gear on characters. You should literally be able to walk up to a vendor and buy these things for 2 gold each. That’s how the first GW worked, and that’s how they led us to believe GW2 would work.

The ONLY gear “upgrade” in all of GW that you could do that couldn’t be bought with money was infusion, which was a lot like infusion in GW2, in that it reduced the damage you took from a special enemy ability called “spectral agony”. The difference, however, was that infusion involved running one special quest inside an instance that took about 15 minutes in an average group, and then your whole set of armor was infused. And even that could be bought with gold by paying someone to run you to the turn-in for infusion.

DocHolliday.5921:

rgrwng.4072:

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

You’re totally missing the point. Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about spending lots of time acquiring gear based on stats, yet that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. You can’t even see the gear on characters. You should literally be able to walk up to a vendor and buy these things for 2 gold each. That’s how the first GW worked, and that’s how they led us to believe GW2 would work.

The ONLY gear “upgrade” in all of GW that you could do that couldn’t be bought with money was infusion, which was a lot like infusion in GW2, in that it reduced the damage you took from a special enemy ability called “spectral agony”. The difference, however, was that infusion involved running one special quest inside an instance that took about 15 minutes in an average group, and then your whole set of armor was infused. And even that could be bought with gold by paying someone to run you to the turn-in for infusion.

GW1 wasn’t a grind for gear, but there sure as hell was a grind for skills.

DocHolliday.5921:

rgrwng.4072:

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

You’re totally missing the point. Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about spending lots of time acquiring gear based on stats, yet that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. You can’t even see the gear on characters. You should literally be able to walk up to a vendor and buy these things for 2 gold each. That’s how the first GW worked, and that’s how they led us to believe GW2 would work.

The ONLY gear “upgrade” in all of GW that you could do that couldn’t be bought with money was infusion, which was a lot like infusion in GW2, in that it reduced the damage you took from a special enemy ability called “spectral agony”. The difference, however, was that infusion involved running one special quest inside an instance that took about 15 minutes in an average group, and then your whole set of armor was infused. And even that could be bought with gold by paying someone to run you to the turn-in for infusion.

I don’t recall green weapons being bought with plat unless you were buying them from another player that had to go out into the world and earn it first. And they had better stat combinations than your average max stat weapon.

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

rgrwng.4072:

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

You’re totally missing the point. Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about spending lots of time acquiring gear based on stats, yet that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. You can’t even see the gear on characters. You should literally be able to walk up to a vendor and buy these things for 2 gold each. That’s how the first GW worked, and that’s how they led us to believe GW2 would work.

The ONLY gear “upgrade” in all of GW that you could do that couldn’t be bought with money was infusion, which was a lot like infusion in GW2, in that it reduced the damage you took from a special enemy ability called “spectral agony”. The difference, however, was that infusion involved running one special quest inside an instance that took about 15 minutes in an average group, and then your whole set of armor was infused. And even that could be bought with gold by paying someone to run you to the turn-in for infusion.

GW1 wasn’t a grind for gear, but there sure as hell was a grind for skills.

Yes, in EotN, which was rather disappointing to me for that reason. But even there, those were horizontal upgrades rather than vertical. They didn’t make your character more powerful, they just gave you some new options. And I largely ignored them.

Scourge.4317:

DocHolliday.5921:

rgrwng.4072:

Zeus CM.1692:

30 Laurels per Amulet is too much. You can get only 1 per month wtf… + infusions extra month.

but it gives longevity to playing, i suppose. if the daily gave you ~900 laurels, you could have everything you wanted sooner, thus getting bored quicker, because you have everything in a few minutes.

i am normally all-for getting stuff cheap and early (though i kind of pace myself), and have made peace with the current laurel prices. i just hope the prices don’t INCREASE with all of the griping about laurels.

> get it while the gettin’s good

You’re totally missing the point. Guild Wars isn’t supposed to be about spending lots of time acquiring gear based on stats, yet that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. You can’t even see the gear on characters. You should literally be able to walk up to a vendor and buy these things for 2 gold each. That’s how the first GW worked, and that’s how they led us to believe GW2 would work.

The ONLY gear “upgrade” in all of GW that you could do that couldn’t be bought with money was infusion, which was a lot like infusion in GW2, in that it reduced the damage you took from a special enemy ability called “spectral agony”. The difference, however, was that infusion involved running one special quest inside an instance that took about 15 minutes in an average group, and then your whole set of armor was infused. And even that could be bought with gold by paying someone to run you to the turn-in for infusion.

I don’t recall green weapons being bought with plat unless you were buying them from another player that had to go out into the world and earn it first. And they had better stat combinations than your average max stat weapon.

No they didn’t. Green weapons simply came with all upgrades already on them. You could build your own identical weapon with vendor weapons and upgrades from traders.

Highly desirable upgrades were also pretty expensive at the time, which was the only reason greens were worth anything.

Scourge.4317:

I don’t recall green weapons being bought with plat unless you were buying them from another player that had to go out into the world and earn it first. And they had better stat combinations than your average max stat weapon.

No

Mackdose.6504:

GW1 wasn’t a grind for gear, but there sure as hell was a grind for skills.

Only if your goal was to attain every skill. Getting skills for a particular build did not take long. Now admittedly the EotN PvE skills was a grind. I think the game would’ve been fine if they were maxed out when you learned them. Even so, it was limited to PvE. If ANet keeps their “progression” out of sPvP and WvW, I’d have no problem with it.

fixit.7189:

I will never have ascended gear. Hard to find a group for lvl 1, been looking for 4 days now and no dice. Almost had a party but moment I warned them I have not even been in FotM yet; I was told I was a worthless scrub and then promptly booted. Awsome awsome direction they went here. Bang up job.

You don’t need to find a level 1 group anymore. It’s now limited by the highest player, not the lowest.

If people kick you out simply because you’ve never done it, find a good guild. The guild I am in has a focus on WvW, but even still we have PvE events which include running fractals at any level.