Guild Wars 2

Since it seems that most anti-ascended gear thread seem to be becoming viewed as complaint threads and nothing more, I want at least 1 consolidated thread of nothing but constructive feedback on possible compromises that will make this easier on the GW1/anti-ascended gear crowd. With that said, lets keep this constructive as possible. We all know why we dislike ascended gear in its current form/assumed future form. There is no need to repeat any of that here.

Let’s keep this as simple as we can, and base the suggested solutions on 2 known facts:

A) Ascended gear was added on November 15th. It is a tier that is stronger than exotics, currently Bind on Pickup only (with no mention of this changing), and will eventually be completed with a full set but currently only contains 3 items

B) Arenanet has addressed the issue of Ascended gear only dropping from Fractals in a statement, and apologized for this. They have stated the intention to correct this by spreading the gear over more paths.

B is important because it will save us time with any complaints that involve only running fractals over and over. That is going to be addressed and fixed, so it is no longer constructive to talk about

So, on to the meat of the topic: To those who do not like ascended gear, as it is now: What do you feel Arenanet could do to help this situation and make it more acceptable to players of all types, and not just Vertical Progression players? Please remember that as with any compromise, the end result may not be that all sides are happy. But a compromise will need to be had. I simply cannot see ascended gear getting removed from the game, so while you are free to suggest it I feel it would be a waste of your energy. Instead, focus on realistic solutions that will give VP players what they want, but give us Horizontal progression players what we want.

I ask that players responding keep it civil and constructive. If we can make 1 giant consolidated “solution” thread, then maybe ONE of us will strike gold and give Arenanet something they agree with and will work with to help create a compromise over this situation. To that end, don’t derail this topic with arguments over ascended gear. Some of us hate it, some folks love it- I’m relatively certain we’ve covered all the bases on why for both sides. Lets duke that out somewhere else.

Happy suggesting, folks! Try to keep it short, sweet and to the point. If your suggestion is long, that’s fine. But otherwise don’t be long winded about producing a short suggestion.

Starting us off:

For me, the issue is Ascended gear in WvW, so my suggested solution is that ascended gear be limited to instances, and (depending on player feedback and how the open world PvE players feel about ascended gear and gear progression), open world play as well.

This would give VP players what they want- gated content with progressively higher stats on their armor, while keep it out of other sections of the game like PvP.

Here’s hoping someone else comes up with a better one!

Personally, I don’t mind the introduction of one new tier that is somewhat more difficult to get than exotic (if they make good on their promise that ascended will be available outside FOTM). What I’m worried about is that Anet has said somewhere that they’ll be slowly increasing the power of the infusions.

Now, it all comes down to how exactly they are planning to do this and what the precise effect will be.
If the only more powerful effect is that you are able to run FOTM at higher and higher levels (ie: higher agony resist), then frankly, I don’t mind. I wasn’t planning on running Epic levels of FOTM and I don’t begrudge anyone who does.
However, if they’re going to introduce really significantly higher stats with each update, forcing you to recreate the infusions again and again to be able to compete in, let’s say, WvW… yes, I object to that. That’s your gear treadmill right there.

So at this moment, I’m simply holding my breath to see how Anet will handle ascended in the long run.

1/ Fractals should be more accessible. This will be changed as per the update notes

2/ all exotic items should be upgradeable to ascended with an MF recipe requiring crafting profession “gifts”.

3/ Many MF recipes should be ascended quality per default. I’m thinking of Ilya/Lyss, Triforce Amulet and other extremely expensive MF skins.

4/ Requirements should be both dropped and spread out. 20 karka shells/passion flowers are more than plenty. Ecto requirements should be rebalanced too. Making specific gems over crafts would also be a good idea.

5/ Every zone in the world should have an internal goal that leads to a unique ascended piece of gear. EG: 250 green wood plank + 250 copper + gift of nobleman + 100 centaur gems (1 per event in queensdale) should lead to the Crown of Queensdale.

6/ Personal Story should give you all the materials for an ascended class item. Not required to save them up, you can make gold of them but the drops should be tailored to your character, not random.

Last I checked Exotic gear doesn’t make a noticable difference in open world pve… That’s why lots of people are running green/rare MF gear in open world PVE. There is no need to have Exotics or even Rares to play any high-end events in open world so there is no point to limit Ascended gear outside of open world pve.
What gear your “ally” has doesn’t affect you in any way, you are cooperating with him so why do you bother on what kind of gear someone else has? If anything your ally with the better stats will help you defeat the mob faster, but unless he has more MF than you (Ascended has more MF than Exotics, if that’s your issue) you will be rewarded the same, getting that gold medal or any loot contribution is a joke.
Also, no matter the gear, it won’t help you move out of red circles, spread out to defeat mobs on various locations, protect npcs or use certain “objects” required to progress (like with the Temple of Grenth event)

I can’t think of any reasonable reason to limit gear in open world pve

About WvW: the February patch is going to introduce Ascended gear to WvW so Ascended will come and STAY in WvW. The problem here will be the acquisition of it, since everyone is level 80 in WvW it makes sense that even a level 1 would be able to wear Ascended gear while in WvW, so it alls go down to how exactly Ascended gear will be acquired in WvW.

Since there is no reason to remove Ascended from PVE and WvW, the real question is: how should someone acquire Ascended gear in WvW, that’s a far better question, and much much more realistic.

My main gripe with Ascended gear is that the grind required to get one piece will pretty much make sure you’ll never play around with builds. Want to turn your maxed Power warrior into a maxed Condition Damage warrior? Sure, just get 300 ectos and 1500 t6 mats!

GW1 was all about build-making and experimentation, but now it looks like you’ll be locked into a single build type in GW2. I don’t see a way out of this situation without a radical change to the way gear works in PvE.

Make ascended gear easy to obtain….

Use backpack formula for all item:

I.E. exotic + gift of ascension + vial of essence + X crystals = ascended

Adapt to work with all exotic

Or just use some sort of quest to ascend exotic items.

DO NOT render obsolete exotic items and don t force players to play part of games they don t want to (see fotm….despite i play fotm on daily base many players dislike it…).

My main problem with Ascended gear is the fear I have that it will exclude me from new content.
Now if Ascended gear were spread through out the game and it is not only available in dungeons it would be less of a problem. ( I believe they said this will be the case).
Still I feel that there should be some way to upgrade named exotics to Ascended maybe through MF recipies.
It is all about choice really, if you want to play dungeons over and over to get better gear good for you- players should have the choice to play DE’s, story quests and achievements to get the same.

That said, I really think what we need is not more powerful gear but rather more variety in gear: Different stat combinations, crafted skins, zone unique recipes and skins and even very rare champ items.

Im with Tosha Daydreamer mostly here, as long as it is the FINAL tier and you dont get huge stat upgrades from infusions down the line, as well as made resonable to obtain the gear
Another thing that worries me a bit is when armor and weapon comes out, what will come of runes and sigils? since there no upgrade slots (only infusion slots) will these be built into the armor, or will we simply not be able to get these effects at all, and jsut get generic extra stats like is the case on jewelry currently?

marnick.4305:

1/ Fractals should be more accessible. This will be changed as per the update notes

2/ all exotic items should be upgradeable to ascended with an MF recipe requiring crafting profession “gifts”.

3/ Many MF recipes should be ascended quality per default. I’m thinking of Ilya/Lyss, Triforce Amulet and other extremely expensive MF skins.

4/ Requirements should be both dropped and spread out. 20 karka shells/passion flowers are more than plenty. Ecto requirements should be rebalanced too. Making specific gems over crafts would also be a good idea.

5/ Every zone in the world should have an internal goal that leads to a unique ascended piece of gear. EG: 250 green wood plank + 250 copper + gift of nobleman + 100 centaur gems (1 per event in queensdale) should lead to the Crown of Queensdale.

6/ Personal Story should give you all the materials for an ascended class item. Not required to save them up, you can make gold of them but the drops should be tailored to your character, not random.

I like these (except for the 100 gems, 1 per event, a lot of farm for only an Helm)

maddoctor.2738:

About WvW: the February patch is going to introduce Ascended gear to WvW so Ascended will come and STAY in WvW. The problem here will be the acquisition of it, since everyone is level 80 in WvW it makes sense that even a level 1 would be able to wear Ascended gear while in WvW, so it alls go down to how exactly Ascended gear will be acquired in WvW.

Source proving that the Feb patch will add Ascended to WvW, please?

Also, while you are up-leveled to 80 in WvW, you still acquire skills, traits, and equipment at your real level and cannot equip anything above that mark.

I never had a problem with ascended gear, I did however have a problem with the way it was obtained and the way that was implemented.
However, Anet have promised that the next patch will resolve this issue, so in the interest of being fair Im gonna wait and hopefully the new way will be much fairer !

:)

My problems wit ascended eq:

1) Acquisition – the ascended eq should be obtainable by all the means that are currently available for exotic items. While devs mentioned that they will do something about making them accessible outside Fractals, they hadn’t really specified how they are going to solve that (and even then, the Bound on Equip trait remains, which makes them untradable on TP).

2) Price – they are currently way too costly to acquire. Devs said they will look into it, but just “looking into” won’t solve that problem. The price/difficulty to get should be no more than twice the exotic eq – anything more, and collecting more than one stat set for one character becomes unrealistic. So, no more trying out different builds, no more playing several characters.

3) options – lot of popular stat builds are missing in the current ascended eq – Knight, Carrion, rampager, all the Healing Power sets etc. That severely limits build options. All the missing sets must be equally obtainable.

I’m not going to address the sigil/rune case before i know how they will be implemented on ascended eq, so that point is for now out

and finally

4) Vertical progression – I don’t want that in this game. That means no eq tier above ascended – ever. No already existing tier items with stats better than what we have now – ever. Consequently – no level 81+ level eq with better stats than the level 80 ones – ever.
(Points 1, 2 and 4 should hold true also for infusions – though personally i’d rather see the whole badly-conceived Agony mechanics discontinued completely)

One thing we should consider is the fact that only 3 pieces of ascended gear were added, and now we’re already 3 months later. That shows us a few positive things:
- we don’t get a new tier every month, instead several months go by before even a fourth item is added.
- it will be about a year before the entire set of ascended gear is added.
- I personally suspect more legendary lots will be added in parallel, so as to make ascended optional

The only negatives currently are:
- only one way to get them
- extremely expensive

Extremely big negatives, yet they’re only 2 negatives. Both will be worked on as per developer comments.

I don’t really hate ascended gear. I only hate the fact that it could open up to more tiers of equipment. As long as we’ll only have ascended and the last legendary tier I’m fine with it. If however Anet consistently adds tiers over tiers….well lets just say I don’t know how many of the casuals are going to continue playing

Anet please revert to your original plan to remain faithful to Gw1 and not introduce gear progression as was stated in interviews with game developers.
Gw1 was fantastic, unique. People played it for years and still do. It worked.
Gw2 has brilliant graphics yet the game mechanics, introduction of gear progression, armor repairs, teleport fees are all too reminiscent of every other Mmo out there. At least we don’t yet have virtual poker machines on our webpage.

If there’s gonna be a gear threadmill, do it through infusions and only apply it to Fractals. This would have the benefit of:

-Players playing to get better gear will literally get better gear.
-Said gear would only offer a benefit in Fractals of the Mists.
-Said gear would not be required to enjoy content, only higher levels of the same content.
-People looking to be ‘done’ at some point for PvE and WvW, can in fact rest easy and be actually done (since the only stat that doesn’t have a max will be Agony resistance, and that has no effect on WvW).

That would be the best of both worlds in my opinion. If tougher, agony based difficulties of other content were to be released to, I’d be ok with that too.

A problem with new gear levels that everybody seems to forget (since the introduction of a treadmill is obviously a big concern and the cop out of just adding bigger numbers to gear to fight monster with bigger numbers instead of creating some interesting new content) is the Power Creep. The down leveling system doesn’t seem to do much about the gear you are wearing. So going to pre 80 levels with exotic armour already makes the zones pretty easy, ascended will make that worse.

Also what about new content? When we eventually get to go to Cantha what kind of Zones will they be? Will their be different leveled Zones and thus a lot of the content will be boring to a lot of players or will it all be level 80 Zones that presume you have some ascended thus cutting off the new ares to players who haven’t got the gear yet. Same with new dungeons? Will they be like the current ones thus useless to people with ascended gear or will they be their to get even higher tiers or new infusions thus will be cut off to people with no ascended?

They need to deal with this (by removing ascended gear) for me to be happy.

They also need to deal with the fact that Rangers get less benefit from ascended gear and by comparison to other players their pets will get weaker due to them having fixed stats based around exotic level power. Also pets need agony resistance if they are going to keep that stupid gating idea they took from LoTRO.

I’m completely fine with ascended gear. I am currently fully kitted out with exotics and I have just started working towards acquiring ascended gear now. It gave me something else to work towards and fill in the gap between legendarys, which take up way too much time. I am currently not in a guild at all and after learning to use the LFG website I realised just how easy it was to get a team together for fractals, even when I play during off-peak times as I am from the oceanic region.

I would like them to scrap the Ascended Tier completely. Keep exotic armor as the highest tier. Regarding the agony mechanic fractals, have them create a consumable that would open a slot on a selected gear for infusions. This consumable can be crafted or acquired through drops.

I would have preferred more awesome skins. Better-looking armor and weapons.

Since we have Ascended gear, I would be OK with it if:

1) The stat difference really is small. 10% upgrade for each stat (as stated by Mike O’Brien) adds up to a 23% increase in damage (other players worked out the math). That’s a pretty big increase, and makes Ascended important for people wanting to do competitive WvW, etc. It certainly isn’t a small increase.

2) We get an absolute promise that there won’t be any further tiers. Unfortunately, devs have already stated they’re fans of vertical progression just like every other MMO dev team on the planet, so it doesn’t look like this is happening.

3) Ascended gear should be tradeable. Bind on Pickup is annoying for people who can’t do fractals (disconnect, bad group, etc) as well as the people who get stuck with weapons/armor they can’t use. It stinks for everyone.

4) We need to be able to upgrade all exotics to Ascended, and the recipe needs to be tweaked so it’s not freakishly expensive. GW2 is not the game I bought so I could worry obsessively about gear. It’s supposed to be a casual game, and Ascended great is so far very anti-casual. The idea for event tokens is an interesting one (gives people reason to explore specific areas that currently don’t have a lot of players). Lots of other ways to tweak the world to both be more rewarding and make Ascended gear easier to get.

TLDR: Devs need to decide who they’re aiming Ascended gear at. If it’s actually the new gear tier, they need to make it available and affordable for everyone just like exotic. Right now it’s only aimed at hardcore players – dungeon crawlers and seriously wealthy players. If it’s going to be aimed at hardcore players permanently, the better stats need to not apply to PvE.

nastyjman.8207:

I would like them to scrap the Ascended Tier completely. Keep exotic armor as the highest tier. Regarding the agony mechanic fractals, have them create a consumable that would open a slot on a selected gear for infusions. This consumable can be crafted or acquired through drops.

Ooh, that is a nice idea. Even though ANet won’t pull Ascended gear out of the game at this point (could, but won’t, since it’s OK to tick of GW1 fans and casuals but not hardcore players for some reason). This would address the worry of what happens to upgrade slots – a lot of builds involve careful planning of sigils, etc. Armor that lacks upgrade slots really hurts those builds.

Its been said already many times before but what the heck:
Either:
Remove it from the game.
Or:
Make it have the same stats as exotics but with infusions slots that only affect agony resistance.

dekou.6012:

My main gripe with Ascended gear is that the grind required to get one piece will pretty much make sure you’ll never play around with builds. Want to turn your maxed Power warrior into a maxed Condition Damage warrior? Sure, just get 300 ectos and 1500 t6 mats!

GW1 was all about build-making and experimentation, but now it looks like you’ll be locked into a single build type in GW2. I don’t see a way out of this situation without a radical change to the way gear works in PvE.

I love this thread and I really enjoy most of the posts. But this one above a million times over needs to be read and re-read by the developers. After you invest so much time and effort into getting the gear you need, yes “need” just to stay competitive in both PvE and WvWvW switching builds, traits, and weapons is a major pain in the rear. Everyone gets bored with the game because they are all using the same exact weapons, traits, and skills for 900+ hours straight. The only time you can viably switch it up is in sPvP.

Anet has said that they inserted Ascended Gear as a tangible reward for their “most dedicated players”, or hardcore gear-grinders (HCGGs)._ The philosophy behind the gear is that these HCGG’s must always have a tangible power-based (not cosmetic-based) reward that is exclusive to that playstyle.

This means that casual players (non-HCGGs) are necessarily excluded from those rewards.

I can go play any other MMORPG to experience the joy of being 2nd or 3rd rate when it comes to maxing out character power, which is why my GW2 playtime has fallen off by 80-90%, and my cash shop purchases have fallen off 100%.

nastyjman.8207:

I would like them to scrap the Ascended Tier completely. Keep exotic armor as the highest tier. Regarding the agony mechanic fractals, have them create a consumable that would open a slot on a selected gear for infusions. This consumable can be crafted or acquired through drops.

An afterthought regarding my suggestion above. When (and IF) they implement the Ascended Chestpiece, leggings, gloves, boots, headpiece and shoulders, how would that affect runes? Now, it is entirely possible that Ascended gear would be gimped since they will have fixed runes that have Agony Resist.

Currently, the rings have fixed gem stats on it. I’m guessing that full gear would have a fixed rune stat on it, and it is likely that that rune would be Agony Resist. Now that brings us to the discussion of balance in regards to general PvE and WvW. Would having full Ascended gear with AR fixed runes be underpowered? Probably. It’s like equipping MF runes.

To me it would be fine, if ascended items have this additional infusion slot – which only counts and is only useful in the upper level fractals.

But outside of fractals, ascended items should have not more than the same max. stats as exotics and legendendaries have now.

Since i am missing a craftable exotic backpack, it would be nice to have that soon. It could be crafted by Artificer or whatever.

(There is a difference between complaints and critical accompanied promotion. But if construcive proposals get no attention, maybe some trouble does it better? ArenaNet has several controllers to get and keep longtime fun into this game. And in GW1 they did some good job. For GW2 I have some ideas, but who would listen to me seriously?)

Levetty.1279:

A problem with new gear levels that everybody seems to forget (since the introduction of a treadmill is obviously a big concern and the cop out of just adding bigger numbers to gear to fight monster with bigger numbers instead of creating some interesting new content) is the Power Creep. The down leveling system doesn’t seem to do much about the gear you are wearing. So going to pre 80 levels with exotic armour already makes the zones pretty easy, ascended will make that worse.

Also what about new content? When we eventually get to go to Cantha what kind of Zones will they be? Will their be different leveled Zones and thus a lot of the content will be boring to a lot of players or will it all be level 80 Zones that presume you have some ascended thus cutting off the new ares to players who haven’t got the gear yet. Same with new dungeons? Will they be like the current ones thus useless to people with ascended gear or will they be their to get even higher tiers or new infusions thus will be cut off to people with no ascended?

Many of us Old-School types would/have/are going to raise[d] concerns similar to this. The introduction of higher levels and stronger equipment is not -just- about the grind. It is not -just- about the legacy of a franchise. It is not -just- about the reduction of a character vs. their potential. It is also about concerns regarding the impact on the world as a whole: new areas as well as existing areas, acquisition methods, impacts on modes of play, impacts on player attitudes [player availability] and more.

When everyone throws the same dice, it is easier for everyone to play the same game.

For me it’s simple. Non Mandatory (to stay competitive) vertical progression.
And Mandatory Dungeon based vertical progression.

The problem with ascended gear isn’t infusions and agony resistance. It’s that it also comes with higher stats. Anet could have just put the resistance on the gear leaving the stats the same. Making Ascended gear required to progress through fractals to get whatever goodies they decide to place there. New weapon skins perhaps armor skins in the future, components for new legendary items, new attack animations, minipets, higher slot bags, All sorts of things people would strive for. But without increasing the stats on the items. Just adding infusion/infusion slots.

This would still give us vertical progression in that you have to grind gear to grind gear to grind gear to get what you want. and endless treadmill of getting the next item the next plateau. But at the same time not making it a mandatory part of the game to stay competitive with the guy next to you.

People argue all the time that 5% isn’t a significant increase. But no one just stuck around in rares, No we all upgraded to exotics because we all know just 1% more effectiveness is “More effectiveness”. No matter how small the boost is. Even 1% increase in over all effectiveness means you will regularly outperform the guy next to you that didn’t get his fractal gear. Sure people don’t see it now or chose to turn a blind eye because its only 3 trinket slots, but remember we’ve already seen what the Ascended weapons look like. And they are going to be a game changer chest’s leggings and amulets are going to boost the fractal runners over the non fractal runners in a way that will completely suck. No matter what side of the fence you are on.

Because of this I’m on the fractal bandwagon, grinding my face off so that when the level 50+ ascended items start becoming available I’m ready. but the thing of it is I don’t want to do this… but I don’t want to become less effective even more than that. So I grind.

If I could have them change one thing it would be to make Ascended / Exotic the same stats. And the only thing Ascended has is resistances. then they could make entire resistance based dungeons new dungeons, new gear, with a gear check and vertical progression in each one without killing the last dungeons or grossly skewing Wv3. But Also maintain the feeling of accomplishment when you gear to the next tier. Fractals are entirely too easy to avoid agony It doesn’t make the Infused gear seem mandatory, A person with good dodge skills and many consumables can pretty much ignore agony that’s why there are teams in the 80+ fractal already. I wish that ascended gear was more mandatory for fractals and less mandatory for everything outside fractals.

nastyjman.8207:

nastyjman.8207:

I would like them to scrap the Ascended Tier completely. Keep exotic armor as the highest tier. Regarding the agony mechanic fractals, have them create a consumable that would open a slot on a selected gear for infusions. This consumable can be crafted or acquired through drops.

An afterthought regarding my suggestion above. When (and IF) they implement the Ascended Chestpiece, leggings, gloves, boots, headpiece and shoulders, how would that affect runes? Now, it is entirely possible that Ascended gear would be gimped since they will have fixed runes that have Agony Resist.

Currently, the rings have fixed gem stats on it. I’m guessing that full gear would have a fixed rune stat on it, and it is likely that that rune would be Agony Resist. Now that brings us to the discussion of balance in regards to general PvE and WvW. Would having full Ascended gear with AR fixed runes be underpowered? Probably. It’s like equipping MF runes.

Interesting point, but not really accurate. The gear is already higher stat (somebody worked it out to 23% extra damage taking crit ratios into account with a 10% upgrade for each stat). So players with builds that rely on runes/sigils will have to choose between changing their build or doing a quarter less damage, which is a lot.

Many good suggestions in this thread which would really improve the system in my opinion. No general PvE or WvWvW vertical progression. Tone down ascended gear to exotic or give it an extra slot next to infusion so it isn’t useless for non-fractal content.

Personally I would be happy if they rolled the game back to how things were Pre-Launch. I played through all the betas and thoroughly enjoyed the game. After launch though several professions were nerfed because some complained that certain professions were too OP in PvP. The solution would have been to put a debuff on those professions upon entering Structured PvP or WvWvW rather than nerfing the profession in all areas (including PvE). I no longer play my Elementalist because of the nerfs. She just doesn’t have the feel that she did in the betas. Of course many people play Ele’s and I just suck at the profession, but all the dodging in the world won’t help you survive the red circles that To my way of thinking a profession with the lowest armor should have the highest dps, but Thieves currently hold that spot at the moment and they have far better armor than clothies. Then you have Necros which have higher HP than many Warriors or Guardians due to their self inflicting damage spells that boost their dps output, yet if played a very particular way a player never has to utilize those skills at all and can actually tank as well (if not better) than the heavier armored professions. Something just seems very wrong about this.
GW1 had the unique ability to add more spells (rather than armor) as you leveled up and your triumph or failure was more dependent upon which spells you ran around with rather than the armor stats you had. Now I will say I only played Prophecies right before the launch of this game in order to get a feel for the game play. In the betas I quickly realized that despite what A-Net said (about horizontal progression) there would in fact be a vertical progression gear treadmill. Why else do we have 80 levels? Why do we have Common, Master, Exotic and now Ascended gear?

In my opinion the armor should all have the same stats and would simply look different. This would eliminate the gear treadmill that so many players hate.
Also RNG in this game is simply terrible. Pre November 15 patch you could farm t6 craftables in Frostgorge or other areas and expect to get a few in an hour. Now you’re very lucky to get one in three-five hours, but they drop all over the place in Fractals. Pre-Launch we were told dungeons would be optional and would only be for people who wanted different skins for their armor. We all know that isn’t true. People farm dungeons for tokens to buy armor that is nigh impossible to craft for the average casual player who doesn’t have a lot of cash to spend in the Gem Store buying gold to purchase said armor or t6 items. Also Fractals took people out of the world and so many servers no longer farm the events in Orr so the karma vendors are most time unavailable to those ones who wish to purchase gear with karma. An exotic gear vendor in LA would alleviate this problem.

I understand the company has to make money, but stealth nerfing drops (not telling the community what they intend to do or have done in the patch notes) is misleading and very bad business. people are forced to run Fractals and or buy gems. I myself am physically disabled and have a limited income and cannot buy gems. But even if I could there is only so many items on the TP in the first place because of the loot nerfs in open world (which the players figured out and A-Net has feigned ignorance about).
Consider what happened to Nations Bank a few years back when they announced they would charge $5 for every use of their credit/debit cards. People were outraged and thousands promptly closed their accounts. NB lost millions of dollars before this was even implemented but the damage was done and their good reputation tarnished. Same goes for this game when the Devs nerf something and or change an important selling point and tell us all that we simply have to live with it. Actually no we don’t. They may have the money we paid for the game, but that doesn’t mean we will buy anything from their gem store. They actually lose out in the long run.

GW1 set the stage for GW2 and what it could be. Word of mouth made this game popular and word of mouth (by players) can kill it as well.

Personally I don’t care for treadmills. I played 4.5 years of WoW and 1 year of Rift and they did the same thing. I raided constantly in both games but became burnt out due to the constant need to upgrade my gear through farming mats or money to buy mats to upgrade my gear. GW2 is no different than any of those others. All the publicity about this game was that things were going to be different, but it’s all the same as the others, just different scenery.
I know A-net apologized for the Fractals but what have they actually done about it? So far just empty promises and the notion of “moving forward”. It’s the middle of January and still no patch nor any word on when it will be implemented. “Soon” is not an answer.
If I were a shareholder and the CEO told me that we would have a meeting “soon” about the direction of the company I would be very irritated. Or if my bank told me they would consider me for a loan “soon” or that the “possibility” was in the near future but they couldn’t give a definite answer, it’s likely I would take my business elsewhere.

This company attracted millions of people because of their promise of a non-grinding horizontal progression. This has proved to be either bad marketing, a blatant lie or a change in direction without notifying the player base of their intentions and asking for feedback before being implemented. You might say that the company doesn’t require player feedback before making changes, but the real world shows this to be blatantly false. Automobile companies don’t produce the same car every year. They conduct surveys and ask people what they would like to see incorporated on next year’s model. They also listen to feedback on what was wrong with last year’s models and work to improve those things.
This company gives very little feedback and often locks or deletes posts that do not agree with their view of how the game should be. Just peruse the forums and look for responses by any A-Net employee for proof of this. To be sure we are told they read these forums, but are we really to just take their word for it when communication in the past has been not very forthcoming?
I have found the game to be less about fun and more about making gold to buy mats to get better gear, something this game wasn’t supposed to be about. Entire zones are empty because people are in Lion’s Arch LFG for Fractals. Karma vendors aren’t available on some servers because there aren’t enough people doing the events to clear an area to make the Karma vendor appear. Why? Fractals.
Also certain items are so insanely expensive compared to the drop rate of certain items. Karka shells are needed in the tailoring 400 armor, yet the drop rate is abysmally low. Passiflora drops are almost non existent in Lost Shore and the zone may have 5 players maximum (on Tarnished Coast) at any given time. last night a few of my fellow Guild members went to farm the rich Orichalcum node and fought the veteran Karka, only to have it drops whites, greens and blues? Seriously? For as much damage that NPC does only to have it drop worthless items is a severe dereliction in coding.

I keep playing however in the hope that A-Net will keep their promises they made pre launch. they have until August 2013.

Personally I would rather see them fix all the bugs and broken quests in this game BEFORE they release any new content.
I would also ask that the company ask their customers what we want.
Do we want a roll back to how things were pre-launch and therefore keep the promises they made in all their press releases OR do we want to keep the vertical gear treadmill that currently exist.
They should send a survey to every GW2 account via e-mail and ask we the players what we would like to see implemented. As it stands I feel like I’m playing WoW during Wrath of the Lich King where Ghostcrawler (Greg Street) did as he pleased and ignored customer feedback.

I really like the artwork in this game, the dialogue and the lore. However there exists many bugs that were in game in the betas that are still present. I myself have reported many bugs, often the same ones several times on different characters and they’re still a problem, blocking players from progression.
The betas were only three days long at the most, sometimes no announcement was given on Facebook as to them being open for testing and then the Asura and Sylvari races weren’t even playable until the last two beta weekends, thus denying A-Net valuable feedback on bugged quests, personal stories, crafting issues or racial problems. I feel the game was rushed at the very last moment.
I don’t want a shiny new game. I want the one I have fixed.

Of course this is just my opinion and I don’t expect others to agree with it. I just feel as a customer I should give some feedback.

On the positive side the artwork is amazing and I can clearly see A-Net did a wonderful job on the environments and the NPC’s dialogues which have me laughing quite often.
I love this game, but sometimes love isn’t enough to keep a person coming back for more. I play less and less every day and have stopped Fractals altogether. Now it;s simply map completion and PvP (where horizontal progression does exist as far as I can tell from my limited experience).

Very simple : Ascended items should not be better than exotics outside of agony situations.

I don’t like any dungeons/jumping puzzles/mazes i’ve tried so far in GW2, so i am “Anti-ascended gear” at this time. I do love the in world soloable PVE so im hoping the new ascended gear will be available in the world (without having to complete a jumping puzzle).

Also i hope Anet keeps adding new items, so i have something to hunt for or make gold for. But will any new item only be gear ?

Tiger.7506:

You are wrong!
GW2 has a slight vertical progression!
WoW has a hard vertical progression!
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose!

GW2 hasn’t been around long enough to have “hard” VP. There’s more than one reason why some people don’t like typical vertical progression. Some issues can be alleviated by tuning numbers, e.g. not making new gear too powerful, and not taking a crap load of grind to reach the BiS gear, but the core problem some people have about there never being a definite, everlasting plateau still remains. It’s a direct conflict of interest between two different player mentalities. One mentality always wants and needs the direct, immediate satisfaction of dinging and gaining raw power, while the other mentality despises the endless journey and the uncertainty of being pushed off the top of the mountain every time new gears or levels roll out.

GW2 needs to commit to one mentality to retain a solid player base that is being able to look into the games future with confidence and hope. Currently, the sails are set for VP. If they switch course again, player retention will decrease further and even less people will have faith in the dev to provide them with what they want.

Folks, many of the replies on this thread are great but let’s keep it on topic. We have debated this into the ground and are all aware how we feel on the topic, both pro ascended gear and anti ascended gear. If you are for it, then make a solution suggestion that involves keeping it, even if that suggestion is “Don’t change a thing”. If you are against it then make a solution to help us figure out how to make ascended gear more bearable to those of us who mainly wanted horizontal progression.

But please don’t derail the topic arguing over which side is right. We have done this already in hundreds of other posts and so far nothing new has been added to the debate. It is just derailing the thread.

Tolmos.8395:

If you are for it, then make a solution suggestion that involves keeping it, even if that suggestion is “Don’t change a thing”. If you are against it then make a solution to help us figure out how to make ascended gear more bearable to those of us who mainly wanted horizontal progression.

The thing is, there is no way that they will remove Ascended gear from the game. It has been stated numerous times, also Ascended WILL be better than Exotics, that has also been mentioned, however what we can discuss is how to get that Ascended gear, in a way that doesn’t require an amazing grind or playing a particular dungeon that people might not like.

Theplayboy.6417:

dekou.6012:

My main gripe with Ascended gear is that the grind required to get one piece will pretty much make sure you’ll never play around with builds. Want to turn your maxed Power warrior into a maxed Condition Damage warrior? Sure, just get 300 ectos and 1500 t6 mats!

GW1 was all about build-making and experimentation, but now it looks like you’ll be locked into a single build type in GW2. I don’t see a way out of this situation without a radical change to the way gear works in PvE.

I love this thread and I really enjoy most of the posts. But this one above a million times over needs to be read and re-read by the developers. After you invest so much time and effort into getting the gear you need, yes “need” just to stay competitive in both PvE and WvWvW switching builds, traits, and weapons is a major pain in the rear. Everyone gets bored with the game because they are all using the same exact weapons, traits, and skills for 900+ hours straight. The only time you can viably switch it up is in sPvP.

To add to this: Alts are more important to me than builds. One of the most important parts of this game that drew me in was no gear tredmill and no increase in level with every expansion. Both of these make having lots of alts too much work. I currently have 5 level 80’s and was working to get them all fully in exotics. So no matter which one I wanted to play that day I would not hurt the team. Now it is just like Wow, Rift, and Swtor I will get ascended for my main. But I can not do 100 runs of fotm for each of my alts. So now if I want to play my warrior he is under powered, play my elementalist she is under powered and so on down the line. I did not even bother getting exotics for my guardian or ranger what’s the point they won’t be able to catch up.

To stay on topic have the soul bound gear be account bound. So your Fotm level 10 or higher can get gear for alts.

maddoctor.2738:

Tolmos.8395:

If you are for it, then make a solution suggestion that involves keeping it, even if that suggestion is “Don’t change a thing”. If you are against it then make a solution to help us figure out how to make ascended gear more bearable to those of us who mainly wanted horizontal progression.

The thing is, there is no way that they will remove Ascended gear from the game. It has been stated numerous times, also Ascended WILL be better than Exotics, that has also been mentioned, however what we can discuss is how to get that Ascended gear, in a way that doesn’t require an amazing grind or playing a particular dungeon that people might not like.

I understand, and I did mention that in the OP. Though, there are other suggestions which could be put forth (regardless of how viable they are, everything is worth mentioning IMO) including limiting where ascended gear is functional, what sort of stats future ascended gear may have, etc. Honestly, any suggestion is worth posting here, because it gives more food for thought to the Anet devs.

Maybe it is all just a practice in futility, but it’s all we can do in a constructive manner. :-\ So I welcome any suggestion that anyone has, one way or another.

I love this game, it has just deviated from a direction that I feel I would enjoy. I am not alone, though I do not claim to be in either a majority or minority. So those of us who feel that way would love to see a compromise to regain some of the game we have lost.

dekou.6012:

My main gripe with Ascended gear is that the grind required to get one piece will pretty much make sure you’ll never play around with builds. Want to turn your maxed Power warrior into a maxed Condition Damage warrior? Sure, just get 300 ectos and 1500 t6 mats!

GW1 was all about build-making and experimentation, but now it looks like you’ll be locked into a single build type in GW2. I don’t see a way out of this situation without a radical change to the way gear works in PvE.

Ah, I didn’t see your post and I really agree with it. The fixed stats in the gear is what is really bothering me because it gets in the way of varying the experience and experimenting. And farming a set of gear swap isn’t THAT cheap, and it takes LOTS of room in your inventory and fiddling.

The sPvP stat system is perfect and should have been applied in PvE too : farm exotic weapon for base damage, exotic armor for base armor and one amulet for stat boosts. Then farm ascended rings for agony resist for example? Nice.

And of course, rune and sigils can either be removed for free without breaking anything, or are so cheap and abundant you can replace them a couple times per day for little to no cost.

Yes… Ascended gear is out their is no turning back now
I think the main important thing here is “Let ascended gear be available outside FOTM” for all the players

Second, For me personally i wish they would make normal dungeons drop weapons and armor skins(Treasure chest and mods).Id rather farm normal dungeons if they drop weapon-armor skins rather then going to fotm for a ascended gear.

klesk.1790:

Yes… Ascended gear is out their is no turning back now
I think the main important thing here is “Let ascended gear be available outside FOTM” for all the players

I’d phrase it a bit differently: “Let the ascended gear be easily available”.

Astralporing.1957:

I’d phrase it a bit differently: “Let the ascended gear be easily available”.

“Easily” suggests that it should take less work, which would defeat the purpose of being something exclusively for the dedicated players. But yes, all PvE/WvW areas of the game need to be saturated with the new gear to increase the number of ways players can choose from to work for it. Also, the more prevalent ascended gear is(and future tiers are), the higher its prestigious value will be. Only a small percentage of players knowing of its existence is counterproductive to one of the main attractions of the gear, at least in PvE.

ASB.4295:

Astralporing.1957:

I’d phrase it a bit differently: “Let the ascended gear be easily available”.

“Easily” suggests that it should take less work, which would defeat the purpose of being something exclusively for the dedicated players.

In light of this, I would like to add to my own personal suggestion: make it not just for being exclusively for “dedicated” players.

I would rather see Ascended gear be focused on giving players who want Vertical Progression something else to attain, not just a subgroup of VP players who happen to play more than others. While I am not someone who like VP at all, I would rather see as many VP players as possible get the opportunity to attain this gear than only certain ones.

While I can’t assure you that there are more HP players than VP, I can assure you that if a large portion of VP players were knocked off the list because they weren’t “dedicated” enough to get the gear it would limit the number of people made happy by this new tier greatly.

easy, easy ,easy ,easy …

have you only 2 fingers on the hand?

a bit of difficulty is good!

The only problem that i have with ascended gear right now is:

1- I can do nothing with them( i already have the rings that i need, but i still run fractals everyday because of the fractals skin, so i have around 18 rings in my bank and i cant salvage them, or use them in the mystic forge).

2- to infuse the backpack, my god you need 250ectos!!! only for more 5ar. but atleast you wont need AR in WvW or in others PvE events/dungeons.

the possible upgrade of Exotic to ascended is a great idea especially for WvW.

Simple. For the sake of simplicity and least disturbance, I want ANet to not introduce any more ascended items and brush it off as a failed idea. Currently, the ascended items on offer are minor enough to not have a negative impact on gameplay. However a new tier of equipment that takes hundreds of hours to grind (in fractals or otherwise) is not acceptable.

marnick.4305:

1/ Fractals should be more accessible. This will be changed as per the update notes

2/ all exotic items should be upgradeable to ascended with an MF recipe requiring crafting profession “gifts”.

3/ Many MF recipes should be ascended quality per default. I’m thinking of Ilya/Lyss, Triforce Amulet and other extremely expensive MF skins.

4/ Requirements should be both dropped and spread out. 20 karka shells/passion flowers are more than plenty. Ecto requirements should be rebalanced too. Making specific gems over crafts would also be a good idea.

5/ Every zone in the world should have an internal goal that leads to a unique ascended piece of gear. EG: 250 green wood plank + 250 copper + gift of nobleman + 100 centaur gems (1 per event in queensdale) should lead to the Crown of Queensdale.

6/ Personal Story should give you all the materials for an ascended class item. Not required to save them up, you can make gold of them but the drops should be tailored to your character, not random.

I so love this suggestion! Open world will possibly become more alive with a lot of players in every zone once again. This is what I am expecting when they say that they will make improvements on the core of the game, i.e. open world and dynamic events.
Heck, make every champion or veteran monster drop unique loots necessary to forge or craft a certain Ascended piece would give purpose to these mobs that have useless chest with loots no better than what we get from killing thousands of normal mobs at the moment.

I just hope that they make it so it would not feel like crafting a Legendary wherein one needs to farm for XXX number of this, and XXX number of that. Something more in the line of a bit difficult to accomplish but easier than making a legendary, and not brain-dead farming materials, or earning crap load of gold just to buy all the mats from the TP.

Another problem I see here is how much time the devs will need to create so many unique pieces for each and every PVE zone. I know we already have a lot of skins, some of which I believe are not even discovered yet. But, the more the shinies, the happier the skritts, no?

Should they try to implement this, I’m sure both VP and HP players will be happy. It’s a win-win, IMHO.

I don’t mind the dungeon grind. to be honest. Dungeons are my favorite MMO activity. I might as well be rewarded.

My problem is that you can’t actually get the gear by running the dungeons! There’s no way a typical dungeon runner is going to come by 250 ectos in a reasonable time while playing normally, and definitely not in the time it takes to grind out the tokens for the backpiece.

The mat requirements should be reduced to a level where they are, in fact, possible to acquire within that time frame, or the ingredients should be changed to items purchasable with fractal tokens (e.g., require 2 gifts of ascension instead of 250 ectos, or a new Gift of Infusion or whatever.)