Guild Wars 2

I would like to see them have a very very slim chance of dropping on things like The Shatterer or Claw of Jormag or things like that and not have to be crafted.

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 love these suggestions of yours, marnick, particularly 2, 3 and 4! Crafters not being able to make their own Ascended items, as well as a way for Exotic items to become part of the progression towards Ascended items, are the two biggest hindrances to the acceptance of the Ascended tier, in my opinion.

Actually two things.

1. Allow us to ascend very exotic item. So it is actually usful to know a crafting profession, so you are able to create exotic gear by yourself. That wouldn’t be so hard if there would be a mystic forge reciepe that would use:
1 exotic item + X tier 6 ungrade component + Y of an item that determs if the result will be offensive of defensive + 1 ascended item (2 if the end result should be infused)
The end result would be an ascended item with the combind stats of the exotic item and the upgrade component and an infusion slot that keys to the 3rd item. Obviously should item 3 be hard to aquire.
That would also solve the limited range of stat the current ascended system has.

But that isn’t my major problem with ascended gear. Acually in PvE I don’t mind it at all. Which brings me to number 2…

2. Change WvW to the sPvP format. Relocate the WvW portals into the Heart of the Mist and only leave the Heart of the Mist portal in LA. Seriously if you just would do this you can vertical progress your PvE as much as you like.

Personally I hope ANet will realize their mistake in attempting to add vertical progression to this game and instead will stop after they are done with trinkets.

So a big ‘NO THANKS’ to Ascended Weapons or Ascended Armor; just Rings/Earrings/Amulet/Back.

However if they still want to go all the way, I hope that they will also upgrade the special MF-exotics that cost a ridiculous amount of mats (Lyss, Ilya, Foefire’s Essence, Triforge Amulet etc etc) to Ascended status.

Just make it so that WvWvW uses spvp’s equipment system. You enter the mists, equip your gear from the vendor, and then enter WvWvW. Then, they can add as many tiers as they want! No competitive pvp play will be affected by pve gear tiers, and all pvp players, of all types will be on the same playing field, with the same stat budget.

The reason why some don’t want this solution (yandere.9716 posted the same solution) is that there are those who actually want to grind out a competitive advantage against those who are unable/ unwilling to spend the same amount of time. They want to slaughter under-geared opponents due to gear differences. They think that starting the race before the gun goes off, and then crossing the finish line first, is an example of fair play and a stroke to their kitten.

Asmodeus.8491:

Just make it so that WvWvW uses spvp’s equipment system. You enter the mists, equip your gear from the vendor, and then enter WvWvW. Then, they can add as many tiers as they want! No competitive pvp play will be affected by pve gear tiers, and all pvp players, of all types will be on the same playing field, with the same stat budget.

The reason why some don’t want this solution (yandere.9716 posted the same solution) is that there are those who actually want to grind out a competitive advantage against those who are unable/ unwilling to spend the same amount of time. They want to slaughter under-geared opponents due to gear differences. They think that starting the race before the gun goes off, and then crossing the finish line first, is an example of fair play and a stroke to their kitten.

I 100% agree with this. I am full exotics, 2 complete sets to switch between as necessary, and it bothers me not knowing whether the person I just beat in 1v1 lost because of player skill or gear. I would much rather all of us be on an even playing field.

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.

Yes, exactly – that is the idea, after all. Top tier should be accessible to all players, not exclusive to the small minority. That in fact has been definitely and clearly promised to us.

I find the term “dedicated player” as used in this context insulting tbh.
I consider myself a dedicated player, I pre-purchased the game and have been playing it since the betas.
I have limited time to play because of RL but I do spend the free time I have playing GW2- I spend gems in the shop, I help new players and I try to contribute to the community.

Yet I never run dungeons because I can’t commit to the time required.

So by this definition, because I don’t chase a carrot in some instance I am not a dedicated player.

Ascended gear needs to be available for all if it is going to impact PvE world in any way.
Power creep is not fun and it is insulting to players who fall behind simply because they have lives.
My suggestion would still be to confine Ascended to FoTM and to let those who want to grind for bragging rights in FoTM do so.
There is no need for agony mechanic to ever make it’s way into general PvE- if it does, Ascended gear should be craft-able, exotics should be able to be converted and Ascended should drop from champs.

Astralporing.1957:

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

How much easier than it is now???? It is already so easy to get those Ascended Rings that there is absolutely no reason to craft/buy Exotic Rings anymore. Just get a character to level 10 Fractals and in less than 2 weeks you can dress all your alts (even those you haven’t created yet) with all the rings you will ever need.

I know, some people don’t like Fractals, so it’s not “easy” for them. Let’s imagine then, adding something similarly easy to every other aspect of the game, how about a daily kill of a dragon → % for a ring, a daily kill of a risen priest in Orr → % for a ring. Daily kill of an end boss in a dungeon → % for a ring etc, you get my idea. And the six gods help us all, if they don’t make it daily and instead make them farmable….

There was a suggestion somewhere to allow players to put those rings on TP, that would totally destroy the ring market, as those Ascended ones will have to cost around 20s (and it would still be too high) because people are already hoarding them. I can’t imagine what will happen with the game economy and the Exotic market if the rest of the Ascended items are as easy to obtain as the rings are… And even more if getting those items from dungeons/open PVE is as easy as the Rings in Fractals.

The simple fact is that Exotic gear is currently the best in the game. Players have been crafting/acquiring exotic gear, some have multiple sets for multiple builds. Ascended gear shouldn’t invalidate Exotic gear. Adding Ascended rewards using the current currency is NOT an option, for example Exotic: 300 dungeon tokens, 42k karma, 300 badges of Honnor, Ascended: 10000 dungeon tokens, 102938200 karma, 10000 badges of Honnor. That’s NOT how Ascended gear should be obtained.

Suggestion: make Exotic a requirement for making Ascended. That is, craft/acquire Exotic, then use some recipe to upgrade it to Ascended quality, the game remains exactly as it is up to Exotic and then some extra “work” is added to make them Ascended quality. That’s my prefered way so as not to invalidate and make obsolete the Exotic tier.

maddoctor.2738:

How much easier than it is now???? It is already so easy to get those Ascended Rings that there is absolutely no reason to craft/buy Exotic Rings anymore. Just get a character to level 10 Fractals and in less than 2 weeks you can dress all your alts (even those you haven’t created yet) with all the rings you will ever need.

Two weeks just for two rings. In two weeks doing only 2 dungeon paths you can get a full armor set. Just for those two rings you double the time it takes to get a “endgame” gear set. Then two accessories, then the necklace, then the armor and weapons? We are looking at what, 3 months to get just ONE set of gear for ONE alt once all the ascended stuff is here? That’s insane.

Lots more weapons, lots more skills.

stof.9341:

Two weeks just for two rings.

If you got two rings in two weeks then you were just unlucky… It depends on how many dailies you do, they don’t take much time at 10-18 and some Fractals can even take 10 minutes, if you are lucky and get the “fast ones” you can finish your whole run in less than 1 hour. If you do one run per day that’s 14 dailies in 2 weeks, so you will get 1 Ring with Pristine Fractal Relics (10) and at least 2 or 3, maybe even more, from the Jade Maw.

yeah i got 2 rings in 4 days of daily lvl 10’s (a beserker and a mf ring, while i actually need a rabid one xD, so gave the beserker to my thief that resently got lvl 80 as well and the mf… well that was actually less stas than the green lvl 80 ring he used then beside the beserker ascended so that still in my bank, might sell it though not sure, dont relaly care for mf)

Gear that is equal to the best should always be available for gold, karma, skill points, via regular crafting mats, and/or as very rare drops that can be gathered/earned in any zone in the world.

IOW, “Play Your Way”, and “The Whole Game Is The End Game” as was originally marketed, not “the best stuff is reserved for the most dedicated players”.

maddoctor.2738:

stof.9341:

Two weeks just for two rings.

If you got two rings in two weeks then you were just unlucky… It depends on how many dailies you do, they don’t take much time at 10-18 and some Fractals can even take 10 minutes, if you are lucky and get the “fast ones” you can finish your whole run in less than 1 hour. If you do one run per day that’s 14 dailies in 2 weeks, so you will get 1 Ring with Pristine Fractal Relics (10) and at least 2 or 3, maybe even more, from the Jade Maw.

You want to know how many rings I got in fractals so far? And how many of those rings had the stats I wanted?

I got 7 rings so far, 0 with the stats I’m looking for. It was before the added the fractal relics to buy them. As far as I know, the odds of you getting any useful ring at all after 20 runs is close to 0. And in fact, 2 weeks isn’t enough to get the two rings you need, it’s closer to three weeks yeah.

Most dungeons take 1 hour to do two paths with competent teams. Two paths per day, 14 days, enough for a full armor set and one weapons.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

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

How much easier than it is now???? It is already so easy to get those Ascended Rings that there is absolutely no reason to craft/buy Exotic Rings anymore. Just get a character to level 10 Fractals and in less than 2 weeks you can dress all your alts (even those you haven’t created yet) with all the rings you will ever need.

Ah, but there’s the question – will the other items accessibility be based on ascended rings, or backpieces?
Another fun fact – to get the rings, you need to get to fractal level 10 first. This sound trivial… until you realize that getting a fractal group at lower levels nowadays can take hours (and lot of those groups end up in fail, for usual pug-related reasons). This is not going to get any better with time, by the way (rather the opposite).
And then you find out that the stats you need don’t even exist yet at the ascended level.

Astralporing.1957:

Another fun fact – to get the rings, you need to get to fractal level 10 first. This sound trivial… until you realize that getting a fractal group at lower levels nowadays can take hours (and lot of those groups end up in fail, for usual pug-related reasons). This is not going to get any better with time, by the way (rather the opposite).

With the January update coming you will be able to solve the issue of not finding a group, when/if it ever comes of course. There is also a big “how” it’s going to work in practise (and how many bugs it will have)

Astralporing.1957:

And then you find out that the stats you need don’t even exist yet at the ascended level.

I never said the system is perfect or that I like it, on the contrary, I hate it.

stof.9341:

You want to know how many rings I got in fractals so far? And how many of those rings had the stats I wanted?

I got 2 ring drops in 4 dailies last week, funny thing is, I got the same ring twice (which is useless because you can’t equip both anyway – they are unique), I was ready to rage when I got the second one.

I never said the system is good, only that is easy to get rings, it is harder to get the rings you actually want as it is based on a whole lot of luck and RNG, but can we find a way to give ascended rings to people without ruining the Exotic tier rings?

If it was even easier why would anyone want to make/buy exotic rings?? That’s the real question here and it translates directly to how the rest of the Ascended gear rewards should be handled.

Astralporing.1957:

Ah, but there’s the question – will the other items accessibility be based on ascended rings, or backpieces?

That’s a very good question. Backpieces require a serious grind but don’t have any RNG. Rings don’t require a serious grind but require a high amount of luck (so they “might” take a serious grind if you aren’t lucky) can we get a compromise between them?

Try to stay on topic folks. This thread is getting derailed again. This is all stuff we have discussed before, so lets keep the focus on suggestions/solutions please

yandere.9176:

2. Change WvW to the sPvP format. Relocate the WvW portals into the Heart of the Mist and only leave the Heart of the Mist portal in LA. Seriously if you just would do this you can vertical progress your PvE as much as you like.

I do not really agree. I see WvW as PVE with objectives and gank. It’s how PVP servers in WoW should have been. I like going there and doing stuff, if only for the added risk of getting ganked. Since WvW furthers mostly PVE objectives, I like that the risks and rewards are PVE based (ie broken gear). I mostly go to WvW to PVE with a big risk to get ganked. It’s thrilling.

I still do think that ascended should be far easier to get to balance out this pvx part of the game. It is not acceptable to have gear be the deciding factor in a gank.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Gear that is equal to the best should always be available for gold, karma, skill points, via regular crafting mats, and/or as very rare drops that can be gathered/earned in any zone in the world.

IOW, “Play Your Way”, and “The Whole Game Is The End Game” as was originally marketed, not “the best stuff is reserved for the most dedicated players”.

The problem is, getting the “new” Best gear (until Ascended came out Exotic was the best) using the SAME way as the previous one, defeats the puprose and existance of the previous tier (Exotic)

maddoctor.2738:

I got 2 ring drops in 4 dailies last week, funny thing is, I got the same ring twice (which is useless because you can’t equip both anyway – they are unique), I was ready to rage when I got the second one.

I never said the system is good, only that is easy to get rings, it is harder to get the rings you actually want as it is based on a whole lot of luck and RNG, but can we find a way to give ascended rings to people without ruining the Exotic tier rings?

If it was even easier why would anyone want to make/buy exotic rings?? That’s the real question here and it translates directly to how the rest of the Ascended gear rewards should be handled.

The simple existence of ascended rings already made the exotic ones useless in my eyes. My alt is perfectly fine with rare rings until I get the correct ascended one I need for them.

If ascended rings had 0 stat bonus above exotics, there wouldn’t be any issue. You’d farm ascended rings for agony resist to play higher level fractals, and if that activity had no interest in your eyes, you’d just gear with exotic rings instead.

If ascended rings were ALL made from upgrading an exotic one through the mystic forge, then the exotic tier wouldn’t be useless either.

Somehow, they made it that way instead. Ascended items is a crude rush job and GW2 would have been better without them in the first place.

stof.9341:

The simple existence of ascended rings already made the exotic ones useless in my eyes. My alt is perfectly fine with rare rings until I get the correct ascended one I need for them.

And that’s exactly my “issue” with making Ascended items easy to acquire.

If ascended rings had 0 stat bonus above exotics, there wouldn’t be any issue. You’d farm ascended rings for agony resist to play higher level fractals, and if that activity had no interest in your eyes, you’d just gear with exotic rings instead.

If ascended rings were ALL made from upgrading an exotic one through the mystic forge, then the exotic tier wouldn’t be useless either.

Well, I don’t think they will reduce the stats on Ascended gear, so it will be higher than Exotic, that’s a sad fact. The only thing we can do now is to discuss, in the off chance that they read the forums as much as we hope they are, the way of acquiring them.

As I mentioned above:

Suggestion: make Exotic a requirement for making Ascended. That is, craft/acquire Exotic, then use some recipe to upgrade it to Ascended quality, the game remains exactly as it is up to Exotic and then some extra “work” is added to make them Ascended quality. That’s my prefered way so as not to invalidate and make obsolete the Exotic tier.

So we agree on this one, Anets implementation is bad, both the backpieces and the rings, I hope they change it with the rest of the gear, making Exotics a requirement for Ascended is the only way to keep Exotic “viable/useful” that I can think off. Maybe there are other ways and someone has a better idea.

So we get to the next question: how to update an item from Exotic to Ascended?

If they were going to add ascended gear as the final tier. It should have been in game from the start. I don’t get why it was added months later. If that’s their stance that it will be the final tier for everyone to collect. Then I’m fine with it but the fact is I think they will be adding another higher up tier later and that bothers me.

As it is for me right now I have no exotic gear at all because I don’t get to chance to log on and do that much or haven’t lately. If they keep increasing gear I’m going to be even further behind. The fact I don’t have to grind gear for my character is one of the reasons I like this game. It’ kitten up and play.

TBH, my favorite solution involes giving ascended items quality of life bonuses rather than numerical bonuses. Something I really don’t like in GW2 is the insane time cost to try multiple builds in PvE, both for equipment stats and runes. Ascended items would have been perfect and in high demand then as some kind of “same stats as exotics but you can switch the stats around as you wish”.

So many missed opportunities.

Ascended gear looks nice on paper, but to actually infuse items you need to basically make a semi legendary recipe. I got a ring first time through on lvl 10, only to realize it was trash due to the fact that I may as well pursue a legendary rather than waste the materials on an infusion. That and I don’t like to visit maps full of botting scum for passionfruits.

As for the arguement about the stat increase, it’s only like 2 or 3 points per attribute OMFG! game breaking right ? " That guy has 3 more power than I do, there’s no way I can kill him, he’ll just one hit me "
Ascended gear is the same as GW1, it’s there for agony resistance which allows further progression in an area, which isn’t necessary to do at all.

Maldraxis.2406:

Ascended gear looks nice on paper, but to actually infuse items you need to basically make a semi legendary recipe. I got a ring first time through on lvl 10, only to realize it was trash due to the fact that I may as well pursue a legendary rather than waste the materials on an infusion. That and I don’t like to visit maps full of botting scum for passionfruits.

No you don’t need a semi legendary recipe, you can buy infusions from the golem vendor in FotM for 75 fractal relics… no materials wasted. Those don’t give a +5 to any stat, but as you yourself said, that amount of mats, for a simple +5 in one stat, isn’t worth it.

stof.9341:

TBH, my favorite solution involes giving ascended items quality of life bonuses rather than numerical bonuses. Something I really don’t like in GW2 is the insane time cost to try multiple builds in PvE, both for equipment stats and runes. Ascended items would have been perfect and in high demand then as some kind of “same stats as exotics but you can switch the stats around as you wish”.

They made Ascended EVEN worse for multiple builds adding those “unique” rings, not to mention so many stat combinations are missing. Talk about moving to the wrong direction…

Aevic.9675:

It should have been in game from the start. I don’t get why it was added months later.

Yes it should and I don’t get it either. But all we can do now is find ways of lessening the “impact” this new tier of gear has on our game.

maddoctor.2738:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Gear that is equal to the best should always be available for gold, karma, skill points, via regular crafting mats, and/or as very rare drops that can be gathered/earned in any zone in the world.

IOW, “Play Your Way”, and “The Whole Game Is The End Game” as was originally marketed, not “the best stuff is reserved for the most dedicated players”.

The problem is, getting the “new” Best gear (until Ascended came out Exotic was the best) using the SAME way as the previous one, defeats the puprose and existance of the previous tier (Exotic)

All the previous tiers are accessible using the same ways as well. Why only ascended need to be gained differently?

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Ah, but there’s the question – will the other items accessibility be based on ascended rings, or backpieces?

That’s a very good question. Backpieces require a serious grind but don’t have any RNG. Rings don’t require a serious grind but require a high amount of luck (so they “might” take a serious grind if you aren’t lucky) can we get a compromise between them?

I’m sure we can. As i said many times before in more than one topic, i can accept ascended items being twice as costly/hard to get as current exotic items (karma costs, tokens needed, crafting mats needed, drop rate etc). Assuming we’ll never need to change them for anything better, that is – if we’ll need to, in the future (because of better ties, higher level cap etc.) then they should be cheaper than that.
In any case, they definitely should be tradable.

I personally do not see why they implemented ascended gear in the first place because it basically widens the profession imbalances even further (a warrior or a guardian can do PvE content faster than a necro or a mesmer), but since they already implemented the rings and backpiece, it would not be fair to take them away from people who already have them. If they want to make a full set of ascended gear my suggestion would be:

1) Make the pieces cost 60 tokens or more of each dungeon. This will give a real incentive to people to start doing all the dungeons. It is currently easy to find pugs for AC or CoF, but very hard for CoE or SE. This will solve the current dungeon problem. Don’t make them cost too many tokens so that people can afford to make multiple sets for multiple builds and keep their alts up to date as far as gear is concerned.

2) Make infusions craftable using the crafting professions. If ascended gear makes no use of or has no equivalent in crafted gear, then why bother with crafting in the first place? Just for leveling an alt is not a justification for the entire crafting mechanic.

3) Be able to upgrade current gear to ascended level(a gift of upgrade or something) It takes a lot of tokens/gold to get all possible weapon combinations (except for engi). Some people have t3 cultural or Arah armor which is far harder to get than other armor sets. Will you tell them that their work has been for nothing and they have to start gearing everything all over again?

As far as I’m concerned they should focus on adding more explorable areas, improving balance, adding new skins and maybe some new skills to make more diverse builds viable instead of adding more numbers on the gear. But if they really insist on ascended this would probably be the best solution.

we need a slight vertical progression!
WoW = hard vertical progression … no life
GW2 = slight vertical progression… very good
The difference between medicine and poison is the dose!
Without progression vertical = no endgame = no players
I love GW2 … i hate WoW!…

in other free to play MMO, you got a clear vertical progression.
you got lvl cap raised that render all current cap gear useless.
you got a very expensive cash shop items that boost enhancement rate..
you got lots of gold opening cash shop boxes..
some of the other MMO even stop you from grinding. you can only get much from eternal grinding, where all the good stuff comes from cash shop.
you litteraly cant be half descent without spending atleast a couple hundred dollars. and nomatter how much you love the game, how much you grind for, if you’re poor, you will always have underpowered char that gets oneshotted by those that spend thousands of dollars to the game.
compare to them, GW2 feels like HEAVEN! and ascended rings arent even randomly HARD TO GET!
its just some of you guys are a little late on fotm fract progression and give in to your pride and cursing the dungeon. where the dungeon arent so bad,,
some keep saying that in guild wars2 you got nothing to do at endgame..
so why refuse ascended.? those rings actually help me build my alts. cause of the easiness to obtain and their stats are good. so that i dont have to buy those overpriced trinkets at the TH. you can grind your exotic gear through dungeon, and trinket grind are just fine!
don’t want to buy over flipped over priced trinkets at the TH? you can do FOTM!
why not do the dungeon little by little instead of whining that gw2 has nothing to do and refuse to do FOTM! youre bored but you refuse to do new content of the game?
the refusal and whine of vertical progression in this game are just stupid.

Grounder.7381:

in other free to play MMO, you got a clear vertical progression.
you got lvl cap raised that render all current cap gear useless.

Gw2 officially will have
also tier raised rendered exotic rings useless

you got a very expensive cash shop items that boost enhancement rate..

like revive orb, repair canister, speed enhance etc etc etc?

you got lots of gold opening cash shop boxes..

gem=> gold

some of the other MMO even stop you from grinding. you can only get much from eternal grinding, where all the good stuff comes from cash shop.

with proper amount of cash you can have a lvl max with legendary and exotic without Killing a single mob after the tutorial.

compare to them, GW feels like heaven! and ascended rings arent even randomly HARD TO GET!
its just some of you guys are a little late on fotm fract progression and give in to your pride and cursing the dungeon. where the dungeon arent so bad,,

just to prove again you are wrong, i farm fractals for skins >.>
I have a copy of each ascended ring, many shards of essence and more token and pristine token i’ll ever use….

I hate ascended gear with passion!

Also farming has nothing to do with having fun.

Content is having fun…..

Want proof?
Go to see how many players attend jormag events…..its not for drop for sure….
Look at www….
Its not a proficuos activity at all…..

carrot on a stick is not “content”….
If you want an achievement you could try to craft an infinite light or the anomaly…..

that without any gear improvement.

FUN: playing what you want to and having access to many long range goals of your choice….also better if they are status symbol to prove your efforts (i.e. fotm skins, or rare exotic weapons)

UNFUN: invisible tinkets that force you to do specific tasks without leaving you the choice, just so you are not cut out from part of the game OR less efficient of any equally skilled player.

I don’t know why they didn’t just leave the concepts of Ascension and Infusion the same as they were in GW1.

There your character Ascended, not his/her armour and the armour you wore became Infused by the Seers. There was no stat increase it was just a property that was applied to the armour that enabled you to resist Spectral Agony.

Why not simply handle it the same way in GW2? Too late now I suppose but that’s how I’d like them to handle it.

tier progression and the variety of ways of obtaining it are good for the game!
keep people from beeing whiny bored all the time!
and the difference arent even all that apperent that you could get oneshotted by a same lvl char. unlike some other MMO.
in this game, you can have skill to compensate your lack of gear, while slowly and surely progressing it!
they even get the ultra expensive legendaries stat down to exotic forgodsake!
repair canister, revive orb and etc2 are just consumable that you can live without!
while at other MMO, you get a +6 item, that have a chance to be destroyed if you go +7. you have cash shop item to make it save, but it still can fail and downgrade the lvl of item… now people use their cash like MAD and the ALL armor ALL weapon +13 can basically slay those poor people with +7 gear! oneshot!! dont even mention the ways companies always use ways to cut you from grinding by giving more and more rewards to cash users.. even when you love the game sooo much, the sheer difference in strength, the unfairness and all others just force your poor little self to eventually QUIT THE GAME!! you cant even enjoy pvp anymore, you kill mobs soo slow that you get nothing in return vs the cash spammer!
GW2 actually conserve balance and give slight stat change for reward to those hard core gamers. its a good game . you can have “fun” with doing what you like, even WITH cheap or free gear from dungeon NPC.

Grounder.7381:

tier progression and the variety of ways of obtaining it are good for the game!
keep people from beeing whiny bored all the time!
and the difference arent even all that apperent that you could get oneshotted by a same lvl char. unlike some other MMO.
in this game, you can have skill to compensate your lack of gear, while slowly and surely progressing it!

only players who have to been told what to play…..it seems if anetdon t tell them to play www or dungeon they cannot decide and get bored…..that is not good for most players i think.

they even get the ultra expensive legendaries stat down to exotic forgodsake!

with promises to up them…..

repair canister, revive orb and etc2 are just consumable that you can live without!

wellcome to high lvl fractals….tell me again you can live without

while at other MMO, you get a +6 item, that have a chance to be destroyed if you go +7. you have cash shop item to make it save, but it still can fail and downgrade the lvl of item… now people use their cash like MAD and the ALL armor ALL weapon +13 can basically slay those poor people with +7 gear! oneshot!! dont even mention the ways companies always use ways to cut you from grinding by giving more and more rewards to cash users.. even when you love the game sooo much, the sheer difference in strength, the unfairness and all others just force your poor little self to eventually QUIT THE GAME!! you cant even enjoy pvp anymore, you kill mobs soo slow that you get nothing in return vs the cash spammer!

never heard of mystic forge and precursor issue?…..
Exactly what happens with +6 +7 etc
you could wast hundreds money and not get anything in return.

GW2 actually conserve balance and give slight stat change for reward to those hard core gamers. its a good game . you can have “fun” with doing what you like, even WITH cheap or free gear from dungeon NPC.

actually you cannot have cheap ascended gear from anything but fotm….

Grounder.7381:

tier progression and the variety of ways of obtaining it are good for the game!

Being able to do different things, make progress towards different goals? Sure.
Being stuck on a gear treadmill? Nope.

Cycle goes like this:
More powerful gear gets added
Players grind more powerful gear (whining about grind)
The 1% hardcore players whine a lot about ‘game being too easy’ now that they got the gear in record time
New, more powerful areas/dungeons get added
Everyone else is frustrated because now they are required to get the new gear to experience the new cool area. More whining

Vertical progression and gear treadmills don’t actually decrease forum unhappiness o r make the game better.

They significantly increase the complaints from casuals (who put life ahead of the game and don’t grind gear quickly) and fans of horizontal progression (who aren’t interested in more powerful gear until they smack into a gear check). This game was marketed specifically to attract those 2 populations, so it’s no wonder they’re upset about Ascended gear and the suggestion that more gear tiers will come along later.

VP and gear treadmills also make it harder for new people to get into the game (more gear tiers to climb through).

They also take away time and money that could be spent developing cool new mechanics, balancing, fixing bugs, making new events, developing cool looking armor (gotta pay those artists!), etc. So they hurt the game in other ways beside causing the players stress.

On-topic:
I’d like to see the ability to ascend any exotic sets, that would help a lot with the issues of limited Ascended stat combos. It could also make crafting professions more useful.

It will be interesting to see how the achievement tokens play into this too.

Grounder.7381:

in other free to play MMO, you got a clear vertical progression.

GW2 is not f2p, it is buy to play like most games are.

I love the idea of horizontal progression.

Because I don’t have to care about pveing forever to be competitve in open world pvp (WvW).

I love the idea of exotic gear.

Because you can get them from pve (karma)/crafting/pve (dungeon)/ WvW (even if the choice is pretty limited to pvt).

As a pvper, I enjoy having different sets of gear that match different builds/traits. If I want to try sometyhing new, I just go to the crafting station and make a new armor set, then try to find good weapons with my pve/wvw tokens. It takes… 10 minutes of my time then I can press B and leave LA.

If ANet applies this philosphy to ascended gear in the next patches, I will be very happy.
I don’t want to do daily stuff I don’t enjoy just to stay competitive (let’s say… fractal 10+ dailies).
I just want to get my gear the way I want.

I would also love to see ascended gear be purchasable on AH/sellable on AH. If I’m going to run fractals and end up with 500000000000000000000000 rings, I might as well get some cash out of the deal.

Tolmos.8395:

I would also love to see ascended gear be purchasable on AH/sellable on AH. If I’m going to run fractals and end up with 500000000000000000000000 rings, I might as well get some cash out of the deal.

The crap rings will have no value on AH anyway.

Tolmos.8395:

I would also love to see ascended gear be purchasable on AH/sellable on AH.

Making it tradeable would singlehandedly destroy the prestige of the gear. You don’t want supply and demand control the value of these prestigious items, but the actual invested player time and to a degree skill to attain them. It may be a harsh truth, but not everybody who wants ascended gear deserves it.

I agree though, that superfluous items should be able to be converted into something that doesn’t affect the economy or prestige of it, while still being of use to the player. Guaranteed Mystic Forge recipes to turn spare ascended gear items into soulbound ascended gear or weapons you actually can use. If they can pull it off, they could also make those new items account bound and soulbound on equip. There’s many ways to make use of excess loot without cheapening it’s value by selling it.

ASB.4295:

Making it tradeable would singlehandedly destroy the prestige of the gear. You don’t want supply and demand control the value of these prestigious items, but the actual invested player time and to a degree skill to attain them. It may be a harsh truth, but not everybody who wants ascended gear deserves it.

I agree though, that superfluous items should be able to be converted into something that doesn’t affect the economy or prestige of it, while still being of use to the player. Guaranteed Mystic Forge recipes to turn spare ascended gear items into soulbound ascended gear or weapons you actually can use. If they can pull it off, they could also make those new items account bound and soulbound on equip. There’s many ways to make use of excess loot without cheapening it’s value by selling it.

Legendaries are tradeable, and you’re arguing that some piece of jewelry that takes a maximum of ten days to get and that no one can even see shouldn’t be? While I prefer the model where gear is soulbound, the current setup seems kind of silly. And since the devs have repeatedly indicated that they aren’t going to change legendaries anytime soon, well, they might as well go whole hog and make no drops account bound.

Ascended is half-baked for numerous mechanical reasons that need to be addressed before it becomes even remotely acceptable.

If there are to be more ways of acquiring Ascended gear, these methods need to follow the “Rules” laid out by previous gear tiers.

It needs to be available through:

1: Crafting
2: Karma
3: Tokens
4: Open World Chests
5: Trading Post

For 1: Ideally, there needs to be a new tier of crafting materials made available. These material categories are recipe, wood, metal, leather, cloth, gem, fine materials and an Ectoplasm analog.
This is where it becomes immediately obvious that despite what ArenaNet have said in various attempts to justify Ascended gear, it was added as an after-thought.
To make these things fit into the game, you would be redefining the economy as it currently stands. It would immediately de-value current economical touchstones that maintain a consistent value.
In addition, for correct implementation of Ascended, we would require an increase in the crafting level caps and either modification of existing maps’ crafting nodes or at least one large new area with crafting nodes appropriate to Ascended. This also raises the very valid point that if Orichalcum is no longer the top tier metal, why are the nodes limited and randomised?

For 2: This is the easiest way for ArenaNet to make a new tier of gear available and is currently criminally under-utilised as a reward mechanism. But again, it immediately de-values the exotic Karma gear from Orrian temple vendors. The only reason to buy those sets in an Ascended future would be for appearance.

For 3: Another relatively easy way of implementing Ascended gear, yet we start to realise that in order to distinguish it, we would require completely new artwork of a calibre notably more impressive than current dungeon armour.. This would require a lot of artistic development, something I doubt very much they thought through when pushing Ascended out of the door. I’ll expand on artistic asset development shortly.

For 4: Exotic gear rarely drops from chests, but it does drop. Interestingly, this also results in a situation where a pre-cursor weapon will potentially be at most, third best gear in the future after the full implementation of Ascended and Legendary tiers. Yet again, this hints at the rushed job that Ascended gear really was.

For 5: Ascended items, much like Exotic, must be tradeable. This ties deeply in to points 1 and 4. Why craft Ascended beyond for immediate use if it can’t be sold? If Ascended gear can’t be sold, we’re talking massive problems retaining value for the crafting materials necessary to create them when bought from the trading post.

And please note, this isn’t a “Pick one” scenario. All of these options must be implemented to maintain game consistency.

A further note on art:
Every method of acquiring gear results in that gear having an appearance unique to that method.
This will require a lot of work on ArenaNet’s behalf, and they haven’t solved a lot of the clipping and stretching issues with current gear tiers yet.

Looking at the amount of work required for proper implementation of Ascended, it becomes obvious that no matter what they insist, ArenaNet never originally intended for there to be a tier above Exotic.

Oh and a further note on materials for Ascended.
If it were to fit into the current crafting mechanic, the ectoplasm analog would have to be salvageable from the gear tier below Ascended, in the same way that Ectoplasm can be salvaged from the gear tier below Exotic.
That means you would need to salvage Exotic gear to get the material needed to craft Ascended.

But I’m guessing they haven’t thought this far ahead.

That’s to say nothing of level 80 greens, blues and whites producing Gossamer and Orichalcum when salvaged. What gear is going to result in Ascended quality basic materials being the result of salvage?

Is this going to require a Salvage kit level above Master or Black Lion?

Layers upon layers of evidence that Ascended was not planned prior to release.

Mungrul.9358:

Is this going to require a Salvage kit level above Master or Black Lion?

rest of your points are valid but this one not really… ofc there would be no more need for any more salvage kits, masters ones are not a lot lower chances from black lion and black lion… or would would youg t out of this extra one? 120% chance to salvage upgrades? xD

Yup, fair enough, I can see that the “25% chance of rarer” materials on a Master kit would apply equally to any new material tier.
But you agree that a new tier of materials is necessary and fundamentally affects almost every other area of the game?

well actually not neesarily, could just take bigger amount of gossamer/orichalcum/echto etc, in fact that tier fo crafting materails currently makes less different lvl AND quality of items currently, so would kinda make sense needing just more of that

Increase crafting tier to 450, add Ascended gear tier.

I don’t care about vertical or horizontal progression, but I don’t like being forced to do dungeons. I bought GW2 for events in open world, not to do instances. If I want instances I would play a lot of different, free games.

The problem with this is that if there wasn’t a gear progression a lot of people would say there is no endgame.
If there is, a lot of people will cry about it.
That’s why they found a middle ground, they give us a tier between Exo and Lege that needs to be aquired by doing content (while exotic can be merely bought).

This will not be reverted or they would incur again into the “no endgame” critic, nor will be extended or they will incur in the opposite critic.
Anet found a good spot to be, it ain’t going to change guys. It won’t change.
If you can’t bear it play another game.

The thing that worries me massively with ascended gear, aside from how insanely long it will take for a set, is the fact that the rings we have currently as well as the back pieces DO NOT cover all armor affixes.

Many armor sets people use now may not be available on ascended armor forcing people to change their builds and gameplay if they want to use it, which is really lame. I haven’t noticed any mention that Anet is going to make an ascended version for every type of armor currently in game but my expectations on it are pretty low.

I’m also deathly worried medium will be another coat/manskirt and probably fat.