Guild Wars 2

velmeister.4187:

In November we’ll unveil the first Ascended items. This new rarity type falls between Exotic and Legendary on the spectrum of rarity and has slightly higher stats than Exotics.

Source: https://www.guildwar...-ascended-gear/

For me, more acceptable approach should have been as follows:

To bridge the Exotic to Legendary gap:

1. Introduce slots on existing items.
2. Introduce different upgrade components like runes that provide variety of effects, defense (such as KD resists, daze resists etc.) and offense benefits (Less chance to miss owing to elevation differences, more critical chances etc.) without impacting the stat numbers.

Why I hate this “slightly higher stats” concept?

1. It introduces power creep and way too early in the lifecycle of this MMO franchise. Given how old this game is, its like Nightfall just happened too early for this franchise.
2. The game is easy enough. Why would you introduce higher stat weapons that will simply murder the difficulty level of the current world mobs? I’d not even touch the issues that will impact the current dungeons. There are just too many existing already.

Why I hate this “Agony” condition?

1. Limiting this condition to only to the Fractal of Mists dungeon funnels the whole playerbase to one area/dungeon leaving the already empty world to its own fate.

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon

2. It also marks the begining of the shift in the core of GW franchise philosophy.

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

Yeah, more gear to grind to grind more gear! And Mudflation begins..

What probably would have been sufficient for now?

1. Add “Storymode” dungeon content where players could get infused, much like GW1’s infusion mission mechanic, without resorting to grinding new gear.

2. Improve availability rate of the Legendary precursors.

We also have plans to add more fun ways to acquire Legendary precursor items with a more “scavenger hunt” feel than they are acquired currently.

Then… work on to

3. Add more PvP content – formats and maps. GW is a great game not because it had great PvE Storyline or missions or had more mobs to kill. It is a fun game because you can hop in and do any format of PvP that you want without having to dedicate a massive amount of time to enjoy it even when many formats were quite difficult to master.

4. Rethink WvW and make it so that more and more people participate in it without being motivated to complete the World Exploration or to do monthly or to farm BoH by doing jump puzzles while enjoying the content without being killed by invisible enemy zergers.

I did not spend $149 on this game to master the art of out-gearing 99% of the population as fast as I can so that I can grind more gear. I am very disappointed that GW2 has chosen to become another gear grind MMO. Is this WoW 2.0 since there are no Guild Wars in GuildWars 2?

It’s really very disheartening that ANET has decided to yield to the gear grind philosophy of every other MMO.

One of the best posts so far in this thread. Merits repetition.

karma.8763:

Gear is only needed in the harder parts of the new dungeon.

The main problem is we don’t know what the infusions will do.

A picture of a leaked ascended ring next to an exotic ring with a rune on it showed that the ascended ring was basically stated to be like exotic + rune.

Now, if the infusions slow down Agony related degen, then I’m fine with exotic + rune stats since it reduces the need to grind for an exotic set to WvW in.

Now, if the infusions can give +15 power no matter what you’re attacking, then THAT’s a problem. Because then it will become a major problem for competitive WvW.

And creates a high likelihood of elitism sprouting up when it comes to things like dungeons. Where if you don’t have the ascended gear, you’re either not invited or kicked.

It also puts them on a slippery slope when it comes to a gear treadmill. Which is something ArenaNet has said they wouldn’t implement. So it’s a hit to their image which has been a bit shaky recently.

They cant say much player want new stats, no most are glad with exo, and they cant say ists easy to get them…. it s not ! the drop rate is terrible and buying all stuff needs money which you have to farm…. but the biggest problem i see is… if you wanna do the new dungeon, after 1 month, you’ll have to have those new items.its getting harder with evrey step you make and with every step you make, you will need the extra power more.are they making fun about us ? anets first broken promise…

nests.6830:

Lol people treat this change like a personal attack, just chill

Lots of people have been following this game for literally years, and didn’t feel this was just another game that came up to bide time until the next game they jump to.

Which situation is a bigger jump in power levels?

A newly dinged level 80 compared to an 80 in full exotics

or

A full exotic level 80 to someone wearing 2 pieces of ascended gear + exotics

Another voice of displeasure here. I love the idea of infusion. But I hate that there are stat increases to this new armor. It’s basically ANet stating it’s alright to throw away their ideals that the majority of us came to GW2 for… I probably won’t quit GW2… but this is a deep blow to the heart and I don’t know how much longer I will continue to play if these “blows to my heart” continue.

I’m all for infusion slots, just not for stat increases. Infusions are an ingenious Idea! But they should be more like GW1, where you do a quest/event/dungeon to get your current exotic armor to become infuse-able. It shouldn’t be an increased new tier of armor with higher stats. Base stats should stay the same with the only change being the ability to have infusion slots upgraded to your current armor set.

Valtameri.2075:

How about wait til’ the patch is released and then freak out if necessary.

I’m with the OP. It’s unlikely Arenanet can do anything about the coming patch at this point—too late to back it out now. However, if the player base makes it perfectly clear how vehemently we reject this direction, maybe they will stick to their original design philosophy which led us to buy this game and stop the treadmill at the backpack.

Thats not the point…

the point is that before once u hit full exotic u were done with he gear grind. Now you have to grind again because ure exotic is not the best anymore. Once you are full ascended they will probably release a new tier and it starts all over again.

Cosmetic were optional which means you didnt have to grind them out… ascended is mandatory…

Webba.3071:

drwookie.6391:

The problem really started from the very beginning when they changed their character design from GW1. With the hundreds of skills to collect like cards, you had an excellent horizontal progression in GW1.

Getting your best skills from defeated enemies was also a great element that really merged the deck building and pve game really well. Not sure why they never tried to carry that into GW2 tbh, beyond skillpoints that is.

The moment they changed the skill system from the deck building style to this weapon-linked/utility skill system was the moment that predicted all of this.

The horizontal system in gw worked because it was like a card game. New cards came out that were DIFFERENT, but not better necessarily. You had to constantly redesign your skill choices.

We don’t have that anymore. We have the classic trait system with a small limited number of choices. It makes improving characters through horizontal progression very difficult, so the are going back to the vertical easy progression.

Here’s the difference. A newly dinged level 80 can get full exotics with a week or two of DOING WHATEVER THEY WANT.

They don’t have to grind a PvE dungeon regardless of where their interests lie in this game.

showatt.9413:

Right because Wow is dead.

And that’s a game with gear progression IN PVP.

I’m sorry but your history seems a bit different from mine.

A with the sub numbers going up and currently over 10 mil + WoW is far from dead. But I’m thinking you are being cynical here and I would agree with that. However if this game is going to have gear progression just like WoW well then I’m going to spend my time and money in WoW. Their implementation of BGs and Arena is way more stable and balanced in MoP then GW2. WvW is a joke with free transfers to the server of the week. We were on this game because it was different.

Anyways done posting see you at this weekends event before we move back to WoW. Have a 85 Hunter to work on in the meantime.

Creslin.1758:

Mr International.3715:

while i don’t want a gear treadmill or anything getting out of hand, its just not possible to do it through content alone. It takes way longer to make it than it takes for you to play through it

Then add a desireable goal that is NOT statistically superior gear.

This is not impossible, and honestly, it’s not that hard to think of things that people want other than statistically superior gear. Here are a few:

1. Ability to respec.
2. Ability to swap stats out of combat on one piece of gear.
3. Ability to swap skins on one piece of gear.
4. Guild halls.
5. Gear specific elite skills…like maybe a really rare piece of armor has an elite skill that you can use that is on-par or weaker than the typical class elites.

• More elite skills
• More skills in general
• Equipable weapon skills instead of fix weapons skills (if you equip a sword it allows you to put 3 skills to the first 3 slots from your collection of sword skills;or something similar)
• Side-quests (instanced just like the personal storyline)
• Actually creative Achievements (nobody cares about half of them and the rest doesn’t even have titles)
• More PvP gameplay modes (maybe more WvW maps)

And countless other things.
Just talking about these things would already hype people up.

Shizzlenit.7648:

Thats not the point…

the point is that before once u hit full exotic u were done with he gear grind. Now you have to grind again because ure exotic is not the best anymore. Once you are full ascended they will probably release a new tier and it starts all over again.

Cosmetic were optional which means you didnt have to grind them out… ascended is mandatory…

It is the point.

The most critical argument of ascended gear is the impact on WvW…..

But these critics seem to overlook the most obvious.

Will … Mr Voqar0.2349
Here, people exchange ideas, do not get angry … = /

Ab-so-lutely not. Scrap the idea completely or give the ability to convert exotics to ascended via level 80 events / dungeon runs. Guild Wars 2 promised readily attainable max stat gear where the final determining factor is player skill and NOT who goes outside the least like some WoW-tier grindtrash.

I normally don’t care about these kinds of posts, but for once I feel like making my opinion heard simply because for the first time in my life, have I faced a game were a new mechanic potentially breaks the game for me – here is why.

Barriers: Once you create a difference in character power this will always result as a barrier for entry – the more barriers there are the more divided people become – which goes fully against what I came to believe GW 2 stood for (according to the manifesto). Two quick examples that many may be familiar with is the “Only players with item level X+ allowed” and back tracking through old content to gear people up before they can complete new content

Competition: I like competition, I like getting my KITTEN beat by a better player or NPC and then having to figure out myself what to do better to win the next time around. Getting smothered because you were out geared/your items weren’t of sufficient quality NEVER feels good. A quick example was when I reactivated my account of a game (that I later learned had become notorious for its power creeping) not too long ago and got destroyed within a global cooldown by a player of the same level due to difference in power – I never figured out if the player was better, I only knew he was better equipped than I. I know those for this change will claim that the 8% won’t matter a lot, but the fact remains: if the fight was close you will always have the bitter taste in your mouth that it was the lack of best in slot gear that made you fail. In reverse I don’t enjoy out gearing content (or players) either – already now, do I feel over powered in many lower level zones when I return to play with friends that aren’t of max level yet – a new tier of items are not going to help on that.

Accessibility: one thing is to have different level 80 tiers – white, blue, green, yellow, orange and now pink/red. However if the common player cannot obtain these items without going through a specific kind of content (in this case dungeons) you exclude players from playing the way they like to play (which once again goes against the manifesto) . Luckily for me I enjoy dungeons, but most of my RL don’t – if it was me that was excluded from content I enjoy because I had to grind content I don’t enjoy first, I would be rage quitting in an instant (like I did with a newly released expansion of another game recently).

Legendary weapons: This point is closely related to the previous point about accessibility. While I have always admired legendary weapons, I will now despise them because they now symbolize “needed power”, and not “dedication to all aspects of the game”, and will remain so until pink weapons are released (or at least that is how I read the blog)

Just another …-clone: With guild wars 2 I finally found a game that didn’t feel like every other MMO on the market, it catered to a different audience, one that I in general felt more connected to, this change will undoubtedly pull in a MMO-audience that I have “matured past” during the last 10 year and to be honest hoped would remain in those other games. But perhaps more importantly many of those of my friends that joined me in GW2 after I spend alot of time convincing them that this MMO was not just another …-clone will leave if this change goes live, and with them so will I…

So… now that the manifesto is out the window, and specific infusions for specific roles are in, when will I be able to roll a tank/healer?

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Thread Summary: Everyone hates this patch and we feel betrayed that ArenaNet went back on their design principles.

Can we get rid of the Ascended gear now?

Not ‘everyone’ but a pretty notable portion. Sadly, it’s too little too late – this isn’t the first promise Arena Net have backed down upon and chances are it won’t be the last.

I just feel betrayed and disappointed. I’d endured disappointment after disappointment in various other MMO’s and then finally GW2 came along and actually delivered. Now I’m meant to sit back and shrug my shoulders when core game design promises are broken this early on?

I just can’t figure out who the target audience is meant to be. Why does ‘endgame’ content have to involve a mindless grind and gear progression? I guess I’ll re-sub to a certain other MMO. At least I can collect pets and such without just buying them from a trading post/gem store.

sigh

A-net have planned to implement item progression into the game. This has uncovered two different player segments of GW2 – in a conflict here on the forum.

Now I’m sure there’s a reason they’re choosing this new design. Maybe their original business model isn’t performing as good as they thought it would, i.e. statistics on “number of players” or revenue.

So what we have are these three needs:

• Gamers that need content of item progression.
• Gamers that don’t want to grind for gear.
• A-net’s need for better numbers in finance.

My suggestion is that to satisfy all sides:

• Continue implementing item progression into the game (Ascended Gear), but
• Give players the option to buy the new items in the shop. Players who don’t want to spend to much money in the shop (supporting their favorite game) can choose to get most of the gear for free from the dungeons.
• The cash flow improves, and numbers look better for A-net.

Because if you accept the new ascent ring and backpacks without say nothing, when they are going to make ascent armors and weapons, you CAN SAY NOTHING. your existing exotic gear, farmed with hours of events, dungeons, will become obsolete.

Ok, seriously, are those complaining also in favor of welfare IRL? I’m going to go ahead and assume those complaining do not have legendary weapons and expect things to just be handed to them without any effort or just minimal effort. If you’re complaining about a small armor progression grind, then I can only assume you are not for the legendary weapon grind either, since that takes a huge amount of time, farming and/or gold spent. Crafting exotics are a joke. I have a full exotic set of armor and 4 exotic weapons, and plan on finishing up upgrading my ranger’s weapons to exotic (except torch cause torch is meh, but that’s another topic). I also plan on upgrading my magic find armor set to exotic. This is minimal effort. I am ok with this addition, because it adds something else to do in the game, that is optional. I don’t think a small stat increase is going to break WvW, but that’s my thoughts on the matter.

I did not believe people talking about this ingame until I read it on this website.

Basically, ANet now officially has broken 90% of their promises they made while they were developing Guild Wars 2.

Now let’s add mounts and a raid and we’ve got WoW all over again. A gear treadmill will be here in a couple of days.

Almost forgot subscription.

I think it’s clear that I absolutely do NOT agree with what’s ahead of us!

No good, no good!!! A.net has always prided want a game “no gear grind.” And now? More gear to farm. Congratulations, wow style continues.

Shame on all of you

Anyone find it funny that all the critically-inclined threads are being dumped into this mega-thread morass of ignominity while all the “I WUV Anet” ones are left alone?

LemurTron.9261:

Runes

It seems a bit hasty to conclude that the new ascended gear are a “must have” for situations other than ones where baddies can inflict “agony”. Looking for the positives here – I don’t think Anet will make exotics obsolete (and clearly piss nearly everyone off) and force people into a gear treadmill for “must-haves”.

The Ascended gear does not account for set bonus given by runes. If anything, perhaps the Ascended gear might become a “third set/fourth set” that one wears for specific instances if they choose to do them (when bored with Plinx, etc). MF set, wvw set, now Ascended set for Fractals.

Many seem to be jumping to the conclusion that the difference between, say, an Exotic coat or pants vs the Ascended coat/pants will be of X% such that Ascended will necessarily make exotics obsolete. We simply do not know this to be the case yet, escpecially considering the lack of rune options on the Ascended.

I also thought of this, so it doesn’t necessarily make the exotics obsolete, but it CAN make the jewelry obsolete…

Gated content and the introduction of new gear level does not sound like the GW2 I bought in to, it’s a great shame there felt a need to go down this route. The MMO hoppers will rejoin for the few hours to grind the new gear then pfft gone again, meanwhile those of us who bought in to the vision are looking on in disappointment and concern as to where this might lead.

Infusions through the Mystic Forge? RNG- the lazy way out to create longevity in content, the Mystic Forge and RNG seems to have become the favourite crutch of Anet , I’m hoping I’m wrong on that . I’m not feeling optimistic about some of the post release decisions being made.

Please stop with the gates and gear grind for superior stats and for the love of all that is good, think outside the box and please come up with something better than RNG!

Agemnon.4608:

Please yes! I’m looking forward to gearing up in ascended =)

I just said the above to contradict the poster While i love the idea of dynamic dungeons one of the great things about this game was the many paths you could take to gear your character. You could craft it, save up the gold for it, or put rares into the forge for it. I do however see ascended gear being expensive if it’s possible to make it in the forge due to exotics being needed for it, but grinding for gold for a few days on wherever is optimal at the time to level the playing field in WvW can’t hurt.

Fiasco.3501:

No screw you. Yes, ANet please make this new change and spice thing up. Thank you.

Please leave and resub to WoW or whatever treadmill garbage you came from. Happytime Panda Adventure couldn’t have been that bad. You can take all of the other unskilled rubbish with too much time to burn who think that entitles them to be better than everyone else with you.

Seera.5916:

It also puts them on a slippery slope when it comes to a gear treadmill. Which is something ArenaNet has said they wouldn’t implement. So it’s a hit to their image which has been a bit shaky recently.

This right here is what I’m worried about. Also if the new dungeons give better rewards, what happens to the 8 we currently have? Worthless? Only for skins? No longer endgame? What happened to ALL dungeons being endgame with only cosmetic rewards differences? I swear, its like the stat treadmill apologists actually WANT to have been lied to pre-release.

There is no solution because ascended gear isn’t a problem.

Why do you think they are rolling out ascended gear by piecemeal and starting with the most marginal of items first?

It’s to see how the community reacts and to show arenanet how lightly they need to tread.

Nimraphel.7819:

velmeister.4187:

In November we’ll unveil the first Ascended items. This new rarity type falls between Exotic and Legendary on the spectrum of rarity and has slightly higher stats than Exotics.

Source: https://www.guildwar...-ascended-gear/

For me, more acceptable approach should have been as follows:

To bridge the Exotic to Legendary gap:

1. Introduce slots on existing items.
2. Introduce different upgrade components like runes that provide variety of effects, defense (such as KD resists, daze resists etc.) and offense benefits (Less chance to miss owing to elevation differences, more critical chances etc.) without impacting the stat numbers.

Why I hate this “slightly higher stats” concept?

1. It introduces power creep and way too early in the lifecycle of this MMO franchise. Given how old this game is, its like Nightfall just happened too early for this franchise.
2. The game is easy enough. Why would you introduce higher stat weapons that will simply murder the difficulty level of the current world mobs? I’d not even touch the issues that will impact the current dungeons. There are just too many existing already.

Why I hate this “Agony” condition?

1. Limiting this condition to only to the Fractal of Mists dungeon funnels the whole playerbase to one area/dungeon leaving the already empty world to its own fate.

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon

2. It also marks the begining of the shift in the core of GW franchise philosophy.

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

Yeah, more gear to grind to grind more gear! And Mudflation begins..

What probably would have been sufficient for now?

1. Add “Storymode” dungeon content where players could get infused, much like GW1’s infusion mission mechanic, without resorting to grinding new gear.

2. Improve availability rate of the Legendary precursors.

We also have plans to add more fun ways to acquire Legendary precursor items with a more “scavenger hunt” feel than they are acquired currently.

Then… work on to

3. Add more PvP content – formats and maps. GW is a great game not because it had great PvE Storyline or missions or had more mobs to kill. It is a fun game because you can hop in and do any format of PvP that you want without having to dedicate a massive amount of time to enjoy it even when many formats were quite difficult to master.

4. Rethink WvW and make it so that more and more people participate in it without being motivated to complete the World Exploration or to do monthly or to farm BoH by doing jump puzzles while enjoying the content without being killed by invisible enemy zergers.

I did not spend $149 on this game to master the art of out-gearing 99% of the population as fast as I can so that I can grind more gear. I am very disappointed that GW2 has chosen to become another gear grind MMO. Is this WoW 2.0 since there are no Guild Wars in GuildWars 2?

It’s really very disheartening that ANET has decided to yield to the gear grind philosophy of every other MMO.

One of the best posts so far in this thread. Merits repetition.

I agree with it as well.

They should just add an NPC in LA that, once you hit 80, gives you to options:
a) get all ascended gear for free and right now
b) go and grind for it

All players would be happy. Those who want more grind content can still grind and the others have no gear treadmill. Even if you are out of the game for a year, all you would have to do is to go to that NPC and your gear is up to speed again.

Fiasco.3501:

No screw you. Yes, ANet please make this new change and spice thing up. Thank you.

…it doesn’t spice anything up. If you want a gear grind, there’s countless other MMO’s available for that. Why does the MMO that promises to be different have to end up becoming WoW with better graphics? >_>

please no, a-net!

I’ve really enjoyed the updates and events. I’m sure I will like the Lost Shore [zone] as well.

However, I dislike the new gear tier. This also means that those without Legendaries have a weaker slot item (in the most influential slot) until Ascended weapons are available, or doubtedly, if the weapon damage range is unaffected or Legendaries become easier to obtain post patch.

Fiasco.3501:

No screw you. Yes, ANet please make this new change and spice thing up. Thank you.

Good to see that great community Anet was looking for is being greatly enhanced by this decision!

Loumy.7841:

So what we have are these three needs:

• Gamers that need content of item progression.
• Gamers that don’t want to grind for gear.
• A-net’s need for better numbers in finance.

Your first premise is wrong. People have been complaining about a lack of progression, not a lack of gear progression.

There are very few people who wanted gear progression in this game, everyone else just wanted more content or more progression.

ArenaNet simply followed the vocal minority and added gear progression to appease “all who want progression” in the laziest manner.

I am real happy they are putting what makes MMOs great into this game.

Artos.9875:

Here’s the difference. A newly dinged level 80 can get full exotics with a week or two of DOING WHATEVER THEY WANT.

They don’t have to grind a PvE dungeon regardless of where their interests lie in this game.

This. Exotic gear basically had the same philosophy as the original GW1. In GW1 you could craft your end level gear very quickly and easily. Or if you wanted super cool looking gear you could do the intense grind for that. But everyone had access to the same end level gear. If you didn’t like the huge grind, you didn’t need it to do that. Now if you want the best gear, you need to grind PVE dungeons, which many don’t like.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a small stat difference. People will feel pressure for it because you want to do what you can to have an edge on your opponent.

It goes against their whole philosophy:

http://venturebeat.c...s:guildwars2-16

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

and this:
http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success#more-8572
“Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.” – Colin Johanson

drwookie.6391:

Webba.3071:

drwookie.6391:

The problem really started from the very beginning when they changed their character design from GW1. With the hundreds of skills to collect like cards, you had an excellent horizontal progression in GW1.

Getting your best skills from defeated enemies was also a great element that really merged the deck building and pve game really well. Not sure why they never tried to carry that into GW2 tbh, beyond skillpoints that is.

The moment they changed the skill system from the deck building style to this weapon-linked/utility skill system was the moment that predicted all of this.

The horizontal system in gw worked because it was like a card game. New cards came out that were DIFFERENT, but not better necessarily. You had to constantly redesign your skill choices.

We don’t have that anymore. We have the classic trait system with a small limited number of choices. It makes improving characters through horizontal progression very difficult, so the are going back to the vertical easy progression.

I honestly think it will be fine once they add a few more weapons and utilities to increase the variety of skills and skill combinations available. If they linked the acquirement of said skills to great, story driven pve content that would be the icing on the cake. I thought that is what they had planned, you have to keep things simple at the start of a game with a lifespan this long because it will invariably get significantly more complicated as time passes. I am starting to suspect that the wish is very much father of the though in my case, though.

OdinBudd.5298:

Holy cow, you would think this gear has already been released and tested with all the QQ going on in this thread. Does anyone think that waiting to see what it is, THEN QQ’ng would be a good idea? I understand the desire to not want a gear grind. I am also 100% in this boat and have no desire to get on that carousel of fail. But… I am also willing to wait until this new gear is released before slamming a game I have enjoyed so much, so far.

If I’m diagnosed with Stage I Lymphoma, I’m not exactly going to take a wait and see approach if I’m already a cancer survivor.

It’s not going to help my feelings about it calling it Ascended Lymphoma, either.

Surely a lot of ppl already wrote what i’m going to state now, but in this occasion i have to raise my voice too…..
I have always been a strong supporter of this game, with all the ppl i know. Like me i think many other bought this game for all promises done about being different from that stat-grinding loop. This patch seems the first step to screw all our dreams…. i mean, we are just 3 months after release and we already see that promise broke ?
Do i have to quote ?

“Rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game”

and of course…

“This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative.”

so reading this i can just imagine its the beginning of the end… WoW-kitten-fans are already trolling us and laughing at our betrayed hopes.
Disappointed doesnt give an idea of how i feel….

i know it will be useless, but i still ask you not to ruin this great game completely….you can just add new content without falling in the deadly spiral of stat-grind.

First of all, I’d like to say that I, for one, am glad to see a top tier of items that can’t just be purchased from the TP. People with large amounts of gold/cash to convert to gold/cash to give to RMTs could easily just buy all the gear they need at 80, and be done with it. It is my hope that ascended items will be soulbound on acquire, forcing people who want them to actually work for them, instead of just buying them.

It is also my hope that future ascended items will not all come from dungeons. The (albeit extremely minor) stat increase has WvW players’ knickers in quite an epic twist, and while I am not one of them, they do have a valid gripe. At least a few slots of the new tier could be made available through WvW, possibly only through WvW.

Before my fellow PvErs start lighting torches, consider that it only makes sense that getting a full set of top tier gear should require participation in many different facets of the game, instead of just doing the same thing repeatedly. Personal Story should also get some love here, as well as crafting.

It looks like, from the one piece of ascended gear that we’ve seen stats on, we’re either looking at an 8% upgrade, or a flat +2 per piece. In the case of a percentage upgrade, a full set of ascended gear would indeed be a quite significant upgrade leading to some imbalance both in small-scale WvW battles (which, admittedly, barely exist atm) not to mention creating the dreaded “LFM FotM must be full ascended” that we’re all dreading. Spreading the acquisition of ascended gear out to game modes other than just dungeons should mitigate this somewhat.

Finally, it does not seem that there are plans for gear beyond this tier, so it’s not a treadmill. It is simply a gate to make sure that you are rewarded for participation in the game, rather than a reward for an obscene outlay of gold/cash. Treadmill implies that you never really reach your goal, only get more powerful in order to unlock the opportunity to get more powerful.

tl;dr Haters gonna hate, but we have no information that merits the nerdrage/ragequitting I’ve seen in the past ~24 hours. Sure, it’s not how I would have done it, but it’s not my game. I’m sure Arenanet has the best interests of the game in mind, considering that it is their game.

I hope GW2 rethinks this idea.

Spend a week getting exotic gear. Good.

Spend a week getting the new ascended pieces. Bad

That about sums it up.

nachtnebel.9168:

They should just add an NPC in LA that, once you hit 80, gives you to options:
a) get all ascended gear for free and right now
b) go and grind for it

All players would be happy. Those who want more grind content can still grind and the others have no gear treadmill. Even if you are out of the game for a year, all you would have to do is to go to that NPC and your gear is up to speed again.

Worst suggestion ever. This is not a FPS.

So, Why CAN’T infusion just be a gear property you can put on anything via a quest / instance / event / dungeon / what have you? Why do we need a new rarity and the marginalization of existing content? Why do we need to obsolete exotic gear?

Natural.7013:

I am real happy they are putting what makes MMOs great into this game.

I too love mindlessly grinding 6 hours a day for bigger numbers on my swag sword and needing “XXX DUNGEON APPROVED GIMMICK UPGRADED” gear to do content /sarcasm

I’m just going to go on record saying that I hate this change, there are 100’s of gear grind games out there and this was sold to us as a game that wasnt like that. They people clamoring for the gear grind will chew through your content faster than you can make it and will be right back here on the forums complaining how bored they are.

It doesnt matter how slight the gear improvements are, it is going strictly against what they said this game would be about. I had hopes for this game but I guess I was wrong.

nachtnebel.9168:

They should just add an NPC in LA that, once you hit 80, gives you to options:
a) get all ascended gear for free and right now
b) go and grind for it

All players would be happy. Those who want more grind content can still grind and the others have no gear treadmill. Even if you are out of the game for a year, all you would have to do is to go to that NPC and your gear is up to speed again.

Not going to work, because hardcore players want the best they can get before everyone else. Yes, they would prefer to get that “best” thing by beating hard content, but they care much more about getting it first. So they’ll just buy it like everyone else if they can.

ANet needs to change their current plans. Right now they’ve stated it will be effective throughout the entire game, even Legendaries will be updated to have these new stats so they are best in slot.

Instead of doing that, make the Ascended gear only work in the new dungeons. Then everyone is happy. Hardcore players can beat new content and get new gear before everyone else, but it doesn’t affect the rest of us in any way.

please dont implement this whole ascended gear thing!

From GW2 manifesto

“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun;”

Screw me for believing this amirite?

They are not starting with the least marginal items. If it was that way they would use the backpiece and the earrings, not the rings. Also, stat wise, shoulders + feet + hands have even less stats and it would not be a huge problem to add an “Infusion socket upgrade” only to those items.

The problem with the increased stat points that contradicts and offends everyone still remains. Without the extra stats, this entire hailstorm would only have a third of its force.