Guild Wars 2

Look at this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

And copy-pasting it for those too lazy to follow the link.

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Now please stop your complaining. Thanks.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Look at this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

And copy-pasting it for those too lazy to follow the link.

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Now please stop your complaining. Thanks.

<em>“Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.”</em>

Complaints are also thoughts, they NEED to hear our complaints.

That has already been posted in this thread and it’s nothing we don’t already know. It’s damage control and poor damage control at that. The stat gap mentioned is created by this change.

Given that many people might be leaving the game shortly due to this fiasco,I went to take a look to what the GW1 related forums were saying. Among them was this, funny because the date is from 17, October:

It’s very clear that they have a different view on the players than they did once before. GW1 was that special snowflake that stood out for its incredible originality, uniqueness, and it was really hit or miss with a lot of people. But ANet didn’t care, they kept it the way it was because the people who loved it were the only people that mattered.

GW2 is the total opposite. They want to try and please everyone, and omg, as if this wasn’t proven totally impossible with Blizzard trying to please casuals and hardcores in WoW. They should have kept it GW, but the game is not going to change in any dramatic manner so I digress… I will simply weep for ANet being the once true great heroes and my favorite company turn into Blizz.

I guess this happens with every company, no matter how good they are, once they expand it’s all over. RIP Guild Wars franchise. I will play GW1 until the servers are taken down and just hope one of these days they add more content, lol yea right, but still.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5727594&postcount=166

So, two things, GW1 players saw this coming from early on, and in a funny turn on events, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of new players went over there. Many of us kept learning how it is a far better game.

As far as we know, it is the only one that didn’t succumb to become yet another wow clone.

So new gear higher stats…
Introducing different items with each update…
Did someone redefine the “gear treadmill” while I wasn’t looking? This is a gear treadmill but someone set it to a walking pace.

Next weekend’s event! Ascending Britches Farming!

Maybe I’m just a lil hot ANUT so I’ll sleep on this one and let you know if my opinion changes in the morning..

I really don’t want to be on a gear treadmill.

I want to be able to jump into WvWvW and have a chance.
I want to be able to play through dungeons without being dismissed from groups for not having raid gear.
I want to be able to survive combats that aren’t gauged for people wearing better gear than I am.
I want to be able to enjoy the game I bought (and continue to pay for, via Gems).

This system, as stated, sounds an awful lot like City of Heroes’ Incarnate additions, which more or less made the game into a have/have-not situation. Those who could grind out Trial after Trial could make top-tier powers that essentially put the rest of the game on easy mode. Those that couldn’t spend the time doing that were gated out of end-game content, which was decidedly not cool.

If you want to keep my Gem money rolling in ArenaNet, don’t make me quit playing.

I feel someone needs to mention that true casuals like me who enjoy this game very much, but have not been able to reach end game let alone farm exotics or purchase them in the AH will be happy with this change. Players like me are not the ones complaining about horizontal progression taking a tangent or that the game is too easy. Arena Net themselves agree that improving their game is their number one priority and this is a change I welcome sooner rather than later. My friend who has been farming for a legendary has talked to me about how easy and cheap exotics were – he got me a full set of crafted medium armor for around 5g several weeks back. Honestly though Arena Net has given me a great game that I’ll keep playing and if they’ve crunched the numbers and found reason to change a system or design and that reason is to make their game better then by all means do it.

If everyone’s main concern is that their efforts thus far will be nullified by the introduction of a new tier, I’m sure that if you’re loud enough you can make a difference and Arena Net has show n that they listen to their players. Who knows maybe your exotics will be upgraded to ascended stats without infusion slots and everyone will be happy and enjoy the holidays!

KryTiKaL.3125:

Look at this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

And copy-pasting it for those too lazy to follow the link.

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Now please stop your complaining. Thanks.

Most of us have all seen that already, all it did was confirm that they are indeed adding new tiers of gear power. Which they stated would never happen. Which was a huge reason that many loved and supported the game.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Look at this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

Now please stop your complaining. Thanks.

No, it still sounds terrible. Exactly what I don’t want.

It’s not only the 50/60 stat difference that pisses me off, she even said that they buff legendaries above exotics. Legendaries used to be cosmetic items for those who like them. I don’t want to be forced to grind to get a legendary for better stats, I’m happy with my whisper gear and enjoyed the game like it was.

If Anet introduces these changes (ascended gear that I have to wear in a specific zone and buffed legendaries), they’ll lose another disapointed customer.

Namu.5712:

I don’t know about you but when I hit 80 I had plenty of gold….. and karma.

Heres the difference you didn’t grind for it you got it along the way while questing and completing story…. that is not the same.

Now this new gear could be entirely rewarded based on your new content progression the further you progress the new content the more new gear you get…. that is not =/= to grinding.

When new gear is introduced and the way you get it is say through some point system that has nothing to do with story or progression THAT IS GEAR GRINDING. When new gear is introduced as part of the story line that you get alone the way THAT IS NOT GEAR GRINDING.

You’re basically being forced to do content to get the gear which is in opposition to everything they said leading up to the game’s release. They said you could pretty much get the best level 80 gear doing whatever you wanted to do and as of today, that is true. My most recent 80 is lacking 3 jewelry pieces from having all exotics. I got those pieces from crafting (most of them), karma vendors (1 piece), dungeon tokens (2 pieces) and named world drop (1 piece of Khilbron’s I bought on the TP.)

Now we’re going to be forced into doing this dungeon to get a reasonable shot at getting this new stuff. Yeah, I saw where Chris said it would be available through other means like WvW. Well here’s the thing with that. You can get exotics through WvW too as loot drops but they are extremely rare. You can also buy them with badges but there is only one stat distribution for ALL of the items on the vendor and they require a great deal of badges to get. If that’s how it will continue to work for PvPers then yes, we are going to feel compelled to run this dungeon for the ascended gear even if we have no interest in PvE. It’s a pretty crappy thing to do and it’s not going to make those wanting a skinner box happy for very long, guarantee it.

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

Oh -also- they are going to release it for other aspects of content as well. WvW and whatever else. Chill your kitten, seriously.

About this post “A message from our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside”
“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months”
what’s that means?
means they can adding new tier if the time is over 3 month or 6 month?
anet : It’s over 4 month ,we can add now lol

if they can say "we won’t add new tier forever ", maybe I believe that a little
if not,than I think that everything what they say are all joke

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

Yep, that’s called subsituting the words “progression” for “gear grinding”, acting polite, and hoping we aren’t smart enough to notice that Arenanet’s policy has changed and hoping people gush over the fact Chris Whiteside bothered to reply.

Think it through. Where have you heard this kind of bait and switch language before, yes, when someone has just fooled you, usually from a politician.

They want to put in stat gear grinding and call it progression.

Money back please, this is exactly what many of us didn’t want in an MMO and what the CEO said would not happen. They did not even bother to wait more than three months to do it either. New content is great, grinding for new gear for better stats is not.

I bought this game to see the content that now no-one is going to want to run because they will all be stuck grinding the dungeons that give them the best gear for PVE and World PVP.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

[img]https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png[/img]

Our issue, comes from the fact that they broke their promise. What is to stop them from doing it again when it suits them?

Namu.5712:

I don’t know about you but when I hit 80 I had plenty of gold….. and karma.

Heres the difference you didn’t grind for it you got it along the way while questing and completing story…. that is not the same.

Now this new gear could be entirely rewarded based on your new content progression the further you progress the new content the more new gear you get…. that is not =/= to grinding.

When new gear is introduced and the way you get it is say through some point system that has nothing to do with story or progression THAT IS GEAR GRINDING. When new gear is introduced as part of the story line that you get alone the way THAT IS NOT GEAR GRINDING.

Well idk about you, but base on the article I read from Anet, they intend to make Ascended above Exotic and below Legendary to fill in this so call “gap”. That translate to me is that this Ascended stuffs gonna be more difficult to obtain than Exotic

Now let look at dungeon, there currently are 3 method of getting gears via this route:

1: Farm gold…….Like I stated earlier, it would take 90 hrs to obtain enough gold to buy exotic sets. 90 hrs of farming = GRINDING. Let alone that there a potential that Ascended will be more expensive than Exotic on the TP, which translate to more grinding

2: Drop from boss/monsters ……….. Out of my game time of 400 hrs in GW2 so far, I only got 1 exotic drop from monsters. So to follow this route also translate to GRINDING

3: Token………..Currently, for each exotic weapon, it cost 300-390 tokens. Let say you manage to do 3 run per days (successful one and no glitched) and get 60 token each, you would need 2 days to obtain one weapon. So inorder to fully deck out in dungeon gears, that would spell out…….you guess it……GRINDING. Oh and let not forget that there the potential Anet might up the # of tokens require to exchange for “ascended”

terra.3501:

I really don’t understand why there is 128 pages on this topic. It’s not even a discussion; the arguments go around in circles.

Those who welcome the changes will play. Those who don’t, can still play the awesome content the game still offers without going Ascended, or quit. It’s really that simple.

For the complainers, have a little dignity. Don’t beg Anet to get rid of these changes, which I highly doubt they’ll do since it seems like the system has been in the works for a long time. Why even waste your time continuing to drone on all the evils of these changes? Just leave.

1. 128 pages isnt too much, most of us doesnt really bother using the forum until their rage goes over and feel they need to express their feeling.

2. That will happen eventually. I love this game, and loved the vision they advertised before releasing. I believe a lots of other who oppose this ascend gear stuff would agree.

From the spec of this game, the player population aka. customer base is mainly built for wvw and spvp. Thats the major market segment they initially targeting. By implementing this so called progression stuff, they will satisify a portion of another segment of the market who loves gear progression. But obviously they will kill their loyal customer base who long for Anet’s initial idea of no grinding and wvw.

When you look at the market out there, there are no matches on big RvR combat type of MMOs against GW2 atm, plus making it distinctive. If this move harms the relations between the major player base, I would petty much foresee they are losing population faster than they could gain “new customers”, which is basically simple logic.

For GW2 sake, should they consult the marketing head before engaging this or anger majority of their specific niche of segment out in the MMO market…

3. No point begging, and we are not begging. Its their choice to consider what we expressed. Whether they will make a change now or not, the game still runs.
Cash is paid, product is delivered, and now the product may get rotten. As a player that enjoyed the game, its just sad to see whats going on.

Not to mention, it doesn’t do any good to a company financial. Afterall, Goodwill is one of the most important asset.

After losing credit, who is gonna pay the bill next time.

Thank you for the change Anet. This is a good thing. I appreciate all the free content and I am looking forward to having something more to do.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

As pointed out, it’s exactly the case. No official statement so far contradicts it, in fact they directly stated there will now be stat progression, which is what a gear threadmill refers to.

That’s what the complaints are about: What Chris stated is exactly what people don’t want.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

20% of an item isn’t tiny. Are you really that bad at math to forget that Magic Find is the primary stat here? The item is nearly 20% stronger than the exotic, entirely ignoring the infusion slot (which may also add stats). You get over 30 statpoints in the primary stat per item.

I guess math-challenged people like you are why they picked the Yakkington ring to show the difference it, as opposed to the Berserker-based one, where you’d immediately see how huge the difference is.

Redtah.3016:

You know how I know you didn’t play Guild Wars 1? Because I had a full suit of max stat gear before I even had my first level 20 (The max level in GW1) The game worked that way for 7 years. I know that in WoW and other MMOs that your used to there’s effort required to be an even playing field with everyone else.

And this was how GW2 was meant to work based on their publicity, only its not. The grind for exotic gear may not be that much of a grind but its a grind nonetheless and its a fallacy to state, as some have, that exotic is something you pick up in the normal course of playing the game.

Anet please reconsider this move.
New map, new dungeon is cool. New gear with same stats(as exotics) are nice too.
New tier of gear? Gating mechanism? Not nice. Not cool.

mantrunks.4810:

I wasn’t aware that the increase in stats (what like 5%) ruins w v w because the five percent completely overtakes any strategy required in wvw. Not sure what servers you guys are in but ours is pretty competitive SBI. Also skill is required especially for those just going around trying to fight someone 1v1. I can take down people with legendaries with my blue weapons 1v1. Someone can have the best gear in the game of they want. I can have slightly worse weapons but if you can outplay them, you will win. Think first, speak later

Evenly skilled opponents versus each other end in a stalemate (Double KO if you will.). Add +5% to the gear of Player 1 and he always wins. As for skill in WvW… Right now it’s setting siege in kinked up spots and portal bombing your way to victory. If you have big enough numbers then it just comes down to PvDoor in the off hours. I personally enjoy running around solo/duo and skirmishing with random opponents in WvW for more interesting fights. I already have 3 sets of Exotics on my Necro for various builds. Kinda sucks to think that the gear which was supposed to be my “end game” gear is now one to two tiers below that limit.

lol its almost like everyone in this thread has no idea how a company works and stays alive. I did play gw1 and i also played wow. I would like there to be only cosmetic upgrades but i knew from the start something like this would happen.
Why? because a company does not succeed if only focuses on one small playerbase. While tons of you gw1 “vets” are complaining you guys also have to know its common sense that they are not going to just make a gw1.5 with better graphics.
It needs to appeal to players from many game types not just the select few that dont want change.
I mean i understand the anger but come on we cant just live in the past forever.
Ascended gear is a new tier, whats done is done and no matter what you do it is here to stay.
Your complaints will not change what will immediately happen but may make them think twice about going to another tier beyond ascended

We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Well, how is after the first 3 months any better? And if it then comes after 4 months next time?

Also it is gear you must have to do content. That’s even worse than just a new tier.

Whelp, long as their last tier is Ascendant then I’m fine, least from how I read it they going to add more items that are Ascendant, if they meant tiers like Ascendant 2.0, then yea please change ASAP.

Guess I’m laid back about this because of the gameplay and not having to pay a sub. Shrugs

Aye you guys takecare and be easy, hope things get fixed or whatever. Peace.

Ruien.9506:

Thank you for the change Anet. This is a good thing. I appreciate all the free content and I am looking forward to having something more to do.

As am I. Can take or leave the gear, but the new content is exciting.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

Oh -also- they are going to release it for other aspects of content as well. WvW and whatever else. Chill your kitten, seriously.

The difference isn’t tiny. You go from 7% magic find to 10%… with 14 pieces of improvement that’s 42% magic find, and that is just one stat. Or, I could swap in many pieces of non-magic find gear and get hundreds of more stat points while maintaining the same magic find. And berserker’s ascended is going to be scary.

Just don’t make another tier after this please … ever.

Hopefully you see the community’s response to this; never ending gear progression is one sisyphean task in an MMO I’m not prepared to partake in ever again.

TLDR Ascended gear is 26% more powerful than the same-slot exotic. Proof: see below.

Disclaimer

First off, this post is merely to clarify the matter with some math. Some people are saying that ascended gear is only slightly more powerful than exotic gear, including Miss Murdock herself. This is simply not true. The number people are quoting is an 8% increase in power. This is also not true. Ascended gear is 26% more powerful than exotics, as the math below shows.

I will not editorialize, or add my opinions on the matter of Ascended gear. I just feel, very strongly, that people need to be aware of the facts, be on the same page so to speak, in order to cogently discuss any issue. I made a similar post to this one on the main thread discussing Ascended gear, but it obviously got drowned down. People need to know this. So I ask: moderators, please don’t pull this post into the main thread, it’ll only get lost. And forum-goers/readers, please don’t discuss the virtues/downsides of Ascended gear. Let’s keep this thread purely informational. That said, if you find an error in my math, feel free to point it out.

Math

From the blog,

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

post we can see that increase, per stat is roughly 8%. The Exotic ring has a total of 63 power, and the Ascended has 68, which is a 7.9% increase (See note). This is where the "8% more powerful* figure floating around gets taken from. However, this is misleading, because that is the increase in one stat. Notice that both rings have three stats. Precision also got an 8% bump, and magic find gets an (10 – 7) / 7 = 42% increase. Yes, that is 42%.

Now, in Guild Wars 2, each stat increases your damage (survivability, etc), linearly. That is, an increase in 8% to your power stat will increase your damage by 8%. When you increase three stats, however, you don’t get a linear increase in damage, you get a cubic increase. To show why this is true, let’s imagine you go from an Exotic Berserker ring, to an Ascended Berserker ring. We don’t have the stats on the Berserker jewelry, but we can extrapolate. Let’s be conservative, though, and assume that the Berserker will increase each stat by 8% only (unlike the case of magic find above).

Now, from the wiki,

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

we have this formula for damage:

Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor) (1)

From (1) we can calculate the statistical average damage of your hits taking into account precision and crit damage:

Average Damage done = (weapon damage) x Power x (skill-specific coefficient) x (1 + (crit chance) x ( 0.50 + (crit damage) ) / (target’s Armor) (2)

This looks complicated, but we can just assume that everything but power, crit damage, and crit chance remain constant, and get rid of all the constants, we basically get that (asymptotically) your average damage grows as the function

Average Damage done = proportional to ( power x crit chance x crit damage)

Now, multiply power, crit chance, and crit damage all by 1.08, when moving from exotic to Ascended:

Average Damage done with Ascended gear = proportional to ( power x 1.08 x crit chance x 1.08 x crit damage x 1.08)
= ( power x crit chance x crit damage) x 1.259

Ergo, going from full exotic berserker gear, to full Ascended berserker gear increases your damage contribution from items by, roughly, 26%. See note 2.

Now, I used berserker because it is the easiest to showcase, since you can use the simple damage formula above to show how the three stats multiply each other. However, this increase of 26% is (roughly) also true for any other piece of gear. If you mix defensive and offensive stats, or offensive and magic find, or what have you, these stats multiply together to increase your effectiveness.

Note: An important thing to add here, on edit, is that my calculations already include the stats offered by the jewel in the Exotic gear. So this claim floating around that this disparity is made up by runes/sigils/gem slots that the Ascended gear lack is a canard. What my calculations do not include however, because we don’t know them yet, are stat increases, if any, provided by filling the infusion slot. These “infusions” could potentially increase the power gap between exotic and ascended even further.

Note 2: Important to note that level 80s have roughly 900 points in each stat. Also, you get roughly 1400 stat points from your spec. And, finally, there are stacking buffs like Might which remain the same regardless of gear. So your total damage will not go up by 26%. Your damage contribution from items goes up by, roughly 26%. Hence, the title of my thread that ascended gear is 26% more powerful than exotic.

KryTiKaL.3125:

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

Oh -also- they are going to release it for other aspects of content as well. WvW and whatever else. Chill your kitten, seriously.

WvW Stat gear is pretty terrible for most builds. Pow/Tou/Vit isn’t going to work for the majority of builds out there so we go for other gear depending on the build. Berserker gear like I am currently using isn’t even dropped in the game so luckily I am a 400 Tailor and can craft it. The “big deal” people are making over this is because of broken promises and lack of communication. As for your point on tiny stat difference you have to take into account not just one ring, but an entire set of gear. You are looking at 20 Power, 20 Precision just from Rings and Earrings alone. Then factor in your weapons, armor, necklace, back, etc and you’re looking at potentially 75+ Power and Precision in your set over Exotics. That is why people call it a “Power Creep” because initially it looks very small and unassuming until everything is added up and then you have the door open for more increases as people come to accept the changes.

Arsenic Touch.7960:

Actually happy about this. It’s apparent some people are whining for the sake of whining and not actually paying attention to what they said.

Oh we paid attention to what they said else we will not be bringing out view here.

“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

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

That was before game release. So 3 months later, they get to do a 180. Many got this game because of anti-gear progressions policy and how Anet followed by that policy for 7.5 years in GW1.

I would have thought that their word would have been gold. But 3 months into the game, and we have a new tier of gear (does not matter if it is a 1 time thing). That is gear progression, invalidating in 1 sweep all our hard work for end game armor.

Uh oh…you used facts. Prepare to be lambasted over the furnace of irrationality.

gadenp.7586:

KryTiKaL.3125:

Yes, but it isn’t even a -huge- stat gap. Not to mention they are going to release it in stages and not all at once.

The complaints about it were -mostly- based around the fact that people -thought- it would result in a gear treadmill. That isn’t the case, as they have pointed out.

Now if you’re going to make that big of a deal over a tiny stat difference then -wow-, just -wow-.

[img]https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png[/img]

Our issue, comes from the fact that they broke their promise. What is to stop them from doing it again when it suits them?

None.

Though Chris Whiteside, the Studio Design Director, posted “We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on”, but what I expect is “We will never add any new tier of gear again”.

If the old promise can be broken, “Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill” (also posted by Chris Whiteside) seems like a strong sarcasm.

yononan.8931:

Derek.9254:

replicant.3620:

mantrunks.4810:

I wasn’t aware that the increase in stats (what like 5%) ruins w v w because the five percent completely overtakes any strategy required in wvw. Not sure what servers you guys are in but ours is pretty competitive SBI. Also skill is required especially for those just going around trying to fight someone 1v1. I can take down people with legendaries with my blue weapons 1v1. Someone can have the best gear in the game of they want. I can have slightly worse weapons but if you can outplay them, you will win. Think first, speak later

Evenly skilled opponents versus each other end in a stalemate (Double KO if you will.). Add +5% to the gear of Player 1 and he always wins. As for skill in WvW… Right now it’s setting siege in kinked up spots and portal bombing your way to victory. If you have big enough numbers then it just comes down to PvDoor in the off hours. I personally enjoy running around solo/duo and skirmishing with random opponents in WvW for more interesting fights. I already have 3 sets of Exotics on my Necro for various builds. Kinda sucks to think that the gear which was supposed to be my “end game” gear is now one to two tiers below that limit.

no, thats not how things work. Maybe in a perfect world when both p[layers play perfectly always. But your reaction speed varies sometimes you do a wrong keystroke active a cd early. Those play a larger role than the 5% stat increase. Honestly how often do your duels end up being a double ko. seriously

Let’s pretend you and your buddy have equal skills. Now who wins?

we dont and that applies everywhere we dont need to “pretend” . Even two players with equal skills each fight will change because everyone is different in some way and may react differently. If youre going to go this way or arguing then sure okay if we do a test of 1000 matches maybe that 5% increase will put me over by a few wins but it is negligible.

killcannon.2576:

Uh oh…you used facts. Prepare to be lambasted over the furnace of irrationality.

Sad but true. All the facts in the world, cannot swap anyone that stand on the pedestal of irrationality.

Nobody cares about the stats, because naked, I can win in sPvP against people with clothes, and complete every dungeon currently in the game.

The issue is the infusion, and how it’s required to participate in content beyond a specific point, adding a hard gear-check to dungeons. Anyone who thinks the stats are an issue either doesn’t understand that stats have never mattered in this game, or just wants to pretend they do for the comfort.

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Yo lads. If you care so much then:
1. Remove Infusion.
2. Remove stat increase.
3. Add new challenging and excitement content.
Sorry. By adding artificial gear gating mechanics (aka Infusion) I’m 100% you are running out of ideas and instead of think trough different things and try different approach you are simply going on simplest and in this case worst possible solution, that never worked in other games and will never work.

You want to add more progression to PvE ? Sure. I’m up for it. Here are some ideas that will nore break promises:
1. Add skill hunting and deck collection. Skills only for PvE. Weapon with exchengable skills, and new utility skills. All of those can be hunt in open world. From mobs, from places of power or from NPCs.
2. Add alternative trait/feat/AA system. Which is again. Horizontal progression based on exploring world and hunting new elements to your AA. It’s not tiered, it’s flat, it’s pve only. Make it fun, screw balance. It’s kittening PvE it doesn’t need any balance. It need to do fun things.
3. Add zone wide events, that trigger from time to time, bored dragon attack entire zone and players have to do something about it.

Yes it would take more time to develop than simple adding new stat increasing power by 8% and calling it done.
kitten, do I guys have to teach you how design and not to design MMO games ? Did you guys learned your history lesson ?
Let me remaind you:
SWG – introducing NGE, game have backlashed to hell, never recovered.
LOTRO – introducing Radiance – game backlashed so strong, that only making it F2P allowed partial recovery.
DAoC – introducing new gear tiers – just like above. Game failed soon after.
WoW – never really changed basic mechanics. Only make it more and more accessible to casual players. – 10 mln players.

And what you guys do. You changing basic game design from horizontal to vertical progression. I love them game, but I’m 100% it will be bone in your throat.

edit:
To those assuring us it’s end up in gear treadmill. We don’t kittening give a kitten.
They broken fundamental promise. The promise is why we are playing the game in first place. And why we are spending money in cash shop.
Now that the broken fundamental promise, how the kitten we can be sure, they just won’t throw away everything else ?

Sorry. You need years to gain trust and only seconds to loose it. They did it perfectly. Lost trust in about three months after game release. Good Job ArenaNET. More over they lost trust from their most eager fanbois. That’s the true art.
Only way they can regain my trust and good will at least partially it remove this change and sayin sorry we were wrong.

Edit2;
Will I play ? Possibly.
Will I buy expansion ? Probably not.
Will I buy gems ? Not.
I will be just increasing their sever usage -;-.

Oh, but you don’t have to be 26% more powerful!

morrolan.9608:

And this was how GW2 was meant to work based on their publicity, only its not. The grind for exotic gear may not be that much of a grind but its a grind nonetheless and its a fallacy to state, as some have, that exotic is something you pick up in the normal course of playing the game.

It isn’t a fallacy. Farm a few nodes in Orr, run a few events, and you have the mats for an exotic. Run a few dungeons and you have an exotic. Be reasonable with your gold and you can buy several before you even hit level 80. How is it a fallacy? Yeah, you aren’t instantly decked in exotics when you turn 80 but with sensible play you can quickly add pieces while doing just about anything.

axiology.5807:

Oh, but you don’t _have_ to be 26% more powerful!

You do, if you want to participate in the new Fractals dungeon.

As much as I dislike to post on forums (normally only do so, if something went tremendously wrong), I have a good reason now to make my first post…

Here we go:

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two.”

Who are you kitten? What is the difference in progression between exotic and legendary stats right now? Exactly, it is 0 (zero).

If you want proper progression with a tier between exotic and legendary, the difference should be, drums, 0 (zero).

This is just a blatant justification to cater to the gear grind.
And btw, gating content with a special stat pretty much killed the other MMO that was ment to be casual friendly (Radiance anyone?)…

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

axiology.5807:

Oh, but you don’t have to be 26% more powerful!

You do, if you want to participate in the new Fractals dungeon.

And any other new dungeons that will be introduced

Derek.9254:

no, thats not how things work. Maybe in a perfect world when both p[layers play perfectly always. But your reaction speed varies sometimes you do a wrong keystroke active a cd early. Those play a larger role than the 5% stat increase. Honestly how often do your duels end up being a double ko. seriously

So if they said people that run the the new dungeons could use that new gear in sPVP and tournaments you would be ok with that right. As it’s only 5%, thats nothing…

killcannon.2576:

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

axiology.5807:

Oh, but you don’t have to be 26% more powerful!

You do, if you want to participate in the new Fractals dungeon.

And any other new dungeons that will be introduced

You’re right, let me change that:

But you don’t have to be 26% more powerful, and those dungeons are totally optional!

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:

“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

What a load of lies. If anything this thread proves they are in fact ignoring their core customerbase. Saying hey we are going to put in a massive update is completely irrelevant to the issue.
Denying it is a gear treadmill is just plain moronic. Anet is going to have people chasing new gear every few months if they implement more infusion types. That is the definition of gear treadmill.

I suggest Anet to look both at the SOE SWG NGE debacle also EVE and how CCP made a huge mistake by doing the very same thing to their game. You learn history so you don’t repeat other peoples mistakes. Something Anet is failing very much at now.

I’m not going to go into details out of laziness, but that is extremely sloppy math. You purposely removed way too many variables in your attempt to make the formula easy to understand.

Also, critical damage will actually get a roughly 43 percent boost from exotic to ascended in trinkets because, like Magic Find, it has a cheaper item budget per point.

I don’t like the addition of a new tier, but the math in this thread is misleading.

axiology.5807:

Oh, but you don’t have to be 26% more powerful!

Anyone that says this, does not really understand the majority of MMO players out there.

It is simple, if my gear is not the best, I need to get the best. If the best is beyond my grind level of comfort, I not take it well always having this craving. After awhile, most probably, I will leave the game if they cannot bear to grind the gear.

That is how many other MMOs get players to stay. But GW2 was always marketed to a different crowd of people. To the crowd of people that hates massive gear grind for stats. Thus we have quite low grind tolerance.

Also content gating kind of forces us to grind if we want to play.

axiology.5807:

killcannon.2576:

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

axiology.5807:

Oh, but you don’t have to be 26% more powerful!

You do, if you want to participate in the new Fractals dungeon.

And any other new dungeons that will be introduced

You’re right, let me change that:

But you don’t have to be 26% more powerful, and those dungeons are totally optional!

That’s right you don’t have to…unless you want access to the content. So you’re saying that it’s gated then correct?

Right now I only can get these things by doing a stupid Dungeon over and over again. No crafting no karma, no possibillity getting them by WvW. So, my wallet remains closed over the next year. Maybe you manage it to regain some of the confidence you killed with the bullkitten. Try it A-Net it wont be easy for you.

This is no longterm motivation to me – it just killed my motivation to log in. I just put a lot of time and gold into my exo set and now its completly worthless. How would I belive that you will not betray me again?

The infusion aspect is fine as long as it is confined to PvE content just as it was in GW1 when we had to deal with the Mursaat and used a similar mechanic. This stat increase is simply a claw attempt at getting people who went back to WoW or are going back to Rift this week to stay or return. It’s a desperate act to get people back who never truly understood the game in the first place and a spit in the face to those of us who supported them for years while they brought us this wonderful game.