Guild Wars 2

Ascended Gear and the gear gap is rearing its ugly head again. A lot of people are unhappy, for various reasons.

But this thread isn’t about this. This thread is about an alternative.

Arenanet wants ascended gear to be truly useful, something people want to work for. The problem is, in its current form, ascended gear harms the very idea of horizontal progression. It punishes switching builds, being affected by meta changes, having alts, and simply preferring WvWvW.

The reason is that Arenanet made Stats the marker that made ascended gear special.

This does not need to be the case. The solution already is in the game!
With the change, give rare gear the stats exotic gear would have gotten, and exotic gear the stats of ascended gear. Ascended gear keeps the planned stats. On top of that, ascended gear gets the mechanic that we currently see with Legendaries:

The ability to swap stats via a drop-down menu

Bam. Now we have horizontal progression in its purest form. Ascended gear now is a massive convenience upgrade, giving you highly flexible gear that is not bound to a character.

It shouldn’t take much time to roll the mechanic out – it already exists. Adjusting the stats is also a simple matter.

And if you want users of Legendaries to feel special, fear not. There’s a solution here, too. Make legendaries get a function that places their upgrades into your inventory. Now legendaries are truly flexible. Simply announce this function, and implement it a few patches afterwards, so no schedule is affected.

Users of ascended gear that truly want an advantage would have it. Bag space, flexibility, the ability to adjust to any meta shift on the fly.
Those that don’t could make do with exotics, different sets, which could be obtained from various sources.

[Yes, my personal opinion is removing gear stats entirely, but I know this would be a pipe dream. So why not an alternative?]

I like this much better. I would be resentful crafting ascended armor with fixed stats especially with the meta being switched up soon. If it had the same stats as exotics but you could change them like a legendary I would not only be ok with that, I would feel more inclined to actually make the kitten things.

I could get behind this.
This is basically why I pushed for Legendary armor way back, since Legendary would always be equal to top gear and have changeable stats it would make it actually worth the grind to get.

As long as new tiers aren’t introduced above Ascended this would be a happy meeting in the middle.
The biggest hurdle to Ascended right now is the massive grind coupled with the risk that by the time I finish a set it will be rendered useless.
If on the other hand I know I have access to multiple sets of stats I don’t run that risk.

I already suggested that when ascended was first revealed. It’s not a new idea in any way of form.

Cue in the legendary owners that will come complaining their “hard” work would be devalued.

Here’s a real modest proposal

Remove time-gating, keep the stats at 5% difference.

stof.9341:

Cue in the legendary owners that will come complaining their “hard” work would be devalued.

To be fair, it would be. It is more expensive and more time consuming to obtain a legendary.

An alternative to the drop-down for ascended gear would be offering mystic forge recipes that allow conversion. Instead of old gear becoming useless, you could transform it instead. e.g. old ascended + spirit shards + vision crystal +

• T6 blood: zerker
• T6 totem: cleric’s

This would leave legendaries special (by allowing easy stat changes) while still offering up a simple and “reasonably” low-cost method of switching stats.

Another alternative would be to offer legendaries the chance to swap sigils.

The fixed stats on Ascended armor has bothered me for some time as it locks you into one stat at a very great cost for that armor… To be able to switch out stats when out of combat just like a Legendary weapon would be welcome indeed! Especially if this is going to be the top armor we have, it should have that special bit of extra other than solely the small stat boost it currently has.

My idea for Legendary weapons is the ability to ‘load’ it with a certain number of sigils (i.e. 6 different sigils) that could also be swapped out like the stats when out of combat. That would make it a truly Legendary weapon in my mind…. They could do it for the armor as well. Make this stuff truly special and desirable to work towards.

The idea of Legendary or Ascended is supposed to be something special. Legendary = mythical/heroic & Ascended = to rise up or be above (Though the current Legendaries & precursors have a lot of controversy because they can be bought if you have the gold and the RNG for precursors is so awful) I am looking forward to the new way of acquiring precursors as I believe it is a great way for folk to truly be proud of what they have by the work they have put into them start to finish.

I do not have a problem with the time gating. Ascended has been out long enough that anyone could have casually worked to get and make enough of the time gated materials for all three types of armor. After all it is something you are suppose to work for. Like Legendaries and precursors you can buy the deldrimor steel, Damask and Elonian leather and cut out the time gating all together. Either way you still have to work for the gold to buy or work for the materials to make your armor (credit cards do not count, lol). I have not worked on getting the materials every day, yet I have enough to make the medium and the light armors if I want to. (I have a heavy set of Zojja’s Ascended armor already)

Quite frankly it is the single stat issue that has prevented me from making the rest since I am not sure I want solely Berserker stats for everything else. Choosing another set of stats might also limit the use of the armor for other avatars especially if they are not running Berserker…. Hopefully this will be resolved at some point but in the meantime I continue to stockpile leather, steel and damask.

they will save that for actual legendary armor (its literally the only reason to even get a legendary besided aesthetics)……the fact that it is account bound is good enough to make ascended gear worth crafting if you are a min/maxer. the pve game is not balanced around ascended…and nothing about wvw is balanced.

I would love to be able to swap ascended stats. Legendaries have the most flashy skins and come with particle effects and footprints. That alone makes them worth it in a game purportedly designed for cosmetic progression. If it’s really such an issue, they could place a cost on switching ascended stats (while leaving legendaries free).

I wouldn’t mind crafting legendary if the legendary has BOTH switchable stats and runes/sigils.

The thing is when we change stats, we also want to change runes/sigils. Otherwise, the build will never be my liking.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

stof.9341:

Cue in the legendary owners that will come complaining their “hard” work would be devalued.

To be fair, it would be. It is more expensive and more time consuming to obtain a legendary.

An alternative to the drop-down for ascended gear would be offering mystic forge recipes that allow conversion. Instead of old gear becoming useless, you could transform it instead. e.g. old ascended + spirit shards + vision crystal +

• T6 blood: zerker
• T6 totem: cleric’s

This would leave legendaries special (by allowing easy stat changes) while still offering up a simple and “reasonably” low-cost method of switching stats.

Another alternative would be to offer legendaries the chance to swap sigils.

I was farming for my legendary when they were fixed stats of the same level as exotics :o I stopped doing it when they were better with free stat change.

A “low cost” method of switching stats that cost THAT much in mats is in no way conductive to build experiments by players. This sucks really :/

They really need to fix this as the new patch launches old ascended armor maybe rendered useless as you previous acquired stats from traitlines.

I like your proposal but I think the bottom line is at least you should be able to salvage ascended gear to recover some of the mats so you at least get the chance to work around your build when the patch arrives.

I like the idea of switchable stats, right now I’m contemplating whether or not to craft a sinister armour set before prices start to really hike. This would solve that issue as I already have a zerker set.

However, speaking from a business model point of view, I can see arenanet further down the line introducing legendary gear with this ability. It makes financial sense for the company as many people will want a ‘permanent’ best in class and switchable armour set. So I can’t see arenanet implementing this.

@TaxZero – they will never remove time gating. There was no time gating when making legendaries back in 2012, and within a few months people had legendaries – arenanet were shocked people ate their content that quickly (they thought it would take 6months+). As such, one of the sure fire ways to reduce this is time gating. I’m not a fan of it, but with how easy gear is to get, the time gate aspect is actually one of the harder things for impatient people (myself included).

@Neptunechild – not really, trait line stats can easily be replaced by adjusting your trinkets (which are pretty easy to get). There is no reason arenanet will need/ want to allow players to replace their existing ascended armour.

Terra.8571:

@TaxZero – they will never remove time gating. There was no time gating when making legendaries back in 2012, and within a few months people had legendaries – arenanet were shocked people ate their content that quickly (they thought it would take 6months+). As such, one of the sure fire ways to reduce this is time gating. I’m not a fan of it, but with how easy gear is to get, the time gate aspect is actually one of the harder things for impatient people (myself included).

And once upon a time ascended never existed, stuff changes and there’s plenty they should change about ascended. Like time gating which does nothing positive for the game, or its playerbase.

They need to add a legendary tier armor to be consistent with the gear tiers. They could use ascended as a precursor for it.

TexZero.7910:

Terra.8571:

@TaxZero – they will never remove time gating. There was no time gating when making legendaries back in 2012, and within a few months people had legendaries – arenanet were shocked people ate their content that quickly (they thought it would take 6months+). As such, one of the sure fire ways to reduce this is time gating. I’m not a fan of it, but with how easy gear is to get, the time gate aspect is actually one of the harder things for impatient people (myself included).

And once upon a time ascended never existed, stuff changes and there’s plenty they should change about ascended. Like time gating which does nothing positive for the game, or its playerbase.

Umm… it stops people eating content too fast = more profit for the company. Arenanet/ NCsoft are a business, like it or not, they need to make money and for that they need people to play. Timegating may not be the funnest way (I don;t like it), but right now, it’s one of the more successful ways they have done to minimize people rushing through their content. Albeit some people use the TP to speed things up, it’s still an effective tool.

Stuff does change, but things which are profitable don;t. The reason ascended came in was because people started quitting after 4 months because they ‘beat’ the game – they had legendaries, full exotics, did all fractals (I was one of those people). Having come back, ascended took me 2 months to get, and that was because of the time gate. I still ate their content quickly, but time gating made me play for 4-6weeks more than I would have. Now I’m just waiting for HoT.

I understand your views on time gating, but with a lack of raiding or real end game content, time gating is a primary tool they are using to keep players interested. And if ascended gear is going to be 10% better than exotics, this is going to keep a significant chunk of the playerbase occupied until HoT.

TexZero.7910:

Here’s a real modest proposal

Remove time-gating, keep the stats at 5% difference.

No, a true modest proposal would be making 400+ cooking recipes with ascended gear as the ingredients so that we may eat our ascended gear.

Terra.8571:

TexZero.7910:

Terra.8571:

@TaxZero – they will never remove time gating. There was no time gating when making legendaries back in 2012, and within a few months people had legendaries – arenanet were shocked people ate their content that quickly (they thought it would take 6months+). As such, one of the sure fire ways to reduce this is time gating. I’m not a fan of it, but with how easy gear is to get, the time gate aspect is actually one of the harder things for impatient people (myself included).

And once upon a time ascended never existed, stuff changes and there’s plenty they should change about ascended. Like time gating which does nothing positive for the game, or its playerbase.

Umm… it stops people eating content too fast = more profit for the company. Arenanet/ NCsoft are a business, like it or not, they need to make money and for that they need people to play. Timegating may not be the funnest way (I don;t like it), but right now, it’s one of the more successful ways they have done to minimize people rushing through their content. Albeit some people use the TP to speed things up, it’s still an effective tool.

Stuff does change, but things which are profitable don;t. The reason ascended came in was because people started quitting after 4 months because they ‘beat’ the game – they had legendaries, full exotics, did all fractals (I was one of those people). Having come back, ascended took me 2 months to get, and that was because of the time gate. I still ate their content quickly, but time gating made me play for 4-6weeks more than I would have. Now I’m just waiting for HoT.

I understand your views on time gating, but with a lack of raiding or real end game content, time gating is a primary tool they are using to keep players interested. And if ascended gear is going to be 10% better than exotics, this is going to keep a significant chunk of the playerbase occupied until HoT.

Stop people from completing content to fast ? That argument loses all merit in a game where you can use items to insta level from 1-20 and use subsquent items to boost the rate at which you level, and included items to directly boost your levels.

Gear and level being the end all be all was never the point of this game, so why should this suddenly be a thing ?

If people are “bored” and you want to retain them there’s a very simple way to do so, fix core issues, not agitate the player base by making horrible design choices. There’s any number of ways to bring players back, via sales, or direct gameplay content (SAB, any festival etc).

Instead, we have the one way to not bring players back, but drive away players radical system changes that are so far out of left field it can only be described as the biggest mistake that could be made short of just making the game unplayable.

stof.9341:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

stof.9341:

Cue in the legendary owners that will come complaining their “hard” work would be devalued.

To be fair, it would be. It is more expensive and more time consuming to obtain a legendary.

An alternative to the drop-down for ascended gear would be offering mystic forge recipes that allow conversion. Instead of old gear becoming useless, you could transform it instead. e.g. old ascended + spirit shards + vision crystal +

• T6 blood: zerker
• T6 totem: cleric’s

This would leave legendaries special (by allowing easy stat changes) while still offering up a simple and “reasonably” low-cost method of switching stats.

Another alternative would be to offer legendaries the chance to swap sigils.

I was farming for my legendary when they were fixed stats of the same level as exotics :o I stopped doing it when they were better with free stat change.

A “low cost” method of switching stats that cost THAT much in mats is in no way conductive to build experiments by players. This sucks really :/

“That costs that much in mats” — what? Right now, to experiment in exotics or ascended, you have to buy an entire new set. My proposal is to make it cheaper to change ascended stats. In fact, I deliberately left the numbers blank to avoid exactly that sort of issue, i.e. whether the “price” is too low or too high.

I would absolutely love it.

Two issues though. Many players have obtained multiple ascended sets already. And having you grind many Ascended sets is directly tied to their bottom line.

As far as revenue is concerned, if they put more effort into adding many new and awesome skins to the game and having them only be available on ascended tier it could still work as far as I’m concerned. Sadly the way the game’s been going it’s clear cosmetic only carrots don’t fly in the appropriate corporate meetings so I doubt they’d take that up.

As to people who have multiple sets, I dunno.

Zefiris.8297:

The ability to swap stats via a drop-down menu

It’s a very good idea.

But I think it goes against what ArenaNet wants.

It’s obvious by now that they want people to grind. Getting ascended gear is a grind, making it better is a way to make grinding more worthwhile; the Silverwastes are basically a big grind, getting into the closed beta was a matter of grinding, and so on.

(Incidentally, HoT will likely follow the trend and be basically a massive grind.)

(Incidentally as well, it’s kinda painful to read this right now.)

Ergo, ArenaNet wants people to grind ascended gear; and preferably not only one set, rather multiple sets (because then people would spend a lot of time playing the game without ArenaNet having to actually add content, something we know they are terribly slow with).

By giving people the ability to change stats of ascended gear, it would become almost pointless to have multiple sets of such items. Thus, I doubt ArenaNet would ever do that, despite how much of a good idea it is.

This whole bit with ascended…might be a deal breaker for me.

Nope. This is what legendary armor will be for if it ever comes.

Ralanost.8913:

I like this much better. I would be resentful crafting ascended armor with fixed stats especially with the meta being switched up soon. If it had the same stats as exotics but you could change them like a legendary I would not only be ok with that, I would feel more inclined to actually make the kitten things.

Wait, the meta switching up? I know about all the changes to the skills and stuff, but… is that going to change the stat meta? Does that mean I have to craft a whole new set of ascended armor and weapons with different stats? I spent so long on my current set.

I have too many Alts and too many sets of armor for an increased gap between Exotics and Ascendeds. (Plus I don’t craft, and that’s the only feasible way to get Ascended armor and weapons at the moment). So I would be all for something like the OP suggests. That, or reduce the expense and time-gating restrictions on Ascended stuff, and let people sell them on the TP. The Crafters could get money from the non-Crafters, who would be delighted in turn to finally have a source for Ascended armor and weapons.

TexZero.7910:

Terra.8571:

TexZero.7910:

Terra.8571:

@TaxZero – they will never remove time gating. There was no time gating when making legendaries back in 2012, and within a few months people had legendaries – arenanet were shocked people ate their content that quickly (they thought it would take 6months+). As such, one of the sure fire ways to reduce this is time gating. I’m not a fan of it, but with how easy gear is to get, the time gate aspect is actually one of the harder things for impatient people (myself included).

And once upon a time ascended never existed, stuff changes and there’s plenty they should change about ascended. Like time gating which does nothing positive for the game, or its playerbase.

Umm… it stops people eating content too fast = more profit for the company. Arenanet/ NCsoft are a business, like it or not, they need to make money and for that they need people to play. Timegating may not be the funnest way (I don;t like it), but right now, it’s one of the more successful ways they have done to minimize people rushing through their content. Albeit some people use the TP to speed things up, it’s still an effective tool.

Stuff does change, but things which are profitable don;t. The reason ascended came in was because people started quitting after 4 months because they ‘beat’ the game – they had legendaries, full exotics, did all fractals (I was one of those people). Having come back, ascended took me 2 months to get, and that was because of the time gate. I still ate their content quickly, but time gating made me play for 4-6weeks more than I would have. Now I’m just waiting for HoT.

I understand your views on time gating, but with a lack of raiding or real end game content, time gating is a primary tool they are using to keep players interested. And if ascended gear is going to be 10% better than exotics, this is going to keep a significant chunk of the playerbase occupied until HoT.

Stop people from completing content to fast ? That argument loses all merit in a game where you can use items to insta level from 1-20 and use subsquent items to boost the rate at which you level, and included items to directly boost your levels.

Gear and level being the end all be all was never the point of this game, so why should this suddenly be a thing ?

If people are “bored” and you want to retain them there’s a very simple way to do so, fix core issues, not agitate the player base by making horrible design choices. There’s any number of ways to bring players back, via sales, or direct gameplay content (SAB, any festival etc).

Instead, we have the one way to not bring players back, but drive away players radical system changes that are so far out of left field it can only be described as the biggest mistake that could be made short of just making the game unplayable.

Getting to 80 does not equal completing content fast. Heck, when the game first released, you could get to 80 in a few days. For most people and in games in general, content ‘starts’ at max level. Don’t get me wrong, many people like leveling, like exploring etc, but just look at dungeons. How many – 80 only lfg messages are there for sub 80 dungeons? All boss event trains, 90% of people bring their level 80’s – to level 10 events! Virtually everyone is 80. If getting to 80 was the be all and end all this game would have been dead years ago. It has little relevance to the completing content fast part.

This role, in PvE at least, falls to dungeons, world bosses, fractals and guild missions for the most part. To that you can now add gearing up. This is the stuff, along with socializing, that keep people playing. Arenanet aren’t stupid, they know this. That’s why, for now at least, time gating will stay. In the future, I could even see them adding really hard dungeons that reset weekly – like other mmo’s have done in the past.

Timegating has been done with many tv shows for years. People want to watch the next episode straight away, but usually have to wait a week, and if the show is good enough, people usually return. Yes I know some websites now let you watch series all in one, but time gate remains an effect ‘business’ tool to keep people coming back. Adding additional content will still not address the issue of people getting through it too fast, however it will help fill the time void.

I note the concerns that ascended gear will do to some of the player base, but only time will tell if many quit (I doubt it and hope the upcoming ‘raid’ like guild instance help this game in HoT).

I like this idea. A lot.

It can also justify the time-gating Anet implemented to make crafting Ascended gear take longer and be more frustrating than simply crafting a set of Exotic gear.

anet pls

Proposed before or not, this idea is brilliant. It’s a really smart way to appeal to both the people who have many alts/builds (let’s not forget some weapon combinations can mean a player needing 3 Ascended crafts just to outfit that one build, like Staff and Sword/Pistol Mesmer) and those who would rather invest more time and resources towards a single project.

It also deals with the huge time and resources invested in Ascended gear, only to have to restart given a balance change.

A final boon, it ensures ANet only has to balance the game for one end game gear level. Right now they have to consider whether to balance new areas on Level 80 Ascended or Level 80 Exotics, with the risk of driving away one crowd or another if it is all too easy or too hard.

I can’t emphasize enough that this proposal is likely the way Ascended gear always should have been

And even though I really dislike GW2 crafting, this sort of system would actually tempt me towards making Ascended gear. The current, purely stat based system only serves to drive me away from crafting at all and the game areas where Ascended is a tangible benefit (generally WvW roaming and high level fractals).

There may need to be some work in terms of making sure Legendaries are still Legendary, but being able to freely swap Sigils is a pretty awesome way to do it.

I’m sure infusions would remain Ascended only, but that’s fine considering the Fractals only nature of it.

stof.9341:

I already suggested that when ascended was first revealed. It’s not a new idea in any way of form.

Cue in the legendary owners that will come complaining their “hard” work would be devalued.

Is there legendary armor for this to devalue?
No?
Then there’s really no problem there.

I mean at this point that ship has sailed. They had plenty chance to add legendary armor and they didn’t.

Additionally, if you’re going to make that argument I’m going to point out that if they now add legendary armor with changeable stats all the people who spent so much time and effort grinding for multiple sets of Ascended are going to be very VERY upset, and they have far more right to be than non-existent legendary owners.

What we have here is the possibility of a good compromise, yes it might devalue some multiple sets people have, just not all of them the way legendary would.

Then why would people grind for legendary armor if they chose to add it eventually?
The skins of course, that was the point of legendary weapons (until they added Ascended anyway, then there was the secondary reason of knowing they would always be equivalent to top gear as well)