Not to induce flame, only to talk about my outlook on the new gear.
I feel as though too many of us feel we know the statistics on GW2’s player base. (myself included, it’s weird how I feel like I can guess numbers and figures on the playerbase :P) I’ve seen way to many people calling out Anet on pandering to the “minority” or “1%” or what have you. The fact is, Anet knows WAY more about how people are spending their time in GW2.
Let’s not forget that their teams have built this entire game, and give credit where credit is due. These are gamers just like us who are trying to make the game as amazing as possible. They wouldn’t go “oh, there is 20% of our player base getting their end-gear and then not logging on as much, let’s cater to them”. They are doing what they can provide the MAJORITY of players with solid content to enjoy. They would never actively or obviously solicit to the minority and ignore the majority of players.
Now to the gear: it appears to only be jewelry in this latest patch, but the jewelry indicated shows a 4% increase. (I will say I see full ascended gear in the future, but rolling it out slowly like this seems like a nice way to ease us into the new system, and give us time to get use to it.) There is a bump in stats, no doubt, but let’s not be doomsayers. This does not mean we will have ascended 2 gear, or ascended 3 gear. All they have said is one more tier is being added. The best part I see, is that the most significant boost it provides is in the form of infusions or buffs. Doing it this way means that the most significant addition to gear is scenario based, not general world improvement. Could they have kept exotic level and just added infusion? Yes I’m sure they could. And I’m even more sure that’s exactly one of things they talked about in their meetings about adding something new to the gear in this game. Your voices in game and on the forums are not only heard, but advocated inside Anet offices. Why am I confident of that? Because they have proven with the game they created that they are gamers too, and want what’s best for our community!
And in my opinion, this idea is ingenious. Gear that is there for the “hardcore” players to grind for in the fractals dungeon, but not required. (Some worry this gear will be required in the future. Let’s keep in mind that the future is uncertain, and to the me the worse case scenerio is “lfg fractals, must be lvl 80 with asc/agony”.) This gear doesn’t seem to be necessary by any means for the other dungeons. I’ve run plenty of explorable dungeons in rare/exotic gear and done quite well with good clearing time. I don’t see 4% being the type of increase that the community will require of others to perform well in a dungeon. And more importantly, WE ARE THE COMMUNITY, and we decide whether we will end up shutting out lower geared players. (BTW, this is already possible, since there is already tier’s of gear, and some players demand lvl 80’s in exotic gear for dungeons already on occasion)
TL:DR
These changes are happening. Let’s not worry ourselves, and make the best out of this situation. Many people, such as myself, will enjoy this new gear. Of course, others will loath it. But let’s be a better community than MMO’s have seen in the past, and trust that Anet is doing what they think is best, and let’s choose to have a positive perception on this situation, rather than negative. No more doomsayers!