Guild Wars 2

So I can probably call myself a “casual” player, though I have 5 level 80 characters, 4 of those in full exotic gear, I definitely don’t play as much or farm as hard as a lot of players out there.

I’ve been in Fractals once, found it incredibly boring and didn’t feel like grinding something I didn’t enjoy for the ascended trinkets. That didn’t bother me too much, I could access some of this using Laurels – costly, but I considered it “fair”.

Now with an intended update to add ascended weapons and armour, I’m going to fall behind the power creep:

I’m expecting to be excluded from groups if I don’t have all ascended gear. Please don’t give me “hurr durr, play with friends” etc. You know that people are going to be excluded from groups due to not having the top-tier gear.

I’m expecting to never play WvW, since people will have an artificial advantage in terms of gear, rather than everyone having (relatively) easy access to the same level of gear. (Exotics.)

It’s a direction that GW2 is going in which concerns me. One of the reasons I loved GW1 was that it was easy to get top-tier gear, but hard/expensive to get the best/rarest skins. GW2 isn’t GW1, of course I realise that, however I feel that this may dishearten a lot of players, who have put the effort into getting group-acceptable gear (i.e. full exotics) only to find that they’re now behind the curve again.

I know this won’t stop Anet releasing this update, but just wanted to express my concern at the decision.

Factions introduced the worst powercreep the first game ever saw… 2 of them actually…
Save Yourselves … and … ShadowForm. Yeah maybe Nightfall added a lot that destroyed GvG balance. But those two really took the challenge out of PvE before NF & EotN even had a chance. Fast forward to now… 10% more damage isn’t going to even begin to compare. It won’t magically make dungeons easy for people who were so bad they were getting kicked from COF’s. It won’t make them a lot easier for the people who already completed Arah Explorables completely Naked (yes this did actually happen … no one’s really sure why either).

And it definitely won’t have any real impact on Zerging which is now the only thing this game even appears to be about anymore….

ilr.9675:

Factions introduced the worst powercreep the first game ever saw… 2 of them actually…
Save Yourselves … and … ShadowForm. Yeah maybe Nightfall added a lot that destroyed GvG balance. But those two really took the challenge out of PvE before NF & EotN even had a chance. Fast forward to now… 10% more damage isn’t going to even begin to compare. It won’t magically make dungeons easy for people who were so bad they were getting kicked from COF’s. It won’t make them a lot easier for the people who already completed Arah Explorables completely Naked (yes this did actually happen … no one’s really sure why either).

And it definitely won’t have any real impact on Zerging which is now the only thing this game even appears to be about anymore….

Hmm
What you mean is that Anet rather introduce some ascended craps that encourage more zerging than making the living story much more interesting?

Wouldn’t a power-creep require that the game get harder and thus require the new gear in order to do stuff?

I doubt that will happen. The game doesn’t even require exotics, so why would it suddenly start requiring Ascended?

lordkrall.7241:

Wouldn’t a power-creep require that the game get harder and thus require the new gear in order to do stuff?

I doubt that will happen. The game doesn’t even require exotics, so why would it suddenly start requiring Ascended?

It doesn’t have to be symmetrical to be power creep. If the characters keep getting more powerful (through new tiers of gear) there is power creep even if the opposition remains the same.

Power creep is usually associated with a gear treadmill. Gear tiers coming out regularly. This is a whole lot less than creep.

It’s not nearly as bad as what happened in Guild Wars 1 with PvE only skills.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not nearly as bad as what happened in Guild Wars 1 with PvE only skills.

I agree completely. PvE only skills in GW1 were an example of non-symmetrical power creep of astounding magnitude.

PvE only skills were gasp PvE only.

Ascended gear will affect PvP in WvW.

It will also likely get you excluded from popular PvE content (e.g. CoF1) regardless of how much difference the gear will actually make.

Also power creep doesn’t need to have anything to do with the PvE enemies:

“Power creep is the gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content.”

First there were ascended trinkets, now there will be ascended armour and weapons. The bonus they give may not be -that- significant when it was just trinkets, add in a full suit of armour and weapons and the difference will grow quite markedly.

Akimbo.4835:

PvE only skills were gasp PvE only.

Ascended gear will affect PvP in WvW.

It will also likely get you excluded from popular PvE content (e.g. CoF1) regardless of how much difference the gear will actually make.

I doubt that it will get you excluded from specific content, though it might get you excluded from groups with a focus on maximizing efficiency…but that already happens.

Akimbo.4835:

I’m expecting to never play WvW, since people will have an artificial advantage in terms of gear, rather than everyone having (relatively) easy access to the same level of gear. (Exotics.)

Then explain to me why there are so many people playing WvW while underleveled?
I’ve seen upleveled Thieves (no idea of their actual level) hit with Backstab for more than level 80s at times, because the upscaling will focus on little stats (more Power).

There is a lot more to be effective in a team environment than some damage/armor numbers, area swiftness, fire fields, blast finishers, portals etc, are things everyone has the potential to bring to a group and level doesn’t matter much for those (you are upscaled so your blast finishers offer the same effect as a level 80s).

Unfortunately open duels or small skirmishes will of be affected by the introduction of Ascended gear, which will make people focus even more on… zergs. As if they aren’t all the rage already

Akimbo.4835:

So I can probably call myself a “casual” player, though I have 5 level 80 characters, 4 of those in full exotic gear, I definitely don’t play as much or farm as hard as a lot of players out there.

I’ve been in Fractals once, found it incredibly boring and didn’t feel like grinding something I didn’t enjoy for the ascended trinkets. That didn’t bother me too much, I could access some of this using Laurels – costly, but I considered it “fair”.

Now with an intended update to add ascended weapons and armour, I’m going to fall behind the power creep:

I’m expecting to be excluded from groups if I don’t have all ascended gear. Please don’t give me “hurr durr, play with friends” etc. You know that people are going to be excluded from groups due to not having the top-tier gear.

I’m expecting to never play WvW, since people will have an artificial advantage in terms of gear, rather than everyone having (relatively) easy access to the same level of gear. (Exotics.)

It’s a direction that GW2 is going in which concerns me. One of the reasons I loved GW1 was that it was easy to get top-tier gear, but hard/expensive to get the best/rarest skins. GW2 isn’t GW1, of course I realise that, however I feel that this may dishearten a lot of players, who have put the effort into getting group-acceptable gear (i.e. full exotics) only to find that they’re now behind the curve again.

I know this won’t stop Anet releasing this update, but just wanted to express my concern at the decision.

No worry, I am sure there will be a cash shop solution for you!

Zeldain.5710:

No worry, I am sure there will be a cash shop solution for you!

Yep, exactly like how there’s a cash shop solution for the current Ascended gear…