Ascended gear grind is OTT ridiculous

Ascended gear grind is OTT ridiculous

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Posted by: PaxTheGreatOne.9472

PaxTheGreatOne.9472

5-10 days for en end-game weapon… I do not know if this is long compared to other companies.. I must say I find the grind in this game manageable tbh.

Some things aside (grind 100 of -fill in the name in-) for next piece.. Carapace armor?
I got it, all saved me quite some time grinding mats for another ascended armorpiece..

23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.

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Posted by: IrishPotato.6327

IrishPotato.6327

If OP thinks ascended crafting is bad, I can’t wait to see his post when Anet releases the process for obtaining a precursor.

The thing is that precursors only count for Legendary weapons, which do not grant players an advantage over regular gear, so as long as they don’t make Legendaries more powerful than anything else, I don’t really care what’s going to happen to precursor crafting.

Legendary weapons are ascended and can interchange stats out of combat. Therefore > exotics.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

IMO, all accessories other than the back item should be excluded from comparisons because of how widely available they are to get unlike the others. The bulk of your stat increases, and thus your damage boost, comes from them. It would be misleading to include these in a discussion such as this one.

actually bulk of your dmg increase of from the weapon, and the bulk of your defense increase is from the armor.
oh yeah and infusions are pretty big boost if you choose to stack them

Let’s see…

Full Exotics: 1003 Power
Full Ascended: 1087 Power
Stat difference: 7.8%

Exotic Weapon: 90
Ascended Weapon: 94
~4.3% difference

Exotic Armor: 315
Ascended Armor: 329
~4.3% difference

Exotic Trinkets: 508
Ascended Trinkets: 570
~10.9% difference

So the highest difference between Ascended and Exotics is in the trinkets.

Full Ascended: 1087
Exotic with Ascended Trinkets: 1065
~2.1%

So using Ascended Trinkets (which are very easy to get) and full Exotics, the stat difference is 2.1%, while the difference between full Exotic and full Ascended is 7.8%

I think Ascended Trinkets should be used as “by default” in damage calculations when comparing Ascended with Exotic damage.

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Posted by: DeceiverX.8361

DeceiverX.8361

You can’t judge the difference in a full set of infused ascended equipment versus that of entirely exotics including accessories, seeing as accessories are largely obtained through laurels and guild missions (I’ve only met a rare few who run fractals for them). This becomes a universal standard for all players, and neither of these are grindy due to the fact laurels are handed out for just logging in, and guild missions are intended to be fun and whimsical side-tasks for the sake of fun/uniting the guild.

I don’t recall anyone complaining over the difficulty of getting ascended accessories.

Weapons offer the most effectiveness, yes, but they’re also the cheapest to make by a massive margin. One can pretty easily make an ascended weapon in five days of play as the OP mentioned. That only requires like… six dungeon paths per day, which say doing AC1/3, CoF1/2, CoE2/3 is maybe around two hours per day with slower groups. That’s not unreasonable, seeing as the demand is BiS gear in such a ridiculously small amount of time.

The armor accounts for a < 5% stat gain. The accessories, which are easy to come by, account for > 10%.

This thread is about ascended weapon/armor crafting being “necessary” and that the rate/ease of acquisition is too difficult. It not only isn’t necessary on the sheer basis that currently no content in the entire game requires ascended armor/weapons (I.E., people who stack 70 AR on just accessories via AR infusions, but the craftables themselves do not offer a substantial advantage even in WvW). Ask any seasoned WvW player if the difference matters. Only those in t1 GvG’s and zerg-busting groups of the skilled elite will enforce it, otherwise claiming the equipment as unnecessary.

Speaking as someone who actually has made literally dozens of weapons and ascended armor with the infusions, the gains are hovering at around 5-7% still. A friend of mine in exotics and less-optimized runes using the same build deals almost identical damage.

The “difference” in performance gains is entirely based upon the pre-existing build. Using a build with lower power and armor will yield more effectiveness from the armor/weapons regarding the scaling on power main-stat sets on the sheer basis that armor then accounts for more of one’s overall total stats making the percentage affected by ascended gear artificially higher.

People also seem to forget that skill damage coefficients and scaling are huge determining factors when it comes to damage, and how toughness interacts with these. The power can and will mean absolutely nothing if the skill doesn’t have high power scaling or damage modifiers aren’t crazy high.

At this point, the only reasonable argument is the bonus provided by infusions, but honestly, that has nothing to do with ascended armor/weapons as a tier, nor is it associated with the grind and time-gating behind making this equipment, seeing as the infusions are made from stupid amounts of T6 mats found in PvE that cost around 3x as much as the armor itself. That is a grind. The ascended equipment itself? Very hardly one.

If you want to talk about the over-effectiveness of infusions or the difficulty of making omnis and the grind behind that, that’s an entirely different story. Otherwise, any argument made about the armor itself being over-rewarding or too difficult to make is strictly an exaggeration by those who insist they get BiS gear for no investment.

(edited by DeceiverX.8361)

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Posted by: Deamhan.9538

Deamhan.9538

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNUQNBjYDbkQlGW7XxgFuWDoHUrDgHItb9Ds3gPoEKY1D-TBCBwAQ3fwoyvGHUAJXARJIO1fA8kCSp7Jh5PCBobBA-e

Exotic zerker build for ranger I just quickly put together for this. The stats I’m about to record does not take into account sigil stacks.

I’m also going to look at physical damage only.

Pwr: 2228
Armor: 2370
Precision: 2284 (76% chance)
Ferocity: 1098 (223% crit damage)

So going with the bow…

Dmg: 1000

Equation for calculating damage

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

1000 * 2228 * 1 / 2600

I can’t find anything on weapon coefficient so I’m going with 1 by default. Because it’s multiplicative, this would have the effect of multiplying the difference between exotic and ascended and so going with 1 prevents this.

I went with 2600 armor as this is the “Heavy Armored Target” stated on the site.

Result is 857

However there is a 76% to crit which will result in 223% increase to damage. To factor this in you take 76% of 223 for an amount of 169%. So you multiply 857 by 1.69 for a total amount of 1448 damage. So do to the crit chance and crit damage, the average damage each shot will do is 1448.

Now I will go with full ascended.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNUQNBjYDbkQlGW7XxgFuWDoHUrDgHItb9Ds3gPoEKY1D-TBCBABQt/QDHUgKV/5MlgYp8TiLgAAPpg809EAAB4m7MbWnt5Ov5OP0hO0hO0h2Nv5Q35Q3ZhA0tAA-e

Power: 2328 (100 over exotic for a 4.49% increase)
Armor: 2464 (94 over exotic for a 3.97% increase)
Precision: 2349 (79%) (65 over exotic for a 2.85% increase)
Ferocity: 1145 (226%) (47 over exotic for a 4.28% increase)

As for the damage on the bow;

1050 (+50 over exotic for a 5% increase)

Now for the math.

1050 * 2328 * 1 / 2600 = 940 (+83 over exotic for a 9.68% increase)

But now to find the average damage per shot taking crit into account.

79% of 226 is 179%
940 * 1.79 = 1683 (+235 over exotic for a 16.23% increase in damage per shot on average)

I would certainly consider a 16.23% increase in damage pretty significant.

The difference in protection is small though…

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Posted by: Thaddeus.4891

Thaddeus.4891

I would certainly consider a 16.23% increase in damage pretty significant.

You just made a small mistake. You forgot to calculate total dmg, you only took critical dmg.

(857 × 0.76 × 2.23) + (857 × 0.24 ) = 1658
(940 × 0.79 × 2.26) + (940 × 0.21) = 1876

(1876-1658)/1658 = 13.1% increased dmg

Also, it’s kind of weird to take into account exotic accessories, rings and amulet since its easier to get ascended version over the exotic ones. So your first build should have ascended rings, accessories and amulet, while keeping everything else exotic.

With that into account, that leave us with a difference of 10% more damage in full ascended.

That’s of course if you play alone and don’t take into account buff. When you talk about group content with might, fury, banners, spotter, etc then this number get even smaller. Lets see the number with 25 stack of might, fury and both warrior banners (this isn’t all buff, its just the normal buff that you see often). I also took the liberty to change rune of the ranger to rune of the scholar otherwise both exotic and ascended version would reach 100% crit chance and so the diffence in dps between both would be lower than in reality since a part of the additional precision for ascended would be wasted.

Ascended
Power : 2503 + 750(might) + 170 (banner) = 3423
Crit chance : 70%+ 9% (banner) +20%(fury)=99%
Crit dmg : 226% + 11% (banner) = 237%
Base damage : 1050 × 3423 × 1/2600 = 1 382
Average damage : (1 382 × 0.99 × 2.37) + (1 382 × 0.01) = 3 256

Exotic (with ascended rings, accessories and amulet)
Power : 2454 + 750(might) + 170(banner)=3374
Crit chance : 68%+9%(banner) +20%(fury)=97%
Crit dmg : 225% + 11%(banner) = 236%
Base damage : 1000 × 3374 × 1/2600 = 1297
Average damage : (1 297 × 0.97 × 2.36) + (1 297 × 0.03) = 3 008

(3256 – 3008) / 3008 = 8.24% increase in term of dps in a group.

Thaddeauz [xQCx]- QC GUILD

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Using a similar build but with Ascended Trinkets:

Power: 2310 (82 more than Exotic, only 18 lower than full Ascended)
Armor: 2380 (10 more than Exotic, 84 lower than full Ascended)
Precision: 2315 (77%) (31 more than Exotic, 34 lower than full Ascended)
Ferocity: 1128 (225%) (30 higher than Exotic, 17 lower than full Ascended)

Now for the math:
1000 * 2310 * 1 / 2600 = 888 (+31 or 4.5% higher than Exotic, -52 or 4.5% lower than Ascended)

77% of 225 is 173%

888 * 1.73 = 1536 (+88 over Exotic and -147 over full Ascended)

So 5.8% more than Exotic and 8.8% less than full Ascended

Now it’s up to anyone to decide if that ~9% is worth the effort or not

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

That’s of course if you play alone and don’t take into account buff. When you talk about group content with might, fury, banners, spotter, etc then this number get even smaller. Lets see the number with 25 stack of might, fury and both warrior banners (this isn’t all buff, its just the normal buff that you see often). I also took the liberty to change rune of the ranger to rune of the scholar otherwise both exotic and ascended version would reach 100% crit chance and so the diffence in dps between both would be lower than in reality since a part of the additional precision for ascended would be wasted.

The precision from Ascended is already wasted if you are in an organized group. In a good group 60% critical chance is more than enough, as that 60% can turn to 100%, meaning anything above 60% has the potential to be wasted.

Unless you don’t use the Precision traitline and/or Precision Signet.

(edited by maddoctor.2738)

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical

A couple of you are calculating it incorrectly.

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Posted by: Deamhan.9538

Deamhan.9538

You just made a small mistake. You forgot to calculate total dmg, you only took critical dmg.

(857 × 0.76 × 2.23) + (857 × 0.24 ) = 1658
(940 × 0.79 × 2.26) + (940 × 0.21) = 1876

(1876-1658)/1658 = 13.1% increased dmg

My bad. 13% is still a big difference.

Even with the shared buffs, it’s still 8%. Again, not trivial. Btw, why did you change the base crit chance? You dropped exotic from 76% to 68% and dropped ascended from 79% to 70%.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical

A couple of you are calculating it incorrectly.

Hmm…

“Example: given a critical chance of 25% and critical damage of 180%, average damage output is 20% greater than normal”

Average damage = base * ( 1 + 0.25 * ( 1.8 – 1 ) )

So using that formula but my example’s numbers…

857 * (1 + .76 * (2.23 – 1))
857 * (1 + .76 * 1.23)
1658

Which is what Thaddeus got.

(edited by Deamhan.9538)

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

You just made a small mistake. You forgot to calculate total dmg, you only took critical dmg.

(857 × 0.76 × 2.23) + (857 × 0.24 ) = 1658
(940 × 0.79 × 2.26) + (940 × 0.21) = 1876

(1876-1658)/1658 = 13.1% increased dmg

My bad. 13% is still a big difference.

Even with the shared buffs, it’s still 8%. Again, not trivial. Btw, why did you change the base crit chance? You dropped exotic from 76% to 68% and dropped ascended from 79% to 70%.

He stated why in his post. It’s the first paragraph after the correction.

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Posted by: jbrother.1340

jbrother.1340

People don’t like hearing this but you are wrong.

You are not wrong because you have your own opinion you are wrong because you think it is also everyone’s.

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Posted by: insaneshadow.1654

insaneshadow.1654

I agree that it takes a while to make but I kind of got bitten by the ascended bug. I eventually broke down and made a Wupwup Claymore (celestial) for my mesmer, not for the stats, but for the look. Now I’m kind of contemplating making the green one because green is my favorite color ._.

Gust Root | Letum Folium | Lo Bridge | Snow Spot | Roland East | Nascharr | Bjorn Microbrew
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Lincoln Force [BOMB]

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Posted by: Zero Day.2594

Zero Day.2594

Don’t get me wrong; I understand my stance comes from someone who performs tasks in his daily ritual which contribute heavily to ascended materials gathering.

That said, if someone doesn’t WvW, doesn’t do dugeons for cash, doesn’t do fractals, and doesn’t do SW/open-world PvE… what exactly does this person do? Not to mention hardcore PvP players aren’t even interested in leveling/gearing, anyways. And why/how should they be rewarded? Last I checked, standing around doing nothing in the middle of a big city all day was an activity most homeless people do, and it makes sense that they do not live lives of luxury. Not saying they don’t deserve it as individuals, just that standing around doing nothing all day certainly doesn’t. Otherwise I think it’s safe to say everyone in the world would do nothing all day.

I also joined GW2 on the basis that all game modes were to be equally rewarding. And I think the game should pursue this further as much as it can. There are optimal ways of getting the materials, and yes I do believe it to be a bit of a concern that the materials themselves do not drop or drop well in some aspects of the game, but realistically, there should be some amount of effort needed to attain the best gear possible in the game. Like I also mentioned, it’s a commitment. Is getting a legendary necessary? No. Actually, it’s cost-prohibitive. You can make every stat combination of a given ascended weapon for less than most legendaries. You also don’t make a legendary mace for your guardian if you’re still on the fence of whether or not you might want to be maining your thief, instead. These kinds of decisions are meant to be truly at the end-game, where the player has a real and profound understanding of the game and what they intend to do with themselves. It is absolutely a commitment. And it’s one that each individual needs to weigh. That’s why I get kind of upset by the complaints about time-gating the materials for ascended armor (and even I believe these gates could be a bit faster), or about the price; in many cases, these complaints are made by mostly new-ish people or simply those who do not commit themselves to absolutely pushing the limits. A lot are people who follow the herd, so to speak.

While yeah I agree with pretty much all of what you said…
(When I used to) Playing an hour-2 hours a day (some days skipping) WvW, EoTM – ktraining most of that time (save for the times when there wasn’t any trains going), found it kind of hard to think about making ascended gear (and leveling to 500 from 400), as it really didn’t generate all that much resources. Though yeah that’s not really hardcore by any means – guess stats will be divided between the casual and the hardcore groups. Eh, w/e not really “salty” about it. We will see how the expansion will change things if anything.

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Posted by: Bernie.8674

Bernie.8674

It takes me 5 days to craft one Ascended weapon!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? And that’s assuming I already have all the materials required.

That’s a pretty heavy assumption. I wish that time gating was my primary concern. The grind to max your crafting to 500 is far more onerous, in my experience. Once that’s accomplished, collecting the mats is taking me months, not days. I only have one ascended weapon, and it came from a weapons chest that I lucked into. I opted to level my leatherworking to 500 first because it lefts me craft various pieces of ascended armor. The biggest barrier to crafting those is actually silk. I have two pieces crafted so far. I’m still waiting to collect the silk to craft my third.

What exactly happened to this no-grind philosophy? Why wasn’t Exotic gear good enough as a final tier of gear? It’s not like people were unable to clear any content with Exotics anyway. Ascended serves no logical purpose other than to **** off those people who don’t have the time to play 28 hours a day, 450 days a year.

There’s another thread devoted to the topic of “no-grind philosophy.” Many argue that ascended gear doesn’t count because it’s not “required.” I beg to differ, but the argument is frequently made nonetheless.

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Posted by: Astralporing.1957

Astralporing.1957

Many argue that ascended gear doesn’t count because it’s not “required.” I beg to differ, but the argument is frequently made nonetheless.

Heard the same argument used for gear grind in WoW. Apparently it also wasn’t required, because noone actually is forced to raid.

Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

Many argue that ascended gear doesn’t count because it’s not “required.” I beg to differ, but the argument is frequently made nonetheless.

Heard the same argument used for gear grind in WoW. Apparently it also wasn’t required, because noone actually is forced to raid.

Were WoW players missing out on playable content by not grinding out gear?

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Posted by: Fernling.1729

Fernling.1729

Many argue that ascended gear doesn’t count because it’s not “required.” I beg to differ, but the argument is frequently made nonetheless.

Heard the same argument used for gear grind in WoW. Apparently it also wasn’t required, because noone actually is forced to raid.

Were WoW players missing out on playable content by not grinding out gear?

At one point they were. It hasn’t been an issues in years due to the addition of the LFR tool.
Gear that can be obtained quickly after hitting max level will let you experience all the content the game has to offer. I think it’s been this way for over 5 years now.

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Posted by: Godmoney.2048

Godmoney.2048

Totally agree with the OP. Ascended is not fun, a huge grind and not even worth it on any level.

The reality is that ANET want’s it to be SUPER GRINDY to force players into spending real money on gold to then buy auction house materials.

It worked on me. I dropped 20$ last week just to turn into gold and then into silk off the TP. 20$ btw bought me almost enough silk to make 2/3’s of ascended set.

Want a legendary? It will cost you about 500$ of real money. 200$ for the precursor and the rest for mats. When you see it in real money numbers it really puts it into perspective. It’s a complete waist of time and money unless you have money just sitting around to blow (I realize many do)

Jokes on me I guess.

Really you should just buy gold with money because the grinding is so horribly unproductive in GW2 generally. Did you see the thread about opening 1000+ bags? Basically the only reason to grind is that you’re a broke student who has more time than money. If you can even spend 10$ or 20$ you can save 100’s of hours grinding.

Too bad they have a real money AH. Real money AH almost killed Diablo 3, luckily though Blizzard is a very intelligent company who can change direction on the balls of their feet. I used to hate blizzard now I realize they’re literally the best in the business. One of the few companies that will actually learn and change from mistakes.

Something I’ve heard about large corporations is that it’s becomes hard for lessers to tell the boss anything because they become afraid of not fitting in or saying something the boss doesn’t want to hear. Totally explains the living story and trading post.

Something I’ve heard about people is that when they have big egos, they think everything they disagree with is wrong, and assume by default that other people are only out to exploit them for money. Totally explains this post.

It’s a pretty long way back down here to Earth, but when you get here, do yourself a favor and google the word “patience.” It’s a pretty neat idea, and it might even save you from throwing away money on something you’ll eventually have anyway.

LOL patience? I have over 3500 hours played. I have a Bifrost. I’ve been plenty patient. The reality is that buying gold is way more efficient than farming it and that’s by intention.

I like this idea that ANET is a non-profit that you have. Makes me chuckle. Ever paid a mortgage before? Hint= adults work for money. Children are expensive.

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Posted by: Godmoney.2048

Godmoney.2048

The reality is that ANET want’s it to be SUPER GRINDY to force players into spending real money on gold to then buy auction house materials.

Proof?

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

They think that money grows on trees and that ANET is a non-profit. LOL

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Posted by: Ayrilana.1396

Ayrilana.1396

The reality is that ANET want’s it to be SUPER GRINDY to force players into spending real money on gold to then buy auction house materials.

Proof?

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

They think that money grows on trees and that ANET is a non-profit. LOL

Again. Where’s the proof that they made the game “super grindy” to force players into spending real money on gold to then buy auction house materials? All that I’m seeing is you ignoring all of the gem store items and making some connection about gem→gold conversions. I also see your attempt to strengthen your argument by saying those that disagree with you must be naive teenagers.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

Unsupported and ludicrous statements do not constitute proof.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

Unsupported and ludicrous statements do not constitute proof.

A bit outdated, but still effectively relevant enough.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-much-does-it-cost-to-employ-you.html#.VNWIpoctFhE

He might have lowballed it if ArenaNet offers good healthcare/dental/vision and good incentives.

Not so ludicrous at all, actually. Unsupported, sure, but ludicrous?

Heck, it costs my company upwards of $38k/year (that I’m aware of) to employ me. Ludicrous his hipshot is not.

Just throwin’ that out there.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

he is using hyperbole, but essentially what he is getting at is keeping the game grindy pays their bills.

and that may have a certain kernal of truth with the old monetary system. But if they use an expansion based system that can shift more towards, making the type of content people are willing to pay for as being the main monetary incentive for development.

anyhow its not just to force people into the gem store to avoid the grind, its also to keep people playing/engaged enough to spend in the gem store.

However i would say that it isnt cut and dry

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

I doubt healthcare is driving Anet’s decisions to make the game more or less grindy ><. Just sayin …

I get it’s hyperbole but even the logic that pushing people to spend money by making the game grindy is a fallacy. There are other options to the player if they don’t like the parts of the game that are grindy other than converting gems to gold; most notably, not falling into the trap they need to grind for anything in the first place.

(edited by Obtena.7952)

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Posted by: Marthkus.4615

Marthkus.4615

I’m sitting over here making wupwup armor.
I see no reason to have more than exotics for my zerker set.

You make ascended gear for fun not because you need it.

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Posted by: Jahroots.6791

Jahroots.6791

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

Unsupported and ludicrous statements do not constitute proof.

There was a very well-written and researched blog post by a member here that explained drop rates are poor to preserve the economy, and as we all know, the entire game is built around trading and cash shop purchases. His example is off-topic (and pretty funny), but the bottom line of the post isn’t far fetched at all.

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

Unsupported and ludicrous statements do not constitute proof.

A bit outdated, but still effectively relevant enough.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-much-does-it-cost-to-employ-you.html#.VNWIpoctFhE

He might have lowballed it if ArenaNet offers good healthcare/dental/vision and good incentives.

Not so ludicrous at all, actually. Unsupported, sure, but ludicrous?

Heck, it costs my company upwards of $38k/year (that I’m aware of) to employ me. Ludicrous his hipshot is not.

Just throwin’ that out there.

He said health insurance. Employer costs for health insurance are not 20K per year per employee. A comprehensive benefits package is another thing. I ran a salary of 46.5K through that site and got health benefits costing under $5k.

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Posted by: Durzo.1265

Durzo.1265

1 – If it were easy, it would be meaningless.

2 – You can’t expect games to meet your every possible expectation and make you relentlessly satisfied every time you play it. If you have a huge number of complaints, you may be playing a game you don’t like. If you only have a few, small complaints, you’re probably just being too critical. It’s a free to play game that has been churning out free DLC and bug fixes for the last 2 years. It has responded to a lot of player complaints, and is continues to have a pretty much democratic relationship with the players.

It’s easy to become irritated by stuff like this because we have been trained to demand instant gratification and perfectly optimized products, despite how unreasonable that expectation is. Just slow down and try to notice what’s good about the game. If you spend your time trying to figure out what they could do better, you’ll never enjoy yourself.

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Posted by: Svetli.4276

Svetli.4276

cuz of QQ like you now you get rewards just buy loging in and that is ridiculous
invest some god deam effort and stop with the QQ

“What you wish for may not be what she wishes for.” – Skull Knight

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Posted by: rapthorne.7345

rapthorne.7345

And then you compare this with the massive gold sinks that are other games end game gear grind and realise that you only need to invest time and a little gold, rather than max out your credit card and rely purely on a 0.0000001% drop rate on top of fortification, enchanting, etc etc etc.

add to that that there will not ever be a gear treadmill to invalidate all your hard work in 6 months time with a level capraise, and I think we have it pretty good

Resident smug Englishman on the NA servers, just because.

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Posted by: naiasonod.9265

naiasonod.9265

Proof? How about that each Anet employ costs 20 grand a year just for health insurance. LOL teenagers are funny.

Unsupported and ludicrous statements do not constitute proof.

A bit outdated, but still effectively relevant enough.

http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-much-does-it-cost-to-employ-you.html#.VNWIpoctFhE

He might have lowballed it if ArenaNet offers good healthcare/dental/vision and good incentives.

Not so ludicrous at all, actually. Unsupported, sure, but ludicrous?

Heck, it costs my company upwards of $38k/year (that I’m aware of) to employ me. Ludicrous his hipshot is not.

Just throwin’ that out there.

He said health insurance. Employer costs for health insurance are not 20K per year per employee. A comprehensive benefits package is another thing. I ran a salary of 46.5K through that site and got health benefits costing under $5k.

A fair observation. I wasn’t trying to support is point so much as point out on the aside that it can indeed be costly for employers to employ us, well beyond just wages/salary.

One is only the smartest person in the room if they are alone.

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Posted by: DavidH.7380

DavidH.7380

I doubt healthcare is driving Anet’s decisions to make the game more or less grindy ><. Just sayin …

I get it’s hyperbole but even the logic that pushing people to spend money by making the game grindy is a fallacy. There are other options to the player if they don’t like the parts of the game that are grindy other than converting gems to gold; most notably, not falling into the trap they need to grind for anything in the first place.

Yes, but you can be absolutely certain that every single decision ultimately leads back to the fundamental root purpose of making profits.

It does them no good to sell additional content if they spend all that money on the content development. It does little good to cash shop everything or sell really crappy expansions if the players mostly quit and leave out of disgust. Business is a giant balancing game between how much money you spend on providing your product/service, how much money you take in from your customers, and how your customers feel about continuing to give you money vs finding other alternatives.

So, when you say, “even the logic that pushing people to spend money by making the game grindy is a fallacy,” I would tend to agree. Overtly pushing makes the customers feel bad about the transaction. But I’m certain they are completely aware of the relative attractiveness of buying gems/gold created by the real $$ to hours of grind ratio they created.

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

I doubt healthcare is driving Anet’s decisions to make the game more or less grindy ><. Just sayin …

I get it’s hyperbole but even the logic that pushing people to spend money by making the game grindy is a fallacy. There are other options to the player if they don’t like the parts of the game that are grindy other than converting gems to gold; most notably, not falling into the trap they need to grind for anything in the first place.

Yes, but you can be absolutely certain that every single decision ultimately leads back to the fundamental root purpose of making profits.

It does them no good to sell additional content if they spend all that money on the content development. It does little good to cash shop everything or sell really crappy expansions if the players mostly quit and leave out of disgust. Business is a giant balancing game between how much money you spend on providing your product/service, how much money you take in from your customers, and how your customers feel about continuing to give you money vs finding other alternatives.

So, when you say, “even the logic that pushing people to spend money by making the game grindy is a fallacy,” I would tend to agree. Overtly pushing makes the customers feel bad about the transaction. But I’m certain they are completely aware of the relative attractiveness of buying gems/gold created by the real $$ to hours of grind ratio they created.

Oh of course. I just don’t think the strategy being used to entice people to spend money on the game is to force people to get stuff and likewise, that’s not what is happening ingame. Anet knows that and it’s just sensible to understand very few people are willing to spend money on something they resent or dislike.

(edited by Obtena.7952)

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Posted by: notebene.3190

notebene.3190

Is hard to come by gear in Ottawa? :\

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Posted by: namtla.3714

namtla.3714

Lol, in competitive pvp armor stats dont count, they changed that a while ago so its an even playing field. Idk what there is to complain about, who cares about 5% stat increase in pve? Thats such a small difference that it seems really trivial to be upset about it. Pve isnt competative, unless you’re worried about your speed clears being .05x faster, in which case just accept theres gonna be a small grind. And I hope not having 5% more stats in WvWvW doesnt actually bother you, that mode is a big zergfest where 5% stat increase is almost completely irrelevant.

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Posted by: Milennin.4825

Milennin.4825

Legendaries have the same stats as ascended, so you’re saying ascende is “regular” gear?

Yes, it is. It is just way too grindy to obtain.

…Now one month into game release, people had their exotic armor and began to complain about having nothing to work towards….

…PS LOL at 5 Days being far too long for you to have to put up with in order to get the absolute best weapons in the game. Big L O freaking L….

Sorry I’m not here to work. Working is what I do to earn money in the real world, playing games for fun is something I do in my free time. I’d like to consider Guild Wars 2 as spending my free time, not as a second job. Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

Just who the hell do you think I am!?

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Posted by: AIex.4105

AIex.4105

ascended gear is meh not even worth the effort, so much time gold and materials for so small stat increase. Im happy with my exotic gear. Ascended rings,back and accesory are easy to get so meh.

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Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

Let me fix your problem then … you don’t have to.

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Posted by: Ropechef.6192

Ropechef.6192

because of downscaling, you will only reap the benifits of ascended in a handfull of places currently. Being Fractals, Arah, Cursed shore, World vs World, Southsun, Drytop and silverwastes. Basically all of the level 80 zones.

So outside of personal gratification it is pointless to have for a large portion of the Game and player base.

something to think about though….

Heart of thorns.
is all Level 80.

ohh and you do not need Ascended for HIgh level fractals. I run 50’s in Exotic armor.

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Posted by: Harny.6012

Harny.6012

I know this is old (inb4 old news is old), but I recently came back to Guild Wars 2 after a long break and discovered how much of a grind Ascended gear is, and feel like writing a rant (deal with it).

It takes me 5 days to craft one Ascended weapon!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? And that’s assuming I already have all the materials required. Oh, but it only costs 500 of this and that and that. Yeah, that’s only 3 weeks of grinding dungeons, bosses, events and what else you got. For one weapon. Are you kidding me!?
So, if I have one character that uses like 6 weapons, it takes me at minimum a full month to craft all his stuff. But that’s without taking in account the time it takes to grind the Gold and the 1000s of Dragonite Ores and Empyreal Fragments required to craft them. And that’s only for one character that only uses 6 weapons. Then what about my other 4 guys, that use 6+ weapons each? I’m not even going to do the math for that.
And what if I’d like to change my character’s build at one point… what if I get bored of a certain playstyle and want to try something else without sacrificing my stats? Tough ****ing luck because you’ll have to grind another 3 months just to get your single character fully equipped again (that’s even ignoring the ridiculous amount of Transmutation Stones required if I’d want to keep my old look).

And before anyone says you don’t need Ascended gear: YOU ARE WRONG. Of course you need Ascended gear, why else is it there? Why else have they have given it better stats than Exotic gear? By that logic we would not need any gear at all since people can solo dungeons not wearing any armour whatsoever. Like, durr, why do we need any armour in GW2 at all when we can clear content in our underwear?
Whichever gear gives the best stats is what we NEED.

“But you get all the stuff you need while playing the game, no grind required.” Again: WRONG. What if I like playing dungeons? That doesn’t give me any Dragonite Ore (seriously, who came up with that name, anyway?) What if I don’t like world bosses? They’re just one giant lag fest making me feel like I’m watching a Powerpoint slideshow and don’t offer any satisfying gameplay since it’s just “stand in 1 place with the 100 other peoples and auto-attack away”.
So, I need to do 20 hours of world bosses for a single Ascended weapon. And you call that no grind. LOL!?!?

What exactly happened to this no-grind philosophy? Why wasn’t Exotic gear good enough as a final tier of gear? It’s not like people were unable to clear any content with Exotics anyway. Ascended serves no logical purpose other than to **** off those people who don’t have the time to play 28 hours a day, 450 days a year.

BADUM TS

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Posted by: DavidH.7380

DavidH.7380

Legendaries have the same stats as ascended, so you’re saying ascende is “regular” gear?

Yes, it is. It is just way too grindy to obtain.

…Now one month into game release, people had their exotic armor and began to complain about having nothing to work towards….

…PS LOL at 5 Days being far too long for you to have to put up with in order to get the absolute best weapons in the game. Big L O freaking L….

Sorry I’m not here to work. Working is what I do to earn money in the real world, playing games for fun is something I do in my free time. I’d like to consider Guild Wars 2 as spending my free time, not as a second job. Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

But “working towards X” is the game (where X is whatever appeals to you). Getting to max level, map completion, seeing all the story/lore buried in the game, getting BiS gear, becoming proficient at PvP, getting a higher PvP rank, getting crafting to 500, getting all classes to 80, getting all crafting to 500, collecting all minis, getting a full set of rare skins, whatever.

It would be no fun at all if we bought the game, created our first character, and found it was created already at level 80, fully geared with BiS, with all cosmetics and minis already collected and ready to go. The point is the journey, not just the destination. And getting a BiS weapon in under 5 days isn’t much of a journey.

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Posted by: Harny.6012

Harny.6012

Legendaries have the same stats as ascended, so you’re saying ascende is “regular” gear?

Yes, it is. It is just way too grindy to obtain.

…Now one month into game release, people had their exotic armor and began to complain about having nothing to work towards….

…PS LOL at 5 Days being far too long for you to have to put up with in order to get the absolute best weapons in the game. Big L O freaking L….

Sorry I’m not here to work. Working is what I do to earn money in the real world, playing games for fun is something I do in my free time. I’d like to consider Guild Wars 2 as spending my free time, not as a second job. Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

But “working towards X” is the game (where X is whatever appeals to you). Getting to max level, map completion, seeing all the story/lore buried in the game, getting BiS gear, becoming proficient at PvP, getting a higher PvP rank, getting crafting to 500, getting all classes to 80, getting all crafting to 500, collecting all minis, getting a full set of rare skins, whatever.

It would be no fun at all if we bought the game, created our first character, and found it was created already at level 80, fully geared with BiS, with all cosmetics and minis already collected and ready to go. The point is the journey, not just the destination. And getting a BiS weapon in under 5 days isn’t much of a journey.

I didn’t read the whole topic, but if you are the first one to write such thing, it’s because it’s too obvious to everybody except OP.
I would suggest console games to OP but I’m sure he knows best what’s his thing.

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Posted by: dietzero.3514

dietzero.3514

In short: make the weapons, buy the jewelry, then stop.

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Posted by: Fennek.7602

Fennek.7602

1 – If it were easy, it would be meaningless.

2 – You can’t expect games to meet your every possible expectation and make you relentlessly satisfied every time you play it. If you have a huge number of complaints, you may be playing a game you don’t like. If you only have a few, small complaints, you’re probably just being too critical. It’s a free to play game that has been churning out free DLC and bug fixes for the last 2 years. It has responded to a lot of player complaints, and is continues to have a pretty much democratic relationship with the players.

It’s easy to become irritated by stuff like this because we have been trained to demand instant gratification and perfectly optimized products, despite how unreasonable that expectation is. Just slow down and try to notice what’s good about the game. If you spend your time trying to figure out what they could do better, you’ll never enjoy yourself.

1 – In Guild Wars 1 you had full gear and max level within 1 week (with your second character) or shorter. The people still played the game for cosmetic gear. PvE was populated for years and the challenge was never better gear stats.

2 – I certainly expected that Guild Wars 2 would be in some ways similar to Guild Wars 1. It is far superior in combat, movement, graphics, etc… But when I want to play WvW for example I have to grind this gear because as others pointed out in this thread it makes a difference (they calculated 8%). That was not the case in Guild Wars 1. When I played against other people, I was always able to be as strong as them, without a week-long grind for my gear.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

Legendaries have the same stats as ascended, so you’re saying ascende is “regular” gear?

Yes, it is. It is just way too grindy to obtain.

…Now one month into game release, people had their exotic armor and began to complain about having nothing to work towards….

…PS LOL at 5 Days being far too long for you to have to put up with in order to get the absolute best weapons in the game. Big L O freaking L….

Sorry I’m not here to work. Working is what I do to earn money in the real world, playing games for fun is something I do in my free time. I’d like to consider Guild Wars 2 as spending my free time, not as a second job. Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

But “working towards X” is the game (where X is whatever appeals to you). Getting to max level, map completion, seeing all the story/lore buried in the game, getting BiS gear, becoming proficient at PvP, getting a higher PvP rank, getting crafting to 500, getting all classes to 80, getting all crafting to 500, collecting all minis, getting a full set of rare skins, whatever.

It would be no fun at all if we bought the game, created our first character, and found it was created already at level 80, fully geared with BiS, with all cosmetics and minis already collected and ready to go. The point is the journey, not just the destination. And getting a BiS weapon in under 5 days isn’t much of a journey.

For some the journey really kicks in after we have BiS. The “X” you refer to, for me, is developing my own mastery of my character at his best while adventuring through the game world.

Without the BiS that I had within weeks of launch the character is not at his best and so the journey cannot truly begin. I do not craft in MMOs and so estimate that it could take decades to finally get back to having BiS gear for just one character.

You have your journey. Others used to have ours. If getting BiS is the journey for you then by all means some lengthy endeavor to attain it seems appropriate, but for others, such as myself, it should be made available as a reward for reaching level 80. You could destroy, not accept, or salvage your level 80 BiS so as to get it as part of a journey while I could take mine at 80 and begin my journey.

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Posted by: DavidH.7380

DavidH.7380

Legendaries have the same stats as ascended, so you’re saying ascende is “regular” gear?

Yes, it is. It is just way too grindy to obtain.

…Now one month into game release, people had their exotic armor and began to complain about having nothing to work towards….

…PS LOL at 5 Days being far too long for you to have to put up with in order to get the absolute best weapons in the game. Big L O freaking L….

Sorry I’m not here to work. Working is what I do to earn money in the real world, playing games for fun is something I do in my free time. I’d like to consider Guild Wars 2 as spending my free time, not as a second job. Having to grind weeks to get materials and money to outfit one of my eight characters with gear is like work. It’s not fun.

But “working towards X” is the game (where X is whatever appeals to you). Getting to max level, map completion, seeing all the story/lore buried in the game, getting BiS gear, becoming proficient at PvP, getting a higher PvP rank, getting crafting to 500, getting all classes to 80, getting all crafting to 500, collecting all minis, getting a full set of rare skins, whatever.

It would be no fun at all if we bought the game, created our first character, and found it was created already at level 80, fully geared with BiS, with all cosmetics and minis already collected and ready to go. The point is the journey, not just the destination. And getting a BiS weapon in under 5 days isn’t much of a journey.

For some the journey really kicks in after we have BiS. The “X” you refer to, for me, is developing my own mastery of my character at his best while adventuring through the game world.

Without the BiS that I had within weeks of launch the character is not at his best and so the journey cannot truly begin. I do not craft in MMOs and so estimate that it could take decades to finally get back to having BiS gear for just one character.

You have your journey. Others used to have ours. If getting BiS is the journey for you then by all means some lengthy endeavor to attain it seems appropriate, but for others, such as myself, it should be made available as a reward for reaching level 80. You could destroy, not accept, or salvage your level 80 BiS so as to get it as part of a journey while I could take mine at 80 and begin my journey.

I understand your point, and that of the folks for whom BiS basically means having “finished” the game. I also understand trying to split the baby with 2ndBiS being very easy to obtain for the one side and BiS taking a long time for a small increase for the other.

However, this isn’t some theoretical addition to the game. We’ve had ascended gear for two years, we have a lot of players who’ve invested a lot of time and effort to obtain it, and A’net has given no indication that they think this is anything other than working as intended. So, what I don’t understand is why some people think their preferences justify negating two years of history and invalidating the work of vast numbers of other players, despite A’net apparently disagreeing, simply because a different A’net game worked like that.

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Posted by: Ashen.2907

Ashen.2907

what I don’t understand is why some people think their preferences justify negating two years of history and invalidating the work of vast numbers of other players, despite A’net apparently disagreeing, simply because a different A’net game worked like that.

What justifies my preference, to me at least, is that marketing the game in that manner is part of how Anet convinced me to buy. BiS by max level was a huge selling point for me. The game at launch may not have quite reached that goal, but getting exotics was very quick.

Now, BiS is not the only factor in whether or not a game can be entertaining for me so I am still here, but I must admit that it is difficult to justify spending money on the game under these circumstances.

Again Anet could leave ascended acquisition as is for those who want a journey to BiS while adding an option to get it upon reaching level 80 as was marketed for those who find that to be more desirable.

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Posted by: Allisa Wonderland.8192

Allisa Wonderland.8192

The idea of the game is to be playing for years… But no, everyone has to have it NOW NOW NOW. Why?

I have 3 ascended armor sets, because I spent my time planning how to get them and enjoying the process. Every minute spent crying on the forums is a minute less earning your reward.

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Posted by: DavidH.7380

DavidH.7380

what I don’t understand is why some people think their preferences justify negating two years of history and invalidating the work of vast numbers of other players, despite A’net apparently disagreeing, simply because a different A’net game worked like that.

What justifies my preference, to me at least, is that marketing the game in that manner is part of how Anet convinced me to buy. BiS by max level was a huge selling point for me. The game at launch may not have quite reached that goal, but getting exotics was very quick.

I honestly do sympathize with that, and it sucks that the game was changed in a way that was detrimental to your play style, but it’s been two years. I’d hate to see that dragging down your enjoyment of the game forever. I know it isn’t what you wanted, but at least A’net recommitted recently to not introducing new gear tiers past ascended and the accessories are pretty easy to get.