Guild Wars 2

So, I hear a lot of people flipping out over the new tier of gear, so I was thinking maybe theres a better way to have ascended present without making the community flip out lol?

Maybe it would be better if the STAT differences between exotics and ascended didnt exist. Personally, it would make more sense it Ascended gear was only for the benefit of fractals as Agony is only seen in fractals (and a main way to get rings is through that dungeon)

This can be accomplished either by bumping up exotics or lowering ascended. I beleive a new tier brings up more problems (new stat tier) as:
All crafting is useless (can’t create maximum gear, atleast not yet).
Legendary items need to get a stat boost to match the stats.
People are force into certain methods to obtain this gear (dailies/guild missions/fractals) at least for now.

Anyway, give me your thoughts :P please dont turn this into a yell fest lol, just an opinion :P

EDIT: Also to make people WANT to play higher fractals, maybe just have some fancy skins drop only at higher levels :P

I would be very happy if they removed the stat differences on Ascended items or if the stat differences only applied to Fractals.

I say this having spent time doing Fractals and Dailies, along with blowing near 10 gold to craft an Ascended backpack. I wouldn’t care that I somewhat wasted my time to get those items if I knew I wouldn’t need to waste my time to get those items for my alts in the future. I would just be happy to have horizontal progression restored to the game.

I would be happy to know my friends who took a break from the game won’t be months behind me in gear. I would be happy to be able to refocus my in-game resources towards gear for multiple builds rather than having to forego that to apply all my currency towards Ascended gear.

As good of an idea as this might have been if implemented originally, you cannot put the Ascended genie back in the bottle without generating an equivalent or worse outcry from the people that have invested playtime and effort in getting it.

True, I’m hoping Anet will see this and maybe take an idea that one of us have :P would do a world of good to keep the gear grind back down where it was :p

I would have no issues if Ascended gear in game got reverted to exotic, i even have some, sadly i’d not need to get anymore (which is good) and for the good of the game would fix a huge rift in the community..

I’m sure a certain minority might get upset tho.

etiolate.9185:

I would be very happy if they removed the stat differences on Ascended items or if the stat differences only applied to Fractals.

I say this having spent time doing Fractals and Dailies, along with blowing near 10 gold to craft an Ascended backpack. I wouldn’t care that I somewhat wasted my time to get those items if I knew I wouldn’t need to waste my time to get those items for my alts in the future. I would just be happy to have horizontal progression restored to the game.

I would be happy to know my friends who took a break from the game won’t be months behind me in gear. I would be happy to be able to refocus my in-game resources towards gear for multiple builds rather than having to forego that to apply all my currency towards Ascended gear.

Unless you plan to run fractals on alts, you really don’t need ascended items. The difference is so small you wouldn’t notice if the stats were exotic and it displayed ascended stats.

People don’t seem to realize, you only need ascended gear for running fractals and if you’re running them enough to reach 20 and 30 then you’re probably doing it on one character and not many.

True, but with new ascended items (is rumored to have an entire ascended suit) then the whole thing will be much better then exotic (kinf of like rare>exo)

Or remove the stat differences between exotics and rares (sarcasm). Other than fractals, no new content has come out. You’re still as capable as you always were of enjoying the game content in exotics.

The difference in have exotic accessories compared to ascended is not that much. You just have these people that want the absolute best in slot item and are so impatient to actually work for it.

XanBie.3675:

True, but with new ascended items (is rumored to have an entire ascended suit) then the whole thing will be much better then exotic (kinf of like rare>exo)

By the time the other items come out, most players will already have the ascended items. I doubt ascended armor won’t come out until late summer.

XanBie.3675:

True, but with new ascended items (is rumored to have an entire ascended suit) then the whole thing will be much better then exotic (kinf of like rare>exo)

Not really, it’s pretty much a case of, “The grass is greener on the other side.” Unlike exotics, some of us actually put some effort into getting ascended gear … for fractals. Did you spend gold on 250 ecto just to infuse your back piece? Did you run enough fractals to rack up 1850 relics? etc, etc. If you want ascended gear, earn it. If you want it for multiple characters then you have to deal with it. It isn’t like anyone else is really capable of completely gearing multiple characters with necks and earrings right now.

Progression takes time and patience. You aren’t at a disadvantage in exotics and if you’re serious about gearing up, you’ll put the time and effort into getting ascended gear and it’ll be really easy since you can get it all (so far) with laurels. It’s just a little frustrating when people want to get ascended items for every character because they don’t realize what the intent really is behind them. If you want to reduce the stats of future ascended items, go for it but don’t devalue items players already possess just because others don’t want to put the time, effort or patience in.

Ayrilana.1396:

Or remove the stat differences between exotics and rares (sarcasm). Other than fractals, no new content has come out. You’re still as capable as you always were of enjoying the game content in exotics.

The difference in have exotic accessories compared to ascended is not that much. You just have these people that want the absolute best in slot item and are so impatient to actually work for it.

XanBie.3675:

True, but with new ascended items (is rumored to have an entire ascended suit) then the whole thing will be much better then exotic (kinf of like rare>exo)

By the time the other items come out, most players will already have the ascended items. I doubt ascended armor won’t come out until late summer.

True, but that’s assuming not many alts, its rough getting it for everyone. And although this is the first real gear grind, its more to follow the original GW2 motto of no gear race :P

Nobody really believes the stat differences on Ascended items don’t matter. It’s just a lazy rebuttal. From our own play experience, we know the difference between Rare and Exotic matters. We don’t all stop at getting Masterwork items. Many players skip going the rare tier at 80 just to exotic and the further stat increases. Obviously these stat differences matter to people and they will matter more once the entire line of Ascended gear is out there.

It also really hurts horizontal players like myself. The time invest to get multiple sets of Ascended items with different stat distributions for different builds is simply too much for people interested in horizontal progression. The amount of time needed to get one set tip-toes the subject of grind by itself, but multiple sets is no doubt a grind and something we don’t want.

I ask this of people defending Ascended gear: Would it hurt you if their stats were normalized outside of Fractals? Would it hurt you if they became much, much easier to attain? Would it not improve your experience if these changes were made? What do you get by resisting a change for the better?

You forget that achievement points will eventually give us laurels. I’m pretty sure a lot of us will be able to find several pieces of ascended gear right off the bat.

This kind of thread again. I thought it was a thing of a past alrdy. Basically people who aren’t happy with ascended are those who are lazy to go get them and they want everyone to be on par with them. They want to sit at the crafting station or TP so they could buy the best of everything with gold.

It’s laughable how easy rings are obtainable via fotm, I have a bunch of them in my bank. I already have two amulets, thanks to yet again a laughable easy monthly for march and dailies is just a couple of minutes for me to complete. Accessories might take weeks but so what? At least I’m kept occupied with some guild mission to look forward to.

I think there already will be a difference. While ascended trinkets are clearly stronger, I seriously doubt ascended weapons and armor will be. The reason is, if the trend continues, ascended armor and weapons won’t be able to take runes or sigils and they will lose out on a lot of versatility provided by such. I can’t speak for others but I’m not sure if a marginal stat increase is worth losing that capability.

Now if the devs really wanted to screw with people heads, they could add set functionality to seals. I also believe that ascended gear should be craftable, at least in part by players. If nothing else, being able to upgrade exotic items to ascended would go a long way to promoting versatility in obtaining it.

etiolate.9185:

Nobody really believes the stat differences on Ascended items don’t matter. It’s just a lazy rebuttal. From our own play experience, we know the difference between Rare and Exotic matters. We don’t all stop at getting Masterwork items. Many players skip going the rare tier at 80 just to exotic and the further stat increases. Obviously these stat differences matter to people and they will matter more once the entire line of Ascended gear is out there.

It also really hurts horizontal players like myself. The time invest to get multiple sets of Ascended items with different stat distributions for different builds is simply too much for people interested in horizontal progression. The amount of time needed to get one set tip-toes the subject of grind by itself, but multiple sets is no doubt a grind and something we don’t want.

I ask this of people defending Ascended gear: Would it hurt you if their stats were normalized outside of Fractals? Would it hurt you if they became much, much easier to attain? Would it not improve your experience if these changes were made? What do you get by resisting a change for the better?

If you look around the forums, you’ll see the math for 2 rings and back comes out to like 2-3% difference. So with that in mind, if you’re running an entire set of ascended, at the high end, you’ll be roughly 12%. That seems like a big number until you start to realize how much time and effort went into getting that ENTIRE set of gear. And we aren’t even close to that point. The max possible at this point in time is probably around 5% at most.

It’s a placebo.

Again I ask, are we running around in Masterwork items? Are we stopping at Rare items? We aren’t. Why? Because it matters. We know we are playing our character at non-optimum levels. We know the true usefulness and strength of builds and skills are best determined at max-stat levels.

Be honest please.

Rare Ring:
42
42
59

Exotic Ring:
48
48
67

Ascended Ring:
50
50
71

I rest my case.

Ascended should just have been exotic with the extra slot, with all sorts of interesting infusions.

@etiolate There is yet to be any content outside of fractals you need ascended to do. It really doesn’t matter for the vast majority of the game. Nobody is going to turn down an ascended piece if it comes their way, but I know I wouldn’t care if the stats on mine went away.

The actual effort required to get them is not very high, you just play normally, and you get them.

If ascended items are 5% better than an exotic (71/67 = ~1.05, doesn’t that mean a full set of ascended will still be 5% (or less, because of base stats) better than exotics? Why would you take that 5% and multiply it by the number of ascended pieces?

What I’d like them to do is to make it so ascended items are equal in stats to exotics, but have additional benefits such as agony resistance, or +20% gold from monsters. This way there are still incentives to get ascended stuff but it doesn’t have too much of an impact.

In addition the comment that rings are easy to obtain via fotm is a bit biased – maybe we should change it so ascended items are easily available through WvW (for example) but you need to spend 1 month doing fotm daily for just 1 ascended item? Definitely a bad idea for those people who only do PvE, yes?

Until they make it so ascended items are easier to get for multiple characters, from something that is not ‘just run fotm’, this problem will always exist.

Yeah, its more the time it takes to get ascended is what we casuals hate, but I’m sure the hardcore gamers love =/

Ascended gear should have been identical to exotics stat wise with the exception of agony.

Agony should have been the stat to earn from fractals. You only need agony to do fractals so it’s the logical place to earn it. They should have built fractals around agony, not ascended gear.

Otherwise, as far as stats are concerned, they should be identical to exotics, not better. 1%, 2%, 15% – it doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have better stats.

Since ascended does though, it’s good to see them becoming available with laurels and as long as 100% of all ascended gear becomes available with laurels or similar means, then there shouldn’t be a problem.

But in the future, Anet should release their “high end tail chasing” content with dungeon specific stat(s), like agony, that doesn’t effect any other PvE play besides those dungeons and have the rest of the stats identical to exotics, or I guess ascended gear now. This will prevent a lot of problems before they even happen.

emikochan.8504:

Ascended should just have been exotic with the extra slot, with all sorts of interesting infusions.

@etiolate There is yet to be any content outside of fractals you need ascended to do. It really doesn’t matter for the vast majority of the game. Nobody is going to turn down an ascended piece if it comes their way, but I know I wouldn’t care if the stats on mine went away.

The actual effort required to get them is not very high, you just play normally, and you get them.

The effort or time to get them is pretty high. It’s all time effort. It’s not a “get better at game” effort. It’s a more a test of patience than skill. Normally, I only see that junk in sub-mmos.

I don’t think people realize how many other players don’t even have exotics. It’s not for lack of interest in them, but the gold/time required to get fully kitted out in exotics. For daily players, having the karma to get Orr exotics is easy. For weekly players, its not so much.

Stoppable.5814:

Rare Ring:
42
42
59

Exotic Ring:
48
48
67

Ascended Ring:
50
50
71

I rest my case.

Your “case” is incomplete.

Rare Ring (190 stat points)
59 + 21 = 80
42 + 13 = 55
42 + 13 = 55

Exotic Ring (218 stat points)
67 + 25 = 92
48 + 15 = 63
48 + 15 = 63

Ascended Ring (239 stat points)
71 + 32 = 103
50 + 18 = 68
50 + 18 = 68

Dont forget crit damage is increased by 33% over exotic.
Exotic: 6%
Ascended 8%

I’m a long-time defender of the gear treadmill, and I support this idea. I would still grind for Ascended if the effects were Fractals-only, as long as Fractals remained the end-game dungeon option that it is.

It’s a sad state, but one cannot ignore the difference. If I update my exotic amulet, for example, to ascended with the low infusion, that’s a 15-point increase on ONE item. If it was on the Trading Post, I’d snatch it up quick.

If I went with just the ‘accessories’ so far, that be a 75-point increase on the stat of my choosing.

Again, I don’t know about you, but that’s something I can’t ignore. So, yeah, I’ll be grinding the dailies and monthlies. I intended to anyway, for the mini-pets, but now that’ll have to wait.

If you want the best gear, it’s pretty much required you go for ascended now.

I kind of understand this is ANet’s plan to keep people in the game for at least a couple hours a day, carrot on the stick and all, but I just wish they didn’t go this route.

And no, it’s not ‘required’ but everyone knows that loot is what most chase after in an MMO.

That’s just how it is.

Ayrilana.1396:

By the time the other items come out, most players will already have the ascended items.

Highly doubt it. Lot of people will have one or two ascended eq, but not eveyone, and only a few will have all currently existing ascended slots filled. Remember, you can rule out earring acquisition through guild mission for most, and getting them the laurel way is 2 months minimum. For a lot of people it will be much more.