Guild Wars 2

So, if it happens, legendary weapons will become ascended but will there also be other weapons that will be ascended as well? I mostly ask this cause I like quite a few of the skins out there and would like to be able to at the least transmute them to be ascended (no, I would never transmute the stats of a legendary weapon to the skin I would prefer, that would just be a huge waste of gold).

Do you think there will, or should be, other ascended weapons if legendary ones become as such?

Well, that’s really only the reason Legendary weapons would be bumped up, to match ascended ones.

So yeah, there should be other weapons with equivalent stats you can mute better skins to.

On the other hand, consider this. When they inevitably raise the level cap, and add new gear to match, I doubt they’ll throw legendary owners under the bus, so legendary weapons will likely also get a level bump as well. Meaning a legendary weapon will likely forever protect you from having to grind out a new weapon.
And if for some insane reason they don’t do that, there’s always Fine transmutations stones. Surely they wouldn’t short change the makers of legendary weapons like that just to try to get them to buy a few fine stones though would they?

…they wouldn’t?

its been confermed that Legandarys will ALWAYS be top tear.

every other skin/stat will probably need a Fine tran stone

Legendaries are confirmed to be boosted to be on par with ascended weapons, as per Lindsey Murdock.

When that happens, we don’t know.

Vol.5241:

Legendaries are confirmed to be boosted to be on par with ascended weapons, as per Lindsey Murdock.

They are not, however, confirmed to stay on par with any new level cap.
And i wouldn’t count on Anet not using that loophole some day.

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Astralporing.1957:

Vol.5241:

Legendaries are confirmed to be boosted to be on par with ascended weapons, as per Lindsey Murdock.

They are not, however, confirmed to stay on par with any new level cap.
And i wouldn’t count on Anet not using that loophole some day.

I’m pretty sure they made it clear that Legendary-tier is always going to be on top, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they do upgrade Legendary is and when they raise the stat-cap.

IMO the difference in stats isn’t that great even if they don’t add ascended weapons other the legendaries.

But they did say they will only increase legendary stats above exotic grade once there are other ways to get those stats without making a legendary.

Nevermind. Previous poster answered before I finished asking.

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

This is a bad question, because it’s only assuming two ways. I see the potential for ways that are neither the WoW way or the Guild Wars 1 way.

The problem with the WoW way is that content is gated behind gear that you have to run specific content to get. I don’t believe Anet wants to do this. The exception to this would be fractals, which were designed just for those people, but even there, you can enjoy lower level fractals and see everything without any of that gear. Higher level fractals are the same thing as the lower levels ones, but the bosses have more health and use the agony condition, which is punishing. But essentially the design of the different fractals is the same. Only the difficulty goes up.

I think Anet wants to create a more gentle gear curve than WoW has as a compromise. Those who just want to play the game and not worry about gear can without jumping through hoops to see content. Those who want to see their stats increase, albeit not very much, will keep chasing the carrot on the stick.

As the game progresses and more and more content comes out, ascended stuff will become much easier to get. The whole idea of it was to give people stuff to do…because that’s what an MMO is all about.

The compromise is to try to make it so those who don’t want that particular stuff to do aren’t greatly inconvenienced by the gear.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

its been confermed that Legandarys will ALWAYS be top tear.

every other skin/stat will probably need a Fine tran stone

If this happens, I may be finished with the game. I dislike the whole fine transmutation stone system. I hope they consider this issue before Ascended weapons and armor.

Ugh, the system makes me want them to not create any new armor (skins and stats).

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Ascended gear was a mistake. I hope they don’t continue down the path of traditional MMOs and release more gear tiers. I would quit.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Ascended gear was a mistake. I hope they don’t continue down the path of traditional MMOs and release more gear tiers. I would quit.

They haven’t said they’d never release a new tier of gear, but they did say they wouldn’t release one this year.

I suspect when a paid expansion finally comes out, we’ll see some sort of tier upgrade. I don’t suspect it will be hard to get though, or that you’ll have to run specific dungeons to get them, which is one of the problem in other games.

Vayne.8563:

They haven’t said they’d never release a new tier of gear, but they did say they wouldn’t release one this year.

I suspect when a paid expansion finally comes out, we’ll see some sort of tier upgrade. I don’t suspect it will be hard to get though, or that you’ll have to run specific dungeons to get them, which is one of the problem in other games.

Well, any upgrade would be too much for me. I already find it difficult to stomach ascended gear. I did some hardcore raiding in WoW during Burning Crusade. I was in one of the top guilds on my server in terms of content progression. That wasn’t really fun. I came to this game with the hope that I could play it casually without ever feeling the need to regear after reaching max level and BIS. I don’t have the time or energy for gear progression.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

Ascended gear was a mistake. I hope they don’t continue down the path of traditional MMOs and release more gear tiers. I would quit.

Same here and i believe a lot of others would too, in Nov 15th 2012 Ascended was added and vast group disappeared, If they follow this path again i’d expect the same thing happening or even more disappear..I know i wouldn’t deal with it a second time personally..

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

Vayne.8563:

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

This is a bad question, because it’s only assuming two ways. I see the potential for ways that are neither the WoW way or the Guild Wars 1 way.

The problem with the WoW way is that content is gated behind gear that you have to run specific content to get. I don’t believe Anet wants to do this. The exception to this would be fractals, which were designed just for those people, but even there, you can enjoy lower level fractals and see everything without any of that gear. Higher level fractals are the same thing as the lower levels ones, but the bosses have more health and use the agony condition, which is punishing. But essentially the design of the different fractals is the same. Only the difficulty goes up.

I think Anet wants to create a more gentle gear curve than WoW has as a compromise. Those who just want to play the game and not worry about gear can without jumping through hoops to see content. Those who want to see their stats increase, albeit not very much, will keep chasing the carrot on the stick.

As the game progresses and more and more content comes out, ascended stuff will become much easier to get. The whole idea of it was to give people stuff to do…because that’s what an MMO is all about.

The compromise is to try to make it so those who don’t want that particular stuff to do aren’t greatly inconvenienced by the gear.

It’s not just about experiencing new content though. The biggest reason I play is to do things with friends. Sometimes, I only have a couple hours to play, and I see my friends forming for a fotm 30+ run, I feel left out. I took a break from the game and now I’m ‘behind’ for some portions of the game that my friends happen to enjoy playing.

This is something I never imagined I’d have to deal with, back before launch when the game had all these promises about no grind and stuff.

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

You’re not alone. I never said you were. That said, the percentage of the playerbase that will leave at this point because of a new tier of gear, I"m relatively sure is relatively small, even if some do. Again I just don’t think it will make a dent. Here’s my thinking.

A good portion of the playerbase who signed up originally have run out of content and moved on to other things. The new people who have signed up will probably make up more of the future than most of the people who were here originally.

I mean in November, the population dropped drastically. From what I can tell, we’re about up to the same number as before, maybe even more.

But these new people didn’t follow the game for years. They don’t have the same aversion to vertical progression that the original people had.

So of the original people left playing, most people say it’s way less than half the population, you have people who stayed. There’s no one in my guild who has a problem with vertical progression as long as content isn’t gated. A good portion of us started when the game started, but a lot of people are new too.

I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to assume most new people don’t care at all about vertical progression one way or another, or even that many expect it to some degree.

In the end, when that cap is raised, I think those who think there’ll be a mass exodus because of it are going to be very surprised.

gfox.6501:

Vayne.8563:

Pelagato.6092:

Ascended gear feels like WoW releasing more gear with each expansion and making the old one obsolete…

Where is the GW1 feeling…? Is this game going to take the WoW way and not the GW way

This is a bad question, because it’s only assuming two ways. I see the potential for ways that are neither the WoW way or the Guild Wars 1 way.

The problem with the WoW way is that content is gated behind gear that you have to run specific content to get. I don’t believe Anet wants to do this. The exception to this would be fractals, which were designed just for those people, but even there, you can enjoy lower level fractals and see everything without any of that gear. Higher level fractals are the same thing as the lower levels ones, but the bosses have more health and use the agony condition, which is punishing. But essentially the design of the different fractals is the same. Only the difficulty goes up.

I think Anet wants to create a more gentle gear curve than WoW has as a compromise. Those who just want to play the game and not worry about gear can without jumping through hoops to see content. Those who want to see their stats increase, albeit not very much, will keep chasing the carrot on the stick.

As the game progresses and more and more content comes out, ascended stuff will become much easier to get. The whole idea of it was to give people stuff to do…because that’s what an MMO is all about.

The compromise is to try to make it so those who don’t want that particular stuff to do aren’t greatly inconvenienced by the gear.

It’s not just about experiencing new content though. The biggest reason I play is to do things with friends. Sometimes, I only have a couple hours to play, and I see my friends forming for a fotm 30+ run, I feel left out. I took a break from the game and now I’m ‘behind’ for some portions of the game that my friends happen to enjoy playing.

This is something I never imagined I’d have to deal with, back before launch when the game had all these promises about no grind and stuff.

There is precisely one single area of the game you can’t do at this moment, because it just so happens that one single area of the game was created specifically as a compromise with those who wanted gear progression.

Anything else and I do mean anything else in the game your guild does, you can do with them. WvW, no problem. SPvP, no problem. Any other dungeon, no problem.

In addition, it would take you a very very short amount of time to get where they’re going, if you really wanted to get there.

Anet made a compromise for people who wanted this kind of play, without affecting the rest of the game…and it WAS a compromise.

A good compromise will inevitably involve sacrifices from both sides. You have one single dungeon you can’t enter at every level and those who want progression want a whole lot more progression than they ended up getting.

But in my opinion, this compromise helped the game more than it hurt it. Because a lot of people were walking when they didn’t have “stuff to do”.

@Vayne
People who complained there’s no “stuff to do” will keep complaining there’s no “stuff to do”.

Meanwhile, folks like me who were drawn to this game in the beginning, with the promise of aesthetic/achievement “progression” and never had a problem with it now have to live with these compromises, which Anet seem to plan on building on in the future.

You talk about catering to ‘both sides’ now, when there was actually a time when it was just one anti-farm, anti-grind side, and the side that wanted to grind was told to go check out the dozen other MMORPG out there that does a better job to cater to their needs. I wonder how Anet plans to succeed by catering ‘half-baked’ to both sides.

EDIT: just to add, you also seem to quickly dismiss the validity of my concern based on how ‘little’ the portion of game I’m missing. Like I said, it has nothing to do with ‘content’ I’m missing, but the time I could be spending with friends for the short time I can log in to play that is prevented due to these ‘compromises’.

gfox.6501:

@Vayne
People who complained there’s no “stuff to do” will keep complaining there’s no “stuff to do”.

Meanwhile, folks like me who were drawn to this game in the beginning, with the promise of aesthetic/achievement “progression” and never had a problem with it now have to live with these compromises, which Anet seem to plan on building on in the future.

You talk about catering to ‘both sides’ now, when there was actually a time when it was just one anti-farm, anti-grind side, and the side that wanted to grind was told to go check out the dozen other MMORPG out there that does a better job to cater to their needs. I wonder how Anet plans to succeed by catering ‘half-baked’ to both sides.

EDIT: just to add, you also seem to quickly dismiss the validity of my concern based on how ‘little’ the portion of game I’m missing. Like I said, it has nothing to do with ‘content’ I’m missing, but the time I could be spending with friends for the short time I can log in to play that is prevented due to these ‘compromises’.

I’m not dismissing your concerns. I’m saying that you’re focusing on one area of the game period end of story. I’m saying it because it’s what you’re doing. I’m sorry you feel left out that your guild can do something you can’t. But that has nothing to do with what I said. Anet made, in my opinion, the best decision for the game. Since that is my opinion, what you’re complaining about, as much as it annoys you, doesn’t change the fact that it was done for the best reasons.

Your comments about people complaining about having nothing to do will continue to complain, that maybe be true. But in my experience only the top few percent of people who complain will leave the game over it. Most will complain and stay. Again, that’s my personal observation, I can’t prove it, but it seems to have worked that way. The players we lost in November were players that simply would not compromise.

I followed the game as long and as hard as anyone. I was a GW 1 player for five years. I have GWAMM and 50/50 in my HoM and my opinion is worth no less than yours. Sure you have a concern. I’m still thinking Anet knows the game and the market better than you do. It’s not YOUR game, it’s THEIR game. How much time and money do you have invested in it, compared to the developer? Not much I think. When a company makes a decision for the benefit of the game, you either suck it up and deal with it, or you walk away. Clearly they made this decision because they believed it was for the benefit of the game. They didn’t make this decision to kitten you off.

We all have to deal with things in the name of compromise. I had to deal with it too. The difference is, I really do believe it was better for the game. If you don’t…that’s fine. But it’s your opinion. I’m not dismissing your concerns. I’m saying there’s a bigger picture beyond your concerns.

Vayne.8563:

Morrigan.2809:

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

You’re not alone. I never said you were. That said, the percentage of the playerbase that will leave at this point because of a new tier of gear, I"m relatively sure is relatively small, even if some do. Again I just don’t think it will make a dent. Here’s my thinking.

A good portion of the playerbase who signed up originally have run out of content and moved on to other things. The new people who have signed up will probably make up more of the future than most of the people who were here originally.

I mean in November, the population dropped drastically. From what I can tell, we’re about up to the same number as before, maybe even more.

But these new people didn’t follow the game for years. They don’t have the same aversion to vertical progression that the original people had.

So of the original people left playing, most people say it’s way less than half the population, you have people who stayed. There’s no one in my guild who has a problem with vertical progression as long as content isn’t gated. A good portion of us started when the game started, but a lot of people are new too.

I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to assume most new people don’t care at all about vertical progression one way or another, or even that many expect it to some degree.

In the end, when that cap is raised, I think those who think there’ll be a mass exodus because of it are going to be very surprised.

Your view has merit and is very reasonable as ever. You are probably right.

I still think you underestimate the backlash that will happen though.

Sure many of the original player base left and many new people joined who does not have an emotional investment in horizontal progression

This game does not have a sub however and many people come back periodically- the moment you have more gear tiers those people have to play catch up and this is not an attractive prospect.

There are many new players, I would bet that many of those came to GW2 because they found the constant need for keeping up in other MMO’s to be exhausting.

GW2 seems to me to appeal most to a certain market segment that have mostly outgrown those models- either because of burn out or simply because they are at a time in their life when they just want to chill and play a game for fun.
I would also bet that those people make up a fairly hefty part of the game population, or at the very least the most stable part.

The fact is that there are many many choices for people who do want progression.

To me gear tier is a stop gap measure that is not so much a compromise as trying to straddle both sides of the fence.

Ultimately Anet will decide one way or another in which direction they want to take the game as is their right.
To me it seems that you can never please both types of players any attempt to do so leads to a diluted model that satisfies no-one.

Anyway all this is just my opinion and something that is important to me as some-one who would dearly love to play GW2 for years to come

btw if I bugged the quoting -oops

@Vayne
What makes you think I’m only focusing on that area of the game? The reason I don’t farm Fotm is because there’s a bunch of other things I’d rather do, instead. I’m just voicing out how unfortunate it is that there’s a portion that I’m totally left out of, a portion that could grow in the future. This was something I thought would never ever happen to this game.

As for my concern, it benefits the ‘big picture’ that I voice it out, because I want to know where this game is headed. ATM, the ‘big picture’ is unsure, and my voice counts towards one side over the other.

@Morrigan

You’re absolutely right when you say that the gear tier was a stop gap measure. It was introduced because Anet could introduce that much faster than they can new content. When there’s enough new content, it will be interesting see how the chips fall.

In some ways, that’s why I’m a bit confounded by the temporary content, since you don’t get all of it at once. I think Anet is thinking that the more stuff you have all at once, the more divided the playerbase is, but putting out new things for limited times focuses the playerbase. I’m not sure if that’s wise or not, but then, I’m not a game developer.

As for the backlash from a new tier of gear…there were, over the course of Guild Wars 1, 7 million people who played games with vertical progression. WoW still has 10 million players. That’s all at the same time. If you add up all the players from other MMOs you get considerably more than 20 million players.

The horizontal progression in Guild Wars 1, as brilliant as it was in that game, won’t have the mass appeal that Anet thought it would. And I really do believe they thought it would. But then we have a lot of people who don’t care about legendaries because the stats are the same as exotics. Enough of them have said on on the forums.

So what do those guys do. They don’t have legendaries to go for, which should have been keeping people busy longer term. They had nothing to go for after exotics. The gap between exotics and legendary is too large. There should have been something, from launch, in that gap.

And that’s the question of course. If the game had launched with ascended, would people still be complaining like they are today?

Vayne.8563:

So what do those guys do. They don’t have legendaries to go for, which should have been keeping people busy longer term. They had nothing to go for after exotics. The gap between exotics and legendary is too large. There should have been something, from launch, in that gap.

They should take a break.

GW2 is brimming with content. The only reason those type of folks run out of content is because all they want is content that give more stats.

Vayne.8563:

And that’s the question of course. If the game had launched with ascended, would people still be complaining like they are today?

It’s irrelevant to talk about ‘what could have’. Anet has made their move, and right now, they’re in this ‘phase’ of testing concepts, letting us test ideas via living story and whatnot. It’s a good time to actually voice out what players want to see in the game, instead of saying ‘everything is going to be okay’.

@ Vayne
I don’t think it would have caused the ruckus it did if the game launched with Ascended- it didn’t though and here is the crux because a precedent was set with that addition.

The progression players feel justified in demanding more progression and the horizontal players felt betrayed.
It is of no consequence if Anet truly intended to introduce Ascended all along or not, the effect is the same.

GW1 was a very unique and fairly niche game and as such it’s success was phenomenal.
GW2 is a very ambitious game and is designed to appeal to a larger player base.

My thoughts here are along the lines that the market has matured over the last decade, many of those original players are older with different requirements from games.
The average age of gamers also rise with every year. Hence the change in business models in general as one example.
To me it seems that the MMO genre as a whole has become stuck, largely because of the 1000kg budgie that is WOW.
It needed someone to break that stasis and GW2 did a remarkable job in renovating a very stagnant genre.

Imo, and I speak for myself only I think they should really have stuck with horizontal progression, while giving a lot of cosmetic variety.
Legendaries to me fall perfectly into this category- the problem with them is that there are too few and the effort it requires is scary.
Mystic Forge weapons mitigated this somewhat but not enough.

Honestly I think that if they came up with the idea of Living Story instead of Ascended in the first place, they would never have gone for vertical progression.
It seems to me that the concept of Living Story ( not necessarily execution) is the perfect way to give people continual content that is fresh and to focus them, while the core game is being developed and polished.
This leads to a continually improving game and is an awesome concept.

If they also use the time to develop permanent content it would be genius.

PlagueParade.7942:

So, if it happens, legendary weapons will become ascended but will there also be other weapons that will be ascended as well? I mostly ask this cause I like quite a few of the skins out there and would like to be able to at the least transmute them to be ascended (no, I would never transmute the stats of a legendary weapon to the skin I would prefer, that would just be a huge waste of gold).

Do you think there will, or should be, other ascended weapons if legendary ones become as such?

Funny, I know theres a video on this site even, where a game designer said legendaries will equal exotics in terms of stats.

Watch that interview, specifically at 8:45. Eric Flannum specifically says, and I quote “Legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons. Infact each legendary is based off of a specific exotic weapon, so they are the same level power wise but look a whole lot different”

Here we go again with the debate. Are they going back on this one?

Seriously, if you’re about to flame me, at least watch the video at the specific point so that I can take you seriously when you decide to shoot me down…because you have a developer on camera saying legendaries are the same level power wise as exotics, they just look different. By the way, if ascended was ever intended during development, don’t you think they would have mentioned ascended items, maybe in this interview?

With my previous post here, I want to say that I am slowly returning to the game after a two month hiatus. I do not agree with a lot of the design direction of the game. To name a few, ascended items, guild missions rewarding another form of currency to purchase ascended items(and forcing me to spend 50 ectos and 30 or 40 laurels on an ascended item…)…its breaking away from the “play as you want model”. I want to play as I want, not be compelled to do guild missions and grind for my legendary, but at the same time if I want to keep up with ascended gear, I’ll need to spend ectos…blah blah blah. You know the story. Infact, I think there was a dev on here once saying that they are trying to encourage us to do guild missions, which is why the price of the new ascended items is so high otherwise…I dont want to be encouraged to do anything. I want to play how I want to.

ANYWAYS, I digress, bigtime. Apologies. I am trying to turn over a new leaf here. Play and enjoy the game. Not be bogged down. So while I disagree with recent design directions, I am slowly returning and letting bigons be bigons(spelling?) and hoping that they do not falter with future design decisions.

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

You do not have the data necessary to demonstrate this. But that seems irrelevant now:

I didn’t think it was possible, but if you are correct in everything you’ve written in this thread, the implications merely lower my outlook of the game. If true, then ArenaNet sold out, alienating its core supporters in favor of a steady flow of casuals and whales, riding a monetization scheme that depends on gambling impulses and gives economic incentive for the developers to focus their efforts on whatever creates the most cash shop revenue.

Apparently gear tiers fit that model, and now that it has been tried and shown to be successful, you cannot put Pandora back in the box; I now have all the more reason to expect a raise in the level cap at expansion, as what better way is there to achieve an influx of new and old players, many of whom will rush to the cash shop and oggle at its offerings.

If you are correct, the game will almost certainly increase and maintain its population, although for all the wrong reasons, and in such a way that I would come to regard the game as “Guild Wars” in name only. It would also mean that the strategic depth many of the more intelligent players hope for will never come to pass, since there is no money to be had in making a complex, intellectually stimulating system of PvP or PvE; casuals do not care for such things, yet they make the bulk of cash shop purchases. (This mentality would certainly explain the stagnant state of class development.)

So let us hope you are wrong then, as I have no interest in seeing this game become a more casual version of WoW, where people always have in the back of their minds that the current crop of gear is a temporary placeholder for whatever comes next, and any cosmetics they achieve will have to be transmuted—for a real dollar price—onto the next set of farmed gear.

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Its not going away so why are you still here?

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Its not going away so why are you still here?

Because I enjoy the game?
Why else would I be here?

I do however speak out when I do not like something simply because I was under the impression that this forum is for discussing the game.
Which I happen to love.
By adding my voice I can hopefully prevent gear progression from getting worse- even if it is not going away

There are two sides to every coin and Anet has the right to know how people experience their choices- it is called feedback

Morrigan.2809:

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Its not going away so why are you still here?

Because I enjoy the game?
Why else would I be here?

I do however speak out when I do not like something simply because I was under the impression that this forum is for discussing the game.
Which I happen to love.

There are two sides to every coin and Anet has the right to know how people experience their choices- it is called feedback

I am just tired about this now there no more need to be “nice” to ppl its been done to death and i hate that some one necro this. The truth is Ascended are not going away they are going to be put out in time. If you have fun with the game then you should still have fun with the game once they are all out.
We would of lost nearly 1/2 of the ppl that play now if they did not add in any type of upwards progression because Anet added in a major side progression and no one seem to see it or they out right hate it.

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Its not going away so why are you still here?

Because I enjoy the game?
Why else would I be here?

I do however speak out when I do not like something simply because I was under the impression that this forum is for discussing the game.
Which I happen to love.

There are two sides to every coin and Anet has the right to know how people experience their choices- it is called feedback

I am just tired about this now there no more need to be “nice” to ppl its been done to death and i hate that some one necro this. The truth is Ascended are not going away they are going to be put out in time. If you have fun with the game then you should still have fun with the game once they are all out.
We would of lost nearly 1/2 of the ppl that play now if they did not add in any type of upwards progression because Anet added in a major side progression and no one seem to see it or they out right hate it.

I know they are going to be putting out more Ascended items- I know why they are doing it.
I can even understand that you are tired of the topic.
I suggest you read the rest of my posts though- at least on this thread.
Or not- as you prefer

Morrigan.2809:

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Jski.6180:

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

I do not agree with you Vayne- many people were very unhappy about the addition of ascended gear because it was essentially a sop to the players who came from more traditional gear based MMO’s, burned through the content at the speed of light and then shouted MOAR.
Those people made no attempt to actually figure out what GW2 was about and many of them left regardless.

Many people did leave the game, some like me stayed because I was not willing to give up on a game I enjoyed because of one massive blunder that I could mostly ignore.

Please note that I do care, do not like the progression and I am sure that I am not alone.
I am watching the state of affairs like a hawk- so far I have been able to continue my game like Ascended does not exist, however hearing people quite happily talking about a raised level cap and even more tiers of gear makes me very very uneasy.

I have spent many hours and a lot of gold to get my characters how I like them- if that is taken away from me for the sake of some random numbers that has no meaning, to feed the ego’s of players who like bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers- I will be furious.

Add to that if level cap gets raised and another tier of gear gets added the new content will have to scale up to match it.
This will make it harder and eventually impossible for people who do not have the gear to do the content.

Ascended gear still smarts for many people- gentle curve is meaningless because it satisfies no-one, not the people who want horizontal progression nor the people who want vertical progression.
It doesn’t matter how gently you rub salt in a wound- it is still salt in a wound.

I am sure I am not alone

Its not going away so why are you still here?

Because I enjoy the game?
Why else would I be here?

I do however speak out when I do not like something simply because I was under the impression that this forum is for discussing the game.
Which I happen to love.

There are two sides to every coin and Anet has the right to know how people experience their choices- it is called feedback

I am just tired about this now there no more need to be “nice” to ppl its been done to death and i hate that some one necro this. The truth is Ascended are not going away they are going to be put out in time. If you have fun with the game then you should still have fun with the game once they are all out.
We would of lost nearly 1/2 of the ppl that play now if they did not add in any type of upwards progression because Anet added in a major side progression and no one seem to see it or they out right hate it.

I know they are going to be putting out more Ascended items- I know why they are doing it.
I can even understand that you are tired of the topic.
I suggest you read the rest of my posts though- at least on this thread.
Or not- as you prefer

Sry about that i jumped too fast, ascended items are the worst thing to talk about on these forums.

gfox.6501:

Vayne.8563:

So what do those guys do. They don’t have legendaries to go for, which should have been keeping people busy longer term. They had nothing to go for after exotics. The gap between exotics and legendary is too large. There should have been something, from launch, in that gap.

They should take a break.

GW2 is brimming with content. The only reason those type of folks run out of content is because all they want is content that give more stats.

Vayne.8563:

And that’s the question of course. If the game had launched with ascended, would people still be complaining like they are today?

It’s irrelevant to talk about ‘what could have’. Anet has made their move, and right now, they’re in this ‘phase’ of testing concepts, letting us test ideas via living story and whatnot. It’s a good time to actually voice out what players want to see in the game, instead of saying ‘everything is going to be okay’.

Saying people should take a break (because that’s what you would do) is pretty strange. People don’t want to take breaks from MMOs. They want to play them all day every day. I know it sounds strange, but it’s true. There is perhaps no other genre of video game that comes with the same level of expectation that an MMO does.

In fact, some of the people who complain the loudest about Guild Wars 2 are Guild Wars 1 players who say things like I played that game for thousands of hours and never got bored. That level of expectation sets up just about any new game for failure if you ask me. That said, I have yet to take a break for the game and I’m still enjoying it.

However, you don’t get to tell people how and when to play. Nor does Anet. People do what they do, and Anet, wrongly or rightly, has to respond to that.

cesmode.4257:

PlagueParade.7942:

So, if it happens, legendary weapons will become ascended but will there also be other weapons that will be ascended as well? I mostly ask this cause I like quite a few of the skins out there and would like to be able to at the least transmute them to be ascended (no, I would never transmute the stats of a legendary weapon to the skin I would prefer, that would just be a huge waste of gold).

Do you think there will, or should be, other ascended weapons if legendary ones become as such?

Funny, I know theres a video on this site even, where a game designer said legendaries will equal exotics in terms of stats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG4ACZEUa-Y

Watch that interview, specifically at 8:45. Eric Flannum specifically says, and I quote “Legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons. Infact each legendary is based off of a specific exotic weapon, so they are the same level power wise but look a whole lot different”

Here we go again with the debate. Are they going back on this one?

Seriously, if you’re about to flame me, at least watch the video at the specific point so that I can take you seriously when you decide to shoot me down…because you have a developer on camera saying legendaries are the same level power wise as exotics, they just look different. By the way, if ascended was ever intended during development, don’t you think they would have mentioned ascended items, maybe in this interview?

I know the video. And I’ve answered this question at least twice or three times before. It has nothing to do with flaming you.

Anet has said, over and over again, that they’re an interative company. This means things change. Do you have any idea of the list of things that have changed since this game was annouced?

Dyes were originally seeds that you planted and then you had to go to a special dye vendor to grow the seeds. You could only grow one at at time and it took 24 hours to find out what your dye was. They sold plant food in the cash shop to speed this process up. This was removed in favor of the current dye system. Did anyone complain about this? Nope. Because they LIKED that change.

Originally energy existed for skills. As such, people would run out of energy and there would be energy potions in game. Energy was later scrapped for skills, and energy potions along with them. Did people complain? Nope. They liked that change.

Lengendary weapons were originally supposed to be part of a horizontal progression, but not enough people were taking up the hunt for them. Anet looked at it and decided what to do, the same way they changed energy. The same way they changed dyes.

Yes, Anet said all three things, but only one of them gets complained about. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to bring up old interviews in an attempt to catch MMO companies in lies. MMO developers, unlike any other type of game, perhaps, are forced to make changes to the game on the fly. It happens all the time in every single MMO.

You either can live with the changes, or you can’t. But everyone becomes a back-seat developer and assumes they know what’s best for the game better than the devs. Sometimes, some of those people are right. Games like Star Wars Galaxies were absolutely destroyed by some of the changes that the developers made. Other games, however, were saved.

I guess in a couple of years we’ll know which way Guild Wars 2 went.

gfox.6501:

@Vayne
What makes you think I’m only focusing on that area of the game? The reason I don’t farm Fotm is because there’s a bunch of other things I’d rather do, instead. I’m just voicing out how unfortunate it is that there’s a portion that I’m totally left out of, a portion that could grow in the future. This was something I thought would never ever happen to this game.

As for my concern, it benefits the ‘big picture’ that I voice it out, because I want to know where this game is headed. ATM, the ‘big picture’ is unsure, and my voice counts towards one side over the other.

No one, not even the developers can say where this game is headed. Because of the iterative approach they use, they keep trying new and different things. Some you’ll like and some you won’t.

If you’re looking for a pre-made direction that will be stuck to, you’re likely going to be disappointed, because that’s really not how MMOs work. A lot of Guild Wars 1 players, for example, hated where Guild Wars 1 went, and left the game. A lot more signed on. Heroes for example, destroyed the game for a lot of people who want to group. Additional PVe only skills destroyed the balance of the PvE game for some people. Some people loved the skills.

The game won’t please everyone and the decisions the devs make won’t please everyone. But there is no “direction” that might not change. And there really can’t be. Because at the end of the day, an MMO is a business. You didn’t buy a game, you bought access to a server…a membership. What any company does with a game is what they see is best for the game, and that can change.

By all means, register your complaints, as you did, clearly and fairly. But don’t expect a roadmap for the future that extended beyond a month or two because in MMOs everything can change, quite quickly.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Vayne.8563:

Most of the people who were going to leave because of ascended gear have lft already. The few people who stayed, if they leave, it’s not going to make a tremendous dent in the playerbase. That ship has sailed.

Most of the people who are left behind either don’t care enough about it to leave, or like the progression.

You do not have the data necessary to demonstrate this. But that seems irrelevant now:

I didn’t think it was possible, but if you are correct in everything you’ve written in this thread, the implications merely lower my outlook of the game. If true, then ArenaNet sold out, alienating its core supporters in favor of a steady flow of casuals and whales, riding a monetization scheme that depends on gambling impulses and gives economic incentive for the developers to focus their efforts on whatever creates the most cash shop revenue.

Apparently gear tiers fit that model, and now that it has been tried and shown to be successful, you cannot put Pandora back in the box; I now have all the more reason to expect a raise in the level cap at expansion, as what better way is there to achieve an influx of new and old players, many of whom will rush to the cash shop and oggle at its offerings.

If you are correct, the game will almost certainly increase and maintain its population, although for all the wrong reasons, and in such a way that I would come to regard the game as “Guild Wars” in name only. It would also mean that the strategic depth many of the more intelligent players hope for will never come to pass, since there is no money to be had in making a complex, intellectually stimulating system of PvP or PvE; casuals do not care for such things, yet they make the bulk of cash shop purchases. (This mentality would certainly explain the stagnant state of class development.)

So let us hope you are wrong then, as I have no interest in seeing this game become a more casual version of WoW, where people always have in the back of their minds that the current crop of gear is a temporary placeholder for whatever comes next, and any cosmetics they achieve will have to be transmuted—for a real dollar price—onto the next set of farmed gear.

If everything I said is true Arena net sold out who?

Anet is a business that invested millions of dollars into a game. At some point they saw people leaving at an alarming rate. According to what Anet has said, after the november exodus, the numbers started to grow again (we have no idea how much or whether that trend has continued since then, but we know it was growing).

I seriously believe fractals actually saved this game. Too many people expect MMOs to be pretty much their only game forever and too many people were leaving. Anet was in a mad scramble to keep people. This is betrayal to you? What about the jobs of the people at the company. When companies like Star Wars Tor, a game from a much bigger company, had to lay off half it’s employs….half…only six months after launch…in an industry where TSW had to lay off a third of its employees less than six months after launch, you suggest that you’ve been betrayed because a company made a decision about how to keep players in the game?

Anet did what any intelligent business would do. They attempted to compromise. The players who won’t compromise left (feel betrayed as you do). Some of us saw the reason for the compromise (like me) and stayed. I don’t like or love ascended gear. I see why Anet did it. Do I feel betrayed?

I’d feel a lot worse of they didn’t do it and there was a much smaller group playing the game and Anet couldn’t offer updates at all, and they had to fire half their staff to cut costs.

Vayne.8563:

Anet did what any intelligent business would do.

There are other ways to make money that don’t entail selling out. You built your response on a faulty premise.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Vayne.8563:

Anet did what any intelligent business would do.

There are other ways to make money that don’t entail selling out. You built your response on a faulty premise.

There are other ways to make money that don’t entail selling out. Do you know what options Anet considered before making the decision to make a change to the game. Because in your mind, Anet sold out. In Anet’s mind, they iterated. You call it selling out, which is a faulty premise.

Anet has said all along, before the launch of the game even, that they’re an interative company. That they try things and make changes. You’re so focused on other things they said, you’ve ignored that one. They not only said it, but they posted an entire blog post on their site about how they iterate. Just about every single blog post before and since had the word iteration.

So you conveniently pull out every quote that Anet said about horizontal and vertical progression, while ignoring every single quote they said about iteration. Iteration means they try stuff, they see what works and they change what works. There were always going to be changes in this game. There were always changes, sometimes major changes in Guild Wars 1. Some people didn’t like the introduction of heroes and left the game. Some people loved them. Some people don’t like ascended gear and left the game, Some people do like it.

Anet’s didn’t “sell out”. Anet made changes to a game they saw as necessary. There are in fact, many other things they could have done, but not many of them could be implemented as quickly and most of them would have been bigger gambles. They made a decision you don’t like, and I get that. I simply say that they did what they had to do to protect their game.

What are all these other things they could have implemented in a timely manner?

Vayne.8563:

cesmode.4257:

PlagueParade.7942:

So, if it happens, legendary weapons will become ascended but will there also be other weapons that will be ascended as well? I mostly ask this cause I like quite a few of the skins out there and would like to be able to at the least transmute them to be ascended (no, I would never transmute the stats of a legendary weapon to the skin I would prefer, that would just be a huge waste of gold).

Do you think there will, or should be, other ascended weapons if legendary ones become as such?

Funny, I know theres a video on this site even, where a game designer said legendaries will equal exotics in terms of stats.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG4ACZEUa-Y

Watch that interview, specifically at 8:45. Eric Flannum specifically says, and I quote “Legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons. Infact each legendary is based off of a specific exotic weapon, so they are the same level power wise but look a whole lot different”

Here we go again with the debate. Are they going back on this one?

Seriously, if you’re about to flame me, at least watch the video at the specific point so that I can take you seriously when you decide to shoot me down…because you have a developer on camera saying legendaries are the same level power wise as exotics, they just look different. By the way, if ascended was ever intended during development, don’t you think they would have mentioned ascended items, maybe in this interview?

I know the video. And I’ve answered this question at least twice or three times before. It has nothing to do with flaming you.

Anet has said, over and over again, that they’re an interative company. This means things change. Do you have any idea of the list of things that have changed since this game was annouced?

Dyes were originally seeds that you planted and then you had to go to a special dye vendor to grow the seeds. You could only grow one at at time and it took 24 hours to find out what your dye was. They sold plant food in the cash shop to speed this process up. This was removed in favor of the current dye system. Did anyone complain about this? Nope. Because they LIKED that change.

Originally energy existed for skills. As such, people would run out of energy and there would be energy potions in game. Energy was later scrapped for skills, and energy potions along with them. Did people complain? Nope. They liked that change.

Lengendary weapons were originally supposed to be part of a horizontal progression, but not enough people were taking up the hunt for them. Anet looked at it and decided what to do, the same way they changed energy. The same way they changed dyes.

Yes, Anet said all three things, but only one of them gets complained about. I think it’s pretty disingenuous to bring up old interviews in an attempt to catch MMO companies in lies. MMO developers, unlike any other type of game, perhaps, are forced to make changes to the game on the fly. It happens all the time in every single MMO.

You either can live with the changes, or you can’t. But everyone becomes a back-seat developer and assumes they know what’s best for the game better than the devs. Sometimes, some of those people are right. Games like Star Wars Galaxies were absolutely destroyed by some of the changes that the developers made. Other games, however, were saved.

I guess in a couple of years we’ll know which way Guild Wars 2 went.

Dude, we aren’t talking about some Alpha feature or content that was initially slated in the game when they were actually drawing the art. The video I posted was made a mere one or two months prior to release… Not 1-2 years. Its a little bit different context. The video posted was during a time when the game at its core, and most of its systems, were set in stone. Yes, always iterations to these systems, but they are tweaks. Not game changing additions or subtractios. Adding in a new tier of gear is game changing if you are one of those MANY people that Want and thought they had BiS gear.

So you can’t compare something that was initially intended for the game 1-2 yrs prior to launch to something that was “intended” for the game 1-2 months.

Not quoting to avoid walls of text, but…
@vayne: To one of your previous posts, “Noone can say where the game is headed not even the devs..its an iterative process”. Yes. But that doesn’t mean you have free reign to stray on what sold your customers. Why even bother to have blogs, interviews, webcasts talking about the game. Why even bother telling us anything about the game if you, as the developer, reserve the right to go back on anything you have said and change the game.

The reason they say some of this, is because its supposed to be “stone”. At its core, set.
Again, tweaks are inevitable. Some things change, etc.

Morrigan.2809:

There are many new players, I would bet that many of those came to GW2 because they found the constant need for keeping up in other MMO’s to be exhausting.

That’s why i’m here, i stopped playing MMOs for 5 years because of it. Ascended gets pass for me atm and when the rest of the set is released i’ll see if i made a mistake in giving this genre another chance.

Vayne.8563:

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Vayne.8563:

Anet did what any intelligent business would do.

There are other ways to make money that don’t entail selling out. You built your response on a faulty premise.

There are other ways to make money that don’t entail selling out. Do you know what options Anet considered before making the decision to make a change to the game. Because in your mind, Anet sold out. In Anet’s mind, they iterated. You call it selling out, which is a faulty premise.

Anet has said all along, before the launch of the game even, that they’re an interative company. That they try things and make changes. You’re so focused on other things they said, you’ve ignored that one. They not only said it, but they posted an entire blog post on their site about how they iterate. Just about every single blog post before and since had the word iteration.

So you conveniently pull out every quote that Anet said about horizontal and vertical progression, while ignoring every single quote they said about iteration. Iteration means they try stuff, they see what works and they change what works. There were always going to be changes in this game. There were always changes, sometimes major changes in Guild Wars 1. Some people didn’t like the introduction of heroes and left the game. Some people loved them. Some people don’t like ascended gear and left the game, Some people do like it.

Anet’s didn’t “sell out”. Anet made changes to a game they saw as necessary. There are in fact, many other things they could have done, but not many of them could be implemented as quickly and most of them would have been bigger gambles. They made a decision you don’t like, and I get that. I simply say that they did what they had to do to protect their game.

What are all these other things they could have implemented in a timely manner?

These have been discussed repeatedly on these boards, including by me. I have no interest in reinventing the wheel for people who give no evidence of appreciating detailed posts on these matters.

I understand what they did. Instead of launching with better class balance and skill design—the core of interesting and lasting PvE and PvP—they launched with a mediocre system. Without a foundation of depth, players left. Instead of revamping this system, they added fluff and grind.

The development since launch has been one set of bandaids after another. That might save the game, but not in a way that is true to its promises and intentions

@Vayne

I’m sorry, but, have you ever tried creating something for the long term? heck, I’m just a painter, not a full time developer, but even I have a ‘general vision and direction’ of what I want to achieve when I’m working on something that will take months to finish. Sure the tiny details may change, but the composition and vision does not.

If you’re telling me that the devs having no direction for the game is a ‘good’ and ‘natural’ thing, then, wow, I just don’t know what to say.

gfox, your opinion isn’t invalid, but I would wager that, when coming up with a general vision and direction for a new painting, you imagine that painting at some point being done, even if finishing it takes you longer than expected.

ArenaNet’s project both isn’t designed to be “finished” and, we are now discovering, is actually designed to be constantly changing, so that the world will be slightly or even dramatically different every time you return. It’s an enormously different beast from making a painting or a sculpture or a film, or even far more relevant design projects like single-player RPGs.

We’ll certainly see what happens but I’ve generally been very impressed with their iterative approach so far and wouldn’t consider anything that’s been added a “band-aid” with the exception of some of the shallower quality-of-life adjustments (like the guild missions tab). Instead I view every new platform for content delivery they’ve added (from Fractals to Guild Missions to the Super Adventure Box to, of course, Living Story) as strengthening the foundation of the game. So… no, they didn’t “sell out” from everyone’s perspective or an objective perspective. Some people have even had their expectations exceeded.

On an unrelated note, Pandora doesn’t live in the box. -_-

Wait. I’m not familiar with legendaries. Currently, I am aware that they are mostly just for their skin, not the stats. So it’d be pretty typical to transmute stats from an exotic weapon you do want, over to the legendary.

What happens if you don’t like the stats on a legendary? Say I transmute exotic berserker stats onto a frostfang which is soldiers and just take the frostfang skin. Wouldn’t I be screwed if ascended weapons come because this is technically using exotic stats?

Nobody knows exactly how that will work but my favorite postulation so far is that, “those transmuted weapons won’t be boosted in power to match the ascended stats right when ascended weapons are released but will be quickly patched in a day or two with an ‘oops.’”