Guild Wars 2

I am at somewhat of a loss as to why there are so many seemingly ridiculous restrictions in place for the acquisition of and use for Charged Quartz. Maybe I am alone in this by thinking it would be enough of a restriction to subject this new addition to complete personalization upon acquisition, but the additional penalty of requiring a month’s worth of access to acquire every piece of an armor or accessory set (only after collecting every recipe) seems quite excessive… especially for a game that has boasted being accessible to avid and casual gamers alike. I fail to see the necessity behind enforcing such regulations. Perhaps there is a reasonable and logical explanation here that I have yet to encounter?

The thing I don’t like is that the character has to be L80 to learn the recipe even though the character is already L400 crafting. I have crafting alts and now I either have to level them all up or drop a bunch of gold speed crafting my main, who isn’t L80 either but close. I suppose if I do the latter L80 will occur in the process.

JustTrogdor.7892:

The thing I don’t like is that the character has to be L80 to learn the recipe even though the character is already L400 crafting. I have crafting alts and now I either have to level them all up or drop a bunch of gold speed crafting my main, who isn’t L80 either but close. I suppose if I do the latter L80 will occur in the process.

The aged and mold ridden cherry that tops off this sour whipped cream mudpie is the unnecessary embargo on charging the stones. I could accept charging once per PoP account wide and daily, but strict policy of once a day by account is a bit extreme. The fact that people would be able to continue to supply quartz even if ZS was removed would allow the TP to maintain a somewhat healthy supply, unlike what we have seen with Azurite. If this is all part of an elaborate effort to maintain its elite nature, then it has been grossly over done.

I’m only working toward a full armor set. 30 days is rediculous when I could get any stat set in a day. I wouldn’t mind being able to purchase charges quartz, even if it were 2g per piece.

This is all a part of a learning process to determine what kinds of content and gating work to retain players, and what kinds don’t. Because apparently after leaving GW1 the studio underwent a complete memory wipe.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’m only working toward a full armor set. 30 days is rediculous when I could get any stat set in a day. I wouldn’t mind being able to purchase charges quartz, even if it were 2g per piece.

I am of a similar mind set. If one is capable of purchasing the quartz fragments over the TP, then logically one should also be able to purchase the Charged Pieces as well. I could care less about this whole situation if there was simply another alternative to obtaining a full set other than the current 30 day debacle.

Its probably a trial run for ascended gear, but Arenanet wants to restrict players who are willing to invest their time and resources/gold.

Carrot…donkey…need i say more?

Apparently it’s necessary. How can I have my laughs at work without people at home posting these things because their 10 hour gaming jobs have the exact same rewards as my 1 hour after work.

marnick.4305:

Apparently it’s necessary. How can I have my laughs at work without people at home posting these things because their 10 hour gaming jobs have the exact same rewards as my 1 hour after work.

I was actually advocating this point of view. As an individual who does have a minimal amount of time/days to devote to a game it seems asinine to place restrictions that force players to obtain frequent flyer miles such as these. Making it hard to get in bulk is different from simply making it stupidly difficult to achieve period.

Typical anet stuff, 1 step forward with reward chests, 2 steps backward with multiple alt restricted stuff.

I think I forgot to charge a crystal yesterday, which puts me behind, and I don’t know if I can be bothered anymore, as I don’t want the Celestial stats anyway.

This time-gating is Really beginning to hack me off now. It’s not fun, there’s no interesting mechanic behind it and it seems to purely be just a cheap way to keep people logging in. If they don’t log in, they’ll miss out on STUFF!

Pull it together ArenaNet, you’re losing your touch incredibly quickly.

Mungrul.9358:

I think I forgot to charge a crystal yesterday, which puts me behind, and I don’t know if I can be bothered anymore, as I don’t want the Celestial stats anyway.

This time-gating is Really beginning to hack me off now. It’s not fun, there’s no interesting mechanic behind it and it seems to purely be just a cheap way to keep people logging in. If they don’t log in, they’ll miss out on STUFF!

Pull it together ArenaNet, you’re losing your touch incredibly quickly.

what was your motivation of getting them in the first place if you didn’t want celestial stats?

Although I think anet is on the right track with the whole time gating thing, 30 days for a complete armor set is too much.

Mungrul.9358:

I think I forgot to charge a crystal yesterday, which puts me behind, and I don’t know if I can be bothered anymore, as I don’t want the Celestial stats anyway.

This time-gating is Really beginning to hack me off now. It’s not fun, there’s no interesting mechanic behind it and it seems to purely be just a cheap way to keep people logging in. If they don’t log in, they’ll miss out on STUFF!

Pull it together ArenaNet, you’re losing your touch incredibly quickly.

Well you/we’ll have to live with it, cause they’re doing the same thing with the new reward stuff they’re adding (source). They’re adding yet more account bound materials, which are only able to be gotten once per day, per type of content (JP, minidungeon, dungeons, etc.).
I’m with you, I’m tired of the time gated crap. At least make it once per PoP, that way we can get it faster, at the expense of doing something else.

Happyfool.8951:

what was your motivation of getting them in the first place if you didn’t want celestial stats?

For all we know they might end up being required for ascended gear as well. Or any other future content.
Though most likely not – Anet doesn’t want you to use any currency you could have stocked up beforehand, no matter how hard o timegated the stocking process would be.

I think it’s a test to see how far out they can stretch the carrot and we’ll still pursue it. “Yep, if we make them take all their mining daily for a day and turn it into 1 T6 material 10.8% of the population continued to do it. Let’s try 10 days for ascended gear….”

Edit: So far it all seems to be working, we (collectively, not saying anything about the activities of anyone in particular) create our charged crystals, buy keys from the gem shop, etc… However, I think when it turns it will turn hard. They’ll eventually cross a threshold where it won’t be worth it. Or another game will come along that offers rewards on a better time table.

Happyfool.8951:

Mungrul.9358:

I think I forgot to charge a crystal yesterday, which puts me behind, and I don’t know if I can be bothered anymore, as I don’t want the Celestial stats anyway.

This time-gating is Really beginning to hack me off now. It’s not fun, there’s no interesting mechanic behind it and it seems to purely be just a cheap way to keep people logging in. If they don’t log in, they’ll miss out on STUFF!

Pull it together ArenaNet, you’re losing your touch incredibly quickly.

what was your motivation of getting them in the first place if you didn’t want celestial stats?

Although I think anet is on the right track with the whole time gating thing, 30 days for a complete armor set is too much.

Especially when it takes less than a day to a few days for certain armor sets depending on time spent and tokens/money had. I wouldn’t mind being able to craft a single piece per day like they claimed with ascended gear, but it’s ridiculous the amount of time it takes for celestial, only being able to craft a single piece every 5 days. A week is fine. A month for a stat set needs to not happen.

Mnemesis.8257:

I am at somewhat of a loss as to why there are so many seemingly ridiculous restrictions in place for the acquisition of and use for Charged Quartz.

Ascended gear has been added to the game with the goal of being something time consuming to get. It’s also not tradeable so people who exploit the TP/grind can’t just buy it as soon as it’s released. Crafters can’t craft the most powerful items in the game anymore (they could at release), and everything crafters did was tradeable.

Celestial gear was just a test for ArenaNet to deal with those things when creating the system to craft Ascended items. It will be time gated – the entire point behind Ascended is to be time gated – and thus not tradeable, but crafters will be able to make the most powerful items in the game again.

Is it incredibly silly? The entire notion behind Ascended gear is silly. Although it’s fun to laugh at how the grinders who make fortunes exploiting the TP won’t be able to get this stuff in a day.

it is a test of the new system basically.

I hope that they make it easier to get after this “test” is over..

None of you understand; they put this time gate in place because of the community’s “I want it right now!” attitude. The community has a nasty habit of grinding and farming everything to get it as fast a possible, and this has two very real negatives.

First off; you don’t ultimately care about what you got. The rewards are so meaningless in this game because you either have to grind your butt off for them, or because they are so fast and easy to get that you just don’t see any value in them. If you can get a full set in a day it becomes just another armor set, not something new and interesting.

Second, and most importantly; Arena Net can’t keep up with our content demands. We rush through content as fast as possible, and we do our best to get all the rewards as soon as possible, and then we come on the forums and complain that there is nothing to do. These living story updates are supposed to give us enough to do to keep us going for two weeks, but some people burn through them in a few hours and then complain about how small they are. That is really unfair to Arena Net and devalues all their hard work.

So what do they do? They try to slow you down so they have time to produce more content. First by reducing drop rates, then my upping grind, then by locking everything worth having behind RNG crap to keep us from getting too many too fast, and now they have reached the last resort; time gating.

Notice how more and more living story achievements are time gated? Do dailies to support your pick in this one, charge crystals once a day for the last one…..we won’t slow ourselves down no matter how pointless rushing becomes, and Arena Net simply can’t keep up. So now they are taking control and forcing our hands. They are making us slow down.

I don’t like it either, but its been a long time coming and is entirely our own fault.

You know there’s a fairly good chance of getting a charged quartz from your home instance node? I’ve received 3 or 4 of them that way. Cuts down the time a little bit.

Nabrok.9023:

You know there’s a fairly good chance of getting a charged quartz from your home instance node? I’ve received 3 or 4 of them that way. Cuts down the time a little bit.

I have yet to get one from that. I’ve only done it 3 times so far (since I keep forgetting about it), with the molten pick, so thats not really saying anything.

skullmount.1758:

Nabrok.9023:

You know there’s a fairly good chance of getting a charged quartz from your home instance node? I’ve received 3 or 4 of them that way. Cuts down the time a little bit.

I have yet to get one from that. I’ve only done it 3 times so far (since I keep forgetting about it), with the molten pick, so thats not really saying anything.

From what I’ve seen so far it seems to be roughly a 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 chance. Guild and WvW gathering bonuses likely help.

I heard that was a bug, like the home-node suddenly spawning as rich node.
Have to agree with Mr. Creed.

Players are like a bunch of Locusts on patchday, time-gating is the only way to get a hold of the horde´s hunger for “unique” stuff.
As the second that instant gratification gets denied and just a teeny bit of patience is required, everybody looses it.
But maybe I´m just old and grumpy and want y´all of may lawn!
;)

It’s a way to level the playing field between those with a lot of gold and/or free time and those who don’t. Otherwise it would be a matter of days after it’s introduction that some “Richie Rich” player would be sporting all Celestial gear and waving it in everyone’s face. This way collecting 25 quartz and “refining” it requires little time, little cost and everyone can do it.

I have no problem with working toward something if the process is rewarding in other ways. For example, leveling is ok. Getting to the end of single player games is ok. Getting dungeon armor is ok. Unlocking skills is ok. Heck, crafting firebringer was… well terrible, but anyway.

I have a problem when something takes a long time to get and the process is stupid and boring. “Whooo forge 25 crystals once a day into a supercrystal. Look at that cool animation, I could watch this once a day for the next 30 days or so.”

Hating the time gating on the crystals is not an “entitled” or “instant gratification” thing. It’s a don’t waste my kitten time thing.

Arkham Creed.7358:

None of you understand; they put this time gate in place because of the community’s “I want it right now!” attitude. The community has a nasty habit of grinding and farming everything to get it as fast a possible, and this has two very real negatives.

I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand.
Before all the people from other MMOs got to top level and realised there was only gameplay with very little of what they would term “progression”, GW2 had none of this stuff.
It was only when they all threw paddies and left because GW2 wasn’t exactly the same as their other MMOs, that ArenaNet panicked and started trying to woo them back by catering to their tastes almost exclusively.

And I hate people who try to label others as petulant children when making an argument. It weakens the strength of said argument and only causes to inflame the situation.

Tell me something.

I come from a traditional competitive gaming background where everyone is on equal footing as far as availability of tools is concerned.
ArenaNet are trying to sell GW2 as an “esport” to the competitive community, something I have very clear ideas about.
Why shouldn’t I be upset when the tools I require to play at a competitive level are restricted to those who simply have more time to play than I do?

The only things that should require any degree of timegating or grind are prestige aesthetics.
The tools to compete should be readily and easily available to everybody upon hitting maximum level. Otherwise, you create a very uneven playing field. The economy changes to reflect this, with Berserker’s ingredients being some of the most expensive.
People are afraid to experiment with other builds or even professions, as it requires too much time and money.

ArenaNet got sloppy in trying to woo back people who have twisted ideas about what makes a game and its players great.

What is stupefying is that they continue to make the same mistakes even now.

Test is over, now ascended crafting materials are time gated LOL.

Mungrul.9358:

The tools to compete should be readily and easily available to everybody upon hitting maximum level. Otherwise, you create a very uneven playing field.

You don’t have to charge crystals for sPvP celestial armor. And sPvP is what is competitive and what is planned to be an eSport. PvE has nothing do with either concept. I understand and would fully agree with you if there was some kind of crap like this mucking up the competative PvP game times, but as it stands it isn’t. You’re just twisting the facts to suit your per-determined argument. In essence creating a problem that doesn’t exist so you can be upset about it.

I’m really not.
Whether PvE or PvP, you should have easy access to the tools necessary to play the game. ArenaNet make such sweeping, regular changes to the way a profession plays, you regularly have to consider completely changing your build, and in order to do so effectively, you need easy access to equipment.
If you can’t see that, there’s no helping you, and you’re as responsible for the current state of the game as all the other people who have somehow tricked themselves into mistaking stats for rewards.

Hell Avenger.7021:

Test is over, now ascended crafting materials are time gated LOL.

You’re wrong though. I’m fine with Ascended gear being time gated because you can still forge a single piece each day. This is different, because the pieces of gear aren’t time gated, the actual materials are.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Test is over, now ascended crafting materials are time gated LOL.

You’re wrong though. I’m fine with Ascended gear being time gated because you can still forge a single piece each day. This is different, because the pieces of gear aren’t time gated, the actual materials are.

You sure it is not the materials that are time gated?

Hell Avenger.7021:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Test is over, now ascended crafting materials are time gated LOL.

You’re wrong though. I’m fine with Ascended gear being time gated because you can still forge a single piece each day. This is different, because the pieces of gear aren’t time gated, the actual materials are.

You sure it is not the materials that are time gated?

It was stated in the blog post that they were planning on time hating the gear to limit us to crafting a single piece per day.

Arkham Creed.7358:

First off; you don’t ultimately care about what you got. The rewards are so meaningless in this game because you either have to grind your butt off for them, or because they are so fast and easy to get that you just don’t see any value in them. If you can get a full set in a day it becomes just another armor set, not something new and interesting.

I think that’s a rather immature way of seeing rewards, which again goes with the entire “internal validation/external validation” theory. I’m sure some kids only understand the value of something when they work hard for it or when they see other people giving it value, but adults (in age as well as in mentality) are expected to see the value something has regardless of how much work it took and what others think about it. To give an example, I’m going to get Sunrise – I couldn’t care less if I get it for free or if everyone in the game has it, I want that sword because I like how it looks, and its appearance does not change based on how many of it there are in the game.

I think the idea that “dedication” and “effort”, usually in the context of grinding mindlessly over and over through very easy content, is something that should be rewarded is just one more sign of how well publishers of classic MMORPGs have fooled players into believing that the time sinks seen in pay to play games were actually features, not just time sinks. We need the MMORPG community to leave that foolishness behind and understand that no, grind is not worth rewarding, much less required in a MMORPG.

Mungrul.9358:

I’m really not.
Whether PvE or PvP, you should have easy access to the tools necessary to play the game. ArenaNet make such sweeping, regular changes to the way a profession plays, you regularly have to consider completely changing your build, and in order to do so effectively, you need easy access to equipment.
If you can’t see that, there’s no helping you, and you’re as responsible for the current state of the game as all the other people who have somehow tricked themselves into mistaking stats for rewards.

I couldn’t agree more. IMO, ArenaNet stated very clearly in GW1 that their ideals of “skill > time spent” were meant for both PvP and PvE. Sad that they have changed their minds to cater to the mainstream MMORPG community.

Erasculio.2914:

Ascended gear has been added to the game with the goal of being something time consuming to get. It’s also not tradeable so people who exploit the TP/grind can’t just buy it as soon as it’s released. Crafters can’t craft the most powerful items in the game anymore (they could at release), and everything crafters did was tradeable.

I have nothing against that to be completely honest. I like the fact that now there will be an even higher level of achievement that is beyond crafting and provide another long term goal to obtain.

Erasculio.2914:

Celestial gear was just a test for ArenaNet to deal with those things when creating the system to craft Ascended items. It will be time gated – the entire point behind Ascended is to be time gated – and thus not tradable, but crafters will be able to make the most powerful items in the game again.

What I do not like is the fact that they chose to test this on an equipment tier that is already readily available. I highly doubt there would be much opposition to the whole time gating experience here if the new equipment was of the new ascended tier for armor, however the community was given what is already achievable (disregarding the stat set) at the expense of unnecessary grief.

Erasculio.2914:

Is it incredibly silly? The entire notion behind Ascended gear is silly. Although it’s fun to laugh at how the grinders who make fortunes exploiting the TP won’t be able to get this stuff in a day.

Again, I agree with you in this respect. I have nothing against the highest tier being a long term goal that one is unable to profit from through exploitation of the TP.

TooBz.3065:

Hating the time gating on the crystals is not an “entitled” or “instant gratification” thing. It’s a don’t waste my kitten time thing.

This.

My problem with this whole situation is solely based upon the fact that they decided to test out this new system through an equipment tier currently available by more efficient means, but flaunting a stat set people have been itching for since release and making it pointlessly painstaking to obtain. If this were all for an ascended set that I could now craft, albeit at no profit and reasonable effort, then I wouldn’t have said a kitten thing on the forum to begin with.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s a way to level the playing field between those with a lot of gold and/or free time and those who don’t. Otherwise it would be a matter of days after it’s introduction that some “Richie Rich” player would be sporting all Celestial gear and waving it in everyone’s face. This way collecting 25 quartz and “refining” it requires little time, little cost and everyone can do it.

I disagree here. What you have stated is best applicable in regards to Ascended gear being the ultimate achievement stat wise. The current scenario involves a tier that is already available through more efficient methods, excluding the celestial aspect. “Richie Rich” is most likely someone who already has a lot of time on his hands and likely plays daily, so the whole gating experience really only hurts those who are not privy to such gracious time gaps. If the goal here is to truly “level the playing field”, then it would not involve further impeding the casual gamer’s ability to obtain similar results. I think the Daily/Monthly compromise was a perfect medium or as close to as one can get in regards to the casual/avid gamer achieving the same end result. The avid is not severely inhibited when obtaining Trinkets through Laurels, while the casual is still able to catch up via Daily/Monthly completions.