Guild Wars 2

An ArenaNet employee recently posted in these very forums about how “gear checks” have always existed, even in Guild Wars 1.

This was a blatant lie.

Yes, his examples then went on to mention “by showing /rank or a Lightbringer title.”

Well, guess what… /rank demonstrated experience/skill in PvP, which I’d imagine most elitist PvP groups would expect their fellow teammates to have. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, as no one wants to be on a losing team.

The Lightbringer title was pretty much essential in guaranteeing your survival in the Realm of Torment. Yes, you could succeed without maxing the title… but if you weren’t sufficiently far enough in the title track, you wouldn’t benefit your team very much.

For those that don’t know about Lightbringer: “For each rank of Lightbringer, you deal 5% more damage to and have +1 damage reduction against Abaddon and his demonic servants.”

You also have to DISPLAY the title to get the effect, so it’s REQUIRED to display it.

And the “show lightbringer” was really only a big deal if you were trying to do the Realm of Torment. Since, well, it doesn’t benefit you anywhere else.

It’s not like you’d see people in EotN going “LFG <insert dungeon here> – MUST DISPLAY LIGHTBRINGER”

Also, Lightbringer never really fractured the player base like FotM. It wasn’t like people with level 8 lightbringer could access a better instance (with better rewards) than a level 6 lightbringer could.

In may ways lightbringer was an update on having to fight your doppelganger and ascend to fight the Murrusat in the Ring of fire and beyond. It was a game mechanic built into the game and therefore needed very little to no grind.

The lightbringer skills and title were far from needed and more often than not did I forget to equip either. It didn’t hamper my ability one bit when I forgot them. All it was was a story gimmick.

As for /rank that was a pure elitist tool as it only shows time spend, not skill.

Please provide evidence and links for any “He said this” or “She said that” claims. It helps support your claim and make your argument MUCH stronger if you actually have the quote made by the ANet employee.

The faction repuation were indeed quite grindy, you would not get max rank without grinding. Lightbringer title did effect Realm of Torment, but there were PvE skills tied to ranks for: Lightbringer, Sunspear, Luxon/Kurzick, Deldrimor, Norn, Ebon Vanguard, and Asura.

None of these affected PvP in any way, but they did affect PvE. They didn’t actually gate content, and you could do just fine without using any of the PvE skills, but some of these skills were quite powerful or allowed off-class abilities that you normally wouldn’t have access to.

However, I will agree that they were an unnecessary grind that was added to the game after the original release. I also think a lot of players were discontent with the PvE skills and saw them as overpowered. Just look at Necrosis vs. Discord as a quick example.

Game Designer
AndrewMcLeod

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

That is the quote.
DO anet have an exit strategy at this point?

Thank you. I appreciate the quote. It puts a lot of this in to perspective!

I do believe his main point was that if people are going to try and have a “Proof of ability to do X” they’re going to do it regardless of whether or not it’s supported. While ANet doesn’t actually support it, he’s saying that there is no way to stop it, which is true. That is why you see people requiring gear links even with the original dungeons, but thankfully rarely.

So, if I’m not mistaken, the point isn’t him advocating the behavior, but rather saying that no matter what they did it was going to happen because it happened in the past.

So, OP, could you clarify your point a little bit better please? You are technically agreeing with his point maybe? That people did these kinds of things beforehand? But that it didn’t make such a big deal because the ‘quality’ checks weren’t as tiered as FoTM? I’m sure your concern and response is valid, I just think you can elucidate it a bit better to actually bring what concerns you to the forefront instead of simply reacting to a developer’s post.

Minos.5168:

The Lightbringer title was pretty much essential in guaranteeing your survival in the Realm of Torment. Yes, you could succeed without maxing the title… but if you weren’t sufficiently far enough in the title track, you wouldn’t benefit your team very much.

Please, that “requirement” is totally forged just as much as this exotic gear thing is.
The whole attitude that something is required is THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM.
I hated that a bunch of newbs in GW1 that copied some wiki-builds were going on about how lightbringer was required JUST as much as people are requiring exotic gear.

Not to mention this whole set build nonsense I had to put up with through the entirety of GW1 saying how it was necessary this, necessary that, and everyone was going blind on wiki builds.

And now you dare here crying that this wasn’t there in Guild Wars 1?!

I dunno, but that attitude was a problem in GW1 as much as it was here.

You guys are just looking for sensation, and twisting words so you can put up more trollposts, about how everyone at ArenaNet is a liar.

The official post was totally correct. It does not matter at all what that “lightbringer” title was about, or how useful it was. It was an ANALOGY (I hope this word will not be changed to kitten-ogy and would like to use the opportunity to express how much I detest the ridiculous censoring filter on this forum, even if it leaves my harmless word alone this time). There were always people doing this or that check, long before the new gear. Elitists wanting only “people with full exotics”, elitists only wanting class x although the content could have been done with any class, elitists who only wanted level 80s because they could finish the content 2 minutes quicker – it is all the same. Those requirements and “checks” have already existed, but guess what – there are plenty of groups who will take you just as you are.

Also, consider creating an own group and not doing any gear/class/level/skill checks. That is always an option too.

The difference was that the lightbringer skill gate was a PLAYER imposed one. With some open minded players you could do all of the content without it.

With infusions etc it becomes a GAME imposed gate. I.e It does’nt matter how skill I have, or how open minded my friends are eventually i’ll hit a brick wall that only a set gear type can remove.

Bottom line:
Has these new systems introduced in this last patch made players more or less selective about who they group with? …..we all know the answer.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

The difference was that the lightbringer skill gate was a PLAYER imposed one. With some open minded players you could do all of the content without it.

With infusions etc it becomes a GAME imposed gate. I.e It does’nt matter how skill I have, or how open minded my friends are eventually i’ll hit a brick wall that only a set gear type can remove.

Yet you can still play all the fractals and gain ascended gear (eventually, or at the start of diff. 10). There is no need to delve deeper into fractals other than bragging rights after you got all your ascended gear. I agree that right now, there’s only FotM, which is too limited to attain max gear, at least for the backpiece you only need to get lucky once, ectos fine materials and skillpoints you can gain all over the world. That is a good way.

Though I must agree, I find 250 T6 materials a bit much, or not very interesting to get, since it basically requires you to trade amongst players (which is a bit of busy-work to me), or you need to grind killing certain mobs, preferably that spawn with events, coz you know.. effectiveness and all. Which takes you ages.
I rather would have seen that you need to get different trophies from different champions/areas/whatever thing you want to put in there, all over the world and when you put those together you get 10 of one crafting material. Doing this 25 times and you would have done some exploration, some fighting of bosses/vets/events whatnot. Plus you work towards something you want to go for. AND all areas get populated / stay viable. What more would one want.

I seriously hope this is what the scavenger type of thing will be a bit like really.

Everyone is missing the point. In DoA, if you were with a full guild group, as a player you could CHOOSE to take someone with 0 Lightbringer, it was your choice to take them or not.

FOTM does not let you choose. If i have 4 guildies online and 3 of them are on difficulty 10 with me while the last is on difficulty 1, it will only let you enter on difficulty 1. That person could have done up to 20 on another character, but on this one they are level 1, and it will STILL not let you.

This is worse than in WoW. Worse than in just about nay other MMO. And sure, you can go do levels 1-10 again, and AGAIN, just because you don’t have the right people online, or they have to take a break.