Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who likes the change?

KEEP IT UP ANET

Altair, I love the change and for this reason alone I will be working on earning a set. Finally a reason to make one. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is mine.

Over and over I’ve seen people complain about how hard it is to get a set of ascended armor. Then they turn right around and say weeeellllll for those who do, they should not be rewarded for their work. They should not be rewarded for putting in considerable more time than me. I should be equal to them in every way even though I don’t want to spend as much time playing to acquire this set of armor.

This must be true, because the same people crying now are the same ones who said before ascended armor was simply not worth it. Now that it will be it’s just not fair.

For the record I do not own a set of that armor. I have squandered all my resources to get pretty weapons and pretty clothes. But I do not feel so entitled to think those who spent their time and money wisely on better gear shouldn’t deserve it. It seems to me some of you are just bitter because you didn’t plan ahead. I didn’t and now it looks like I will be paying for it. But instead of whining on forums I will get back to the game and start working on one.

Test.8734:

Erick Alastor.3917:

This genere is selfdefining itself, it’s not players’ fault. It’s a business.
And there is no courage left, in any company, to think out of the box because it’s a lot easier to make money this way. Why should thet invest in something else than things that keep players playing and paying and why should these things require a lot of manpower and investment?

True. I honestly think it’s too late now. Even if someone wanted to make something different, it would be flooded by MMORPG players (who want all the things you described), and as soon as those players began leaving, the developers would start panicking and adding all those features seen in every other MMORPG.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what ArenaNet has been doing since release.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Anet was somewhat different, and this change, always in my opinion, is (again and humanly speaking) in the wrong direction.

I think ArenaNet has been going in the wrong direction since release.

Ascended gear, Fractals, poorly designed maps like Southsun Cove, poorly designed story elements like Scarlet, ignoring almost all the story hooks they had planted in the game before release, abandoning the idea of interesting events with multiple steps in favor of repetitive events for people to farm over and over… All of it is making the game more of a grind, more like any other MMORPG, and less like a game that “if you don’t like MMORPGs, you should REALLY check out” (remember that?).

Increasing the power of ascended gear is only one more step in the same direction. I’m surprised they are not just adding a new tier of gear, directly or indirectly (such as adding more powerful infusions).

bloodletting wolf.2837:

If you aren’t using your laurels for ascended gear burn them for t6 mats and sell them. Burn your Karma. Clear your bank. Don’t spend your gold on skins or whatever else the kids are spending it on these days. Next time there is a $10 sale buy another account and use it for burning laurels (I just started doing this).

Wow, that sounds like so much fun!

/not

If you are resorting to buying more accounts just to get laurels, wouldn’t it be easier to just buy gems and then convert them to gold? Because if you think you are “earning in-game” your ascended items, well…

The $10 account has already paid for itself in the gold I have earned from it just from laurels.

CindyKa.6137:

Altair, I love the change and for this reason alone I will be working on earning a set. Finally a reason to make one. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is mine.

Over and over I’ve seen people complain about how hard it is to get a set of ascended armor. Then they turn right around and say weeeellllll for those who do, they should not be rewarded for their work. They should not be rewarded for putting in considerable more time than me. I should be equal to them in every way even though I don’t want to spend as much time playing to acquire this set of armor.

This must be true, because the same people crying now are the same ones who said before ascended armor was simply not worth it. Now that it will be it’s just not fair.

For the record I do not own a set of that armor. I have squandered all my resources to get pretty weapons and pretty clothes. But I do not feel so entitled to think those who spent their time and money wisely on better gear shouldn’t deserve it. It seems to me some of you are just bitter because you didn’t plan ahead. I didn’t and now it looks like I will be paying for it. But instead of whining on forums I will get back to the game and start working on one.

For PVE I understand people loving the change because PVE is all about the gears. However, PVP should be competitive for everyone to enjoy, you shouldn’t have an advantage because of your gears. WvW is suffering from Buffs that you get from lots of different things like food, utility…etc. Now instead of fixing these to make it more balanced and competitive, they make it more unbalanced.

OpieOP, I see your point. I have always thought about how food makes things unbalanced. But as far as not having an advantage. I think I would accept your disagreement if I would see every hardcore wvw’er come on forums and beg for a change in how uplevels are screwed and for ANet to auto gear them for equal gear to what they have like s/tpvp. Because it is unfair to them as it stands. But the hardcore wvw’ers don’t seem to mind that being unbalanced. They and rightfully so imo believe the gear they have "earned’ should be better than the gear up levels or newer players have not earn.

I’m not saying you, just some of the post I’ve read it’s pretty clear some people love to stomp uplevels or less geared people. They only complain when they are on the receiving end. Which is why I take wvw’ers complaints about balance with a grain of salt.

I think that lowering the bar of entry for ascended would go a long way. The current cost for an ascended set is around 500+g each, mostly due to damask (I think weapons are in a good spot).

Lowering silk use for damask from 4 to 2 (same as mithril) would reduce the cost of both silk and damask drastically to more reasonable prices. I think a good spot would be around 25-30g or so for each armor piece or around 150-180g for a whole set. 30g is achievable with around 2-3 days playing casual dungeons and daily rewards.

That means that it’s very achievable for even a casual player to get. Maybe 1 month at the most for a set for casual players.

Test.8734:

Erick Alastor.3917:

Anet was somewhat different, and this change, always in my opinion, is (again and humanly speaking) in the wrong direction.

I think ArenaNet has been going in the wrong direction since release.

Indeed. My “was” is not meant to point out that anet did well before announcing this change, all started 15 november 2012.

But untill now we were not doing that bad. I my opinion Scarled was not poorly designed, but poorly implemented, the story in general is nice, but they couldn’t find the right way to narrate it (I find most of the dialogues/choices a joke).

The creation of zones like SW are slap in the face for me, but I woulnd’t care about them if devs didn’t let us understand that most of the HoT will follow that formula…

Masteries will be delivered by Cox, that if I’m not wrong is the person in charge of the reward system… we all love… you know the RNGesus.

Sadly I think they can shapeshift this mmo in a WoW clone 2.0 and everything would still be fine for their income at this point.

I’m still here crossing my fingers, because this franchise was the only one that interested me. If this will fully became a generic mmorpg, I’ll probably just quit playing online :/

And just to remember what happen back in 2012:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Test.8734:

Erick Alastor.3917:

This genere is selfdefining itself, it’s not players’ fault. It’s a business.
And there is no courage left, in any company, to think out of the box because it’s a lot easier to make money this way. Why should thet invest in something else than things that keep players playing and paying and why should these things require a lot of manpower and investment?

True. I honestly think it’s too late now. Even if someone wanted to make something different, it would be flooded by MMORPG players (who want all the things you described), and as soon as those players began leaving, the developers would start panicking and adding all those features seen in every other MMORPG.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what ArenaNet has been doing since release.

Erick Alastor.3917:

Anet was somewhat different, and this change, always in my opinion, is (again and humanly speaking) in the wrong direction.

I think ArenaNet has been going in the wrong direction since release.

Ascended gear, Fractals, poorly designed maps like Southsun Cove, poorly designed story elements like Scarlet, ignoring almost all the story hooks they had planted in the game before release, abandoning the idea of interesting events with multiple steps in favor of repetitive events for people to farm over and over… All of it is making the game more of a grind, more like any other MMORPG, and less like a game that “if you don’t like MMORPGs, you should REALLY check out” (remember that?).

Increasing the power of ascended gear is only one more step in the same direction. I’m surprised they are not just adding a new tier of gear, directly or indirectly (such as adding more powerful infusions).

bloodletting wolf.2837:

If you aren’t using your laurels for ascended gear burn them for t6 mats and sell them. Burn your Karma. Clear your bank. Don’t spend your gold on skins or whatever else the kids are spending it on these days. Next time there is a $10 sale buy another account and use it for burning laurels (I just started doing this).

Wow, that sounds like so much fun!

/not

If you are resorting to buying more accounts just to get laurels, wouldn’t it be easier to just buy gems and then convert them to gold? Because if you think you are “earning in-game” your ascended items, well…

The $10 account has already paid for itself in the gold I have earned from it just from laurels.

Wait you can get accounts for $10?

Kagamiku.9731:

Test.8734:

Amazing to see so many people defending ArenaNet by claiming this change isn’t bad… While there’s next to no one saying why it would be good.

It’s not bad or good. It’s insignificant. Too insignificant to complain about.

The existence of this thread proves you wrong.

Justifying the change by buying another account for 10$ is just BS. With this change mats prices went up by alot and still rising, yeah good luck new players you need to either p2w and get gold or become the no life farmer which sounds alot of fun.

People are missing here that the default stats are going to be higher too. To keep the scale other stats have to be scaled too.

WvWers, particularly roamers/small groups are punished the most harshly with this change, and in my experience the least likely to be interested in grinding pve/ktrain/crafting. Also one of the lowest profit game modes/playstyles so…. where’s the 100g for every armor set going to come from during normal and enjoyable play?

If there’s anything that drives people in my circles crazy it’s having to do tedious grind in pve to get what’s needed for wvw. Every minute they’re not playing in the game mode and style that they actually want to play, they’re associating gw2 with being a chore instead of a fun game.

Altair.8402:

Am I the only one who likes the change?

KEEP IT UP ANET

Nope, I love this. Particularly because it fueled the dwindled fire of those who complained back in November 2012 about ascended gear being added and now they saw the opportunity to yet again – 3 years later – try to brew up another storm.

If you don’t have ascended gear by now you’re playing the game wrong, or you don’t care about stats. I’ve got one foot in either camp seeing as my main still isn’t decked out full ascended, ofc, it’s only a matter of choice because I’ve got all I need to do it.

Anyhow, this change was finally an incentive to get this top tier of gear.

5% isnt enough to make people work for it, the only tangible incentive to the investment is access to high level fractals.

I dont enjoy fractals and dugeons I would like ascended armor but it isnt going to make enough of an impact to justify the grind, especially when I have so many other things to work for.

10% though… I might just harvest that cloth.

Dondarrion.2748:

If you don’t have ascended gear by now you’re playing the game wrong, or you don’t care about stats. I’ve got one foot in either camp seeing as my main still isn’t decked out full ascended, ofc, it’s only a matter of choice because I’ve got all I need to do it.

I don’t know what “playing the game wrong” means but I’ve forgone dumping resources into the gold sink that is ascended because 5% stats would not be life or death in my wvw roaming/dueling. 10% on the other hand is going to put me at a disadvantage and punish me and others for wanting to min/max/experiment with stats.

Also another problem of this game is that world bosses generally drop…spoons.

In other MMOs you get end gear by completing end game content, and yea in GW there might be a rare drop from a boss, but really rare and you dont even get to choose the stats…so you’re kittened again.

If the intent was to make more people craft ascended armor, while not upsetting the folks who already crafted it and devalue their existing armor, they should have:

1. left the stats alone (ascended is 5% more than exotic)
2. create a npc in each city and guild hall that allows a user to change the stats on their ascended armor.

Being locked into one extremely time-intensive and expensive set forever is a huge drag and I really want to know why this change was chosen.

Relshdan.6854:

its not a spike….its 5%……..and nearly every lvl 80 is decked in full ascended trinkets anyway. its simply not a big deal in any game mode until the 10% difference between ascended and exotics becomes like 30%…if it took this long for a 5% increase, you have nothing to worry about…the game will be dead/unsupported by Anet before it ever gets to the point where you “need” ascended.

A 100% increase is a significant spike.

My biggest problem with this change is that I would have to have multiple ascended pieces to have different outfits. Or I would have to spend a small fortune in transmutation stones.

My other biggest problem with this change (>.>) is that I do not see why this change is necessary in the first place? Can this not wait until Heart of Thorns when the armor is supposedly easier to obtain? This is a bad time to be stirring this boiling cauldron! Can we try to keep the peace for awhile before implementing this? Or are we going for a full out purge right now?

I am also upset about this change. By making it extremely time consuming to grind out a viable endgame gear set for hardcore content, it will remove the ability to move between and try out different builds whenever, which was something I really liked about the game. I don’t understand why this is being done.

Purple Miku.7032:

They had to adjust the difference between exotic and ascended because for the longest time ascended gave absolutely no benefit over exotic in areas below level 80. That is obscene since there’s only one level 80 dungeon aside from fractals, and I think this change is actually a good one. There should be a difference in attributes regardless of what map you’re in.

I agree it should be a difference, but it’s worth mentioning that there are 3 level 80 dungeons outside of fractals (if you count explorable modes, which we usually do anyway).

Altair.8402:

Am I the only one who likes the change?

KEEP IT UP ANET

Nope i also like the changes to stats/ascended armor and the trait stats being removed
With this i can even build more into a specific build

horizontal progression…no grind philosophy…game for who doesn’t like mmo’s…ahahahahah!
no more lies, gw2 has shown its true nature…a typical grindy mmo, just like any other.

Banono.4597:

I honestly do not care if Anet decides to make a gear treadmill and adds a new tier with each living story update, but for the love of all six gods, make them obtainable without having to torture yourself crafting or praying to RNGesus. I refuse to craft especially in this game. The second I am forced to; I move on from this game.

you are already forced to craft.
the stats increase is decent (so in wvw it is a little but significant advantage)…AND you already need ascended to get to pve endgame: high fractals.
the “high fractals are not rewarding” excuse is not working here.
the anet’s decision of getting emphasis in difference between exotic and ascended is clear; but they have to choose what kind of people they want to keep logging: -carrot on a stick/wow clones fans or -BiS for everyone.

DarkOcean.8746:

My biggest problem with this change is that I would have to have multiple ascended pieces to have different outfits. Or I would have to spend a small fortune in transmutation stones.

My other biggest problem with this change (>.>) is that I do not see why this change is necessary in the first place? Can this not wait until Heart of Thorns when the armor is supposedly easier to obtain? This is a bad time to be stirring this boiling cauldron! Can we try to keep the peace for awhile before implementing this? Or are we going for a full out purge right now?

This brings an ancient suggestion that echo’d the changes made to legendarys.

Ascended gears suffers 3 fatal flaws caused by 3 inconsistent rules in how the game uses Stats.

The cause?

1. Builds are a 50/50 split between stats and skill/trait combos to establish it’s effectiveness. Traits contribute to the control aspect, as well as setup for damage. The stats deliver the damage (or mitigate it). Defense is used when Controls are the offense, while Attack uses controls as part of its delivery system for damage. If either of these 2 are lacking, the build fails to perform.

2. Gear makes up a significant amount of those stats, and Traits don’t necessarily have synergy with the stats assigned to the trait line.

3. Because of the way stats are balanced through most of the game, it heavily favors burst damage and damage avoidance. This leads to most builds (prior to the Condi change), centering around high burst output, or being able to survive a burst attack followed by cleansing. In PVE, its heavily skewed toward the offense side, as mobs tend to be slow, heavy hitters (making a tank build kind of pointless).

Which leads us to whats wrong Ascended gear from a user experience stand point.

1. The high cost of producing just one set discourages their use with build diversity. This also makes equipping multiple classes with different armor classes a pain. Add runes to the mix, and you can see how unwieldy the system ends up being.

2. Even if we assume the cost wasn’t that big an issue, the space requirements to store multiple armor sets (with different stats) is inconvenient at best.

The solution? Complicated…… but one thing that would go a long way is adopting the Stat swapping aspect of Legendarys into the Ascended armor’s usability design. You build the base armor set per character (which is the most logical approach), and then use a separate task to unlock the different stats. Once unlocked, you can freely swap between them on your armor set. Extend this to runes, and the “end game equipment” situation becomes far easier to manage.

2.

Guys:

There wont be an extra buff to ascended compared to exotic.
And we get stat exchange on ascend edequipment:
“We are adding a system that lets you change the stats for your ascended gear next Tuesday – which will cost a combination of 10 spirit shards, piece you don’t want anymore, 5 ectos, and an exotic insignia of the stats you want to convert to. Legendary Gear will remain the gear that can freely change stats any time.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Gear-Anet-please-fix-this/first#post5173842

As already mentioned in the other thread, completely awesome change! Also very happy to hear that there won’t be an additional stats increase.

Now I wonder where that all came from…

Can’t wait for the new system but disappointed about them going back to 5%…o well, ascended still remains BiS and clearly superior to exotic

Satenia.9025:

Now I wonder where that all came from…

Possibly they did plan the change (the leaked patchnotes were confirmed, after all), but decided not to go through with it after seeing the unfavorable reaction. Which is a wonderful news. The ability to change stats, mentioned by Colin is a good thing as well. We’ll finally be able to use the random ascended drops with a wrong stat. Too bad it doesn’t work for rings, but those at least are relatively easy to get compared to the other stuff.