Guild Wars 2

Just to note it quickly and explicitly… My understanding from this post is that you were able to do this by enjoying the game all of this time without that top level gear, correct?

Nothing much to add to this, but I wanted to say that I came to nearly the exact same conclusions as you. I think a similar amount of time in the the future (with a bit of number tweaking on anet’s part) people will feel the same way about the current guild mission uproar.

The only problem is that jewelcrafting is pretty well useless now. That’s rather unfortunate.

Ascended Items are fairly easy to get. Dailies are easy, and the monthly is easy too. The only really difficult ones are the earrings, due to their pricy cost. But amulet? Easy, 20 days of saving. Rings? Fractals, guaranteed chance after 10 runs with pristine relics. Or you might get the one you want to drop beforehand! Generous system IMO, especially if I compare it to other MMO’s ways of getting top gear.

And you only really need Ascended gear if you’re doing high level fractals.

Otherwise, in some ways, it’s worse than Exotics because of the lack of flexibility from the missing utility slot.

JaironKalach.4938:

Just to note it quickly and explicitly… My understanding from this post is that you were able to do this by enjoying the game all of this time without that top level gear, correct?

Just to say it quickly and explicitly… yes.

I think the ascended gear is fine as long as it continues to be available through other styles of play other than fractals.

I think the rate laurels are earned is fine, and the extra price of ectos or anything in addition to the laurels is just the cost of the item. It’s the price you pay for not doing fractals and that’s fine too.

But everything needs to be offered through other styles of play. The back pieces need to be put on a laurel vendor (unless I missed them somewhere) or the mats need to be able to be purchased with laurels.

I agree the time investment vs. reward is fine. What I don’t like is when items are exclusive to one style of play – like the back pieced being fractal only and not available through any other means.

But with zero fractal play, I agree the rate of laurel acquisition and the rate of gaining ascended gear seems to be fine.

Anything that is released in game needs to have multiple paths toward earning those items, not just one – especially when they are items with stats higher than exotics or whatever is current.

Halanna.3927:

I think the ascended gear is fine as long as it continues to be available through other styles of play other than fractals.

I think the rate laurels are earned is fine, and the extra price of ectos or anything in addition to the laurels is just the cost of the item. It’s the price you pay for not doing fractals and that’s fine too.

But everything needs to be offered through other styles of play. The back pieces need to be put on a laurel vendor (unless I missed them somewhere) or the mats need to be able to be purchased with laurels.

I agree the time investment vs. reward is fine. What I don’t like is when items are exclusive to one style of play – like the back pieced being fractal only and not available through any other means.

But with zero fractal play, I agree the rate of laurel acquisition and the rate of gaining ascended gear seems to be fine.

Anything that is released in game needs to have multiple paths toward earning those items, not just one – especially when they are items with stats higher than exotics or whatever is current.

Sound likes there going to be Ascended items in WvW soon. So they are releasing more ways to get them its just taking time.

I think it’s great to be able to get one toon decked out in 6 months- so it would only take 6 years or so to get my alts equipped to the same standard……

As it’s not tradeable it’s pretty stupid really to expect someone to play for 6 years to get gears for his toons- and that’s before they bring in ascended weapons and armors etc.

It’s the same stupidity being applied across the game such as wvw achievements being character bound.

Jski.6180:

Sound likes there going to be Ascended items in WvW soon. So they are releasing more ways to get them its just taking time.

I certainly hope so.

They’ve been missing for too long.

Chaosgyro.6023:

The only problem is that jewelcrafting is pretty well useless now. That’s rather unfortunate.

This is true, but there is that “Ascended” filter in the crafting options. This gives hope that one day we might be able to craft ascended gear.

If so, I hope it’s before we get ascended armor and weapons, or those professions will become useless as well.

I never really went and complained about the ascended gear, but I was extremely lukewarm at best about the whole thing. Kind of felt like something that wasn’t terribly necessary, arguing that I’d rather just have bunch more unique looking exotics.

I find that I actually kind of enjoy the presence of the gear now, and am looking forward to it being on armor.

I’m generally in agreement with the OP: It’s not particularly grindy, difficult, or tedious to gradually acquire the gear.

A small detail that I personally love about the ascended gear:

I enjoy uniquely named equipment. The fact that most of my gear was called things like “Berserker’s Feathered Mantle of Divinity” was kind of bothering me. It is just a simple (Stat) (Base Skin Model) (Upgrade) jigsaw to determine the name.

The fact that I now have things called “Lunaria, Circle of the Moon” makes the items feel significant to me. This is just how I feel. Even the uniquely named Exotics (i.e. Eternal Ice, Vision of the Mists, etc.) would invariably take the suffix of the upgrade you apply to them.

A minor, personal reason, but just another tiny thing I find that’s growing on me.
I look forward to having my armor become unique, named gear! Eventually, I hope ANet will add Ascended gear all around the world (that are not available from a merchant) that people seeking unique looks can hunt.

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

I think the idea is that not everyone plays every day (heck, I feel like I play a lot and even I don’t), or has a guild that has a massive amount of influence, or both.

I don’t agree with the wildly exaggerated “6 year” figures either. Don’t worry too much about it. People love being dramatic. Still, your estimate is based on the other end of the spectrum, which is to say from an extremely persistent player’s point of view only.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

Yeah, except that your assumptions meant that the player is running at least one Fractal per day and one guild mission per week, on top of doing their daily every single day.

I can tell you that I’m not a casual player and even I am not doing that. Those expectations may be reasonable to someone who has all the time in the world to play this game, but they’re not reasonable for a casual player

And for anyone who doesn’t want to be forced to run guild missions or Fractals, well, the previous poster’s math is exactly correct: it’d take 6 months to gear a single character.

This is precisely why people have been saying for months that there needs to be more than two ways of obtaining Ascended gear. Because right now, it’s either run this content that the devs are trying very hard to “encourage” you to do, or else rely on the laurel system and wait forever. And that’s not acceptable.

The stats aren’t really the issue. The fact they are only offered through limited content and time gating is. Add them to all forms of gameplay without the dumb time limits.

You paid for an opportunity to reach the lofty heights of content, stepping up and reaching them is step two – you can do eeet guys!

How many “Months” ago did the guild missions open up another path?

Just wait and see the feeling of reward that you’ve accomplished a non-trivial goal – its great!

Intellectual honestly is underrated. I salute you OP, well done.

Ascended is a circular treadmill; if you don’t do fractals you don’t need it, if you do you get it by playing.

critickitten.1498:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

Yeah, except that your assumptions meant that the player is running at least one Fractal per day and one guild mission per week, on top of doing their daily every single day.

I can tell you that I’m not a casual player and even I am not doing that. Those expectations may be reasonable to someone who has all the time in the world to play this game, but they’re not reasonable for a casual player

And for anyone who doesn’t want to be forced to run guild missions or Fractals, well, the previous poster’s math is exactly correct: it’d take 6 months to gear a single character.

This is precisely why people have been saying for months that there needs to be more than two ways of obtaining Ascended gear. Because right now, it’s either run this content that the devs are trying very hard to “encourage” you to do, or else rely on the laurel system and wait forever. And that’s not acceptable.

I don’t think that was meant to be “typical” scenario, just the “minimum” scenario. If you really must have everything RIGHT NOW, you could take a character from level 1 to level 80 with max gear in 1 month.

However, it’s more likely it’ll take maybe 2 months for someone to fully decorate their character with the non-cosmetics. I feel that this is acceptable, especially since the Level 80 with Full Exotics is so quick. You basically take 50% of your play time to get your character’s last 8% power gain (if you choose to do so).

As for the guild stuff, it is really not difficult to find a conglomerate mega-guild that does guild missions every other day. You can be part of multiple guilds, so why not spend a bit of time there?

thisolderhead.5127:

You paid for an opportunity to reach the lofty heights of content, stepping up and reaching them is step two – you can do eeet guys!

How many “Months” ago did the guild missions open up another path?

Just wait and see the feeling of reward that you’ve accomplished a non-trivial goal – its great!

Ah, i see. That’s the problem – i don’t see getting stat gear as accomplishment. I see it as preparation phase. Therefore, by acquiring it i don’t get a feeling of reward, but rather one of relief, of a chore that i got out of the way.
Basically: gear is not content. Content is content.

Chaosgyro.6023:

Nothing much to add to this, but I wanted to say that I came to nearly the exact same conclusions as you. I think a similar amount of time in the the future (with a bit of number tweaking on anet’s part) people will feel the same way about the current guild mission uproar.

The only problem is that jewelcrafting is pretty well useless now. That’s rather unfortunate.

Especially since jewelcrafting already requires multiple ectos just to make rares, let alone exotic. Taken along with the snowflake exploit, its pretty clear the devs dont even THINK about jewelcrafting.

Chaosgyro.6023:

Nothing much to add to this, but I wanted to say that I came to nearly the exact same conclusions as you. I think a similar amount of time in the the future (with a bit of number tweaking on anet’s part) people will feel the same way about the current guild mission uproar.

The only problem is that jewelcrafting is pretty well useless now. That’s rather unfortunate.

As all the crafting professions will be after Ascended armor and weapons are introduced.

I suppose there’s a small possibility that they’ll introduce craftable Ascendeds for 50 ecto a piece. (That’d be 300 ecto for all six armor pieces on one character by the way.)

They’ll need a way to increase the cost of ecto (as it is currently dropping).

Although, I expect Ascended armor and weapons to be gated through laurel/guild/fractal merchants. So that people can’t craft it right away. Thus ruining all the crafting professions.

Ahhh I see too… and please don’t take this as attack when I’m trying to understand this particular POV.

You are in a state of constant preparation due to..?
Getting stat gear is done by playing the game, and playing the game is what is meant to be rewarding the player…

You see getting stat gear as preparation for what? Having all the loots? That big raid that yet to be clocked?

I agree with the people who said that the problem with ascended is it forces us to play a specific way to acquire them. Compared to exotics and lower tiers, we can do anything we want and yet still be able to acquire them. With ascended equips, I have to do fractals, or guild missions or dailies (activities which weren’t part of my regular routine before) so that I can get them items.

I’m still confused as to why people would keep on saying ’it’s optional, you don’t have to get it’. We aren’t required to get to level 99 in other games either. Level 98 is fine and yet why do we pursue max level or final equipments in other games? GW2 isn’t an exception. Heck, we can even do anything with just green items in GW2 but why do we want to get exotics?

Leo Paul.1659:

I agree with the people who said that the problem with ascended is it forces us to play a specific way to acquire them. Compared to exotics and lower tiers, we can do anything we want and yet still be able to acquire them. With ascended equips, I have to do fractals, or guild missions or dailies (activities which weren’t part of my regular routine before) so that I can get them items.

I’m still confused as to why people would keep on saying ’it’s optional, you don’t have to get it’. We aren’t required to get to level 99 in other games either. Level 98 is fine and yet why do we pursue max level or final equipments in other games? GW2 isn’t an exception. Heck, we can even do anything with just green items in GW2 but why do we want to get exotics?

I think that those people are failing to clearly say something more like “One is setting one’s own goals, and they come with their own challenges. Once one has set one’s goals one ought to man up and strive, or reevaluate one’s earlier choice with experiences gained.”

Counter to that is that some will set goals within game that for many reasons will not be obtainable for them, and they will come here and ask for the game to be altered to suit that choice, with a paper thin and rage filled “logical reason” to do so.

It is all about understanding the choice… lol.

Right now, ascended aren’t a problem, because it’s just the jewelry (just some stats, no extra armor and no extra atack), u can still do wvw and pve with good chances (fractals aside), well pve, u can do it with greens, really. I do a lot of roaming in wvw with an engi and i don’t have any ascended stuff, just exotics, and u can own enemy dudes without them, even if they have all the ascended jewelry.

But when we have armor and weapons, well, that’s extra armor, extra atack and extra stats from all the pieces of your equipment, there we can have a problem (atleast those of us that like to roam in wvw), we will need those pieces, we will need to do fractals, dailies or whatever that gives the ascended goodies.

Baldric.6781:

Right now, ascended aren’t a problem, because it’s just the jewelry (just some stats, no extra armor and no extra atack), u can still do wvw and pve with good chances (fractals aside), well pve, u can do it with greens, really. I do a lot of roaming in wvw with an engi and i don’t have any ascended stuff, just exotics, and u can own enemy dudes without them, even if they have all the ascended jewelry.

But when we have armor and weapons, well, that’s extra armor, extra atack and extra stats from all the pieces of your equipment, there we can have a problem (atleast those of us that like to roam in wvw), we will need those pieces, we will need to do fractals, dailies or whatever that gives the ascended goodies.

Well we are not all that sure atm from what weapons we have that are pink “ascended” we only have p/t/v and for most ppl these weapons are worthless beyond looks this may changes. The thing is about weapons and armor we do not know what can be put on them such as can we use runes on them or not? If not exotic armor has a some what advantages over Ascended because the T6 rune on most sets are so powerful and unique that they are hard press to lose for all we could know small boots. What makes Ascended jewelry strong is the gems that are in them with out these gems Ascended jewelry is only +2 to +6 stronger then exotic most of the time and for crit dmg its not any stronger for neck and earrings. So if Ascended armor and maybe weapons dose not have this build in gems they are not going to be much stronger then exotic. If any thing if both of these turn up to be what happens Ascended armor may be weaker then exotic on a flexibility level.

But we do not know and most like will not know for some time for a full set of Ascended armor to come out.

When they give a definitive answer as to whether or not they’ll keep adding tiers then it’ll be fine. As it is with all of this double speak and the best we can get is, “Is this going to become a gear-tiered game where you’re constantly on this treadmill to chase after that stuff? My hope would be no. I think that certainly in 2013 you’re not going to see another tier of gear.” I’m incredibly skeptical and it all seems like a waste of time to even gear up at all.

Sweetbread.2679:

When they give a definitive answer as to whether or not they’ll keep adding tiers then it’ll be fine. As it is with all of this double speak and the best we can get is, “Is this going to become a gear-tiered game where you’re constantly on this treadmill to chase after that stuff? My hope would be no. I think that certainly in 2013 you’re not going to see another tier of gear.” I’m incredibly skeptical and it all seems like a waste of time to even gear up at all.

The double speak is actually two answers, to two questions – the fact the keep getting asked those two questions TOGETHER may be part of the reason it seems the answers contradict each other… but the risk of trying to be clever with loaded (false) questioning.

Actually it’s no answers to any questions. He’s just talking about how he “hopes” that it won’t become a gear grind, and he “thinks” we won’t see a new tier in 2013. There is literally, unarguably no useful information in that “answer” and there hasn’t been in any of their responses about ascended gear really.

Sweetbread.2679:

Actually it’s no answers to any questions. He’s just talking about how he “hopes” that it won’t become a gear grind, and he “thinks” we won’t see a new tier in 2013. There is literally, unarguably no useful information in that “answer” and there hasn’t been in any of their responses about ascended gear really.

That sort of response is about the best you can “hope” for, I “think” you are forgotting how much nerd-rage is created when someone in Anet forgets to preamble a response, especially when the responses don’t seem to fit the “answer” the players want…

Apt name by the way – love it.

Personally I still find it just another gear grind that forces me to play areas of the game I don’t want to ensure I keep up with gear, and makes me more reluctant to make an alt.

To be honest if I wanted a gear grind there are better games.

Hm I’d think the nerd rage would be much worse if they lead people on for months and months and then surprise them with a new step to the gear grind, but it’s okay because they “hope” that next tier after ascended is the last tier. At least until it happens again. They already burned a lot of good faith by advertising for 5 years of development that there would be no vertical progression and then adding it 3 months in. A lot of people don’t trust Anet after that bait and switch and just skirting the issue and giving non-answers really only exacerbates it. It’s idiotic, makes it look like they don’t know what they’re doing with their own game, and alienates their playerbase.

thisolderhead.5127:

Ahhh I see too… and please don’t take this as attack when I’m trying to understand this particular POV.

You are in a state of constant preparation due to..?
Getting stat gear is done by playing the game, and playing the game is what is meant to be rewarding the player…

You see getting stat gear as preparation for what? Having all the loots? That big raid that yet to be clocked?

Higher level fractals, WvW

Sweetbread.2679:

Hm I’d think the nerd rage would be much worse if they lead people on for months and months and then surprise them with a new step to the gear grind, but it’s okay because they “hope” that next tier after ascended is the last tier. At least until it happens again. They already burned a lot of good faith by advertising for 5 years of development that there would be no vertical progression and then adding it 3 months in. A lot of people don’t trust Anet after that bait and switch and just skirting the issue and giving non-answers really only exacerbates it. It’s idiotic, makes it look like they don’t know what they’re doing with their own game, and alienates their playerbase.

It alienates the portion of the player base that feels betrayed, and while I have no doubt that retaining people who were leaving/not playing GW1 was on their list of important things to do, I suspect claiming players from outside their own products was MORE important.

GW1 is still there and cheaper to provide to a customer than GW2 (at this point), logic dictates that the people pining for GW1 type products are not going to be as interesting to Anet as those who able to be captured from competing COMPANIES.

I’m not saying that you’re wrong to feel hurt, I’m saying it makes sense that it was going to happen – writing has been on the wall for a long time.

sad to see OP has decided to side with Anet on this issue, instead of us, the forever-casual players who stand in LA and waiting for those pink items to drop from the sky.

Anet must have somehow brainwashed or paid you to say these nice things about ascended gear.

Please reconsider your position, what Anet doing right now is that they want us to play the game if we want to have better rewards. This is totally unacceptable, and in violation of the sacred “I-am-a-Casual-i-don’t-do-X-but-i-want-the-reward-of-X” code.

i suggest OP to watch their manifesto YouTube clip for another 1000 times. Perhaps that will change your mind on this issue.

morrolan.9608:

thisolderhead.5127:

Ahhh I see too… and please don’t take this as attack when I’m trying to understand this particular POV.

You are in a state of constant preparation due to..?
Getting stat gear is done by playing the game, and playing the game is what is meant to be rewarding the player…

You see getting stat gear as preparation for what? Having all the loots? That big raid that yet to be clocked?

Higher level fractals, WvW

WvW is a reasonable point, except that the customers’ hardware/ISP is going to impact at least as much, there will be a gate to the top competition eventually (res 800 plox).

Higher level fractals are a self fulfulling prophesy – you want to run fractals, so you run fractals, to gear for fractals, so you can run fractals, no entry gate (assuming you are not a complete muppet) and an almost perfectly closed loop and well planned if they continue a verticle progression (they have as much said they will), unlike the cheap shot mechanic they snuck in there… Agony lol.

thisolderhead.5127:

It alienates the portion of the player base that feels betrayed, and while I have no doubt that retaining people who were leaving/not playing GW1 was on their list of important things to do, I suspect claiming players from outside their own products was MORE important.

GW1 is still there and cheaper to provide to a customer than GW2 (at this point), logic dictates that the people pining for GW1 type products are not going to be as interesting to Anet as those who able to be captured from competing COMPANIES.

I’m not saying that you’re wrong to feel hurt, I’m saying it makes sense that it was going to happen – writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Yes, all of the writing that they continually perpetuated the exact opposite of. All over the wall. All over it.

I honestly don’t mind Ascended gear. If they just flat out said that ascended and legendary were the only additional gear tiers I would be fine with that. It’s just the bait and switch coupled with all of this double speak really only promotes the idea that they don’t care enough to stick to their stated design philosophies; that they can’t give definite answers because they don’t know if they’ll drop and change their philosophies at a whim if it means more money. I doubt anyone wants to play that game, and in the long run ruining their credibility for a short term gain is just flat out stupid. The fan base for GW1 and the design integrity they showed with it are the only reasons that this game had the hype train it did. Do you think that’s going to happen for GW3?

You say don’t care about “their stated design philosophies”, perhaps someone closer could hear the heart breaking of a dev each time they were told that if they wanted to continue working on the project they’d have to sacrifice a little of the dream to pay for it…

The fan base for GW1 isn’t soley responsible for hyping this game up – but since GW2 let you down in basically every other way I’ll concede that it is in fact the baby of the GW1 player community and as such you should fight Anet for control! :-P

Arale.4207:

Ascended Items are fairly easy to get. Dailies are easy, and the monthly is easy too. The only really difficult ones are the earrings, due to their pricy cost. But amulet? Easy, 20 days of saving. Rings? Fractals, guaranteed chance after 10 runs with pristine relics. Or you might get the one you want to drop beforehand! Generous system IMO, especially if I compare it to other MMO’s ways of getting top gear.

and yet people still complain.

i believe the majority who complain are the ones who play the game alone and refuse to group up with the public.

azureai.9764:

And you only really need Ascended gear if you’re doing high level fractals.

Not just Ascended gear but Agony Resist.

Which . . . is on my shopping list after that Grawl Shaman kept potshotting me with lavabolts.

. . . what? By the time I get the materials to make a Fine Infusion, I will have a ring to put it in.

thisolderhead.5127:

I suspect claiming players from outside their own products was MORE important.

these are exaggerated numbers but they demonstrate the point.

lets say 90% of all mmo players like vertical progression and 10% do not

of that 90% the game will pull in maybe 9% due to there being like 10 other mmos with vertical progression, whereas if they stuck with the niche horizontal crowd they’d get 10%

of the 9% claimed from other games some will go back to those games and some will leave for the next mmo with vertical progression in reality making it lower.

thisolderhead.5127:

an almost perfectly closed loop and well planned if they continue a verticle progression

except its not, other than WvW it impacts dynamic events and the economy, we know that damage contribution determines whether or not you qualify for loot when tagging mobs, this in turn impacts your income and ability to use the TP due to inflation.

people with ascended gear have a higher kill contribution than you (through increased stats) and are more likely to get loot at your expense assuming contribution is calculated by % this leads to you being priced out of the TP as players with ascended gear will have an increasing income while yours is diminished, and you will have no way to close that gap other than not playing with players in ascended gear or getting ascended gear yourself.

@OP laurels did exist at launch they’re called mystic coins and they are tradable so you didn’t have to do your dailies/ monthlys if you didn’t want to, if ascended gear had been in the game from launch this discussion probably wouldn’t exist so im not sure what your point with that was…

Shadow Blade.1324:

@OP laurels did exist at launch they’re called mystic coins and they are tradable so you didn’t have to do your dailies/ monthlys if you didn’t want to, if ascended gear had been in the game from launch this discussion probably wouldn’t exist so im not sure what your point with that was…

Mystic Coins are not Laurels, and while they could substitute . . . that would put people trying to use them in the Mystic Forge for recipes in a bind.

critickitten.1498:

Baeyne.9584:

I actually laughed at the sarcasm in his post. But yes, i would agree with you that people should refrain from insulting other people for their opinions.

Although, i would also encourage people to post constructively in this forums and not just post to whine about something.

I would normally agree, except that it seems this forum has a very different definition of “whining” than most other forums and is excessively hyper-defensive of the game and every decision that ANet makes. I’m not sure if this is an overreaction to some of the more vocal negative complaints or simply a refusal to acknowledge that every game has its faults, but it doesn’t make for a very productive discussion if everything negative is considered “whining”.

Characterizing complaints as “whining” is a way to generate agreement with the like-minded, belittle the complainer’s position and look like that poster is one of the cool kids. It’s a cheap tactic to try to “win” an argument. Since it is an insult, I think every post that uses the term in such a fashion should be moderated.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Shadow Blade.1324:

@OP laurels did exist at launch they’re called mystic coins and they are tradable so you didn’t have to do your dailies/ monthlys if you didn’t want to, if ascended gear had been in the game from launch this discussion probably wouldn’t exist so im not sure what your point with that was…

Mystic Coins are not Laurels, and while they could substitute . . . that would put people trying to use them in the Mystic Forge for recipes in a bind.

they serve the exact same purpose being a time gated currency, the only reason laurels were included was to reset everyones progress so people with 10,000+ coins dont just get to buy everything and then profit massively as the price spikes.

there are various recipes already using coins, so people have to choose what they want to use them for, or sell them, using them instead of laurels would only have added another choice.

IndigoSundown.5419:

critickitten.1498:

Baeyne.9584:

I actually laughed at the sarcasm in his post. But yes, i would agree.. -snip-

I would normally agree, except that it seems this forum has… -snip-

Characterizing complaints as “whining” is a way to… -snip-

Agreed. That’s the extreme opposite of people who defend their own opinion. I do not propose to know how the term “whinning” is used in these forums.

But by my own standard, the definition of that term can be found three posts above yours.

critickitten.1498:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

6.5 months is a vast overestimate of fully gearing a character.

It takes a maximum of 20 days to get both ascended rings.
It takes 20 days of laurels to get your ascended amulet (plus completion of the monthly which should happen in those 20 days)
It takes 4 weeks of guild missions to get both ascended earrings (assuming your guild has them all unlocked, will take longer for the first few months as guilds unlock things)

In total it takes 28 days to completely deck out your character in all current ascended gear. That’s one character a month. In 6 months you could fully deck out 6 characters.

A far cry from the 6 years that people are claiming lol.

Yeah, except that your assumptions meant that the player is running at least one Fractal per day and one guild mission per week, on top of doing their daily every single day.

I can tell you that I’m not a casual player and even I am not doing that. Those expectations may be reasonable to someone who has all the time in the world to play this game, but they’re not reasonable for a casual player

And for anyone who doesn’t want to be forced to run guild missions or Fractals, well, the previous poster’s math is exactly correct: it’d take 6 months to gear a single character.

This is precisely why people have been saying for months that there needs to be more than two ways of obtaining Ascended gear. Because right now, it’s either run this content that the devs are trying very hard to “encourage” you to do, or else rely on the laurel system and wait forever. And that’s not acceptable.

Fractal takes like an hour, two tops depending on group. Daily can be steamrolled in 20 minutes, and there’s PLENTY of guilds now who will let people participate in guild missions without even staying in the guild after. I’m in the middle of casual/hardcore and I easily have time for these activities.

Kudos to TS for realizing and admitting. To be honest, Ascended gears are fairly easy to obtain. People just have to try fractals out instead of jumping onto the gear grind bandwagon. Here’s to hoping people to look from a different angle and actually try it out before posting negative remarks

Victory.2879:

As it’s not tradeable it’s pretty stupid really to expect someone to play for 6 years to get gears for his toons- and that’s before they bring in ascended weapons and armors etc..

so you apparently want to equip all of your 12 characters with the highest gear available….what exactly is pretty stupid here?