Guild Wars 2

Based on the marketing of this game, the nature of Guild Wars 1, and the overall design vision as I interpreted it, I thought that having a character for every profession would be a great way to play the game. Class diversity makes this extremely appealing to me and in a game that has little to no grinding and a world that doesn’t limit your access to content, this seemed possible.
With the addition of ascended gear I am starting to worry. I am worried that the time I’ve invested in leveling up characters and acquiring exotic equipment for them was wasted, as Ascended gear has made their exotic gear obsolete.

I know Arenanet doesn’t like to reveal anything about their plans for the future, but I feel these question need to be answered by a dev:

1. Will the level cap ever be increased?
- I ask this because I feel leveling up eight characters to level 80 is pointless if by the time I’ve finished I’ll have to start leveling them to 90.

2. Will there be higher-tier equipment than Ascended?
- I ask this because acquiring ascended gear for 8 characters seems pointless if their gear is to become obsolete with the addition of a new tier.

I don’t want a great big “SUPRENDIR! Your stuff is useless now!” after spending hundreds of hours building an arsenal. If the future of the game is to throw aside what I perceived the design vision to be and to make everything we’ve worked for obsolete in a patch later on down the line, I’d like to know that now before I put the time in.

1. Yes they will be increasing the level cap. They made the game to support this they have stated a few times.

2. Your equipment will become weaker compared to newer equipment released over time. It just won’t be as fast of a curve as say like wow.

i can’t actually find the sources for these any more so until i’m able to locate them or someone else finds them for me, you’re probably going to have to take this at face value

with regards to the level cap being raised, i believe they said that expansion packs would be the perfect time to do that, so they may raise the level cap during expansion packs

the ascended tier however, was meant to be a “filler” tier that bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary

the stat increase over exotics are minimal, and they can’t be socketed the same way you can put runes/sigils into exotic armor/weapons

they also bind on acquire so you can’t sell them on the auction house or trade them away, they’re only purpose is to give the hard core group something to work towards that isn’t quite as intense as getting a legendary, but provides a similar experience

given the feed back to ascended gear there is an almost 100% guaranteed chance that there is nothing higher than ascended save for legendary items which they already stated will be equivalent to the highest tier available

They added Ascended gear how many months ago? “Starting”…

I can see where you are coming from though – why should anyone play the game unless the entire plan for the future of the game is laid out in front of you, you need to know what the level cap will be in three years to enjoy playing (below that level) now and next week!

Play the game for the enjoyment of the game and you will always have something to do, levelling eight characters and putting them in some pimp looking gear for instance.

thisolderhead.5127:

I can see where you are coming from though – why should anyone play the game unless the entire plan for the future of the game is laid out in front of you, you need to know what the level cap will be in three years to enjoy playing (below that level) now and next week!

This part contradicts your last statement…is that intended?

If it is serious…I would have no idea why anyone who had this opinion would ever play an MMO period.

Sarcasm in the middle para…

I don’t think anyone with that attitude is going to have any fun in life at all!

thisolderhead.5127:

Sarcasm in the middle para…

I don’t think anyone with that attitude is going to have any fun in life at all!

Well…you never really know if what you read is sarcastic or not here

is why I asked and not bashed….not that I bash normally

:D

Not helped by some posts actually being that contradictory despite a complete lack of sarcasm, irony, etc.

I understand a lot of players coming from a less dynamic, closer to static model – you just have to remember that the games with more players, money, celebrity support, and pretty much every metric of success in business terms were at the other end of the scale, ANet is trying to please both camps, but one could say that GW1 did net a lot less than WoW.

Gestankfaust.4216:

thisolderhead.5127:

I can see where you are coming from though – why should anyone play the game unless the entire plan for the future of the game is laid out in front of you, you need to know what the level cap will be in three years to enjoy playing (below that level) now and next week!

This part contradicts your last statement…is that intended?

If it is serious…I would have no idea why anyone who had this opinion would ever play an MMO period.

You didn’t play Guild Wars 1 did you?

Prahl.1057:

Gestankfaust.4216:

thisolderhead.5127:

I can see where you are coming from though – why should anyone play the game unless the entire plan for the future of the game is laid out in front of you, you need to know what the level cap will be in three years to enjoy playing (below that level) now and next week!

This part contradicts your last statement…is that intended?

If it is serious…I would have no idea why anyone who had this opinion would ever play an MMO period.

You didn’t play Guild Wars 1 did you?

I did…and it matters why?

Because with GW1 you had the entire life span of the game detailed in a plan that you could review prior to purchasing, birth to death of the product.

With all of the unknown elements removed everyone just played together without drama, loot, or the sense that things could change. It was like Care-a-lot but with less bears, more dragons, an exactly as much circle je…. um sorry hugging.

I getcha…but when I played GW1, I never saw that. Was it something you had to search out? Cause the year or two I played, there was no wondering where you were going. It was just playing and having fun. Guess that’s still where I go wrong?

No – THAT is a good thing!

The requesting / demanding / begging for development road maps and hints, somehow making it seem that any lack of transperancy from Anet impedes the fun, and not being able to enjoy the game in the moment is a problem (in my opinion).

Just like any deviation from a six year old plan (developed for a six year old situation) causes uncomfortable outrage – its just gear and content guys, Anet hasn’t cancelled any birthdays.

Well this went bad quickly…

To clear the air: I am not anti-fun. I enjoy playing the game. I also would never claim that GW1 had a magical window into the future, nor is that what I want for Guild Wars 2. I simply want to know whether the things I spend time (basically in-game money) on now will have any persistent value/applicable use. I don’t have time to gear out 8 characters over and over again, so my dilemma (forgive me for having a dilemma in a video game…) is one of how many characters it is reasonable for me to maintain given the direction the game is taking. I initially believed I could have one of each profession, but given the consensus of the constructive replies in this thread I see that is not the case. I’ll probably just be playing one or two characters from here out. Thanks to everyone who didn’t pitch a hissyfit.

I see these as fairly important questions actually.

Coming from GW1 a lot of the things they said gave the impression certain core philosophies would be maintained. Now I’m hearing that is possibly not the case.
It’s their game so they get to make the rules I suppose, however the answers to these questions have considerable implications to my play style and how I approach a lot of the game.

For example, if I know that they intend to raise the level cap, just for arguments sake to 100, and they will add corresponding gear from 81-100, thus rendering any lvl 80 gear obsolete I’ll settle for using rares instead of exotics, because the huge jump in cost doesn’t warrant the increase if it’s only for 12-18 months (I’m something of an efficiency addict, and that much cost for that much gain short term is out of bounds), I’d rather start putting that money aside now, either to get proper gear later, or towards one of my long term goals. (hey, Infinite Light ain’t going to craft itself, but at least with that I’m grinding towards a “skin” I can always transmute later if need be)

The answers aren’t necessarily drop the game stuff, but if we could get some clear information plan wise, and they don’t have to give spoilers, just a clear yes/no on level cap and new gear (I believe the last response I heard on this was along the lines of "no new gear tiers…in 2013) would allow for proper planning.
I mean, if they’d given more warning for the Ascended stuff, since they claim it was planned from the beginning, we’d have been prepared for it and the firestorm would have at least been far far smaller.

There are good surprises and there are very bad surprises.
Imagine they release and expansion at some point, and it includes <Insert New Playable Race> and <Insert New Class>
Two scenarios I see. Most people are going to be focusing on the race/class, excited to try out the new stuff, they start installing the expansion and while it downloads they start reading the release notes (released same day as expansion), and they find out, oh by the way the level cap is now 100.
Unexpectedly all their other characters are no longer max level and a lot of their gear is obsolete (in a manor of speaking, it would still work fine to start towards 100 at least). Now the excitement for the new stuff is hampered by the drastic and unanticipated change to the status quo. The question then becomes, start on the new toon or fix the old ones first? Bad surprise.

Continued….

If on the other hand we knew far in advance (I mean far when I say far, 4 days, 4 weeks, 4 months are all unacceptably short to cope with a change of this size), we would be prepared for the raised cap and while it may be annoying knowing they’re not max anymore we will have had time to accept it and it’s not a hindrance to experiencing the new class/race. Maybe not 100% good surprise but still a far better experience than the alternative.

I understand the hesitation to make clear statements. People get attached to them, and remember them well (often because we’re planning our future play around them). So I suppose if they really truly aren’t sure yet there’s nothing they can say beyond blurry “not this year” type stuff. But if they know, are already sorting out numbers and stuff, I don’t see why just saying “yeah, we’re going to raise the cap with the first expansion, but we don’t know exactly how high we’re going or exactly when the expansion will drop” would be completely out of the question.
That’d be enough. Because if they do raise the cap it really doesn’t matter by how much. Even “when” exactly isn’t as important as “it is” or “is not” going to happen.

tl;dr I agree with the OP, would love to know the answers to those questions for several reasons.

One other thing though. I am sick and tired of hearing this argument:
“the ascended tier however, was meant to be a “filler” tier that bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary”

That statement makes no sense, it’s borderline insanity.
One of the major, core aspects of the game is something I like to call costmetics.
That, in theory, things with huge time/money sinks are grinds for appearance only, i.e. the legendaries.
The Legendary weapons were to be different in appearance only. That meant having the exact same stats as exotic. You cannot have a “bridge” that starts and ends in the same place. It makes no sense.
Now, they also said (after the first rumblings of Ascended gear threatened to render even legendaries obsolete) that Legendary weapons would always have stats to match the highest tier, which means that once Ascended weapons hit the legendaries will be bumped up to match. At that point you could think of the Ascended “weapons” bridging the gap between exotic and legendary because Ascended would have the same stats at the legendary but be easier to obtain (in theory).
However, it’s still a flawed argument because they said “equal to the highest tier”, which means they could still throw out another tier, bump up legendaries, and call the new tier the bridge between Ascended and Legendary. The phrasing they’ve used has very specifically left them far more room than people seem to realize, and those of us who’ve noticed would just appreciate some clarification (and I do not mean another “not this year” open ended non-answer)

The main point above is that the sooner we know anything (and quite often the less specific/detailed the better) the sooner we can light up the torches and crack out the pitchforks.

Wanting to know “the direction of the game” to decide about your investment in it I suppose is reasonable, after all this game is really the sum of its players’ imaginations and oh…. no wait that is EvE, it is more like wanting to know “the direction of the arc” before investing time in watching S2 of a sci fi series and then acting like a spoiled child when the creators stay tight lipped about their art/product.