Guild Wars 2

Jatacid.3725:

If they didn’t have ascended gear, or even legendaries for that matter. EVERYone even casual players. Would complain about the lack of end game gearing.

This is false.

Jatacid.3725:

If Guild Wars 2 released with the Ascended tier in place, there wouldn’t be anyone complaining about it.

This is false.

Jatacid.3725:

Exotics just simply don’t cut it for that ’I’ve reached the last tier’ feeling.

For you perhaps.

Jatacid.3725:

They explicitly said they wouldn’t add tiers above this -

Source please.

Jatacid.3725:

Tell the devs what you want out of end game

We want there to not be an ascended tier. We want Anet to return to the original intent where grinding would be restricted to cosmetic items and characters would have max stat gear by level 80. Those complaints that you are complaining about (nice bit of hypocrisy there) are doing exactly what you claim…telling the devs what we want out of end game.

I dont mind Ascended level items at this point. Reason being is that they have been very slowly trickling them out so it’s not like we’re going to have to update our equipment frequently. That and you really only need Ascended stuff for higher level fractals. As far as I’m concerned, for me anyway, all it is, is a means to give one a slight advantage in the game. Sure it may bring some issues in WvW but that format already has problems of its own which I wont get into.

And this is coming from someone who preferred the low stat ceiling of GW1, but hey it’s already quite obvious that GW2 is something else. I’m definitely in no rush to get all my Ascended stuff.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

You don’t even need to grind to get ascended gear.

You will get the materials to make it by playing the game at any speed, in any way.

You and all of the other complainers are over dramatizing the entire issue.

Look at what is required to make them, and look at all the options of obtaining them. You get all of the materials without trying. Now relax.

Lol yeah rely on the games RNG. you’ll have Ascended gear in no time. I’m lvl 80 and still get nothing but crap loot drops in this game. I can’t even remember the last time a got a rare.

Jatacid.3725:

Stop complaining as if this is the end of the game doom-all end-all bring forth the cataclysm wtfgtfo ihatethisgameiquit rage posts.

Think about it. Guild Wars 2 as a compeltely new game.

If they didn’t have ascended gear, or even legendaries for that matter. EVERYone even casual players. Would complain about the lack of end game gearing. You just get a basic crafted exotic and thats it? Nothing more to it?

Luckily, they released the game with Legendaries, which gives the players a big, long term, difficult goal to work towards.

If Guild Wars 2 released with the Ascended tier in place, there wouldn’t be anyone complaining about it.

It is an end-game gearing step up that you can work for. It doesn’t take that long. It isn’t that hard.

It seriously makes sense that you have all slots with just your run-of-the-mill ascended items as a casual to moderate player. Exotics just simply don’t cut it for that ’I’ve reached the last tier’ feeling.

Guild Wars 2 needs ascended gear. While yes, it DID go against their ‘Manifesto’ or whatever about adding a gear treadmill, but don’t blow it out of proportion.

This gear is no harder to obtain than a Legendary, it’s not completely necessary to obtain them, and it really does standardize their offerings for end game gear.

Why would you have ascended backpieces or jewellery, but not any other slot?

So, stop complaining so much. The tier makes a lot of sense from a game design perspective. It doesn’t go against their manifesto too much. If it was in the game from the beginning most of you wouldn’t have thought 2 seconds about it.

Instead of complaining about how Ascended is bad, try thinking of ways where they could make horizontal progression if you don’t want them to continue adding tiers beyond this.

They explicitly said they wouldn’t add tiers above this – this is really just completing the game tbh. So what about horizontal options? How would you do it?

Turn your unconstructive and completely misguided complaints about Ascended gear into a positive direction for GW2. Tell the devs what you want out of end game instead of throwing a bubble fit about an item tier that makes lots of sense for Guild Wars 2 as a game.

I never complained about the lack of end gear and would until the ascended weapons were released. On that moment I complained about the existence of it. I don’t like time gating and griding only to keep even with other players. Evn that time gating wouldn’t hurts me, it really hurts new players, that why I’m aganist it. And grinding really hurts casual players.

When I begin to play the game (around 3 months after I bought, I guess) I begin my goal to exotics, and I didn’t care at all about cosmetics. When I finally begin to get my exotics I begin to think “That skin looks so nice, I want one for me”, and then my objectives changed to skins and exotics. And since then, I was glad that the game was only about cosmetics, even with ascended trinkets (that doesn’t make so much difference at all, compared to the weapons that can really make a difference becouse of its base atk), I could try different possibilities, differents builds, different chars (with multiple equipaments), and only enjoy the game. I do like to be easy to get things, so I can play the game instead of grind to get it.

Since the addition of ascended (they should be only 10/5/5 more status, without the increase in base attack) I begin to really desmotivate to keep playing this game, and so I’ll leave it most likely soon (this isn’t a intimidation, I can leave or not). This isn’t a complain, becouse it can really be better to the game, if the most players really want this, this should be done and they must do what is better to game.

But, yes I been fooled. I been fooled becouse they promised one type of game and delivered another, completely different. Maybe not only I been fooled, but even themselves, that traced an ideology and went to the oposite direction. Or even they didn’t know and don’t know what they want to their game. Maybe they tried to hug the world to get the most players possible, who knows?

I really liked the game and I want the best for it, so I can’t say what is best for me, becouse they must do what is best to the player base. Becouse I finally realised that I don’t belong to that player base more – as shown on their manifesto, advertisements and even critics, I should be – but I’m not any more.

And who is complaining should do the same. We (the complainers) do not belong to this game any more, let who belongs, enjoy it. Go play another game, and who knows, someday a game with gw2 original ideas may born, since the ANET already showed the path for it and shown that is possible, even if they didn’t followed this path.

To the new players: “Welcome to the Grinding Wars 2”.

PS: This forum is bugged and I cannot edit my post.

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

You don’t even need to grind to get ascended gear.

You will get the materials to make it by playing the game at any speed, in any way.

You and all of the other complainers are over dramatizing the entire issue.

Look at what is required to make them, and look at all the options of obtaining them. You get all of the materials without trying. Now relax.

Your name suits you perfectly, because not having to grind to get Asc weapons is total BS.

I’ll bet if Anet gives you guys a free 10k gold everyone would still complaint… play the game and take the challenge as it progress or otherwise quit of you dont like where the game is going! Now kitten and go back to champ farming. Problem solve!

Jatacid.3725:

If they didn’t have ascended gear, or even legendaries for that matter. EVERYone even casual players. Would complain about the lack of end game gearing. You just get a basic crafted exotic and thats it? Nothing more to it?

No, not everyone. Some of us were very happy to get BiS gear relatively easily, and just enjoy the game without a to-do list.

Luckily, they released the game with Legendaries, which gives the players a big, long term, difficult goal to work towards.

And luckily, it was a purely cosmetic reward, no more powerful than exotics, so those of us who don’t need a long term, difficult goal to work towards could just ignore them. Unfortunately, that changed.

If Guild Wars 2 released with the Ascended tier in place, there wouldn’t be anyone complaining about it.

Wrong again. Even if it had been in the game at release, as currently implemented there is a bizarre steepening of requirements at the end of the gear progression. Remember the big deal ANet made over their even level progression from 1 to 80? It was one of the landmarks of the game that experience costs wouldn’t get steeper as you got higher in level. It’d take about the same game play to get from level 79 to 80 as it did to get from 20 to 21.

Not so gear. Masterworks rain down on you as you progress through leveling. Hit 80, and you can pick up rares without thought. A short while and you’ve got exotics. Compared to those, getting to Ascended is like going from walking up an ADA approved wheelchair ramp to climbing Everest.

Level crafting from 1 to 400 with about 15 gold worth of mats. But getting from 400 to 500 is over 10 times that cost!

It seriously makes sense that you have all slots with just your run-of-the-mill ascended items as a casual to moderate player. Exotics just simply don’t cut it for that ’I’ve reached the last tier’ feeling.

For you and some others. For the me and some others, exotics were perfectly satisfying. We moved on to leveling and gearing alts, getting multiple exotics for different kinds of builds, and getting the cosmetics we desired.

Guild Wars 2 needs ascended gear. While yes, it DID go against their ‘Manifesto’ or whatever about adding a gear treadmill, but don’t blow it out of proportion.

No, it didn’t and doesn’t.

This gear is no harder to obtain than a Legendary, it’s not completely necessary to obtain them, and it really does standardize their offerings for end game gear.

Many of us were happy to ignore Legendaries, because they offered no stat bonus. Therein lies a big difference.

Why would you have ascended backpieces or jewellery, but not any other slot?

Those of us who aren’t happy with ascended weapons and armor weren’t happy with ascended backpieces or jewelry, either.

Instead of complaining about how Ascended is bad, try thinking of ways where they could make horizontal progression if you don’t want them to continue adding tiers beyond this.

There have been myriad threads offering suggestions for horizontal progression. There is no shortage of ideas.

They explicitly said they wouldn’t add tiers above this – this is really just completing the game tbh.

No, Colin said he “hopes” there won’t be tiers above this. They’ve also made vague noises about increasing level cap down the road, which would likely mean the need for getting new Ascended gear at the new level cap.

Turn your unconstructive and completely misguided complaints about Ascended gear into a positive direction for GW2. Tell the devs what you want out of end game instead of throwing a bubble fit about an item tier that makes lots of sense for Guild Wars 2 as a game.

Not unconstructive, and not misguided, just because you don’t agree.

Horizontal progression can include:

1. New skills that need to be picked up by doing something specific in game instead of just buying with skill points.
2. New cosmetic sets to go for.
3. Player housing to design, construct, and furnish.
4. Mounts to acquire.
5. New weapons that aren’t currently available on a given class.

Still, I need to make it very clear to ANet that Ascended gear is the reason I have stopped spending money to support the game for the time being.

What happened to expensive but reasonable, instead they kittened everything over. If I hate this now so much just for level one profession. How the kitten will I feel when its all eight professions. This is kittening bullkitten. I completed map, completed story, completed dungeons, have six 80s and have no kittening legendaries (god kitten them).

At the very least should have gotten choice of a legendary instead of pact victory kittening token on condition of map and story being complete. Now I just have this dirty toilet paper crafting shoved in my face and i gotta empty the bin. 50 lvls of exotics ad rehashed for what? The globs and goo that was falling in fractals why cant i use that kitten to makes ascended, why rehash the same old kitten? Why?

Having started the crafting process I have to say that it doesn’t seem that hard. But that just makes it even more annoying. The hardcore’s will get their gear in about a week, and once again be left with nothing to do. The casuals on the other hand will be waiting for some time, and will be equally upset.

Anet will fail to appease both groups once again, and will actually just disappoint everyone.

Sube Dai.8496:

Having started the crafting process I have to say that it doesn’t seem that hard. But that just makes it even more annoying. The hardcore’s will get their gear in about a week, and once again be left with nothing to do. The casuals on the other hand will be waiting for some time, and will be equally upset.

Anet will fail to appease both groups once again, and will actually just disappoint everyone.

They will have to craft gear for the rest of their characters, and there is only so many mats you can have stored up. Plus, they will be prepping for ascended armor. I don’t think there are many players that have these type of resources, even among farmers. It’s not like that have all the time in the world to play just because they happen to be a farmer.

I don’t know what happened when ascended was first introduced, since I didn’t purchase gw2 until mid December, and ascended was already a tier in game when I started, but from videos I’ve watched, I’m under the impression that a lot of the truly hardcore people jumped ship long ago.

I didn’t pick this game up because I wanted gearing. I picked this game up because I wanted cosmetic and skill based progression. Numbers do absolutely nothing for me and I honestly find it an exceedingly dumb way of doing progression. It has brought nothing but imbalance to the world of Guild Wars.

ArenaNet needs to realize that they can’t possibly appease the GW crowd and the WoW crowd at the same time. They need to pick an audience and stick with it before it’s too late. I know a lot of old GW players are looking to EQN now.

I’ll admit to being a little salty over ascended gear at first, but its been about a week now and I’m pretty much over it. Sure, I wish it was less account bound, and not as time gated but its not the end of the world.

At this point I’m curious about, and look forward to the implementation of ascended armor.

No matter what Anet does, complainers are gonna complain. No ascended gear, people complain about no endgame progression. Ascended gear, people complain about vertical progression. Champs don’t drop bags, people complain about champs don’t being worth the effort. Champs drop bags, people complain about the economy. They will NEVER make everyone happy, best course of action is probably to make whatever they feel the best product is and let the market decide from there.

Assuming that I were willing to play the game slavishly to be able to craft a weapon every two weeks, it would take me 94 weeks to get back to where I was before this patch — that being that I would have all BiS weapons for all my level 80’s.

Warrior (9); Guardian (6); Elementalist (4); Mesmer (5); Necromancer (6); Thief (8); Ranger (6) and Engineer (3). (47 weapons * 2 weeks each) = 94 weeks.

Has ANet advertised this would be the case, I would not have bought the game. But that’s not what they advertised, now is it?

So, things changed. However, why did they change? Players bought the game and wanted stuff to grind for, and complained. That’s what the people who dislike the changes are doing now. If you don’t like complaints, then you should also have been on the case of those who complained about nothing to work towards.

But that’s not what you want, is it? You just want people you don’t agree with to shut up. Ain’t happening.

Lambent.6375:

I don’t know what happened when ascended was first introduced, since I didn’t purchase gw2 until mid December, and ascended was already a tier in game when I started, but from videos I’ve watched, I’m under the impression that a lot of the truly hardcore people jumped ship long ago.

I think too many players were willing to give ArenaNet a chance. Just to take a random sample, looking at those on the first page of the 10 months old ascended gear topic who were against those items, only 7 people stopped posting by the time Ascended gear was introduced; the great majority of the others had more recent posts mentioning more recent game developments. For all the talk, I guess too many players were not willing to stop playing the game.

Fungalfoot.7213:

ArenaNet needs to realize that they can’t possibly appease the GW crowd and the WoW crowd at the same time. They need to pick an audience and stick with it before it’s too late. I know a lot of old GW players are looking to EQN now.

ArenaNet already did pick an audience. It’s the WoW crowd. You, me and the rest of the GW crowd are likely seen more as a liability polluting their forums than anything else.

GW2 doesn’t need Ascended gear. It was a bad decision based upon bad reality-testing. This conversation has been going strong since November of last year and I imagine it will continue until they reverse course on vertical progression. You’ll note I didn’t mention new tiers of gear. New tiers, and ascended in particular were never the problem, per se. The problem is vertical progression. They have stated that they don’t plan to carry it forward through new tiers of rarity, but rather through upgrades (infusions) to current (ascended) gear. It is VP that creates the gear grind treadmill. Once that stops, the forums will become all that you want them to be with no one complaining about Ascended gear and vertical progression. That will be a wonderful day!

IndigoSundown.5419:

Assuming that I were willing to play the game slavishly to be able to craft a weapon every two weeks, it would take me 94 weeks to get back to where I was before this patch — that being that I would have all BiS weapons for all my level 80’s.

Warrior (9); Guardian (6); Elementalist (4); Mesmer (5); Necromancer (6); Thief (8); Ranger (6) and Engineer (3). (47 weapons * 2 weeks each) = 94 weeks.

Has ANet advertised this would be the case, I would not have bought the game. But that’s not what they advertised, now is it?

So, things changed. However, why did they change? Players bought the game and wanted stuff to grind for, and complained. That’s what the people who dislike the changes are doing now. If you don’t like complaints, then you should also have been on the case of those who complained about nothing to work towards.

But that’s not what you want, is it? You just want people you don’t agree with to shut up. Ain’t happening.

I’m in the same boat with all the professions at 80. Only one of them is following the path of the power curve as it doesn’t seem possible to do the grind with all my characters which is very sad for those with alts.

I had 6 characters at max level through wrath/cata in WoW. By MoP I was burned out on VP and only leveled one to 90. I sincerely thought GW2 would be safe for an altoholic since the didn’t make grindy games. Right.

Tachenon.5270:

Have No Faith In Me.1840:

Junkpile.7439:

I just need to craft 20 wepons before i can start to actually play this game. Of course after that there will be ascended armors. Now i need to do things like auto attack champions, keep alts in jp, do orr temples (of course not baltha because there is some chance to fail). In www when you get inside tower/keep you can’t stay and defend door because you need to rush in and hit champ so you get materials.

Nice drama. You’d make a good tv writer.

Just play the game, you’ll see why you’re wrong.

I’ve been playing the game for a year now, and I still don’t have the materials needed to craft even one ascended weapon. You know why? Because in the course of playing this game for a year now I’ve used the materials and gold I acquired in the course of playing this game for a year to to play the game. For a year now. I’ve crafted gear and spent gold on gear (and gold on crafting mats) for my many characters, so that they aren’t running around in the game in their starter gear (slight hyperbole used to illustrate the point), because useful gear drops are so few and far between in this game.

And here we are a year after launch, and I see I’ve been playing the game entirely wrong, focusing on fun. Fun – pfft! See where it’s got me. I should have been farming! Grinding! Flipping!

Perhaps a warning label on the box: Don’t play for fun! And don’t use those mats! You’ll need them later!

How’s that for drama.

What the hell do you do in game if you don’t have the money or mats for an ascended or legendary by now? I only get to play 2 nights a week due to my work schedule and if I would’ve saved my mats I could’ve had at least 3 legendaries by now. I just yesterday decided to start going for my legendary and I’m already about 25-30% done collecting mats, tokens, etc.

I love how ppl act like this is going to be some horrendous grind feast… It’s extremely easy to make gold and acquire mats in this game just by leveling and exploring in itself. I’ve made enough gold and collected enough mats with my 2 nights a week schedule that I’ve been able to gear up 6 toons in exotics/ascended trinkets. If I would’ve made up my mind from the start and chosen only my guard and ele, I would have gold out my ears.

Ascended gear is an integral part in making our hardest dungeons in the game, fotm, into some of the most amazing content. Why else would they have added infusion slots to legendaries…

Ppl want content, they’re pumping out some amazing living story stuff… Ppl want new armor and weapons they’re doing that too… But now you have to work towards more weapons and upcoming armor?!?! That’s ludicrous!!! We want it off the tp!! Give it to us for free!!! Let other ppl grind and work for it and let us pay for it with gold!!!

The simple fact that legendaries can be sold was why I hadn’t bothered with them until now that they finally became BiS.

If you don’t like the direction the game is heading, your entitled to your opinion as everyone else is. My opinion is if you don’t like it then find another f2p mmo and kitten.

> Ascended gear is an integral part in making our hardest dungeons in the game, fotm, into some of the most amazing content. Why else would they have added infusion slots to legendaries…

You clearly don’t do high level fractals. Infusion slots are so necessary you could do everything except for the maw with zero AR.

The way you wrote everything reminds me of PR talk rather than an actual player praising the game. “into some of the most amazing content” gave me a good chuckle.

Nikaido.3457:

> Ascended gear is an integral part in making our hardest dungeons in the game, fotm, into some of the most amazing content. Why else would they have added infusion slots to legendaries…

You clearly don’t do high level fractals. Infusion slots are so necessary you could do everything except for the maw with zero AR.

You clearly have never played with me in game nor know my fotm level.

Find a pug that can get through a lvl 38+ fotm with ease… You won’t. Ppl want more than 55ar and want to complete higher level fotm and want more fotm content, which should be coming soon. Ascended weapons and armor and legendary infusion slots let us get that needed AR for higher level content/rewards.

> Find a pug that can get through a lvl 38+ fotm with ease…

This is not an argument. If by the time you reach lvl 48 you still can’t dodge any of the agony causing attacks you shouldn’t even be doing and polluting fractal runs with your presence. I don’t care about bad fotm pugs.

Hard content is not meant to be facerolled with gear or it wouldn’t be hard content in the first place. Btw you sound more and more like bad PR. “Ppl want more than 55ar”? where did you get that? did you do a poll? a survey? from your guildmates? map chat? the way you talk truly feels like paid PR. You’re talking as if you knew as a matter of fact what the community wants, which is not possible, and it’s the way paid astroturfers usually talk.

Nikaido.3457:

> Find a pug that can get through a lvl 38+ fotm with ease…

This is not an argument. If by the time you reach lvl 48 you still can’t dodge any of the agony causing attacks you shouldn’t even be doing and polluting fractal runs with your presence. I don’t care about bad fotm pugs.

Hard content is not meant to be facerolled with gear or it wouldn’t be hard content in the first place.

Exactly, that’s my point. The ascended gear will let them give us higher level content to complete. Ppl want content they want harder content, we need the gear to be able to do it successfully. They’re probably going to come out with more fotm zones or zones like fotm that require high AR to complete it for greater rewards.

What’s wrong with that?

Saw you edited and added… No sorry, I wish I could get paid to pump out good Pr, lol. I’m purely staying my opinion on the matter from my experience and from what I’ve gathered in my time playing.

If this thread proves anything, it’s that us humans are brainwashed via operant conditioning with worrying ease. It completely screws up our concept of quality and value because of our brain’s work-reward design. This is why “gamification” has unfortunately become a very real consideration for workplaces. Mixing the correct amount of grind and reward leaves to people who become slaves to the endless hamster-wheel of it all.

There are plenty, plenty of games out there which offer fun on either a reasonable curve, or with completely horizontal progression. Those are examples of fun games. If, by playing a game a couple of hours a day, you can’t be on the same footing as everyone else then the game design is bad. Not everyone can be a basement dweller with no job, no social obligations, no partner, no personal hygiene considerations, no health and fitness considerations, and no cares in the world other than the game.

And some of us are grown up enough to realise that we have enough grind in the real world, that we don’t want it in our entertainment. To be honest, I’d love to see more games actually do away with vertical progression, and just make the game more fun as you play it with horizontal progression, by giving you new toys and different ways to play all the time.

To me, the grind is just an excuse for not having varied and different ways of playing. They could have included mounted combat, they could have done more with the tanks, they could have had vehicles play a more pivotal role, they could have done more fun things with the technology of the Charr and the magic of the Asura.

But the content is all the same, just reskinned!

Let me give you an example: You’re taking materials to repair a mortar cannon to fight the Shatterer. How are you doing this? By means that could only be considered medieval! Why not use a train? The charr have that sort of technology, so why not? Why not make it a rail-shooter segment where you have a mounted minigun with which to fend off hordes of things?

I know some people are precious about “mah high-fantasy” but that’s already ruined by the charr having tanks. So why not?

Because grind is easier. Grind is cheaper. And people are easily brainwashed.

It’s like how Puzzles & Dragons rakes in two million dollars a day, for what? For making the game easier via microtransactions. Why grind when you can buy? A recent top iOS developer tweeted that ‘content development is for suckers,’ because people are more interested in grinding, and then sometimes paying not to grind.

We’re less indicative of a truly sapient, self aware race, these days. Most of humanity seems to be comprised of sheep. As much as I hate saying that, it’s true.

So there you go.

Treborlavok.3504:

Ppl want content they want harder content, we need the gear to be able to do it successfully.

Augh, I hate text speak, but it’s necessary to deal with this statement.

No, the average sheep doesn’t want ‘harder’ combat, because that would require actual skills. Like tactics, muscle memory, quick-thinking and reflexes, observation, clarity of purpose, and so on. It wouldn’t rely on gear. You’ve defeated your argument and made yourself a clown by even suggesting that gear equals skill.

Back in the day, playing the likes of Contra, did we get gear? No! We got horizontal progression, we could play the game differently via temporary power-ups, but it was an equal playing ground. And you were either amazing at it, you learned to be amazing, or you sucked. The only kind of “gear” back then was the Konami Code, and we called people who used that cheaters.

Grinding for gear is the same as grinding for a cheat. That’s all you’re doing. If the content is hard by its own merits, you should only need your own faculties and abilities to be able to get past it. You shouldn’t need a game mandated cheat. To even insinuate that mandating a cheat, including a cheat in the game, and then forcing everyone to spend ridiculous amounts of time to get that cheat is good game design is ridiculous.

Think on that.

@ auld wolf, won’t let me quite your entire comment for some reason..?

But anyway, ppl like goals. It gives them a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Who in their right mind would log into the game if there was nothing to strive for or accomplish…? Makes me think of diablo 1 and 2 where you played the story, for your drops and then had the same 4-5 acts to run through and basically farm… For what… Gold…

Vertical progression is how the big games have survived this long. Horizontal profession, may be fun at the start when everything’s new, but gets old and boring fast.

You don’t need to be a basement dweller to succeed in gw2. This isn’t wow not eq. You don’t need 60+ man raids every other day that require 4+ hours of your time that you need to show up to to even be able to “bid” on an item that you want. You can very easily just log in and casually play a few hours a week and still have an immense amount of fun playing gw2. I play 2 times a week on my nights off and have no complaints on my progression or level of fun. And I haven’t until the other day even considered any type of grind for anything.( I just decided I want to go for my first legendary). The mats and content and gold is all readily available to everyone. You play at your own pace to get said items. Noone is forcing us to get ascended/legendary items/weapons. A player in full exotics or even full rares(up leveled in wvw) can easily outplay someone with full exotics/ascended trinkets. It still comes down to skill level, not stats. You don’t even have to do wvw if you don’t want to. If all you do is pve you can still obtain your legendary(aside from running through wvw maps which I hated at the time when I went for mc, but even then you just have to wait for said areas to be open to explore.)

I highly doubt gw2 would’ve kept even half it’s player base if they never introduced ascended items and new content. Ppl woildve gotten bored having nothing to strive for in a game.

Yea games can still be fun with having nothing to strive for… Cod, bf3 for example have no vertical progression outside of weapon and vehicle unlocks. You max out and then your at a level playing field… Then what… You play the same maps and same modes over and over and it’s fun for a little while. But then you get bored. At least I do.

So I say bring on the vertical progression. Just don’t do it at the cost of making players have to spend more time in game than they want to(ie end game raids).

Treborlavok.3504:

Exactly, that’s my point. The ascended gear will let them give us higher level content to complete. Ppl want content they want harder content, we need the gear to be able to do it successfully. They’re probably going to come out with more fotm zones or zones like fotm that require high AR to complete it for greater rewards.

What’s wrong with that?

You don’t want harder content or you wouldn’t be asking for more AR. You’d be asking for them to unlock 50+. You don’t need AR to do fractals, you only need it if you are too braindead to dodge and hard content is not meant for the braindead.

+1 to what AuldWolf said. You’re just the typical MMO locust, while most of the players in this thread bought GW2 on the premise that it would not bend over to the locust. MMO are the only games where players have been brainwashed to the point of thinking that they need a grind to have fun. Anyone who has played games like Quake 3 knows that there is no need for a “progression” system for games to have enjoyable, repeatable content.

Ascended weapons are not acquired by doing the hard content. They’re not acquired by doing anything of worth. They are acquired by wasting time pressing 111 on world bosses. And chasing their kitten timer, and guesting on other servers etc because it would be too fun to access content through things other than a timer and grinds are not meant to be fun. The actual fractal runners don’t want that crap. They want to run more dungeons/fractals. They don’t want to kill stupid world bosses.

Treborlavok.3504:

[…] ppl like goals.

I never have a lot of faith when a post opens with a fallacy.

When has goal-oriented stuff ever been mutually inclusive of grind? I’ll bring up Saints Row IV again — I completed that easily, and I had fun with it. My “goal” was experiencing more of the story, and seeing what fun toys they’d throw at me next. Grind is an excuse for proper content.

Yes, people like goals, but only poor, brainwashed sots think they genuinely enjoy grind. With a quality game, you can have goal-oriented gameplay with no grind at all. The grind in Guild Wars 2 is just to disguise the copy-pasted content. It’s a known scientific fact that operant conditioning works on us, so it’s a pretty cheap shot to use it in place of actually making your game fun. And that it works so successfully that it’ll have people like you defending it?

That’s depressing.

Treborlavok.3504:

Vertical progression is how the big games have survived this long.

Then explain why many ancient FPS games, even older than WoW, have gotten by without it. This is a fallacy, because you’re assuming that grind is essential to an MMO having a long life. Correlation does not equal causation.

Treborlavok.3504:

You don’t need to be a basement dweller to succeed in gw2.

That was never the argument. You’re creating a straw-man here because you’re building constructs to argue against which are easier for you to combat.

The argument is that ArenaNet claims that casual players can be on equal footing with everyone else. Yet the reality of the matter is that in order to grind for Ascended, you would have to be a no-lifer, a basement dweller with nothing else to do other than play the game. In the sporadic periods a normal person would play Guild Wars 2, they’d probably not see an Ascended weapon before 2015, and that’s being generous.

This means that there’s content that’s locked out from them, just because they don’t have the time to grind that a basement dweller does. And the content is designed in such a way that it’s inaccessible unless you have the key to pass it, the cheat, as I described. And instead of just obtaining the cheat, you have to spend a nontrivial portion of your life grinding for it. You have to grind for a cheat to bypass an otherwise impossible segment of the game.

If the game was skill-based, then you wouldn’t have sections that would be impossible to bypass without a cheat (gear).

You know, it’s funny. Jet Set Willy on the ZX Spectrum was never completed, so there was a room you could never get past. Up until that point, you could play the game with your wits and skills alone. What if you had to replay the game 500,000 times before you could get a cheat to move onto other sections of the game?

That’s what MMOs (including GW2) are doing, and it’s unacceptable.

Treborlavok.3504:

Noone is forcing us to get ascended/legendary items/weapons.

Except for the content that requires it, you mean? Do you like shooting yourself in the foot?

Treborlavok.3504:

It still comes down to skill level, not stats.

If that’s true, then please enlighten me, what non-gear related skills are involved in playing GW2? I’m very interested. Please elaborate!

You were probably hoping that this would be a throwaway point that wouldn’t be picked up on, but I’m calling you out. I want you to tell me exactly what skills you’re talking about.

Treborlavok.3504:

I highly doubt gw2 would’ve kept even half it’s player base if they never introduced ascended items and new content.

So, grinding and new content are mutually inclusive, now?

That explains why the content of most single player games is riddled with grind that takes months upon months to even come near to completing! …oh, wait. Single player games aren’t like that at all!

Now, let’s drop the silly inclusive comments, shall we?

Treborlavok.3504:

Ppl woildve gotten bored having nothing to strive for in a game.

You’re turning a video game, a source of entertainment, into work. Oh, you poor thing, you actually believe what you’re saying, don’t you?

Then this must mean that I need to ‘strive for’ something when I sit down to watch a movie, or read a book, or listen to music. Perhaps I need to push a button on my TV 5,000 times before I can watch a show. That’s how it should be, right?

That’s what GW2 is, pushing a button on your TV 5,000 times before you can sit down to enjoy a show.

Treborlavok.3504:

You max out and then your at a level playing field… Then what…

Then new content is brought out to justify money being put into the game. Most games do that with DLCs. You might have heard of them.

Guild Wars 1 did just fine doing that, and it’s still alive, kicking, and healthy.

You know, it’s amazing how apt the TV analogy is.

Imagine this scenario: Your TV has a new function, a built in ‘video game’ to add value to your TV experience. You have a button on the side of your TV, and by pressing it you make a hero character chase a monster. You have to catch the monster. The TV manual tells you that there’s actual player skill involved in the affair and that you must push the button faster and in different patterns to succeed.

All that really needs to occur is for the owner of the TV to have pushed the button 5,000 times. Whilst doing this, their character on screen will slow down and speed up randomly. The player will want to play this game every time they turn on their TV, because they’ll be ‘rewarded’ with watching their TV show, and they feel they’ll come closer to understand how to better play that game.

The sensible person looks at this, realises what’s really going on, and asks them why they’re wasting their time. The person is completely addicted, they make excuses about required skill, about game mechanics, and about how worthwhile it is to have something to strive for. The sensible person, however, has a TV which they can just sit down and tune into after a hard days work.

Operant conditioning is a powerful thing, and people really can be sheep.

AuldWolf.7598:

Treborlavok.3504:

Noone is forcing us to get ascended/legendary items/weapons.

Except for the content that requires it, you mean? Do you like shooting yourself in the foot?

Where is this amazing content that “requires” Ascended gear? Everything is doable in Greens or blues (sometimes even naked) in this game, providing your are skilled enough (see below)

Treborlavok.3504:

It still comes down to skill level, not stats.

If that’s true, then please enlighten me, what non-gear related skills are involved in playing GW2? I’m very interested. Please elaborate!

You were probably hoping that this would be a throwaway point that wouldn’t be picked up on, but I’m calling you out. I want you to tell me exactly what skills you’re talking about.

People are doing Arah (and other dungeons) naked, using only a weapon and maybe some trinkets. Gear isn’t essential to succeed in this game. A good player can finish Fotm 51+ or AC solo (at level 35) with Green/Rare gear while a bad player cannot even do Fotm 10, with full Ascended gear, or AC in a full party with full Ascended Gear (level 80s), I guess that’s a clear indication that gear isn’t as important as individual player skill. Sure, good gear will make things easier but a bad player will be a bad player even with the best gear available.

When did I ever state I agreed on the way they’re implementing ascended gear? When did I ever mention enjoying grinding or saying grinding should be part of vertical progression?

I simply stated that ppl like to have goals when playing a game. Be it for a weapon or armor or dog tag or to get your name to the top of the lb. Nearly every game we play has goals set for you to achieve how you see fit.

So you think the gauntlet, aetherblade dungeon, high fotm, sab tm, sab w2 prior to the complaints and nerf, mk clock tower, Christmas Jp, That those take/took no skill? Then please elaborate as to what you feel requires skill in gw2?

I’m not arguing with anyone actually. I’m here having a discussion. Youre the one trying to belittle ppl with snide comments.

roostapro.9827:

People are entitled to their own opinions, this is the internet after all, of which we fought off several censorship bills to keep our freedom of speech.

If people wish to be negative, positive, criticize or complain then that is their opinion.

Getting real tired of people telling others what to think and how to act.

Oh, and I couldn’t care less about ascended items.

On this forum you’re not entitled to your opinion unless your opinion is “Devs, i just wanted to tell you, gw2 is the best game i have ever played in my life”. You cannot say anything negative or your post/thread is deleted/merged/infracted. Hell, this post is probably gonna be deleted because im stating as it is…

Jatacid.3725:

Stop complaining as if this is the end of the game doom-all end-all bring forth the cataclysm wtfgtfo ihatethisgameiquit rage posts.

Think about it. Guild Wars 2 as a compeltely new game.

If they didn’t have ascended gear, or even legendaries for that matter. EVERYone even casual players. Would complain about the lack of end game gearing. You just get a basic crafted exotic and thats it? Nothing more to it?

Luckily, they released the game with Legendaries, which gives the players a big, long term, difficult goal to work towards.

If Guild Wars 2 released with the Ascended tier in place, there wouldn’t be anyone complaining about it.

It is an end-game gearing step up that you can work for. It doesn’t take that long. It isn’t that hard.

It seriously makes sense that you have all slots with just your run-of-the-mill ascended items as a casual to moderate player. Exotics just simply don’t cut it for that ’I’ve reached the last tier’ feeling.

Guild Wars 2 needs ascended gear. While yes, it DID go against their ‘Manifesto’ or whatever about adding a gear treadmill, but don’t blow it out of proportion.

This gear is no harder to obtain than a Legendary, it’s not completely necessary to obtain them, and it really does standardize their offerings for end game gear.

Why would you have ascended backpieces or jewellery, but not any other slot?

So, stop complaining so much. The tier makes a lot of sense from a game design perspective. It doesn’t go against their manifesto too much. If it was in the game from the beginning most of you wouldn’t have thought 2 seconds about it.

Instead of complaining about how Ascended is bad, try thinking of ways where they could make horizontal progression if you don’t want them to continue adding tiers beyond this.

They explicitly said they wouldn’t add tiers above this – this is really just completing the game tbh. So what about horizontal options? How would you do it?

Turn your unconstructive and completely misguided complaints about Ascended gear into a positive direction for GW2. Tell the devs what you want out of end game instead of throwing a bubble fit about an item tier that makes lots of sense for Guild Wars 2 as a game.

I was happy with the endgame thank you very much- I have been playing the game for more than a year and I have never had a problem finding things to do. I do have a problem with a game forcing me in a direction that I do not find fun or even mildly interesting.
I understand that you need clear goals in a game but please don’t exaggerate and claim that everyone does.

As for this whole thing- I love the game- I play almost everyday- I just got my friend to buy the game so we can play together.

So this weekend what did I do?
I didn’t even log in- just thinking about GW2 makes me tired at this point and sad and disappointed.
People like the OP make me want to rage because this is why my favorite game makes me log into minecraft at this point.

Morrigan.2809:

Jatacid.3725:

Stop complaining as if this is the end of the game doom-all end-all bring forth the cataclysm wtfgtfo ihatethisgameiquit rage posts.

Think about it. Guild Wars 2 as a compeltely new game.

If they didn’t have ascended gear, or even legendaries for that matter. EVERYone even casual players. Would complain about the lack of end game gearing. You just get a basic crafted exotic and thats it? Nothing more to it?

Luckily, they released the game with Legendaries, which gives the players a big, long term, difficult goal to work towards.

If Guild Wars 2 released with the Ascended tier in place, there wouldn’t be anyone complaining about it.

It is an end-game gearing step up that you can work for. It doesn’t take that long. It isn’t that hard.

It seriously makes sense that you have all slots with just your run-of-the-mill ascended items as a casual to moderate player. Exotics just simply don’t cut it for that ’I’ve reached the last tier’ feeling.

Guild Wars 2 needs ascended gear. While yes, it DID go against their ‘Manifesto’ or whatever about adding a gear treadmill, but don’t blow it out of proportion.

This gear is no harder to obtain than a Legendary, it’s not completely necessary to obtain them, and it really does standardize their offerings for end game gear.

Why would you have ascended backpieces or jewellery, but not any other slot?

So, stop complaining so much. The tier makes a lot of sense from a game design perspective. It doesn’t go against their manifesto too much. If it was in the game from the beginning most of you wouldn’t have thought 2 seconds about it.

Instead of complaining about how Ascended is bad, try thinking of ways where they could make horizontal progression if you don’t want them to continue adding tiers beyond this.

They explicitly said they wouldn’t add tiers above this – this is really just completing the game tbh. So what about horizontal options? How would you do it?

Turn your unconstructive and completely misguided complaints about Ascended gear into a positive direction for GW2. Tell the devs what you want out of end game instead of throwing a bubble fit about an item tier that makes lots of sense for Guild Wars 2 as a game.

I was happy with the endgame thank you very much- I have been playing the game for more than a year and I have never had a problem finding things to do. I do have a problem with a game forcing me in a direction that I do not find fun or even mildly interesting.
I understand that you need clear goals in a game but please don’t exaggerate and claim that everyone does.

As for this whole thing- I love the game- I play almost everyday- I just got my friend to buy the game so we can play together.

So this weekend what did I do?
I didn’t even log in- just thinking about GW2 makes me tired at this point and sad and disappointed.
People like the OP make me want to rage because this is why my favorite game makes me log into minecraft at this point.

OP was just trying to get their point across to the masses that if you have an opinion or ideas then speak up.

I’m just like you, I love the current end game and have never had an in game goal or goals. I’ve logged in on my days off and just did what I saw fit for fun at the time. There’s no reason for anyone to have to have ascended gear or even legendaries. Even in wvw it’s apparent that skill Is what matter most, not gear or numbers.

Ascended gear is being put into the game to give the ppl who want/need goals in a game a reason to continue playing. If they already had their legendaries and full ascended trinkets what’s left for them to achieve gear wise? The problem with ascended gear is they’re trying to cater to two different player types with one product. So they put a grind and time gated aspect on said items so the HC players don’t get the gear and get bored to quickly… But they also let those HC players sell the time gated mats to ppl who don’t want to grind and just want said items. The same thing they did with legendaries except you can’t buy the entire weapon but only certain components. Everything else can be obtained through normal casual play.

I bring up AR and fotm because of the fact that ascended and legendary items have infusion slots. So one would only assume they’re going to try to implement more content based on the premise of using infusion slots. It’s already been stated and shown that you don’t even need the AR if your skilled enough. But the AR on the gear makes it easier for the less skilled and more of a challenge for the skilled to run without it. So they’re going for the win-win.

Its funny when people talk about hard content and bring agony as one of the reasons. You do know that agony is just a gimmick anet added to slow everyone down in fotm? Ask yourself, why do we even have this crap? Why is it needed when bosses/ads deal their own damage as it is (which gets insanely high in high level fractals). Why do we have ascended gear? Most people would answer with ‘because people want progression’. But this is Guild Wars… progression is skins and skins only. If this game had anything for you to do in pve such as hunt skins (not talking about creating everything in a mystic toilet/crafting stations) in difficult ‘places’, why would anyone ask for gear progression? You had stuff to do and that’s finding cooler looking armors or whatever. But since there’s nothing else but an empty world with zergs in few zones, well, anet decided to give use stupid ascended gear as progression instead of new dungeons/hard mode+the skins that would be dropping in these simply because its waaay easier to design 1 skin per weapon kind than add multiple dungeons for people to enjoy and hunt stuff in them, just like in gw1. With every couple of patches gw2 is getting closer and closer at becoming generic Korean mmo #25932 and at this point i don’t even feel bad about it. Nothing will change and the reason im saying this is what i saw happening in the passed year. Anet doesn’t listen to their players but monetize their game like Activison does with CoD DLC’s.

Actually at the beggining ascended items looked a bit forced gear with ginding events, but now is really “merged” into the game IMO or at least is getting fixed as the top gear to be crafted exotic gear was to fast indeed.

The thing that I don’t like about ascended items is they’re not tradeable.

If your going to make legendaries, one of the biggest" achievements"in the game, tradeable then why not make everything tradeable. HC players create the supply. Casual players create the demand. Everyone can get geared at their own pace and not feel forced to grind for mats/crafting.

Treborlavok.3504:

The thing that I don’t like about ascended items is they’re not tradeable.

If your going to make legendaries, one of the biggest" achievements"in the game, tradeable then why not make everything tradeable. HC players create the supply. Casual players create the demand. Everyone can get geared at their own pace and not feel forced to grind for mats/crafting.

Maybe because they realised that making Legendaries tradeable was a bad idea and since they can’t take it back (or can they?) they can at least make all Ascended gear consistent un-tradeable.

maddoctor.2738:

And now the Ascended Materials:
(list)

And here i thought those don’t even drop for you untill you are level 80 already.

maddoctor.2738:

Treborlavok.3504:

The thing that I don’t like about ascended items is they’re not tradeable.

If your going to make legendaries, one of the biggest" achievements"in the game, tradeable then why not make everything tradeable. HC players create the supply. Casual players create the demand. Everyone can get geared at their own pace and not feel forced to grind for mats/crafting.

Maybe because they realised that making Legendaries tradeable was a bad idea and since they can’t take it back (or can they?) they can at least make all Ascended gear consistent un-tradeable.

I think it would put more ppl at ease it ascended stuff was tradeable.

Wolfheart.1938:

The actual crafting of the weapon isn’t that bad, I can give you that. In fact I’ll even go as far as saying that the account bound materials part is a good idea, although the rewards are too skewed towards certain activities.

But you ignore one important aspect of the process: getting to 500 in a crafting profession. Why wasn’t 400 enough? If you take it slowly, you will need to craft an average of 20 exotics to max a profession. That’s 100 globs of ecto, 100 t6 mats, 200 orichalcum ores and 200 ancient wood logs. If I want a second weapon from another profession? Or if I want ascended armor that will probably work in a similar way? That’s 300 globs, 300 t6 mats, 600 ori and 600 ancient logs. And I haven’t even started crafting the friggin weapons. There’s a reason ancient wood goes for 12s+ a piece , because the grind is massive

You can cut some of that if you want. You dont have to level just by crafting exotics, though it might be a good idea for the dark matter. (also salvaging those exotics will also give you some globs back so it really less then 300 globs)

Anyhow if you want to craft less exotics, doing it on artificer I crafted potions which took me from 400 to 425 easily. had all that was required so essentially it was free. The other two professions are kinda limited there but they too have some options you could play around with. Then at level 450 you can start refining T7 materials. I dont know how viable that is to level the profession up, should get to 450 today so I got no experience there yet.

Ancient wood is at 12s because people are impatient mostly. Most people have 3 or 4 max level characters available. If you really hate gathering you can stick to easy maps. Like right now there is frostgorge and Malchor’s Leap which both have nodes really close to the waypoint. with 4 chars in 10 mins max (most of the time accounted for loading) you can get about 60 Ancient wood! if you dont mind making a 30 min activity instead of a 10 min you can get twice as much as well.

Its not that bad come on, its just that people want everything now thats why they’re selling for as much as 12s not because they’re too grindy to get.

maddoctor.2738:

Treborlavok.3504:

The thing that I don’t like about ascended items is they’re not tradeable.

If your going to make legendaries, one of the biggest" achievements"in the game, tradeable then why not make everything tradeable. HC players create the supply. Casual players create the demand. Everyone can get geared at their own pace and not feel forced to grind for mats/crafting.

Maybe because they realised that making Legendaries tradeable was a bad idea and since they can’t take it back (or can they?) they can at least make all Ascended gear consistent un-tradeable.

I think it’s because they want Ascended gear to be time consuming to create, and they have envisioned it as a tool to keep the grinders around (as a goal to give them something to grind for). Since the grinders already have a lot of gold (they do keep grinding), they would be able to buy Ascended weapons the first day people made them and go back to asking ArenaNet “What’s next?”.

All Ascended gear was followed by the introduction of a new currency to achieve this. The initial batch of accessories were linked to collectibles from inside Fractals, so grinders would have to begin grinding them from zero. The second batch of accessories were linked to laurels, so grinders would again have to begin grinding them from zero, regardless of how much gold they had farmed. The weapons now have a bunch of new account-based materials plus the time-gated refinement, also to slow grinders down and prevent them from getting the weapons on day 1.

Remains to be seen what is ArenaNet going to do when the grinders have a full Ascended set (weapons, armor, accessories), turn and ask the developers, “What’s next?”.

Erasculio.2914:

Remains to be seen what is ArenaNet going to do when the grinders have a full Ascended set (weapons, armor, accessories), turn and ask the developers, “What’s next?”.

We already know the answer: more legendary gear. Gear that is the same as Ascended but can change stats when out of combat.

Galen Grey.4709:

Wolfheart.1938:

The actual crafting of the weapon isn’t that bad, I can give you that. In fact I’ll even go as far as saying that the account bound materials part is a good idea, although the rewards are too skewed towards certain activities.

But you ignore one important aspect of the process: getting to 500 in a crafting profession. Why wasn’t 400 enough? If you take it slowly, you will need to craft an average of 20 exotics to max a profession. That’s 100 globs of ecto, 100 t6 mats, 200 orichalcum ores and 200 ancient wood logs. If I want a second weapon from another profession? Or if I want ascended armor that will probably work in a similar way? That’s 300 globs, 300 t6 mats, 600 ori and 600 ancient logs. And I haven’t even started crafting the friggin weapons. There’s a reason ancient wood goes for 12s+ a piece , because the grind is massive

You can cut some of that if you want. You dont have to level just by crafting exotics, though it might be a good idea for the dark matter. (also salvaging those exotics will also give you some globs back so it really less then 300 globs)

Anyhow if you want to craft less exotics, doing it on artificer I crafted potions which took me from 400 to 425 easily. had all that was required so essentially it was free. The other two professions are kinda limited there but they too have some options you could play around with. Then at level 450 you can start refining T7 materials. I dont know how viable that is to level the profession up, should get to 450 today so I got no experience there yet.

Ancient wood is at 12s because people are impatient mostly. Most people have 3 or 4 max level characters available. If you really hate gathering you can stick to easy maps. Like right now there is frostgorge and Malchor’s Leap which both have nodes really close to the waypoint. with 4 chars in 10 mins max (most of the time accounted for loading) you can get about 60 Ancient wood! if you dont mind making a 30 min activity instead of a 10 min you can get twice as much as well.

Its not that bad come on, its just that people want everything now thats why they’re selling for as much as 12s not because they’re too grindy to get.

The 20 average exotics are a MUST. I did the math. They are required to get from 425 to 450 and from 475 to 500. That also assumes that you go from 450 to 475 solely through refining ascended materials, which is highly unlikely seeing how at 470 you need to craft 10 of any recipe to get to 471. You’d have to craft the mats for 5-6 weapons before actually being able to get your first one.

And anyways, seeing as how I played the game since launch and with an average of 3h a day, I’d say that I’m entitled to have enough mats to craft me my first ascended weapon, no? I mean, I don’t have a legendary and I don’t own more than 1 exotic set on my two lv 80 characters.

But no, since I spent my time having fun (not farming loot pinatas, cof p1, deadeye, pavillion, invasions or what you have) just getting to 500 on ONE profession is going to require me to farm.

If you are a PvE-only player with a liking to rewarding activities, it might not be that bad. If you are like me and play content regardless of their reward, yes, it is THAT bad.

Erasculio.2914:

I think it’s because they want Ascended gear to be time consuming to create, and they have envisioned it as a tool to keep the grinders around (as a goal to give them something to grind for). Since the grinders already have a lot of gold (they do keep grinding), they would be able to buy Ascended weapons the first day people made them and go back to asking ArenaNet “What’s next?”.

Remains to be seen what is ArenaNet going to do when the grinders have a full Ascended set (weapons, armor, accessories), turn and ask the developers, “What’s next?”.

It’s already failed as that. How many grinders or rich players have at least 1 Ascended weapon already? Wow, it kept them busy for a whole week. This is the problem with adding new tiers of gear.
Whats next? I’m sure no new gear this year as Colin said…but maybe some by the time the 2nd anniversary rolls around.

Or they could raise the levelcap

Jatacid.3725:

But everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80, CAN have the best statistical loot in the game with Ascended. IT IS an equal footing!

Yep, if you have 200g per crafting school to spare for now. That’s stupid and all this grind introduced to GW2 sucks now even more than before.
I sure hope they will lose players, cause most of my friends left thanks to that. There’s just that much people can take.

MrRuin.9740:

It’s already failed as that. How many grinders or rich players have at least 1 Ascended weapon already? Wow, it kept them busy for a whole week. This is the problem with adding new tiers of gear.

Sure, the grind is only hard for those who play normally, not even casuals. Those are in pain thanks to the game design/direction.

Make people even more in dissadvantage thanks to your way of thinking and in interview say that you want us to be equal and work together…

Jatacid.3725:

Luckily, they released the game with Legendaries, which gives the players a big, long term, difficult goal to work towards.

Why do you feel the need to work in a game? Can’t you just find a job in real life and enjoy the longterm grind there?

MrRuin.9740:

Erasculio.2914:

I think it’s because they want Ascended gear to be time consuming to create, and they have envisioned it as a tool to keep the grinders around (as a goal to give them something to grind for). Since the grinders already have a lot of gold (they do keep grinding), they would be able to buy Ascended weapons the first day people made them and go back to asking ArenaNet “What’s next?”.

Remains to be seen what is ArenaNet going to do when the grinders have a full Ascended set (weapons, armor, accessories), turn and ask the developers, “What’s next?”.

It’s already failed as that. How many grinders or rich players have at least 1 Ascended weapon already? Wow, it kept them busy for a whole week. This is the problem with adding new tiers of gear.
Whats next? I’m sure no new gear this year as Colin said…but maybe some by the time the 2nd anniversary rolls around.

Not many, go to a champ farm and take a look. I’ve only seen a few people with one, and one person had just got lucky and got one from a chest in WvW./The people I know who already crafted have one aren’t really grinders. They just run dungeons a lot (post cof 1) and the gold and champ bags that add up from that seem to be underrated.

Lambent.6375:

Not many, go to a champ farm and take a look. I’ve only seen a few people with one, and one person had just got lucky and got one from a chest in WvW.

I’m not one to go to a couple champ farms only on my server and draw conclusions on the entire population of gw2 like what seems to be the habit here on the forums.
I made no claims as to the percentage of people that have it already or that they were in a large abundance, only that they are out there already. I have seen people with them, people in guild getting them and people here on the forums reporting they made them already.
While they are not everywhere (yet) and no one can claim any percentage of the population, they are being made already was what I intended to say there. When it was supposed to be something that was intended to be a challenge or time-consuming task for people who wanted one.

Jatacid.3725:

It is an end-game gearing step up that you can work for. It doesn’t take that long. It isn’t that hard.

By crafting, not doing content. That is the problem.

And it is as tedious as legendary, and they aren’t even legendary items.

It would have been far better to have it end game drops than grind wars, which they said they’d never do, but yet here it is, craft grind for end game gear.

So those of us annoyed have every reason to be.