Guild Wars 2

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Skan.5301:

Henri Blanche.8276:

If other players join me in this approach then that will force ArenaNet to finally listen.

If only it were true. Sad when you think of what the reality is. You’ll have people say “Yeah!” and then next LS update something will come up for 800 gems and they’ll jump on it. Not all, but many will. And that’s still revenue, no matter how small.

Mackdose.6504:

Wow.

Giant HP bags are basically timers that say “The better your gear is, the less time to have to make a mistake and fail.”

The bosses in this game can always 2 or 3 shot you, no matter what gear you’re in.

If you don’t see how dodge or die mechanics relate to the power level of the game, you shouldn’t be having this discussion.

Clearly shown by the “stack and spank” mentality that most bosses/legendaries in this game have, correct?

Fractals/Explorables? You know… hard PvE content?

I’m actually not talking about just hard PvE content; I’m talking about all PvE content. As the power level of the game rises in terms of the player base, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever not to balance the environment to the players with corresponding adjustments to power, health, etc. While not the only aspect, this is certainly the most basic aspect of game balance. To argue otherwise is simply to misunderstand gaming.

For what you’re saying to be true, though, we’d have to already be at a point where ascended gear is balanced with the overall PvE content. It isn’t, it’s overkill. Exotic gear already over-powers 1v5 mob confrontations at 80. If this power shift you’re talking about was going to happen, it already would have.

Mob power in the open world isn’t scaling with player gear. Then again, open world bosses are beaten with player zergs and not gear.

Haha. If ascended is “overkill”, and players are generally in ascended gear, that would mean the game is currently imbalanced and in need of balancing, which is exactly my point. It’s the current power level of the game that is used in determining and adjusting game balance. If players are OP, the environment will be buffed in order to make gameplay properly challenging. If Ascended gear makes the game trivial, then that would simply indicate that the environment is in need of a buff. Again, this is pretty basic stuff we’re dealing with here in terms of game balance.

Exotics and ascended both make open world tasks trivial, because the open world is easy. Move into hard content and ascended reduces the time to kill stuff, but bosses are still just as hard as when you were in greens, yellows, etc.

This is why you need to be specific. Instead of saying “Ascended makes the game trivial” which is false, say “open world content is trivial with ascended.”

You can’t paint the whole game with the same brush, because the different modes of play are meant for different balance philosophies.

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

I can’t wait until the stats on ascended armor are revealed and the final calculations can be done. It’s going to be hilarious when people continue to argue that ascended gear is optional and doesn’t matter when the power gap grows to about 15-18%.

I also remember seeing that masterwork infusions are already in game…as in, the chat codes already exist. With infusions slots, ArenaNet can add more vertical progression all day long without violating any “no more new tiers” promises. Anyone that thinks that chasing after BiS items is going to end with ascended armor is mistaken.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

I can’t wait until the stats on ascended armor are revealed and the final calculations can be done. It’s going to be hilarious when people continue to argue that ascended gear is optional and doesn’t matter when the power gap grows to about 15-18%.

I also remember seeing that masterwork infusions are already in game…as in, the chat codes already exist. With infusions slots, ArenaNet can add more vertical progression all day long without violating any “no more new tiers” promises.

They already announced that that was what they were doing.

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

Oh, and I can’t wait for Ascended runes, sigils and consumables. Sigh.

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Mackdose.6504:

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

You any good at math? It is simple.

Guild vs. Guild – pick any number, say 5 people in each group. Guild group one has only exotics. Guild group two has exotic armor but ascended where applicable. Now, work with me here, which guild group has the extra stats due to gear?

Everything being equal the group that has only exotics is at a disadvantage.

Note: WvW is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and can be any form of combat such has large (zerg / bait ball), small (duo, trio, etc), solo, and other options of combat that stats may or may not matter. But the simple fact that there is a difference in a WvW format of play, it matters. I’ll bet you a gold piece now that when they do implement the JP’s GvG area, ascended gear won’t be allowed or they will enforce some form of gear restriction…

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

You any good at math? It is simple.

Guild vs. Guild – pick any number, say 5 people in each group. Guild group one has only exotics. Guild group two has exotic armor but ascended where applicable. Now, work with me here, which guild group has the extra stats due to gear?

Everything being equal the group that has only exotics is at a disadvantage.

Note: WvW is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and can be any form of combat such has large (zerg / bait ball), small (duo, trio, etc), solo, and other options of combat that stats may or may not matter. But the simple fact that there is a difference in a WvW format of play, it matters. I’ll bet you a gold piece now that when they do implement the JP’s GvG area, ascended gear won’t be allowed or they will enforce some form of gear restriction…

That scenario is statistically rare, and therefore an edge case.

Should we change the rules of an entire game mode to remove a tier of gear for the sake of an edge case?

No.

If your solution was to have everyone scaled up to ascended, I’d be more supportive. I’d still say no change is necessary.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Mackdose.6504:

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

You any good at math? It is simple.

Guild vs. Guild – pick any number, say 5 people in each group. Guild group one has only exotics. Guild group two has exotic armor but ascended where applicable. Now, work with me here, which guild group has the extra stats due to gear?

Everything being equal the group that has only exotics is at a disadvantage.

Note: WvW is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and can be any form of combat such has large (zerg / bait ball), small (duo, trio, etc), solo, and other options of combat that stats may or may not matter. But the simple fact that there is a difference in a WvW format of play, it matters. I’ll bet you a gold piece now that when they do implement the JP’s GvG area, ascended gear won’t be allowed or they will enforce some form of gear restriction…

That scenario is statistically rare, and therefore an edge case.

Should we change the rules of an entire game mode to remove a tier of gear for the sake of an edge case?

No.

If your solution was to have everyone scaled up to ascended, I’d be more supportive. I’d still say no change is necessary.

Is it rare? Do you not recall the firestorm that took place not more than a few weeks ago about the dev vs. fight clubs and aftermath? EB JP’s are the target place for fight clubs. Said fight clubs have to have a level playing field. They do in s/t PvP, correct? That is why I said pick a number, 1, 2, 5, whatever. One group has, one group does not, the delta is 10% or some number. It will make a difference.

I wouldn’t scale up ascended. I would actually remove (not allow) it from any form of PvP and leave it only in PvE. PvE for the most part was the target audience anyway, agreed? Those who have vs. have not doesn’t really matter has long has you know the encounters and know when to do x, y, or z… People are, after all, pugging level 40+ fractals and AR resist hasn’t been a limit based on today’s gear.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Well, we’ll see how things go when/if they implement these ‘gambits’ that’ve been datamined:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1nit7b/data_mining_upcoming_features_from_twilight/

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Are you debating what the meaning of treadmill is? Let me ask you a question. Is the content static?

No, it isn’t.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

As I’ve noted above repeatedly, raising the power level of players without a corresponding increase in the power level of the environment would trivialize the game. Rather, whatever the current power level of the game is, that is what is used determine and adjust game balance in terms of the environment. Raising the power of players without adjusting the environment is simply to create imbalance in the game. This won’t happen. And, furthermore, all you need in order to create a treadmill is to positively relate power to time. This creates a power curve and as time passes the power of the game increases. It doesn’t take a math degree to understand the implications. If you want to play the game over time, you must follow the power curve. This is the very essence of a treadmill.

Yes, I know they are moving forward with skill progression. They have, however, nowhere said they are stopping VP.

Relevant! Talks about the issues with power creep.

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Are you debating what the meaning of treadmill is? Let me ask you a question. Is the content static?

No, it isn’t.

You can’t have a treadmill without both the environment and player power increasing in lock step.

The point of “gear treadmill” is that you keep getting stronger, but so do the mobs, thus making the progression an illusion.

Raine.1394

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill.

Raine, you know that I agree with you about VP to the letter, and I admire your intelligent and rational posts. But it’s time to let it go … you have fought the good fight. But it’s over. Below is a cut and paste of a post I made on another thread, but I believe it pertains to this discussion as well.

“Needless to say, my post history will indicate my fervent anger and dislike that Ascended was ever introduced at all. However, I’m smart enough to know that that ship has sailed, and we should not waste time re-litigating this topic. It is what it is, and that being the case, it’s time to move forward and offer viable and reasonable methods to lighten and facilitate the acquisition of Ascended items, as opposed to unrealistic and absurd fantasy scenarios where Anet rolls back the Ascended Gear.

Given this, I think it is important that we focus on making suggestions that move Ascended items towards a multi-acquisition mode (like exotics) as opposed to utterly wasting time in a debate about Horizontal vs Vertical progression. A debate in which, they are NOT going to roll back anything, and they are going to stand by their claim that they had always intended to have low-power curve vertical progression through ascended gear, and possibly other ways in the “distant” future.

So there is nothing to debate, despite their pre-release marketing, Gw2 is now a vertical progression game: period, end of story.

That said, I love the graphics of this game, it’s truly beautiful,. And I love the no must-have classes (trinity), and I enjoy WvW roaming, PvP and also some of the DEs and Dungeon paths. And what’s more, truth be told, there simply is nowhere else for me to go (at least for right now) for my particular play-style as far as mmo’s are concerned. Eventually a company will create, and stand by, a 100% horizontal progression game that also has modern graphics and solid game play – and when they do, I’m all in, but that moment, is not now. For now what we have is a plethora of Vertical Progression MMO’s to choose from, and given the choices I have, I choose GW2.

For my part, I intend to flood whatever thread they create on the subject of Ascended gear with suggestions that lead to a faster, cleaner and far less grindy means of acquisition."

It’s one thing to fight against the odds, it’s another thing altogether to fight windmills.

And the reality is, that with each passing month the core demographic of this game is changing. Changing from those, that like you and I, thought they found a haven for a 100% skill based horizontal progression game, to one where the early game buyers begrudgingly accept the changes from what was marketed and promised to the game we have now. Add to this the large number of new players from traditional MMOs, the hardcore-grinders that enjoy VP and stat advantages – and it is what it is.

Thank you for your math op.

Was looking for something like this.

Mackdose.6504 – You can’t have a treadmill without both the environment and player power increasing in lock step.

The point of “gear treadmill” is that you keep getting stronger, but so do the mobs, thus making the progression an illusion.

So we are debating what the word treadmill means. I get and understand what you are saying. However, content is changing every other week or there about. Seasonal, world boss such as Tequatl, and stats on gear. Weapons just release, armor Q1 or so. More change.

Stats will stay now or so they say. People are people and the company is in business to make money. Will this be it? Who knows. At the end of the day we agree to disagree because in my opinion, there is a treadmill. It doesn’t matter if it is for looks aka textures or stats by color, there is a treadmill in this game because it takes time. Mystic forge, farming bosses, doing whatever it is you do to get the next object is cyclical.

Ision.3207:

Raine.1394

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill.

Raine, you know that I agree with you about VP to the letter, and I admire your intelligent and rational posts. But it’s time to let it go … you have fought the good fight. But it’s over. Below is a cut and paste of a post I made on another thread, but I believe it pertains to this discussion as well.

“Needless to say, my post history will indicate my fervent anger and dislike that Ascended was ever introduced at all. However, I’m smart enough to know that that ship has sailed, and we should not waste time re-litigating this topic. It is what it is, and that being the case, it’s time to move forward and offer viable and reasonable methods to lighten and facilitate the acquisition of Ascended items, as opposed to unrealistic and absurd fantasy scenarios where Anet rolls back the Ascended Gear.

Given this, I think it is important that we focus on making suggestions that move Ascended items towards a multi-acquisition mode (like exotics) as opposed to utterly wasting time in a debate about Horizontal vs Vertical progression. A debate in which, they are NOT going to roll back anything, and they are going to stand by their claim that they had always intended to have low-power curve vertical progression through ascended gear, and possibly other ways in the “distant” future.

So there is nothing to debate, despite their pre-release marketing, Gw2 is now a vertical progression game: period, end of story.

That said, I love the graphics of this game, it’s truly beautiful,. And I love the no must-have classes (trinity), and I enjoy WvW roaming, PvP and also some of the DEs and Dungeon paths. And what’s more, truth be told, there simply is nowhere else for me to go (at least for right now) for my particular play-style as far as mmo’s are concerned. Eventually a company will create, and stand by, a 100% horizontal progression game that also has modern graphics and solid game play – and when they do, I’m all in, but that moment, is not now. For now what we have is a plethora of Vertical Progression MMO’s to choose from, and given the choices I have, I choose GW2.

For my part, I intend to flood whatever thread they create on the subject of Ascended gear with suggestions that lead to a faster, cleaner and far less grindy means of acquisition."

It’s one thing to fight against the odds, it’s another thing altogether to fight windmills.

And the reality is, that with each passing month the core demographic of this game is changing. Changing from those, that like you and I, thought they found a haven for a 100% skill based horizontal progression game, to one where the early game buyers begrudgingly accept the changes from what was marketed and promised to the game we have now. Add to this the large number of new players from traditional MMOs, the hardcore-grinders that enjoy VP and stat advantages – and it is what it is.

I actually have no desire to tilt at windmills. And, if you look at my post history you will find that I have never once started one of these threads. My posts are restricted to correcting misinformation and offering what should be the obvious, i.e., if VP were to stop, so would the threads (again that I have never started) that oppose it.

I was encouraged in Colin’s blog post where he said they wanted to give us a method of character progression to do “instead” of chasing stats. If the “instead” really means instead, i.e., that we would no longer be grinding out more power, then I’m done and wouldn’t even hit a windmill by accident. However, in the meantime, while we wait to understand what “instead” means, I will focus only on accurately portraying vertical and horizontal progression. And I promise I will never create a thread on the subject.

Raine, I hear you, lol. I never suggested that you begin threads like this, so I don’t know what you’re referring to as far as that goes. All I am saying is that the writing is on the wall, and it’s loud and clear. I’ll give you 2 possible scenarios, and ask yourself, which is more likely:

1. In regards to backtracking on Horizontal Progression, Anet gives a small mea culpa as you say. They assure us that Ascended is it, and all progression going forward will be Horizontal. They introduce Ascended Armor, and then move on to Horizontal progression for years to come>

2. Anet releases Ascended armor, followed by Ascended Sigils or Runes, and then followed by ascended this, and then followed by ascended that … and so on. Time passes, and another year has gone by. Vertical progression is even more accepted as normal, the demographics change even more towards traditional VP mmo players. Anet finally exhausts the “ascended” avenue of VP, and soon afterwards release an expansion with 5 new levels, a new class, and …. tada! … a new set of gear to grind.

Given what occurred last November, a mere 3 months after years of marketing Gw2 in the manner they did, my money’s on option 2 ….

And as far as Colin’s comment about horizontal skill progression goes, I believe him. I think they are going to do that slowly over time … except it won’t be “instead” of VP, but “in addition to” vertical progression.

Still and all though, as far as grindy Vertical Progression mmo’s go, Gw2 is pretty good, and I’ll take it over WoW or Lotro.

I’m on the fence about horizonal vs. vertical progression. If I made the decision I would have opted out of implementing any ascended gear and gone special traitlines and character based “bonuses” based off content completion. Like some titles from GW1 (Lightbringer, Sunspear, Friend of Kurzick/Luxons etc.), which gave specific bonuses against creatures and/or access to new skills the more ranks you gained (sort of like WvW rank bonuses, but different).

Now that ascended gear is almost 100% implemented I don’t believe the vertical progression has been too serious to this point. Especially since the rollout of ascended gear has been slow over the last year giving everyone (save new players/alts) plenty of time to gather the resources for them. I would definitely be against another tier of equipment which would officially create a gear treadmill.

I have another issue though:

I haven’t done any calculations myself, but I feel Zerker builds get a lot more out of the 5% better stats than the 5% increase from any other set. This causes a bit of an imbalance in overall damage vs. overall defense of players. To the point that already heavy hitting builds are hitting even harder in wvw even though both players have upgraded to max ascended gear. Why? Because of the relation between base Weapon Damage and the Power, Critical Chance and Critical Damage bonuses from Beserker.

The opposite end of this would be condition damage of course. Condition oriented sets get very little out of the 5% increase and ascended weapon base damage. This may all change with the onset of ascended armor and the extra armor points. However, Armor begins to flatten in effectiveness around 2800-3000+, unlike Zerker stats that become exponentially more effective the higher your Power, Precision and Crit Dmg becomes.

Just another reason to just leave vertical tier progression at Ascended only. If they really feel the need for more verticle progression it should be in the form noted above. New Skills, access to new trait lines and stat improvements via title rank systems or unlocking them from playing and completing new/special content.

AndresR.4532:

The 5% people claimed was just comparing weapons, but if u compare all the gear, yes is 10% +/-

No, not all of them. The majority of people who claim 5% would also say that the 50 base damage added on to the weapon was non-consequential, when in fact it is the biggest contributor to the damage boost.

I made this thread in response to all the people miss quoting the damage increase in the following thread….

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Remove-Ascended-from-WvWvW/page/12#post3088102

This thread is in response to all the claims that ascended gear is not vertical progression and only increases the damage by 5%, in which case they are wrong on both accounts. I did this to shred light on a problem people loved to talk about but never backed what they said.

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Fully agree. This is the issue. If a player wanted BiS for any reason, and developed an expectation of the way it would be, based on pre-launch publicity, past experience with the company and seeing the systems the game launched with, the shift was going to cause an upset. All the other verbiage is just justification that distracts from the real issues as people argue the “rightness” or wrongness" of each others’ arguments.

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

That is not the point of the thread nor the major discussion at hand, but to answer the paragraph…

Yes they did betray the trust of their original fan base. I have given more than enough links to their interviews showing that the game was only to differ from Guild Wars 1 by the fighting mechanics, level system, the “new and improved” traits, open world instead of instances and how the story flows through the game. Not just 3-4 year old interviews either, but as recent as 1 year (aka at release).

I have more links to a variety of different interviews on the topic of Guild Wars 2 (but then again, so does google). Also, they have completely went back on what they said in most interviews.

The question you should ask yourself is why are the majority of players upset about this one thing more so than the others?

It is because there was no preface to this problem. They never came out and said something on the grounds of, "Hey guys, we are going to change our original view on “fill in the blank here” in the hopes it will make it a better game!". Instead they just slapped everyone in the face by coming out with, " We just never told you about it and it was here from the get go even though it is completely different than how we originally showed/interviewed the game".

I am sorry, but don’t try to kitten on my face and call it a Mountain Dew. The major fact stands, we paid money for what they said in the interviews and how they were advertising the game. It is dirty dealing, at best, to turn around and completely change the product no later than 3 months after the release. All the while claiming it was part of your plan.

However, this thread is to high light the major differences between Exotic gear and Ascended gear. This is to get a idea of how it will effect the players in a semi “PvP” environment.

Lastly, as to whether it is power creep or not… I personally believe this is a form of creep as they have stated they will raise the level cap at some point (which I linked a interview in a previous post). As to whether or not it turns out to be power creep will be determined because from experience you can not relay on what they say as to what will happen.

Ision.3207:

1. In regards to backtracking on Horizontal Progression, Anet gives a small mea culpa as you say. They assure us that Ascended is it, and all progression going forward will be Horizontal. They introduce Ascended Armor, and then move on to Horizontal progression for years to come>

Its highly that there will be vertical progression of the infusions, they are denoted in the same tiers as gear and we are only at masterwork level. Then there’s also the ability to infuse ascended items.

Mackdose.6504:

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

It is. All the new mobs/bosses are stronger than their start-of-the-game equivalent. Some of already existing mobs got strengthened. More revamps are promised. If you think that had nothing to do with ascended gear, you are naive.

whyme.3281:

Can you do the math on defensive stats aswell? Maybe with leaked armor stats too.

I think we dont see an equivalent damage decrease there. Could be interesting in PvP point of view.

I would be more than happen to run the damage calculation if I had a solid source for the numbers. As of right now, I can not find a source that gives a concrete answer on the numbers.

Although I will say this, armor in this game scales no where near as good as damage. Ascended armor would only help if they increased the defense on each piece by a substantial amount.

For example:
The amount of armor needed on a full ascended berserker build in heavy armor to match that of a exotic with the same set up against a backstab Thief would be (I will be using the numbers from my first post in this thread).

Exotic: 2,127 armor Damage Done~ 3,596
Full Ascended: ? Damage Done~3,596

ASSUMING the Thief is using Ascended weapons/accessories but Exotic Armor.

3,596= [(1,030) * (3,309) * (2.4)]/ ?
? = [(1,030) * (3,309) * (2.4)]/ (3,596)
?= 2,274.71

So in order to maintain the same damage from exotic against exotic to ascended/exotic mix against ascended they would have to increase the total heavy armor by 6.9%.

On light…

Exotic: 1,836 armor Damage Done~4,166
Ascended: ? Damage Done~4,166

Calculation:
4,166 = [(1,030) * (3,309) * (2.4)] / ?
?= [(1,030) * (3,309) * (2.4)] / (4,166 )
?= 1,963.48

Which would be a 6.9% increase.

So in general, they would have to raise the armor values by 6.9% in order to match the damage increase and make Ascended vs Ascended the same as Exotic vs Exotic.

Taking a look at the increase from Rare to Exotic chest pieces:
Rare: 321
Exotic: 363

So the increase is 13.08%.

Masterwork to Rare:
Masterwork: 298
Rare: 321

So the increase is 7.7%

They have said that Rare to Exotic will be the highest jump so we can assume that the jump form Exotic to Ascended should be somewhere in the realm of 7.7% – 13.08%.

I will say, all in all, this was a useless analysis because it is only partial ascended gear.

Have a good one.

morrolan.9608:

Ision.3207:

1. In regards to backtracking on Horizontal Progression, Anet gives a small mea culpa as you say. They assure us that Ascended is it, and all progression going forward will be Horizontal. They introduce Ascended Armor, and then move on to Horizontal progression for years to come>

Its highly that there will be vertical progression of the infusions, they are denoted in the same tiers as gear and we are only at masterwork level. Then there’s also the ability to infuse ascended items.

Considering the amount of mats required for say …those +5 agony resist and + other stat infusions, i shudder to think what higher level infusions would cost…

So if, as some of you have indicated, the point is moot, and that there will indeed be some degree of vertical progression; why not stop talking about the vertical progression, and push them to go for more horizontal progression. They’ve admitted the roll-out of Ascended gear wasn’t the best idea, nor was it done in the best way. They have also made it abundantly clear that there will be some vertical progression even in the future, level cap increase etc. Furthermore, we know that they will not remove Ascended.

With those things in mind, instead of complaining about what they are doing, push for more HP and push for more methods to getting Ascended, hell push for a materiel reduction to get Ascended. Do anything but complain. Making worthwhile suggestions is more likely to produce a positive reaction from Arena Net,posting threads about removing the gear from WvW isn’t going to work, neither will saying its dumb etc. Even a well thought out post about the statistical differences aren’t going to work, because those differences aren’t as big as the differences from Rares to Exotics and to this day I run rare sets in WvW and have little trouble unless I am 1v1’ing someone and many other people are like this and I even think that was mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

My advice, to get them to take your posts serious, is to make suggestions that get massive community support. If an idea is good, the community will support it, rather than fracturing and arguing like there is here. The community has multiple facets, thus you see people that like VP, as well as those that want HP. Find the middle ground. Same with WvW vs PvE vs PvP, though WvW and PvE will likely never get separate traits and skill balance, those two should be separate from PvP.

As for the actual issue of Ascended gear, it’s necessary because there are players in game that like vertical progression. Since forums are rarely indicative of the game population as a whole, I would go so far as saying its likely a 20/20 percent split between HP vs VP, with an additional 60% that don’t mind one way or the other. Arena Net has a very disparate group of players, and won’t always please the whole lot of us. I DO think they should start working on more HP as soon as possible, I would like more skills and traits, and viable builds. I would also like Ascended gear to be less of a grind than it currently is; and I think that is ANet’s ultimate goal. To strike a balance between the two. Threads like this may be well intentioned, with the intent to inform the playerbase, but they also add fuel to a rather nasty fire. The forums are coming to be a place where you come to rage and attack other players, when in reality a compromise is needed to sort this issue.

So why not make this a thread about it, instead of another Ascended are ruining the game, and since I can’t have my way 100% of the time, I want them removed thread.

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

They’ve already said they had no intention of adding new tiers after ascended. But that’s not good enough for people on this forum it seems.

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

You any good at math? It is simple.

Guild vs. Guild – pick any number, say 5 people in each group. Guild group one has only exotics. Guild group two has exotic armor but ascended where applicable. Now, work with me here, which guild group has the extra stats due to gear?

Everything being equal the group that has only exotics is at a disadvantage.

Note: WvW is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and can be any form of combat such has large (zerg / bait ball), small (duo, trio, etc), solo, and other options of combat that stats may or may not matter. But the simple fact that there is a difference in a WvW format of play, it matters. I’ll bet you a gold piece now that when they do implement the JP’s GvG area, ascended gear won’t be allowed or they will enforce some form of gear restriction…

That scenario is statistically rare, and therefore an edge case.

Should we change the rules of an entire game mode to remove a tier of gear for the sake of an edge case?

No.

If your solution was to have everyone scaled up to ascended, I’d be more supportive. I’d still say no change is necessary.

Is it rare? Do you not recall the firestorm that took place not more than a few weeks ago about the dev vs. fight clubs and aftermath? EB JP’s are the target place for fight clubs. Said fight clubs have to have a level playing field. They do in s/t PvP, correct? That is why I said pick a number, 1, 2, 5, whatever. One group has, one group does not, the delta is 10% or some number. It will make a difference.

I wouldn’t scale up ascended. I would actually remove (not allow) it from any form of PvP and leave it only in PvE. PvE for the most part was the target audience anyway, agreed? Those who have vs. have not doesn’t really matter has long has you know the encounters and know when to do x, y, or z… People are, after all, pugging level 40+ fractals and AR resist hasn’t been a limit based on today’s gear.

So you think that anet should remove ascended because people want to have unsanctioned (by anet) pvp matches in an area of the game that was never meant to have that kind of thing going on?

Seems completely logical.

Syndrilious.9632:

So if, as some of you have indicated, the point is moot, and that there will indeed be some degree of vertical progression; why not stop talking about the vertical progression, and push them to go for more horizontal progression. They’ve admitted the roll-out of Ascended gear wasn’t the best idea, nor was it done in the best way. They have also made it abundantly clear that there will be some vertical progression even in the future, level cap increase etc. Furthermore, we know that they will not remove Ascended.

With those things in mind, instead of complaining about what they are doing, push for more HP and push for more methods to getting Ascended, hell push for a materiel reduction to get Ascended. Do anything but complain. Making worthwhile suggestions is more likely to produce a positive reaction from Arena Net,posting threads about removing the gear from WvW isn’t going to work, neither will saying its dumb etc. Even a well thought out post about the statistical differences aren’t going to work, because those differences aren’t as big as the differences from Rares to Exotics and to this day I run rare sets in WvW and have little trouble unless I am 1v1’ing someone and many other people are like this and I even think that was mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

My advice, to get them to take your posts serious, is to make suggestions that get massive community support. If an idea is good, the community will support it, rather than fracturing and arguing like there is here. The community has multiple facets, thus you see people that like VP, as well as those that want HP. Find the middle ground. Same with WvW vs PvE vs PvP, though WvW and PvE will likely never get separate traits and skill balance, those two should be separate from PvP.

As for the actual issue of Ascended gear, it’s necessary because there are players in game that like vertical progression. Since forums are rarely indicative of the game population as a whole, I would go so far as saying its likely a 20/20 percent split between HP vs VP, with an additional 60% that don’t mind one way or the other. Arena Net has a very disparate group of players, and won’t always please the whole lot of us. I DO think they should start working on more HP as soon as possible, I would like more skills and traits, and viable builds. I would also like Ascended gear to be less of a grind than it currently is; and I think that is ANet’s ultimate goal. To strike a balance between the two. Threads like this may be well intentioned, with the intent to inform the playerbase, but they also add fuel to a rather nasty fire. The forums are coming to be a place where you come to rage and attack other players, when in reality a compromise is needed to sort this issue.

So why not make this a thread about it, instead of another Ascended are ruining the game, and since I can’t have my way 100% of the time, I want them removed thread.

The information in this thread is solely for the purpose of informing the populace of the game. More so, the people who continually spread false data.

As stated in the first post, it is for those who continually attack people with negative comments that they have no data to back their 10-16% damage increase claims while they spew the “currently available ascended gear only increases damage by 5% overall”. This is proof showing them they are wrong. Yet still, some continue to say it is not true because “Math doesn’t match my experience”.

I did not create this thread to flame Anet as it has turned into. I created it for information and for peaceful discourse on Ascended gear. That invites a lot of opinions, I know, which is why the thread can spin off in many different directions.

I never asked for Ascended gear to be removed from the game, as that would not be wise at this point. The only option they have left is continue to push through with the gear. The only thing I ask of them, is to stop “backtracking” their statements and trying to hide behind cleverly posed sentences. I understand not everyone can read between the lines, but a lot of the Guild Wars 1 player base can and hence why they are angry. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they pulled Ascended gear out of the air while they said they had planned it all along. It is insulting to your clients to pull such a move.

They are not our friends, parents, relatives or any other type of close familiarity with us. They are our service providers. We have nothing more than a business connection. We pay them to provide a service and I expect honesty, integrity and some small amount of respect from them. That is not much to ask when you are paying for a service, or in this case, already paid for it.

fellyn.5083:

They’ve already said they had no intention of adding new tiers after ascended. But that’s not good enough for people on this forum it seems.

Because what they say can not be taken at face value for truth. They could change their minds and never tell you until 2 days after they implement it. Then they will claim it was on the docket the entire time. It has happened before, so currently that stands on the track record more so than the abiding by what they say.

Ision.3207:

Raine, I hear you, lol. I never suggested that you begin threads like this, so I don’t know what you’re referring to as far as that goes. All I am saying is that the writing is on the wall, and it’s loud and clear. I’ll give you 2 possible scenarios, and ask yourself, which is more likely:

1. In regards to backtracking on Horizontal Progression, Anet gives a small mea culpa as you say. They assure us that Ascended is it, and all progression going forward will be Horizontal. They introduce Ascended Armor, and then move on to Horizontal progression for years to come>

2. Anet releases Ascended armor, followed by Ascended Sigils or Runes, and then followed by ascended this, and then followed by ascended that … and so on. Time passes, and another year has gone by. Vertical progression is even more accepted as normal, the demographics change even more towards traditional VP mmo players. Anet finally exhausts the “ascended” avenue of VP, and soon afterwards release an expansion with 5 new levels, a new class, and …. tada! … a new set of gear to grind.

Given what occurred last November, a mere 3 months after years of marketing Gw2 in the manner they did, my money’s on option 2 ….

And as far as Colin’s comment about horizontal skill progression goes, I believe him. I think they are going to do that slowly over time … except it won’t be “instead” of VP, but “in addition to” vertical progression.

Still and all though, as far as grindy Vertical Progression mmo’s go, Gw2 is pretty good, and I’ll take it over WoW or Lotro.

Indeed. You have summed up the thread thus far nicely. The only thing I would change is the “grindy” part. Guild Wars 2 is… sort of “grindy” but not as bad as others.

Vanthian.9267:

The information in this thread is solely for the purpose of informing the populace of the game. More so, the people who continually spread false data.

As stated in the first post, it is for those who continually attack people with negative comments that they have no data to back their 10-16% damage increase claims while they spew the “currently available ascended gear only increases damage by 5% overall”. This is proof showing them they are wrong. Yet still, some continue to say it is not true because “Math doesn’t match my experience”.

I did not create this thread to flame Anet as it has turned into. I created it for information and for peaceful discourse on Ascended gear. That invites a lot of opinions, I know, which is why the thread can spin off in many different directions.

I never asked for Ascended gear to be removed from the game, as that would not be wise at this point. The only option they have left is continue to push through with the gear. The only thing I ask of them, is to stop “backtracking” their statements and trying to hide behind cleverly posed sentences. I understand not everyone can read between the lines, but a lot of the Guild Wars 1 player base can and hence why they are angry. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they pulled Ascended gear out of the air while they said they had planned it all along. It is insulting to your clients to pull such a move.

They are not our friends, parents, relatives or any other type of close familiarity with us. They are our service providers. We have nothing more than a business connection. We pay them to provide a service and I expect honesty, integrity and some small amount of respect from them. That is not much to ask when you are paying for a service, or in this case, already paid for it.

I understand that they aren’t friends, parents or the rest, they will be more receptive to ideas that don’t flame, and I think that the community as a whole is the issue.

I enjoyed that you took the time to prove the point using math that people that say it isn’t an issue are wrong. They needed put into their place, however, they were right in regards to WvW, it will never be balanced around 1v1, and outside of that there are too many variables for Ascended to make a huge impact in WvW. Will it make an impact? Yes, undoubtedly. How much of a difference it makes is going to be different for all players.

You’re absolutely right, it is a business arrangement, as such you are free to terminate it at any time, and that really is the issue, by further contributing to the game you are giving legitimacy to the way the game is going. I am by no means saying to quit, but until the player numbers take a hit, they will continue to do what keeps them up. In the mean time, we are left with PR-ish answers to any concern we bring to them. They give us the PR answers because we latch onto anything they bring us as though it is 100% set in stone in the game. Thus they have to maintain plausible deniability in case something doesn’t make it in.

Sure they have flip-flopped. What game company hasn’t, especially with the internal strife ANet has dealt with. Should they be more honest with the player base of course, but we should stop attacking them on every little thing they changed stances on.

I’m just trying to play devils advocate here and looking at every side of the issue. I largely view the player issues as justified but believe that we are going about making suggestions for change and in roads with Dev-Player communication the wrong way.

fellyn.5083:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

They’ve already said they had no intention of adding new tiers after ascended. But that’s not good enough for people on this forum it seems.

Sadly, new tiers are irrelevant vis-a-vis vertical progression in the game. They have said from the beginning of VP in November that they had no plans to add new tiers of gear and intended to carry forward VP through updates (infusions) to the ascended tier. They have said that we would have VP going forward and they have never reversed themselves on this point. So, though there are no new tiers intended, VP will continue unabated.

Syndrilious.9632:

Snip (just to shorten up the thread)

I completely understand where you are coming from. I know flaming them is not the best way to go about it. My 2 infractions server as stickers of learning on the matter.

As for WvW and the difference it will make… I honestly don’t care as it will always be a number game more than a skill one. They are correct as there is no balance in that place and never will be but further propagating the problem is not going to help.

As to the other comments:

Actually, I hardly ever log on now. I have dropped from top 100 on the (Achievement) leader board to the 90th percentile or some sort. The only reason I ever played PvE was because they fail to deliver the Spvp they promised. It shatter my guild from Guild Wars 1 and all of my old friends stopped playing. We were not pros, but we were above average. I can honestly say, I hardly seen any great players before I quit in Spvp. It was a ghost land and that truly saddens me. Had my team stuck around I am almost positive we would have been a top Tpvp team.

With how many great players came from Guild Wars 1 it was very exciting in the beginning. Then they made a horrible judgement call on nerfing things not even a month into the game…… I am sure any Warrior who has stuck around since head start will know what I am talking about. How many months did the class defining trait line stay with +3% burst damage because people still didn’t understand the dodge mechanic of the game at launch?

It was because of things of that nature most of the great Spvpers left. 3 months of balancing like that is enough for any serious pvper. Thus they left.

I might log on once in a blue moon to run a dungeon or two because I do enjoy the combat system in the game but with all the left over bugs, new direction and horrible balance overall I don’t think I could bring myself to come back.

As most of my guild members have said, I will find it hard to ever buy another game released with their logo on it. This is coming from a hardcore vet of Guild Wars 1. Played from launch until Guild Wars 2 head start. If that doesn’t mean something to Anet then… I guess my opinion is pretty spot on about their new motives.

Vanthian.9267:

Then they made a horrible judgement call on nerfing things not even a month into the game…… I am sure any Warrior who has stuck around since head start will know what I am talking about.

I am sorry that i have to derail this thread for something offtopic, but putting up a warrior as an example of Anet overnerfing things is not exactly a good idea.

I would have like for ascended to not exist but it is here and it is here to stay. Just remove the time gating on the crafting. That alone will help alleviate the annoyance of it. Those that can’t play everyday can binge on weekends and make up for lost time.

The fact is that a stat advantage is still and advantage no matter what otther imbalances there are on the field or how noticable you think it is. It is still 5-10% more damage, that is not insignificant.

eisberg.2379:

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Xae Isareth.1364:

It was never advertised as a horizontal progression game.

Sure it was.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview

Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses?
Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game <snip>
perm

And even casual gamers can get ascended pretty easily. They purposely made sure it was reasonably with in reach of casual gamers.

ermmm, not really, especially the weapons which really just high lights why the game is being referred to as “grind wars 2”. The ideals that were touted in media for years in the build up to release were ditched very quickly in favour of $$$.

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

Tiger.7506:

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

How about there was no bridge stats wise between exotic and legendary gear. If it is just a time bridge, make them all the same stats again.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Tiger.7506:

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

How about there was no bridge stats wise between exotic and legendary gear. If it is just a time bridge, make them all the same stats again.

No. I like stats.
“the difference between medicine and poison is in the dose”

/15dancingcharr

the same people always complaining .