Guild Wars 2

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

tolunart.2095:

Crapgame.6519:

And actually you are correct. Anyone can take a break. But let me know how that goes when new content is coming out every 2 weeks. See, I do see your side of the debate. I just don’t agree with your assessment of only a few.

The pace of new content is irrelevant. If you don’t want to play, don’t play. I took a break from Lost Shores until Flame and Frost. Not because of anything that was introduced to the game, I just got bored with it and played other games for a while.

If you feel compelled to collect all the minis, the back pieces, the titles and achievements that come with the LS updates, that is entirely within you, it has nothing to do with the game. I pick up and put down games as I choose because it is my choice to play them or not.

Thats the issue tolunart, that you may not care about some of the content and rewards, but others do. The sheer reason I play GW2 is to have a “perfect” and “godlike” character who excels at what he or she does. This is my fantasy realm, this gives me enjoyment. Also connected to that is perfect equipment and achievement points. I don’t want to miss any content 2 week releases because I will miss AP (I missed flame and frost dungeon achievements) and I WON’T go on vacation unless I’m SURE there are no big AP events. Back to equipment – having 8 alts is rough when faced with time gated equipment. This is what I face, an imperfect character with imperfect gear who I am compelled to gear to ascended but can’t.

I’m not saying that I represent a group of people, I simply represent myself, and I don’t like being punished for my particular play style (achievement hunting, gear perfection). The achievement hunting part is unavoidable with a 2 week release cycle, but the gear perfection is simple to solve with a soulbound gate, not an account bound gate.

Theplayboy.6417:

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

I actually agree with you 99.9%.

…But I was under the impression that gear didn’t matter for the 8 Orb achievement since you get one-shotted no matter what gear you have and your damage depends on the Orbs, not your weapons? (Just curious!)

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

Exotic gear is easy to acquire so your argument about doing Liadri in greens/blues doesn’t hold much weight behind it. Solo achievements like that are more about what class you have than gear…. but that’s a whole different topic.

Also I would like to see a source on all new content will consider having ascended gear in mind. The two new dungeons that we got this year weren’t anymore difficult than the toughest ones at launch (when there was no ascended gear).

VoxShatterfall.5470:

I’m not saying that I represent a group of people, I simply represent myself, and I don’t like being punished for my particular play style (achievement hunting, gear perfection). The achievement hunting part is unavoidable with a 2 week release cycle, but the gear perfection is simple to solve with a soulbound gate, not an account bound gate.

You’re not being punished, you’re punishing yourself.

The game was not designed for your style of play. Anet is not going to design a game for people obsessed with getting every achievement, every piece of gear, every title, every mini.

Off the top of my head, I’ve seen threads about achievements/titles that literally require years of effort to attain – like “yakslapper” which requires you to kill like a million yaks or something. They changed “Thirst Slayer” when they found out that people found an exploit that gives them a “bottomless cup” to drink from. There’s a recent thread about a mini that is only available from a certain convention. I don’t know if it’s tradeable or not, but even if it is, 99.9% of the players will never own one. The two week update schedule practically guarantees at some point you will miss a title, an achievement, a reward.

That they do these things sends a clear message to me: “it’s impossible to finish the game, no matter what you do there will always be something you don’t have, so don’t worry about it so much.”

And you say you plan your vacations around the game? You seriously do not see something wrong with scheduling your life around achieving virtual rewards that are completely meaningless to the other 7 billion or so people in the world? What would happen if Anet’s servers had a massive crash and both live and backup info was lost, and they had to begin the game all over again?

Anet designs this game around casual players who pick up and put down the game at a casual pace. Checklists of achievements and time-gated gear is there for hardcore players who want long term goals, but they are optional and completely irrelevant to enjoying the game for what it is. People make the mistake of thinking those goals are the game when they are just busywork put there for people who need that kind of thing.

I want to say something more on this topic.

First, tolunart I wanted to remind you that using your logic you can apply it to ignore literally everything that is ever posted on forums, ever. There is never a majority of players on forums anywhere and if we are not to listen to them simply because they were minorities what would the rest of our world look like? The fact is minorities can be, and often are, right. People quitting the game also cannot be monitored as feedback as you suggested it was. There are thousands of reasons to not play a game and there are tons to continue playing it even if you dislike something about it. You have to listen to your feedback from those willing to give it. Also, people are very different and just because you can ignore missing content, not give a crap about stats, and be the most godly casual player ever doesn’t mean that goes for everyone else nor should it.

Next, I’ve made many subjects about this very post. There is absolutely zero reason to not make Ascended gear have changeable stats. ANet has said time and time and time and time again they do not want the game to become a grind and although I don’t think Ascended Gear was intended to be a grind, it is. The fact is Ascended Gear is gear you have to grind with time, the most valuable commodity, while providing nothing special in return other than better stats. This is also against the idea of not rewarding players just for time spent but for skill. When we played GW we didn’t need to constantly grind for gear every time we wanted/forced to change builds yet we still played the game. We played the game because we enjoyed it, not because we felt pressured to get gear or do Living World content. What better reward is there for a person who invests their most valuable currency, time, into something than finishing their characters? None. GW2 is built around encouraging build/playstyle diversity and for a game like that implementing extreme amounts of time gated gear is completely counter-intuitive.

You know its funny – 7 or so months after we got ascended accessories we actually can outfit most of our characters with all ascended accessories (just as some had predicted) and we aren’t complaining about it so much. It would be funny if it only took 5 days of time gate per ascended 1 handed weapon or 10 for a 2 handed. Then 1 month = 6 hands of ascended weapons. Even for a guy like me with alts that’s only around 1 month per character. But still – feels like altaholics are being punished haha.

VoxShatterfall.5470:

You know its funny – 7 or so months after we got ascended accessories we actually can outfit most of our characters with all ascended accessories (just as some had predicted) and we aren’t complaining about it so much. It would be funny if it only took 5 days of time gate per ascended 1 handed weapon or 10 for a 2 handed. Then 1 month = 6 hands of ascended weapons. Even for a guy like me with alts that’s only around 1 month per character. But still – feels like altaholics are being punished haha.

If you do fractals and you do guild missions, and dailies and monthlies then yes. You can outfit a reasonable number of characters. But if you don’t do exactly what ANet decided was going to be the most rewarding way to play you’re out of luck.

Xista.7391:

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

Exotic gear is easy to acquire so your argument about doing Liadri in greens/blues doesn’t hold much weight behind it. Solo achievements like that are more about what class you have than gear…. but that’s a whole different topic.

Also I would like to see a source on all new content will consider having ascended gear in mind. The two new dungeons that we got this year weren’t anymore difficult than the toughest ones at launch (when there was no ascended gear).

That’s because we haven’t had much Ascended gear yet and thus the difference between Ascended and Exotics hasn’t been too great. But adding armor and weapons to the picture (that’s 8 total pieces of gear) will make a difference.

Besides, even if new content isn’t scaled to Ascended (almost an impossibility in my opinion), you’ll be shunned by other players for, for example, dungeons if you don’t have fully Ascended gear. You can easily do dungeons in Rare armor now, but try pinging your Rares in a dungeon group now and see how fast you get kicked.

But the biggest problem isn’t even the new tier of gear (which is bad enough), it’s that this new gear looks like it will be significantly harder to obtain than Exotics.

PvE != WvW / s/t PvP.

S/T PvP is a moot point, ascended gear isn’t allowed. Problem solved there. However, this form of play isn’t really taking off in GW2. For whatever reason. Then, factor in you are tied to a map (points to the two ton heavy gorilla MMO we all know about) thinking BG’s are the be all end all, and people don’t want to play that. Well, it is a different subset I should say.

PvE – static content with AI. First time is rough. Second time is not so much. After a bit everyone is doing speed runs. Then there are the fractals with their agony buff which is hit or miss to the masses. Not going to touch that other than it isn’t something I’d do.

WvW – the third and final aspect of this game whereas it is open world PvP without any constraint. Food, buffs, gear, and numbers matter because it is all allowed. Initial stats provided by ascended gear is a no brainer and not much of a worry. In fact, most don’t even bother unless they are fine tuning their stats for a particular play style. Others, refuse or can’t. Then there are those who may have 1 or 2 pieces or holding on to laurels because the road is slow going and they want to buy wisely (smart actually).

Adding the gear is spreading the total stats which mean in WvW format more health or some other stat that helps you. When facing 10 it doesn’t matter. When facing 2 it does matter. 1k health may not sound like a lot to you but if you play, and if you roam in small groups or solo, ask yourself how many times that 1k would have made a difference. It does. But it isn’t just a number it is also a distribution to fine tune your avatar.

Easiest solution would be to remove all ascended gear from WvW and treat it just like s/t PvP. People would probably complain but it would at least level the playing field has more and more items come out.

And to the person who said this is changing to a grindy MMO you are probably right. New content is coming out, achievement points are adding up, and a off day or week means you are behind. Being behind is a good thing (watch it boys) because it puts a fresh perspective on the game. However, I do think it is going to make it difficult in the longer run.

just one mans opinion.

Castaliea.3156:

I want to say something more on this topic.

First, tolunart I wanted to remind you that using your logic you can apply it to ignore literally everything that is ever posted on forums, ever. There is never a majority of players on forums anywhere and if we are not to listen to them simply because they were minorities what would the rest of our world look like?

Opinions expressed on the forums are absolutely not representative of the majority of the players. Coupled with the fact that it is practically impossible to distinguish between trolling and legitimate opinions, I personally do not consider anything I read on the forums to be worth more than the paper it’s printed on.

Yes, you can ignore everything and anything posted here. It’s generally a good idea to do so, and most of the time I do.

A rule of thumb I once heard: “90% of anything is bullkitten.” Forum traffic is slightly higher than average.

tolunart.2095:

You’re not being punished, you’re punishing yourself.

The game was not designed for your style of play. Anet is not going to design a game for people obsessed with getting every achievement, every piece of gear, every title, every mini.

Off the top of my head, I’ve seen threads about achievements/titles that literally require years of effort to attain – like “yakslapper” which requires you to kill like a million yaks or something. They changed “Thirst Slayer” when they found out that people found an exploit that gives them a “bottomless cup” to drink from. There’s a recent thread about a mini that is only available from a certain convention. I don’t know if it’s tradeable or not, but even if it is, 99.9% of the players will never own one. The two week updates practically guarantees at some point you will miss a title, an achievement, a reward.

That they do these things sends a clear message to me: “it’s impossible to finish the game, no matter what you do there will always be something you don’t have, so don’t worry about it so much.”

And you say you plan your vacations around the game? You seriously do not see something wrong with scheduling your life around achieving virtual rewards that are completely meaningless to the other 7 billion or so people in the world? What would happen if Anet’s servers had a massive crash and both live and backup info was lost, and they had to begin the game all over again?

Anet designs this game around casual players who pick up and put down the game at a casual pace. Checklists of achievements and time-gated gear is there for hardcore players who want long term goals, but they are optional and completely irrelevant to enjoying the game for what it is. People make the mistake of thinking those goals are the game when they are just busywork put there for people who need that kind of thing.

And that’s the grief I face. I know that I’m not supposed to get all the achievements, I know that there will be something out of my reach if I do one activity over another. And I know that ANET did not design GW2 with the 100% person in mind. I’m just trying to point out my feelings and have a discussion / give my take on what I think is going on and how it affects me. Some other talk by some other users claims to represent more than themselves, this is inherently flawed. We need to all give our inputs and with that information make an informed recommendation for what we as a player base want.

What I want is soulbound gates, not account bound gates. That itself would help me tremendously. Imagine that a single character can only refine 1 t7 a day, my other crafters could refine another t7 that day as well. The issue would be if they were lvl 500 crafting or not, thats all.

VoxShatterfall.5470:

And that’s the grief I face. I know that I’m not supposed to get all the achievements, I know that there will be something out of my reach if I do one activity over another. And I know that ANET did not design GW2 with the 100% person in mind.

As I’ve said before, you know that the game is not going to change into what you want it to be, so you have a choice: do you accept the game as it is or acknowledge that this is not the game you want to play and look elsewhere?

Because I am certain there are other games that are designed to play the way you want to play. Existing games may be too far gone to catch up, but if you watch for soon-to-launch MMOs you will probably find one more to your liking.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Xista.7391:

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

Exotic gear is easy to acquire so your argument about doing Liadri in greens/blues doesn’t hold much weight behind it. Solo achievements like that are more about what class you have than gear…. but that’s a whole different topic.

Also I would like to see a source on all new content will consider having ascended gear in mind. The two new dungeons that we got this year weren’t anymore difficult than the toughest ones at launch (when there was no ascended gear).

That’s because we haven’t had much Ascended gear yet and thus the difference between Ascended and Exotics hasn’t been too great. But adding armor and weapons to the picture (that’s 8 total pieces of gear) will make a difference.

Besides, even if new content isn’t scaled to Ascended (almost an impossibility in my opinion), you’ll be shunned by other players for, for example, dungeons if you don’t have fully Ascended gear. You can easily do dungeons in Rare armor now, but try pinging your Rares in a dungeon group now and see how fast you get kicked.

But the biggest problem isn’t even the new tier of gear (which is bad enough), it’s that this new gear looks like it will be significantly harder to obtain than Exotics.

I’ve pugged hundreds of explorable dungeon paths and no one has ever asked anyone to ping any gear. The only place I’ve ever seen that was in CoF speed clears.

The worst thing I see happening is more solo achievements like Liadri 8-orb where it will be easier to complete with better gear (but even easier with different professions)… but i think those types of achievements are flawed from the beginning.

Xista.7391:

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

Exotic gear is easy to acquire so your argument about doing Liadri in greens/blues doesn’t hold much weight behind it. Solo achievements like that are more about what class you have than gear…. but that’s a whole different topic.

Also I would like to see a source on all new content will consider having ascended gear in mind. The two new dungeons that we got this year weren’t anymore difficult than the toughest ones at launch (when there was no ascended gear).

Liadri was built in all Exotic plus Ascended Trinkets Game World. Do you seriously think the Testers were Testing Liadri in all Yellows? Do you think that future Dungeons Testers will be testing in them in nothing but Oranges? And solo achievement are NOT based around Class. They are accomplished by skill, gear, build, determination, and a little bit of luck. I got the 8 Orb Achievement and I can tell you right now there is no way I would have been able to DPS her down before the timer expired while hitting her with 8 orbs had I not had a full set of Ascended Zerker Trinkets at my disposal.

You may not have thought the Aetherblade was difficult but let me guess you were playing with all Ascended Trinkets + Exotics right? Of course……Go back to the Sky Pirates Living World Forums and read all of the pleas for them to Nerf everything about that dungeon. The Aetherblade dungeon is my favorite Dungeon in GW2. And yes I have the DM Title.

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

Theplayboy.6417:

Xista.7391:

I’m not sure why everyone is up in arms about new ascended gear. The stat upgrades are minimal at best.

This would be a problem if this game had difficult PvE (except for high level fractals) where you HAD to get the very best gear in order to complete the content. That’s not a thing in GW2.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of this going live either. I can see why Arena Net is doing this though. Players go nuts to get the best gear in game, even if they don’t truly need it (to complete content). This is going to force players that have this mentality to play daily.

The only actual problem that arises out of this is WvW where little stat upgrades could cause imbalance and force people to gear one character. I really, really hope that T7 mats drop from completing objectives there so those players have a viable option to gear up.

As for me, I’ll gradually work towards getting this gear. I do all content in this game, and I don’t feel like I’m shut out of any PvE content. I carry two sets of armor on my characters – Zerker and a set with 1 defense stat on it. I carry many weapons on my characters too. I don’t feel like I’m going to be forced to use a particular weapon/armor just because it’s ascended since I use these those for difference scenarios, not stats.

Its more about 1v1’s in WvWvW or 2v1’s in WvWvW. However, all future content will be designed with this level of gear in mind. Hence the word treadmill. You think you increase in power but you don’t because the newer content scales accordingly. So you’re effectively the same.as you were before only it took you a lot longer to get back to there.

That being said though if gear doesn’t really matter in PvE like you said and that you can do everything there is to do….. Would you be so kind as to point me towards a video that shows someone getting 8 Orb Liadri Achievement in ALL Green Gear or lower? Thanks….

Exotic gear is easy to acquire so your argument about doing Liadri in greens/blues doesn’t hold much weight behind it. Solo achievements like that are more about what class you have than gear…. but that’s a whole different topic.

Also I would like to see a source on all new content will consider having ascended gear in mind. The two new dungeons that we got this year weren’t anymore difficult than the toughest ones at launch (when there was no ascended gear).

Liadri was built in all Exotic plus Ascended Trinkets Game World. Do you seriously think the Testers were Testing Liadri in all Yellows? LOL…..Do you think that future Dungeons Testers will be testing in them in nothing but Oranges? LOL… And solo achievement like that are NOT based around Class They are accomplished by skill, gear, build, determination, and a little bit of luck. I got the 8 Orb Achievement and I can tell you right now there is no way I would have been able to DPS her down before the timer expired while hitting her with 8 orbs had I not had a full set of Ascended Zerker Trinkets.

You may not have thought the Aetherblade was difficult but let me guess you were playing with all Ascended Trinkets + Exotics right? Of course……Go back to the Sky Pirates Living World Forums and read all of the pleas for them to Nerf everything about that dungeon. The Aetherblade dungeon is my favorite Dungeon in GW2. And yes I have the DM Title.

When I see warriors burst down Liadri seconds after going into P2, you can’t tell me that solo content like that isn’t easier by playing certain professions.

Regarding the Aetherblade dungeon, that actually had mechanics in there that were pass/fail. I was in countless pugs that kept on wiping due to running into moving walls and standing in fire circles during the last encounter. Gear can’t fix that.

A well-written post, and I really like the idea.

Too bad Anet’s gonna ignore the kitten out of this thread like every other good idea.

tolunart.2095:

If there was an actual majority of players speaking out against Ascended gear for the 10 months since it was first introduced, do you really think that Anet would alienate most of their player base by continuing to move forward with plans to introduce something they hate?

Considering that the ascended gear from the very beginning was aimed at a tiny “dedicated” minority of players (mostly locust content that already left the game) and offered absolutely nothing for the playerbase this game was originally designed for? Yep, they knew they would alienate a large part of their playerbase, but either didn’t care, or thought that they can afford that because that part of the playerbase currently does not have anywhere else to go.
Also, the whole RNG box mess clearly shown, that Anet does not have any problem with introducing things that most of the community at least strongly dislikes, if they think they can get away with it.

Astralporing.1957:

tolunart.2095:

If there was an actual majority of players speaking out against Ascended gear for the 10 months since it was first introduced, do you really think that Anet would alienate most of their player base by continuing to move forward with plans to introduce something they hate?

Considering that the ascended gear from the very beginning was aimed at a tiny “dedicated” minority of players (mostly locust content that already left the game) and offered absolutely nothing for the playerbase this game was originally designed for? Yep, they knew they would alienate a large part of their playerbase, but either didn’t care, or thought that they can afford that because that part of the playerbase currently does not have anywhere else to go.
Also, the whole RNG box mess clearly shown, that Anet does not have any problem with introducing things that most of the community at least strongly dislikes, if they think they can get away with it.

Most of the players do not care about this one way or the other. If they want to acquire the items they do so, if they don’t then they just ignore it. The game does not change when you do this.

tolunart.2095:

Astralporing.1957:

tolunart.2095:

If there was an actual majority of players speaking out against Ascended gear for the 10 months since it was first introduced, do you really think that Anet would alienate most of their player base by continuing to move forward with plans to introduce something they hate?

Considering that the ascended gear from the very beginning was aimed at a tiny “dedicated” minority of players (mostly locust content that already left the game) and offered absolutely nothing for the playerbase this game was originally designed for? Yep, they knew they would alienate a large part of their playerbase, but either didn’t care, or thought that they can afford that because that part of the playerbase currently does not have anywhere else to go.
Also, the whole RNG box mess clearly shown, that Anet does not have any problem with introducing things that most of the community at least strongly dislikes, if they think they can get away with it.

Most of the players do not care about this one way or the other. If they want to acquire the items they do so, if they don’t then they just ignore it. The game does not change when you do this.

You have no more reasonable basis for saying “most of the players do not care” than we do for saying they do. If we can’t make kitten up neither can you. At this point I think you’re just trolling and trying to get people to quit the game.

Remember when you could get max gear and customize all your characters? Guild Wars 1 remembers.

Excellent ideas but I will prefer a Legendary set to be able to change stats on the fly.
The easier fix to the ascended items is to take away any time gating.
The time gating for the trinkets has been there and leaving it there is fine with me but there should be no time gating for Ascended weps and armor.
As long as they can implement the above, this will be the best option.

Once they launch the Legendary gear, your char will truely be able to change builds/stats on the fly and that will be epic.

data.4093:

Remember when you could get max gear and customize all your characters? Guild Wars 1 remembers.

. . . I can get max gear now too, and customize my character. I’m quite pleased with what I have on him right now. He very much resembles the character he was back in the day (with his armor redyed to represent his chosen order). Well, except I’m still missing my Mursaat Recurve Bow. I really want that back

I can craft any jewelry/accessories I need up to Exotic and if I really felt like it I could have done Ascended trinkets. I just didn’t care. I can still do it, if I really find that I need to.

But if we’re going to talk about remembering Guild Wars 1? Hey, you remember when you needed to really grind your face off to get a sane amount of Ectos? But you needed insane amounts to get that lovely Obsidian Armor? Remember when Black Dye was ugly as sin but incredibly expensive to acquire? Remember what a Req 8 maxed Elemental Sword would run you?

I do. Oh god I do.

TooBz.3065:

You have no more reasonable basis for saying “most of the players do not care” than we do for saying they do.

Oh, i actually agree with that points. Most of the players do not care – but it doesn’t matter because those players will never get ascended gear anyway. What does matter is whether the number of players that want ascended gear is bigger or smaller than the number of people that are against it. From what i have seen so far, it’s the second – there seems to be way more people against ascended than those that want them.

TooBz.3065:

You have no more reasonable basis for saying “most of the players do not care” than we do for saying they do. If we can’t make kitten up neither can you. At this point I think you’re just trolling and trying to get people to quit the game.

My reasonable basis is that Anet keeps an eye on what’s going on in their games. If a majority of players were actually expressing opinions such as “ascended gear is ruining the game!” then the devs would not force more of it on them.

It is clear to anyone who actually tries to look at the big picture that complaints on the forum represent an extremely vocal minority. In cases where there is a legitimate complaint – like a bug a while back with salvaging kits – they act quickly and decisively to correct the issue.

It puzzles me why people ignore evidence such as this and then claim that there is an obvious majority who are against something when if there was truly an outcry against it then Anet would act to correct the issue.

Astralporing.1957:

TooBz.3065:

You have no more reasonable basis for saying “most of the players do not care” than we do for saying they do.

Oh, i actually agree with that points. Most of the players do not care – but it doesn’t matter because those players will never get ascended gear anyway. What does matter is whether the number of players that want ascended gear is bigger or smaller than the number of people that are against it. From what i have seen so far, it’s the second – there seems to be way more people against ascended than those that want them.

Yeah, ok. I see that.

The other aspect that everyone is ignoring is that this may be introduced for the Chinese market. We may only be incidentally affected.

ITT people think they can reason with fanboys

Astralporing.1957:

TooBz.3065:

You have no more reasonable basis for saying “most of the players do not care” than we do for saying they do.

Oh, i actually agree with that points. Most of the players do not care – but it doesn’t matter because those players will never get ascended gear anyway. What does matter is whether the number of players that want ascended gear is bigger or smaller than the number of people that are against it. From what i have seen so far, it’s the second – there seems to be way more people against ascended than those that want them.

I dunno, I think the third group (“we don’t care, we’ll get it if we need it”) is bigger than both combined.

I also still hold the opinion the power bump isn’t really going to cause incredible problems PvE side (except maybe shave 1 minute off CoF1), sPvP side it won’t matter, and WvW it may matter but the siege will balance it all out. (Arrow Carts for everyone!)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I dunno, I think the third group (“we don’t care, we’ll get it if we need it”) is bigger than both combined.

I’m certain of it. For good or ill, Anet tries to include something for every segment of their player base. What happens is that pleasing group A will kitten off group C, while Group B doesn’t care either way. Group B is generally larger than A + C, so overall the game itself and the players are not affected by any of the changes.

If you enjoy character progression and want to improve your numbers over time through dedicated play, then Ascended gear is for you. If you don’t like this aspect of the game you need to recognize that some players do like it, and let them have their fun.

Wukunlin.8461:

ITT people think they can reason with fanboys

True, but it’s worth a shot right?

tolunart.2095:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I dunno, I think the third group (“we don’t care, we’ll get it if we need it”) is bigger than both combined.

I’m certain of it. For good or ill, Anet tries to include something for every segment of their player base. What happens is that pleasing group A will kitten off group C, while Group B doesn’t care either way. Group B is generally larger than A + C, so overall the game itself and the players are not affected by any of the changes.

If you enjoy character progression and want to improve your numbers over time through dedicated play, then Ascended gear is for you. If you don’t like this aspect of the game you need to recognize that some players do like it, and let them have their fun.

I have been, and more notable are the ones screaming “Berserker or nothing” instead of “Ascended or nothing”.

But that’s another topic, which also barely interests me more than “will they ever give me a chance to pwn some Mursaat again”.

tolunart.2095:

stay and accept it or go.

GW2 Forums: No discussion allowed

Awww, now you hurt my feelings.

The OP is coming up with a solution on how to make getting Ascended gear more viable for people. He knows that ArenaNet isn’t just going to get rid of Ascended gear. I think most people would agree, given that Ascended gear is going to stay, that having the option to swap stats around would be good. The disagreement is between those who want Ascended gear and those that don’t.

Ascended weapons and armor may be here to stay, but I’m not. Once a game becomes a chore, I tend to stop playing it. I’d advise others to do the same and move on to entertainment that’s…well…entertaining.

NewTrain.7549:

Ascended weapons and armor may be here to stay, but I’m not. Once a game becomes a chore, I tend to stop playing it. I’d advise others to do the same and move on to entertainment that’s…well…entertaining.

I’m doing the same too. I found out today that they’re adding ascended weapons.

I uninstalled my game just a minute ago. I’m not gonna pour time and money down a bad investment.

The OP’s suggestion is precisely what ascended trinkets should have been from the start. Stick with the combined stat+gem, and replacing the gem slot with the infusion slot. But make the base stat the same as an exotic piece+gem upgrade. It gives them great value and convience, without giving a combat advantage. And it promote variety and testing more radical builds.

I don’t know if I’m going to quit over it, but every new step down this ascended treadmill makes that so much more likely. There is no way to keep up with this on 8 characters and a love of build variety.

NewTrain.7549:

Ascended weapons and armor may be here to stay, but I’m not. Once a game becomes a chore, I tend to stop playing it. I’d advise others to do the same and move on to entertainment that’s…well…entertaining.

You’d have to move onto a game where there is no gear progression. There are quite a few out there but I wouldn’t call them MMORPGs. There’s a few that I would recommend: Planetside 2, Starcraft 2, Battlefield 3, Natural Selection 2, and Civilization 5. They’re all great games and they can be played with other players.

mrstealth.6701:

The OP’s suggestion is precisely what ascended trinkets should have been from the start. Stick with the combined stat+gem, and replacing the gem slot with the infusion slot. But make the base stat the same as an exotic piece+gem upgrade. It gives them great value and convience, without giving a combat advantage. And it promote variety and testing more radical builds.

I don’t know if I’m going to quit over it, but every new step down this ascended treadmill makes that so much more likely. There is no way to keep up with this on 8 characters and a love of build variety.

You knew that they were going to add Ascended items to the other slots after they were first released in November. It’s not a big surprise that you were going to see Ascended weapons and armor. It would however be quite surprising if ArenaNet went back on their promise and introduced a tier above Ascended at some point in time.

If these Ascended items stay allocation-locked, I’ll probably bow out around the time armor gets implemented. It’s just such a crippling detriment to the build variety this game otherwise totally embraces. The stuff being time-gated only ensures this comes to pass; the gear that players make initially is going to determine their build future for a long time afterwards, and right now the vast majority of the PvE player base uses full Berserker gear. Why you would encourage people to spend so much time to lock themselves to one gear set and thus impose on them massive build-restricting considerations for long stretches of time is beyond me.

The idea of Ascended items being able to be stat-allocation modified solves this problem. I can’t understand why someone would have a problem with it. Even if it would result in people building up a final set of gear stat-wise: so what? That’s exactly what this game should have been headed towards all along. It’s not like the grind for skins wasn’t already what this game was about. It would even give you a much bigger reason to chase Ascended over Exotic, except the result would be to give you vastly more freedom to change your build and encourage players to try new concepts.

zeromius.1604:

mrstealth.6701:

The OP’s suggestion is precisely what ascended trinkets should have been from the start. Stick with the combined stat+gem, and replacing the gem slot with the infusion slot. But make the base stat the same as an exotic piece+gem upgrade. It gives them great value and convience, without giving a combat advantage. And it promote variety and testing more radical builds.

I don’t know if I’m going to quit over it, but every new step down this ascended treadmill makes that so much more likely. There is no way to keep up with this on 8 characters and a love of build variety.

You knew that they were going to add Ascended items to the other slots after they were first released in November. It’s not a big surprise that you were going to see Ascended weapons and armor. It would however be quite surprising if ArenaNet went back on their promise and introduced a tier above Ascended at some point in time.

Better look more closely at those promises. Promises with qualifiers are not really promises, they’re PR statements. They’re creating the impression they’re done with gear progression. They created the impression exotic was going to be top tier before launch. If the skills-instead-of-gear initiative doesn’t appease the progression crowd, I would not be surprised at all. Then again, I no longer trust ANet.

IndigoSundown.5419:

zeromius.1604:

mrstealth.6701:

The OP’s suggestion is precisely what ascended trinkets should have been from the start. Stick with the combined stat+gem, and replacing the gem slot with the infusion slot. But make the base stat the same as an exotic piece+gem upgrade. It gives them great value and convience, without giving a combat advantage. And it promote variety and testing more radical builds.

I don’t know if I’m going to quit over it, but every new step down this ascended treadmill makes that so much more likely. There is no way to keep up with this on 8 characters and a love of build variety.

You knew that they were going to add Ascended items to the other slots after they were first released in November. It’s not a big surprise that you were going to see Ascended weapons and armor. It would however be quite surprising if ArenaNet went back on their promise and introduced a tier above Ascended at some point in time.

Better look more closely at those promises. Promises with qualifiers are not really promises, they’re PR statements. They’re creating the impression they’re done with gear progression. They created the impression exotic was going to be top tier before launch. If the skills-instead-of-gear initiative doesn’t appease the progression crowd, I would not be surprised at all. Then again, I no longer trust ANet.

Nawh it’s too late. I hated it when ascended trinkets were introduced. This is it. I’ve had it.

I don’t care anymore if they went back or added another tier. I think my other hobbies are calling me, and they want me back – badly.

zeromius.1604:

mrstealth.6701:

The OP’s suggestion is precisely what ascended trinkets should have been from the start. Stick with the combined stat+gem, and replacing the gem slot with the infusion slot. But make the base stat the same as an exotic piece+gem upgrade. It gives them great value and convience, without giving a combat advantage. And it promote variety and testing more radical builds.

I don’t know if I’m going to quit over it, but every new step down this ascended treadmill makes that so much more likely. There is no way to keep up with this on 8 characters and a love of build variety.

You knew that they were going to add Ascended items to the other slots after they were first released in November. It’s not a big surprise that you were going to see Ascended weapons and armor. It would however be quite surprising if ArenaNet went back on their promise and introduced a tier above Ascended at some point in time.

Oh, none of this surprised me. I saw the blog posts when the ascended rings were first added. I’ve known since last November than full ascended gear was coming eventually. And ever since that, I’ve hoped that they would make start implementing ascended gear in some way that doesn’t punish alts and build variety. And every time another piece comes out with yet another timegated, alt-hating, way to acquire it, my desire to keep playing this game dies a little.

It’s pretty discouraging to know that the devs are working hard to completely destroy your playstyle…one that they previously claimed to uphold and encourage. I’m completely for the idea that some games aren’t suited or some people/playstyles, and that it can be best to find a game more suited to you…but GW2 was suited to me, and was marketed to this type of player. And now the game is changing to suit the demands of a different type of player, at the cost of destroying my preferred playstyle. Those that want this type of long-term time-gated progression have many game options, why try to turn GW2 into something it wasn’t supposed to be?

I really don’t see how ascended gear will lock people into playing a certain spec….

If I fully upgrade my berserker gear, I’m not going to wear that 100% of the time. My defensive set will still be better in situations where I need to survive. My condi sets will also be better than upgraded defensive gear for my dot specs.

You’re still able to play the way that you want too. Everything is still doable with exotic gear. Only things that ascended gear help you with in PvE is high level fractals and the odd solo achievement (IE Liadri 8 orb). If this game introduced regular gear check encounters in this game, then you people probably have a reason to complain…. so far that’s not the case.

Xista.7391:

You’re still able to play the way that you want too. Everything is still doable with exotic gear. Only things that ascended gear help you with in PvE is high level fractals and the odd solo achievement (IE Liadri 8 orb).

WvW

And yes it clearly discourages experimentation. I’ve gone through 4-5 different specs on my elementalist over the course of the game, with all ascended gear (once armor is put in) the stat difference will be too great to gloss over in WvW.

Xista.7391:

I really don’t see how ascended gear will lock people into playing a certain spec….

If I fully upgrade my berserker gear, I’m not going to wear that 100% of the time. My defensive set will still be better in situations where I need to survive. My condi sets will also be better than upgraded defensive gear for my dot specs.

You’re still able to play the way that you want too. Everything is still doable with exotic gear. Only things that ascended gear help you with in PvE is high level fractals and the odd solo achievement (IE Liadri 8 orb). If this game introduced regular gear check encounters in this game, then you people probably have a reason to complain…. so far that’s not the case.

It’s about influence. Gear has influence over peoples’ decisions of how they play their character. Most people do not carry around sets of Rares if they have a set of Exotic gear that would better facilitate a different play style (even if that play style might be better for some particular piece of content), they simply try to acquire a set of Exotic gear of that variety and make do with their current setup until they can do that. That happens even though the opportunity cost for carrying around Rares is very small; the gold and time requirements are incredibly small, the biggest cost is probably simply the bag space. People still don’t do it.

Once you have people moving towards a set of gear that takes much longer to complete, this influence only becomes stronger. How willing are people going to be to downgrade to Exotics over their Ascended gear to make a change? If people by and large don’t do it for Rares for their Exotic gear when it’s an order of magnitude cheaper, they’re going to be far less likely to do it when the gap increases both in terms of monetary and time investments.

This is going to have an effect on the entire PvE and WvW player bases, since those two are inter-connected. If there was any hope of breaking out of the Berserker PvE “meta” for more diversity, it’s going to be much slimmer once people craft their Berserker Ascended sets that take however many weeks or months to accomplish. Even if you buffed the heck out of the stats and skills that would make those other playstyles more effective, by then people will only be kitten ed off that it will take so long to move to an entire second gear set to try them.

This is entirely ignoring the negative effects this stuff has on people that want to focus on multiple characters having to divert their account resources to one at a time. I just don’t see any meaningful upsides to offset all of these issues. Why not leverage this new technology they built into the game to change stat allocation to prevent some of it?

Xista.7391:

I really don’t see how ascended gear will lock people into playing a certain spec….

Because there are a lot of players that want to be using the best stat items in their build. I somewhat fall into this group, but I’d still use another set of gear if the situation required it.

If I have one set of gear that’s giving me 10% higher stats, I’m going to want to use that set as much as possible because it’s giving my character the highest stats I can get. It’s like having a favorite shirt or a favorite pair of shoes, except it actually gives you a benefit to using it over something else.

Xista.7391:

I really don’t see how ascended gear will lock people into playing a certain spec….

If I fully upgrade my berserker gear, I’m not going to wear that 100% of the time. My defensive set will still be better in situations where I need to survive. My condi sets will also be better than upgraded defensive gear for my dot specs.

You’re still able to play the way that you want too. Everything is still doable with exotic gear. Only things that ascended gear help you with in PvE is high level fractals and the odd solo achievement (IE Liadri 8 orb). If this game introduced regular gear check encounters in this game, then you people probably have a reason to complain…. so far that’s not the case.

I’m still giving away exotics to those in my guild who only have rares. What happens if new content is released designed around Ascended level of gear? It widens the gap in gear that an alt or fresh 80 has to bridge before attempting current content aka Liadri, non-zerg WvW.

They will release content scaled to Ascended for this reason: if it is doable in Rares, upgrading to Exotics would be a waste of money/karma/time better spent on Ascended/Legendary. The scaling has been slow, but it’s there because the bigger sword you grow, the bigger thing it has defeat, conquer and impale. Otherwise you’re just left holding a big sword without a reason.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Got any evidence to support that?

I’m the first to say I don’t have absolute numbers, but all of the evidence I’ve found points towards you being wrong. I provided some. Care to do the same?

I’d say their chosen and stated course of action says it all: when you make a game for money, you please your largest audience – or you don’t get to keep making games.

The 10% being bandied around here makes very little difference in PvE play (most of which is already trivialized by Exotic stats). You can’t use ascended in Structured PvP that I know of… that just leaves WvW, and believe it or not, that’s primarily a group activity no matter how proud roamers are of their individual kill counts and dueling videos… so we’re talking a fraction of a fraction of a fraction are concerned about having 100% BiS for any reason more pressing than simple completionism.

I say this with eight different fully exotic-or-better characters. Yes, its a pain in the backside getting Ascended onto more than one character or build, but it gives me a little something to do in the background to work toward when I’m not out using my fully ascended main.

I guess I’m an old school gamer. I used to be a raid leader across multile MMORPGs, and I see the way that gear influences people, no matter the difficulty of content that we’re doing. People tend to play the game just for getting better gear, even if they don’t need to complete more difficult content. I’m pretty sure Arena Net is doing the same here…

As an ex-raid leader, gear to me is nothing more than a means to conquer content. If you can already do said content, then you’ll just clear it faster (so what). There isn’t any content in this game (PvE) that’s very difficult except for high level fractals and the odd solo achievement such as Liadri 8-Orb. But solo achievements such as that and others are flawed in that profession selection have a much bigger influence on the outcome than gear does.

Other than that, everything in this game is doable with exotics. More gear just means doing stuff faster… and if that comes at the expense of people feeling like they have to play a certain spec/character, then I feel sorry for them.

If there comes regular content with rewards attached to it that requires BIS gear…. I’ll eat my own words.

also, I’m not a fan of new ascended gear coming to WvW… but it looks like t7 mats will drop from that so w/e