Guild Wars 2

While responding to another thread, I was reminded of a long-term issue that ascended gear may create within GW2. This response is a bit long-winded and off-topic for that thread, but merits discussion from the player base. Please try to keep this thread about the long-term future state of ascended gear (instead of the short-term discussion about the Dec. 10th patch):

One interesting thought on ascended gear. Anet has stated that they have no plans for a tier beyond ascended gear. This means that eventually, GW2 will reach a state where a large percentage of the current player base has full ascended gear.

However, this may cause an issue with new players joining GW2. For players just buying GW in late 2014 or beyond, they will be woefully behind the ascended power curve. Additionally, it will be very difficult for them to catch-up to the current player base due to the expensive and heavily time-gated nature of ascended gear.

Ultimately, this gear wall will likely discourage new players from joining the GW universe.

As GW2 moves forward and ascended gear becomes increasingly prevalent among the population (i.e. 2015 and beyond), I see two actions Anet can take to ease the burden for new players to catch-up with the old player base.

1. Make ascended gear easier / faster to acquire.
2. Obsolete ascended gear, likely by raising the level cap.

Option 1: As seen in other MMOs, when a new tier is released, the developer often raises the restrictions on previous tiers to allow more casual and/or newer players the ability to stay close to the power curve. In theory, this strategy would allow newcomers to GW2 to more quickly catch up to the base ascended level, where they could then engage in additional progression alongside the older player base.

For example, let’s assume that ascended gear is common among the long-term player base in mid 2014. Anet then decides to add higher rarity infusions to allow continued low-power curve vertical progression. A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear, making higher rarity infusions pointless, and placing them behind the long-term player base on the power curve indefinitely.

Conversely, if the cost of the base ascended gear were also lowered when the next segment of progression was released, it would allow new players to catch-up and join in the latest wave of progression (something that is good for the longevity of MMOs).

Option 2: The other common method to level the playing field in MMOs is to obsolete all of the current gear. This is usually accomplished via an expansion that raises the level cap. Once the level cap is raised, higher level gear of any rarity obsoletes the best gear from the old level cap. Hence, every player, old and new, is reset to an even playing field.

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

TL;DR from here down:

As an MMO player and GW2 customer, which of the methods do you prefer?

Do you think Anet should consider lowering the cost of ascended gear as additional progression mechanics are introduced?

Do you think Anet should consider resetting the playing field (via a level cap raise or other means) once the old player base gets too far ahead of the newcomers?

Do you think Anet should leave everything as-is long-term (2015 & beyond), even if new players have a difficult time catching-up to the current player-base on the power curve?

I just spent a lot of time typing, so I am going to make my response fairly short.

I greatly prefer option 1, gradually lowering the requirements for the old gear when new progression mechanics are introduced.

While option 2 (full gear reset) works in other gear-focused MMOs, I feel it would be bad for GW2. Much of the GW2 player base came to this game to avoid never ending gear treadmills, and I feel this approach would disillusion many of the players currently chasing ascended gear, especially considering the time and gold costs to create this gear.

Lastly, and you can probably tell this from my OP, I think leaving the current situation as-is for the long-term will disillusion new players, as they will feel as if they can never catch-up with the players that started before ascended gear rolled out.

ascended armor should be made obtainable by doing fractals, just like the accessories and weapons, giving people options to either run fractals or crafting them…

I’d support Option 1 as well, but it’s worth noting that the increase in power between Exotics to Ascended is fairly minor (about 10% for a full suite of Ascended gear). This is a marked difference from the jump from Rares to Exotics, and most of the end-game has been designed with players decked out in Exotics in mind. Ascended gear is obviously here as a goal for the players who like striving for the very best in equipment, but in reality, you’re not likely to notice much difference between a player using Exotics and a player using Ascended.

The real danger here is if the Infusion slots start being used in greater capacity. For instance, Fine infusions grant a marginal increase to stats in addition to Agony resistance, but what if future updates changed this? Then you’d have a gear grind in the form of Infusions. Or if Agony Resistance starts becoming required in different parts of the game like dungeons or the Living Story.

That would make Ascended gear more or less required for end-game content, and I think it would put casual players under immense pressure to “keep up”. That, I feel, is something that should be avoided. The current system, while grindy, is still acceptable as long as Ascended gear remains entirely optional for end-game content.

“Do you think Anet should consider lowering the cost of ascended gear as additional progression mechanics are introduced?”
more alternate methods to obtain ascended gear is good.

“Do you think Anet should consider resetting the playing field (via a level cap raise or other means) once the old player base gets too far ahead of the newcomers?”
no. never. the level cap of 80 should never be raised. ever.
please remove that item off the table.

“Do you think Anet should leave everything as-is long-term (2015 & beyond), even if new players have a difficult time catching-up to the current player-base on the power curve?”
it is fine now.
gear wise, PvE does not really matter.

OP these issues were exactly what was bothering people when Ascended gear was introduced in November last last year.

Honestly I would never want the level cap raised.

I don’t particularly care if they make Ascended easier to obtain because I will never get any.

New people are at a disadvantage already

Personally I want Ascended removed from the game and infusions added to exotic gear via the mystic forge or whatever.

The impact of Ascended gear on the game has been far reaching and mostly to it’s detriment as far as I can see.
just my opinion

byjiang.1260:

You are assuming this game has a future beyond 2015.

People like you are the reason this game is dying

byjiang.1260:

You are assuming this game has a future beyond 2015.

lol

It’s very hard to gear all your characters with ascended weapons when you have more than one or two. I expect it’s gonna be as hard (if not harder) for armors.

This alone makes me think that ascended gear is too expensive right now.

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

a new player won’t have amassed any wealth in game which will make the initial part of crafting expensive (since next to nothing below exotic at the moment can be crafted to break even or generate a profit and if most players have ascended I imagine exotic will have no buyers either making crafting all together unprofitable)

A new player will also have a lot more difficulty leveling his craft because ascended gear had the effect of making lower tier mats really expensive.

I joined GW2 a couple of months after launch, and was worried I’d be behind. Then I realised how trivial it was to get full exotics, and it sort of made exotics feel like they weren’t an achievement. I actually like having something long term to work towards, and if I joined a game where people who played for years didn’t have better gear than me I might feel like there was nothing to do (especially with the emphasis on aesthetics being undermined by the cash shop at the moment).

That said, while I like long term goals I do NOT like treadmills. Upping the level cap and undoing everything that long term players had worked for would be a big problem. I’m happy with ascended stuff being released, because I don’t feel pressured to get it. I like that I’ll still be getting new equipment most of the way through next year.

They mentioned a possibility of legendary armor a while back would appear !

I’m not going to say much more than this- but if it requires a specific drop of armour (think like a precursor weapon) to make it – this will be a nightmare for sure.

BondageBill.4021:

As an MMO player and GW2 customer, which of the methods do you prefer?

Do you think Anet should consider lowering the cost of ascended gear as additional progression mechanics are introduced?

Do you think Anet should consider resetting the playing field (via a level cap raise or other means) once the old player base gets too far ahead of the newcomers?

Do you think Anet should leave everything as-is long-term (2015 & beyond), even if new players have a difficult time catching-up to the current player-base on the power curve?

Crafting a singe weapon is not a problem, but they should help players with multiple characters by lowering the cost of 2nd item, then 3rd and 4th so after gearing like 3 characters rest would be pretty much free.

Also leveling Crafting is like a huge mistake. It should be less costly to get to 500. Basically now we are forced to have ton of cash and only minority of this game population has it. Leveling 1 crafting school to 500 for 200g at start and after months over 100g… Thats really too grindy way to go.

Level cap raise is bad. Most people seem to agree. Also, I prefer additional methods of getting ascended gear (except RNG), any one of which: trinkets, weapons or armor, thorugh more ways. Preferable doing fractals.

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

How long ago was it that ascended weapon crafting was put in the game? I have not been able to create one and still need around 50 lvls before I can even think about it. Now to create 18 weapons for all my chars is going to take a while. And 48 armor pieces to come with them. I doubt I can do this in 6 months

BondageBill.4021:

Option 1: As seen in other MMOs, when a new tier is released, the developer often raises the restrictions on previous tiers to allow more casual and/or newer players the ability to stay close to the power curve. In theory, this strategy would allow newcomers to GW2 to more quickly catch up to the base ascended level, where they could then engage in additional progression alongside the older player base.

For example, let’s assume that ascended gear is common among the long-term player base in mid 2014. Anet then decides to add higher rarity infusions to allow continued low-power curve vertical progression. A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear, making higher rarity infusions pointless, and placing them behind the long-term player base on the power curve indefinitely.

Conversely, if the cost of the base ascended gear were also lowered when the next segment of progression was released, it would allow new players to catch-up and join in the latest wave of progression (something that is good for the longevity of MMOs).

They don’t need to make the previous tier gear better or any easier to get, they just need to make the powerups on the higher tiers smaller and harder to get. From the sounds of it, it looks like this is the exact route ANet is going to take, with Ascended being the final actual tier of gear and infusions being the related slow progression attached to it. All they need to do is make sure the numbers never get out of hand and they’re golden.

For example, Diablo 2 had a maximum level of 99. However, the amount of experience required after level 90 is on such a harsh slope that most people would stop in the early 90s.

Option 2: The other common method to level the playing field in MMOs is to obsolete all of the current gear. This is usually accomplished via an expansion that raises the level cap. Once the level cap is raised, higher level gear of any rarity obsoletes the best gear from the old level cap. Hence, every player, old and new, is reset to an even playing field.

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

Raising the level cap is a very, very controversial thing. Making all gear obsolete once in a while is nothing but a temporary fix and it tends to invalidate all the effort the players have put in to get that gear. That is never a good thing. You should never use a Reset Button like that unless it’s completely and irrevocably necessary.

This is especially true if the higher level gear is ridiculously better. For example, if Fine tier gear of level 85 was better than Ascended level 80 gear, that would be nothing short of spitting in the face of all the players who ever decided to get Ascended gear.

You mentioned that expansions are often a way of upping the level cap. Well, that is another problem. The more expansions you release, the higher the entrance fee to start playing in the first place. Heck, a lot of people will never play a game that releases regular expansions simply because they feel overwhelmed by the neverending flow of new content. Expansions also bring a lot of other issues and I sure as hell hope that ANet either never releases an expansion or does it in a manner that alleviates the typical problems of an expansion.

Do you think Anet should consider lowering the cost of ascended gear as additional progression mechanics are introduced?

Do you think Anet should consider resetting the playing field (via a level cap raise or other means) once the old player base gets too far ahead of the newcomers?

Do you think Anet should leave everything as-is long-term (2015 & beyond), even if new players have a difficult time catching-up to the current player-base on the power curve?

1. No. Instead I think that ANet should make the additional progression much harsher than before with smaller increments, thus making it non-essential.
2. No. I think that resetting the playing field is the very last thing that you should do, short of closing your servers and starting over from scratch. Resetting the playing field also resets the time, effort and dedication players have put in over the years. While that is meaningless for a new player, it sure as hell stings if you’ve been around for a long time.
3. I don’t think that Ascended gear is currently a problem. If it does develop into a problem, then Anet should tweak the numbers on it.

Once we reach 2015 we will most likely have raids and a few new zones. How these raids will work i don’t know but they won’t be as raids in WoW. Rewards from raids will most likely be very cool-looking and maybe be a part in the scavenger hunt for legendaries?
I really hope that Scavenger Hunt (or whatever it’s going to be called) will be a long journey through the world, you will have to tackle tough content, old and new to get your legendary.

@OP
I’m actually very excited for a couple of years down the line. ANet’s track record is to make a lot of things more accessible as time goes on. I fully expect ascended to become what exotic is now within the next 3 years.

It’s also likely that they will soft cap prices of gear on the trading post as time goes on to allow newer players more access.

Also once they are done tracking how inflation works and is impacted in their game, we’ll likely see worthwhile gold sinks and easier ways for the newer players to get gold.

I realized not too long ago that for someone like me that has some time play, but isn’t going to be able to consistently invest 10+ hours a week, that the best time to invest your time in a long term game is right around year 3, because things start to become much more accessible, that was my observation with Guild Wars and I’ve heard similar things about other games. Time invested now will not go as far as the same amount of time down the line will, due to changes in accessibility and inflation.

About the only thing one could miss out on from now until then is the living story. But that’s why you play a couple hours every two weeks.

byjiang.1260:

You are assuming this game has a future beyond 2015.

Considering how having Ascended gear discourages players from changing their builds (on one likes to feel like they are losing stats) .. a lot of people are going to get bored earlier than they might have had the gear not locked them in (either that or new skills/skill balances will kill their build, and they’ll be left with worthless Ascended gear and the prospect of regrinding for a new build).

I’d say it’s not too far-fetched that the game will be on life-support by the end of 2015 if this issue is not addressed.

I haven’t and won’t buy any ascended gear (I use my Laurels to buy T6 mat’s to sell and gear alt’s in Exotics and Cultural). If it ever turns out that ascended is required or a new set of gear is released that leaves me in the dust compared to those who hamster wheeled then it’ll be goodbye from me. Ascended and the disappointment it brings is not why I played GW for 5 years and certainly not why I bought GW2.

The big reason why attaining ascended gear is as grindy and taxing as it is is because there are plenty who are willing to pay and strive for it. Once that dies down or people just get tired of the grind and timesinks, expect to see ascended gear handed out for free. It’s the same idea behind a subscription MMO going free-to-play.

I would simply like to see more ways of obtaining Ascended implemented. Honestly, it should be attainable in just as many ways as exotics, just more expensive and not tradable. This would help tone down the issue.

Additionally, I would like to see them give us a definitive end point for the power curve – ie, after ascended runes/sigils/infusions are released, there will be no more VP. I’d be fine with this. It allows for some VP, and a longer term armor goal than exotics provide, which some people like. Also, for those that don’t necessarily want to go straight for legendaries (or simply don’t want them for whatever reason), it does provide a BiS intermediate step.

Hopefully Anet does not go with option 2. While they have expressed that there will be a ‘shallow power curve’ they have still also expressed the desire to not completely negate all of the players work. Sort of hard to find a balance there, but we shall see.

2015? I would like to see Colin’s statement about giving us ability/skill progression to pursue instead of grinding out stats come to fruition. In the best of all possible worlds ascended would not really be an issue in 2015.

Protoavis.9107:

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

a new player won’t have amassed any wealth in game which will make the initial part of crafting expensive (since next to nothing below exotic at the moment can be crafted to break even or generate a profit and if most players have ascended I imagine exotic will have no buyers either making crafting all together unprofitable)

What would be the difference between “amassing” wealth now and in 2015? What if making money becomes easier over the time? What if “a state where a large percentage of the current player base has full ascended gear”makes required mats go down over the time, as less people will be needing this gear?

What I don’t see is how crafting in 2015 would be any different time-wise than starting crafting it in Dec 10, assuming nothing changes.

Who would still buy exotic? Maybe the same people (or more) that currently wear exotic weapons by choice or as a starter.

aspirine.6852:

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

How long ago was it that ascended weapon crafting was put in the game? I have not been able to create one and still need around 50 lvls before I can even think about it. Now to create 18 weapons for all my chars is going to take a while. And 48 armor pieces to come with them. I doubt I can do this in 6 months

I don’t know how long it was, but it took me 1 month to get my weapon, and I mean 1 month not wanting to craft ascended, then randomly decided to do it. It only took me a few days to get lvl 500 craft and make the actual weapon.

ANET released a BETA game and called it finished so people would buy it. They made a lot of promises they couldn’t keep. I know it’s beating a dead horse but it bothers me and a lot of other people.

Without catering to hardcore players this game would die. Why? Because its geared towards casual players and without hardcore players the game would be dead.

So they renege on their promises and create gear treadmills, power creep and plaay wackamole to keep it in check, all of the things they said they wasn’t going to do.

Despite this reality PR would suggest the opposite who do you believe? The consumer or the person trying to get your money. You decide.

MAD CAT.9321:

byjiang.1260:

You are assuming this game has a future beyond 2015.

People like you are the reason this game is dying

True, people like him, who get bored from the massive amount of grind and the lies of the devs, starts complaining here and then slowly leaves the game… If the game is dying means there’s an awful lot of people like him.

What it comes down to is if the new incoming PvE content will be balanced for players using ascended or exotic gear. If its balanced towards exotic, then it is a non-issue since anyone in full exotics will be able to complete content still doing good, though not as “top notch” as people in full ascended.

WvW on the other hand will have a lot of whining, already does, since a lot of the playerbase refuse to play the game but rather focus on exclusively single aspect of it. To their credit however, they are correct that a 20v20 for example, assuming equal comp and skill level, and 1 team in mostly ascended while the other team in mostly exotics, the ascended team will win a lot more then the exotics team. But then again, it boils down to their unwilingness to participate in other aspects of the game to get the ascended gear.

Warlord.9074:

ANET released a BETA game and called it finished so people would buy it. They made a lot of promises they couldn’t keep. I know it’s beating a dead horse but it bothers me and a lot of other people.

Without catering to hardcore players this game would die. Why? Because its geared towards casual players and without hardcore players the game would be dead.

So they renege on their promises and create gear treadmills, power creep and plaay wackamole to keep it in check, all of the things they said they wasn’t going to do.

Despite this reality PR would suggest the opposite who do you believe? The consumer or the person trying to get your money. You decide.

Well. Said. Sir.

Big talk infront of cameras but they dont deliver. Please just remove ascended from the game.

i belive Anet promised us that exotic was gona be the final tier of armour in gw at one time glad it didnt turn out that way but i have read post of complaints from players who went out there way to lvl all clases deck them out in full exotic t3 cultural useing many gem store bought fine transmutation stones
only now to be faceing the isue of geting all there chars in ascended armour and haveing to buy all those fine transmute stones again
so i guess what im saying is just coz Anet said they are not planing any higher tier armour dosent mean they wont start thinking that way a year down the line

those that forget history are doomed to repeat there mistakes

Warlord.9074:

ANET released a BETA game and called it finished so people would buy it. They made a lot of promises they couldn’t keep. I know it’s beating a dead horse but it bothers me and a lot of other people.

Without catering to hardcore players this game would die. Why? Because its geared towards casual players and without hardcore players the game would be dead.

So they renege on their promises and create gear treadmills, power creep and plaay wackamole to keep it in check, all of the things they said they wasn’t going to do.

Despite this reality PR would suggest the opposite who do you believe? The consumer or the person trying to get your money. You decide.

And what’s worse is that for months and months they keps saying they’ll release the game “when it’s ready”… Now, more than one year after the release… Game’s still way far from ready!

About the promises reneged, well… If you promise a game with horizontal progression, and cosmetic rewards… I expect to see a truckload of awesome skins in game since day 1, and a wardrobe system that allows me to collect them
Instead the game came out with an handful of skins wich were:
-Ugly uninspired and far from being epic.
-Almost impossible to mix because of clipping
-No wardrobe system, but trasmustone on the ca$h store…

MAD CAT.9321:

byjiang.1260:

You are assuming this game has a future beyond 2015.

People like you are the reason this game is dying

Yep, it’s all his fault for alienating the franchise’s core base by introducing traditional MMO grind while being unable to attract new player base using the said mechanics because other MMOs make better grind than GW2.

Yep, let’s blame that guy.

It’s important to understand that once a product or service is released to the public a significant portion of development effort must go towards maintainence and development can’t interfere too much with the status quo anymore.

Development is always faster before release, and if 5+ years was what it took to develop in fast mode imagine how slow it is after release.

BondageBill.4021:

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

We take very different lessons from the same thing. Rather than putting players on a pointless and endless race, why not just not have a treadmill? More players have already been pushed away by Ascended Crafting than would be lost from a lack of gear progression.

If you have good, quality gameplay people will play it. They will play it without getting in line for more uberawesome gears. But putting in barriers to entry, such as difficult to obtain gear that you are not competitive without, will keep people from playing.

Stock up on your laurels now, I suppose.

RedShipRaider.9560:

BondageBill.4021:

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

We take very different lessons from the same thing. Rather than putting players on a pointless and endless race, why not just not have a treadmill? More players have already been pushed away by Ascended Crafting than would be lost from a lack of gear progression.

If you have good, quality gameplay people will play it. They will play it without getting in line for more uberawesome gears. But putting in barriers to entry, such as difficult to obtain gear that you are not competitive without, will keep people from playing.

This. There is a fun to rewards balance. If content is more fun, then players are willing to play for fewer rewards (I’m including vertical progression as “rewards”).

The problem is that it doesn’t seem like Anet cares to — or maybe isn’t able to — create fun gameplay. So maybe vertical progression is the only way it can keep people in the game?

RedShipRaider.9560:

BondageBill.4021:

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

We take very different lessons from the same thing. Rather than putting players on a pointless and endless race, why not just not have a treadmill? More players have already been pushed away by Ascended Crafting than would be lost from a lack of gear progression.

If you have good, quality gameplay people will play it. They will play it without getting in line for more uberawesome gears. But putting in barriers to entry, such as difficult to obtain gear that you are not competitive without, will keep people from playing.

Ive been saying this for a longggg time. Intrinsic vs extrinsic reward. Playing for the sake of playing, vs playing for the sake of reward. Granted, we need some reward, and there are other ways, many other ways to have character progression without a gear treadmill.

Example: Everquest next…you choose a class, and then you can find/discover up to 40 other classes(they will surely add more) throughout the world/game. Im not sure how this is accomplished, maybe via some …card or some consumable you stumble upon in a cave from defeating a verteran/elite mob or something. So you can be a thief, discover a warlock class. Now you can have both abilities of thief and warlock. Character progression. No gear treadmill. The player still has the sense that he is making his character better, more unique. Adding to it.

Not sure if something like this would work here, but its an example to show that it can be done. Im upset that arenanet caved to even the slightest power creep. They could have done so much better with their game. I still have hopes, and I am enjoying the game currently(by playing new and other classes), but its only going to last so long and with the catastrophic induction of ascended gear on our doorstep, I don’t see myself making it through even Q2 of 2014.

Alukah.2063:

“A new player joining GW2 in late 2014 would still be a good 6 months away from acquiring the base set of ascended gear”

Does it really take 6 months to craft all 6 pieces?

6 armor pieces, 2-6 weapons, 5 trinkets and a backpack? Yeah. Maybe 1% of players can do it faster. Majority would take way longer.

And that’s only for a single char so far – there are alts to consider.

Ascended gear is way too hard to acquire now, so obviously i hope that the difficulty will be eventually lowered (preferably as soon as possible), and it will be made available through many other avenues. What i fear however, is that once on a gear escalator, it will never stop. Anet may not be planning on adding a new tier of gear now, but it doesn’t mean such plans won’t appear in 2014. They said several times that they definitely think about raising level cap, which sound equally bad. Both of those will likely be a gamebreaker – at least for me.

BondageBill.4021:

In my experience, this is even one of the bigger selling points of expansions in MMOs. I have seen several friends quit MMOs because they cannot keep up with the gear curve, only to rejoin when an expansion is released because they are on par with the rest of the population. Again, this option can be good for the longevity of MMOs as a gear reset may rejuvenate the MMO community.

May be like that for MMO’s that were created with hamster wheels in mind, but in GW2, a game that was supposed not to have any, there are still a lot of players that came here to avoid such cyclical gear reset. All those people that quit other games because they couldn’t keep up with gear curve and came to GW2 following promises that there would be no gear curves here. They would not like the reset at all.
In short, I do not believe that such an action would bring more players than it would push away.

BondageBill.4021:

While responding to another thread, I was reminded of a long-term issue that ascended gear may create within GW2. This response is a bit long-winded and off-topic for that thread, but merits discussion from the player base. Please try to keep this thread about the long-term future state of ascended gear (instead of the short-term discussion about the Dec. 10th patch):

One interesting thought on ascended gear. Anet has stated that they have no plans for a tier beyond ascended gear. This means that eventually, GW2 will reach a state where a large percentage of the current player base has full ascended gear.

Erm, I think you’ve created a new problem where one doesn’t exist, and answered it all in one go.

If your concern is new players, well they will be playing from 1-80 and reach exotic armor just like the rest of us did. Then just as you stated above, the current player base will have full ascended gear and given the nature of supply and demand, all costs to buy materials to make ascended gear will be exponentially cheaper than they are today.

If the content becomes harder now to match ascended gear requirements, it will still be the same content that a new player will need to reach first, with the same ascended equipment. I don’t see this as a problem?

This game is unfortunately extremely hostile towards new players. Not only will they have to enter knowing that there is a lot of content they’ve missed that they will never be able to experience for themselves but they also have to deal with a gold market in which they will never be competitive and indeed a gear grind from hell.

I used to recommend this game to friends all the time when it first launched but I would not make the recommendation today. It has gone from its “it’s a party and everyone is invited” philosophy to something entirely different. Something toxic and unattractive.

While I suspect they will go for the first option and simply cut the requirements once the early adopters have burnt themselves out grinding it’s kind of sad that this is what it has come to.

Sube Dai.8496:

Option 3. Anet stops feeding the locust and removes this crap from the game.

Then the locusts leave and the game withers on the vine and dies.

The player base that sustained GW1 is not large enough to sustain GW2. As such, Arena.net has to appeal to the larger MMO market, and those people are the content locusts. They LIKE the grind. They LIKE the treadmill. They WANT to feel more powerful with their phat lootz.

Arena.net tried to cut a middle line… with relatively shallow vertical progression. It kittened off the GW1 veterans anyway. It SEEMS to have appealed to the locusts, as supposedly concurrent player numbers have been on the rise.

I’m sorry that news is harsh, but it’s true.

chemiclord.3978:

Sube Dai.8496:

Option 3. Anet stops feeding the locust and removes this crap from the game.

Then the locusts leave and the game withers on the vine and dies.

The player base that sustained GW1 is not large enough to sustain GW2. As such, Arena.net has to appeal to the larger MMO market, and those people are the content locusts. They LIKE the grind. They LIKE the treadmill. They WANT to feel more powerful with their phat lootz.

Arena.net tried to cut a middle line… with relatively shallow vertical progression. It kittened off the GW1 veterans anyway. It SEEMS to have appealed to the locusts, as supposedly concurrent player numbers have been on the rise.

I’m sorry that news is harsh, but it’s true.

I think this is quite true, much as I hate the fact.

I’m wondering if there are alternatives, y know… like a kind of game thats awesome enough like GW2 when it was initially released, but one where we dont ever need content locusts and gear grinders to keep the game going? I have to ask because i know eventually people like me would just get burnt out and of course we would then wanna know, where next?

generalraccoon.3857:

I think this is quite true, much as I hate the fact.

I’m wondering if there are alternatives, y know… like a kind of game thats awesome enough like GW2 when it was initially released, but one where we dont ever need content locusts and gear grinders to keep the game going? I have to ask because i know eventually people like me would just get burnt out and of course we would then wanna know, where next?

I honestly don’t know.

Maybe Arena.net SHOULD have set their targets lower. Maybe they could have (and should have) just focused on replicating the GW1 experience with graphical and mechanical improvements.

Then again, maybe NCSoft wouldn’t have accepted that business plan. Or maybe Arena.net themselves decided, “Why just do the same thing over again? Let’s try and revamp the genre itself!”

Regardless of why they decided this route… what they learned quickly is that the MMO playerbase will only tolerate a developer challenging the status quo so much. As a result, GW2 has been slowly taking on more elements of “traditional MMOs”… because they have to.

I’d be disappointed, I suppose, if I honestly didn’t see it coming. I kinda figured the moment I viewed their manifesto for the first time, “Yeah… about half of this isn’t going to last.”

I mean, you even see it on these forums with supposedly “enlightened” players.

For example; “We’re gonna try to provide an expansion worth of content gradually (and for free), through our living world…” Immediate pushback. Nope, HAS to be an expansion. It’s the only way this sort of thing can be done.

Or the repeated requests (or demands) that GW2 be more like [insert other game here].

I think the future of the game in regard to ascended gear from 2015 and beyond is going to depend on whether they can convince casual players who are willing to spend gems for cosmetics in the gem store now to spend gems for gold to accelerate the acquisition of ascended materials. Or, whether those players will just give up on both ascended gear and GW2 and drift away because they are tired of being at a mechanical disadvantage.

I don’t know how many people are going to be willing to wear scrub skins while paying cash for number changes on their gear to finance servers for people that have more time to play and thus need to put less or no money into ArenaNet’s pockets to get those same or better numbers and nice skins.

And I don’t know that there is a large enough population of casual players with the financial means and inclination to spend enough each month to get both numbers and skins.

azizul.8469:

ascended armor should be made obtainable by doing fractals, just like the accessories and weapons, giving people options to either run fractals or crafting them…

Or through WvW!

Dont forget the player which dont want to do PvE or Crafting!

Tongku.5326:

What it comes down to is if the new incoming PvE content will be balanced for players using ascended or exotic gear. If its balanced towards exotic, then it is a non-issue since anyone in full exotics will be able to complete content still doing good, though not as “top notch” as people in full ascended.

WvW on the other hand will have a lot of whining, already does, since a lot of the playerbase refuse to play the game but rather focus on exclusively single aspect of it. To their credit however, they are correct that a 20v20 for example, assuming equal comp and skill level, and 1 team in mostly ascended while the other team in mostly exotics, the ascended team will win a lot more then the exotics team. But then again, it boils down to their unwilingness to participate in other aspects of the game to get the ascended gear.

Anet said you can obtain all with the playstyle you like, i like wvw and so i want to obtain all in wvw. This is not the case now and Anet again do not fullfill there promises.

I bet there will be a new tier in the future, anet choose the path of grinding, and they will not depart from it.

Well people didn t notice the vertical progression they sneaked in the game silently _

Its called Agony Resistance that now is infinite.

In the perfect style of korean mmorpg you can combine AR to get an infinite numbers exactly how it happened for +1, +2, +3 weapons.

Its already an issue for any player wanting to play fotm 50 ._. (leaderboard = pay hundred golds to even try)

and it could be worse soon.

If that is the future of ascended i think this game will become the usual f2p korean grindy mmorpg very soon.