Guild Wars 2

As a former GW1 player, I’m always slightly puzzled when people decry the vertical progression in GW2 by saying “GW1 did not have vertical progression!”

That isn’t true at all. It most DEFINITELY had vertical progression, and grind associated with said progression.

Yes, you could get max armor very easily, but to reach true max stats, you had to get Insignias and Runes for your armor. Some of the best Insignias/Runes were quite pricy (Superior Vigor was like what, 30 plat?). And on top of that you had your heroes, who all could be equipped with Insignias/Runes. Fully upgrading all your hero’s armor took AGES.

Then you had the title tracks. As a Paragon, I had to grind to max out my Sunspear and Kurzick titles to achieve maximum effectiveness. There were also many other title tracks like Lightbringer, Ebon Vanguard, etc. that increased damage of certain skills. Those are vertical progression. Of titles, not gear.

GW2 and GW1 has very similar philosophies in terms of vertical progression. You can get near-max stats relatively easily (Max level armor in GW1, Exotics in GW2) but after that, it’s a grind to get very minimal gains (4 ranks of Kurzick for one extra second on Save Yourselves, 10 fractal runs just for one Ascended ring).

Now, you can still disagree on whether the game should have vertical progression or not. That is your opinion, and I respect it. Just please don’t bring up GW1 as an example of a “purely horizontal progression” game. Because it isn’t.

TL;DR GW1 had vertical progression. Don’t pretend like it didn’t.

Who cares if it has vertical progression or not! You have absolutely no means to compare your own effectiveness in PvE against other players, apart from a “feeling” if you are doing good or lagging behind.
The stat difference that you get for Ascended will not save you against that big kitten zerg in WvsW and proper PvP is fought on an equal footing.

No amount of rings / amulets / armor will make my mesmer kill stuff faster than my guardian or warrior.

I will disagree with you on this for several reasons:

1) Alternate Gameplay could get you any item in GW1. Nothing was locked between a time gate or a specific instance, you could buy / trade for anything you could reach. One could argue that the act of forging FoW armor required you to go to FoW and complete one quest to access the forge itself, but that is shallow compared to the requisite to run Fractals repeatedly or any of the other gates.

2) Max runes, if compared to anything, should be compared to runes in GW2, which opperate exactly like runes in GW1 did: they have a variable value based on the market and player demand.

All GW1 heros had max level armor when your character was at max level. In addition, hero armor functioned as infused without having to make an ‘infusion run.’

TL:DR — Comparing base equipment to equipment upgrades is an apples to oranges comparison.

The difference is that GW1 never added more powerful equipment post-launch.
There were some runes added, but most of them were crap (like those majors that reduced condition duration), and Vitae/Attunements which were mainly just filler for slots you didn’t have a rune in, but none that were inarguably stronger.
Vertical progression beyond what it had at launch being added to the game is what people have a problem with.

CassieGold.7460:

1) Alternate Gameplay could get you any item in GW1. Nothing was locked between a time gate or a specific instance, you could buy / trade for anything you could reach. One could argue that the act of forging FoW armor required you to go to FoW and complete one quest to access the forge itself, but that is shallow compared to the requisite to run Fractals repeatedly or any of the other gates.

You seem to have missed my title track portion of the post. I was pretty much forced to run ABs/Jade Quarry to increase my effectiveness of Save Yourselves. Gear wasn’t the only way to increase your character’s effectiveness.

CassieGold.7460:

All GW1 heros had max level armor when your character was at max level. In addition, hero armor functioned as infused without having to make an ‘infusion run.’

Yes, but you could make them even more effective through insignias and runes. That is the definition of vertical progression. GW1 had it.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

The difference is that GW1 never added more powerful equipment post-launch.
There were some runes added, but most of them were crap (like those majors that reduced condition duration), and Vitae/Attunements which were mainly just filler for slots you didn’t have a rune in, but none that were inarguably stronger.
Vertical progression beyond what it had at launch being added to the game is what people have a problem with.

I agree, this is what I have a problem with, not a huge problem, it just makes me not want to upgrade until I can get the very best. I liked just getting max gear and then tweaking my play-style to get the best performance of my build.

Getting max gear in GW1 took two weeks at most, even with title grinding.

However, you could say that GW1 had vertical progression if you mean it in reference to how well you can play your 8 skills. I loved my ele for bond/infusing because you had to be ultra conscience about having all your maintainable enchantments up and make sure you energy bar was filled. Your energy bar was more or less the life-force of the group, if it went to zero, people started dying.

gimmethegepgun.1284:

The difference is that GW1 never added more powerful equipment post-launch.
There were some runes added, but most of them were crap (like those majors that reduced condition duration), and Vitae/Attunements which were mainly just filler for slots you didn’t have a rune in, but none that were inarguably stronger.
Vertical progression beyond what it had at launch being added to the game is what people have a problem with.

I really can’t argue with this. But I will point out GW2 before Ascended had a ton less vertical progression (max effectiveness very easily with exotics) than GW1 (Good luck maxing out all those titles.). After it though, it’s now pretty similar.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

Getting max gear in GW1 took two weeks at most, even with title grinding.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying you were able to achieve max titles in 2 weeks?

Sunspear/Lightbringer/Kurzick(Luxon)/Ebon Vanguard/Deldrimor/Asura/Norn/Wisdom/Treasure Hunter/Luck?

That stuff took a LONG time to max.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

The difference is that GW1 never added more powerful equipment post-launch.
There were some runes added, but most of them were crap (like those majors that reduced condition duration), and Vitae/Attunements which were mainly just filler for slots you didn’t have a rune in, but none that were inarguably stronger.
Vertical progression beyond what it had at launch being added to the game is what people have a problem with.

I agree, this is what I have a problem with, not a huge problem, it just makes me not want to upgrade until I can get the very best. I liked just getting max gear and then tweaking my play-style to get the best performance of my build.

Getting max gear in GW1 took a week at most, even with title grinding.

However, you could say that GW1 had vertical progression if you mean it in reference to how well you can play your 8 skills. I loved my ele for bond/infusing because you had to be ultra conscience about having all your maintainable enchantments up and make sure you energy bar was filled. Your energy bar was more or less the life-force of the group, if it went to zero, people started dying.

Actually, that’s horizontal progression, meaning you get better by being better rather than having higher stats.

By the way, on a slightly off-topic note, I really really really miss lockpicks. And the luck/unlucky title tracks =(.

Skill point acquisition, Skill capture and Hero Acquisition were most definitely vertical progression.

A newly minted lvl 20 could barely make it through Prophecies. A lvl 20 with the extra skill points, a wide selection of heroes and gear for those heroes, and the skill points and faction (acquired through continual play) to buy a wide selection of skills could solo Glint’s challenge.

Actually, that’s horizontal progression, meaning you get better by being better rather than having higher stats.

The number of skill points you had access to depended only on how long you played, and a wide variety of skills was critical to playing. It did not matter how good you were, if you didn’t have the needed skills you were not going to get invited to or be able to complete Speed Clears.

Have to agree to an extent. Your argument towards supirior vigor runes and heroes are a bit weak – Adding 9 hp to a hero that mostly sacced a health-percentage is not really relevant.

The lightbringer/sunspear in Nightfall and the Deldrimor/asuran/norn/ebon vanguard crap in the last, somewhat borked installment (and only “expansion”) in Guild Wars was definately gating, not only content but also cooporation and community.
Many of us thought that Anet learnt a few valuable lessons from that (not least because they seemed to focus on adjusting the original 2 dungeons: UW and FoW instead of adjusting DoA and all the EotN dungeons.

However: Even with the “Codex instead of TA” failure, Guild Wars always had/still have engaging and balanced structured PvP. I hope the current incarnation of “Anet” are capable of creating something of the same (or at least, close to) class.

Ursan.7846:

CassieGold.7460:

1) Alternate Gameplay could get you any item in GW1. Nothing was locked between a time gate or a specific instance, you could buy / trade for anything you could reach. One could argue that the act of forging FoW armor required you to go to FoW and complete one quest to access the forge itself, but that is shallow compared to the requisite to run Fractals repeatedly or any of the other gates.

You seem to have missed my title track portion of the post. I was pretty much forced to run ABs/Jade Quarry to increase my effectiveness of Save Yourselves. Gear wasn’t the only way to increase your character’s effectiveness.

CassieGold.7460:

All GW1 heros had max level armor when your character was at max level. In addition, hero armor functioned as infused without having to make an ‘infusion run.’

Yes, but you could make them even more effective through insignias and runes. That is the definition of vertical progression. GW1 had it.

Except the title tracks were not mandatory. Only elitists demanded high rank titles. The content was just as accessible without the PvE only skills. As for insignias and runes. They were plateau’d. once you got them you could not get higher and those upgrades existed from the start. Insignias only got put in to make it so people were not stuck using one specific armor set if they wanted to use certain upgrades.

Key part here is once you reached the top you were done. That’s why it is horizontal.

Conner.4702:

Except the title tracks were not mandatory. Only elitists demanded high rank titles. The content was just as accessible without the PvE only skills.

The exact same thing can be said for Ascended gear, with the exception of high level fractals. (Which is difficulty gating, not content gating.)

bluejay.6739:

Actually, that’s horizontal progression, meaning you get better by being better rather than having higher stats.

The number of skill points you had access to depended only on how long you played, and a wide variety of skills was critical to playing. It did not matter how good you were, if you didn’t have the needed skills you were not going to get invited to or be able to complete Speed Clears.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

if you mean it in reference to how well you can play your 8 skills.

“how well” meaning player skill.
And getting non-elite skills was hardly difficult. 1000 Balthazar faction (easy to get), 1p (not that much money),1sp (always plentiful) and access to any skill trainer of the campaign the skill belongs to (which requires nothing more than your character reaching the continent) and you can get any non-elite in the game.

Ursan.7846:

gimmethegepgun.1284:

The difference is that GW1 never added more powerful equipment post-launch.
There were some runes added, but most of them were crap (like those majors that reduced condition duration), and Vitae/Attunements which were mainly just filler for slots you didn’t have a rune in, but none that were inarguably stronger.
Vertical progression beyond what it had at launch being added to the game is what people have a problem with.

I really can’t argue with this. But I will point out GW2 before Ascended had a ton less vertical progression (max effectiveness very easily with exotics) than GW1 (Good luck maxing out all those titles.). After it though, it’s now pretty similar.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

Getting max gear in GW1 took two weeks at most, even with title grinding.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying you were able to achieve max titles in 2 weeks?

Sunspear/Lightbringer/Kurzick(Luxon)/Ebon Vanguard/Deldrimor/Asura/Norn/Wisdom/Treasure Hunter/Luck?

That stuff took a LONG time to max.

Luck/Treasure Hunter/Luck I wouldn’t count, with the weekend events; SS/LB, books for the 4 EotN ones, and speedclears for Kurzick OR Luxon were not that bad. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt though and say 3 weeks because I forgot about the 4 EotN titles.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

Luck/Treasure Hunter/Luck I wouldn’t count, with the weekend events; SS/LB, books for the 4 EotN ones, and speedclears for Kurzick OR Luxon were not that bad. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt though and say 3 weeks because I forgot about the 4 EotN titles.

I call BS.

Kurzick/Luxon takes 10,000,000 faction total to achieve. The best speedruns get you about 50,000 faction/hour (Assuming perfect skill/experience).

Source: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Faction_farm

That is 200 hours. Of doing nothing but speed running. 2 weeks is 14 days. That is 14 hours a day you’re doing nothing but Kurzick speed runs.

Lets not forget the Sunspear/Lightbringer/EoTN stuff.

If you seriously did everything in 3 weeks, then congrats to you, but I highly doubt most people have that much time to dedicate to this game.

Ursan.7846:

I call BS.

Kurzick/Luxon takes 10,000,000 faction total to achieve.

Good call I guess – Yet the last two tiers of kurz/lux faction have absolutely ZERO relevance to skills/PvE performance.

(All tiers have zero relevance to PvP for those who never played GW)

Halandir.3609:

Ursan.7846:

I call BS.

Kurzick/Luxon takes 10,000,000 faction total to achieve.

Good call I guess – Yet the last two tiers of kurz/lux faction have absolutely ZERO relevance to skills/PvE performance.

(All tiers have zero relevance to PvP for those who never played GW)

You mean the last 6, since all the skills cap out at rank 6, not 10 or 12.
Rank 6 costs 1,200,000 as opposed to the 10,000,000 of rank 12.

Halandir.3609:

Ursan.7846:

I call BS.

Kurzick/Luxon takes 10,000,000 faction total to achieve.

Good call I guess – Yet the last two tiers of kurz/lux faction have absolutely ZERO relevance to skills/PvE performance.

(All tiers have zero relevance to PvP for those who never played GW)

You’re right. But regardless, you’re still forced to do a very specific thing in order to gain a slight increase in numbers. Which is something GW1 definitely had, and people seem to forget when they decry the vertical progression present in GW2.

Fair enough but please consider this: Those of us who played PvE casually (because we mostly enjoyed getting taught a few lessons in PvP) were NOT forced to grind a single dungeon to advance our deldrimor or ebon vanguard rep.

Heck even 100% PvE players had a multitude of choices to advance the lorewise PvP-related rep of kurz/lux faction!

Ascended gear/vertical progression in GW2 is an afterthought/knee jerk reaction – And it shows…

Let’s not pretend everyone supported the silly power/grind-creep that developed in GW1. PvE skills were highly contentious, and debated as heatedly as similar issues now.

All you’ve succeeded in identifying is that ANet have form on corrupting their game, and betraying their own stated goals… and nobody has said ANet never made that mistake before!

You’re comparing armor to insignias. Which is right away, completely wrong.

If anything, you should be comparing insignias to runes in GW2, cause that is what they are. Armor wise, GW1 didn’t go the vertical progression route. The armor is the same. Adding insignias is not comparable to vertical progression in GW2.

Vertical progression in GW2 is based on higher stat armor. No runes/gems/infusions and such. Just adding higher stats to armor. They didn’t do that in GW1. All armor was horizontal in GW1, cause they never added a higher stat armor to the game. GW1 has insignias to make your gear stronger, just like GW2 has runes/gems/infusions to make your gear stronger as well.

You’re trying to compare apples to oranges and it just doesn’t work.

Um. That’s not vertical progression, mate.

Ursan.7846:

As a former GW1 player, I’m always slightly puzzled when people decry the vertical progression in GW2 by saying “GW1 did not have vertical progression!”

That isn’t true at all. It most DEFINITELY had vertical progression, and grind associated with said progression.

Yes, you could get max armor very easily, but to reach true max stats, you had to get Insignias and Runes for your armor. Some of the best Insignias/Runes were quite pricy (Superior Vigor was like what, 30 plat?). And on top of that you had your heroes, who all could be equipped with Insignias/Runes. Fully upgrading all your hero’s armor took AGES.

Then you had the title tracks. As a Paragon, I had to grind to max out my Sunspear and Kurzick titles to achieve maximum effectiveness. There were also many other title tracks like Lightbringer, Ebon Vanguard, etc. that increased damage of certain skills. Those are vertical progression. Of titles, not gear.

GW2 and GW1 has very similar philosophies in terms of vertical progression. You can get near-max stats relatively easily (Max level armor in GW1, Exotics in GW2) but after that, it’s a grind to get very minimal gains (4 ranks of Kurzick for one extra second on Save Yourselves, 10 fractal runs just for one Ascended ring).

Now, you can still disagree on whether the game should have vertical progression or not. That is your opinion, and I respect it. Just please don’t bring up GW1 as an example of a “purely horizontal progression” game. Because it isn’t.

TL;DR GW1 had vertical progression. Don’t pretend like it didn’t.

As somebody who played and loved the first Guild Wars and plays and loves this game, thank you.

Because as much as I may love the first game, I sure as hell remember having to plaster my face against the monitor for hours at a time grinding God forsaken Luxon rep to get “Save Yourselves” to be even remotely decent.

Guild Wars 1 had vertical progression and grind. So does Guild Wars 2.
Oh noooooo.

Armors, Insignias and runes. That’s it. All the rest is pve related and was solely designed for scripts farmers.

So 40k bill at worst, sell zKeys/amber/jadeite = 10 hrs of pvp if you were bad like me

Pvped with same gears in all instances until gw2 came out.

No vertical progression there, sorry.

Raire.7983:

Let’s not pretend everyone supported the silly power/grind-creep that developed in GW1. PvE skills were highly contentious, and debated as heatedly as similar issues now.

All you’ve succeeded in identifying is that ANet have form on corrupting their game, and betraying their own stated goals… and nobody has said ANet never made that mistake before!

Anet definately did NOT learn from all the concerns players had with the introduction of powercreep (however small compared to all the runofthemill MMO’s) in GW.

While they were WAY above my level I remember that many of the, really skilled, PvP’ers left the game a few months into factions citing the powercreep of added overpowered skills and the assasin profession as main reasons.

The PvE/PvP skill split later in GW’s lifetime helped a little bit but… NO, while Anet noticed and wondered about the book on the floor, they left it there for someone else to pickup, read and understand!

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You’re comparing armor to insignias. Which is right away, completely wrong.

If anything, you should be comparing insignias to runes in GW2, cause that is what they are. Armor wise, GW1 didn’t go the vertical progression route. The armor is the same. Adding insignias is not comparable to vertical progression in GW2.

Vertical progression in GW2 is based on higher stat armor. No runes/gems/infusions and such. Just adding higher stats to armor. They didn’t do that in GW1. All armor was horizontal in GW1, cause they never added a higher stat armor to the game. GW1 has insignias to make your gear stronger, just like GW2 has runes/gems/infusions to make your gear stronger as well.

You’re trying to compare apples to oranges and it just doesn’t work.

Higher stats = higher stats, whether it comes from a new tier of armor or armor upgrades. This is ignoring the fact that for certain builds, certain upgrades were REQUIRED (55 monk? perma SR sin?) whereas more numbers from a ascneded isn’t really required.

Regardless, if you really don’t like comparing the armor upgrades, what about the titles? And how grinding out titles made you do more damage?

Raire.7983:

Let’s not pretend everyone supported the silly power/grind-creep that developed in GW1. PvE skills were highly contentious, and debated as heatedly as similar issues now.

Oh no I don’t pretend that everyone likes it at all. But too frequently do I see people justify their dislike of a power creep by saying “GW2 has vertical progression, GW1 didn’t.” Which is not true.

Ursan.7846:

titles? And how grinding out titles made you do more damage?

Pv frigging E damage!!! on 6 out of 60/70 titles

Titles that you could max doing a multitude of activities… Please… Accept the difference here!

Kaputsid.5169:

Armors, Insignias and runes. That’s it. All the rest is pve related and was solely designed for scripts farmers.

So 40k bill at worst, sell zKeys/amber/jadeite = 10 hrs of pvp if you were bad like me

Pvped with same gears in all instances until gw2 came out.

No vertical progression there, sorry.

Just because you chose not to partake in the game’s PvE, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. It does. And vertical progression existed in it.

Halandir.3609:

Ursan.7846:

titles? And how grinding out titles made you do more damage?

Pv frigging E damage!!! on 6 out of 60/70 titles

Titles that you could max doing a multitude of activities… Please… Accept the difference here!

What’s the difference? You can get more PvE damage by getting Ascended gear, which you can get from a multitude of activities (via laurels.).

Obviously certain methods are going to be more efficient. (Speedrunning faction/running fractals vs doing ABs/Jade Quarry/doing dailies/monthlies). But it’s still the same.

Ursan.7846:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

You’re comparing armor to insignias. Which is right away, completely wrong.

If anything, you should be comparing insignias to runes in GW2, cause that is what they are. Armor wise, GW1 didn’t go the vertical progression route. The armor is the same. Adding insignias is not comparable to vertical progression in GW2.

Vertical progression in GW2 is based on higher stat armor. No runes/gems/infusions and such. Just adding higher stats to armor. They didn’t do that in GW1. All armor was horizontal in GW1, cause they never added a higher stat armor to the game. GW1 has insignias to make your gear stronger, just like GW2 has runes/gems/infusions to make your gear stronger as well.

You’re trying to compare apples to oranges and it just doesn’t work.

Higher stats = higher stats, whether it comes from a new tier of armor or armor upgrades. This is ignoring the fact that for certain builds, certain upgrades were REQUIRED (55 monk? perma SR sin?) whereas more numbers from a ascneded isn’t really required.

Regardless, if you really don’t like comparing the armor upgrades, what about the titles? And how grinding out titles made you do more damage?

What I was saying, is you’re comparing just the insignias in GW1, to just the armor in GW2. Which are two completely different things.

Armor in GW1 never got higher stats. Armor in GW2, is getting higher stats.
Insignias add to the armor in GW1. Runes add to the armor in GW2.

Insignias are comparable to Runes, not armor. That’s like comparing a battery to a remote control, instead of comparing the battery to another battery. The battery enhances the remote control by making it work. It isn’t a remote control on it’s own. It is an attachment to the remote control to give it power.

The same thing applies to Insignias. You can’t compare Insignias in GW1 to Armor in GW2 and say they are the same, cause they are not. Insignias are used to enhance your armor in GW1. Just like Runes are used to enhance your armor in GW2. An Insignia is not armor on it’s own. It is an attachment to armor. Insignias are comparable to Runes in GW2, not Armor. So they are not the same thing.

And if you want to go title route, you can play GW1 all the way through without using a single title skill. And to top that off, you couldn’t even use those skills in PvP. So they didn’t provide you any special benefit in PvP and they were optional if you just wanted to play the game normally. You didn’t need title skills to complete anything (only farmers and speedclears required titles, which was the player’s fault, not Anet’s). You’re looking at an optional grind that wasn’t forced on you to complete content.

So sorry, but no. There was no vertical progression there either.

I think I recall somewhere that they said they wouldn’t advance past ascended this year. Who knows were/how far it’ll progress down the road.

Thinking ascended gear makes any difference outside out of FOTM is the most over rated thing I’ve read in a forum.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

And if you want to go title route, you can play GW1 all the way through without using a single title skill.

You can also play GW2 all the way through without a single Ascended item.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

So sorry, but no. There was no vertical progression there either.

No, there is. Just because it’s optional doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s there.

If you do want to define “Vertical progression” as something that is completely mandatory, then it doesn’t exist in GW2 either. Heck you don’t even need Exotics to clear content.

Oh hey, look at the defensive responses here:

“It’s not mandatory!”
“+9 Health didn’t make a difference!”

Just because you didn’t get better gear doesn’t mean there wasn’t vertical progression.

“It’s apples and oranges!”

These games are apples and oranges. The concept of gaining power over time is very much vertical progression, whether it’s on armor or not.

Ursan.7846:

Halandir.3609:

Ursan.7846:

titles? And how grinding out titles made you do more damage?

Pv frigging E damage!!! on 6 out of 60/70 titles

Titles that you could max doing a multitude of activities… Please… Accept the difference here!

What’s the difference? You can get more PvE damage by getting Ascended gear, which you can get from a multitude of activities (via laurels.).

Obviously certain methods are going to be more efficient. (Speedrunning faction/running fractals vs doing ABs/Jade Quarry/doing dailies/monthlies). But it’s still the same.

Ascended gear = obtainable by TWO activities. One is gated by a the calendar and basically tells all of us that “alts” are no-go!
Hardly a “multitude” compared to the MANY (a lot more than 2) for each of the 6 PvE-power titles in Guild wars.

THAT – (the “multitude/multiple” part of obtaining the bonus) is the difference.

(And you can add the fact that many GW players hated, and left GW with the introduction of PvE-power titles!)

Ursan.7846:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

And if you want to go title route, you can play GW1 all the way through without using a single title skill.

You can also play GW2 all the way through without a single Ascended item.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

So sorry, but no. There was no vertical progression there either.

No, there is. Just because it’s optional doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s there.

Which is wrong cause you can’t do high level Fractals without having Ascended gear. And when the full set of Ascended gear is released, you can bet that it is going to make a big enough impact that you’ll need it to survive in WvWvW as well.

In GW1, you can play any of the content the game offers without a single PvE skill required. You don’t need to grind out titles to max those skills out, because they are never required to complete any content. In GW2 on the other hand, you can’t complete all the content the game offers without having Ascended gear. Fractals requires Agony resistance in the higher levels, thus requiring you to have Ascended gear.

Two completely different things. One is optional, the other is required.

I loved GW and all its expansions although parts of “Factions” could make you want to gouge your eyes out with a fork. With 6000+ hours of game-play I think I qualify for being a GWaholic.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Which is wrong cause you can’t do high level Fractals without having Ascended gear. And when the full set of Ascended gear is released, you can bet that it is going to make a big enough impact that you’ll need it to survive in WvWvW as well.

I’d like to see you doing Mallyx, or heck the entire DoA, with rank 0 Lightbringer. Or doing Hardmode Dungeons without any of the PvE skills (SY/TNtF).

By the way, high level fractals are still do-able without agony resistance. Most agony attacks can be dodged. Jade Maw is the only attack that you can’t dodge. And even that can be avoided if you do odd numbered fractals. It’s obviously stupid to do, because agony resistance makes it much easier. But it’s the same exact thing with GW1.

EDIT: Also, Fractals is gated difficulty, not gated content. You can play through all 9 fractals. Slight difference.

Halandir.3609:

Mackdose.6504:

Oh hey, look at the defensive responses here:
…
These games are apples and oranges. The concept of gaining power over time is very much vertical progression, whether it’s on armor or not.

So… you added “Apples and oranges”?

Good for you. Personally, I am impressed! Thank you for that valid and eye opening insight.
I will definately try to shut my “defensive” mouth!

(Hmm, ok try – but its all apples and some other fruits I guess…)

You could try reading the thread. There’s two separate posts above mine using the “apples and oranges” defense while disregarding the fact that GW1 and GW2 are vastly different. For the better in my opinion.

However, just because they are different implementations of vertical progression, vertical progression exists in both.

vertical progression in gw1 omg ahahahaha srsly? please ursan stop …this is getting ridiculous

Ursan.7846:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Which is wrong cause you can’t do high level Fractals without having Ascended gear. And when the full set of Ascended gear is released, you can bet that it is going to make a big enough impact that you’ll need it to survive in WvWvW as well.

I’d like to see you doing Mallyx, or heck the entire DoA, with rank 0 Lightbringer. Or doing Hardmode Dungeons without any of the PvE skills (SY/TNtF).

By the way, high level fractals are still do-able without agony resistance. Most agony attacks can be dodged. Jade Maw is the only attack that you can’t dodge. And even that can be avoided if you do odd numbered fractals. It’s obviously stupid to do, because agony resistance makes it much easier. But it’s the same exact thing with GW1.

EDIT: Also, Fractals is gated difficulty, not gated content. You can play through all 9 fractals. Slight difference.

So you are skipping content to avoid having to use Ascended items? So you are still saying that you need Agony Resistance, which requires Ascended items, to defeat Jade Maw then right? Otherwise, you have to skip him which means skipping content because you don’t have the required gear for it. So again, Ascended items are required to do Fractals.

And it is perfectly possible to do DoA and all the HM Dungeons without PvE skills. I don’t see anywhere saying that it is required that I bring them do you? Did Anet make a statement saying that in order to do those dungeons, I am required to bring PvE skills? No, they did not. They are not required for anything.

Mackdose.6504:

Halandir.3609:

Mackdose.6504:

Oh hey, look at the defensive responses here:
…
These games are apples and oranges. The concept of gaining power over time is very much vertical progression, whether it’s on armor or not.

So… you added “Apples and oranges”?

Good for you. Personally, I am impressed! Thank you for that valid and eye opening insight.
I will definately try to shut my “defensive” mouth!

(Hmm, ok try – but its all apples and some other fruits I guess…)

You could try reading the thread. There’s two separate posts above mine using the “apples and oranges” defense while disregarding the fact that GW1 and GW2 are vastly different. For the better in my opinion.

However, just because they are different implementations of vertical progression, vertical progression exists in both.

And you could try reading the thread as well.

The whole “apples to oranges” comment was because they were comparing Insignias in GW1, to armor in GW2. Instead of comparing Insignias in GW1, to Runes in GW2. Insignias are not armor. They are enhancements. Just like runes are enhancements to armor in GW2. You can’t compare an enhancement to the actual armor and call them the same thing.

Thus why “apples to oranges” was used.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

So you are skipping content to avoid having to use Ascended items? So you are still saying that you need Agony Resistance, which requires Ascended items, to defeat Jade Maw then right? Otherwise, you have to skip him which means skipping content because you don’t have the required gear for it. So again, Ascended items are required to do Fractals.

No, you can do Maw at difficulties 1-20. The agony won’t kill you, even without agony resistance.

Maw at difficulties 20+ is the EXACT same as 1-20. The only difference is his agony hurts more.

So yes, the only “content” you’re missing out in high level fractals is the Maw hurting more.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

And it is perfectly possible to do DoA and all the HM Dungeons without PvE skills. I don’t see anywhere saying that it is required that I bring them do you? Did Anet make a statement saying that in order to do those dungeons, I am required to bring PvE skills? No, they did not. They are not required for anything.

Oh. Well if you want to take that definition (Like, literally required).

I don’t see Anet saying you required agony resistance for high level fractals either. They’re not. You can step into a 40 fractal with 0 agony resist you know.

The point is doing so makes completing it incredibly difficult. Possible? of course, with perfect skill, you will be able to dodge all the agony attacks (And they are all dodge-able.).

Same thing. PvE skills makes things a lot easier. You can probably do it without them, sure, but it’ll be incredibly difficult.

You are correct, there was definitely plenty to grind in GW1. And I actually have a difficult time imagining a re-playable game that doesn’t have grind of some kind.

You are also correct in pointing out that there were also always new things being added that you could work on to make your character more effective in new content (and I think the Lightbringer title is probably the best example you give since it was virtually required for, and limited to that particular Nightfall content – it was useless outside of that).

However, I think there is also an issue because ‘vertical progression’ likely means different things to different players.

To me, vertical progression is when you work to max out your character, and then everything you worked for becomes obsolete with the release of new content. So if those Superior Runes of Vigor you invested in were replaced by ‘Extra Superior Runes of Vigor’ and then ‘Super Mystical Superior Runes of Vigor’ and so on, then we would definitely have had a clear vertical progression. Instead, those runes were always the best, and you could even remove them and use them on a new armor set if you wanted to.

So in GW1, you could always use the armor/runes/weapons/skills you had already acquired, and just were always given new things to add to your character, without trashing any of the old stuff in the process.

And I also agree with you, we certainly don’t have it yet in GW2 either – the way I understand it anyway – but I think there are a lot of fears (possibly unwarranted) that we are going that direction.

Ursan.7846:

I don’t see Anet saying you required agony resistance for high level fractals either. They’re not. You can step into a 40 fractal with 0 agony resist you know.

Actually, they did say that.

Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

And after seeing Rainbeetle’s post, he pointed out another very good point.

The runes and insignias in GW1 never became stronger. They stayed the same. They didn’t keep adding more and more higher stat runes to the game to make your old ones obsolete. It all flattened out, thus being horizontal.

In GW2, Ascended is just the start of vertical progression. Anet has already stated they are going forward with vertical progression and have plans on releasing new tiers down the road. As well, they are going to increase the level cap which means obvious new tiers, rendering your gear now, obsolete.

This never happened in GW1. Everything stayed at a specific power plateau and never went above it. Thus why it was horizontal.

Sorry – Not the “same exact thing” as in GW.
Did a lot of guild runs in DoA with lvl. 3-4-5 lightbringers in the team. Was challenging but we did it several times, because it was FUN and engaging for those of us who already hit max. I do NOT see the same thing happening in this game.

We all see things (very) differently… Thats fine, but for some of us it also means that we (currently) log into this game for an hour or two once a week, for most of my (originally) 500 man guild it is now 2-3 hours every 2 weeks and that number is dropping drastically. (Guess what: Guild mission is NOT that popular with us)

I/We may be “defensive” (some other poster) but FotM lvl. 274 could end up being hard to complete with 3 players online.

Let’s just evaluate Anet’s efforts 1-2 years down the line: I am willing to bet that “Ursan” and me are NOT disscussing on these forums :/

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Ursan.7846:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

And if you want to go title route, you can play GW1 all the way through without using a single title skill.

You can also play GW2 all the way through without a single Ascended item.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

So sorry, but no. There was no vertical progression there either.

No, there is. Just because it’s optional doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s there.

Which is wrong cause you can’t do high level Fractals without having Ascended gear. And when the full set of Ascended gear is released, you can bet that it is going to make a big enough impact that you’ll need it to survive in WvWvW as well.

In GW1, you can play any of the content the game offers without a single PvE skill required. You don’t need to grind out titles to max those skills out, because they are never required to complete any content. In GW2 on the other hand, you can’t complete all the content the game offers without having Ascended gear. Fractals requires Agony resistance in the higher levels, thus requiring you to have Ascended gear.

Two completely different things. One is optional, the other is required.

In GW1 your gear needed to be infused to combat Spectral Agony in PvE. You couldn’t play Prophecies without infused gear (their first storyline). You couldn’t play the War in Kryta content without infused gear. You also needed to be Ascended to get the infused gear to combat Spectral Agony which pretty much insta-killed you if your gear wasn’t infused due to being heavy damage per second, which you couldn’t remove like a condition

So, spectral agony, infusion, and ascended gear came back from GW. They’re so ridiculously similar. At least in GW2, it’s relegated to Fractals, not necessary to finish the main storyline.

If you’re a paragon that wants to play elite areas, you needed to max out your kurzick and sunspear titles and it was also nice if you maxed out your lightbringer. So three titles. Three titles

You also needed to progress in your Sunspear title to continue in the story of Nightfall (particularly if you were a Nightfall-based character, but also if you were not).

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Ursan.7846:

I don’t see Anet saying you required agony resistance for high level fractals either. They’re not. You can step into a 40 fractal with 0 agony resist you know.

Actually, they did say that.

Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

You tricked me there, kudos to you.

It’s a moot point still. You can still walk into fractals without any agony resistance, if you want to take the definition of “requirement” literally.