Guild Wars 2

This thread is intended as a reply discussion on what I assume is the official stance on stat change for ascended gear to compensate for the trait and stat system overhaul based on this thread

Gaile Gray.6029:

It’s premature for you to ask for compensation for a system that has not been fully outlined or fully explored by you, as a player. I suggest your consider how long and how much use you got out of your items to reassure yourself you got full value. Also consider how every person who was unhappy with a balance build could make the a similar demand, and realize how unhealthy and unrealistic such a set of demands would be.
Wait for more information, please, before leaping to conclusions or making requests of this nature.

I disagree with Gaile. Based on the information they provided us and what their intentions were for making these changes, this request is not premature at all. It is even less likely this request will be granted after the fact so it must be made now.

This isn’t just a balance patch. The fundamentals of the game are being changed. The eay stats are distributed are being changed. The way we can select and match as well as the number of possible combinations of traits is being changed. Trait locations in trees are being changed in part and entierty. The properties of some traits themselves are being changed. This is not just another balance patch that would make this request unreasonable.

You have given us information. Yes, you stated this is subject to change but one has to assume this is how its going to be. Intentions were stated. We know for a fact some builds are getting destoryed. We know for a fact the effectivness of taking a certain stat line will not be as effective as it used to.

It was said when the expansion was released that you did not want to invalidate the players hard work. The decisions of that hard work was based on a system that you are about to knock down with absolutely no warning that this was happening when people were making thier gear. You will invalidate some players hard work. This promise will be broken for some players. It doesn’t matter if anyone thinks these players builds were broken to begin with or not. Decisions were still made on a system that is getting changed.

I think its reasonable if the entire system in which players based thier gear investment decisions on is being overhauled players should get to overhaul thier gear.

It’s essentially a gear reset, like when other games raise the level cap when an expansion is released. Suddenly your BiS gear is not anymore and you have to go out and earn new gear.

It’s a common enough thing in MMOs, the environment is always changing and the company behind the game is not going to hand out new stuff every time it happens. It provides a reason to keep playing the game, if you want to play a game that never changes once you reach the end, this is the wrong genre. It is assumed that any aspect of the game can and eventually will be changed.

I have had questions about this myself ..

for my elementalist I have been working on celestial gear (only the exotic as I will see after that for acended) ..

for celestial gear it is going to take 30 days to make enough charged crystals which are account bound .. and for a weapon and jewelry another 30 days ..IF I want to really annoy myself and make ascended gear I double that to a total of 120days or 4 months to make my gear I beleive (plus 10 days to make a mawdrey since this is another 10 charged quartz) ..

then out comes the new expansion and it is all a waste of time..

tolunart.2095:

It’s essentially a gear reset, like when other games raise the level cap when an expansion is released. Suddenly your BiS gear is not anymore and you have to go out and earn new gear.

It’s a common enough thing in MMOs, the environment is always changing and the company behind the game is not going to hand out new stuff every time it happens. It provides a reason to keep playing the game, if you want to play a game that never changes once you reach the end, this is the wrong genre. It is assumed that any aspect of the game can and eventually will be changed.

Yeah but….no
Guild wars 2 is intended to be different than that. Anet said countless times that they want the “journey to be the goal” rather than grinding new stuff to be able to play the new content.

So the OP is totally right in this particular point.

tolunart.2095:

It’s essentially a gear reset, like when other games raise the level cap when an expansion is released. Suddenly your BiS gear is not anymore and you have to go out and earn new gear.

It’s a common enough thing in MMOs, the environment is always changing and the company behind the game is not going to hand out new stuff every time it happens. It provides a reason to keep playing the game, if you want to play a game that never changes once you reach the end, this is the wrong genre. It is assumed that any aspect of the game can and eventually will be changed.

I agree with you BUT I have NEVER had to spend 120days to get geared up like it is for say the celestial gear .. and celestial is only useful for 2 classes anyway

I dont’ think it’s a big deal to spend 1 minutes clicking for a charged quartz everyday. People seem to make a big deal out of it.

A full ascended set probably cost a good 500+ gold. Which could take some time depend on play style. Mot pve players probably rack that much in 10 days. People who only play wvw would have a hard time making those money.

The fundamentals of the game are not being changed at all. Power will still make abilities do more damage, condition damage will make your conditions do more damage, vitality will give you health, ect. Yea if you are running a really specific hybrid build you will have to change a few pieces of gear, but 95%+ of players will not need to.

Just because YOU think its reasonable it might not be, it could involve hundreds of hours of coding/testing (plus however many hours the support team spends on tickets for people who mess up their gear changes), and a lot of people would rather the devs spend time on something meaningful instead of appeasing a handful of people that think they are entitled to free gear for all their “hard work” every time there is a major patch.

Maybe im wrong and it would be an easy thing to code, if thats true I dont see a reason why not, but otherwise I doubt enough people need something like this to make it worth doing

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ think it’s a big deal to spend 1 minutes clicking for a charged quartz everyday. People seem to make a big deal out of it.

A full ascended set probably cost a good 500+ gold. Which could take some time depend on play style. Mot pve players probably rack that much in 10 days. People who only play wvw would have a hard time making those money.

you have to tell me how you make 500g in 10 days ..

I have floated around 40 g for over 2 months and I primarily play PvE ..

they made the time consumption FOR just this set too extreme .. I like to play a game NOT be forced to live a game

ANet to players: “Don’t bother making Ascended armor.”

Okay, ArenaNet. Message received.

Jehuty.1938:

Yeah but….no
Guild wars 2 is intended to be different than that. Anet said countless times that they want the “journey to be the goal” rather than grinding new stuff to be able to play the new content.

So the OP is totally right in this particular point.

And a large number of players insist on treating the game like any other MMO. So who can blame the devs for giving players what they want? Thus they introduce fractals, ascended gear, optional stuff to grind for, “raid” boss Tequatl, an expansion, gear reset… it wouldn’t surprise me if they change their minds and raise the level cap too.

tolunart.2095:

Jehuty.1938:

Yeah but….no
Guild wars 2 is intended to be different than that. Anet said countless times that they want the “journey to be the goal” rather than grinding new stuff to be able to play the new content.

So the OP is totally right in this particular point.

And a large number of players insist on treating the game like any other MMO. So who can blame the devs for giving players what they want? Thus they introduce fractals, ascended gear, optional stuff to grind for, “raid” boss Tequatl, an expansion, gear reset… it wouldn’t surprise me if they change their minds and raise the level cap too.

Until recently, their stance was that they always intended to one day raise the level cap. And as we all know, nothing is off the table.

Ah, my memory doesn’t like me today. It definitely won’t surprise me then.

Mireles Lore.5942:

I disagree with Gaile. Based on the information they provided us and what their intentions were for making these changes, this request is not premature at all. It is even less likely this request will be granted after the fact so it must be made now.

What Gaile was getting at was that we don’t have enough information to be able to
say for 100% certainty that our current gear will become unusable. Also the new system hasn’t been implemented yet so there is absolutely no way you can know what effects the stats change will have on various builds.

One can certainly make guesses basedon available information. But until it’s fully implemented, and more information is released, thats all they will be. Guesses.

It was said when the expansion was released that you did not want to invalidate the players hard work. The decisions of that hard work was based on a system that you are about to knock down with absolutely no warning that this was happening when people were making thier gear. You will invalidate some players hard work. This promise will be broken for some players. It doesn’t matter if anyone thinks these players builds were broken to begin with or not. Decisions were still made on a system that is getting changed.

So they players themselves made gear, and put together a build based on the current mechanics. The mechanics change, so those players should be compensated? Should you be compensated for buying an iphone 4, when the iphone 4s was being released a year later? Should you be compensated for updating adobe that includes new features that weren’t there when you first bought/used the product?
To think so would be ridiculous. Stats, and gear stats are changing, yes. But the gear, and the stats, will still serve the same purpose that they did before the change. The gear isn’t going to stop working. It will still function as it always has, just differently.

Mireles Lore.5942:

I think its reasonable if the entire system in which players based thier gear investment decisions on is being overhauled players should get to overhaul thier gear.

I disagree. People are saying that gear, and builds are going away, and that it’s the death of XYZ build. They say the same thing each time a major update happens. Remember the ferocity change? Everyone was up in arms saying how it was going to kill the meta, and zerker was as good as dead. That it was also going to kill the speed running community, and that they should be compensated accordingly. Guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing at all. No one was compensated. Zerker is still PvE king, dungeon speed clears are still going on (and in some cases setting new records).
There is no reason that I can see to grant stat changes, or compensation, to previous gear do to the change in the stat system.

We don’t know enough. We do know that gear will be getting a stat buff. But thats all we know. Does that mean gear will be getting 4 instead of 3 stats? Or just an increase in numbers? Will they look more like PvP Amulets? Or not? Unless you can answer those with 100% accuracy at this time, anything and everything is theory and conjecture.

Problem is, with the way they hold on to information until things are pretty much done, it is always either too early or too late.

Mireles Lore.5942:

This thread is intended as a reply discussion on what I assume is the official stance on stat change for ascended gear to compensate for the trait and stat system overhaul based on this thread

Gaile Gray.6029:

It’s premature for you to ask for compensation for a system that has not been fully outlined or fully explored by you, as a player. I suggest your consider how long and how much use you got out of your items to reassure yourself you got full value. Also consider how every person who was unhappy with a balance build could make the a similar demand, and realize how unhealthy and unrealistic such a set of demands would be.
Wait for more information, please, before leaping to conclusions or making requests of this nature.

I disagree with Gaile. Based on the information they provided us and what their intentions were for making these changes, this request is not premature at all. It is even less likely this request will be granted after the fact so it must be made now.

This isn’t just a balance patch. The fundamentals of the game are being changed. The eay stats are distributed are being changed. The way we can select and match as well as the number of possible combinations of traits is being changed. Trait locations in trees are being changed in part and entierty. The properties of some traits themselves are being changed. This is not just another balance patch that would make this request unreasonable.

You have given us information. Yes, you stated this is subject to change but one has to assume this is how its going to be. Intentions were stated. We know for a fact some builds are getting destoryed. We know for a fact the effectivness of taking a certain stat line will not be as effective as it used to.

It was said when the expansion was released that you did not want to invalidate the players hard work. The decisions of that hard work was based on a system that you are about to knock down with absolutely no warning that this was happening when people were making thier gear. You will invalidate some players hard work. This promise will be broken for some players. It doesn’t matter if anyone thinks these players builds were broken to begin with or not. Decisions were still made on a system that is getting changed.

I think its reasonable if the entire system in which players based thier gear investment decisions on is being overhauled players should get to overhaul thier gear.

I agree with Gaile, your request is unreasonable and premature.
Giving players the chance to change their stats on ascended is too easily exploitable in an unintended way. Everybody would just use those ascended gear he found and switch it to zerker or celestial.

Just out of curiosity, which build and stat is it that you think will be completely useless after the patch?

Major reason posts like these pop up just about every week.

1) They invested into zerker or celestial gear

2) They think they’re entitled to a refund or Gear reset because “Big bad anet ‘ruined’ your build”

No, your gear isn’t going to be useless. There are 25 combinations of gear, yet zerker gear is the most used gear for a long overdue while, leaving the rest to be piles of gear to be looked at once and tossed in the TP. Anet is finally realizing this and throwing the other gear sets back on line.

From the information released during the 4hr specialization ready-up they did say that baseline stats are getting a boost to compensate for the loss of trait-stats.

As for requesting anything prior to the actual change, yes it is very premature as a lot can and most likely will change while the specialization system is in development. IE: Say they give a baseline change that would give us the equivalent of a max trait line after they refund your armor and mats and you go and make something else…then you would be here on the forums again demanding another refund because you just couldn’t wait.

Wanze.8410:

I agree with Gaile, your request is unreasonable and premature.

Nothing is premature when dealing with a company that has an oppressive silence policy in regards to the future of the game.

shaman.1938:

laokoko.7403:

-snip-

you have to tell me how you make 500g in 10 days ..

I have floated around 40 g for over 2 months and I primarily play PvE ..

they made the time consumption FOR just this set too extreme .. I like to play a game NOT be forced to live a game

not taking a stance on OP’s debate, but I just felt like pointing out that breach-hopping the silverwastes can easily make you ~50g in 4-5 hours (without any remarkably rare drops. While grinding for my ascended I did a lot of that and earnt enough to make 1 piece each day). Not that everyone has that kind of free time, nor does that make 500g any less an endeavor though.

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Also, for those that didn’t pay attention, during that 4 hour AMA they also asked anyone whose build was being destroyed or eliminated to let them know, as it was not their intention to do just that. So, unless you tell the Dev team that your specific build is being utterly ruined, before you’ve even had a chance to see the new numbers on everything, let them know, I’m sure there’s a thread somewhere asking for that information. Then when everything is all said and done and you do get to see the final numbers…come back on here and post how your current build and gear was utterly destroyed beyond use.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Zerker/ Celestial meta.

Also the new system hasn’t been implemented yet so there is absolutely no way you can know what effects the stats change will have on various builds.

I think this sums it up pretty well.

In every mmo i’ve played, and that is a LOT in over 20y , the company producing the game has never revealed everything out of the box before game/expansion release.
De dev’s are clearly reading or are aware of the concerns of the players while developing an expansion, but they have a certain goal/idea in mind.

Players always complain before anything even has been released, so honestly, all the fuss players make now before any definitive decisions are made is kinda pointless.

All the players can do, is voice their opinions and maybe even suggest some valid idea’s that “might” become a consideration for the devs, but that is as far as it goes imo.

There is also the fact that it will still take several months before any expansion is released, so players have enough time to prepare themselves, gather mats and/or gold ingame, so that they can handle any gear change or trait changes that will happen.

Hope for the best, expect the worst, but above all, be prepared.

CodeHavoc.7926:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Zerker/ Celestial meta.

Is there a clear source on this? from what I gather scholar class mobs will want to be countered with power builds like those associated with the zerker meta based on mordrem menders and trolls who are both scholar class mobs.

Celestial is just well rounded and a lot of people speculate being very powerful for general use by the revenant when considering dual aspects like King Jalis + Mallyx, but of course celestial is also heavily dependant on might stacking, is might stacking getting another nerf?

I express my concerns as well in this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-Gear-and-Specializations/first#post5023224

It’s also a massive deal for players who run omni infusions. To say I need another 1500 T6 blood, 600 more passion flowers, and 300 mystic coins is absolutely absurd, and they have already developed systems to resolve this issue and have used them before.

I don’t even care about making new armor; I’ve been pumping out as many of the daily mats as I can in advance. I do care about my ~2000 unavoidable gold spent on omni infusions which cannot even be salvaged.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

CodeHavoc.7926:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Zerker/ Celestial meta.

Is there a clear source on this? from what I gather scholar class mobs will want to be countered with power builds like those associated with the zerker meta based on mordrem menders and trolls who are both scholar class mobs.

Celestial is just well rounded and a lot of people speculate being very powerful for general use by the revenant when considering dual aspects like King Jalis + Mallyx, but of course celestial is also heavily dependant on might stacking, is might stacking getting another nerf?

Just take a look at build videos or build suggestion forums posts. 99% of them either involve zerker or celestial gear. It’s been prominent for mainly PvE and somewhat in WvW.

To answer your second question, im not sure if might is getting another nerf and im not sure if they can completely fix that especially with boon duration hanging around some gear sets. Besides even with the previous nerf people can still stack might with food and other boon duration bonuses (ie, Might duration runes and jewelry)

Still won’t change the fact that zerker will still be the faster way through content, if vulnerability stacking can go past 25 that’s just a huge buff to zerker.

Seriously removing the condi cap in conditions is just another bandaid and only increases the single players dps, Vulnerability raises everyones.

[sarcasm]Vulnerability is now op.[/sarcasm]

I’ve long been a fan of celestial. Not for might stacking, couldn’t care less about that or any kind of meta. I like celestial because it’s the most like GW1 armor. I get it for neutrality. I don’t need to be spreadsheet-optimal to enjoy playing, and I don’t play with people who would demand it. I play to handle my own business as I see fit, not to placate people who don’t understand it’s just a kitten game. All that matters about my gaming experience is that I’m satisfied with it.

I value neutrality because it’s no more weak than it is strong. Basically best suited to “weather any storm” as things change over time. I still very much prefer the GW1 way of doing gear, where this wasn’t even a factor. But the way it’s done in GW2, I decided after my first few differing sets of exotics that I’d rather just stick with celestial, then I’m free to change my build any time, any way, I want, without “the gear issue” even entering the equation. I’m not worried about my build being ruined because “my build” is whatever I feel like making it on a given day.

I’m not one to keep a bunch of different sets for different occasions, especially considering how much of a pain ascended is. So my personal aim is to have just one “solid” set of gear that covers everything well enough and then I don’t have much reason to care what the meta-of-the-month is.

Questions of this sort are not premature in an environment where waiting until everything is set in its final form to make requests means that changes can take months or years for customer concerns to be addressed.

Extreme builds (those whose trait stats and gear stats were mostly the same) will see the least change. The least extreme possibility would be a build that uses one type of gear and trait stats that are completely different. There are a maximum of 1400 stat points from traits — assuming no points into the profession mechanic trait line and all 14 trait points yielding 50 points x 2 stats.

Of those possible 1400 points, 74×4, or 296, are going into the base stats, raising them from 926 to 1000. That leaves a maximum of 1104 points whose fate are in doubt. Of those points, the current system allows for boosts of a max of 300 points per stat.

There are as many as 14 pieces of gear that are going to be boosted. We don’t know at this time how much each major/minor stat will be boosted. The questions, then, become:

• How much will those boosts be? Current answer is, “We don’t know.”
• Are the gear prefix options going to be sufficient to allow players to approximate the stat distribution they currently have? Common sense says, “No,” though some builds are likely to get closer than others.
• Will every non-extreme build be forced to acquire/make an entire new set of gear to approximate their current allocation? Unlikely. Some builds may get there with one piece changing, some with a couple, some with 3, etc. It is extremely unlikely that anyone will have to replace all their gear because the trait lines only offer 300 stat points per stat at the most.
• If there is no reset, will some builds be forced to change out more pieces than others? Most certainly.

After all of that analysis, I’m left with the same conclusions as in prior threads.

1. This is not a balance change, and offering a gear reset would not set a precedent that resets should accompany balance changes. It would be a show of good faith for ANet to offer such a one-time reset.
2. Absent a reset, the impact to any one build is likely to max out at some subset of “all my gear.” For most builds, this is probably going to be a small number of gear pieces. Those thinking, "I’m going to have to redo all my gear!’ are not doing the math.
3. All of these points could change in whole or in part with further reveals.
4. A cleaner solution would be a stat interface offering 1100 stat points to be allocated as a player chooses, with a cap of 300 for any 1 stat. All stats used in trait lines would be represented, other than the profession-specific ones. However, given the ANet stance about the stupidity of their targeted player-base, I very much doubt they’d be willing to do this.

IndigoSundown.5419:

However, given the ANet stance about the stupidity of their targeted player-base, I very much doubt they’d be willing to do this.

Agreed.

As long as Anet insists on viewing their customers as idiots we will, in my opinion, continue to see less flexibility in character creation, not more.

CodeHavoc.7926:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Zerker/ Celestial meta.

And to which stat would you change your celestial or zerker gear, if you had the chance?

Isn’t celestial only primarily used in SPvP, where you don’t need to make the armor anyway?

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Still won’t change the fact that zerker will still be the faster way through content, if vulnerability stacking can go past 25 that’s just a huge buff to zerker.

Seriously removing the condi cap in conditions is just another bandaid and only increases the single players dps, Vulnerability raises everyones.

[sarcasm]Vulnerability is now op.[/sarcasm]

Has it been confirmed that condition caps are being removed across the board and not just on bleed?

CodeHavoc.7926:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

CodeHavoc.7926:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

what gear is being invalidated exactly

Zerker/ Celestial meta.

Is there a clear source on this? from what I gather scholar class mobs will want to be countered with power builds like those associated with the zerker meta based on mordrem menders and trolls who are both scholar class mobs.

Celestial is just well rounded and a lot of people speculate being very powerful for general use by the revenant when considering dual aspects like King Jalis + Mallyx, but of course celestial is also heavily dependant on might stacking, is might stacking getting another nerf?

Just take a look at build videos or build suggestion forums posts. 99% of them either involve zerker or celestial gear. It’s been prominent for mainly PvE and somewhat in WvW.

To answer your second question, im not sure if might is getting another nerf and im not sure if they can completely fix that especially with boon duration hanging around some gear sets. Besides even with the previous nerf people can still stack might with food and other boon duration bonuses (ie, Might duration runes and jewelry)

I believe atleast how I interpreted one of Colin Johanson’s previous interviews with Matt Visual is that the preference is having a large spectrum of options of efficiency that is competitive and that perhaps for the sake of facilitating the encounter that we would consider these various options associated with it. They do not want to invalidate or dismiss the core toolsets associated with the current proxy such as gear stats like berserker or assassins but rather open additional doors for people that prefer a different playstyle like the hard support bunker/shepard role or condition hybrids as evidenced by both additional +outgoing healing modifiers(engie med kit auto attack is a straight heal) in trait lines and the lift of the condition caps in PvE.

Power will still be effective as portrayed by mordrem thrashers that take in increased upfront damage from the rear or the fact that Scholar mordrem mobs have both extremely low armor and low health and are easiliy interrupted like the menders. The desire is to have a proxy in which a wider array of toolsets is considered. Power oriented archetypes will not be cut down, but rather the hope is that everything else’s value will rise to a parallel level for the sake of facilitating the encounter in a group environment(Obviously you’re not gonna heal something to death).

It is extremely unlikely that they will offer compensation. It’s not like they compensate people when they screw with markets or destroy investments overnight.

It would be far more likely that they’d implement a system where instead of tacking on extra stats to gear, they let you choose exactly which stats you want.

Jehuty.1938:

Guild wars 2 is intended to be different than that. Anet said countless times that they want the “journey to be the goal” rather than grinding new stuff to be able to play the new content.

So ArenaNet should offer refunds every time they implement a new stat combo or release a new elite specialization? It is not guaranteed that the stats you have chosen will be ideal forever.

As some one who has three bank tabs of ascended crap, including several unopened boxes who stats do not appeal to me or I have no use for, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let us freely pick new stats lol. As a gamer and a person who has been through nerf/xpacs and changes in all sorts of games for a while now.... get off the "I’m entitled wagon", and jump back down to reality please. There is no reason to change the gear stats.

Remember magic find, it used to be on gear. Even now if you craft certain older recipes in the toilet that were for mf, you can pick your stats. Now that was a reason to choose new stats on gear. Please, get over yourselves and stop posting this nonsense.