Guild Wars 2

Ascended Gear is only accessory based. Infusions are CRAZY expensive, and only provide +5 stats.

The agony resistance is only required in fractal lvl 10 +.

Now to my point:

I don’t expect many casuals to have the time or desire to play fractal 10 +. This is mostly specialized hardcore content, for consistent groupers and experienced players who enjoy challenge.

The genius of what ANET did is this: If you like to run fractals for fun (even with a varied challenge level to 9+) you can. You are not required in any capacity to have agony for these levels. Now if you are wanting to push your limits you can certainly try fractal 10 +, in the meantime you have (at bare minimum) 9 runs to get your potion, and enough fractal points for a scroll. The only thing required at this point is enough mats to produce an infusion from the mystic forge.

BY THE TIME AGONY IS EVEN RELEVENT YOU HAVE RAN FRACTALS ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO CRAFT INFUSIONS with the exception of Karka Shells (which ANet) expects players to play in the new lands.

They have essentially created a dungeon that is both hardcore, and casual.

Good job ANet
Love,
Kether Ryle

You would be right if it weren’t for the fact that infusions have additional stats on them, and not only agony resistance.
Also, I would have no problem with this dungeon if all they did is added infusion place to existing gears, WITHOUT additional stats. There is no point in adding higher-stat gears and infusions with stats for your running the new dungeon (because they have to scale difficulty in the new dungeon to reflect higher stats) except for giving you a carrot to chaise.

Except that ANET said that future content will require Ascended gear and they are going to expand this system. So if you want to experience that new content, you better have agony resist/offense. Chances are, all new dungeons will be Agony based.

You make a point, but that stuff takes time to make yknow. ANet has been pretty good about timing. You best believe they have a bell curve somewhere on expected ETA that average player joe will be ready for additional ascended content. Not to mention you can always purchase infusions from the auction house.

Regardless, the awesomness of their system is respectable to me. Sure they are slightly urging people to buy gems if they lack the time to farm things, but in reality im sure all of their later content will require agony resistance in a similar method to fractals (after pwr lvl 10 +)

They are trying to find the middle ground between their player bases, one group wants to feel progression the other does not. So they meet inbetween, by introducing agony with slightly miniscule stat increases (though to be honest Id like it if infusions were like +2 stat points each making the different even more miniscule)

AND

are catering to the people who run dungeons for fun, and people who expect a kitten hard challenge. Really its a beautiful system.

RhysSebastian.7651:

BY THE TIME AGONY IS EVEN RELEVENT YOU HAVE RAN FRACTALS ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO CRAFT INFUSIONS with the exception of Karka Shells (which ANet) expects players to play in the new lands.

By the time Agony is relevant, you’ll NEVER have the mats to craft an ascended back piece unless you were rich to begin with. Infusions need a piege of gear to be socketed into you know?

You need to run difficulty level 10+ to get the ascended rings.

Infusions have real stats in addition to agony resistance.

The new back slots and infusions use those ever-so-popular “… and 250 t6 mats” style recipes.

Nothing about this setup is “casual-friendly.”

stof.9341:

RhysSebastian.7651:

BY THE TIME AGONY IS EVEN RELEVENT YOU HAVE RAN FRACTALS ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO CRAFT INFUSIONS with the exception of Karka Shells (which ANet) expects players to play in the new lands.

By the time Agony is relevant, you’ll NEVER have the mats to craft an ascended back piece unless you were rich to begin with. Infusions need a piege of gear to be socketed into you know?

On that note, everyone reading the forums make sure you buy your karka shells when you get home while they are cheap.

and back pieces actually drop in the dungeon, I had one drop today.

The genius is that they only added a few items (accessories and backs) for this new level of gear. By doing this, the initial difference between players is relatively minimal.

But when you look ahead at the future, they already said they would introduce more and more items. So in the end you will have a complete set of this gear.

So how much time will it take to collect it then, because new players will be way behind? How long before there are alternate ways of getting this gear, because if you don’t like this fractal dungeon, what can you do?

And they are already talking about level 10 in this? How much grind do you want having to get to level 10 etc. There are a limited amount of fractals at this stage.

On the one hand I doubt it’s enough to keep hardcore players happy for more than a few weeks and a lot of other people will just sit there wondering what to do with this gear progression. There will be a point where it will have a detrimental effect on players in WvW and there will be a push to make it easy to get. And that will then happen as well. In the mean time, I was hoping there was going to be some more content in the horizontal direction but that’s also very small.

But even if it all were to turn out alright for most players. It doesn’t matter to me. I am used to game companies being late with patches and updates and marketing campaigns that exaggerate what their game does. But to do a 180 from what you’ve been advertising for years as your core philosophy is something I am not used to. In that sense Anet have reached a new level of dishonesty that I simply haven’t seen.

So yeh, the are introducing it in the smartest possible way, but I would’ve preferred they had actually openly admitted that they were going a different direction from their own philosophy but that they would do their best to allow more casual players to not be left behind. Still not good but at least honesty would’ve been on their side.

But now they just introduce it and when people get mad about it they slowly bring out ambiguous messages without as much as an acknowledgement that indeed they abandoned their own manifesto. And why else would they do this but revenue?

Either they flat out lied for years hoping to sell copies and then spitting out part of their fans on purpose or it’s a panic reaction to a lot of negative feedback. You could say Anet is displaying a lot of flexibility but it may leave more and more people wondering what exactly they stand for and are trying to do.

Fractals are simply raids reinvented. You don’t just have hard mode but various levels, endless if needed. The fractals gives variation because you will have 3 random ones each session, but in not too much time people will know them. The variety will be of limited time again.

Casuals probably won’t like this as much because it’s doing the same stuff over and over again just the same. After doing this dungeon a few times I suspect that most casuals won’t even get to level 9 or 10. That’s just my expectation, but I think it’s the type of content and not just if it’s easy enough that is the issue.

I think for a game that does gear progression and wants to add another level of insanity to their gear progression, this is probably a really good idea.

Anet actually invented something with these fractals that allows gear progression to the nth degree in a way that is easier for the game company to create.

Not sure if anyone realises that. So genius? Yes, but the evil kind in my point of view.

RhysSebastian.7651:

stof.9341:

RhysSebastian.7651:

BY THE TIME AGONY IS EVEN RELEVENT YOU HAVE RAN FRACTALS ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO CRAFT INFUSIONS with the exception of Karka Shells (which ANet) expects players to play in the new lands.

By the time Agony is relevant, you’ll NEVER have the mats to craft an ascended back piece unless you were rich to begin with. Infusions need a piege of gear to be socketed into you know?

On that note, everyone reading the forums make sure you buy your karka shells when you get home while they are cheap.

and back pieces actually drop in the dungeon, I had one drop today.

Ascended ones? I’ve gotten yellow

Fractals are simply raids reinvented. You don’t just have hard mode but various levels, endless if needed. The fractals gives variation because you will have 3 random ones each session, but in not too much time people will know them. The variety will be of limited time again.

I’m only level 6 and I’m pretty sure I’ve done every mini-dungeon

You make several valid points, but even if it keeps us entertained for a few weeks.. well, thats awesome! We didn’t have to pay for the content, and for a lot of people (like me) who fit the casual hardcore crew, this pretty much ideal.

I mean if you look at their set-up they are marketing hard to people who work for a living and have a slight bit of expendable income.

I mean the same setup is in League of Legends. Runes can make a difference, some runes are more expensive than others. Still at the end of the game, for the most part the better players win the game. Runes are something people can casually work with, or contribute moneyz to get runes more quickly.

ANet is a business, and I can see why some people would be sore.

Still I petition to you, the opposite side of the coin. How come we can’t compromise?

RhysSebastian.7651:

On that note, everyone reading the forums make sure you buy your karka shells when you get home while they are cheap.

and back pieces actually drop in the dungeon, I had one drop today.

I got like, 10 back pieces so far. Did you get one ascended back piece or just some useless rare?

Xpiher.5209:

Except that ANET said that future content will require Ascended gear and they are going to expand this system. So if you want to experience that new content, you better have agony resist/offense. Chances are, all new dungeons will be Agony based.

This.
What we see is the first step of many in the ultimate downfall of this game.

Stof TBH im not sure if I can fit an infusion in it, but I will certainly try when I get home and let you know the results.

However, if there are no dropable infusion equipments (which if they dont) it would only make sense to make some in the future if infusion does become a bit more mainstream.

OOOHHH better yet, why not have infusion based gear drop have a percentage chance to drop in fractal lvl 9?

Well I guess what I better ask to clear this up first is.

Since some people want to feel progression, and ascension gear provides this feeling, and some people dont want to work very hard to get it. Why not provide multiple paths of attaining ascension gear similar to other dungeon tokens?

Also make some ascension gear sellable on the AH. As long as they have alternate methods of attaining the gear, why not have it?

Why cant we both be happy? I like feeling like I can achieve new things, and will you be happy if there is an alternate route of attaining ascension gear such as buying it ect?

Well, you asked for progress and you got served, massive grind on a nice platter of RNG for you. Enjoy.

In all cases, even if I suddenly received ascended stuff in my mailbox when I login next time, I’ll not be happy because I spent too much gold getting multiple exotic sets for various stat builds because I though I’d never need to replace them.

But just to be sure : you cannot get the ascended rings until you complete level 10, and level 10 is the first stage with Agony and without Agony resist it’s practically impossible to complete it right? Anyone can say otherwise?

The problem with crafting these is the T6 item requirement. You’ll never farm these in a reasonable amount of time.

I like how this was supposed to close the gap to legendaries.

You know that progress you were making toward your legendary? Time to toss it in the forge and (partially) start over!

Ballistic.4531:

You would be right if it weren’t for the fact that infusions have additional stats on them, and not only agony resistance.
Also, I would have no problem with this dungeon if all they did is added infusion place to existing gears, WITHOUT additional stats. There is no point in adding higher-stat gears and infusions with stats for your running the new dungeon (because they have to scale difficulty in the new dungeon to reflect higher stats) except for giving you a carrot to chaise.

This. That’s the rub. The new system completely displaced karma and throws exotics under the bus. Mandatory dungeon running to maximize potential SUCKS.

Ahhh, so the solution would be to make it possible for Infusion based gear to be buyable from other players. I mean it would still require you to grind in some way (which we do anyways, for money or for fun) but would still allow people who do not want to run dungeons to remain viable.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

As for the comment about legendaries, I mean legendaries are optional. You arent severly detrimenting any group by not having a legendary. I have some faith that ANET isnt designing dungeons with everyone having a legendary in mind lol. I for one dont have th etime or desire to farm legendaries, I find ascension gear a bit more feasible for me to attain.

Great job on the thread so far guys

Are they adding legendary armor eventually, after all this ascended BS? S that way I can waste more money and time? To hell farming this dungeon without a guarantee that I won’t have to do it again for the new best thing. I’ll wait for legendary armor, since ArenaNet has stated legendary will always be as good as the highest tier. What happened to designing an MMO to be fun, seriously I won’t to know what the are thinking. They continue to lie; the last patch, for example, hardly did anything for the broken classes. They don’t communicate we’ll with their players are care about their opinions. They need to make a video addressing these issues. We haven’t seen any of those since they lied during the game’s development to get more people to play. Now all we get is a brief paragraph that hardly has any application or meaning to said complaints. It just doesn’t make sense.

RhysSebastian.7651:

Ahhh, so the solution would be to make it possible for Infusion based gear to be buyable from other players. I mean it would still require you to grind in some way (which we do anyways, for money or for fun) but would still allow people who do not want to run dungeons to remain viable.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

Yes, thats one way to help fix the issue. The other thing that needs to be done is to make ascend gear drop EVERYWHERE. That way, content isn’t gated in an unreasonable manner.

Yeah I def agree. I mean half the fun in the game is the feeling of attaining things atleast to me so having a barrier (albiet not an impossible one, like farming pyzgin at the ruins in qeynos hills on rallos zek during ruins of kunark) increases the desire to play, as long as its reasonable

Hopefully when they release more Asc gear it’ll be more common, and be no more difficult to get than a full Exo set. I don’t expect that to happen for a few months at the earliest though.

nice try, but those infusions also have stats, and the gear is 20% better than exotic.

RhysSebastian.7651:

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

It’s not a problem with getting more content but the type of content and the repercussions of that type of content.

I would be happy with more content that I enjoy. But not grinding gear so you can do more content to grind more gear to do more content, to grind more gear to do more content.

To me that’s just endless repetition. It’s mind numbing. It’s dumbing down content rather than adding new things and variation. I guess the title 50 shades of grey comes to mind. Never read it but apparently it sells well and the content is crap and the title is very well chosen.

GW2 just added 50 shades of gear progression. Sure they just added the first 2 shades but there’s 48 more coming. And in fact the most exciting part of it, according to themselves is that they can milk, I mean expand upon this endlessly.

So who’s ready for endless shades of grind?

Not me, but apparently many people think it’s the greatest thing since….well, anything you like to insert.

RhysSebastian.7651:

Ahhh, so the solution would be to make it possible for Infusion based gear to be buyable from other players. I mean it would still require you to grind in some way (which we do anyways, for money or for fun) but would still allow people who do not want to run dungeons to remain viable.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

As for the comment about legendaries, I mean legendaries are optional. You arent severly detrimenting any group by not having a legendary. I have some faith that ANET isnt designing dungeons with everyone having a legendary in mind lol. I for one dont have th etime or desire to farm legendaries, I find ascension gear a bit more feasible for me to attain.

Great job on the thread so far guys

ascendants aren’t optional, yet I have to grind dungeons to get them to compete. I hate dungeons. This violates their promise to me that there would be multiple ways to get gear. I would be happy to pay a $30/month sub to avoid this nonsense.

Columba.9730:

RhysSebastian.7651:

Ahhh, so the solution would be to make it possible for Infusion based gear to be buyable from other players. I mean it would still require you to grind in some way (which we do anyways, for money or for fun) but would still allow people who do not want to run dungeons to remain viable.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

As for the comment about legendaries, I mean legendaries are optional. You arent severly detrimenting any group by not having a legendary. I have some faith that ANET isnt designing dungeons with everyone having a legendary in mind lol. I for one dont have th etime or desire to farm legendaries, I find ascension gear a bit more feasible for me to attain.

Great job on the thread so far guys

ascendants aren’t optional, yet I have to grind dungeons to get them to compete. I hate dungeons. This violates their promise to me that there would be multiple ways to get gear. I would be happy to pay a $30/month sub to avoid this nonsense.

Compete with what? If you don’t do dungeons you don’t need this gear, and they haven’t broken any promise about multiple paths. There’s no way in hell I would pay 30$ a month for less content, when I can get great content for free.

Phy.2913:

Columba.9730:

RhysSebastian.7651:

Ahhh, so the solution would be to make it possible for Infusion based gear to be buyable from other players. I mean it would still require you to grind in some way (which we do anyways, for money or for fun) but would still allow people who do not want to run dungeons to remain viable.

Thanks for the insight guys.

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

As for the comment about legendaries, I mean legendaries are optional. You arent severly detrimenting any group by not having a legendary. I have some faith that ANET isnt designing dungeons with everyone having a legendary in mind lol. I for one dont have th etime or desire to farm legendaries, I find ascension gear a bit more feasible for me to attain.

Great job on the thread so far guys

ascendants aren’t optional, yet I have to grind dungeons to get them to compete. I hate dungeons. This violates their promise to me that there would be multiple ways to get gear. I would be happy to pay a $30/month sub to avoid this nonsense.

Compete with what? If you don’t do dungeons you don’t need this gear, and they haven’t broken any promise about multiple paths. There’s no way in hell I would pay 30$ a month for less content, when I can get great content for free.

I need them for WvWvW, those without this gear will get stomped. Fine, don’t pay $30/month. Let some of us pay then and avoid this misery.

If they haven’t broken promises about multiple paths, where are my options to get this stuff without grinding dungeons, which I hate???

Really, WvW. Are people in full exo stomping everyone below 79? Are 80’s in masterwork getting roflstomped?

Just wait. A few patches from now they’ll have to make it easier to get the ascended ring and back piece when they introduce the new ascended gear for the other gear slots. Don’t be a sucker who grinds their life away just for an ascended reward that will be way easier to get later.

Phy.2913:

Really, WvW. Are people in full exo stomping everyone below 79? Are 80’s in masterwork getting roflstomped?

Well, if you don’t know what you are doing in WvWvW, that could happen. Some of us play small group wvwvw.

And when you finally have your backpiece and progress through…get ready for the 250 ectos you need to increase its agony resistance!

Ten98 spelled out the current situation in his post at http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13aqry/now_that_weve_seen_ascended_items_can_we_talk/c72atl6

Pre-Ascended:

• Buy Exotics for Karma.

• Buy Exotics for Gold.

• Earn Exotics through Dungeon tokens in any of 8 different dungeons.

• Earn Exotics through WvW badges.

• Craft Exotics through mob drops / mining.

• Throw rares into Mystic Forge.

Post-Ascended:

• Grind fractals dungeon. A lot.

Xpiher.5209:

Except that ANET said that future content will require Ascended gear and they are going to expand this system. So if you want to experience that new content, you better have agony resist/offense. Chances are, all new dungeons will be Agony based.

Chances are that they will be progressive just like they are now and you wont need the gear until you get to a certain level of progression in the new dungeon…… just pointing out the obvious.

Namu.5712:

Chances are that they will be progressive just like they are now and you wont need the gear until you get to a certain level of progression in the new dungeon…… just pointing out the obvious.

I’m sorry I might be missing something, but how is that obvious?
Chances are once people in GW2 have accepted the treadmill they’ll go and implement it so that you can’t even go near the new dungeon if you are not in full certain set.

RhysSebastian.7651:

I find it surprising so many people are opposed to having more stuff to do in a game though lol. I think i get the picture tho.

people are not so upset about having more to do as you are assuming.

the complaint is more coming from the WvW crowd who see this is a mandatory pve requirement for them to stay up with everyone else.

GW2 was advertised and sold as a pvp game without a gear grind that people who have lives away from their computer could enjoy. Then they throw in a hampster wheel dungeon you are forced to participate in to stay at the top rung of stats in WvW.

It seems to me the most obvious solution is to unhook WvW from pve and treat it as another branch of sPvP instead.

That would still leave the problems of segregation of the player base causing older dungeons and content to become stagnant and unplayable, but those are the problems every pve progression game faces.

At least then pve would not be affecting any facet of pvp.

it would also correct the issues with the last patch reducing certain skills damage in pvp, but then not considering WvW as pvp so these skills are allowed to remain overpowered there.

Ballistic.4531:

Namu.5712:

Chances are that they will be progressive just like they are now and you wont need the gear until you get to a certain level of progression in the new dungeon…… just pointing out the obvious.

I’m sorry I might be missing something, but how is that obvious?
Chances are once people in GW2 have accepted the treadmill they’ll go and implement it so that you can’t even go near the new dungeon if you are not in full certain set.

uhhh because the new dungeon is progressive? you don’t even need the new gear until like level 11 lol.

So why would you think that any new additions wouldn’t follow this trend? Or did you forget they are trying to cater to both, let casuals run the new dungeons with no requirement, while progressive type players that reach a certain progression level will be required to have the gear to move deeper in….

It’s only logical that it follows the same trend that we saw with the introduction of progression dungeons. Again why do you think they would deviate and lock casual players out of pve content and make a gear requirement when the current content introducing the gear makes sure that there is no requirement? What is the basis of your doubt?

Ascended gear will be needed for WvW once more of it from PvE spills into WvW.
It will also be needed for the next PvE content meaning people will have to try and grind to get the first step to be able to see the second step.

What we have here is what many people left other MMOs for.

At least make the lousy gear equally obtainable from crafting or WvW badges so we don’t have to grind the dungeon. I’ve set foot in 4 dungeons so far in this game across multiple characters. I have no interest in doing much more than that.

Namu.5712:

uhhh because the new dungeon is progressive? you don’t even need the new gear until like level 11 lol.

Until being the key word. You still do need it at some point or you are locked out of the content.

Namu.5712:

So why would you think that any new additions wouldn’t follow this trend?

Exactly what I’m thinking. They will follow the same trend and deepen it even more.

Namu.5712:

Or did you forget they are trying to cater to both,

They are doing very poor job atm.

Namu.5712:

let casuals run the new dungeons with no requirement, while progressive type players that reach a certain progression level will be required to have the gear to move deeper in….

Up until this point everything was open to all the players. With this dungeon, if you don’t have certain gear you are locked out of the content. Even you say so. Here I’ll quote it again.

players that reach a certain progression level will be required to have the gear to move deeper in….

Namu.5712:

It’s only logical that it follows the same trend that we saw with the introduction of progression dungeons.

It’s far from being “the only logical” trend. Oh and you call it progression I call it treadmill. But it’s the same thing. Just wanted to get that out in the open.

Namu.5712:

Again why do you think they would deviate and lock casual players out of pve content and make a gear requirement when the current content introducing the gear makes sure that there is no requirement? What is the basis of your doubt?

First of all, they already are locking casual players from certain content, even you said so (I quoted on you on that).
Secondly, they deviated from “publicly advertised philosophy” already so what makes you think they won’t do it again? It’s only logical they will do it again. It’s even easier this time, they never said anything out loud.
Thirdly, they are not catering to both types of players. They are catering to their “most dedicated” ones. (I can’t quote them here, because automatic infraction and post deletion is then imminent – learned that the hard way).

I say we just wait a few weeks. Im certain they will add a different method to acquire similar statted gear, particularly after this overwhelming uber rage performed by the WVW crowd.

Here’s one of the problems I have with this system.

I have 3 -80’ and each of those 80’s was leveled from 40-80 in WvW with an occasional bout of PvE

Now between my three 80’s playing 98% WvW how many T6 mats would estimate I had received ?

Less than a 50 and still 0 on the scales and one of the others, since I haven’t logged in since the Progression gear announces I can’t say which it is

SO to make the new Back piece, since I despise dungeons, I
A) have to go do the dungeon up t some level to get RNG on whatever item it is I need from that Dungeon
B) Now I have to figure out where the heck do tier six mats drop and go farm 250 of not just a total of 250 but 250 of a certain kind
c) now also I either have to buy lvl 74 plus rares and exotics and those disenchant things to get 50 ecto’s and/or go farm all that equipments.

Personally I don’t want to do all that and then have to do all that when the next upgrade of Infusions and/or gear rolls out

I want to do WvW. Ah but wait, this new gear aint that bad 8-16% upgraded stats depending on which side of the arhuement you want to believe.

But what happens when Masterwork and Rare and Ascended and Legendary Infusions roll out, or when they decide to roll out the LEGENDARY ARMOR

Thanks I’ll just stop playing now before they have to introduce some kind of mechanic like resilience for WvW

Gehenna.3625:

TBut to do a 180 from what you’ve been advertising for years as your core philosophy is something I am not used to. In that sense Anet have reached a new level of dishonesty that I simply haven’t seen.

New low. That’s a new one to my bullkitten list regarding gaming companies. Definitely.

You know it would be brilliant if it was confined within the fractals aka giant hamster wheel. But it’s not. WvW will suck more and more from this day and it will eventually be pay 2 win or grind your kitten off to win. Hopefully they were just testing reaction and will change directions, but i doubt it. This week is my last hope. I’ll be insisting on a refund either by agreement or action until then, but my 600+ hours invested and anticipation are gone for good.

I 90% disagree with OP’s post.

First of all they advertised this game to be grind-free which in truth it requires grind just like other mmos.

Secondly while the dungeon is fun there’s the lack of a reconnect feature, they said they’re looking on it but honestly that’s a rather lame reply, the reconnect feature should have been there since the beginning, have they even thought about disconnections and game crash events during the dungeon and how much frustration this causes to the player and the rest of the team?

Third thing, before someone says that they gave us the new content for free let me tell you this. Being an MMO It wouldn’t have seemed reasonable to release a paid content after barely 3 months from release, to give something new to do since an amount of players already started getting bored of the game.

Another thing to keep in mind is ascended gear and infusion. Unless you had the money and materials ready to craft the new backpacks it will seem VERY expensive crafting these.

My main character is a ranger and I like to go with Power, precision and critical damage, now the powerful blood vials cost about 23-24 silver each which in total it would cost around 60g to craft the backpack I want so now do I really have to craft a less expensive backpack (which cost about 20 gold) just to be able to do high level fractals properly and then start from scratch for another, Does this even sound fair? Hell no.

Does ANet even realize how much it takes to farm up 250 of these materials? And to make things worse they don’t have the strongest gear cause there’s infusion next which is ANOTHER 250 ecto grind.

And if this isn’t grindy enough, who can assure us that ANet will not introduce another tier of armor in the future (keep in mind we’re only 3 months in the game, there’s plenty of time ahead).

I spent these 3 months working on my character getting him multiple armor sets and buying runes for each of them cause I was fine in hunting skins and they just waved the “We don’t care” flag just like that.

If this game’s “hard to obtain” objective was a pretty weapon skin hunt like it seemed at the beginning, I’d have had nothing contrary cause it would have kept the game balanced and fair for everyone.

I feel ANet has lied to us and deceived us with sugar coated words. Since the new gear affects WvW as well this move may force some players into using their credit cards to speed up the process. I believe they’re called money schemes, yep.

Even if players are able to do Fractal lvl 10 and 11 without protection, going further will just FORCE you to grind to be able to complete it and ALSO one last thing to take in consideration, did ANet even keep in mind how many players would try to get in groups without having the new gear?

At this point it won’t be long before I lose my patience and eventually ask for a refund, too grindy and disappointing.

Before anyone replies to my comments above , read it all before judging.

Sincerely,
A very disappointed and frustrated player.

Why is the first argument for this stuff out of everybody’s mouth that they’re only 3 accessories? Educate yourself before joining in on a discussion.

They’ve also said that not only will new content use this system but that old content will be rebalanced for the new stats.

You like feeling superior to others based on your time spent rather than your actual ability. I get it. I think it’s a kitten motivation to appeal to in a video game, but sure, I get it.

ArmoredVehicle.2849:

Sincerely,
A very disappointed and frustrated player.

I understand being frustrated and disappointed. I have been disappointed with GW2, too, altho mostly with the farce of When it’s ready™

With the ascended gear, understand that right now if you got all 3 slots with an upgrade, you’ll see about a 2% increase in dps. It is something to work toward, but in no way will your character be kitten if you decide to skip it. The only thing you’ll need it for is pursuing content with Agony (which means you’ll be doing what it takes to get this gear just to deal with Agony).

Best way to make everyone happy and not have to worry about this A) make this gear only viable in dungeons the gear can only be used while in dungeons or make the gear available thru the means they had set up drops from every where (world, wvw, dungeons ect) , karma vendors, badge vendors ect……. having it sellable on ah from people who only run dungeons not viable cuz some dont want to pay a 100g to fatten their bag and/or dont have it (still unreasonable way to acquire new gear)

ASP.8093:

You need to run difficulty level 10+ to get the ascended rings.

Infusions have real stats in addition to agony resistance.

The new back slots and infusions use those ever-so-popular “… and 250 t6 mats” style recipes.

Nothing about this setup is “casual-friendly.”

And that what is killing the game, because one of the initial selling points to Guild Wars 2 was the casual nature of the game, this patch destroys everything that was casual based.

Lets see pugs complete scale 11+ ~ its not going to happen. The gear treadmill will become every more unbalanced, more casual players will quit – hardcore players will eventually quit because WvW will steadily become more and more unbalanced, with less and less people showing up, and finally ~ you’ll have a dead game.

That last paragraph would almost be funny if it wasn’t more or less true right now.