Guild Wars 2

It sounds like the OP’s argument is coming from the position of someone who spends hours a day playing 7 days a week.

What about the players who only log maybe 2-3hrs a night 3-4 days a week? Alt friendly? Hardly.

Where do you think exactly the vast majority of the player base sits? Those that log 30-40hrs a week, or those that log maybe 5-10? This has nothing to do with entitlement, and everything to do with reality. In reality, this game is not Alt friendly.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The current LS system makes this the MOST Alt-unfriendly game I know of. Nothing is really repeatable on many alts given the time gating and account based achievement system.

One small example. In GW1 I was able to do WIK 14 times, for the same reward, on all characters. The “meta” reward was not by account, but by character. The content was/is permanent, and available to be played eventually by any new character created.

Permanent content is alt-friendly. Temporary is not, and you can’t spin it any other way.

I assume you mean the achievements and not the content, because I completed the most recent LS content on every one of my alts. They all went up the Nightmare tower and killed the Hybrid. So how is that unfriendly again? Because I can’t replay it? That has nothing to do with alt-friendliness. If you had one character you still wouldn’t be able to replay it.

I guess it is alt-unfriendly if you have 12+ alts. But with 8 characters I was easily about to get them all to kill hybrid before the 4 weeks was over…. in fact 4 of the characters I did on the same day. So, uh………yea….I guess you can spin it another way.

Azreell.1568:

This game does not offer enough depth or “power” gear progression to keep ‘hardcore" player’s happy.

This point needs to be made more often.

During my hiatus from GW2, I have been beta testing in some other MMORPGs. On the forums for both games there are the inevitable conversations where each person shares their MMORPG history and why they no longer play the games they once did.

A common refrain from former GW2 players is that the game offered no gear progression after level cap. ArenaNet did an about face with their gear plateau vision to try and keep those people, but it failed. They didn’t see the implementation of ascended and say, “Oh, guess I can go back to GW2 and give it another go”.

ArenaNet attempted a compromise, a “best of both worlds” approach, and ended up with the worst of both worlds.

We have gear progression so shallow that it is not going to bring back the players who are used to ever increasing loot tiers, but grindy enough to annoy and frustrate every player who was excited about the idea of a gear plateau.

To everyone who likes to pull out the “You don’t need Ascended to play” card, let me propose an experiment.

Let’s lock [your favorite profession here] from play unless you pay 2000 gems to buy the unlock pack from the Black Lion Trading Company.

You can play all of the game’s content with all of the other professions. WvW is inherently unbalanced so it doesn’t matter what profession any one player is able to play.

[Your favorite profession] will remain unlocked for sPvP regardless of whether you buy the unlock, since sPvP is supposed to be completely balanced.

If you don’t want to spend real money to unlock [your favorite profession] for play, you can always do the work in game to get the 180 gold you’ll need to buy the gems.

Don’t make me chose for one-time rewards (molten gauntlets, gas mask, antitoxin injector etc) between my characters.

That would be my personal pet peeve in regards to alt – a process that I do not find fun or engaging.

Other things might not be practical, because expensive, but the option is technically there – so I am not going to question that.

DeadlySynz.3471:

It sounds like the OP’s argument is coming from the position of someone who spends hours a day playing 7 days a week.

What about the players who only log maybe 2-3hrs a night 3-4 days a week? Alt friendly? Hardly.

Where do you think exactly the vast majority of the player base sits? Those that log 30-40hrs a week, or those that log maybe 5-10? This has nothing to do with entitlement, and everything to do with reality. In reality, this game is not Alt friendly.

You described my playing habits almost perfectly. About 10hrs/week, maybe 15/week if I feel like getting crazy on the weekends. I still find this game to be the most alt friendly of any MMO I’ve ever played. Ever. I did not play GW1 and heard it was alt-friendlier, but come on. The only thing that would make it friendlier would be account bound instead of soul bound items, and apparently making laurels acquirable per character. That’s it.

We’re literally arguing over a game that is 95% alt friendly and saying it isn’t alt-friendly at all because it isn’t 100% alt friendly.

Post edited by moderator

Draknar.5748:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The current LS system makes this the MOST Alt-unfriendly game I know of. Nothing is really repeatable on many alts given the time gating and account based achievement system.

One small example. In GW1 I was able to do WIK 14 times, for the same reward, on all characters. The “meta” reward was not by account, but by character. The content was/is permanent, and available to be played eventually by any new character created.

Permanent content is alt-friendly. Temporary is not, and you can’t spin it any other way.

I assume you mean the achievements and not the content, because I completed the most recent LS content on every one of my alts. They all went up the Nightmare tower and killed the Hybrid. So how is that unfriendly again? Because I can’t replay it? That has nothing to do with alt-friendliness. If you had one character you still wouldn’t be able to replay it.

I guess it is alt-unfriendly if you have 12+ alts. But with 8 characters I was easily about to get them all to kill hybrid before the 4 weeks was over…. in fact 4 of the characters I did on the same day. So, uh………yea….I guess you can spin it another way.

And the character you create next week? Good luck. And that is the difference. All alts.. not current alts. The freedom and ability to play added permanent content as you create and level alts over the life of a game.

So.. what did you do with the 8 meta rewards…. oh, thats right.. you didn’t get 8. You got one. How did sharing the reward out among 8 characters go for you?

nirvana.8245:

Seveleniumus.5973:

I’m really tired of reading all these threads of endless complains how gw2 is not alt friendly. All currencies are account bound, you don’t need to level for pvp, you’re up scaled in WvW, we have down scaling system in PvE, we have experience scrolls, we have tomes of knowledge, we have scrolls of knowledge, now we got account bound fractal level and soon – account bound WvW levels, how is that not alt friendly?
In many MMO’s when you create a new character, you start from SCRATCH, sure it can always be more alt friendly and it is definitely getting there, in any case, at least for me, this is one of the most alt friendly games I have ever played.

Make it so Laurels are acquired on a per character basis, not an acquirement per account over time, and I’ll stop complaining

Why only laurels. All jumping puzzles including the WvW ones and basically all other stuff you can do should be character base.

In addition remove the gold-driven (or currency-driven) game-play. Because gold is everything and you get better drops so more gold on lvl 80 chars.

Changing those two thinks would help a lot to make the game alt friend. It’s not now.

One specific example of how the game became less alt-friendly.
SAB. The first time you could do it with all your characters and get rewarded for them all. So I levels all my alts in SAB to the max. All having 99 lives, all weapons and unlocks.
Then SAB came back and they changed it to only reward you once per account per day. Needless to say that I did not level all my alts that time. Only my main is has everything from world 2 unlockt. My alts only that from world 1.

The game started alt friendly but has become less and less alt friendly overtime. Sadly the general quality of the game has gone down overtime.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Draknar.5748:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The current LS system makes this the MOST Alt-unfriendly game I know of. Nothing is really repeatable on many alts given the time gating and account based achievement system.

One small example. In GW1 I was able to do WIK 14 times, for the same reward, on all characters. The “meta” reward was not by account, but by character. The content was/is permanent, and available to be played eventually by any new character created.

Permanent content is alt-friendly. Temporary is not, and you can’t spin it any other way.

I assume you mean the achievements and not the content, because I completed the most recent LS content on every one of my alts. They all went up the Nightmare tower and killed the Hybrid. So how is that unfriendly again? Because I can’t replay it? That has nothing to do with alt-friendliness. If you had one character you still wouldn’t be able to replay it.

I guess it is alt-unfriendly if you have 12+ alts. But with 8 characters I was easily about to get them all to kill hybrid before the 4 weeks was over…. in fact 4 of the characters I did on the same day. So, uh………yea….I guess you can spin it another way.

And the character you create next week? Good luck. And that is the difference. All alts.. not current alts. The freedom and ability to play added permanent content as you create and level alts over the life of a game.

So.. what did you do with the 8 meta rewards…. oh, thats right.. you didn’t get 8. You got one. How did sharing the reward out among 8 characters go for you?

Ok now we’re talking about temporary versus permanent content and not alt-friendliness. Anet is trying a new paradigm with this temporary content. It will clearly be different than other games that only do permanent. I happen to like the temporary stuff because it actually feels like the game is evolving. Other people don’t. I don’t really care about the rewards, and more often than not they end up in my bank doing nothing. I did it for the content, not the rewards. Also the experience, because it was pretty decent experience in that tower to level up.

Plus I’m already on the record saying I support account bound items over soul bound. Which sounds like it would solve a lot of your issues. Except your disapproval of temporary content. But that’s a separate discussion. It’s temporary. New alts, existing alts, main character, none of them can repeat it. You can’t make the argument that temp content isn’t alt friendly because you can’t repeat it once its gone, that’s true for every character, alt or not. That’s the whole point of temporary content. But all of the content can be experienced by all of your alts while it is available. I personally would prefer meta reward skins be put into the achievement skins category as most seem to as well.

The fact that my level 26 character was able to do the LS at all is alt friendly. The fact he could progress the achievements for my account is alt-friendly. The fact he can gather key pieces and access the chest (or give the key pieces to another one of my characters) is alt-friendly. The fact that my main or my alts can’t access the Nightmare tower anymore? Has nothing to do with alt-friendliness.

Asia Skyly.7198:

Draknar.5748:

Asia Skyly.7198:

I feel that GW1 was a lot more alt friendly, but that is just me.

I didn’t play GW1, did they do account bound only items instead of soulbound?

GW1 had a mixed mechanic. Armor was soulbound to the character, but it was super, super cheap to get BiS gear. Once you had level 20 armor, you were done. The quest turned into a quest of not looking like a scrub.

For weapons they had something called customization. Weapons can be passed from one character to the next however customizing the weapon to a character would “soulbind” it to said character, and that weapon would do an additional 20% damage. 20% extra damage was the price of making the weapon soulbound. IN GW2 is simply a penalty.

Isn’t it the same here?

Ascended armor is better than exotics, but by a marginal amount that is basically negligible. Exotics pretty much get handed to you for doing anything in the game: as long as you didn’t get to level 80 by crafting, you’ll probably have exotics.

Additional 20% damage is huge. I can’t see anyone who would forgo 20% for the option of passing a weapon unto another character.

Draknar.5748:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Draknar.5748:

Asia Skyly.7198:

I feel that GW1 was a lot more alt friendly, but that is just me.

I didn’t play GW1, did they do account bound only items instead of soulbound?

GW1 had a mixed mechanic. Armor was soulbound to the character, but it was super, super cheap to get BiS gear. Once you had level 20 armor, you were done. The quest turned into a quest of not looking like a scrub.

For weapons they had something called customization. Weapons can be passed from one character to the next however customizing the weapon to a character would “soulbind” it to said character, and that weapon would do an additional 20% damage. 20% extra damage was the price of making the weapon soulbound. IN GW2 is simply a penalty.

Well, aside from BiS being super easy to get as of today, it actually sounds pretty close to what GW2 has going on. That customization thing sounds like a form “Soulbound on Use”.

Although I don’t understand quite what you mean. The soulbound weapons did 20% more damage, but 20% damage was also the price of making it soulbound? Am I reading that wrong.

The main difference between customizing a weapon and soulbound on use is that you could use the weapon for as long as you wished before selling it to another player without ever customizing it. If you were using it in PvP you’d definitely want to customize, otherwise, depending on your profession and build you might never customize at all.

equip-able armor did not drop from mobs; armor had to be purschased from a vendor and was soulbound on acquire. However, armor could cost a very small amount or be incredibly expensive depending only on the looks of the pieces. I could have a set that cost 1,500 gold or a set that cost a million gold (obsidian) that provided exactly the same protection. In GW1 you never had to grind for gear, and absolutely nothing was time-gated.

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category.

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Some how, I think aNet lost it’s way.

galandor.1059:

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category.

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Some how, I think aNet lost it’s way.

Legendary weapons are no more powerful than available Ascended weapons. The same will be true when Legendary armors are released.

Astralporing.1957:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Astralporing.1957:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

morrolan.9608:

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

But here’s the catch. You don’t have to grind.

Ah yes, another fallback position, used when there’s no real arguments addressing the problem. Yes, i don’t have to. It doesn’t change the fact that it is alt unfriendly. Extremely alt unfriendly, in fact.

The fact that you bring up non-existent problems pretty much highlight my side of the argument. This game allows you to gear and play all the alts you have.

People want BiS gear, but don’t like the requirements. That’s fine. You can have the tier right below it. Exotics aren’t much different stat wise, and are much cheaper. Very alt friendly.

Yes, yes, i understand your argument well. GW2 is very alt-friendly. Unless i actually want to have alts, and play the game. But hey, i don’t need to, so it’s okay.

That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.

THAT is the problem.

stale.9785:

That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.

THAT is the problem.

What? You don’t like the bait and switch?

stale.9785:

That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.

THAT is the problem.

Casuals all have access to BiS gear. Nothing prevents them from having everything this game offers.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

galandor.1059:

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category.

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.” -Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Some how, I think aNet lost it’s way.

Legendary weapons are no more powerful than available Ascended weapons. The same will be true when Legendary armors are released.

Funny, in all replies you are ignoring the main point …
Tell me that making ascended is not grind. Make my day.

I have 8 80s. All with 100% exotics and full map completion. I spent a lot of time for this but it was fun enough. Making ascended is just a stupid grind. You are not completing quests, your are not exploring. You just grind for material like a robot. After making 1 ascended I quit playing realizing that I’m not going to do this for all my alts.

Not having BiS gear is not an option. This was GW2 manifesto and one of the MAIN reason I bought this game and spent money for gems. To be sincere it should be a reason for money back like with “Aliens: Colonian marines” title. Product now is not as it was advertised. Period.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

stale.9785:

That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.

THAT is the problem.

Casuals all have access to BiS gear. Nothing prevents them from having everything this game offers.

Once again you are avoiding main point. BiS gear without significant grind.

WRay.2391:

Funny, in all replies you are ignoring the main point …
Tell me that making ascended is not grind. Make my day.

I have 8 80s. All with 100% exotics and full map completion. I spent a lot of time for this but it was fun enough. Making ascended is just a stupid grind. You are not completing quests, your are not exploring. You just grind for material like a robot. After making 1 ascended I quit playing realizing that I’m not going to do this for all my alts.

Not having BiS gear is not an option. This was GW2 manifesto and one of the MAIN reason I bought this game and spent money for gems. To be sincere it should be a reason for money back like with “Aliens: Colonian marines” title. Product now is not as it was advertised. Period.

There’s a difference between “WANT” and “NEED”. You admit that you “want” to have BiS. And as you want this gear, Anet provides you ways of getting it. “BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.

Anet promised no grind, and they delivered. No where am I forced to grind. I choose to grind. Being it’s my own decision to play content over and over, I reap the rewards with the sacrifice of time.

BiS gear gives end game players a goal. The gates on Ascended provide a means of an extended goal that’s reachable with effort. Not having access to everything and anything for all your alts within one day does not mean you can’t ever have it. Just as Legendary weapons were meant to take time as BiS and best in looks, so do Ascended weapons and armors (minus the special looks).

DeadlySynz.3471:

It sounds like the OP’s argument is coming from the position of someone who spends hours a day playing 7 days a week.

What about the players who only log maybe 2-3hrs a night 3-4 days a week? Alt friendly? Hardly.

Where do you think exactly the vast majority of the player base sits? Those that log 30-40hrs a week, or those that log maybe 5-10? This has nothing to do with entitlement, and everything to do with reality. In reality, this game is not Alt friendly.

I play about 1-2 hours a day in average. I took a break in a middle of the year for two months. I have alt for each prof. 3 of them are lv 80, fully geared, with ascended accessories and I almost have my first legendary.

If you say that this game isn’t alt-friendly then you haven’t seen alt-unfriendly games.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

“BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.

You are really stuck in the model of other games as if there are no alternatives to that old, dated and tired model. There are!!!

Having the best in slot gear statistically (vertical progression) does not mean having the best looking gear possible (horizontal).

I played GW1 for over 10,000 hours. Never did I feel getting the Best In Slot Gear took away my need to do content. BiS gear in GW1 was practically given away for free. What it did however, was promote build diversity and experimentation. Going through the same content with totally different optimized builds was a great deal of fun.

Progressing vertically is not a substitute for good and challenging content. This game lacks the later, which is why vertical progression seems absurd. Stop defending Vertical progression as if it was the only way to play the game.

Draknar.5748:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The current LS system makes this the MOST Alt-unfriendly game I know of. Nothing is really repeatable on many alts given the time gating and account based achievement system.

One small example. In GW1 I was able to do WIK 14 times, for the same reward, on all characters. The “meta” reward was not by account, but by character. The content was/is permanent, and available to be played eventually by any new character created.

Permanent content is alt-friendly. Temporary is not, and you can’t spin it any other way.

I assume you mean the achievements and not the content, because I completed the most recent LS content on every one of my alts. They all went up the Nightmare tower and killed the Hybrid. So how is that unfriendly again? Because I can’t replay it? That has nothing to do with alt-friendliness. If you had one character you still wouldn’t be able to replay it.

I guess it is alt-unfriendly if you have 12+ alts. But with 8 characters I was easily about to get them all to kill hybrid before the 4 weeks was over…. in fact 4 of the characters I did on the same day. So, uh………yea….I guess you can spin it another way.

please back off your statement shows you don’t understand yea you can go kill it with each character big whoops in gw1 you could go kill any boss you wanted with all of your character oh and guess what PERMANENT not 4 weeks. oh and the hybrid if it was a meta achievement you only got that once gw1 you got it each and every single time not just the first time and the rest was just boss chest drop for killing it. thank you

Smooth Penguin.5294:

WRay.2391:

Funny, in all replies you are ignoring the main point …
Tell me that making ascended is not grind. Make my day.

I have 8 80s. All with 100% exotics and full map completion. I spent a lot of time for this but it was fun enough. Making ascended is just a stupid grind. You are not completing quests, your are not exploring. You just grind for material like a robot. After making 1 ascended I quit playing realizing that I’m not going to do this for all my alts.

Not having BiS gear is not an option. This was GW2 manifesto and one of the MAIN reason I bought this game and spent money for gems. To be sincere it should be a reason for money back like with “Aliens: Colonian marines” title. Product now is not as it was advertised. Period.

There’s a difference between “WANT” and “NEED”. You admit that you “want” to have BiS. And as you want this gear, Anet provides you ways of getting it. “BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.

Anet promised no grind, and they delivered. No where am I forced to grind. I choose to grind. Being it’s my own decision to play content over and over, I reap the rewards with the sacrifice of time.

BiS gear gives end game players a goal. The gates on Ascended provide a means of an extended goal that’s reachable with effort. Not having access to everything and anything for all your alts within one day does not mean you can’t ever have it. Just as Legendary weapons were meant to take time as BiS and best in looks, so do Ascended weapons and armors (minus the special looks).

It’s not about I want and need. It’s what about I was paying for. There is no NEED in the game. You can be lvl 10 and play in low lvl areas, you just WANT to go to hi lvl areas. Any statement can be neglected with this. Game was advertised to not make ppl grind to achieve what they WANT if it has stat advantage. They failed.

P.S. End game playing starts after you have BiS gear, your are doing it wrong, man.

Asia Skyly.7198:

Progressing vertically is not a substitute for good and challenging content. This game lacks the later, which is why vertical progression seems absurd. Stop defending Vertical progression as if it was the only way to play the game.

Whoa now. I definitely have to address this. You say there’s no good and challenging content? World bosses like Tequatl, FotM, and Guild Missions are available. Not to mention Jumping Puzzles that make me cry. If you choose not to do some of the challenging or elite content, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in game.

That is, unless you play with a team of pro players that make the challenging content seem smooth like butter.

WRay.2391:

P.S. End game playing starts after you have BiS gear, your are doing it wrong, man.

P.S. – End game starts when you finish your personal story, and reach lv 80. But technically, there’s no real end game anymore, since the Living Story provides endless new content.

Asia Skyly.7198:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

“BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.

You are really stuck in the model of other games as if there are no alternatives to that old, dated and tired model. There are!!!

Having the best in slot gear statistically (vertical progression) does not mean having the best looking gear possible (horizontal).

I played GW1 for over 10,000 hours. Never did I feel getting the Best In Slot Gear took away my need to do content. BiS gear in GW1 was practically given away for free. What it did however, was promote build diversity and experimentation. Going through the same content with totally different optimized builds was a great deal of fun.

Progressing vertically is not a substitute for good and challenging content. This game lacks the later, which is why vertical progression seems absurd. Stop defending Vertical progression as if it was the only way to play the game.

I agree I had best in slot armor and weapons at lvl 1 with my mesmer in gw1 but I do want stat wise best but I mainly focus on the appearance(horizontal) so I was always seeking the elite armors the 15k each piece armor with my dervish I sought after obsidian armor and as a semi casual since I have a life and job took me 4 years to get because there was still so many other things to get and do before getting it and I enjoyed every day of the 4 year journey to it in gw2 legendaries is what we want because it’s the best stat and visual wise. took me a year to get twilight and i hated every moment of it no real diversity in the game like in gw1 we got a kick out of “clearing” the zones killing everything and finding all of the chests in it. i even enjoyed the running aspect when i didnt have time to do dungeons and such that’s how I also made money running to different towns that people paid for to get armor skills or particular quest that they wanted or wanted to do.

Edit: with that said that makes gw2 alt unfriendly if you ask me in terms of not being able to immediately put on best in slot stat wise armor if you have the exp or coin to get to it and or buy it.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

That is, unless you play with a team of pro players that make the challenging content seem smooth like butter.

This; and you don’t even need to be pro players. Coordinated, yes, pro, hardly.

Asia Skyly.7198:

Coordinated, yes, pro, hardly.

One could argue that those two go hand in hand.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Progressing vertically is not a substitute for good and challenging content. This game lacks the later, which is why vertical progression seems absurd. Stop defending Vertical progression as if it was the only way to play the game.

Whoa now. I definitely have to address this. You say there’s no good and challenging content? World bosses like Tequatl, FotM, and Guild Missions are available. Not to mention Jumping Puzzles that make me cry. If you choose not to do some of the challenging or elite content, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in game.

That is, unless you play with a team of pro players that make the challenging content seem smooth like butter.

WRay.2391:

P.S. End game playing starts after you have BiS gear, your are doing it wrong, man.

P.S. – End game starts when you finish your personal story, and reach lv 80. But technically, there’s no real end game anymore, since the Living Story provides endless new content.

not true end game is after you are 80 period ps has nothing to do with it nor does equipment but bis equipment makes it more enjoyable and I have done EVERY jumping puzzle not hard teq isnt hard just requires coordination fotm got old after the first 3 months of it and the new fractal sucks I wanted gnashblades guild missions u get rewarded for once a week and it isnt hard if you have distinct leaders that lay out a plan rather than just running in like morons. your argument is invalid you just go about all of them the wrong way that’s why u think they are hard

I could be the worst player in the game and just simply KNOW the events or missions and be able to coordinate a team easily u can auto attack and win most of the time heck that’s basically all you do with teq set skill to spam in a coordinated attempt when he is stunned face roll your keyboard for dps and back up where is the skill in that?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3

Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses?

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.

THIS. Current Ascended/Vertical Progression is in complete defiance of the above. Saying Ascended is alt-friendly is absurd. It is absurd for casual/normal people who happen to want more than 1 build, or when Anet decides to radically alter classes, like the Dec 10th balance patch.

While some other aspects of the game cater to alts, the game is far from being truly alt-friendly. Comparing it to other games doesn’t really work. Saying it is better here, be happy; is like telling you to drink Anti-Freeze instead of Cyanide. Both will kill you, you’ll just last longer.

It’s Optional: Until it isn’t. How long until players/content start clamoring for the new gear? Players have already started with the elitist junk, just check LFG. The system needing your agony or some other new resist WILL make its way into the world, its just a question of WHEN.

Gibson.4036:

ArenaNet attempted a compromise, a “best of both worlds” approach, and ended up with the worst of both worlds.

We have gear progression so shallow that it is not going to bring back the players who are used to ever increasing loot tiers, but grindy enough to annoy and frustrate every player who was excited about the idea of a gear plateau.

This is spot on, someone made a posts a week or 2 ago about how the standard vertical progression systems in most mmos are actually better than in GW2 because they are less time consuming and frustrating.

EgonVenkman.1907:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-27-guild-wars-2-preview?page=3

Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses?

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.

THIS. Current Ascended/Vertical Progression is in complete defiance of the above. Saying Ascended is alt-friendly is absurd. It is absurd for casual/normal people who happen to want more than 1 build, or when Anet decides to radically alter classes, like the Dec 10th balance patch.

While some other aspects of the game cater to alts, the game is far from being truly alt-friendly. Comparing it to other games doesn’t really work. Saying it is better here, be happy; is like telling you to drink Anti-Freeze instead of Cyanide. Both will kill you, you’ll just last longer.

It’s Optional: Until it isn’t. How long until players/content start clamoring for the new gear? Players have already started with the elitist junk, just check LFG. The system needing your agony or some other new resist WILL make its way into the world, its just a question of WHEN.

yea and I doubt many posting here know how much time goes into just agony resist then if you want a good agony resist costs you and arm and a leg to craft in the forge and that’s just 1 now with armor and weapons easy to add another what 8+ infusions needed? may as well make a legendary rather than get good infusions it will come out cheaper

Mackdose.6504:

Let’s assume that they removed the time-gate.

Now we have threads about how those with more time to play are “getting catered to” because the grind can be done in marathon mode. Now the game is casual-unfriendly.

No way to win.

It’s already casual-unfriendly. As someone already mentioned, it is newbie-friendly, but past a certain point it suddenly changes into something completely different. And that sudden change makes the inevitable grind all the more painful.

the grind comes from horizontal grind mainly due to rng because gw2 hates a set way to get things unless it costs you 300000000 gold take legendaries for example I put in 9000 exotic greatswords and never saw dusk or dawn(forge) i spent 3 months doing the dragons never saw a pre had a life and job that stopped me from the one garunteed chance Karka so yea casual friendly no alt friendly no kitten friendly(or scammer) ohhhh YES. see they announced the game that it would be community oriented and players would rather be forced to help eachother but yea we saw how that turned out everyone is about them I helped when and with what I could and still do ask anyone that knows me on the game I have away 2 taeres’s shadows when they were first introduced and valued at over 350g and I’ve bought a few people commander after I finished my twilight since then I stopped playing cause soon after I managed to get Hunter and finished predator and I was done.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Draknar.5748:

Asia Skyly.7198:

I feel that GW1 was a lot more alt friendly, but that is just me.

I didn’t play GW1, did they do account bound only items instead of soulbound?

GW1 had a mixed mechanic. Armor was soulbound to the character, but it was super, super cheap to get BiS gear. Once you had level 20 armor, you were done. The quest turned into a quest of not looking like a scrub.

For weapons they had something called customization. Weapons can be passed from one character to the next however customizing the weapon to a character would “soulbind” it to said character, and that weapon would do an additional 20% damage. 20% extra damage was the price of making the weapon soulbound. IN GW2 is simply a penalty.

Isn’t it the same here?

Ascended armor is better than exotics, but by a marginal amount that is basically negligible. Exotics pretty much get handed to you for doing anything in the game: as long as you didn’t get to level 80 by crafting, you’ll probably have exotics.

Additional 20% damage is huge. I can’t see anyone who would forgo 20% for the option of passing a weapon unto another character.

A new GW1 player can attain the best gear before reaching the level cap within a day. So no, it’s not even close to being the same. As far as customizing goes, you might think twice if that weapon was selling for a good chunk of gold.

Gibson.4036:

During my hiatus from GW2, I have been beta testing in some other MMORPGs. On the forums for both games there are the inevitable conversations where each person shares their MMORPG history and why they no longer play the games they once did.

A common refrain from former GW2 players is that the game offered no gear progression after level cap. ArenaNet did an about face with their gear plateau vision to try and keep those people, but it failed. They didn’t see the implementation of ascended and say, “Oh, guess I can go back to GW2 and give it another go”.

ArenaNet attempted a compromise, a “best of both worlds” approach, and ended up with the worst of both worlds.

We have gear progression so shallow that it is not going to bring back the players who are used to ever increasing loot tiers, but grindy enough to annoy and frustrate every player who was excited about the idea of a gear plateau.

This is the crux of the matter. All of the arguments for and against Ascended boil down to expectations. For some, those expectations were based on the experience of GW1 and the pre-launch advertising. For others, the expectations are based on the rationale, “Because it’s an MMO.”

The former group is always going to look at GW2 as alt-unfriendly gear-wise because they are comparing it not only to GW, but also to the way GW2 was at launch, before ANet adopted the Ascended compromise that displeased both GW players who liked the idea of a “gear plateau,” as Gibson puts it, and the traditional MMO fan who wanted the whole raid/gear ball of wax. The only demographic pleased by Ascended are those who want something to “work” for to motivate them to play.

Xae I would because the Literal only weapons I customized were those that went into the HOM because well that was the cost of getting HoM points with said weapon and Dhuums Soul Reaper(a scythe) because as I could use scythe on my war or assassin as well the slower attack speed compared to daggers or sword on my thief wasnt viable and it just made my derv look even more bad kitten with obby armor and Dhuum’s.

content motivates me to play not gear in vertical progression changing my look motivates me to play add new and differing skins with new content and you will keep MANY players and gain many too I could be called a skin kitten I always wanted/want what I think looks cool but its the content I have to do to get it that will keep me and atm gw2 is grind fest champ training that kitten es me off and makes me want to break my freaking monitor and commit suicide

Seveleniumus.5973:

I’m really tired of reading all these threads of endless complains how gw2 is not alt friendly. All currencies are account bound, you don’t need to level for pvp, you’re up scaled in WvW, we have down scaling system in PvE, we have experience scrolls, we have tomes of knowledge, we have scrolls of knowledge, now we got account bound fractal level and soon – account bound WvW levels, how is that not alt friendly?
In many MMO’s when you create a new character, you start from SCRATCH, sure it can always be more alt friendly and it is definitely getting there, in any case, at least for me, this is one of the most alt friendly games I have ever played.

GW2 is not alt friendly, I will now counter your points.

If you’re upscaled in WvW you’re going to get pwnt, end of story. bad armor, bad weapons, no good runes/sigils, not even a full build.

We just barely got level up scrolls, up until THIS patch where now they are available to those who pvp constantly. And really available ONLY to spvp players.

Account bound fractal level but still need to farm farm farm for rings earrings amulets, and backpieces for alts.

Account bound WvW levels hasn’t happened yet, so it cannot be discussed if we are talking about the present.

Now lets add to it:

Extreme expense to gear up alts, and multiple builds for your characters. With ascended weapons, and now ascended armor, it’s near impossible for an average wealth player.

Can’t swap runesets in gear, must have a completely separate gearset with different runes, same with weapons/sigils. Can double or triple your costs and time.

It will absolutely help when ranks are account bound, It’s one of the main things that deters me from playing 90% of my characters. But it’s still got work before it can be dubbed alt-friendly.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Seveleniumus.5973:

I’m really tired of reading all these threads of endless complains how gw2 is not alt friendly. All currencies are account bound, you don’t need to level for pvp, you’re up scaled in WvW, we have down scaling system in PvE, we have experience scrolls, we have tomes of knowledge, we have scrolls of knowledge, now we got account bound fractal level and soon – account bound WvW levels, how is that not alt friendly?
In many MMO’s when you create a new character, you start from SCRATCH, sure it can always be more alt friendly and it is definitely getting there, in any case, at least for me, this is one of the most alt friendly games I have ever played.

GW2 is not alt friendly, I will now counter your points.

If you’re upscaled in WvW you’re going to get pwnt, end of story. bad armor, bad weapons, no good runes/sigils, not even a full build.

We just barely got level up scrolls, up until THIS patch where now they are available to those who pvp constantly. And really available ONLY to spvp players.

Account bound fractal level but still need to farm farm farm for rings earrings amulets, and backpieces for alts.

Account bound WvW levels hasn’t happened yet, so it cannot be discussed if we are talking about the present.

Now lets add to it:

Extreme expense to gear up alts, and multiple builds for your characters. With ascended weapons, and now ascended armor, it’s near impossible for an average wealth player.

Can’t swap runesets in gear, must have a completely separate gearset with different runes, same with weapons/sigils. Can double or triple your costs and time.

It will absolutely help when ranks are account bound, It’s one of the main things that deters me from playing 90% of my characters. But it’s still got work before it can be dubbed alt-friendly.

I’ll counter this too. GW2 is alt-friendly, where as you can easily gear any and all your character with Exotics, and play the game the same as if you had Ascended gear.

It’s not alt-friendly to you because you set such high demands for multiple BiS armors and weapon sets, that the average player doesn’t carry. Because of this self inflicted demand you put on, you’re basically forcing yourself to go beyond the gates that the game has in place That’s not a problem with game design. That’s living beyond your means.

Stop ignoring the fact that the reason we want BiS to be a given and not a reward is because that’s exactly what Anet sold the game to us with. It’s the principle, not the numbers, that enrage people. Stats are not a reward and should never be a reward, because if they are you stop playing a game and start just pressing buttons to watch numbers go up and that kind of rubbish is the reason I ditched WoW for GW2.

As for stats not mattering, sure in pveasy you can just run through everything blindfolded in whites but wvw is pvp and pvp with power creep, no matter how small, is bad pvp-no exceptions.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ll counter this too. GW2 is alt-friendly, where as you can easily gear any and all your character with Exotics, and play the game the same as if you had Ascended gear.

This is inaccurate.

Ashen.2907:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I’ll counter this too. GW2 is alt-friendly, where as you can easily gear any and all your character with Exotics, and play the game the same as if you had Ascended gear.

This is inaccurate.

It’s inaccurate that you can play with Exotics the same as if you had Ascended? Quite the opposite, as you can. My argument is supported by facts, so it is accurate.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s inaccurate that you can play with Exotics the same as if you had Ascended? Quite the opposite, as you can. My argument is supported by facts, so it is accurate.

You are mistaken for a couple of reasons:

1) The results are not the same and so the conditions are not the same. If you hit for more damage with ascended than with exotics the play is not the same. If you meant, “similar,” rather than, “the same,” you might have been correct. As it stands the facts contradict your statement.

2) It is not play without best in slot gear for some people. This means that they are not playing if using exotics rather than ascended. If having ascended means they are playing while having exotics means they are not playing, by definition those two situations are not the, “same.” Playing is not the same as not playing.

Wow this thread….

“Hur no you can paly teh game with just exotixsss” Plays open world content and casual dungeon runs

“I NEED BIS NAO” Plays WvW competitively and/or takes fractals srsly

…….

I’m more of the BIS NAO category…because I play this game mode…some of you may have heard of it. It’s called WvW…

As frequently as they keep changing class balance, they really ought to also make the ability to gear into BIS easy enough to keep up with the constantly changing meta.

I’m not going to rehash points already made ad nauseam. It’s obvious that for people who take the game seriously, and play competitively, it is currently far too time consuming to appropriately gear into BiS, especially for multiple characters or even just multiple builds.

It’s turned into a situation where under aged and/or basement dwellers who play 40+ hours a week have massive gear advantages over the working adults who can only put in 10-20 hours a week.

In summary, Ascended gear is too hard to get. Period. If things don’t change I see a mass migration out of this game as soon as a more honest developer rolls up with the same no-grind promise (and actually keeps it).

This thread is a great example of why catering to your audience is important. There are two very different philosophies attempting to coexist in this game, satisfying them both at the same time has proven to be the challenge.

I would very much like to see metrics of the activity levels of the Guild Wars 1 population, as from my experience it feels like we’ve gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to catering to a target audience.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Seveleniumus.5973:

I’m really tired of reading all these threads of endless complains how gw2 is not alt friendly. All currencies are account bound, you don’t need to level for pvp, you’re up scaled in WvW, we have down scaling system in PvE, we have experience scrolls, we have tomes of knowledge, we have scrolls of knowledge, now we got account bound fractal level and soon – account bound WvW levels, how is that not alt friendly?
In many MMO’s when you create a new character, you start from SCRATCH, sure it can always be more alt friendly and it is definitely getting there, in any case, at least for me, this is one of the most alt friendly games I have ever played.

GW2 is not alt friendly, I will now counter your points.

If you’re upscaled in WvW you’re going to get pwnt, end of story. bad armor, bad weapons, no good runes/sigils, not even a full build.

We just barely got level up scrolls, up until THIS patch where now they are available to those who pvp constantly. And really available ONLY to spvp players.

Account bound fractal level but still need to farm farm farm for rings earrings amulets, and backpieces for alts.

Account bound WvW levels hasn’t happened yet, so it cannot be discussed if we are talking about the present.

Now lets add to it:

Extreme expense to gear up alts, and multiple builds for your characters. With ascended weapons, and now ascended armor, it’s near impossible for an average wealth player.

Can’t swap runesets in gear, must have a completely separate gearset with different runes, same with weapons/sigils. Can double or triple your costs and time.

It will absolutely help when ranks are account bound, It’s one of the main things that deters me from playing 90% of my characters. But it’s still got work before it can be dubbed alt-friendly.

I’ll counter this too. GW2 is alt-friendly, where as you can easily gear any and all your character with Exotics, and play the game the same as if you had Ascended gear.

It’s not alt-friendly to you because you set such high demands for multiple BiS armors and weapon sets, that the average player doesn’t carry. Because of this self inflicted demand you put on, you’re basically forcing yourself to go beyond the gates that the game has in place That’s not a problem with game design. That’s living beyond your means.

Yeah for pve players it doesn’t matter. But I am not one of those. I fight things that hit back (real people) and when you face someone that has the same skillevel as you, and they have more stats, armor, and weapon damage, they will beat you.

If I played this game for PvE I would never even think about getting any ascended armor.

GW2 is not alt friendly for WvW players. That better?

morrolan.9608:

Coldtart.4785:

Fortunately the stat gain from ascended isn’t as severe as it would be in another game and we do have a kinda-sorta promise that ascended is as high as tiers will ever go,

Just note they haven’t made any such promise regarding infusions.

And note that the simple existence of ascended gear demonstrates how reliable their “promises” are.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Yeah for pve players it doesn’t matter. But I am not one of those. I fight things that hit back (real people) and when you face someone that has the same skillevel as you, and they have more stats, armor, and weapon damage, they will beat you.

If I played this game for PvE I would never even think about getting any ascended armor.

GW2 is not alt friendly for WvW players. That better?

You’re close. However, in WvW, I can be geared in all whites, and still win. There are two things that determine wins: Skill, and zerg size. Skill is far superior than gear. If you feel having a slight stat increase will guarantee you victories, you severely underestimate how good WvW players can be. As for zergs, you can run naked, and still survive.

Stop arguing with Smooth Penguin, you’ll never convince him otherwise, and his continual support of Ascended almost verges on trolling. Indeed, his blind devotion to support of it is what keeps these threads heated.

Let’s all take a step back and look at why Ascended gear was made in the first place, because I don’t think it was made so Anet can tick off everyone.

If you look back yo the game at launch, it worked straight off the GW1 model: BiS at 80 and gear progression is purely cosmetic. But did it work? No. People left the gane en mass and complained that there was nothing to work towards.

Now put yourself in Anet’s shoes. What would you make of this situation? There’s clearly a ton of cosmetics to get, so its very ligical to imply people wanted some form of VP. Then we got all the complaints that people thought crafting was useless. This the logical solution was to introduce a sticking factor in a light optional VP through crafting.

I don’t really know who was the genius who decided it was to make Ascended 500 instead of 400, but you can understand why Ascended is there.