Guild Wars 2

chemiclord.3978:

Nokaru.7831:

Finally, the way they handled Agony Resistence is ridiculous. It was meant to be a form of progression for Fractals of the Mists, but now you can attain more Resistance via Guild Missions and now Ascended Crafting. How does it make any sense that players progress through Fractals of the Mist by not doing Fractals? It is completely dysfunctional progression.

It WAS initially only available through Fractals.

Players whined and complained that they shouldn’t have to do Fractals to get the gear that only mattered in Fractals. I’m not kidding.

People wouldn’t have minded had the gear NOT had higher stats than exotic – Ascended SHOULD of been exotic stats + agony resist, but it isn’t. Fractals are better designed than most of the explorable dungeons, but, a dungeon that just amps up difficulty a little bit every “level” and then throws in a fake, arbitrary resist that you need is just dumb, lazy design IMO. I bet Ascended originally was exotic + resist, and then Anet freaked out with the mass exodus of vertical progression minded players and decided at the 11th hour to increase the stats too, claiming “Ascended was always planned.” Yeah, sure it was.

chemiclord.3978:

Nokaru.7831:

Finally, the way they handled Agony Resistence is ridiculous. It was meant to be a form of progression for Fractals of the Mists, but now you can attain more Resistance via Guild Missions and now Ascended Crafting. How does it make any sense that players progress through Fractals of the Mist by not doing Fractals? It is completely dysfunctional progression.

It WAS initially only available through Fractals.

Players whined and complained that they shouldn’t have to do Fractals to get the gear that only mattered in Fractals. I’m not kidding.

Yea ‘cause ascended gear having increased stats totally didn’t make my characters stronger for roaming in WvW >.>

You can also get ascended weapons from champ boxes, teq, and they said they are going to add it in for laurels + badges in WvW (no eta though).

I’m not a fan of the ascended stuffs, but lets all be realistic about it. Is it stronger? Yea. In the vast majority of situations will it be the main thing determining outcome no. Are they going to add in more ways of getting it? Yea.

The world isn’t ending, don’t freak out.

Aberrant.6749:

I’m not a fan of the ascended stuffs, but lets all be realistic about it. Is it stronger? Yea. In the vast majority of situations will it be the main thing determining outcome no.

It doesn’t need to be the main thing in order to be a signficant thing.

A five percent buff to stats and weapon damage? Hey, we have 5% damage buffs that people find significant enough to make a part of their builds. They’re usually master level traits (20 points in a trait line is pretty significant) and restricted to particular conditions, like +5% damage when wielding a specific weapon, or when flanking your enemy. A full set of ascended gear will be +5% across the board.

No one’s claiming ascended gear is an automatic win button. It is, however, a significant advantage.

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression. There was an interview with the game director in which he stated that players crashed into the power plateau much faster than anyone had anticipated. The new crafting system is made to be a way to progress your character over a period of time. Crafting and acquiring the necessary materials is the progression.
Ascended weapons, and soon armor, by design, are long term goals and players are getting frustrated because they’re dumping loads of gold into the process expecting to be finished everything as fast as other content can be completed. Granted, the option is available for players who have excessive amounts of gold to unload and make the weapon in a day, but this is also working as the intended gold sink.
The best advice you can get in terms of ascended crafting is to take your time. There is NO content in which the weapons are absolutely required at the moment, and it doesn’t look like there will be any time soon. Fractals were being done at high levels without them for almost a year as well.

Gnat.9405:

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression.

WHATT!?!!??! it was supposed to be a bridge between legendary and exotic…..thats what cj said

I have to agree with OP.
I myself haven’t gotten any ascended weps because I don’t want to deal with that crafting thing: it’s both too expensive and too gimmicky.
If anything they should have done this like ascended rings i.e. you get X relics and buy your weapon.
Until other methods are created I won’t get ascended weapons.

Fragment.2793:

name a single game were end game gear is obtainable only through crafting

Lineage2 which is also made by NCSoft
… case closed

Stop moaning, would you rather have no ascended and have a huge gap between exotics and legendary. Shut up and play, they are doing a great job.

Except that endgame gear in Lineage 2 was also buyable from players, in GW2 it isn’t.
All mats and recipes required could be farmed for, without hidden diminishing returns.

Why can’t you craft-to-sell? That’s what I don’t understand. I find this most peculiar in this market-driven game with it’s own dedicated economist and all. The only conclusion one can draw is that John Smith was uncertain of how the market would be affected and therefore recommended people only be able to craft for themselves, for now. I expect this to change in the future, if they remember to do it – though judging by our lack of;

• legendary precursor scavenger hunt, and,
• limiting the range of servers you could be matched up against in WvW

I expect they’ll conveniently forget to change it.

champ.7021:

Gnat.9405:

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression.

WHATT!?!!??! it was supposed to be a bridge between legendary and exotic…..thats what cj said

Ascended stats are the same as Legendary so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

champ.7021:

Gnat.9405:

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression.

WHATT!?!!??! it was supposed to be a bridge between legendary and exotic…..thats what cj said

2:35-2:50

jsduke.6537:

So the time-gating really just got in the way of the casual players while the rich/hardcore players just bought their way around it or marathon farmed it.

Timegating always gets more in the way of casuals than hardcores. Even if they cannot be sidestepped (like in this case), only hardcores can be expected to “clear” a timegate everytime it comes up. Casuals will ocasionally (and sometimes not even so occasionally) fail to clear the gate in time (due to not having enough mats, not having enough time, or doing something else, because it seemed more fun then).
Diminishing return is a way better method of slowing down hardcores.

Draco.2806:

Blix.8021:

What is not considered farming to you in pve? Just curious.

Not following some pre-set goal that results in your earning specific loot or the most amount of gold, is not considered farming, I think.

This difference between those who have and those who don’t in thus game comes mostly down to goal setting. My friends and I set goals and plan our play sessions in a way that works towards them.

This is my daily (if I play, I don’t play everyday) routine.

1. Pick 5 dailies
2. Go to a zone that I can do my daily AND work on map completion
3. Find a world boss whose timer is nearly up
4. Jumping puzzle
5. Do a LS achievement or 2
6. Use my crafting cool downs.

None of this is set in stone, and even though it’s organized I don’t consider it farming.
A lot of this is synergistic. A dungeon run can easily take care of my dailies. Doing dailies leads to monthly completion etc…

I am never ever broke. I have 30g in my account today, and that’s after crafting immobulus last week and getting weaponsmithing to 500.

Everything in this game comes down to button presses. Set a goal, plan your time out, and have fun along the way.

eisberg.2379:

Zepidel.5349:

Vespirisa.1497:

200g? The amount I spent was no where near that number. I just refined ori and ancient wood I gathered, made some sharpening stones and crafted a few exotics. I think I spent less than 25. Also the 200g on the website is due to the inflated prices that will eventually drop. oh from 450 I just refined ascended mats I got from champ loot bags.

Yes 200g. You speculated in wood/ore, as did I thankfully. Regardless its 200g.

Collect the stuff yourself and it is significantly less than 200G

The op was talking from ground up I’m sure.

Gnat.9405:

champ.7021:

Gnat.9405:

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression.

WHATT!?!!??! it was supposed to be a bridge between legendary and exotic…..thats what cj said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7CcwnfUdU

2:35-2:50

It is equal to legendary and represents the final tier of gear progression stat wise. It bridges the gap in acquisition by giving players who have full exotics something more achievable to work towards.

Astralporing.1957:

jsduke.6537:

So the time-gating really just got in the way of the casual players while the rich/hardcore players just bought their way around it or marathon farmed it.

Timegating always gets more in the way of casuals than hardcores. Even if they cannot be sidestepped (like in this case), only hardcores can be expected to “clear” a timegate everytime it comes up. Casuals will ocasionally (and sometimes not even so occasionally) fail to clear the gate in time (due to not having enough mats, not having enough time, or doing something else, because it seemed more fun then).
Diminishing return is a way better method of slowing down hardcores.

Ridiculous. DR never helped a thing, has been responsible for closing down whole gaming companies who stubbornly held onto this fail method of draconian control, and never helped any market. It’s been used to systematically break RNG based drop rates for years. It has no place in modern gaming, someone needs to teach all dev groups basic mmo development before making a game so they don’t make these mistakes and if these devs were actually gamers as they claim they’d know that DR is never a solution and would remember the history.

Juunro.7082:

I don’t understand how people have wound up spending such huge amounts of money on getting to 500 in a craft; I personally spent maybe 20-30 gold doing it; I have three ascended weapons and am working on a 4th now, and the most gold coins I have ever had at any given time was approximately 150.

I mean, did you entirely ignore the Scarlett invasions? Do you have any idea how many champion bags came from that one thing? How many tier 6 mats involved? I did roughly one invasion a day for the entire run of the thing and walked out with like… 300 champ bags. I still haven’t managed to burn through all the t6 mats I got from doing this.

I actually did entirely ignore the scarlett invasions. I don’t care for living story so I don’t play it.

I agree, the addition of ascended weapons was done terribly. It was the last straw that completely killed whatever was left of their manifesto.

tigirius.9014:

Astralporing.1957:

jsduke.6537:

So the time-gating really just got in the way of the casual players while the rich/hardcore players just bought their way around it or marathon farmed it.

Timegating always gets more in the way of casuals than hardcores. Even if they cannot be sidestepped (like in this case), only hardcores can be expected to “clear” a timegate everytime it comes up. Casuals will ocasionally (and sometimes not even so occasionally) fail to clear the gate in time (due to not having enough mats, not having enough time, or doing something else, because it seemed more fun then).
Diminishing return is a way better method of slowing down hardcores.

Ridiculous. DR never helped a thing, has been responsible for closing down whole gaming companies who stubbornly held onto this fail method of draconian control, and never helped any market. It’s been used to systematically break RNG based drop rates for years. It has no place in modern gaming, someone needs to teach all dev groups basic mmo development before making a game so they don’t make these mistakes and if these devs were actually gamers as they claim they’d know that DR is never a solution and would remember the history.

Diminishing return. Not drop reduction. Yes, DR when applied to RNG drops is a very bad idea, but that’s not what i had in mind. What i thought about was ramping up costs if you went too fast. It may be considered some form of a time gate, but a much softer one and far more equalizing.

The biggest problem that I have with ascended items (that you craft not ones bought) is they are account bound. I would really like the ability to sell ascended crafted items. I mean heck you can sell legendary. I mean what is the point of making money from crafting if you can’t even sell the highest tier of items? That is one of the things I really liked about this game was the ability to sell what I made.

You can sell the components (Deldrimor Steel/Spiritwood)

Gibson.4036:

Aberrant.6749:

I’m not a fan of the ascended stuffs, but lets all be realistic about it. Is it stronger? Yea. In the vast majority of situations will it be the main thing determining outcome no.

It doesn’t need to be the main thing in order to be a signficant thing.

A five percent buff to stats and weapon damage? Hey, we have 5% damage buffs that people find significant enough to make a part of their builds. They’re usually master level traits (20 points in a trait line is pretty significant) and restricted to particular conditions, like +5% damage when wielding a specific weapon, or when flanking your enemy. A full set of ascended gear will be +5% across the board.

No one’s claiming ascended gear is an automatic win button. It is, however, a significant advantage.

Look at it like this though… PvE… not going to matter outside higher fractals. PvP no changes. WvW large group… one additional person in a group will make more difference than 20 people in ascended Vs. exotic. WvW solo roaming… it’s very rare when one player wins by a thread. Yes it could make a difference in those very few situations though. I don’t see that as being that big of a deal. That being said yea… I’m getting ascended and it kinda sucks, but no biggie.

boredinbc.2786:

Gnat.9405:

champ.7021:

Gnat.9405:

The reason Ascended takes so many resources is because it’s supposed to be the end-all to character stat progression.

WHATT!?!!??! it was supposed to be a bridge between legendary and exotic…..thats what cj said

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7CcwnfUdU

2:35-2:50

It is equal to legendary and represents the final tier of gear progression stat wise. It bridges the gap in acquisition by giving players who have full exotics something more achievable to work towards.

It’s also kinda “wat?” for them to put in items that are supposed to bridge the exotic/legendary gap… while eating up the resources you would need to cross that gap. >.<

Svarty.8019:

Why can’t you craft-to-sell? That’s what I don’t understand. I find this most peculiar in this market-driven game with it’s own dedicated economist and all. The only conclusion one can draw is that John Smith was uncertain of how the market would be affected and therefore recommended people only be able to craft for themselves, for now.

If so then the actual game designers should have stepped in and pointed out how ridiculous that was.

Svarty.8019:

Why can’t you craft-to-sell? That’s what I don’t understand. I find this most peculiar in this market-driven game with it’s own dedicated economist and all.

The reason is to force even the most hardcore of players to progress at a set speed, so ANet had enough time to develop and release more stat progression by the time the first and fastest players completed their ascended gear set. Had ascended gear been sellable, the time and resources a player had to invest would’ve dropped drastically as the market would’ve saturated quickly. Think of ascended gear simply as a giant speed bump that was designed to keep hardcore players occupied. The details weren’t at all thought through at release, so a half finished gear tier was introduced while the other half was still in its conceptual stages. That’s why its all over the place today, that’s why so many stat combos are missing.

ASB.4295:

Think of ascended gear simply as a giant speed bump that was designed to keep hardcore players occupied.

And that’s we could see people showing off their crafted ascended weapons barely 3-4 days after the patch. Yeah, right.

As OP said, this game is doing the gear thing completely different than what they promised us .“There will be no gear treadmill in our game, cause its bad” well you have gear treadmill in your game now, and thats what we call being a hypocrite. To top it off, ascendand weapons, and probably also armor (when it is released, yay) are obtainable only through the most boring grind ever (while the accessories are laughably easy to obtain, time gated yeah, but still boring and easy to get).

The kicker is that I don’t even have the crafting skill for my primary weapon.

Yeah, Ascended Gear has been handled terribly there’s no doubt about it.

On one had we’re swimming in T7 mats and on the other hand everything else is bloody expensive. And we can’t even trade all this T7 stuff.

I personally don’t mind how rings, accessories, and backs were implemented. It never felt like a grind to get those items. Just playing the game the way you want usually allows you to get them. What I don’t like is how incredibly mind numbingly boring it is to farm the ori and wood necessary to get to 500 crafting. The other ascended mats are fine because they’re linked to fun activities like world bosses and dungeons. The ori and wood grind is the worst.

They put a speedbump in the way of the hardcore player, which is a mountain in the way of the rest of us.

Ascended weapon handling is PERFECT.
Are you HC player ? You can get it by playing game. Hell, you dont have to be even hc player, if you play game long enough you have most of the mats anyway.
Are you cassual who cant commit time ? Buy gems, change it to gold and you can get it easy.

Are you cassual who cant commit nor time, nor real money ? You are playing wrong genre of games .

Medozorz.5920:

“There will be no gear treadmill in our game, cause its bad” well you have gear treadmill in your game now, and thats what we call being a hypocrite.

The hypocrite of this case is the community.
The ascended tier was introduced after a massive complaint from this community that lasted a whole month before they succumbed, it was not Anet’s idea.
Stop blaming them for your choices.

Ascended are pay to win and a grind. Screw them.
100% agree with OP

They should make the ascended weapon chests tradeable. Either that or just have ONE chest with all the stat combinations available in it. They need to stop relying on RNG to enforce this grind. It’s making the game a needlessly sour experience and I can’t help but think that it will bite them in the kitten .

You can get ascended weapon chests. I got one today!
They should remove soulbound from them though and make them only account bound.

Malevil.2104:

Ascended weapon handling is PERFECT.
Are you HC player ? You can get it by playing game. Hell, you dont have to be even hc player, if you play game long enough you have most of the mats anyway.
Are you cassual who cant commit time ? Buy gems, change it to gold and you can get it easy.

Are you cassual who cant commit nor time, nor real money ? You are playing wrong genre of games .

You seem to hame made some mistakes: let me fix what you said:
“Are you a HC player? You can easily farm for it in few days.
Are you a casual player? Even if you played from the very beginning, you won’t have neither money nor mats to level a single craft. Forget about actually trying to equip your char.”
This is much closer to the reality.

Red Falcon.8257:

Medozorz.5920:

“There will be no gear treadmill in our game, cause its bad” well you have gear treadmill in your game now, and thats what we call being a hypocrite.

The hypocrite of this case is the community.
The ascended tier was introduced after a massive complaint from this community that lasted a whole month before they succumbed, it was not Anet’s idea.
Stop blaming them for your choices.

Only a tiny minority actually asked for a new tier of gear, and they were shouted down almost instantly. There were groups asking for things, that’s true (the majority of those people asked for mounts, holy trinity and raids, actually). Funny thing, most of those players have left long ago.

Saying that “we asked for it” is very, very far from truth.

why i can’t buy ascended items?
why i can’t buy celestial gear ?
what were you thinking putting soulbound and only craftable ?
why the damage is 5% difference ? it’s like a major trait !
i hate you guys
so after 6+ months: a full ascended guy obliterates easly a guy in exotics, good future !
you are drifting more and more from the GW path & manifesto

Astralporing.1957:

Only a tiny minority actually asked for a new tier of gear, and they were shouted down almost instantly. There were groups asking for things, that’s true (the majority of those people asked for mounts, holy trinity and raids, actually). Funny thing, most of those players have left long ago.

Saying that “we asked for it” is very, very far from truth.

No, just stop that.
I was here in September and October, the majority of this community threatened to quit if they weren’t getting a treadmill.

Red Falcon.8257:

Astralporing.1957:

Only a tiny minority actually asked for a new tier of gear, and they were shouted down almost instantly. There were groups asking for things, that’s true (the majority of those people asked for mounts, holy trinity and raids, actually). Funny thing, most of those players have left long ago.

Saying that “we asked for it” is very, very far from truth.

No, just stop that.
I was here in September and October, the majority of this community threatened to quit if they weren’t getting a treadmill.

Lol, nope, just look through those threads, they are still on this forum (and i was here since the beginning as well, you know).

The problem wasnt the crafting, the problem is that to get from 400 to 500 cost 150-200g and the mats after will cost you around a minimum of 20g per ascended weapons.

Red Falcon.8257:

No, just stop that.
I was here in September and October, the majority of this community threatened to quit if they weren’t getting a treadmill.

I was here in Sept and Oct and you are wrong. Some did but forum rage only increased to a high level with the introduction of ascended trinkets in Nov.

Red Falcon.8257:

Astralporing.1957:

Only a tiny minority actually asked for a new tier of gear, and they were shouted down almost instantly. There were groups asking for things, that’s true (the majority of those people asked for mounts, holy trinity and raids, actually). Funny thing, most of those players have left long ago.

Saying that “we asked for it” is very, very far from truth.

No, just stop that.
I was here in September and October, the majority of this community threatened to quit if they weren’t getting a treadmill.

You’re wrong. As Astralporing said, you can go back and look.

I did.

Because there have a been a few posts saying the same thing as you, remembering a great hue and cry for for a new level of gear, I thought maybe my memory was inaccurate. I was an avid reader of GW2Guru two years before launch, was in game from BWE1, and have been reading (and posting to) the official GW2 forums from the day they went live, and I don’t remember this united playerbase screaming for new loot. So I went to find out.

The end of October’s forum postings hits on page 630. If you start at the beginning and work your way from the earliest posts on the forum to there, you’ll find the threads that covered this topic. Over those 140 or so pages, you’ll see it was a recurring topic, but watch out. Don’t just go by the thread titles, but open them up and look throught he content of the thread, like I did.

A lot of those thread titles that look like “Ize needz moar powerful lootz to chase!” aren’t about that at all. Some of the “where’s the endgame?” posts are asking for raids specifically without new loot rewards, or harder dungeons, or more cosmetic options to chase.

Even the ones that are about needing loot with better stats to motivate them are an interesting read. You’ll find as many people pointing out that this game was supposed to be different in that regard and defending the gear plateau as those who are saying only a treadmill will keep people playing.

Maybe massive amounts of people were leaving because there was nothing more powerful than Exotics. It’s possible ANet saw that in the metrics. They didn’t, however, see a majority of players calling for it on the forums.

Go check it out for yourself.

ok after three pages of blah blah this, and blah blah that, i’m really trying to figure all this out.

Is ascended gear nice? Honestly, I have no idea, I’ve never seen it.
Are the stats better? Not than legendary, but ok, better than exotic.
Are they necessary? Maybe for fractals, but not for anything else.

Maybe I am just playing wrong, and the fractals are wonderful, game changing, and 100% necessary for loving the universe, the game, and life itself.

I certainly didn’t see them that way. I’ve amazingly managed to do everything with only all exotic gear, but if you listened to people here, that must be absolutely impossible.

But it isn’t. This stuff is necessary for one small piece of the game. You can buy it with laurels, craft it, or get it as in game rewards. Now I do agree it would be nice if the stats weren’t different, but it doesn’t bother me.

Honestly? I’d be more impressed with more attractive and interesting legendary designs and effects. And I would love ANet forever if they reintroduced heroes.

why.8760:

ok after three pages of blah blah this, and blah blah that, i’m really trying to figure all this out.

Is ascended gear nice? Honestly, I have no idea, I’ve never seen it.
Are the stats better? Not than legendary, but ok, better than exotic.
Are they necessary? Maybe for fractals, but not for anything else.

Maybe I am just playing wrong, and the fractals are wonderful, game changing, and 100% necessary for loving the universe, the game, and life itself.

I certainly didn’t see them that way. I’ve amazingly managed to do everything with only all exotic gear, but if you listened to people here, that must be absolutely impossible.

But it isn’t. This stuff is necessary for one small piece of the game. You can buy it with laurels, craft it, or get it as in game rewards. Now I do agree it would be nice if the stats weren’t different, but it doesn’t bother me.

Honestly? I’d be more impressed with more attractive and interesting legendary designs and effects. And I would love ANet forever if they reintroduced heroes.

For kitten’s sake. It gives people with a lot of time an advantage. People with a lot of time don’t need special advantages. They have enough. It punishes people who don’t have a lot of time or who don’t want to do chores by limiting them to second best gear. It might not “matter” very much, but the psychological value clearly matters to people.

eisberg.2379:

Zepidel.5349:

Vespirisa.1497:

200g? The amount I spent was no where near that number. I just refined ori and ancient wood I gathered, made some sharpening stones and crafted a few exotics. I think I spent less than 25. Also the 200g on the website is due to the inflated prices that will eventually drop. oh from 450 I just refined ascended mats I got from champ loot bags.

Yes 200g. You speculated in wood/ore, as did I thankfully. Regardless its 200g.

Collect the stuff yourself and it is significantly less than 200G

If you collect it, it isn’t free. You still pay for everything you collect with your time. If you sold everything you collected it’s the same as buying everything. There is literally no way around it and no difference.

It’s a loose-loose situation. Either way, you bleed money.

I’m surprised by people that look as gathering materials as the materials being free. You’re paying for it.

Gather materials, sell materials = profit
Gather materials, spend materials = bleeding money
Gather gold, buy materials = gather materials, sell materials

Either way, you bleed money.

Shpongle.6025:

eisberg.2379:

Collect the stuff yourself and it is significantly less than 200G

If you collect it, it isn’t free. You still pay for everything you collect with your time. If you sold everything you collected it’s the same as buying everything. There is literally no way around it and no difference.

Yes as has been mentioned recently its an opportunity cost.

Red Falcon.8257:

Medozorz.5920:

“There will be no gear treadmill in our game, cause its bad” well you have gear treadmill in your game now, and thats what we call being a hypocrite.

The hypocrite of this case is the community.
The ascended tier was introduced after a massive complaint from this community that lasted a whole month before they succumbed, it was not Anet’s idea.
Stop blaming them for your choices.

Sure, there were people asking for things to do, saying they had no goals. Some of them asked for gear progression. Others just wanted hard-to-attain goals. ANet took the easy route for whatever reason.

Regardless, the community is split on this issue. The community does not speak with one voice. Assigning the responsibility for the implementation of Ascended to people who didn’t ask for it and didn’t want it is ridiculous.

Was looking for a place to post, been inactive 2-3 month, started to play again this week. I rarely post, but this time I’d like to send ArenaNet a wake-up call.

First of all let me say this. So far I found GW2 was great because to get a character in full exotics took some effort, but was after all accessible. This means new players can pretty fast be on par stat-wise, and it is rather player decisions, skills, tactics, etc, that will decide the outcome of a battle.. And this is(was) also great because you can(could) max all your alts, and try various classes, playstyles, have different set of gear, etc.

I like to be on par with my opponents. The 5-10% introduced by Ascended Weapons is huge. And we can only expect the Ascended armor to be something similar. I play almost only WvW, I hate PvE mostly, I hate the grind-fest, I could care less for crafting. When I logged in couple days ago and my friends told me this, I was disgusted.

I will never have a Legendary, but “that’s fine”. Some of the skins are pretty cool, but I just don’t want to spend my time in the PvE/harvesting grind required. I wouldn’t mind if they made some epic looking stuff unlocked as I play more in WvW, but my hopes for that are long gone.

I have spent almost all the gold (probably something like ~500g) I made since november 2012 in upgrades/siege in WvW to contribute in my server’s war effort. Considering WvW doesn’t pay much (it used to be horrible, now it is ‘decent’), I am always broke, but I don’t mind.

So honestly, I find the decision to make ‘Ascended Weapons’ only available through crafting to be (yet again) ignoring the WvW folks. We don’t care if it will be patched in 3 months. It should have been part of the ‘Ascended Weapons’ introduction. Why does WvW always have to be ignored in the initial introduction of new stuff?

Couple ideas
- Make Ascended Weapons cost 5k badges, or 250 skill points
- Make Legendaries cost 25k badges, or 1000 skill points.
- Make some achievements in WvW (equivalent of … 1000h+++ time invested???) unlock some cool stuff (Ascended, Legendaries, PvE equivalent skins, etc)
- etc

So that way, people that have been very active in WvW for a long time would not be forgotten in some dark corner. After a long and successful WvW career, these PvPers could get some cool stuff too, without having to do stuff they dislike (PvE, exploration, crafting).

For once, find something that makes sense for WvW centric players, that are not crying to be “special snowflakes”, but just want to be On Par with their opponents stat-wise.

Why couldn’t we get the Top-Gear, Stat-wise (and why not Skin-wise?), by playing the ONE thing we like in this game : WvW.

Make it happen.
Thank you.

EDIT: And the numbers I put in suggestion is just to “go-with-the-flow” of what you are introducing, i.e. ‘something Very Hard To Get’. I don’t think it’s a good idea (see my initial thoughts on gear-accessibility and ALTS), but hey, very-hard-to-get is still better than “simply unavailable through WvW”.

Zepidel.5349:

“Play how you want”

“Equal playing field for all”

“No grind”

Ya right… There is only 1 reliable way to obtain ascended weapons… Crafting? Why… name a single game were end game gear is obtainable only through crafting. Not only that but you decided to go ahead and add 100 crafting levels, BUT were too lazy to add 425/475 recipes resulting in forcing people to use 400/450 recipes to level, making it cost so much that the majority of players will never earn that much. How much? The cheapest is just around 200g for ONE profession. Source: http://gw2crafts.net/weaponcraft_400.html

Not a single thing this patch addressed the major problem with crafting… the fact that you cannot in any way shape or form make money from any crafting prof, before it was just a means for rich players to level an alt to 80 in a day, now its just a means to grind for ascended gear.

Why were fractals completed ignored? Now we have 55 AR max but you were too lazy to remove the 50 cap (which was stupid in the first place, i cant even think of a logical answer for putting the 50 cap on fractals). Asceneded weapons could of cost 15-25 relics, giving people who like somewhat challenging PvE content a way to acquire asc weapons.

WvWvW? How about making ascended weapons purchasable via badges?

I mean this game pretty much became P2W/G2W after this patch, you can whine and say its only a 5%/10% increase, but its still goes completely against the GW philosophy to give rich/lucky/gem buyers a sizable advantage over the general population.

And this is coming from someone with 500 wpn smith / 472 soon to be 500 huntsman.

And before you say “B-But it can drop” realize the chance is somewhere around getting struck by lighting, but not only that you want to get struck by the lighting you want (stats). It’s nothing you would rely on.

Quoted this post because it has so much right in it, Great post OP.

aliksyian.7642:

fellyn.5083:

If all of that is true I’m wondering how not only did I not spend 200g to get my weapon smithing to 500 but I made over 20g doing it.

You’re either lying or an unusual case.

His post history will tell you everything you need to know.

Nokaru.7831:

Here’s what’s funny about Ascended Gear: Builds are heavily influenced by your gear in GW2. (As opposed to GW1… Funny huh?) Crafting an Ascended Weapon (and Coming Soon! Ascended Armor!) commits yourself to one build.

Did I mention Ascended Gear is useless? The stat increase is not useful anywhere, except to defeat content that does not require it. Gear in PvE is only as valuable as it is useful.

Finally, the way they handled Agony Resistence is ridiculous. It was meant to be a form of progression for Fractals of the Mists, but now you can attain more Resistance via Guild Missions and now Ascended Crafting. How does it make any sense that players progress through Fractals of the Mist by not doing Fractals? It is completely dysfunctional progression.

Because it was rushed extremely poorly handled matter.

And now, almost year later its still rushed extremely poorly handled matter.

I agree 100% with the OP.

A lot of people I know have been pretty outraged that you have to craft to get one and then the cost of crafting is kittenedly high. Thus has become a cheap Asian P2Win game similar to perfect world.