Guild Wars 2

There is a treadmill coming from the expansion. Now before you jump the gun, please read:

Mike O’Brien said at Pax South that your top gear today will be top gear tomorrow. I am afraid not.

Today blog article:

“Master Fractals: Uncover new depths in the Fractals of the Mists to gain powerful new abilities to overcome difficult fractal challenges, garner greater rewards, and unlock more powerful infusions”

So, this will make our hard earn (even more so than ascended gear) become obsolete. This is a gear treadmill.

And before you start start saying that technically the infusion is not a gear. Argue semantics all day if you want, it IS a treadmill.

A full 14 slots mighty infusion set costs about 2600 powerful blood, i.e., 1300g give or take and a few hundred more golds in passion flowers and a few hundred skill points. Please don’t tell me that it is inconsequential.

Let’s catch the treadmill now before it gets release.

I totally agree regarding the potential for better-stat infusions to really break the existing performance cap of both ascended gear relative to exotic gear as well as the amount of effort needed to actually get a set of these dang things.

I hope what is being referred to is the ability to unlock better simple AR ones due to what will be higher levels and the necessity for higher AR. I definitely support the notion of not implementing more powerful infusions in regards to stat bonuses, for then the WvW ones also become obsolete.

It’s really hard for me to get worked up for a new infusion as a “gear treadmill”. If someone likes fractals enough to master them, they probably should get a new infusion. Sort of the point, really.

And I mean… it’s an infusion. It makes ascended armor look like a substantial increase in stats. I’m not going to lose sleep over +5 Power, +5 Agony Resistance.

And who is to say that the powerful infusions simply don’t have special modifiers such as: “Increase damage done by x% (works only in Fractals)”?

lordkrall.7241:

And who is to say that the powerful infusions simply don’t have special modifiers such as: “Increase damage done by x% (works only in Fractals)”?

Exactly, they could be just +5 infusions all over again. We’ll have to wait and see.

There has always been a treadmill (just not a steep one) in higher level fractals with infusions. That was kind of the point of higher level fractals – to give that to people without impacting the rest of the game.

Not really a big deal.

Yet again, fractals are the harbringer of Anet’s constant lies.. errr I mean marketing. Lets makes a list:
Started the gear grind trendmill when it was released which was against horizontal progression the game was sold on.
Started RNG Account bound rewards which went against the “Is it fun” blog post about all dungeon rewards being token based (again how the game was sold on).
Character progression reset with the fractured update.
Lies about a leader board which was the justification for the reset.
Lies about the fractal weapon box.
Gear gating

And with the introduction of new infusions, that 5% increase from exo to ascended may become 10-15% increase like from rare to exo.
Again Anet is trying to hide it’s power creep by slowly introducing it, like boiling a frog.

not a big deal to me. people who do fractals are people who like challenges. whatever the requirement for hard mode fractals don’t impact the rest of the game. they can be played with exos.

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Since day one we got fractal, it is intended to be the only “vertical progression” mode for players that desired advancement. There you go, and it is the only reason that i never set foot in any of the fractal.

Vayne.8563:

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

Will the Fractal progression be more pronounced? Of course. But them saying we dont have a level cap increase is true in word but not action. Some of the enemies in the expansion may as well be level 100 because you aren’t killing them until you get a certain number of mastery points.

Stars.2179:

Mike O’Brien said at Pax South that your top gear today will be top gear tomorrow. I am afraid not.

That one statement alone pretty much destroys your entire argument on the matter.

Based on the above statement, your entire argument is based on your personal fears, and has absolutely nothing to do with what Mike O’Brien said.

Fear away, as noone will know what the expansion brings until it gets here.

who arw you to say something thats not even revealed yet? How is mastery point going to influrence our game play is yet to confirm.

And i don’t mind if we need mastery lv to do content. Afterall it is to play the game rather than rebuild the gear. Don’t we all buy the game to play? If the system is there to encourage us to play rather than forcing us to upgrade our again and again. It is not necessary bad thing imo.

I think you are over reacted.

Iason Evan.3806:

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

Can I have that future machine you have which can play the content already? I wanna try it.

Stars.2179:

There is a treadmill coming from the expansion. Now before you jump the gun, please read:

Mike O’Brien said at Pax South that your top gear today will be top gear tomorrow. I am afraid not.

Today blog article:

“Master Fractals: Uncover new depths in the Fractals of the Mists to gain powerful new abilities to overcome difficult fractal challenges, garner greater rewards, and unlock more powerful infusions”

So, this will make our hard earn (even more so than ascended gear) become obsolete. This is a gear treadmill.

And before you start start saying that technically the infusion is not a gear. Argue semantics all day if you want, it IS a treadmill.

A full 14 slots mighty infusion set costs about 2600 powerful blood, i.e., 1300g give or take and a few hundred more golds in passion flowers and a few hundred skill points. Please don’t tell me that it is inconsequential.

Let’s catch the treadmill now before it gets release.

You know, there’s no telling what exactly “more powerful Infusions” means. Could be simply having them drop at +2 instead of +1 Agony Infusion.

I’m going to wait and see. And since I don’t do Fractals anyway, it matters precious little to me.

Wait and see. There will be +7 power, +9 power, +10 power (masterwork, rare, exotic) to each mighty infusion respectively.

Teon.5168:

That one statement alone pretty much destroys your entire argument on the matter.

Based on the above statement, your entire argument is based on your personal fears, and has absolutely nothing to do with what Mike O’Brien said.

Fear away, as noone will know what the expansion brings until it gets here.

It’s more like they are about to turn 180 degrees and do exactly the opposite of what they just said. That’s what the new article today is about: more tier to infusion, which is is a gear treadmill.

All I can suggest is the proposal to make sure nothing like this happens. Whether or not it was planned on happening, I don’t know, as ANet has been quite vague on pretty much everything pertaining to HoT except masteries, but I do hope that this issue isn’t overseen.

Hopefully it just includes more AR, or versions of the current ones which offer more AR but not +stat.

CMM.6712:

Complaining just to complain.

Amen Bro

While Anet is not perfect and they can’t find the “magic bullet” for everything, someone will always find something to complain about.

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

Will the Fractal progression be more pronounced? Of course. But them saying we dont have a level cap increase is true in word but not action. Some of the enemies in the expansion may as well be level 100 because you aren’t killing them until you get a certain number of mastery points.

The amount of assumptions in your post is pretty staggering…and not just by a little. I’ll wait and see before I make those assumptions.

In a sense this game always had some gated content. I couldn’t do Arah at level 20.

There’s gated and there’s GATED. Until we see what’s what, it’s a bit premature to say anything.

Vertical progression through infusions has been known for quite a while and fractals specifically were always meant to be an endless treadmill. Progression through agony alone isn’t good enough because the people wanting this type of progression tend to want to be better – more powerful – than other people. It wasn’t surprising when they added stats to infusions and I wouldn’t be surprised if they continued in that direction with the new tier. Although ascended has minimal value now, its final form – ascended infusions – will likely make it the equivalent of exotics vs rares. Keep in mind however this would be like 10 years later.

Ascended Gear will be introduced throughout next year,and accessible through many game play activities rather than just on. -Through infusions and existing Tiers there will be the opportunity to increase stats or abilities on a low power curve through multiple types of gameplay in GW2.

Reddit AMA

I don’t know, I don’t feel myself weaker without infusions. Really, I don’t have any.

Good. Now there is at least a reason to keep playing to upgrade. A small very noticeable gear treadmill every 2 years won’t hurt anyone.

I also read they are adding legendary rings to, so that’s something else I look forward to

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

How is that similar to gear grind?

So…you guys want an MMO you can play forever, without a grind (time-sink) of any kind?

Methinks you will be waiting for a very long time.

Draknar.5748:

So…you guys want an MMO you can play forever, without a grind (time-sink) of any kind?

Methinks you will be waiting for a very long time.

Without a mandatory grind yes.
We don’t have to wait, we have been playing that game for years now, Guild Wars 2.
You grind for skins not for stats. Yes there is ascended but that only has a 5% stat increase so I can easily ignore that and just roll with Exotic, hell, you can even complete all the content on this game with Rare stats. As for these infusions, we don’t even know what they are yet. Let’s wait and see first.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Draknar.5748:

So…you guys want an MMO you can play forever, without a grind (time-sink) of any kind?

Methinks you will be waiting for a very long time.

Without a mandatory grind yes.
We don’t have to wait, we have been playing that game for years now, Guild Wars 2.
You grind for skins not for stats. Yes there is ascended but that only has a 5% stat increase so I can easily ignore that and just roll with Exotic, hell, you can even complete all the content on this game with Rare stats. As for these infusions, we don’t even know what they are yet. Let’s wait and see first.

We are on the same page. My point was that MMOs need time-sinks. There’s no way to keep players who can play anywhere from 1hr/day to 6hrs/day entertained long term without time-sinks.

That’s why I don’t understand people being up in arms in general over GW2 adding features that essentially are time-sinks. What has been described is not the same as a gear treadmill. It’s just a standard MMO time-sink.

All MMOs have them, GW2 included. They never promised not to have time-sinks. That would be foolish on their part.

… you mean on top of the currently maximum +5 infusions that are almost entirely pointless?

Get real.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Draknar.5748:

So…you guys want an MMO you can play forever, without a grind (time-sink) of any kind?

Methinks you will be waiting for a very long time.

Without a mandatory grind yes.
We don’t have to wait, we have been playing that game for years now, Guild Wars 2.
You grind for skins not for stats. Yes there is ascended but that only has a 5% stat increase so I can easily ignore that and just roll with Exotic, hell, you can even complete all the content on this game with Rare stats. As for these infusions, we don’t even know what they are yet. Let’s wait and see first.

Who said it’s mandatory? Is a legendary and full ascended mandatory?

This game does need a time seek. They add new armor skins rarely. It’s an mmo, there will always be time sinks other wise a huge majority of the players wouldn’t still play with nothing to do

Am I missing something or does “more powerful infusions” sound like a need for more Upgrade Extractors, or new gear….

You cannot apply the term “gear treadmill” to a small segment of the game that already requires special gear to participate in it…(Fractals is a gear treadmill by default).

There are far too many players in this game that have a twisted sense of what is “mandatory”. Just because you want a specific reward dose NOT make it mandatory.. You have CHOSEN to pursue a goal or play a part of the game that DOES contain some grinding to accomplish….but that is YOUR choice. Anet has just provided you that option, not FORCED you to engage in that activity. If you don’t like the activity, do not participate….quite simple.

I doubt the stuff we have now will become worthless and obsolete…
im expecting the results would be something like the current way exotics and ascended gear works

As in you are able to do 90% of content with exotics, 95% with ascended and 100% with infused ascended
skill is involved in all of this as well. And with the expansion we will also include mastery skills and buffs

but yeah.. i doubt i wont be able to play the majority of content with out ‘grinding’ for some sort of ascended armor and infusions…

maddoctor.2738:

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

How is that similar to gear grind?

Because they have said that there will be things you can’t do in Maguuma without certain mastery requirements being met. In other MMOs you have to have certain gear to do certain things. I am not talking about leveling. I am talking about 2 max-level characters having identical gear and 1 person will be able to kill something because they have met a mastery requirement while the other won’t be able to kill it because they don’t have the mastery points. It’s a gear gate with a different name.

My preference would have been to have the masteries there to make the content easier. If someone was really skillful they could overcome a fight without the mastery.

My ideal would be that masteries would be purely cosmetic. Earn an exclusive weapon for overcoming a difficult challenge. Overcome this challenge over here and get a piece of armor. Get the full set by doing these things and earning these masteries here.

They have a cosmetic mastery in the precursor/legendary mastery set. That is ideal. Hiding game play content behind a gate is terrible in my opinion. It’s not called a gear gate, but if they took away the masteries and instead we had to earn an upgrade that had to be slotted in order to beat certain enemies, how would that be any different? It’s just a gate with a different name.

Fractals were created (at least in part, whether Anet would admit it or not) for the “gear progression” crowd…so, I don’t see a problem with this at all.

Fractals were specifically made for people who want this kind of grind though.

Vayne.8563:

Iason Evan.3806:

Vayne.8563:

Fractals was designed to be the one place in the game for people who like that progression to play. That was the function of Fractals. It was always meant to be a progression and it was always meant to be a grind.

The thing that they did was, the left the rewards pretty much the same after level 10 or so, so you could get fractal rewards, just at a lower percentage chance. You could experience every fractal.

Saying that the fractals are going to become a grind is rich. They are already a grind. They were made to be a grind.

People say that this game was created to give people of all “walks of gaming life” something to do. Some people want to grind. Anet gave them fractals.

Can I do fractals without grinding. Absolutely.

Maguuma in the expansion says, “Hello”.

Wanna kill that boss over there? You only need 10 more mastery points. Wanna get to that ledge with the chest on it? 2 mastery points. It isn’t just fractals anymore with a grind. It’s “gear grind” being replaced with “mastery grind”.

Will the Fractal progression be more pronounced? Of course. But them saying we dont have a level cap increase is true in word but not action. Some of the enemies in the expansion may as well be level 100 because you aren’t killing them until you get a certain number of mastery points.

The amount of assumptions in your post is pretty staggering…and not just by a little. I’ll wait and see before I make those assumptions.

In a sense this game always had some gated content. I couldn’t do Arah at level 20.

There’s gated and there’s GATED. Until we see what’s what, it’s a bit premature to say anything.

The difference Vayne is that we are all level 80 going into Maguuma. You and I could both have all ascended gear and I could beat a boss with the right masteries and you can’t if you haven’t met the mastery rank. You could be a more skillful player than me and there would be nothing you could do about it. Leveling is akin to progression. I am not talking about progression. I am talking about characters on equal footing level-wise and 1 person could do the content and the other could not due to not having met a gated requirement. See the difference?

Stars.2179:

Teon.5168:

That one statement alone pretty much destroys your entire argument on the matter.

Based on the above statement, your entire argument is based on your personal fears, and has absolutely nothing to do with what Mike O’Brien said.

Fear away, as noone will know what the expansion brings until it gets here.

It’s more like they are about to turn 180 degrees and do exactly the opposite of what they just said. That’s what the new article today is about: more tier to infusion, which is is a gear treadmill.

I don’t see how you’re possibly coming to that conclusion. You have absolutely no way of knowing until the expansion is released. All you’re doing is assuming stuff based on your own fears.

For all we know it’s just a 10+ AR infusion. It never said the more powerful infusions would increase stats.

I hope so. It IS an expansion after all…

Naz.2607:

Am I missing something or does “more powerful infusions” sound like a need for more Upgrade Extractors, or new gear….

It’s quite reasonable to predict, given that

• they explicitly stated content will be gated by masteries, and
• they currently use infusions to gate fractals,

that infusions will be used to gate new content (for example, masteries might lead to the ability to craft infusions). And if you want a new build, you have to shell out for the Extractors.

It’s win-win for Anet since most people won’t recognize infusions as gear grind.