Guild Wars 2

It has magic find, if players want to chuck toughness or vitality for an extra 5 power/precision and magic find, please do. I will be happy to 2 shot you.

Teva.2807:

alanis.6094:

Most of what you have written here is incorrect.

Please do list what is incorrect.

Legendaries are currently the same stats as exotics.

There will also be ascended gear that has other stat combinations other than magic find. I have a hunch they showed the magic find because the power/prec differences will be LOWER than if you showed berserker or rampager or any other stat combo. Each piece of gear level 65+ has 3 stats, 1 major stat, and 2 lesser stats.

bcbully.7289:

This may be the largest thread of ticked of customers I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to think back on others, but I can’t remember one that’s longer or moving this quick.

The NGE shadows the anger at this.

A legitimate concern. More so consider AN’s poor handling of WvW so far.

just because the minority of players wines about getting bored doesnt mean that the vast majority of the community want that too.

contribution to the topic: better skins is nice but not better stats…

jboynton.7894:

bcbully.7289:

This may be the largest thread of ticked of customers I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to think back on others, but I can’t remember one that’s longer or moving this quick.

The NGE shadows the anger at this.

Yup the Galvin backfired post (where a clueless EQ2 dev jumped in) if I remember correctly, something about 2500+ pages?

The Ascended Gear that they used in the Official News Post added a Massive +2 – +3 to the base stats LOL. They are using the infusion slots as a means to progress a gear treadmill for future PVE, and not WvW. I think its a great idea! Keeps people focused on Pve that want to; without unbalancing WvW like you suggest.

Split the playbase? How many times did you kill a level 80 and you were still not max level in WvW?

I would say you probably have more of a split for groups that drop food buffs in WvW than this gear.

Probably the story goes like this: Numbers of players dropping, comparatively few (compared to overall players) rage on the forums for 2 months about the game not being WoWish enough, devs come to the conclusion it must be the gear progression – overlooking the major problem with having mostly repetitive and/or useless or no fun content to do at level 80. Instead of inspecting what is wrong with the high level content, they chose the easiest way – all those forum people love WoW after all, right? – turn 180 degrees and forget everything they have been claiming since summer in a VERY loud voice. Marvelous, just marvelous. I am pretty sure it will end this way: still losing the power creep faction to games that are doing this way better than GW2 while alienating the other camp that were sold a different philosophy initially. Great job.

Surprisingly, in-game majority accept the ascended gears.
I’ve not heard a single player complaint about it in map chat the whole day today. I see many great anticipation in Lion Arch and Cursed Shore of players talking good about it.

Forums does not represent the whole community. I see a trend that players only come to forums to complain while only a small amount come here to compliment. A million in-game players being pleased with it can’t beat a hundred of forumers complaint against it.

Therefore, the majority is in favor of ascended gears. I hope they implement it into the game and not cancel it just because the minority go against it or attempting to blackmail to quit the game. Rage will cool down through time. People need to accept changes because mmo is a constant evolutionary virtual world.

I agree that this gear should have no impact on WvW.

Most of us here have experienced the purgatory that was WAR, no need to experience it again. I can go back to WAR for that.

ratatonga.9468:

just because the minority of players wines about getting bored doesnt mean that the vast majority of the community want that too.

contribution to the topic: better skins is nice but not better stats…

You’ve got it COMPLETELY backwards. The Majority of customers wanted it to stay just as it was. The small vocal minority whined so much that ANet has now taken steps that very well may hamper the game for the majority of people who liked it just how it was.

showatt.9413:

Whether or not this game is heading towards a bad direction or not depends entirely players and not the design itself, as none of the new designs are actually game breaking.

If their new choices go directly against everything they’ve said about the game in the years leading up to release, you might say it’s going in a bad direction.

Not so much because it completely ruins the game (I’m pretty sure a lot of people will just keep on playing), but because you’re undermining the trust your own audience has in you. I’m disappointed, and I cannot see any reason for buffed stats on the new items. Ascended could just as well be a copy of exotic/legendary, outfitted for the new dungeon (with the addition of a “harmless” dungeon-only infusion slot).

I’m confused on why people bought gw2 out of ALL the things they said they would have on the fact that there was no gear-treadmill. It’s like “Low-Gear Anonymous” here in this thread.

I bought the game because of the gameplay, I never even knew they made such a claim. And I for one think I appreciate this game more than half of these people in this thread which is sad. Seriously guys, have you not even wondered whether this tier of gear was intended for the game upon release but pushed back for a big update?

And if you guys quit and blow up over this final additon to the gear tiers—that would seem silly. You guys who hate this ascended gear have such little faith in Anet and also need some self-esteem therapy.

Gear isn’t everything. That’s what the game is about. If you really think gear in this game is the real game changer then you need to re-evaluate how you play the game and I’m not saying that you have to adapt, I’m saying you need to pay attention to the game you are playing in front of you and see how much slight stat buffs change your experience compared to weapon skills/utilities/traits.

If you wore this armor and auto-hit everything, would you win a majority of battles in this game? No. If you do, then good for you, but from my experience, the weapons you choose, the utilities you use, and traits you have are your foundation.

Gear with better stats is something that’s needed. By golly there’s so much of the map that hasn’t been opened yet. I would hope that some of this content is freaking difficult and you’d have to get your stuff together before venturing there. I think this MMO would be absolutely ridiculous if you were to create a character and be able to go into Orr from the start.

Yes, I am Link, with a wooden sword and shield, but you know what. I’m gonna destroy Ganondorf with it, cause that’s all I need. Think again. I hope most of you guys who play have had the joy to experience the classic rpgs and adventure games where we needed that character to get the best weapon to beat the boss.

Anyways, I’m not saying you NEED gear tiers, but I think it’s okay to have SOME. And by golly, 1 gear tier slightly better is just 1 tier.

I believe the most amazing part of an MMO is being able to look at the game and know there there is so much out there that you can experience. “Oh man, I really can’t wait to be able to go to the Ring of Fire. I’m going to work for it!” What happened to that mentality? You know, the whole world isn’t full of people who are LFG 80s exotics only.

Also, if order to get this gear, you need to do the dungeon. That means the dungeon is do-able for the most part with exotics (not sure how it scales tho near the end…if there is an end?). I highly doubt people at this point will be like LFG 80s ascended only. If so, we need a LFG system more than anything right now.

Everyone can experience this content. It’s whether you choose to or not.

Quit feeling insecure. It’s not a race to the best gear and if you want people who will accept you for your lack of top gear then join my guild or something or a nice guild and I will help you get it. Have faith in the people who roam about still “LFG just to have fun” and let’s all tackle this new content together?

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I really hope Ascended gear is not advantaged over normal exotics for anything other than dungeons, and especially for WvWvW. I think that will cause a lot of the dedicated WvWvW players to leave the game. The only way I think this will be the case is if the infusion upgrades don’t increase stats at all.

Sorry to rant on you specifically, this goes to everyone posting similar stuff, really.

YES, it affects WvWvW.

Once the full ascended set is out, that’ll be at least an 8% advantage in base stats. It’s been said here time and again and if you take the time to look at the posted item in the blogpost, you can see it for yourself, too.

If it makes you feel better to pretend that we don’t know yet for the next three days, feel free to ignore what’s already known. But don’t confuse others by posting here, uninformed.

If this game starts a gear-treadmill, i’m out.
I don’t even know how to bring up productive critisism, because i’m so mad about this news.

The endgame and future content should challange my skill as a player. It should force me to adapt to differnt combat-situations and it should need clever builds.

I don’t want to grind powerfull items in order to comlpete a dungeon. Thats just so wrong.

At the moment this is how i feel while Anet seems to be this.

Naoko.7096:

Surprisingly, in-game majority accept the ascended gears.
I’ve not heard a single player complaint about it in map chat the whole day today. I see many great anticipation in Lion Arch and Cursed Shore of players talking good about it.

I haven’t seen a single POSITIVE comment about it in map chat. Everyone I see seems to be supremely ticked off by this reversal of promises.

killcannon.2576:

MrLee.6892:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

It’s not about a few extra stats.

It’s about a beginning gear treadmill, exotics being useless and Anet focussing on adding stuff that:
1) Goes against their own design philosophies (manifesto, multiple blog posts)
2) Nobody asked for
3) A significant amount of players dislike to such an extent that they would leave the game for it

People ask for bug fixes, cosmetics, PvP formats and RNG removed, but get a gear treadmill. Something is wrong.

Ahhh see your #2 is wrong! We did ask for it!

And #3 could also be wrong, but without any kind of definite data, we wouldn’t know the answer to it.

Who is we? You mean the 4000 or so newish posters who are here saying we don’t want it? Or the same 50 or so people who have sat on the forums trying to turn GW2 into WoW?

I get it, you’re always right nobody else is.
Not to mention people have been asking for a type of gear progression from the start.
Otherwise why do you think AN is implementing it… figure it out genius.
But you are obviously too blind to see it, and only want to see what you want to see.
I get it, you’re always right nobody else is.

If you are going to act like that, then i’m done.
Go back to Guild Wars 1 you spoiled brat

Acidic Vision said: “So let A.Net put those players that enjoy that sort of thing in a corner by themselves with what makes them happy and get back to the stuff that makes you happy."

Except that those players will consume that content quickly and be in need of another fix, and as the official blog said, this is just the beginning of new item progression initiative for the future, putting a lot of development resources and effort into trying to keep hardcore players from getting bored and feeling like they aren’t increasing their character’s power.

If we don’t stop this now, then this is where they have said they’re going. That’s not a game I want to play.

Looked through this thread as far as I can see this is all speculations.

First and foremost this isn’t a gear treadmill, and GW2 do not require a constant

number in their gamer population. This game is meant to be played, take a break- wait

for expansion- set a goal again and go for it. That is why its not a sub based game in

the first place. The devs don’t even require to bring in a new tier so early on in the

game stage but the fact they do means they got alot more stuffs installed.

If the a minority of people are still in denial and hate the changes or progression

however its called. It might be the time to take a break and maybe come back to Tyria

in a couple of months.

Solaxo.7409:

The Ascended Gear that they used in the Official News Post added a Massive +2 – +3 to the base stats LOL. They are using the infusion slots as a means to progress a gear treadmill for future PVE, and not WvW. I think its a great idea! Keeps people focused on Pve that want to; without unbalancing WvW like you suggest.

Split the playbase? How many times did you kill a level 80 and you were still not max level in WvW?

I would say you probably have more of a split for groups that drop food buffs in WvW than this gear.

Well we can do a test then if you want. You go and equip a full rare set of gear. I go with my full exotic, and we’ll see the difference in dmg. It’s quite substantial, I’ll promise you that.

Algreg.3629:

showatt.9413:

7kitten ;Algreg.3629:

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

well, then it would have been rather up front of them to say “we are making a WoW-hybrid with lots of grinding” instead of boasting for years “we will reinvent the genre and there will be no powercreep and gear treadmill”, wouldn´t you agree?

But then less people will buy their game.

Have you ever heard of a guy called Peter Molyneux?

haha, while that wasn´t actually any defense of this kind of behaviour AT ALL, it was totally hilarious, thanks for giving me a great laugh Yeah, it is actually pretty Molyneuxesque – well, short of promising world peace and stuff.

lmao there’s no defense for marketing strategy lol it is what it is.

If you ever make a game, you are sure to hype it up as much as possible.

If you don’t, you make less money.

That’s reality.

The issue isn’t that there isn’t something to do. The issue is that there wasn’t anything after 80 that power players could get here and now that others couldn’t which would make them better than all. Plain and simple.

Nothing to do at 80, right. Post by Sardu I believe:

1.Complete your personal story
2.Defeat Zhaitan
3.Unlock all available skills for your profession / race
4.Raise your crafting disciplines to skill level 400
5.Earn enough gold to purchase a racial armor set
6.Earn enough karma to purchase an exotic armor set
7.Play through all dungeons in story mode
8.Complete all dungeons in explorable mode
9.Complete all 33 possible explorable mode dungeon paths
10.Earn enough dungeon tokens to purchase a set of armor
11.Collect a set of armor from each dungeon in the game
12.Start a petition to make the Undead Orrian Chicken a new necro minion
13.Earn enough karma to purchase a racial weapon
14.Craft an exotic weapon for your character
15.Craft an exotic armor set for your character
16.Purchase a Dragon’s Deep weapon
17.Earn all possible PvE titles
18.Experiment with new builds for your profession
19.Discover all possible recipes for your crafting disciplines
20.Master all crafting disciplines
21.Experiment with the Mystic Forge
22.Create a Mystic weapon in the Mystic Forge
23.Craft a legendary weapon in the Mystic Forge
24.Explore all areas in the game
25.Find and use a vial of black dye
26.Find a vial of black dye and give it to a friend
27.Create or purchase a full set of 20 slot bags
28.Give Logan a wedgie
29.Participate in the Norn Keg Brawl
30.Unlock all Keg Brawl achievements
31.Create a new character to experience a different profession / race
32.Participate in structured PvP
33.Raise your sPvP rank
34.Achieve the rank of Ascendant in sPvP
35.Complete your favorite sPvP cosmetic armor set
36.Collect new cosmetic weapon skins for sPvP
37.Unlock all possible cosmetic weapon and armor skins in sPvP
38.Earn all sPvP titles
39.Find and complete all 31 jumping puzzles
40.Complete the current Monthly achievements
41.Help your guild earn influence to unlock additional perks
42.Outrun a centaur
43.Charm all possible pets as a Ranger
44.Create an all-ranger guild called Team Rocket, lose constantly in sPvP
45.Collect all 101 types of cooking materials
46.Fill every collection slot in the bank with at least one item
47.Participate in World versus World
48.Help your world win in WvW
49.Defeat enough enemy players in WvW to complete the medal
50.Complete the awesome Yakslapper achievement in WvW
51.Complete all WvW achievements
52.Build and use all siege weapon types in WvW
53.Earn all possible WvW Titles
54.Play the organ in Caledon forest, and party with the Quaggan
55.Earn enough gold to purchase a Commander Tome
56.Visit the monument to Killeen and pay your respects
57.Defeat the Shatterer
58.Defeat the Claw of Jormag
59.Defeat Tequatl the Sunless
60.Add new friends to your friend’s list
61.Organize an in-game event for your guild
62.Complete every map in the game
63.Participate in meta events
64.Discover and participate in new dynamic events
65.Collect stacks of butter and butter prank your friends
66.Learn the ins and outs of the Trading Post
67.Get rich selling Globs of Ectoplasm
68.Buy a Box o’ Fun and throw a party in Lion’s Arch
69.Complete an armor set for your character’s Order
70.Read all of the books in Divinity’s Reach
71.Read the story of how Ebonhawke was founded
72.Complete all possible weapon achievements for your character
73.Defeat the Champion of Grenth and purchase the exotic armor set
74.Write about your level 80 experience, have it published on GW2Hub
75.Purchase a set of armor from the guild armorsmith
76.Purchase a set of weapons from the guild weaponsmith
77.Complete all Slayer achievements
78.Complete the Lifetime Survivor achievement
79.Go skydiving in Arah after defeating Zhaitan
80.Have fun!

Guys it’s 2 stats above exotics…and they only added accessories so far. How exactly is that going to make you OP in wvwvw?

Can’t say I’m too impressed with this. GW1 managed fine for 7+ years without adding in any new tiers of gear. After the devs explicitly stated that there wouldn’t be a treadmill this feels like a bit of a slap to the face, especially to people who don’t have masses of time to play and have spent real money on gems → gold to gear up their characters in exotics on the premise that they’d last them indefinitely.

Teknobug.3782:

jboynton.7894:

bcbully.7289:

This may be the largest thread of ticked of customers I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to think back on others, but I can’t remember one that’s longer or moving this quick.

The NGE shadows the anger at this.

Yup the Galvin backfired post (where a clueless EQ2 dev jumped in) if I remember correctly, something about 2500+ pages?

Whoa.

I’m gutted… feels like a good friend just betrayed me :/

Hickeroar.9734:

ratatonga.9468:

just because the minority of players wines about getting bored doesnt mean that the vast majority of the community want that too.

contribution to the topic: better skins is nice but not better stats…

You’ve got it COMPLETELY backwards. The Majority of customers wanted it to stay just as it was. The small vocal minority whined so much that ANet has now taken steps that very well may hamper the game for the majority of people who liked it just how it was.

That’s because 90% of the guild mates and friends of that “small vocal minority” simply stopped logging instead of saying anything.

Bottom line: You can’t change human nature, there is a need for a carrot and skins were not it.

7% increase in 3 stats? 22% total increase for stats that benefit from one another.
+7% power from gear, +7% crit rate from gear and +7% crit damage from gear. Multiply and come roll things over.

Yahti.9321

Guys it’s 2 stats above exotics…and they only added accessories so far. How exactly is that going to make you OP in wvwvw?

This weekend, yes. November, 2012? Yes.

What comes in December? How about the next 12 months? You did read that it doesn’t stop there, correct? Meaning today it is 2 items, tomorrow it is weapons. It will only go on from there.

Goodbye ArenaNet. You just ruined what made your MMO different from all the others. Instead of staying true to those who supported you from the beginning of GW1 (and therefore staying true to your manifesto), you’ve sold yourself to those who will leave you as soon as it’s released a new MMO with this stupid gear progression. GG

showatt.9413:

Algreg.3629:

showatt.9413:

7kitten ;Algreg.3629:

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

well, then it would have been rather up front of them to say “we are making a WoW-hybrid with lots of grinding” instead of boasting for years “we will reinvent the genre and there will be no powercreep and gear treadmill”, wouldn´t you agree?

But then less people will buy their game.

Have you ever heard of a guy called Peter Molyneux?

haha, while that wasn´t actually any defense of this kind of behaviour AT ALL, it was totally hilarious, thanks for giving me a great laugh Yeah, it is actually pretty Molyneuxesque – well, short of promising world peace and stuff.

lmao there’s no defense for marketing strategy lol it is what it is.

If you ever make a game, you are sure to hype it up as much as possible.

If you don’t, you make less money.

That’s reality.

well, actually I have some background in this, so this is not new to me. But you can also severly burn your brand/name acting like this. Though computer players seem to be rather forgiving when it comes to that.

Hickeroar.9734:

Naoko.7096:

Surprisingly, in-game majority accept the ascended gears.
I’ve not heard a single player complaint about it in map chat the whole day today. I see many great anticipation in Lion Arch and Cursed Shore of players talking good about it.

I haven’t seen a single POSITIVE comment about it in map chat. Everyone I see seems to be supremely ticked off by this reversal of promises.

Ditto. Pretty sure he was going for some kinda troll irony.

Hickeroar.9734:

ratatonga.9468:

just because the minority of players wines about getting bored doesnt mean that the vast majority of the community want that too.

contribution to the topic: better skins is nice but not better stats…

You’ve got it COMPLETELY backwards. The Majority of customers wanted it to stay just as it was. The small vocal minority whined so much that ANet has now taken steps that very well may hamper the game for the majority of people who liked it just how it was.

isn’t that what i said in a kinda compact form? ^^

bcbully.7289:

This may be the largest thread of ticked of customers I’ve ever seen. I’m trying to think back on others, but I can’t remember one that’s longer or moving this quick.

when blizzard announced real id would show your real name by forumn posts it
was a bit faster than this, iirc it took about 3 days and bashiok finding out why it was a bad idea to post his real name till they recanted

needless to say he and his family was doxed through social media etc in a few hours and was sent many many pizzas and harassing phone calls by trolls.

The agony mechanic wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t handled in a gated manner, like other MMOs I’ve played and hated. It sounds like you’re “getting it” on the legendaries. You’re tying acquisition to in game activities and exploration, hopefully some epic dynamic events too. However, you’re failing on infusion. Infusion is needed to protect us from a strange new threat to the world that we as a heroes are to take on…. and how do we go about protecting ourselves? We go to the mystic forge and get an initial item. You haven’t released specifics on the recipe, but if it’s like the others it just requires grinding some new materials, nothing really epic. After acquiring our initial item we further our ability to protect ourselves by fighting the things we’re trying to gain protection against, in hopes they drop more protective items for us (or some token we exchange for greater protection). There is nothing epic about this.

A better handling of it would be to remove the gated aspect of it. Have it be a one time epic adventure to get agony resistance (if we must have protection, from a storyline perspective it makes sense), and then have your infinite dungeon scale in difficulty based on skill, not a need for having an arbitrary number on your character sheet that must be continually grown in order to handle new content that really isn’t harder, it just has a cheap mechanic that can only be overcome by finding the right gear with a stat in the right quantity.

It’s legendary to have an epic adventure, it is not legendary to repeat the same thing “ad nauseam”. I didn’t grind for my exotics, I took my time exploring new zones and doing my daily and in the end I had enough to craft part of my set and karma purchase the rest. This felt ideal. I never felt I had to do Plinx runs or corridor farming in Cursed Shore to get my exotics. Please, don’t change the game to require repetitive FotM runs to access new content to stay competitive in PvE/WvW.

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Either you get with the program, that progression is needed and it’s needed now, or you can kiss Guild Wars 2 completely goodbye.

This game needs a carrot that’s not Legendaries. Folks, if you think that this isn’t being done because they are having a retention problem, then you need to look again.

If ArenaNet doesn’t put something in there to keep people playing, and quickly, GW2 is toast. I love the game, but that’s just the truth.

Where are you getting this data from?

Guild Wars 2 has an obvious retention problem. Its subscriber base is now 0.

Can’t say I’m terribly impressed, but there’s still a few things I think they should clarify:

1) Will Ascended armour be upgradable with Runes?

If not, then the minor boost in stats is somewhat understandable (Given that Runes also provide specific stat increases, an overall boost in stats makes it more like the Triforge Pendant: Increase in stats across the board, but not higher than specialised gear). In which case, Exotics may still be better for specific builds (i.e. builds that focus on boons, increased condition damage ect)

2) Will Infusions act like Runes in the sense that they provide specific stat upgrades and bonuses, or will they be specifically for the Agony / FotM mechanic?

3) Will Ascended gear be guaranteed, random drops or require multiple play-through to get?

If the gear will be guaranteed, therefore progression being guaranteed, I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with this, providing I don’t have to repeat content to get it. If I have to repeat content with no guarantee of progression, I’d have a problem with that.

4) How will the personal difficulty thing work?

For example, someone who has just started wouldn’t be able to group with people that are on level 20 difficulty, because of the need for the Ascended armour against the Agony mechanic.

5) After this tier, will stats increase again, or will the only progression revolve around Infusions, therefore keeping the progression in the Fractals only?

It is a shame that such well thought out posts such as these two:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/712297

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/712299

Will get completely ignored due to the rampant merging.

You would think that we would get some sort of response to all of this activity.
And no I do not want another link to the blog post saying that explains it all. It, in fact, raised more concerns and makes a certain CM’s sarcastic twitter post look foolish.

I feel justified in asking for a more in depth, actual, official response to legimate player concerns that are being raised in this merged abomination.

People are quoting Mike O’brien and Colin Johanson, linking the manifesto etc. pointing out how this new change is against everything we were told.

I think an offical statement would go along way towards easing the players mind and getting the pitchforks put down.

Oh and for the record, I am saddened and disappointed by this change in the Guild Wars philosophy. I also feel a little bit ashamed as I actually thought they would keep their word.

phooka.4295:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I really hope Ascended gear is not advantaged over normal exotics for anything other than dungeons, and especially for WvWvW. I think that will cause a lot of the dedicated WvWvW players to leave the game. The only way I think this will be the case is if the infusion upgrades don’t increase stats at all.

Sorry to rant on you specifically, this goes to everyone posting similar stuff, really.

YES, it affects WvWvW.

Once the full ascended set is out, that’ll be at least an 8% advantage in base stats. It’s been said here time and again and if you take the time to look at the posted item in the blogpost, you can see it for yourself, too.

If it makes you feel better to pretend that we don’t know yet for the next three days, feel free to ignore what’s already known. But don’t confuse others by posting here, uninformed.

I realize the gear can be used in WvWvW, but I what I am hoping is that the infusions have very dungeon specific purposes so that the gear is actually on equal terms with current superior runed / upgraded exotics. If that isn’t the case, IMHO Anet is making a big mistake by adding a new tier.

Skimmed through this thread as far as I can see this is all speculations.

First and foremost this isn’t a gear treadmill, and GW2 do not require a constant

number in their gamer population. This game is meant to be played by setting goals

and going for it. That is why its not a sub based game in the first place. The devs don’t

even require to bring in a new tier so early on in the game stage but the fact they do

means they got alot more stuffs installed.

If a minority of the population are still in denial and hate the changes or progression

however its called. It might be the time to take a break and maybe come back to Tyria

in a couple of months.

all my guildies(n.d.r that are my friends in real) are already leaving, im the only one remain, because i want to understand what anet want to do. (but now i have 2 choices, change guild or change game).
IM concerned about these stats increasing for sure, if the new tier follow the old rules, there is no harm (crafting? karma vendor?Dungeon tokens? WvW badges?)

now the example we have its only of a ring, thats is better than the exotic ring and have the infusion slot.
But what about armors or weapons? infusion will replace runes and sigils onl for fractal purposes? we have 2 slot on the same item(1 for rune\sigil and 1 for infusion) ?is the ascent gear usable on WvW?
Anet is keeping to many mistery to us, and the blog post dont reply to our answers.
i really dont know what to think, but i dont like invest my money on mysteries.

ArenaNet and you can begin to get the feedback back from more than 4200 messages of this topic.

Since I was told that my original topic “The Fall from the manifesto” got locked due to others derailing the OP, I will now repost it here. I apologize if this is not intended by Anet, but the reason I was given by CC Ivonne was as abovestated; OP got derailed. Hence I assume I am within the forum regulations by reposting this.
_______

In short: Gated content with power-creep. ArenaNet has fallen very far from what was promised in the manifesto. Sure, it was too good to be true in the first place (affect the world in a permanent way/no more 10 minutes respawn timer yadda yadda), but it was something people – to varying degrees – were able to live with.
This upcoming change radically changes the foundation for your game.

• Competitive WvW players need to grind this. Yes, need. Competitive. People – or rather fanboys – has to understand that this isn’t really optional for the truly competitive. And ArenaNet benefits from competitive trailblazers. Just look at WoW’s raiding scene for comparison.

• Old content becoming obsolete – you can craft exotic gear. You need to grind Fractal for Ascended gear. Arguably you can still go to the old places for skins, but as the post says, there’ll be additional Ascended gear. We have now the first steps of a gear-treadmill, regardless of how delusional Anet is and try to spin it. This runs counter to the core tenet of GW2.

Even more interesting, this shows a blatant lack of correspondance between the community and the developer. I’d argue that sub-10% of GW2’s playerbase want a gear treadmill. If people leave it is because:

• tPvP is in its death-spasms from lack of support.

• It’s because WvW has become extremely unstable due to transfers, with servers “dying” in a regular basis (formerly Ruins of Surmia/HoD/ET, now apparently Gunnar’s Hold).

• It’s because we were promised that the game “wouldn’t be this boring grind amongst occasionally fun tasks” (paraphrasing manifesto), yet what we received was a game whose endgame was the epitome of a korean mmo grind with an added RNG component that combines fantasy mmo with a shady Las Vegas casino.

It is NOT because people want to grind additional gear. It is NOT because people want to do even more work kitting out their alts. It is NOT because people feel a “lack of progression”. It is because the end-game activities – WvW, s/tPvP, Dungeons – are not being supported enough and suffer from bad design choices.

Going into how these three end-game areas could be improved would require entirely separate and long posts, hence I’ll leave that to others who have already done a wonderful job of highlighting the problems (see for instance Pray’s post regarding s/tPvP).

That being said, my own few bulletpoints:

• Don’t allow free transfers galore. Once every 3 months/free, otherwise paid. We need to build actual server communities.

• Tune dungeons properly so that fights become shorter, more intense and overall ‘make more sense’. Some fights already are, but a large segment of the fights are extremely long compared to the ease of their mechanics due to sheer amount of hp. In short, they become boring. If a mob telegraphs an attack in slow-motion every 10 seconds, it shouldn’t be necessary to slap it for 3 minutes. It gets stale when you have to do it ad naseum.

• Get to work on a proper ladder/ranking system in tPvP. ELO. Right now a fresh team of rank 1s can risk running into an established team of rank 40s+ and get demolished 500-10. It’s not enjoyable for either and it causes people to leave because there’s simply too steep an entry barrier. The alternative – paid tournaments – suffer from the same problems as there’s often 30 minutes+ waiting time. Fun fact: It requires two paid tournament finale wins to get on the “official ranking” Anet released. That is as clear a testimony as any that the current pvp environment is not in a healthy state.

Focus on getting proper ranking and matchmaking system first. ASAP even. Rented servers be kitten. You can’t make an e-sport without bottom-up player-support. The average Joe won’t have a rented server and won’t be inclined to start delving into which one he should join for proper scrims. After matchmaking, focus on Rented servers/spectator mode/et al.

Heimlich.3065:

jboynton.7894:

Crackbone.5710:

Either you get with the program, that progression is needed and it’s needed now, or you can kiss Guild Wars 2 completely goodbye.

This game needs a carrot that’s not Legendaries. Folks, if you think that this isn’t being done because they are having a retention problem, then you need to look again.

If ArenaNet doesn’t put something in there to keep people playing, and quickly, GW2 is toast. I love the game, but that’s just the truth.

Where are you getting this data from?

Guild Wars 2 has an obvious retention problem. Its subscriber base is now 0.

lol

/15char

Plunder.8195:

Zephaust Zenith.8376:

(…)
consequently increasing the rewards / chances of getting better loot.

Same could be said for dragon events and many others.
This is all ingame already and i’d think it would be a matter of tweaking it.

I might miss something, but what is the purpose of better loot if you are already full exotic?

I don’t think ‘better loot’ is in anyway a lasting concept for endgame.
…

Better loot scaled with the difficulty and player actual lvl could be several things…

higher exotic drop chance
precursor drop chance
mats
different skins
consumables
and so on

… pretty much anything that could be of some use other than vendor items, doesn’t need to be better but the higher the event difficulty, the higher the chances of something worthwhile item wise.

The Mad King has something to add to the topic:

https://twitter.com/TheRealMadKing/status/268379553418858496

Algreg.3629:

Probably the story goes like this: Numbers of players dropping, comparatively few (compared to overall players) rage on the forums for 2 months about the game not being WoWish enough, devs come to the conclusion it must be the gear progression – overlooking the major problem with having mostly repetitive and/or useless or no fun content to do at level 80. Instead of inspecting what is wrong with the high level content, they chose the easiest way – all those forum people love WoW after all, right? – turn 180 degrees and forget everything they have been claiming since summer in a VERY loud voice. Marvelous, just marvelous. I am pretty sure it will end this way: still losing the power creep faction to games that are doing this way better than GW2 while alienating the other camp that were sold a different philosophy initially. Great job.

This. Anet has failed us all. Can’t believe I spent so much in the Gem store lol. All for nothing now as that exotic gear will be useless soon………

Floryn.6307:

Bottom line: You can’t change human nature, there is a need for a carrot and skins were not it.

People played and still play games like UO or AC1, which are without a gear carrot. It’s WoW (and EQ) and its clones who made people feel they can’t play games for fun anymore, but that they need some kind of virtual purple item at the end of a grind instead.

Generalizations are always bad, even when you are knowing the topic you make the generalization about quite well. They are even worse when you don’t know the topic, aka when the only possible MMO model for you is a gear grind based WoW clone.

I’ll add my .02 here, as I said on Massively:

This sounds suspiciously like LotRO’s Gloom vs. Radiance mechanic. Can’t say I dug that at all. In a game with a similarly large base of casual explorer and RP types, in LotRO that mechanic was such a drag on high level play and such a source of complaint from players that Turbine removed it from the game completely. Adding it here just seems counter intuitive to the whole philosophy of the game, as I’ve been reading and hearing about it for years now.

Regarding the ANet quote about the new gear, “An edge” is one thing. If it’s deemed necessary by the game itself to progress or succeed, or even worse, If this turns into an min/maxer sort of eP**n “must have all ascended gear or GTFO” in the hands of the GearScore vets, I will be very unhappy. I left WoW because of crap like this; out of control catering to sPvP and raider hardcore minorities which IMO led to a general degradation of the player base into towns becoming lobbies for your random dungeons and pvp, where too many player’s worth was measured by how optimized their FOTM build was/how high their GearScore was. If this mechanic shows signs of encouraging the player base to move this way, ANet will never get another dime from me. The devil is in the details, of course, and I’ll wait expectantly to see how it all shakes out. I am very wary.

TL;DR – If this adds an additional layer of content gating beyond level and basic level appropriateness for gear, as it seems to do, with the promise of even more down the road, I’m not sure what to think about this game. ANet, don’t do me like that!

FooKFiGhTeR.8153:

Skimmed through this thread as far as I can see this is all speculations.

First and foremost this isn’t a gear treadmill, and GW2 do not require a constant

number in their gamer population. This game is meant to be played by setting goals

and going for it. That is why its not a sub based game in the first place. The devs don’t

even require to bring in a new tier so early on in the game stage but the fact they do

means they got alot more stuffs installed.

If a minority of the population are still in denial and hate the changes or progression

however its called. It might be the time to take a break and maybe come back to Tyria

in a couple of months.

WvW uses pve gear.