Guild Wars 2

Please tell me what do you think about the end game pve, guys? Does it really satisfy you to grind Plinx and other dynamic events all the time? Is running dungeons for the same gear, what you can buy or craft, is the answer? Oh yeah you can do it for the looks, but come on…

As I read the news about the patch, I became really excited, because a minor gear progression will be available – an incentive to do dungeons. The end game will become interesting, as you have to beat mobs, bosses, the whole dungeon to get better gear, therefore making progression and create a stronger character, which, in my opinion, is what end game should be about. An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content. As things stand currently, you reach lvl 80 and you can get a full exotic (end game) gear in no time. This made a lot of players to quit, because they can’t do anything else, there is no GOAL in the game anymore. That’s where the problem lies, and now Anet is heading into the right direction, in my opinion, with introducing this method. ( I don’t want to come up with WoW, but if it isn’t for their end game raids and gear progression, the game would be pretty much dead now.)

This is why I can’t understand the rage about it. Do you really want to continue farming events for gold, and get a different looking armor, or go into a dungeon with your mates and fight for a better gear and feel good about it? Furthermore, they are introducing this whole system in pieces, which is really a sensible thing to do now. You get the back item and the rings now, and in later major updates we will be able to get more. Most importantly, it will be worthwhile to do dungeons and a lot of players will have an incentive to log in again and play with the game.

Finally, I’m sad that the community is flaming about it like no tomorrow. You don’t know yet, what will it be, but you immediately start writing whine posts and saying things like this is the end of gw2… :/ Just be patient, and you will realize that, in fact, it’s a good thing.

Just my two cents, and /heavy flamesuit on :P

Yeah the thing I dont understand about this is when another mmo player complains about “no endgame” they are flamed and told thats not what gw is about. They say endgame is about exploring, crafting, blah blah blah. So my question is then why do you care about this gear change? All your exploring is still there. Crafting isnt changing. Map completion wont include this dungeon. No one can inspect you to see you dont have ascended gear.

Crafting is worthless now, because u cant craft the best things in the game anymore….why would anyone start crafting now? Uh, I see, just to blow up time and gold….

" An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content. "

This, really, is not necessarily true. Not all MMOs are like that. Not everyone likes that. A lot of people game to GW2 specifically to escape that from other games.

If I wanted an endless grind for numbers, I would just play real life.

My only concern is that it will make other dungeons obsolete.

Probably because things like this cause a divide in the community as always.

What happens when new players join or very causal players for that matter, they don’t have much in the way of gear.

new player:- LFG new dungeon.

existing player invites them

new player :- hi guys.

Existing player:- you got your Ascended Gear?

New player:- Nope

( new player kicked)

New player Kittened off and has to spam for hours trying to get a group to actually get some Ascended Gear to get groups quicker.

Elitism is not an issue in GW2 currently and it is a good reason many play.

Stuff like this promotes it.

In MMOs, the unofficial standard for a player’s gear constantly changes based on what kind of gear is available. At this current point, the unofficial gear standard for an established 80th character is full Exotic gear. Once these new Fractual gear pieces get introduced, the gear standard will change to expecting everyone to have Fractal armor and Exotic weapons / jewelry.

I’m tired of the gear treadmills of other MMOs. Having a perfectionist streak, I know that I won’t be satisfied to weaken my character when there are better options available. This leads me to dungeon and gear grind to meet the new gear standard. If I fail to meet this new standard, then my performance will be sub-par in newer content and I’ll be socially snubbed by the usually MMO elitism that appears in any MMO. So as a result, I end up chain grinding for 1-2 months of my life to meet the new gear tier. Rinse and repeat for each new gear upgrade.

One of the key appeals of GW2 was that it didn’t want to go down that route. Based on everything that I’ve seen during the past couple of years, they gave the impression that GW2 was going to be more of a part-time MMO. Their core audience would be people who either played a 2nd MMO as their primary game or for people who had busy real world lives and couldn’t invest the time neccessary to keep up with the standard MMO pack.

Based on that interview article, it appears that ArenaNet is backing away from one of the key things that I found so appealing about the game. Assuming that the article is accurate, then a lot of us will have to seriously re-evaluate about just how we feel about the revised standard for GW2. Since it’s a Buy To Play model, lost “subscribers” won’t even make that much of a dent in ArenaNet’s short term finanaces. It will be interesting to see if switching to a cliche Gear Progression system will help or harm ArenaNet in the future.

There’s no progression, and your character doesn’t get stronger.

New content that is meant to be at the top level of difficulty will be designed and balanced around the maximum power level that a player can maintain.
It doesn’t matter if that maximum power level means a full set of Exotic gear, a set of Exotic gear with two Ascended rings and a back brace, or a full set of Ascended gear – the actual content, and the actual difficulty level, is going to be balanced around the maximum. The player won’t be any stronger relative to the actual content. The player will only be stronger relative to older, outdated gear.

It’s a treadmill. You have to keep running, you have to keep upgrading your gear, but you’re always stuck in exactly the same place – you’ll never be stronger than the toughest content in the game, because that tough content comes pre-calibrated to take the best equipment into account.

And if you don’t choose to run on the treadmill, what happens? You get weaker as time goes by, because that new content is targeted at players with “Maximum Equipment”, and the “Maximum Equipment” you used to have is now only “(Maximum -1) Equipment”.

So the player never gets stronger, even if they keep upgrading their equipment. Players instead get weaker, if they don’t upgrade their equipment. The only people that are satisfied by this sort of vertical progression are people who enjoy the process of upgrading equipment. And once they actually have the new, “stronger” equipment, they’re right back where they started, waiting for the next round of equipment to run the treadmill backward a little more so they can run to catch up to where they were to begin with.

It’s a farce, and a waste of my time. People are right to flame it.

The end game should always be about the gameplay.

If developers designed challenging, dynamic gameplay systems and provided players with a tool box to make everyone feel like Picasso; it won’t matter if there is gear or not. A gear treadmill makes developers lazy. All they need to do is increase NPC damage and health in the next tier and call that the next “challenge”.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Crafting is worthless now, because u cant craft the best things in the game anymore….why would anyone start crafting now? Uh, I see, just to blow up time and gold….

How did you know that crafting is worthless NOW when you are not yet sure what the future has in store for you yet? Don’t tell me you’re a doomsayer

I was perfectly happy to PvE now and then for cash, then spend rest time in Wv3 having fun. Now I have to grind for legendaries in PvE to get back to PvPing at a competive level….ok. No.

I look at that ring and thing wow, take off MF and put toughness on it: thats way better than what I got now. Then times that by a whole set, then add bigger dps weapons > exos….then up the bar every month or two. ARGH!

No no I did not ask for this!

There isn’t any ascended armor yet so you can still craft the best armor, and it’s pretty much certain they will introduce new recipes to craft Ascended. Only thing needed to do the dungeon is the Agony stat which is only needed in the dungeon.

This is just something new to do, the stats won’t make you or other players gods, Ascended armor when released will be easy to obtain like exotics now. They’re even making legendaries easier or at least not as random.

Seriously not a big deal.

“An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content.”
this game was not supposed to be about this by anet manifesto.
some of us dont like grind, to make it simple, we would like to have a game like lets say… street fighter, or Quake 3, but with Guildwars 2 mechanics. where the outcome is not determined by who spent the most time griding, where its all about player skills. like the pvp part of this game…

I like the Ascended gear and I am one of the people who HATEs the treadmill. People already do that in Dungeons now Kistell when they look to see if you have exotics.

I primarily WvW currently and having incentive to go and check out some new content is awesome, also if someone has these pieces and I dont the stat difference is so small it wont even matter in WvW. RNG within your damage range would completely hide the extra 5, FIVE! of a single stat that these pieces have extra. For 3 slots thats a total of 15 power, out of around 2k if you stack power.
You guys are really losing your minds over 0.75% increase?

I frankly don’t need any special Gimmix like stronger gear (i.e. gear with higher numbers) etc. in the so called “endgame” to keep me playing – and I have absolutely no problem with a merely cosmetic progression.
That was one of the big selling points for me, actually.

niclas.7693:

Please tell me what do you think about the end game pve, guys? Does it really satisfy you to grind Plinx and other dynamic events all the time? Is running dungeons for the same gear, what you can buy or craft, is the answer? Oh yeah you can do it for the looks, but come on…

As I read the news about the patch, I became really excited, because a minor gear progression will be available – an incentive to do dungeons. The end game will become interesting, as you have to beat mobs, bosses, the whole dungeon to get better gear, therefore making progression and create a stronger character, which, in my opinion, is what end game should be about. An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content. As things stand currently, you reach lvl 80 and you can get a full exotic (end game) gear in no time. This made a lot of players to quit, because they can’t do anything else, there is no GOAL in the game anymore. That’s where the problem lies, and now Anet is heading into the right direction, in my opinion, with introducing this method. ( I don’t want to come up with WoW, but if it isn’t for their end game raids and gear progression, the game would be pretty much dead now.)

This is why I can’t understand the rage about it. Do you really want to continue farming events for gold, and get a different looking armor, or go into a dungeon with your mates and fight for a better gear and feel good about it? Furthermore, they are introducing this whole system in pieces, which is really a sensible thing to do now. You get the back item and the rings now, and in later major updates we will be able to get more. Most importantly, it will be worthwhile to do dungeons and a lot of players will have an incentive to log in again and play with the game.

Finally, I’m sad that the community is flaming about it like no tomorrow. You don’t know yet, what will it be, but you immediately start writing whine posts and saying things like this is the end of gw2… :/ Just be patient, and you will realize that, in fact, it’s a good thing.

Just my two cents, and /heavy flamesuit on :P

The best post I have read about the upcomming ascended gear!
Well done

I bought this game only cause i was assured there is fixed gear treadmill, if i wanted make my character better and better, and get special stats (which are useless in 99% of the game) – i would play another MMO. Adding new challenging dungeon and zones totally fine, adding gear with better stats – are not good at all.

I will never understand while “meaningful end-game content” has to involve a gear treadmill which is a poor illusion at best to someone with even half a brain.

I swear 15 years of EQ/WoW/etc. has really done a number when it comes to conditioning people.

If I wanted to play a game with grinding for item progression, I would just play Rift which has far superior itemization.

Amulrei.4973:

I will never understand while “meaningful end-game content” has to involve a gear treadmill which is a poor illusion at best to someone with even half a brain.

I swear 15 years of EQ/WoW/etc. has really done a number when it comes to conditioning people.

EQ prior to Luclin wasn’t even as bad as the modern MMO. There was gear grind, but the levels of the player were far more important than any of the gear and gear lasted a long time. I had three robes. My first magical robe I got at low level lasted until my Enchanter was able to obtain an Ishva robe and it lasted until I was in my 50s when I got my planar robe which lasted until I quit the game. Now level grind on the other hand is a completely different topic.

You get better by understanding gaming mechanics and working on builds and party formation! This is how you get better… The ONLY way to get better! If you bring a Ferrari and a Skoda to race on a straight line, you can be the best bloody pilot in the world, if I am driving the Ferrari I will still beat you! Am I better than you? No? Do some people (specially immature and unbalanced people) strive on this false sense of being better? Yes! Does that make them right? No…

Improve gameplay, increase number of skills, build composition, stats etc, etc… There is a WORLD of gameplay to play with! Increase content, everyone is happy with that! Do not increase the gap between players that have no life and players that play GW2 more casually! That defeats ALL the purpose of this game… As many said it already, there are TONS of other games out there for that!

PS: I am a GW fanboy and I will defend them! But I am not blind… And no one should be! If they want to listen to their costumers… Listen to them! Have mechanisms ingame to ask for people’s opinions on developing the game!

arcaneclarity.5283:

If I wanted to play a game with grinding for item progression, I would just play Rift which has far superior itemization.

Exactly. If you were conditioned enough to actually enjoy gear progression, there is plenty of games out their built around it.

GW2 however, was not. Trying to smash it though the wall at this stage in the game is just going to end poorly for all involved.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Crafting is worthless now, because u cant craft the best things in the game anymore….why would anyone start crafting now? Uh, I see, just to blow up time and gold….

“There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes…..” – https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Its still crafting. Not? Depends on what the recipe requires, but perhaps you crafting was still useful. The article is just not informative enough. Seen that many times in MMOs where little information is worse than no information.

Why do people tie new content and more powerful gear together with rope woven from unbreakablium thread in their own minds when in reality no such connection exists? You can have one without the other. Halloween springs to mind.

Honestly my real problem with the whole situation right now, is they have spent time and resources on a new mechanic and dungeon system, when there are still very major bugs in the game.

Every class has bugged skills/traits that need to be fixed. DEs are still breaking. There are dungeon paths that are basically unplayable. Get this stuff fixed first, then worry about the <1% that rushed their legendaries and are whining there is nothing to do.

I bought this game knowing that:
“There will be no mandatory grind”;
“End game is all the game”.

So I was perfectly happy grinding stuff for better looking items at my own pace while I explored all the professions and several builds for each.

I also bought the game knowing “that fun is how we measure success, not some items with +1”.

Apparently they decided to change that based on player feedback.

So if screaming in a forum brings changes, I’m screaming my feedback.

And my feedback is:

“Leave the continuous gear upgrades outside. It is not fun!”

I’ll be playing, but my gem store purchases (which have been at least the cost of the game box, digital deluxe) will be halted while this change is in effect as a protest.

I was planning on buying the new miniatures for the “Lost Shore” event like I did for the Halloween event, but not anymore.

displacedTitan.6897:

I like the Ascended gear and I am one of the people who HATEs the treadmill. People already do that in Dungeons now Kistell when they look to see if you have exotics.

I think your missing the point and i take it you never played the likes of RIFT.

Some people do ask for exotics but its pretty easy to get groups any way, adding further tiers of dungeons exasperates this ten fold.

Players wont want to run old content , they will be obsessed with running only the most difficult runs in the new dungeons.

So what does a new player do? they have a dilemma they need to get at least a set exotics to run the basic new dungeon (which many people are no longer doing) , but their are virtually no people running older content for them to get to that stage.

Every time you add a new set and dungeon based on sets , it makes it harder and harder for new players to join so they quit.

The same also applies to very casual players whom get left behind , this is some thing ANET promised would not happen.

niclas.7693:

Please tell me what do you think about the end game pve, guys? Does it really satisfy you to grind Plinx and other dynamic events all the time? Is running dungeons for the same gear, what you can buy or craft, is the answer? Oh yeah you can do it for the looks, but come on…

As I read the news about the patch, I became really excited, because a minor gear progression will be available – an incentive to do dungeons. The end game will become interesting, as you have to beat mobs, bosses, the whole dungeon to get better gear, therefore making progression and create a stronger character, which, in my opinion, is what end game should be about. An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content. As things stand currently, you reach lvl 80 and you can get a full exotic (end game) gear in no time. This made a lot of players to quit, because they can’t do anything else, there is no GOAL in the game anymore. That’s where the problem lies, and now Anet is heading into the right direction, in my opinion, with introducing this method. ( I don’t want to come up with WoW, but if it isn’t for their end game raids and gear progression, the game would be pretty much dead now.)

This is why I can’t understand the rage about it. Do you really want to continue farming events for gold, and get a different looking armor, or go into a dungeon with your mates and fight for a better gear and feel good about it? Furthermore, they are introducing this whole system in pieces, which is really a sensible thing to do now. You get the back item and the rings now, and in later major updates we will be able to get more. Most importantly, it will be worthwhile to do dungeons and a lot of players will have an incentive to log in again and play with the game.

Finally, I’m sad that the community is flaming about it like no tomorrow. You don’t know yet, what will it be, but you immediately start writing whine posts and saying things like this is the end of gw2… :/ Just be patient, and you will realize that, in fact, it’s a good thing.

Just my two cents, and /heavy flamesuit on :P

People are upset because it goes against what they were promised. If a company makes a promise that is factored into your decision to buy a product, and then they go back on thier promise, even a little bit, it upsets people. Not necessarily because of the tiny amount of progression, but because of the fact that they do not know where it will end.

say i’m a busy person that plays a couple hours a week. I have money, so i bought gems to trade for gold, so i could get the best armor (statwise) so I could compete on an equal level. The devs said when i bought it that (statwise) i would never have to worry about upgrading again.

You see where changing this can become a problem.

To sumerize, I don’t think people are really to bent out of shape about the extra couple of stat points, as much as they are worried about where it will end.

Azarul.2064:

Yeah the thing I dont understand about this is when another mmo player complains about “no endgame” they are flamed and told thats not what gw is about. They say endgame is about exploring, crafting, blah blah blah. So my question is then why do you care about this gear change? All your exploring is still there. Crafting isnt changing. Map completion wont include this dungeon. No one can inspect you to see you dont have ascended gear.

For sure. I’ve been told time and time again to basically just screw off and go find another game if I want progression, endgame, or any sort of goal to work towards outside of legendaries. Well, I’m glad I stuck around.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Crafting is worthless now, because u cant craft the best things in the game anymore….why would anyone start crafting now? Uh, I see, just to blow up time and gold….

To level Alts from 1 to 80 while standing next to a crafting station.

Just so EVERYONE can be clear:

People who rage about lacking of endgame content =/= people who are raging about this. well, not necessarily.

I have been getting more and more upset with this as of late too. Anet has a choice to make. Either they can make this game easy mode like WoW has become or take a stand. I feel like the more vocal members of the community want this game to be for casuals. I understand not everyone wants a grind fest but the fact that I have only 60 hours in game and am over half way to level cap scares me. I took a month off to let them work out some bugs and one of my friends stayed. I came back after a month and he had already hit level cap and had full exotic gear. That is disgusting. Full exotic within a month? Casual Casual Casual.

I’ve played enough years of enough MMOs to conclude that I don’t like the gear treadmill. So I bought GW2 because ANet promoted it saying there was no gear treadmill.

I am not going to like it now when I hated it in other games. It’s not that a gear treadmill is bad per definition, it’s bad for me cause I don’t like it.

Where were you when people were flaming the game for lack of endgame and were crying for a carrot? Did you tell them to hush and deal with it? My guess would be no.

The tables are turned but now they are turned because Anet put aside once of their core philosophies….that worries me more than the actual new tier of gear.

I think there are better things to keep you incented to play for.

It other MMOs gold was important so you crafted and gathered. Gold is not really important here so I have no incentive to craft or gather.

Why not make gold more useful and dungeons a viable way to making gold.

Why not a long quest that requires you to join a guild, group up with guildies and complete it in order to get an extra skill slot Force some social behaviour into the game and the social experience may help the game.

In Aion it was important to be in a guild, for PvP revenge killing in an Open World to getting help completing some kitten difficult quests.

Here you can play solo so you lose the social experience an MMO could be.

If I wanted 100,000 gold and top gear just like everyone else I’d play wow….

Azarul.2064:

Yeah the thing I dont understand about this is when another mmo player complains about “no endgame” they are flamed and told thats not what gw is about. They say endgame is about exploring, crafting, blah blah blah. So my question is then why do you care about this gear change? All your exploring is still there. Crafting isnt changing. Map completion wont include this dungeon. No one can inspect you to see you dont have ascended gear.

I think the problem is a lot deeper than just: “There is no endgame” or “There is an endgame”.

First:
It’s quite interesting, because I would be someone telling that the game is not about endgame.
Back when I was playing GW1 it really felt like that. You were able to achieve level 20 (max level) in a day, without pushing anything to hard, just relaxed playing. So basically the whole game was about the endgame. You could just do lots and lots of different things everything was summarised in titles, which were a lot harder to achieve than those ones right now.
So what I am talking about is:
There is not enough to do in pve, right now, that’s a fact for me. And I understand your feeling about

They say endgame is about exploring, crafting, blah blah blah.

For me it feels like the game should be able to catch all the people and so they tried, mixed and invented a lot, but the ideas behind titles are not same as GW1, not even close. Right now it doesn’t feel like you achieve something by doing achievements or titles – either they are so easy to do that it could just be normal achievments or they are just so hard that I wouldn’t even try to do them (thinking about WvW and SPvP – not even able to show ranks, why? ).
And even if someone would be able to achieve those. You can’t see them at all, just some small, really really small greyish letters that no one can see and no one cares about. Me neither. So I never got the feeling like: ’ Yay, I achieved something! ’

That’s something that makes me sick. I just don’t feel rewarded at all.

The only thing that you can eventually see from a different character is the armor and maybe their weapons, so the game says: ‘I don’t care about titles/achievements, just about armor and weapons’ – Welcome to the thinking of stats…

niclas.7693:

As I read the news about the patch, I became really excited, because a minor gear progression will be available – an incentive to do dungeons.

I guess my question to you is the same question I have asked for years in other forms, most notably, when someone poses the idea to have more forced group content to encourage people to play in parties.

If it’s so fun, doing dungeons, why do you need an incentive? Don’t you just do it because it’s a fun thing to do? Like joining a party and having your play dictated to you by whoever emerges as the alpha dog? That’s just fun, right?

Why does it have to be about Starbelly Sneetches? Why do so many equate how well they did, or how much fun they had, based on what someone else doesn’t have? Reminds me of Carlin’s old ‘stuff’ routine.

And…

greg.3792:

In Aion it was important to be in a guild, for PvP revenge killing in an Open World to getting help completing some kitten difficult quests.

in Aion it was never important to be in a guild. All the good players could function perfectly solo. The guild was irrelevant. Not to say that I didn’t meet good players through the guild that I was in, but anyone at the top level in Aion played and functioned solo.

niclas.7693:

An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content.

I disagree, I think it’s more fun to overcome difficult situations with tatics and your ability to play well, not by making it trivial through better gear.
The challenging and fun part of MMOs is that you have to get better to beat new content.
And that’s how difficulty should be implemented, through challenging and new mechanics and not by an increase of your statistical power.

I don’t understand why so many people are focused on big numbers…

Now if this is the only tier added in for all of the game, I’m ok.

The problem people are having is they fear that in the future, another tier will be added. Then another. Then another. So on and so forth. Creating a gear treadmill. That’s why people are up in arms. Because it does hint that ANet will create a gear treadmill over the life of the game. Or at least that it’s possible.

Does it mean ANet will? No.

Now before everyone jumps on me, before this tier was announced, there was 0% thought in the playerbase that the game will turn into a gear treadmill. Now that percentage has gone up. And that’s where it hurts ANet.

A percentage of people who think the game will turn into a gear treadmill will quit. Reducing cash shop purchases as some of them will be those who did use the cash shop to some degree.

It also hurts new sales as now no one really knows if the game is still no gear treadmill. Will this be the only tier added? Or is this just a sign of things to come?

While I’m on the fence on whether or not the game will turn into a gear treadmill, I hope those who are quitting over it either get through to ANet and they change their mind on the gear treadmill or that those who quit due to it are wrong in their assumption. Because the no gear treadmill was a positive thing about GW2.

No Dungeons are too much hassle, an no i don’t really care about Armors, i play to do PvE which i enjoy a lot. I love map completions mostly…

I have no need of any PvP or incredibly hard Dungeons…

More PvE content and less gear grinds would be great please Anet..

niclas.7693:

This made a lot of players to quit, because they can’t do anything else, there is no GOAL in the game anymore. That’s where the problem lies, and now Anet is heading into the right direction, in my opinion, with introducing this method …. it will be worthwhile to do dungeons and a lot of players will have an incentive to log in again and play with the game.

so the solution is more powerful gear? (yes, yes its only marginally more powerful but bear with me here) then when these same people are done getting this gear what then? release another set of marginally more powerful gear and upgrade legendary tier weapons again? no, so make it harder to get maybe? epic grinds don’t deter some so i guess releasing this armor in stages sort of addresses that problem while you wait for the release of the next expansion, which is exactly what i think A-net is doing. its a holding pattern. this isn’t a flame, by any means, nor necessarily a criticism , just an observation. as i’ve yet to see exactly how this system will be implemented (granted its pretty simple in concept) and play out. while cynical, for now i’m content to wait and watch.

IonicBlaze.7948:

Crafting is worthless now, because u cant craft the best things in the game anymore….why would anyone start crafting now? Uh, I see, just to blow up time and gold….

Exactly.

If they want to keep true to their promises about game design being different put 1 set of recipes per armor type in the game the crafters don’t have to step foot in a single dungeon or PVP zone to make. It’s that simple.

Azarul.2064:

My only concern is that it will make other dungeons obsolete.

They are already obsolete

What a load of BS. This is why we are angry:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74995-manifesto-in-flames-what-can-be-done/

They promised us something and now they are backtracking on their whole philosophy. This is a philosophy they’ve had since GW1. This is something that drew many of us to GW2 to begin with. I’m very busy with work. It might mean taking time off from the game. This game WAS unique in that I could do that and not worry about playing catch up next time I log on. Not just me, I read a post from someone in the military getting deployed soon. That was a big draw for them too.

You DON’T need gear grind. It’s kitten lazy design. A crappy way to keep people playing. Be innovative Anet and come up with actual content to keep people busy.

Crater.1625:

There’s no progression, and your character doesn’t get stronger.

New content that is meant to be at the top level of difficulty will be designed and balanced around the maximum power level that a player can maintain.
It doesn’t matter if that maximum power level means a full set of Exotic gear, a set of Exotic gear with two Ascended rings and a back brace, or a full set of Ascended gear – the actual content, and the actual difficulty level, is going to be balanced around the maximum. The player won’t be any stronger relative to the actual content. The player will only be stronger relative to older, outdated gear.

It’s a treadmill. You have to keep running, you have to keep upgrading your gear, but you’re always stuck in exactly the same place – you’ll never be stronger than the toughest content in the game, because that tough content comes pre-calibrated to take the best equipment into account.

And if you don’t choose to run on the treadmill, what happens? You get weaker as time goes by, because that new content is targeted at players with “Maximum Equipment”, and the “Maximum Equipment” you used to have is now only “(Maximum -1) Equipment”.

So the player never gets stronger, even if they keep upgrading their equipment. Players instead get weaker, if they don’t upgrade their equipment. The only people that are satisfied by this sort of vertical progression are people who enjoy the process of upgrading equipment. And once they actually have the new, “stronger” equipment, they’re right back where they started, waiting for the next round of equipment to run the treadmill backward a little more so they can run to catch up to where they were to begin with.

It’s a farce, and a waste of my time. People are right to flame it.

Spot on. This seems to go right over some peoples heads. It’s all an illusion, you never actually make any progress at all if the line keeps getting moved each time you get near it. On the other hand, the ones who do not take part in such a playstyle gets weaker and weaker the longer they stay away from it.

Feels like they are simply putting a band-aid on the bigger problem, wich seems to be a lack of variety and challenge of the so called endgame.

niclas.7693:

Please tell me what do you think about the end game pve, guys? Does it really satisfy you to grind Plinx and other dynamic events all the time? Is running dungeons for the same gear, what you can buy or craft, is the answer? Oh yeah you can do it for the looks, but come on…

As I read the news about the patch, I became really excited, because a minor gear progression will be available – an incentive to do dungeons. The end game will become interesting, as you have to beat mobs, bosses, the whole dungeon to get better gear, therefore making progression and create a stronger character, which, in my opinion, is what end game should be about. An MMO is about making your character better and better to beat the upcoming content. As things stand currently, you reach lvl 80 and you can get a full exotic (end game) gear in no time. This made a lot of players to quit, because they can’t do anything else, there is no GOAL in the game anymore. That’s where the problem lies, and now Anet is heading into the right direction, in my opinion, with introducing this method. ( I don’t want to come up with WoW, but if it isn’t for their end game raids and gear progression, the game would be pretty much dead now.)

This is why I can’t understand the rage about it. Do you really want to continue farming events for gold, and get a different looking armor, or go into a dungeon with your mates and fight for a better gear and feel good about it? Furthermore, they are introducing this whole system in pieces, which is really a sensible thing to do now. You get the back item and the rings now, and in later major updates we will be able to get more. Most importantly, it will be worthwhile to do dungeons and a lot of players will have an incentive to log in again and play with the game.

Finally, I’m sad that the community is flaming about it like no tomorrow. You don’t know yet, what will it be, but you immediately start writing whine posts and saying things like this is the end of gw2… :/ Just be patient, and you will realize that, in fact, it’s a good thing.

Just my two cents, and /heavy flamesuit on :P

Yes, I want to farm a dungeon for different looking gear. Yes, I want to run the dungeon with my friends to feel good about it. It’s a game, I’m playing it to have fun, not because I need to prove something.

There is nothing good about introducing another tier of gear that than becomes a requirement to do things in the game. I like having multiple characters who are worthwhile additions to the group. Considering that I have a job that is sometimes requires me to give up an unreasonable amount of my free time, this game was a good choice for me, because once I got my exotics all I had to do was worry about whether there was something that looked cool that I wanted.

That was it. No treadmill, no new tiers, no new levels. I could take a couple days and play an alt if I wanted since I didn’t feel like I was losing out on progression on my main while doing it. It was like DAoC again and it was great.

Now I might as well go back to my WoW account, because they have a less buggy game, a more interesting story, and they at least have a dungeon finder for me to find other idiots to grind the next tier of gear with.

I really hope this patch kills the fan base for this game so Arenanet will learn not to break promises.

In my opinion the problem is, that most GW1 players are dissappointed, because we trusted A-Net to not have an item progression system like we had in GW1 and that the way to go was to have harder dungeons and enemies where you have to develope skill to beat it and not new gear.
It is good, that some players are happy with item progression and I don’t resent them for being happy about it, but I honestly feel betrayed by A-Net since before the launch of GW2 in all their blog-post, manifestos etc they always said that there would be no item progression. And sure, the actual change in this game update will be minimal, but it is the start of a path I don’t agree with.

So are people freaking out over the Tri-Forge Pendant?

+40 Power
+40 Precision
+40 Toughness
+40 Vitality
+5% Critical Damage
+40 Healing Power
+40 Condition Damage
+ Upgrade slot

This item is already a more useful accessory as it benefits everything your character can do. It’s been there from the get go, no one seems to complain about it.

Thank you for your thoughts and inputs regarding my topic. I understand that most of you don’t like the idea of Anet’s new plan, and I respect everyone’s opinion, but let me argue with some of the points.

First of all, you say that doing dungeons for better gear should not be implemented, as you don’t like grinding in games. That’s okay, but don’t forget 2 things: currently we do the same grinding every day, as we are farming events for hours – that’s basically the same. Moreover, you are invited to a group in hope for better drops. This would be the case here as well, but in a dungeon environment. Secondly, I don’t think Anet are planning to make this an incredibly hardcore instance, and rightly so. It will be the same as the current ones, so, in my opinion, getting these items will not be about suffering in a dungeon all week long. Also, as there will be only 3 items, it will be available to acquire them after a few runs. TL; DR: we will farm the dungeon instead of the events – basically the same, but with better loot.
Elitism came up as a problem too. I don’t think these phenomena will arise, as these items will be relatively easy to get, so you don’t have to be in an elite guild and farm the instance 24/7. What I mean is that it’s a great way to make people do instances and at the same time this kind of IAMHCYOURENOOB thing won’t occur. Oh yeah, and I don’t want better gear to show off, or say that I’m better than you. It’s really wrong. I want it solely to enhance my character.
Notebene, thanks for the video. You have raised questions about why do I do instances. Yes, it is a fun thing to do, but after a few runs you get bored, as we don’t have anything to fight for, only the looks. If it is rewarding in a way that I can upgrade my gear statwise, then I will have much more appetite to do it.
Harlequin, yes you are right, there will be players who will get these items immediately. You can’t avoid that, that’s true. Anet’s aim now, in my opinion, to get some of their players back with this patch, even if some of them leave again. The emphasis is on the word: some, because if 2 of 10 ex-players remain in the game, that’s a success for the company.
Artos, I’m in the same shoes concerning work. I don’t have much time as well to play, but I think the dungeon will be casual-friendly too, meaning that you won’t have to run through it a thousand times to get that better item.

Yes, the philosophy of the game is/was different, and all of you coming up with this as a counter argument are right. Sadly, this is business, and they have to subsist as well. Maybe that’s not what they wanted, but I can imagine, that after many hours of brainstorming they realized that there is no other way to keep up the interest. Even if it’s against what they said, we have to accept the changes, or else we won’t be able to play with it.
p.s.: I don’t think you have to be afraid of it, it’s not going to be a radical change. In fact, having +10 power will not make exotic gear a trash.