Guild Wars 2

I admit I’ve taken it too personal, but this is just how I feel about the game at the moment. I want horizontal progression and expanded content, not new stats and gear treadmills. Besides arguing about new gear and such, has anyone actually permanently or temporarily quit the game due to the introduction of Ascended Gear? Whoever has temporarily put the game to rest, how will the next big update change your mind? Are we over-reacting and taking it too personal?

If you’re on the forums right now, you haven’t quit the game over Ascended Gear.

And you’re very likely not going to. You’re either going to:

( a ) quit the game because actually you’ve finished all the content you want to and you’re bored with it;
( b ) quit the game because as a hardcore player you have a high game rotation and honestly you were going to move on to another game soon no matter what GW2 did;
( c ) not quit the game, and keep complaining for another three years; or
( d ) not quit the game, and enjoy it.

Haven’t quit yet, but I’m starting to get bored. I don’t want to do fractals, but that’s the majority of what you find right now. Everyone is leveling up fractals. In the mean time, I get to the Fields of Ruin, trying to 100% it, and I type in the map chat to see if anyone is there….no one.

I guess they’re all doing fractals…and sure enough when I go to lion’s arch every message in chat is LFG level ## fractals. Its sucked all the population out of everywhere else. Only other place I see a good number of people is in Cursed Shore, but only for running the Shelter’s Gate, Penitent, Jofast events…over and over and over.

I get bored and try to help people that might need that skill point next to Shelters Gate with the Champion guarding it.

Maybe its just me, but I feel like fractals has ruined other parts of the game that I enjoy.

GregT.4702:

If you’re on the forums right now, you haven’t quit the game over Ascended Gear.

And you’re very likely not going to. You’re either going to:

( a ) quit the game because actually you’ve finished all the content you want to and you’re bored with it;
( b ) quit the game because as a hardcore player you have a high game rotation and honestly you were going to move on to another game soon no matter what GW2 did;
( c ) not quit the game, and keep complaining for another three years; or
( d ) not quit the game, and enjoy it.

I’ve quit the game temporarily due to Ascended Gear. It’s the principal of the matter.

Yes, a bunch of people have quit the game.
No, their numbers don’t really matter in the long run.
ANet will continue with open ended VP and try to build a stable player base around the game. They will try to appease to people by lowering the time it takes to acquire said gear. While they will make people that want to grind less happier, the horizontal purists won’t be coming back, as the underlying desires for horizontal progression and plateauing cannot be made compatible with the item progression based philosophy they have introduced.

I don’t think any updates will change the minds of horizontal purists, because VP and the treadmill(future infusion tiers) are here to stay and will not be removed. ANet may get some players back who can stomach gear upgrade cycles or are able to make peace with not having max stat gear by lowering the grind. How large that group of non-purists is compared to the purists, I can’t even guess.

Personally, I will not play the game again until I can be absolutely sure that the BiS gear will not be devalued by a new tier(or infusion tier upgrade mechanic) and is attainable with minimal effort, which I am defining as how long it took to get a full exotic set after you have already one maxed out character to farm with.
I’ll be monitoring GW2s development, because I’m hopeful that it will be successful enough to give other publishers/developers the needed confidence to adopt GW2s B2P model. There may be a small chance that we haven’t seen the last of B2P MMORPGs that abstain from having stat progression as part of their end game.

I’ve not played for the past couple of weeks. For me, it was a combination of the Fractal + Ascended + Reddit AMA. It’s kind of ironic that it was the Reddit that finished pushing me over the edge.

Based on Chris’ responses, ArenaNet knew just how volatile the Ascended issue was going to be. With that in mind, they agreed that a great amount of communication would be needed. Also the Ascended gear access would have to be offered through multiple venues when it was released in order to avoid fragmenting the community. Yet when it came time to act, ArenaNet basically rolled out Ascended in a way that was pretty much 100% the opposite of what they had agreed upon internally. Does this mean that ArenaNet had some kind of temporary amnesia that caused them to only release Ascended through the Fractal dungeon while giving almost no communication on the subject? Or was ArenaNet greatly “stretching” the truth in their Reddit AMA answers?

No matter how you look at it, I’d say that there’s a real disconnect. I no longer have any clue about what ArenaNet’s vision is for GW2. Their actions and lack of communication say one things. Then their Reddit responses say another. You’d have to be psychic to sift out the truth from that garbled mess. As a consumer, I no longer have trust in the long term prospects for the GW2 product. Either the supplier (aka ArenaNet) is completely at odds with itself or the supplier just thinks that I’m an idiot. Neither one of those scenerios are very comforting to me. I’d much rather play a flawed MMO that has parts which I disagree with, assuming that I felt confident about where the designers were mentally and knowing that their actions matched their words.

I keep track of the GW2 forums in the vain hope that I’ll see some kind of ArenaNet response that will change my mind. There are still many features that I love about this game. But in the mean time, I’m seriously looking into other MMOs and will probably slide back into a subscription-based soft trinity MMO within the next couple of weeks. My time is just too valuable to invest in a game which I don’t feel confident about.

My personal feeling is that the game is 3 months old and lot of reactions about ascended gear and quitting at such an infant stage of the game to me, seem a little hyperbolic

Personally I have no interest in Ascended, so I am ignoring it. Thats not to say I disagree with the addition, I just don’t need it for my experience, therefore the game is freely set up for me to ignore and continue thoroughly enjoying a really excellent game (with plenty of issues I’d expect to see at this stage, granted).

Unlike a lot of other games that have gear treadmills, this one doesn’t force me to have it in order to progress in the game. It’s there at to progress in FOTM. I am simply not a good enough player at such instances to worry about those higher levels, even though I have enjoyed the early stages.

The only thing I can say construcively is that as a no-sub, you can freely drop out of the game if you feeling despondent about its direction and return later down the line when Anet really get going with the game.

That is ofc just my own feeling and having read a great deal of threads, perhaps not one shared by many posters at the moment.

Emotions are always personal. I saw it as a betrayal of what Anet stood for but then on the other hand people do change their minds and I guess I just didn’t notice that in time. It happens.

Still, I am entitled to feel the way I do and to voice it. I don’t like what they did but the new tier was in the end not the main issue for me. The fact that it takes a big grind and that it’s only in one dungeon where you can do this is actually the worst part of the new tier and I suppose in the AMA they admitted it wasn’t implemented properly.

Having said that though, I do believe there is too much grind for the BiS items at this point and for a company who still says they don’t want people to feel like it’s a grind they have a made a remarkable mistake in the amount of grind that it does take. Also combined with the legendary weapons as they were before and how they were surprised that people were going for them so quickly I can only conclude that 1) they’re full of crap saying that or 2) they really haven’t got a clue about how people work.

Of course this was to be seen as grind and of course people were going for legendaries as soon as they heard of their existence. Seriously, how could you not expect that?

But more important than that even is the leveling experience for me. As much as I did enjoy leveling my first toon to 80, I had to force myself to level the 2nd one to 80 and then I just gave up. “My story” is for me still the biggest untruth of the manifesto. And here is why:

1) There is just too little story for 80 levels
2) The story lines I have played were generally disappointing
3) It isn’t actually My Story. Level 1 I am the hero. Level 2 I get promoted to assistent of a local organisation. Then I get promoted to a newb in an organisation like Whispers and then I get to play second fiddle to Trahearne the Boring.
4) The higher the level the more the story lines converge so the replay value is diminished the higher the level.
5) Can I say voice acting? Terribad scripting and horrifying acting. It makes me cringe and hate the voice of my own toon.

So yeh in the end I do not ever feel heroic or the hero. I do not feel powerful and I hate my own voice in the game. Not too mention the goodie-goodie pedantic tone the whole story has.

I fear that no patch will fix this. Anet will go on from there. They won’t go back and change existing content except for balancing and bug fixing.

TL;DR Story sucks and they won’t fix that.

Quit over a gear type that my play style will likely never see me accomplish? Hardly.

Not the least bit interested in ascended / legendary gear or dungeons of any type for that matter.

My interest may begin to lessen once I’ve leveled every profession to 80. Every crafting skill to max and I run out of open world to explore down to the nth degree.

Raf.1078:

Quit over a gear type that my play style will likely never see me accomplish? Hardly.

Not the least bit interested in ascended / legendary gear or dungeons of any type for that matter.

My interest may begin to lessen once I’ve leveled every profession to 80. Every crafting skill to max and I run out of open world to explore down to the nth degree.

So when’s that then, next week?

Gehenna.3625:

Raf.1078:

Quit over a gear type that my play style will likely never see me accomplish? Hardly.

Not the least bit interested in ascended / legendary gear or dungeons of any type for that matter.

My interest may begin to lessen once I’ve leveled every profession to 80. Every crafting skill to max and I run out of open world to explore down to the nth degree.

So when’s that then, next week?

I figure a couple of years…at least. Maybe more. I don’t play like the youngsters do.

I stopped playing when loot stop dropping off mobs. I don’t enjoy dungeon running. The pvp got stale for me. I played to loot mobs for crafting materials to equip myself and friends with exotics. I was able to get the three of us a couple exotic armor pieces each before the loot stopped dropping. The work vs reward is no longer fun for me so I stopped playing.

Wiser with Age.3714:

I no longer have any clue about what ArenaNet’s vision is for GW2

Randulf.7614:

The only thing I can say construcively is that as a no-sub, you can freely drop out of the game if you feeling despondent about its direction and return later down the line when Anet really get going with the game.

Exactly how I feel right now.

My kin (guild) has for the most part gone back to LoTRO. I’ve had several friends +5 ask about GW2 and just the mention of the level cap changing and vertical progression surprised them and became a turnoff. We initially thought it was going to be a good side game to expand to, not the full time job Ascended requires.

Other than that they’ve been playing a game where the previous tier of gear is easy to obtain, has a very clear established progression, and isn’t rendered obsolete by the stats/content metagame. Wardens tanks are perfectly fine without the level 75 tanking set (the old 85 Tower of Orthanc set is arguably better with higher avoidances). Wish there’d be some sort of level upscaling for lowbies but there is some copying of features from GW2 that’s being implemented in the coming patch.

Because ascended gear is so much more powerful it makes the game unplayable if you don’t have it.

TBH, I did notice a scarce population on the PvE map a few days after the treaded November patch, but as of the last few days, PvE is starting to come alive. Note that Orr temples used to be contested most of the time EVEN BEFORE that patch-it just made the problem even more apparent. As far as I have EXPERIENCED, people are back to doing the temples (at least the easier ones like Melandru’s) and Orr, even though the drops aren’t still as hot as those found in the FotM.

I wonder if people are already bored of the available Fractals? I am not, but am only level 4, and I WOULD get bored if I needed to do them over and over, thousands of times, just for a lucky Ascended drop (somehow doing Dungeon explorables seems less of a grind than the Fractals for me.)

So I feel the FotM hasn’t totally messed up the game, because some people (like me) mostly ignore it-I only go if I have nothing else to do and want some nice drops (not for ascended gear, and I don’t mind doing lower levels too.) That said, I disagree with the ascended g ear stat difference, deemeing it wholly unnecessary (boy, that supposed “Legendary Wall” that “dedicated players” reached doesn’t exist for probably 98% of the player population-getting a Legendary right away seems so impossible to me, and I assume it would take me TWO YEARS to achieve such a feat, looking at such a grind-not to mention it’s disrespectful to imply that players who don’t have Legendaries aren’t “dedicated enough”)

Don’t buy into the negative hype-the patch wasn’t all that good, but people are still playing PvE and dungeons-just look for like-minded players, rather than focusing on those won’t do anything else other than Fractals (which is their right as well.) While not everything is nice and bright, the game is not dead at all, not even the old PvE map (ironically, the new map IS rather dead, as there’s little to do there other than farming shells, T6 mats, and high level farming nodes.

GregT.4702:

No you haven’t. You’re still here, bathing in Anet’s marketing, being told about upcoming expansions, talking about the game, speculating about the future. You haven’t quit, you’ve just generously freed up server bandwidth for other players for a while.

No. Actually, I haven’t been doing any of that (except for server space).

A huge amount of people stopped playing the game on Nov. 26th. I’m sure ascended gear had a roll, but also the issue with the economy. It has gone out of control. I don’t mind the Ascended gear myself though. The economy on the other hand.

GregT.4702:

If you’re on the forums right now, you haven’t quit the game over Ascended Gear.

And you’re very likely not going to. You’re either going to:

Ummmm that makes no difference. I quit the game but still check the forums to hear upcoming stuff, if any, and hear reactions and see if anything fun will come in game. Just because I quit for now doesn’t mean I can’t participate in the forums being I paid for the game like others.

You likely are thinking this is a p2p game where only active subs can post. But your theory is 110% incorrect my friend. So why couldn’t they quit because of the gear?

GregT.4702:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

I’ve quit the game temporarily due to Ascended Gear. It’s the principal of the matter.

No you haven’t. You’re still here, bathing in Anet’s marketing, being told about upcoming expansions, talking about the game, speculating about the future. You haven’t quit, you’ve just generously freed up server bandwidth for other players for a while.

From Anet’s perspective, they must wish that all quitters should be so accommodating.

Also, “principal” means main or chief. I think you meant “principle”.

They said “quit the game” so you are wrong. Last I checked the forum, marketing, being told about upcoming expansions, talking about the game, speculating about the future isn’t THE GAME. If it is then how come I can’t see my character and move around? So let’s say I worked at a restaurant and quit that job but still went in to visit and get drinks and food. Does that mean I still work there? Nope. Just like last I checked none of the stuff you said isn’t the game.

Wow GregT, that was some trolling effort. Your fallacies are repugnant.

“You’re not doing what you say you’re doing. You’re doing what I say you’re doing, because of entirely specious reasons.”

Ever thought of going into politics?

I am still playing but not enjoying it as much. As they have inserted a gear grind for “end-game” content it means, paradoxically, I won’t have a lot to do. I have no interest in hopping on a gear treadmill no matter how conveniently they’ve located it to my play preferences. My best case scenario is for them to read their pre-release statements on GW2 and get excited about what a game like that could be for players. Sadly, I don’t think they can stop the gears from grinding at this point though; having started down that path it would be very hard to reverse themselves, especially with all the justifications they’ve made on it. Oh well, their vision still stands. A game that fulfilled the original vision would be a great game.

I no longer play the game but do make my voice heard via the forums.
I can make sure that my opinion and view is heard and hope that it has an impact on how future content is made and executed. Will I come back? Doubt it very much but if enough things go in the right direction I could be tempted.

Until I see if Anet lives up to what it said it would I dont believe anything they say after the 15th. You are not alone and didnt over react. The grind is horrendous.

Can someone explain to me why Ascended gear is such a big deal? I mean, did a couple of rings and backpack really obliterated this game? Is this game that fragile? And we don’t know how armors are acquired, either. How can they break the game when they’re not even in yet?

Here’s what I understand from Ascended gear.

• Slightly better than Exotic, slightly worse than Legendary. Mostly a negligible difference in PvE and WvW. If a handful of stats is making you lose at WvW, I think you’re doing something wrong.
• No upgrade slot. Which means less versatility than Exotic gear. If armor continues to not have upgrade slots, then we can’t make use of our Runes with special effects on them. This makes them slightly worse than Ascended gear depending on the type of runes you prefer to use.
• Has Agony resistance and takes Agony increasing infusions. This is only relevant in Fractals. People are crying because they can’t get ascended gear because they don’t play Fractals. Why do you want a stat restricted to a mode you don’t play?

Then people are saying that Ascended makes Exotics obsolete, except we don’t know how we get Ascended armors? Maybe we use Exotics to craft Ascended. Who knows?

Katai.6240:

Can someone explain to me why Ascended gear is such a big deal? I mean, did a couple of rings and backpack really obliterated this game? Is this game that fragile? And we don’t know how armors are acquired, either. How can they break the game when they’re not even in yet?

Here’s what I understand from Ascended gear.

• Slightly better than Exotic, slightly worse than Legendary. Mostly a negligible difference in PvE and WvW. If a handful of stats is making you lose at WvW, I think you’re doing something wrong.
• No upgrade slot. Which means less versatility than Exotic gear. If armor continues to not have upgrade slots, then we make use of our Runes with special effects on them. This makes them slightly worse than Ascended gear depending on the type of runes you prefer to use.
• Has Agony resistance and takes Agony increasing infusions. This is only relevant in Fractals. People are crying because they can’t get ascended gear because they don’t play Fractals. Why do you want a stat restricted to a mode you don’t play?

Then people are saying that Ascended makes Exotics obsolete, except we don’t know how we get Ascended armors? Maybe we use Exotics to craft Ascended. Who knows?

The problem is not the degree of progression they’ve introduced with Ascended gear. The problem is that they have committed themselves to vertical progression. Vertical progression “progresses” by periodically raising the power-level. This won’t stop, ever, and you will find that if you don’t hop on the treadmill at some point, you will not be able to play the new content. That’s the way all WoW-like games work. You can ignore it for a time, but eventually the difference between you and the environment will simply be too great for you to play. Let me repeat it since I see so many posts on the insignificance of the stat increase: The degree of vertical progression with Ascended gear does not matter in the slightest; what matters is the introduction of vertical progression.

So take from the first dungeon items and DO evry dungeon and evry quest and evrything in the game whit that gear horisental that was teh reason why i was not playing now im ENJOYING !!!!

GregT.4702:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

I’ve quit the game temporarily due to Ascended Gear.

No you haven’t. You’re still here

You do realise the game and the forum are different things, right? A lot of people who gave up on GW2 still come to the forums after each patch is released to see if the patch notes contain anything interesting.

Its a very bad reason to quit the game off of one small thing like this you must keep things in prospective that the game only been out 3 months and this most like is not going to be the only way to get gear. Most ppl are unhappily not because of the gear but how hard it can be to get the gear. I do not think fractals are going to be the last thing added to this game.
Its becoming that ppl are trying to make it as if fractals are going to be the last thing and only thing added to this game from here on out and they are just fooling them self and others in thinking so.

Wiser with Age.3714:

I’ve not played for the past couple of weeks. For me, it was a combination of the Fractal + Ascended + Reddit AMA. It’s kind of ironic that it was the Reddit that finished pushing me over the edge.

Based on Chris’ responses, ArenaNet knew just how volatile the Ascended issue was going to be. With that in mind, they agreed that a great amount of communication would be needed. Also the Ascended gear access would have to be offered through multiple venues when it was released in order to avoid fragmenting the community. Yet when it came time to act, ArenaNet basically rolled out Ascended in a way that was pretty much 100% the opposite of what they had agreed upon internally. Does this mean that ArenaNet had some kind of temporary amnesia that caused them to only release Ascended through the Fractal dungeon while giving almost no communication on the subject? Or was ArenaNet greatly “stretching” the truth in their Reddit AMA answers?

No matter how you look at it, I’d say that there’s a real disconnect. I no longer have any clue about what ArenaNet’s vision is for GW2. Their actions and lack of communication say one things. Then their Reddit responses say another. You’d have to be psychic to sift out the truth from that garbled mess. As a consumer, I no longer have trust in the long term prospects for the GW2 product. Either the supplier (aka ArenaNet) is completely at odds with itself or the supplier just thinks that I’m an idiot. Neither one of those scenerios are very comforting to me. I’d much rather play a flawed MMO that has parts which I disagree with, assuming that I felt confident about where the designers were mentally and knowing that their actions matched their words.

I keep track of the GW2 forums in the vain hope that I’ll see some kind of ArenaNet response that will change my mind. There are still many features that I love about this game. But in the mean time, I’m seriously looking into other MMOs and will probably slide back into a subscription-based soft trinity MMO within the next couple of weeks. My time is just too valuable to invest in a game which I don’t feel confident about.

I think this is the most accurate response. FOTM and ascended items were poorly designed, draws everyone away from the beautifully crafted land of Tyria into repetitive dungeons, fractured the community and introduced vertical progression. Although these updates have made the game worse, it’s a stretch to say that the game is now ruined because it. I have no intention of grinding for ascended items and I’ve been getting along fine in WvW without them.

The more concerning issue is what updates will be introduced in the future. We now reliably know that there will be more ascended items in future updates (albeit easier to obtain and obtainable outside FOTM, but still many factors more time consuming to get than full exotic), and that the level cap will be raised in future expansions. These are deal breakers for most GW1 players who expected GW2 not to implement the exploitative mechanisms used by most other MMO’s. I’m not quitting because WvW is still fun but I’m not buying any gems either when there is so much uncertainty about the game’s future.

I’m not going to quit. But I have reduced my play and I won’t put any more money (real life currency) into this game.

I played enough that I got about 190 levels across multiple characters since pre-launch, until Lost Shores. While I was dividing my time, I had no problem with that since I would eventually reach max level and max rated gear with each of my characters. I was in no hurry. I could enjoy content and work incrementally towards my goals in PVE and explore the world. Sure I logged in about 3 or 4 times per week, but I was consistent and occasionally buying gems at the gem store. I was a good customer.

Since Lost Shores ended and the release of ascended gear, I’ve logged in once.

ONCE.

Why is that?

Because now, I realize that I’ll be working towards a target that is moving away from me faster than I could ever progress. I’ve realized that with my play style, I will NEVER get to that upper tier.

So why bother getting on that treadmill?

I was a good customer. I bought gems at the gem store to help out my multiple alts keep up. But I won’t do that again, the investments of hard real world currency and time are only offering a diminishing return. Anyways, NCSoft / Arenanet are losing money from me, and I hope they notice.

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

I admit I’ve taken it too personal, but this is just how I feel about the game at the moment. I want horizontal progression and expanded content, not new stats and gear treadmills. Besides arguing about new gear and such, has anyone actually permanently or temporarily quit the game due to the introduction of Ascended Gear? Whoever has temporarily put the game to rest, how will the next big update change your mind? Are we over-reacting and taking it too personal?

Still beating that dead horse? Let it die in peace already.

Eladriel.7295:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

I admit I’ve taken it too personal, but this is just how I feel about the game at the moment. I want horizontal progression and expanded content, not new stats and gear treadmills. Besides arguing about new gear and such, has anyone actually permanently or temporarily quit the game due to the introduction of Ascended Gear? Whoever has temporarily put the game to rest, how will the next big update change your mind? Are we over-reacting and taking it too personal?

Still beating that dead horse? Let it die in peace already.

^This tbh.

I’ll admit, as an old GW1 player, I raged over the introduction of ascended gear.
However, as someone pointed out, its not the ascended gear in and of itself but how it has fragmented my guild and the community.
Guilds and friends are split into different levels of fractals, preventing them to play together.
Now I know you can play at lower levels with your friends, but once you’ve climbed to level 20 or so, fractals looses all its fun. This leaves players to only doing the bare necessity, which is their current level.

So much wonderful feedback in this thread. Great posts everyone!

I’m not going to say I’ve ‘quit,’ Guild Wars 2, because really I’m just taking a break.

I have a sour taste in my mouth with how ArenaNet handled this whole situation. However, I honestly couldn’t think of a better way to have handled the community’s outcry myself. So in the end I don’t necessarily hold them entirely accountable.

They posted a long detailed response to the fans, and answered honestly in the reddit Q/A.

This very much seems to be what ArenaNet wants to do with their game. The difference between other game corporations, and ArenaNet is ArenaNet can be incredibly stubborn. They’re going to do what they want with this game after all is said and done. I can really respect that attitude even if it does tick me off.

My break is caused by a few factors though, and I can’t attribute my pause entirely towards the introduction of ascended gear.

• I really dislike how imbalanced the classes are atm. (Some classes are fun to play while others are just a chore, or feel terribly ineffective)
• I absolutly abhor how they’ve taken out skill capping from Guild Wars 1. (In all honesty going out, and hunting dozens of skills in GW1 kept me playing that game for a very long time. That was my personal horizontal progression.)
• I’ve grown very tired of reading nerf nerf nerf! from patch notes instead of balancing skills, or just down right fixing them.
• The amount of work I put into this game doesn’t equal the reward I’m given.

Sure the ascended armor really left a sting, and especially a few comments on the Q/A. Yet, ultimately what’s driven me away from this game is the nagging feeling Arena Net aren’t managing Guild Wars 2’s priorities properly.

Just my opinion though.

What I would like to ask the people who say they quit is this:

You complain about Gear treadmills and Grinding and the Ascended Gear,
Can you name ANY mmo that has less of a “Grind” then this game?
Can you name Any mmo that has an easier Gear Treadmill?
Can you name Any mmo that has absolutely NO issues with one weapon being superior over another? (outside of Eve Online [I think.] or Battlestar Galactica online.)

Personally I don’t feel any “grind” in this game is required. I think that is what Anet was talking about in their promises or “no grind” and the Ascended gear is completely unnecessary if you don’t want it. It has NO affect on pvp, maybe a tiny affect on WvW but the circumstances and the fact that you DON’T SIT STILL and that there are conditions and effects like Knock-back and stuns among many other effects make the small difference between exotics Ascended unimportant. Plus, if you feel you arn’t doing enough damage, MAN A ARROW CART OR CANNON or some kind of Siege weapon. Regardless of your gear they always deal heavy damage. Then in pve: if you are doing a lot of damage to enemies in pve and you have full exotics and maybe a couple legendaries then you really don’t need to worry about Ascended Gear if you don’t want it.

Also, one more thing, look at the Stats of the Ascended Gear vs Legendaries.

Another thing, Didn’t the people who say they “Quit” enjoy the game before they heard of ascended gear? the game hasn’t changed one bit, they just added that dungeon and a couple ascended items among other things. Continue to enjoy the game and don’t make a big deal over these little things.

Ive not fully quit yet, but haven’t been playing at all since lost shores fractals/ascended/grind/bugs came into place. I went back to the mmo’s i was playing before but i still come back and check the forums hoping to see some good news, because i really want to like and enjoy this game but, i just can’t at the moment with all these issues i have with it.

I don’t see an issue at all at this stage.

In sPvP you can’t use those precious accessories and for PVE freaks it’s a luxurious add-on but in WvW it makes no difference at all; Why? Simply because the majority works in big raids and zergs jumping like locust plagues through the borderlands. Having a few stats more in your build is as useful as sugarcoating your armour for the locust.

Beside, it’s one thing to believe what game makers say and another to accept that every game is based on changes; always has been and will never change (like politics).

Alastar.2863:

What I would like to ask the people who say they quit is this:

You complain about Gear treadmills and Grinding and the Ascended Gear,
Can you name ANY mmo that has less of a “Grind” then this game?
Can you name Any mmo that has an easier Gear Treadmill?
Can you name Any mmo that has absolutely NO issues with one weapon being superior over another? (outside of Eve Online [I think.] or Battlestar Galactica online.)

Personally I don’t feel any “grind” in this game is required. I think that is what Anet was talking about in their promises or “no grind” and the Ascended gear is completely unnecessary if you don’t want it. It has NO affect on pvp, maybe a tiny affect on WvW but the circumstances and the fact that you DON’T SIT STILL and that there are conditions and effects like Knock-back and stuns among many other effects make the small difference between exotics Ascended unimportant. Plus, if you feel you arn’t doing enough damage, MAN A ARROW CART OR CANNON or some kind of Siege weapon. Regardless of your gear they always deal heavy damage. Then in pve: if you are doing a lot of damage to enemies in pve and you have full exotics and maybe a couple legendaries then you really don’t need to worry about Ascended Gear if you don’t want it.

Also, one more thing, look at the Stats of the Ascended Gear vs Legendaries.

Another thing, Didn’t the people who say they “Quit” enjoy the game before they heard of ascended gear? the game hasn’t changed one bit, they just added that dungeon and a couple ascended items among other things. Continue to enjoy the game and don’t make a big deal over these little things.

3 out of 4 of your questions can be answered with WoW, which is known for being a gear treadmill. I can literally max my gear out in WoW faster than I can get ascended gear. Grinding out 250 ectoplasms or the gold to buy them is by no means fast, I haven’t farmed since the fractal patch but even at 1 hour(which I hear is unlikely anymore) that’s 250 hours. How is 250 hours for a single item not one of the most ludicrous grind you’ve heard of? Oh but they said they will change it….HOW DID THAT EVEN MAKE IT OUT THE DOOR.

Grind in this game is required for everything. Even exotics are a good bit of a grind to most players. You’re looking at 40+ hours of karma grinding, 30+ hours of gold farming(increases by the day), 100+ hours of badge of honor farming, or 30+ dungeon runs(30-60 minutes each) just to get a full set of exotics. You’ve already got your full set of exotics you say? What’s you’re /age, you’re probably playing a bit more than a casual. This game was supposed to be about getting easy max stats then hunting for cool skins, but max stats aren’t that easy to get.

As for ascended having little impact, you’re wrong. It allows people to live longer and kill faster. You say man an arrow cart/cannon but a person in ascended can do that job better because they will survive longer due to not only them having more stats but also because you will have ascended clad enemies doing more damage. Dungeon groups will only want ascended armor players so they can complete it faster(as getting dungeon armor is a grind and speeding it up is important). The10%-20% more stats per item is not “unimportant”, if it was then people wouldn’t be so upset with this decision. Even 1% is important to a lot MMO gamers, which consequently is why a lot of people picked up GW2. There wasn’t supposed to be a gear grind so there wouldn’t be a1% stat increase to chase after, they would finally be free to play and do what they wanted.

Finally, looking at the stats between ascended and legendaries, what am I supposed to see? ArenaNet already stated that when ascended weapons come out, legendary weapons will get a boost to their stats(we already saw this through a bug). Legendaries are PURELY for skins, they aren’t(or at least weren’t) supposed to be another stat tier. Legendary weapons actually back the original game design, easy max stats but hard to get skins. Ascended armor kicks that design in the crotch and says “Hard to get max stats and even harder to get skins!”

Akinorix.5107:

Ive not fully quit yet, but haven’t been playing at all since lost shores fractals/ascended/grind/bugs came into place. I went back to the mmo’s i was playing before but i still come back and check the forums hoping to see some good news, because i really want to like and enjoy this game but, i just can’t at the moment with all these issues i have with it.

I’m just curious, I understand checking in on the forums to see what’s changed and what people think, but in with future updates would you try the content to see whether the forums are completely correct? Or just go based on what’s on the forums?

Nope, but I won’t use the gem store until I can get Ascended gear from somewhere other than FotM

Alastar.2863:

What I would like to ask the people who say they quit is this:

You complain about Gear treadmills and Grinding and the Ascended Gear,
Can you name ANY mmo that has less of a “Grind” then this game?
Can you name Any mmo that has an easier Gear Treadmill?
Can you name Any mmo that has absolutely NO issues with one weapon being superior over another? (outside of Eve Online [I think.] or Battlestar Galactica online.)

Personally I don’t feel any “grind” in this game is required. I think that is what Anet was talking about in their promises or “no grind” and the Ascended gear is completely unnecessary if you don’t want it. It has NO affect on pvp, maybe a tiny affect on WvW but the circumstances and the fact that you DON’T SIT STILL and that there are conditions and effects like Knock-back and stuns among many other effects make the small difference between exotics Ascended unimportant. Plus, if you feel you arn’t doing enough damage, MAN A ARROW CART OR CANNON or some kind of Siege weapon. Regardless of your gear they always deal heavy damage. Then in pve: if you are doing a lot of damage to enemies in pve and you have full exotics and maybe a couple legendaries then you really don’t need to worry about Ascended Gear if you don’t want it.

Also, one more thing, look at the Stats of the Ascended Gear vs Legendaries.

Another thing, Didn’t the people who say they “Quit” enjoy the game before they heard of ascended gear? the game hasn’t changed one bit, they just added that dungeon and a couple ascended items among other things. Continue to enjoy the game and don’t make a big deal over these little things.

The world I leveled my first character to 80 in no longer exists. With internal design decisions they have funneled characters into the fractals. With increased vertical progression on a per character basis their design decisions have stifled the lower level zones as living zones, now instead of leveling an alt and enjoying the game through the lens of another class populating the rich world with players you have people sitting in Lions Arch spamming LFG FotM lvl XX trying to get a head start on the Ascended Gear treadmill. This leaves the lower zones a barren wasteland compared to what they once were in most if not all servers.

Things like the nerf’s to dynamic events and nerf’s to loot drop have gone further to worsen the problem and further funnel people into the fractals. Various fractals are bugged and either you need to play around the glitches to complete them and there are serious software bugs in some of them that cause the client to crash. If you try to rejoin your group ‘The entire team is kicked’ and all progress on the current fractal is lost.

The lack of group finding tool and the companies previous ignorant stance on the widely adopted feature is more evident to be wrong than ever and now they back peddle and promise to add one in the future. Fighting your way into an overflow and using gw2lfg.com to try and find a group cannot be the intended design structure can it? For the less experienced user who does not know of gw2lfg.com or does not know how to get into an overflow server how must the experience be? (I shudder to think)

The various class bugs that are introduced into the game with each new patch is down right embarrassing. I mean one only needs to look as far as the Mesmer (read: Guild Wars iconic class) to see that the game is all sorts of messed up. That not to mention the constant nerf’s that every class has been subject to since release, which really shows poor form. I think we can all agree buffing of underdeveloped classes is always preferential to nerfing play styles into obscurity.

If Arena Net does not get their act together in the immediate future I would not be surprised to see them follow their publisher’s Seattle offices and undergo some “realignment” of their own.

P.S. – Joining the others unhappy with the current state of the game in not buying gems until the issues I and many other players have noted above are addressed and some plan comes about to sort them out.

tl;dr: Fractals have been poorly implemented and even more poorly handled, lack of group finding tool and subsequent back peddling do little to remedy games current ailments and Area Net had better get their ducks in a row or follow in NC Soft Seattle’s wake with lay off’s of their own. Buy no gems until issues are sorted.

Ahlen.7591:

Because ascended gear is so much more powerful it makes the game unplayable if you don’t have it.

The game itself won’t be unplayable, but what will happen is kitten group leaders who insist that you have Ascended gear to even be invited to their party.

It’s basically another way for elitest kittens to victimise you.

I wish Anet had learned some lessons from GW1… but in this case it appears not.

I didn’t quit. I just switched my pvp from WvW to the TP. Unfortunately, I just got pwned by some dye traders who made it look like prices were dropping or flattening earlier, causing me to sell off, then cry when I realized they were still jumping up. I have a lot to learn about this new form of pvp, but at least it’s not gear dependent.

thisolderhead.5127:

“Quitting the game” only works when there is a subscription model.

The types of people offended by the Ascended gear etc, don’t really amount to many microtransactions

Less players with low/zero ongoing revenue potential to use server resources for free, and servers can be merged reducing cost and improving population.

I think there should be a subscription fee / microtransaction approach to this forum – I would love to see how much “Waaaaahhhh” comes from jaded former players and malcontented sooks if it cost something to do it… I’d still pay to be a prick.

Well at least you’re honest. People paying to be pricks is what the cash shop model of MMOs are all about.

The difference between ascended gear and exotic gear is not insignificant. Once there are ascended items out for all slots, there will be a very noticeable difference in power between an exotic equipped and ascended equipped character.

Also, it does matter if casual players quit the game. They might not buy micro transaction items in large amounts, but they do buy expansion packs.

I have a questions for all these people who feel betrayed by Arenanet. Are quitting because of a new item tier or feel that because there are higher levels of progression their time spent playing is worthless.

Did you also intend to feel betrayed/upset when they added further levels to the game? Something they’ve were saying quite plainly before the game was even released.

AuldWolf.7598:

Wow GregT, that was some trolling effort. Your fallacies are repugnant.

“You’re not doing what you say you’re doing. You’re doing what I say you’re doing, because of entirely specious reasons.”

Ever thought of going into politics?

I did. Didn’t get a lot of votes, but we’re getting censorship changes here in Australia partially as a result.

But what I’m saying is, my experience with internet gaming forums consists of basically the entire time that they’ve existed as part of the web, and a portion of the newsgroup/BBS era before that. And I can tell you that ragequit posters are not something a gaming company needs to worry about.

Going to a forum to explain why you’re quitting says at least one two things: (1) that you care about the direction the developer is going enough to try and influence them with a passionate speech and/or (2) that you require the attention of strangers within your peer group to feel validated, and will resort to a public tantrum to obtain that approval. (It also means (3) you likely don’t have a blog, and therefore don’t have any kind of audience who respects your opinions and will change their purchasing as a result.)

That is to say that either you’re a loyal customer who’s likely to return to this or a future product, or that you’re toxic to the community and the sooner you quit the better.

The customers that Anet should be worried about aren’t those who post vocally on the forums, it’s the ones that just shrug and stop playing without ever looking back.

Barely noticed at all the difference.
So tell me, how did the +30 in all stats (considering your opponent got full ascended) affect you in any shape or form?

Maybe when we’ll have to deal with ascended armor and weapons I’ll accept the OP’s complains, but right now it’s so minor and insignificant that I can’t believe there are people that actually quit over this.

I, for one, haven’t even bothered trying to get one while at the same time got legendary and maxed out alts instead. (meaning I could always get it, but the difference is so little that I couldn’t even be arsed)

Alice.8694:

I have a questions for all these people who feel betrayed by Arenanet. Are quitting because of a new item tier or feel that because there are higher levels of progression their time spent playing is worthless.

Did you also intend to feel betrayed/upset when they added further levels to the game? Something they’ve were saying quite plainly before the game was even released.

New levels implies new areas to level in, not just a dungeon to run with new shinies to collect.

And no, I didn’t plan on feeling betrayed by the introduction of new levels because I read up on this game well before it was available for purchase and I remember reading that there would probably be more levels.

That is completely different from a dungeon hamster wheel.

Unless of course you’re willing to insist that the new levels would only have been achievable through dungeons.

How do you quit something you’re not obligated to play?
No contract, no sub. Play, don’t play, it’s not a big deal. Drama Queens.