Guild Wars 2

I had +500 hours of gameplay. Now, I’ve quitted 2 weeks ago because of they new content and gameplay added in The Lost Shore.

I don’t like grinding and, in addition, GW2 has the most boring treadmill scheme I’ve ever seen. So I’m out, I’m ok with only aspect-grindind, but not with stats-grindind that doesn’t allow me to develop my characters with fun.

It’s a pity, because I liked this game a lot until this patch.

I used to log in GW2 almost daily for a couple of hours, and in my old MMO once or twice a month. Dropped 50€ on gems. After Nov 15th I’ve logged in GW2 twice for a combined 30-ish minutes, and into the old MMO about every other day. Vertical progression just makes everything feel dirty. (See the thread “Why The Stat Cap Is So Important” for people to explain it better than I can.) If I have to taint my online RPG experience with that feeling, I find I prefer to do it in another game.

I didn’t swear off my old MMO forever while I was enjoying GW2, and I’m not swearing off GW2 forever now that I’m no longer enjoying it, so whether my case constitutes “quit due to Ascended” in anyone’s personal opinion, I wouldn’t know. But I’m certainly undergoing a prolonged period of not playing, and don’t foresee any updates drawing me back in (I skipped the LS event and content, will be skipping Wintersday). I’m still occasionally on the forums, because GW2 was the first MMO where I bought into the hype, I had fun here for three months, and it’s hard to let go of hope.

Alastar.2863:

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?

No. Certainly the game that I returned to has more grind, lengthier treadmill, and greater equipment balance issues. However GW2’s gear progression going from the major (I really can’t emphasize enough how liberating it was) pro of “no grind/no treadmill” to the minor con of “some grind/some treadmill” turned the sum total of “should I play this game” to close to zero; certainly lower than my old game, which had the minor pros of setting, story, my old community, and the existence of a healer role. Personal preference, YMMV.

tkalamba.2541:

There is zero difference between adding new gear to obtain and adding a higher level cap

There are two differences:

1 – New level caps are infrequent and not an ongoign process.
2 – The game was sold on the basis “presitigious gear” would be cosmetic, that it would not have the end game gear treadmill that “WoW 2.0” clones have, it was not sold on teh basis there would be no increase to level cap.

tkalamba.2541:

Stressing over small changes is such a waste of time and energy that could be better used else where.

What you call a small point, was a key reason many people bought the game. As for time and energy, that you are posting in a thread that apparently has nothing to do with you, says different.

And ironically enough ‘time and energy’ is one of the reasons having no gear treadmill was important to some of us.

Sylosi.6503:

tkalamba.2541:

There is zero difference between adding new gear to obtain and adding a higher level cap

There are two differences:

1 – New level caps are infrequent and not an ongoign process.
2 – The game was sold on the basis “presitigious gear” would be cosmetic, that is would not have the end game gear treadmill that “WoW 2.0” clones have, it was not sold on teh basis there would be no increase to level cap.

tkalamba.2541:

Stressing over small changes is such a waste of time and energy that could be better used else where.

What you call a small point, was a key reason many peolpe bought the game. As for time and energy, that you are posting in a thread that apparently has nothing to do with you, says different.

And ironically enough ‘time and energy’ is one of the reasons having no gear treadmill was important to some of us.

Well, It sounds like we’ll see multiple expansions, not just one, and so far only see one new tier… increasing level caps will be much more frequent than a new tier. I’d hardly call adding a single tier frequent in any sense.

I play and enjoy the game, I’m also at work procrastinating as I have no work to do so I enjoy in partaking in these discussions.

Wiser with Age.3714:

HiddenNick.7206:

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.

I think that people like you just look for excuse to leave and go back playing what you used to… If it wasn’t about ascended gear or not getting the exact answers you expected, it would be about something else.

I’ve been without a MMO for over half a year because I didn’t like any of my options on the market. Each MMO was left after the devs started to noticably change their games or produced content that was clearly against their stated goals for the game. At this point, I’m even crazy enough to think about getting into The Secret World since it meets many of the criteria points that I care about (regardless of the enforced trinity requirements and the hard mode dungeon grinding in the end game scene). While I certainly don’t agree with everything that Funcom is doing, they are being consistent with their concept and haven’t tried to make any kind of substancial promise that they have no intent of keeping.

So your saying I was right!

I have to admit, it wasn’t anything so much as arriving at Southshore, and discovering yet another area you have to zerg around mindlessly, that made me take a break.

I say “take a break” vs “quitting” because I’m just going to stop playing it for a bit, I’m not going to deinstall the game. I’ll log in to see Wintersday because ANet always did beautiful things with Wintersday.

I’ll lurk here, read patch notes, and hang in the guild’s fb page (it’s a holdover from GW1) to see what’s up. Many of us have a relationship with ANet, having played their awesome game for years and years; it’s really hard for us to let go lol.

Maybe one day I’ll play again, but I don’t see a solution to the zerg philosophy. Seems like an integral part of the design of the game, unfortunately.

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 can’t say that a or b aren’t contributing factors for my “extended vacation from gw2”, but I think the ascended gear is just one drop into a cup that was already full. Another thing is the overwhelming amount of bugs and design flaws that, after 3 months, still haven’t been tackled.

But MMOs are always changing. The last change I didn’t like so I stopped playing. Hopefully in the near future things will change to the direction that I approve so I can come back.

Quick question to the doomsday people/quitters.

How many of you have even tried fractals in a proper manner or done enough research to know what its about before calling it quits?

Probably not many. It’s not very time consuming to do fractals. You get to difficulty 10 and then you can start doing 1 fractal per day for the ring.

It should take you a maximum of 1.5 hours per day to do the daily. Getting from 1-10 shouldnt take very long either, 10-12 hours maybe (per character you wanna do fractals with). Rings arent even soulbound, so if you get one that doesnt fit, send it off to an alt.

So far I’ve gotten 3 rings total. 1 for my engi, 1 for my mesmer and 1 for my necro.

If you want competative BiS gear for WvW all you need to do is the daily on even levels between 10-18. If you want the option to do more dailies than one you either bring another toon to 10+ or continue to 20+.

We definitely needed another thread on this topic.

If you’re frustrated, take time away. You can always check back into GW2, and with the very low power curve, it’ll be much easier than any other MMO to “catch up.”

Right now there’s Planetside 2 that has large-scale WvWvW battles with no culling issues. And it’s free to play. And lots of other fun games out there — ’tis the season!

Ascended gear will eventually be made available in almost all aspects of the game. Fractals will not remain the end all be all.

The vertical progression is only going to come in the form of infusion slots. Combine that with the aforementioned future and there isnt going to be any pressure to keep up with new content.

Youll just play the game as normal, find/craft your ascended gear as you would with exotics (there wont be anymore tiers after ascended) and then youll simply make the infusions to customize your gear for whatever content they roll out.

Wow, sounds alot like what weve been doing.

Gove em time to put these plans to work and these “panic threads” will die.

I guarantee it.

Oreoz.2573:

Give em time to put these plans to work and these “panic threads” will die.
I guarantee it.

Panic threads will die, bcause people who hate it will stop playing. You wont have “won” your arguement, you will just have a smaller community.

A-net always uses vague terms when asked a question like “Will ascended be the last tier?”, and they say something like "we “intend” it to be the last tier". Also there is no telling how many infusion tiers there will be. There could be 5, there could be 50.

From my view,

- if they want to put in a gear treadmill, why would they stop after 5 tiers?
- if they dont want to put in a gear treadmill, why are infusion tiers being released OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR?

This how I see it.

tpvp was/is bad. Bad class balance. Overemphasis on burst and bunker.
Tons of pvpers quit.
WVW is bad because the game is balanced on 5s. Its essentially a gank fest where range rules. “We don’t need no stinking healing in this game”
More ppl quit.
Tons of class bugs, which are persistent and permeate the entire game.
More ppl quit.
Enter Ascend gear stage right to compenstate for loss of revenue.
Divide community because of vertical progression and entry locks.
More ppl quit.
Destroy drop rates to further entice locusts to buy jems.

Yes, Ascend gear and beyond will make a big difference and it will spill over in WVW which was not that great to begin with.

Check back now and then and see nothing that intrests me atm. Won’t spend another dime on this game.

/Disappointed.

Also, I felt the Lost Shores content was pretty lackluster. I knew about the Ascended Gear for a couple days, but after experiencing the content there, it felt half-baked and rushed. Not to mention I didn’t participate in the final event (I would of liked to see a repeat every 3-6 hours or so with only 1 opportunity for a chest). I was expecting to complete some heart quests too… My expectations were too high. Lost Shores new map seemed less relevant than the new dungeon. And unfortunately, that map was a dead zone shortly after and everyone was in FOTM. It felt disappointing overall. This is not how I imagined new content to be released. I would not expect the new area to become lifeless and empty.

Like the OP, I was insanely upset over the changes. I stopped playing the game for almost two weeks, resubbed to WoW and leveled two characters from 85 to 90. I was about to continue playing…but read some other’s posts here about simply ignoring it and playing the game as I was before. It helped put my mind at ease a bit.

To note, Chris Whiteside did say they noticed the fractal level issue right off the bat as soon as people began outleveling eachother. They have some ideas to fix it, but itll take time to adjust reward and difficulty. At the time I took a break I was fractal level 5. I am now 11. Im playing the way I want to again. I plan on leveling all classes to 80. However, if they do not fix the grind for ascended gear(a bit) and the fractal level system by early 2013, I am done.

With the intro of Ascended I just lost motivation to play. I loved the game in a lot of ways but have zero interest in grinding or being out geared by others. I’d probably have stayed with this game for 5+ yrs easily. When I start looking elsewhere that’s my clue that It’s time to move on.

Tried out the new swtor mmo trial and got hooked. Though I know as soon as I hit endgame I’ll be done playing cause I can’t stand grinding. Now they know how to tell a story, they’re awesome.

People just looking for reasons to quit the game tbh. If you don’t like it leave already.
Ascended gear made the game better, especially for me who can enjoy the game more than 2 hours a week (yes we exist). I get my desired skins/sets world exploration/story etc done quite quickly compared to others, so I was looking for more things to do. Only a positive that ascended gear exists now and an amazing new dungeon. New stuff to aim for. (I couldn’t care less of the new items have better stats or cool skins, new stuff is new stuff )
What’s the negative side ??? You like the new dungeon ? Good, u’ll get ascended gear while running it. Don’t like it ? don’t do it then…? Problem ? No need for the gear other than FoTM AT ALL. Not even ONCE have I seen anyone recruiting people for dungeons saying ‘LF2M only ascended gear no nubz!!’ Maybe that time will come when Anet adds rest of the ascended gear, but I seriously doubt I’ll see it even then.

I’d bet about 20% of this moaning community has no idea what they’re talking about, they havent even experienced the new dungeon/gear. They just read the patch notes and read a few topics about kids moaning about ‘gear treadmill’ and jump on the bandwagon.
Gear treadmill still doesn’t exist on this game atm imo. Go play games like Aion, making a new character there would be pointless now since it would take me about 2 years+ to get max stat gear like some of the players have there, I’d feel useless there without good gear. In GW2 it’s completely different wheter you can see it or not, you can max your level in days, exotic gear also in days and you’re arlready competitive. You’ll basically have same stats as someone who has played since launch. The ONLY thing you cant do is fractals difficulty level 10+ (incredible easy to get agony resist).

WAY OUT OF PROPORTION PEOPLE. I seriously hope Anet really thinks this through when/if they read these whining and clueless topics. Tho I do really think they should never add more gear tiers, also keep the ascended armor/weapons as easy to get as ascended rings and exotics already are.

…

Here are my honest thoughts about ascended gear. I have not posted even once about this topic in any other thread in the forum so far:

I love the gear because of the multiple hours of bringing smiles to my face when reading threads in which people make longwinded posts, drawing horror-scenarios of how everyone is caught in that evil “treadmill”.

This game is so incredibly good compared other MMOs that the amount of whining over some new items that noone needs to have is so mind-boggling in my eyes, that I keep chuckling over the dramaqueens that make a huge deal out of it. Oh my, there will be a full set of ascended gear in half a year, and possibly in one year, there might be some new items which in turn are a tiny bit better. Everyone beware, if you dont act right now you will be left in the dust as early as 2017, when everyone will expect you to have the “shiny divine ascended armorset of heavenly uberness” which will require to have obtained the “glaring ascended armorset of extreme power” which in turn you will only be able to aquire when being outfitted in full ascended gear infused with soon-to-be-implemented new exotic infusions – really?

I think nothing of that sort will happen, and I will have my ascended gear just by playing the game, without ever feeling the need to “grind” for it.

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

Also, I felt the Lost Shores content was pretty lackluster.

What I like is that it’s not all doom-n-gloom, the way Orr is. But it’s not an alternate to Orr.

The islands were just left the way they were after the special event. Somehow we failed to actually repel the karkas. Somehow game developers made a zone with almost nothing in it, not even zone-completion. No temples, only a couple poorly designed events. You’re better off going to Frostgorge.

To me, it’s not game-quitting sort of issue. But neither is the island a reason to play.

mulch.2586:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

Also, I felt the Lost Shores content was pretty lackluster.

What I like is that it’s not all doom-n-gloom, the way Orr is. But it’s not an alternate to Orr.

The islands were just left the way they were after the special event. Somehow we failed to actually repel the karkas. Somehow game developers made a zone with almost nothing in it, not even zone-completion. No temples, only a couple poorly designed events. You’re better off going to Frostgorge.

To me, it’s not game-quitting sort of issue. But neither is the island a reason to play.

Zone completion would be problematic really. What will this do for people who’ve already managed to pull off 100% map completion and already recieved their rewards? by adding additional zones you risk having people being angry that they did more work for the gifts of exploration than those who did it early.

I am on a break. I don’t play the game, but i do check reddit for (hopefully good) news.

I was working on my legendary when suddenly prices of everything went sky high. With my gold gains i simply couldn’t compete with that and reach the sum of gold needed that kept rising more and more every day. On top of that, empty areas, and general attitude of players just turned me off and i decided to give Rift another try with their new expansion and currently i am enjoying it very much.
GW2 is way too much oriented around the economy and gold, and it becomes really frustrating working toward something you want. God forbid you trying to farm the things you need.

Basically:
- I quit, and gave up hope, and won’t be showing my support until something comes relevant to my interests.
- I got to 80, maxed my crafting, full exotic, 100% world exploration and made my character awesome. I got my $60+ worth and i don’t regret it. It was the best leveling experience in any MMO and i love the combat.

Baron of Winters.5697:

Katai.6240:

But the vertical progression only affects one part of the game, FotM. Those who care about getting to deeper areas of FotM can have their vertical progression to get armor with higher agony resistance. Everyone else couldn’t care less. How does ascended gear affect anyone doing anything outside of FotM in a meaningful way? All you’re doing is upgrading your armor to get more agony resistance.

No, there’s plenty of documented evidence showing that ascended gear has higher base stats than exotic. Further, the Q&A on reddit revealed that there will be more tiers within the infusions, and there’s no reason to believe those higher-tier infusions won’t have base stat numbers too… so you can feel like a hamster in a wheel chaisng those too.

I am aware of that, but you have to remember that Ascended gears basically have Runes baked into them. I mean, compare Yakkington’s Ring vs Exotic Ring with Jewel is a difference of 5 power, 5 precision, and 3% magic find.

I mean, how much is the total stat difference? After taking Rune bonuses and special effects into account?

Aphix.9846:

People just looking for reasons to quit the game tbh. If you don’t like it leave already.
Ascended gear made the game better, especially for me who can enjoy the game more than 2 hours a week (yes we exist). I get my desired skins/sets world exploration/story etc done quite quickly compared to others, so I was looking for more things to do. Only a positive that ascended gear exists now and an amazing new dungeon. New stuff to aim for. (I couldn’t care less of the new items have better stats or cool skins, new stuff is new stuff )

I was a very active player before and during the initial update. I reached Level 6 in FOTM.

The first thing I ask myself before I play an MMO: Does this game have a gear treadmill? Check. Move on to next title. We’ll see what happens in future updates…

You may be asking yourself, how the hell can you be an MMO player to begin with if you don’t like grind? My first MMO was Guild Wars 1. It was more inviting than other MMOs at the time because it did not have vertical progression and appeared to be more skill-based. I would like to see a survey that asks current Guild Wars 2 players if they’d rather have expanded new content offering amazing new skins, complete zones, new missions and hearts in other area of the game, etc. OR a new dungeon with better gear. I would not expect the latter.

Raine.1394:

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…you’re quitting because of what “might” happen. Well, now it finally makes sense.

I may have to quit driving because another driver might hit me.

Katai.6240:

Baron of Winters.5697:

Katai.6240:

But the vertical progression only affects one part of the game, FotM. Those who care about getting to deeper areas of FotM can have their vertical progression to get armor with higher agony resistance. Everyone else couldn’t care less. How does ascended gear affect anyone doing anything outside of FotM in a meaningful way? All you’re doing is upgrading your armor to get more agony resistance.

No, there’s plenty of documented evidence showing that ascended gear has higher base stats than exotic. Further, the Q&A on reddit revealed that there will be more tiers within the infusions, and there’s no reason to believe those higher-tier infusions won’t have base stat numbers too… so you can feel like a hamster in a wheel chaisng those too.

I am aware of that, but you have to remember that Ascended gears basically have Runes baked into them. I mean, compare Yakkington’s Ring vs Exotic Ring with Jewel is a difference of 5 power, 5 precision, and 3% magic find.

I mean, how much is the total stat difference? After taking Rune bonuses and special effects into account?

Right, the 5 power/pre, considering your prob’ly at 2700 or more power, that amounts to a 0.2% increase in damage and 0.25% increase in crit. So if everyone had that upgrade, we could have shaved a second or two off the 2.5 hr Lost Shores event. :p

A treadmill on which you only take one step… is this still a treadmill, or just a rubber rug?

Power creep in items is awful. It’s bad enough Anet decided to scrap the awesome item system from GW1, where anyone could obtain max damage/armour gear with relative ease, but now you have to grind to get top end gear. I’d prefer it if gear was only about looks, not stats. Oh well.

Aphix.9846:

I’d bet about 20% of this moaning community has no idea what they’re talking about, they havent even experienced the new dungeon/gear. They just read the patch notes and read a few topics about kids moaning about ‘gear treadmill’ and jump on the bandwagon.
…

Says the kid who was one of those who whined WANT MOAR REWARDZ in the first place, if you had a clue, then you would know that a gear treadmill (however small it currently is) was the opposite to what they spent years selling the game on.

As for going into fractals, again if you had a clue, you would know they promoted the game on being able to play it your way, which is how it worked for exotics, accoridng to their own philosophy people should not be forced to do crappy PvE dungeons designed for newbs to access gear.

Sylosi.6503:

VOLKON.1290:

Fun fact… they didn’t stick in a gear treadmill. They added a step between exotics and legendaries to fill the time gap in between and to open the door to tons of lateral progression.

Fun fact, they added a gear treadmill that broke pre-game statments like this (from their lead dev):

“We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

You now have to hop on to a gear treadmill (a treadmill which currently breaks another one of their pre-game promises that you can play the game how you want) if you wish to remain just as powerful, pre-release prestigious gear meant cosmetic, if they just wanted to fill a space between exotic and legendary then it would of been cosmetic, the stats on a legendary were the same as an exotic.

They didn’t fill a space, they created an end game gear treadmill, because of whining / failure of tPvP.

No. You are wrong. Period. You’re going to have to come to terms with that.

Exotics are easy to get. Real easy… they’re all over the TP for example. Legendaries, however, without a concerted group effort may be outside the bounds of most players for a significant period of time. How to fix that time-gap? Ascended gear. Squeeze it in between Legendaries and Exotics (required a minor stat boost to legendaries to do so), make it so that it takes a moderate amount of time (yet not insurmountable) to acquire. Give a small stat boost, not big enough that it’ll affect things like WvW, and add infusions and agony making them ideal gear to pursue for Fractals and future dungeons. With me so far? OK… now stop.

No more tiers.

From here, you can expand laterally. Future dungeons and content may introduce new sets of ascended gear and maybe even new conditions (i.e. Agony) to deal with. People have the option to pursue new sets of ascended gear if they wish. Add new ways to get the ascended gear. Crafting, WvW, dungeons, etc. will all have various means to get ascended, and it’ll take notably longer to do so than to get exotics.

This is NOT a treadmill. A treadmill is when the next tier of gear is so much more powerful than your current that it immediately renders it obsolete, and if you fail to get that next tier you won’t be able to progress. They’ve shown, with Fractals, that you don’t need the new gear to experience new combat (no agony at all until level 10), but if you wish to push the levels further you will have the option of ascended gear to help you out. (Looking forwards to seeing the effects of +5 agony resistance in there, just got my first ring last night, the Yakkington’s one.)

Exotics will always remain significant gear. Ascended gear will always be obtainable. Legendaries will always be pinnacle. This is not a treadmill, and if they introduced this all on release no one would have batted an eyelash at it. Treadmills never end as far as vertical progression goes. This does, and allows endless lateral progression.

GregT.4702:

(…)
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.

What kind of action would you take based on that? Where would you draw your inspiration on what may or may not have been the reason for those ones to just leave?
You understand that among other purposes these kind of forums are actually intended for feedback. Granted, you have to sift through a lot of other things to get to the bottom of it. Sounds again like politics … mhhh.

Edit: Just felt like clarifying that I am not quitting.

I didn’t quit over this issue, but it’s definitely another nail in the coffin. And I think many who are leaving or have left are not doing so over one single issue. For me, if it was just one (or two) aspects that annoyed or frustrated me, I’d still stick around if the rest of the game was good fun. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case with GW2.

Between the disjointed mess of the personal story (which is neither personal nor a story) and the painful crafting grind even at low levels, that’s already two big disappointments flying in the face of the promises I bought this game on. Adding vertical progression is another. And I don’t care if it’s “just once, promise”. They said there would be no such thing, and now here it is, a few months after launch. What else is coming down the line? Add some quality of life issues like the lack of a dungeon finder and the cruddy chat system, and the game I wanted to like so much is just a letdown.

Frankly, the blessed absence of vertical progression and gear-obsession is maybe the biggest reason why I bought this game, along with the promising lore and the lure of a story set in it. I can’t stand grinding nor gear-obsession, and I positively loathe the player attitudes that invariably go hand in hand with these features. They already show up when it’s “just” cosmetic. Add better stats and it only gets worse.

I stuck with WoW for seven years almost exclusively for RP, my guild and my enjoyment of tanking though I spent most of that time severely annoyed with Blizzard for multiple reasons. I’m not prepared to go through that sort of frustration again, no matter how much I wanted to like this game. The three fellow ex-WoW guildies who got into GW2 with me all burned out on it around the same time I did, pretty much for the same reasons, and this new grind is another argument not to come back for them too. And I swear honest to goodness that we all WANTED to love this game and hoped to stick with it for a long while.

mulch.2586:

Katai.6240:

…compare Yakkington’s Ring vs Exotic Ring with Jewel is a difference of 5 power, 5 precision, and 3% magic find.

I mean, how much is the total stat difference? After taking Rune bonuses and special effects into account?

Right, the 5 power/pre, considering your prob’ly at 2700 or more power, that amounts to a 0.2% increase in damage and 0.25% increase in crit..

Ok, you’ve accounted for the ring.

Now consider what’s next:

The helmet, and the shoulderpads, and the breatplate, and the pants, and the gloves, and the boots, and the back slot, and the accessories, and the amulet, and the primary, weapon, and the secondary weapon, and the primary and secondary weapons for your second weapon set.

Then consider that on the reddit Q&A they told us of plans to continue with increased tiers of infusions. So after you’ve got each of those items, you can grind for more infusions for your rings, helmet, shoulderpads, breatplate, pants, gloves, boots, back slot, accessories, amulet, two primary and two secondary weapons.

In a nutshell, they can promise no more tiers of gear, but there will be tiers of infusions. It’s nothing more than (not so) clever wordplay to obfuscate their plans for a grind.

paraphrase of Anets new philosophy

“Oh, you won’t have to grind new gear past ascended… but you will have to grind for new infusions for that ascended gear. …Gear that will be obsolete when we raise the level cap, so you can start all over again.”

Thanks for nothin’ there guys. If you’re plan is to introduce a gear grind so that casual players feel compelled to buy the stuff they’ll need on your gem store, just say so, don’t pull a bait-n-switch.

VOLKON.1290:

No. You are wrong. Period. You’re going to have to come to terms with that.

In your alternate reality perhaps, back here on planet earth no.

VOLKON.1290:

Give a small stat boost, not big enough that it’ll affect things like WvW, and add infusions and agony making them ideal gear to pursue for Fractals and future dungeons. With me so far? OK… now stop.

No becasue you are talking rubbish, if they wanted it just for fractals all they had to add was agony and a cosmetic between exotics & legendary, nothing else, there was no stat difference between exotic & legendary to fit in between in the first place.

Any stat boost makes a difference to WvW, you can lose an encounter by the tiniest margins (less than 100 HP), it will only get worse as they roll ascended out to other slots and there is no limit to the level of infusions they can add.

Nor have they said it will be only the tier they say they intend it to be only the tier, which leaves it open, nor does it prevent 50 levels of infusions being added, nor for that matter would it matter what they say at this point given their word doesn’t mean much any longer.

VOLKON.1290:

This is NOT a treadmill.

Sure it is, it is a mandatory gear treadmill, because to stay competitive in WvW people will need to get ascended gear, which will only get more pressing as they fill out more slots with ascended and introduce higher tiers of infusions.

Yes exotics are relatively easy to get, that was the point, we were told we would be able to get on and enjoy playing the game without having to hop on a gear treadmill, unfortunately there is this group of children who basically come out with this – “dungeons are boring unless I get loot with MOAR STATZ”, so essentially virtual stamp collectors who are bored by the fundamental gameplay.

It also meant we were guaranteed a relatively level playing field in WvW as once people got to 80 everyone would be able to gear up to exotic quickly, which was a big selling point for many, because as Anet themselves know (and have stated) gear differences make for crappy PvP.

Now in a years time a new player is going to get to 80 and find themselves at a noticeable disadvantage when other players have ascended in every slot, congrats another “WoW 2.0” clone.

I really wish there will be other ways to get ascended gear other than fractals because at the moment I’m stuck on a level because everyone wants to the daily/higher levels. sigh

And if I’m not mistaken, this isn’t really a bait ’n switch >.>

Bait ‘n switch is the $200 50inch TV on sale, and is mysteriously sold out but there happens to be a $450 50inch TV just like it. Don’t see how that links to GW2.

This is coming from someone who has yet to buy gems with real money, btw.

mulch.2586:

Katai.6240:

Baron of Winters.5697:

Katai.6240:

But the vertical progression only affects one part of the game, FotM. Those who care about getting to deeper areas of FotM can have their vertical progression to get armor with higher agony resistance. Everyone else couldn’t care less. How does ascended gear affect anyone doing anything outside of FotM in a meaningful way? All you’re doing is upgrading your armor to get more agony resistance.

No, there’s plenty of documented evidence showing that ascended gear has higher base stats than exotic. Further, the Q&A on reddit revealed that there will be more tiers within the infusions, and there’s no reason to believe those higher-tier infusions won’t have base stat numbers too… so you can feel like a hamster in a wheel chaisng those too.

I am aware of that, but you have to remember that Ascended gears basically have Runes baked into them. I mean, compare Yakkington’s Ring vs Exotic Ring with Jewel is a difference of 5 power, 5 precision, and 3% magic find.

I mean, how much is the total stat difference? After taking Rune bonuses and special effects into account?

Right, the 5 power/pre, considering your prob’ly at 2700 or more power, that amounts to a 0.2% increase in damage and 0.25% increase in crit. So if everyone had that upgrade, we could have shaved a second or two off the 2.5 hr Lost Shores event. :p

A treadmill on which you only take one step… is this still a treadmill, or just a rubber rug?

It’s nothing more than a mere step. The term treadmill is overused really, to the point where its meaning has been watered down too much.

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

i can live with ascended gear.

doesnt change my game, really.
or so minimaly that it doesnt matter…

Cortechs.3265:

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

Honestly, buying a MMORPG with 80 levels expecting Horizontal progression, you bought the wrong game, or are using a very loose definition of Horizontal.

See… getting from level 1-80, with 5 tiers of gear, is anything but Horizontal. Even with a plateau, this doesn’t fit the idea.

Horizontal progression would mean, from day 1, no levels, all gear being equal. We would never of had to bother leveling our characters. Just like is sPVP. This was never the case in any of the Beta events and it has remained exactly the same to today.

Cortechs.3265:

I’ve already uninstalled because of Ascended Gear (btw Anet, your ‘Exit Survey’ is broken — surprise, surprise). Horizontal progression was the main reason I bought the game. There is no reason to continue playing now.

The forum does provide marginally entertaining lunch distractions though.

So, in the future when you realize that they’ve set the plate for horizontal progression in the future now, will you reinstall and check it out?

I’m still playing, but the same can’t be said for 90% of my guild, which quit as soon as the Ascended grind was introduced. They are all waiting for the impending release of another MMO that has full loot and is an unrestricted sandbox.

I’m still here, but for the most part I find myself running solo in WvW hoping to find small fights.

I have to admit, that the recent turn of events has sucked the enthusiasm I once had for the game from me. Since the game is free I’ll keep logging in, but have no intention of ever spending another penny at the gem store.

mrsilver…

thats a sad story….

why do you keep playing ??

MrSilver.5269:

I’m still playing, but the same can’t be said for 90% of my guild, which quit as soon as the Ascended grind was introduced. They are all waiting for the impending release of another MMO that has full loot and is an unrestricted sandbox.

I’m still here, but for the most part I find myself running solo in WvW hoping to find small fights.

I have to admit, that the recent turn of events has sucked the enthusiasm I once had for the game from me. Since the game is free I’ll keep logging in, but have no intention of ever spending another penny at the gem store.

Find a new guild, especially if you run WvW.

Not sure what server you are on, but Sanctum of Rall has plenty active guilds who are always looking for new members. If you want, reach out to myself, or anyone in [Choo] and we can bring back some of the fun. We’re very active, and there’s always guild chatter going on.

Avatar.1923:

mrsilver…

thats a sad story….

why do you keep playing ??

Because I’m a gamer, and I need my crack.

Just thought I’d add some thoughts here.

First of all, I loved this game. I brought in other players, and family. I haven’t played at all since Nov. 15. My young son still plays, and I am glad he absorbs bandwidth and prevents other players from getting into WvW.

For those who truly don’t understand how some of us can have such a hard stance on this, please realize that vertical and horizontal progression are mutually exclusive. It’s one or the other, never both (for the same content).

Most people have not paid as close attention to his as I and others like me have. You guys are wrong on so many fronts. Here are a couple:

No more tiers: wrong, they will be using Infusion to continue the VP until expansion time. Confirmed on Reddit.

Gear is optional: wrong, when the desire is to get to max stats and then play the game on equal footing, no stat increase is optional

Doesn’t gate content: wrong, even though the current gating is very limited, it is impossible to continue adding new challenging content without balancing that content around the current max stats. Every single content patch must increase the gear-gate, or else the content would become trivial to anyone in max stat gear

ANet won’t add more: wrong, Mike O’Brien himself stated that VP is important, and will be a major part of the future of GW2. He even said that GW1 was stagnant and not fun.

ANet didn’t break their word: wrong, you can twist words all you want but I have been following these guys for a decade now. These are the guys who told us what was wrong with the MMO market, and how they were going to fix it.

They had to do this, no other choice: wrong, ANet never released a single horizontal progression content patch. Never, not once. The first content patch introduced VP. They never even tried, they just gave up and went the easy route (not my words, THEY called this the easy route)

GW2 doesn’t need you: time will tell, but I will say this… when the bugs are too much, and the content is too little, the MMO Locusts will move on to another game. They always do, it should be expected. GW2 would have been fine though because it had a strong and loyal community who were willing to pull out their pocketbooks and keep this game going. They’ve lost that, and all they have left are people who are basically indifferent or looking for the next-best-WoW.

Sky.9347:

Just thought I’d add some thoughts here.

First of all, I loved this game. I brought in other players, and family. I haven’t played at all since Nov. 15. My young son still plays, and I am glad he absorbs bandwidth and prevents other players from getting into WvW.

For those who truly don’t understand how some of us can have such a hard stance on this, please realize that vertical and horizontal progression are mutually exclusive. It’s one or the other, never both (for the same content).

Most people have not paid as close attention to his as I and others like me have. You guys are wrong on so many fronts. Here are a couple:

No more tiers: wrong, they will be using Infusion to continue the VP until expansion time. Confirmed on Reddit.

Gear is optional: wrong, when the desire is to get to max stats and then play the game on equal footing, no stat increase is optional

Doesn’t gate content: wrong, even though the current gating is very limited, it is impossible to continue adding new challenging content without balancing that content around the current max stats. Every single content patch must increase the gear-gate, or else the content would become trivial to anyone in max stat gear

ANet won’t add more: wrong, Mike O’Brien himself stated that VP is important, and will be a major part of the future of GW2. He even said that GW1 was stagnant and not fun.

ANet didn’t break their word: wrong, you can twist words all you want but I have been following these guys for a decade now. These are the guys who told us what was wrong with the MMO market, and how they were going to fix it.

They had to do this, no other choice: wrong, ANet never released a single horizontal progression content patch. Never, not once. The first content patch introduced VP. They never even tried, they just gave up and went the easy route (not my words, THEY called this the easy route)

GW2 doesn’t need you: time will tell, but I will say this… when the bugs are too much, and the content is too little, the MMO Locusts will move on to another game. They always do, it should be expected. GW2 would have been fine though because it had a strong and loyal community who were willing to pull out their pocketbooks and keep this game going. They’ve lost that, and all they have left are people who are basically indifferent or looking for the next-best-WoW.

Fantastic post.

Sums it up perfectly!!!

The problem is that the other side just doesn’t get it, or doesn’t want to get it because they need the carrot.

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.

Your stereotyping of people is nonsense. I left both WoW and Rift after reaching the level cap and realizing that, unless I wanted to slave myself to a playstyle I did not enjoy, the best gear in the game would be unobtainable. So, contrary to your stereotyping:

1. I did not leave because I had completed all the content or was bored with the game. I had plenty I could still do, and I was, in fact, still enjoying both games.
2. I did not leave because the next latest and greatest game came out. I left both games because of this issue, not “for” another game. In fact, in the case of leaving WoW, I went back to EQ2, a game I had left for WoW only because a friend I played with wanted to check out WoW.
3. I did not stick around and complain about it.
4. I did not stick around for any reason and I have never gone back to either game.

I don’t necessarily agree with the OP’s position. I am not ready to leave GW2 yet because I am waiting to see how they deal with this gear. While the gear is currently available only through running dungeons (which are not my favorite content), they are done with single groups and not larage scale raiding. Since I have people I play with, I can tolerate that, and, to my knowledge, they have not yet stated that they will only make this gear available through this format. I am concerned that they are making it so that you have to get on a dungeon treadmill (higher and higher fractal levels) to get the best gear, but I can bide my time and see how this plays out and impacts the game.

However, if it becomes clear that the only way to obtain the best gear in the game is to run gear-gated content repetatively and that the gear-gating makes it hard to get with friends who have either moved on to higher tiers or have fallen behind (making it even more mind-numbingly repetative), forcing me to have to rely on PuGs to get the gear, I want nothing to do with it. If they do not make the gear obtainable through other means (or worse, add a raiding requirement) and if I have to start facing opponents in WvW who have better gear than I can obtain through means I enjoy (which was the case in WoW PvP), I will have little reason to stay with this game.

People do leave games over issues like this. Quit trying to marginalize them just because it doesn’t bother you.

Sotaudi.1265:

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.

Your stereotyping of people is nonsense. I left both WoW and Rift after reaching the level cap and realizing that, unless I wanted to slave myself to a playstyle I did not enjoy, the best gear in the game would be unobtainable. So, contrary to your stereotyping:

1. I did not leave because I had completed all the content or was bored with the game. I had plenty I could still do, and I was, in fact, still enjoying both games.
2. I did not leave because the next latest and greatest game came out. I left both games because of this issue, not “for” another game. In fact, in the case of leaving WoW, I went back to EQ2, a game I had left for WoW only because a friend I played with wanted to check out WoW.
3. I did not stick around and complain about it.
4. I did not stick around for any reason and I have never gone back to either game.

I don’t necessarily agree with the OP’s position. I am not ready to leave GW2 yet because I am waiting to see how they deal with this gear. While the gear is currently available only through running dungeons (which are not my favorite content), they are done with single groups and not larage scale raiding. Since I have people I play with, I can tolerate that, and, to my knowledge, they have not n yet stated that they will only make this gear available through this format. I am concerned that they are making it so that you have to get on a dungeon treadmill (higher and higher fractal levels) to get the best gear, but I can bide my time and see how this plays out and impacts the game.

However, if it becomes clear that the only way to obtain the best gear in the game is to run gear-gated content repetatively and that the gear-gating makes it hard to get with friends who have either moved on to higher tiers or have fallen behind (making it even more mind-numbingly repetative), forcing me to have to rely on PuGs to get the gear, I want nothing to do with it. If they do not make the gear obtainable through other means (or worse, add a raiding requirement) and if I have to start facing opponents in WvW who have better gear than I can obtain through means I enjoy (which was the case in WoW PvP), I will have little reason to stay with this game.

People do leave games over issues like this. Quit trying to marginalize them just because it doesn’t bother you.

It’s already been said by Devs they fully intend Ascended gear to be available in all aspects of the game. The limited release of the gear to just one dungeon was an admitted mistake, and they fully intend to open up acquisition methods.

I would possibly even expect the current available pieces to be opened up to new content as early as the Wintersday patch via new crafting recipes and an increased loot table.

I still play (I WvW with my guild) but stopped buying gems. This month my gaming budget will go to buying Xcom instead of gems that I’d blow on buying golems.

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?

Combined with the massive nerf to rare drop rates in PvE, the Ascended Gear thing has made me quit, at least for now. If they don’t address the massive grind and fix it, I probably won’t ever bother to come back.

Last night was the first time since GW2’s head start that I played something else instead. It’s refreshing to play a game made by developers that aren’t so ridiculously fond of massive boring grind.

If you dont want to play than dont play.

If ascended was as big an issue as you lot THINK its going to be, then wed see a much bigger outcry similar to what we saw prior to the lost shores.

But the first pieces have come out and its just a couple threads here and there that funnily enough, don’t actually bring up substantial topics or bugs but instead cry DOOOOM!

Yeah. This really isnt an issue for most of us.

Soooooo tata.

Does this make me OP?

I actually lost a good bit of toughness with this ring… but then again, I rely on not getting hit if I can help it.