Guild Wars 2

Hi there.

First of all, i want to point out that that i’m not beeing sarcastic here. And second, I am sorry for my bad english, i am no native speaker.

I played GW1 for a very long time, and i really loved the game, PvE and PvP.
One of the most fascinating things about this game was the lack of geargrinding. You hit max. Level and you can buy the best armor and weapons for almost nothing. That was fantastic.

The thing is, it is different for GW 2 now. In GW1, i would never ask anybody if he is good at the game or what kind of equipment he uses, because it doesn’t really matter. I would help him, and we would work together to finish the dungeon or whatever, because i knew one thing: There is no better equipment, he/she just needs some advice or help in playing the game.

But now, with Guild Wars 2, it causes me problems. When I team up with a group of players to do, for example, the Fractals of the Mists, I really wish for all of those players in my group to have exotic gear. I hate myself for thinking that way, but the difference in stats means that we could (possibly) finish the dungeon faster.

On the other hand, with non-exotic-equipped players, I feel like…those people could waste my time. Because we die more often. And I have to repair my equip more often etc.

I have not started to ask my party to link me their equipment or anything like that yet, but I think, on higher Levels in the Fractals, i would start doing so.

Sure, I could just go in and whipe a few times and have fun, but still…beating a dungeon faster is more fun that dying a lot of times, for me at least.

What do you think about that? I don’t want to do that, but I feel like I am forced to check out my partymembers right now, because of this whole difference in gear.

AmBoSS

I feel we need a gear score.

If people can’t at least bring top of the line exotics, they may as well not exist or even reply to my LFG spam.

Yes, the presence of gear treadmill introduces a completely different mindset into the game. More than the actual increased stat gear itself, it’s the psychological effects that is has on the game community.

To illgot: I will interpret your post as sarcasm

Merthax.5172:

Yes, the presence of gear treadmill introduces a completely different mindset into the game. More than the actual increased stat gear itself, it’s the psychological effects that is has on the game community.

To illgot: I will interpret your post as sarcasm

then you interpreted it correctly. But sadly I did hear something along the same lines in /map chat as someone was venting at all the noobs trying to get into FotM groups with him.

at that point I just logged off, it started to remind me too much of WoW.

Indeed, the mindset is a major problem right now. I am just wondering if any of you thinks that way. I mean, in my opinion, it seems like a valid point to play things like dungeon efficient.

With the different gear they divided the playerbase and my view of the players in “people to do Fractals” and “the rest who could waste my time”. And the ascended gear will make things even worse.

AmBoSS.7129:

Indeed, the mindset is a major problem right now. I am just wondering if any of you thinks that way. I mean, in my opinion, it seems like a valid point to play things like dungeon efficient.

With the different gear they divided the playerbase and my view of the players in “people to do Fractals” and “the rest who could waste my time”. And the ascended gear will make things even worse.

sadly I also understand this view point. I used to be a hardcore raider in my WoW days, my guild was one of the top 5 on my server. But that was such a horrible time for me, basically I felt like an kitten for excluding people and like a prostitute for selling out my values to have a chance at the raids.

You aren’t wrong for doing so. There isn’t any way around thinking that way because it’s the truth. If players skill is equal than obviously the person with the full exotics is going to have an edge, however small. Also, just because how the game works the person with the exotics is most likely more experiences than the person without. It shows that they have at least spent more time playing the game.

Plus, the faster you can get things done, the more rewards there will be for you. The faster you can get geared up, the faster you’ll be able to complete fractals and that’s more rewards for you to enjoy the game. If you don’t keep up, soon you will be outpaced by everyone since inflation will price you out of the market.

Wasselin.1235:

You aren’t wrong for doing so. There isn’t any way around thinking that way because it’s the truth. If players skill is equal than obviously the person with the full exotics is going to have an edge, however small. Also, just because how the game works the person with the exotics is most likely more experiences than the person without. It shows that they have at least spent more time playing the game.

Plus, the faster you can get things done, the more rewards there will be for you. The faster you can get geared up, the faster you’ll be able to complete fractals and that’s more rewards for you to enjoy the game. If you don’t keep up, soon you will be outpaced by everyone since inflation will price you out of the market.

I remember WoW back when BC came out. I rerolled a Blood Elf Paly and by the time I actually hit max level I couldn’t find any groups on my server. Everyone had already moved on to raids. They were raiding and my gear was not good enough for them.

I was stuck. I could not find groups for basic instances to gear up and I could not get into raids due to my gear. That’s when I decided to quit WoW the first time.

I’m honestly worried that by the time I get around to leveling up my Warrior she really won’t be able to do the instance because everyone will only be running max level or be too busy running the next infusion base instance.

you guys are being elitist.

shame on GW2 for provoking that….

dont know what the solution could be. but hey, it is sad, sad that people like the OP cannot “live” without doing the fastest run possible…

so long for the roleplaying part i guess.
this will become Diablo 3….

SAD

Avatar.1923:

you guys are being elitist.

shame on GW2 for provoking that….

dont know what the solution could be. but hey, it is sad, sad that people like the OP cannot “live” without doing the fastest run possible…

so long for the roleplaying part i guess.
this will become Diablo 3….

SAD

this is exactly why people were against gear grind. and if you read the OP, he doesn’t like it, but he feels he has no choice

kitanas.3596:

Avatar.1923:

you guys are being elitist.

shame on GW2 for provoking that….

dont know what the solution could be. but hey, it is sad, sad that people like the OP cannot “live” without doing the fastest run possible…

so long for the roleplaying part i guess.
this will become Diablo 3….

SAD

this is exactly why people were against gear grind. and if you read the OP, he doesn’t like it, but he feels he has no choice

he really doesn’t. If he waits around too long he’ll be left behind which only makes it harder to find groups. Wait long enough and you’ll be left behind permanently.

Avatar.1923:

you guys are being elitist.

shame on GW2 for provoking that….

By general definition, a gear progression system is elitist. You take the most skilled and most geared people to tear through content in order to reach even better content. It’s a never ending loop that promotes exclusion as a means to the end.

I never wanted GW2 to get to this point. This was one of the reasons that I came to this MMO. However now that ArenaNet has flipped the switch, I seriously do want the ability to /Inspect the gear of other players since gear checks are now being impliments through the Agony dot system.

Avatar.1923:

you guys are being elitist.

shame on GW2 for provoking that….

dont know what the solution could be. but hey, it is sad, sad that people like the OP cannot “live” without doing the fastest run possible…

so long for the roleplaying part i guess.
this will become Diablo 3….

SAD

When a game introduces gear-gated content, then presto – it supports and actually enforces such attitudes.
Just a few days ago when gear was much more readily available, it wasn’t a problem, because you could get it from WvW or PvE, karma or badges or dungeon runs or crafting or ……

Now, get ready for much more gear attention and FotM level spam.
If you’re not ‘up top’, be ready to be left behind.
So now you need L80 and exotics to start.
And then you need FotM of the correct level to advance.
And then you need Acsended with infusion to advance more.

The game mechanics themselves created this; players just flow with it.

I completely agree with you OP. While I had hoped to never see the need for it in this game, it needs to be implemented.

What’s funny is that everyone was complaining that this would happen based on the Ascended items; yet nobodies wearing ascended yet and it’s happening anyways.

thats how WoW made that much money ?

hmmm. this game should be sold with a psycologist warning.

still.

SAD.

i like epic roleplaying multiplayer games.
i dont have a solution how to replace this elitist thing.

at least if they cofine it to the fractals…

Guild Wars 2 adding gear progression to compete with World of Warcraft is like Fred Meyer lowering their prices to compete with Walmart. It just won’t end well.

You do see that the gear progression was already in the game before ascended, right? This just proves that. Nobody has ascended yet and this is still happening for the new dungeon.

Avatar.1923:

at least if they cofine it to the fractals…

But it can’t be confined and that’s the crux of the problem. Now that Ascended is available, it will quickly become the standard within the next few months. Lines like “speed clear of AC” will turn into “ulta speed clear of AC (must have Ascended)”. All of the WvW players will be forced to turn to Ascended to keep up with the Cold War styled arms race. Once Ascended become wide spread enough, then ArenaNet devs will be forced to take it into account for the design of future content (since it would otherwise be too easy for the Ascended players that they’re trying to apease).

Within the next 3 months, you MUST have Ascended or you’re going to be considered dead weight as an 80th character. If you just continue to make alts and abandon the character once you hit the level cap, then you won’t feel the change. However ArenaNet has currently made the Fractals the most cost effective way to loot farm. Unless they buff up the loot drops in the open world dynamic events, then people will ignore those at 80th. So with that in mind, it will become nearly impossible for people to even finish their Personal Story line since no one will want to wade through Cursed Shore events for a rush in Arah.

Wiser with Age.3714:

Avatar.1923:

at least if they cofine it to the fractals…

Within the next 3 months, you MUST have Ascended or you’re going to be considered dead weight as an 80th character.

It has already started to happened. I saw a few groups doing AC runs asking for people who had Ascended gear only and demanded that they link their gear to prove it.

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

youd be surprised.
some gamers are sick.
litteraly.

Loosifah.4739:

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

To be fair, they could have been trolling. I hope this is the case.

I just did the math on this one. Over a period of 98 hours(4 days) they would have had to have been logged in the whole time, and in a fractal every 30 minutes constantly to have enough tokens just to buy the backslot item. Not to mention the required gift to upgrade it.

I fail to see why this is an Anet issue, you can’t blame the company for kitten players. And you can’t say it’s ANet enforcing the attitude, you’re just projecting.

If there are so many people who are worried about being “left behind” (whatever that means) wouldn’t all the “left behind” people be such a high number as to not matter?

All of the “left behind” casuals (like myself) can find each other to complete the content, right? I mean, hardcore players are so few in this game (according to the forums) it’s completely bonkers to assume that if you don’t grind every day you’ll never find a group.

No one has the Backpacks yet in any kind of large amount. The same goes for the Infusions. However we’re currently only 2 Days into the Ascended grinding world. People are grinding for Ring right now. Then as of mid December, Fractal #2 (or whatever they call it at that point) is supposed to introduce a 2nd wave of Ascended slots. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

By the time that December’s Fractal #2 comes out, people will expect that you have already grinded out your Ring slots, that you’ve made your own Backpack, and that you’ve made your own Infusions. The Infusion are Account Bound, so I’m guessing that the Backpacks will be the same way. Therefore you must grind and can’t use any of your saved up game currency to just buy them outright.

Then within 1 month after Fractal #2, those items will become the new standard. This dance won’t stop until ArenaNet pauses in the gear escalation game. However this will just allow more people to get Ascended out, which will make Ascended even more required to participate. It’s a self fullfilling prophecy.

Loosifah.4739:

I just did the math on this one. Over a period of 98 hours(4 days) they would have had to have been logged in the whole time, and in a fractal every 30 minutes constantly to have enough tokens just to buy the backslot item. Not to mention the required gift to upgrade it.

Or they could have received a Vial drop and simply made one in the Mystic Forge. There are multiple ways to get everything and people will expect us to use them all.

NO, absoloutely under no circumstances what so ever should gear score, or any tool that allows one player to pass judgement on another, should be allowed in this game.

I appreciate why people want it but it’s a tool that gets abused by kitten to make other peoples lives miserable.

A better system would simply be to let the game decide. Similar to the system in wow that only lets you sign up to dungeons you can be reasonably expected to finish. That way you wont get some over weight basement dwelling no life muppet kicking people out or turning them away because they have one stat point less than maximum.

Just say NO to gear score scum.

Please don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like the gear difference right right now. And it is not just about the ascended gear, that gear will just make it worse. The exotic one has done pretty good damage by itself.

The thing is that it is now possible to divide the players by gear, and it will get much worse with the ascended gear right now and the next items to come.

In Guild Wars 1 that wasn’t the case. If myself or my group failed, it was because we lack some tactic or we just played bad. It was just impossible to say: “Your gear is bad.”

Because gear ist just numbers, and you can’t discuss numbers like you can do with tactics or the right use of skills. Even if the difference isn’t that great, it’s still there, and obviouly you would like to have better equiped people in your group then bad ones.

That’s for random groups of course. I can and would play with my lower equiped friends, but when I take some “random” people…why wouldn’t I just go with the best equiped ones?

The possibility to choose in that regard is just wrong, in my opinion at least.

AmBoSS

Wiser with Age.3714:

Loosifah.4739:

I just did the math on this one. Over a period of 98 hours(4 days) they would have had to have been logged in the whole time, and in a fractal every 30 minutes constantly to have enough tokens just to buy the backslot item. Not to mention the required gift to upgrade it.

Or they could have received a Vial drop and simply made one in the Mystic Forge. There are multiple ways to get everything and people will expect us to use them all.

Which “people?” Hardcore players? Why are you feeling required to play on their level? Why does anyone feel like they need to be on the bleeding edge? You can’t get mad at others for having a different play style than you, and then wanting to make sure they’re playing with people who share the same play style.

You don’t get to be mad at the hardcore for wanting to play with other hardcore people, that’s completely unreasonable.

AmBoSS.7129:

Please don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like the gear difference right right now. And it is not just about the ascended gear, that gear will just make it worse. The exotic one has done pretty good damage by itself.

The thing is that it is now possible to divide the players by gear, and it will get much worse with the ascended gear right now and the next items to come.

In Guild Wars 1 that wasn’t the case. If myself or my group failed, it was because we lack some tactic or we just played bad. It was just impossible to say: “Your gear is bad.”

Because gear ist just numbers, and you can’t discuss numbers like you can do with tactics or the right use of skills. Even if the difference isn’t that great, it’s still there, and obviouly you would like to have better equiped people in your group then bad ones.

That’s for random groups of course. I can and would play with my lower equiped friends, but when I take some “random” people…why wouldn’t I just go with the best equiped ones?

The possibility to choose in that regard is just wrong, in my opinion at least.

AmBoSS

I didn’t have a specific set of skills, I was barred from content in GW1 by players. Just because there wasn’t a gear gate doesn’t mean there wasn’t a gate at all.

You cannot make a game with gear differences where those who have the gear are more powerful, more efficient, and more likely to succeed and then expect players to miraculously not care about what kind of gear people have. That’s just silly.

If you want to argue skill you will get the canned response of ‘obviously the person who has the gear was skilled enough to get it.’ you cant win this arguement. once they make gear difference matter, its going to matter to players.

Mackdose.6504:

AmBoSS.7129:

Please don’t get me wrong here. I don’t like the gear difference right right now. And it is not just about the ascended gear, that gear will just make it worse. The exotic one has done pretty good damage by itself.

The thing is that it is now possible to divide the players by gear, and it will get much worse with the ascended gear right now and the next items to come.

In Guild Wars 1 that wasn’t the case. If myself or my group failed, it was because we lack some tactic or we just played bad. It was just impossible to say: “Your gear is bad.”

Because gear ist just numbers, and you can’t discuss numbers like you can do with tactics or the right use of skills. Even if the difference isn’t that great, it’s still there, and obviouly you would like to have better equiped people in your group then bad ones.

That’s for random groups of course. I can and would play with my lower equiped friends, but when I take some “random” people…why wouldn’t I just go with the best equiped ones?

The possibility to choose in that regard is just wrong, in my opinion at least.

AmBoSS

I didn’t have a specific set of skills, I was barred from content in GW1 by players. Just because there wasn’t a gear gate doesn’t mean there wasn’t a gate at all.

You are right of course, but that mostly happend in very hard dungeons and content, as far as I remember. But getting the skills required for certain builds was pretty easy (exeption beeing things like those stupid PvE-Skill, Ursaway and such).

And I do believe, and I think you will agree, that getting a few skills in GW1 was much easier than getting full exotic gear in GW 2, not to mention ascended gear.

The gear difference has mattered from the beginning. If you can’t see that; you’re blind.

This thread is a prime example. “If you’re not wearing full exotics, you’re wasting my time”

Fritz.5026:

You cannot make a game with gear differences where those who have the gear are more powerful, more efficient, and more likely to succeed and then expect players to miraculously not care about what kind of gear people have. That’s just silly.

If you want to argue skill you will get the canned response of ‘obviously the person who has the gear was skilled enough to get it.’ you cant win this arguement. once they make gear difference matter, its going to matter to players.

You are absoluty right about that. With the exotic gear alone they made this gear difference, which in my opinion was a fairly bad idea.

I would love them to stop now with this gear progression thing. We got exotic, we now have ascended, this is way more than enough. There are games out there like WoW, and it’s a normal thing for those games to get better gear all the time and people love it. But this game beeing Guild Wars 2, I think this really isn’t neccesary.

And no, I am not blind, I am aware that gear difference was there from the beginning. And I disliked that. But I hoped they would stop, because eventuelly, the majority of players would get exotic gear and this whole progression thing would end.
Guess I was wrong.

AmBoSS

AmBoSS.7129:

You are right of course, but that mostly happend in very hard dungeons and content, as far as I remember. But getting the skills required for certain builds was pretty easy (exeption beeing things like those stupid PvE-Skill, Ursaway and such).

And I do believe, and I think you will agree, that getting a few skills in GW1 was much easier than getting full exotic gear in GW 2.

Aren’t Fractals meant to be very hard content past a certain level? I mean, from what I understand you gear for fractals by doing fractals. So you gear up by playing the content you need the gear for. That’s why I’m scratching my head about this backlash.

I don’t feel cheated, and after Ascended becomes easier to get (which it will, with time) it’ll be the new Exotic, the plateau is back with infusions being the only thing that changes.

I’m just really tired of the arguments against the gear being “Hardcore players will be hardcore players, and that’s not fair to ME” News flash, there are many people like you who don’t have time to be Hardcore™, and I’m one of them. I’ll be happy to run the content with you without ascended gear because I enjoy playing Guild Wars 2 and I’m sure players like me outnumber the straw-man army of elitists.

Mackdose.6504:

You don’t get to be mad at the hardcore for wanting to play with other hardcore people, that’s completely unreasonable.

True. For many years of my life, I’ve been a bleeding edge raider and I know all of the ups and downs that go with that. One of the byproducts is that the bleeding edge standard will always influence the casual standard, which is the only reason to monitor where the bleeding edge goal post is located.

GW2 wasn’t supposed to be about that. That was one of the main draws to the game. I’ve gotten tired of the constant gear chase and having developers target new content (open world and instanced) to their power level, which inherently discourages and excludes anyone who isn’t part of that player segment. (It has always put me in an akward place to have to tell my IRL friends that they don’t have the neccessary gear to successfully complete a dungeon because they’re basically a walking blood smear.) However GW2 has decided to switch mindsets and they’re now going down that path.

Since there are many things that I still think that GW2 gets right, I’ll continue playing. But if things play out like I’m expecting within the next 3 months, then I’ll have to seriously re-assess things.

I like the new instance and the new gear, but I’m seriously hoping they don’t add another tier above it.

Loosifah.4739:

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

Not trying to challenge you but someone already posted proof that they have the back piece.

Which is the second point those of us against this move tried to make. Gear grinders will chew through this content fast as well. The only way to keep them engaged is to add more and more tiers of gear. WOW does this but it is a sub-based game.

Why does Arenanet now feel that they need a gear treadmill? I keep asking but not getting any evidence from anyone. What proof exist that gear grinders spend more real money in a cash shop than those that like horizontal progression?

Some people have even pointed out that they don’t need to. They will most likely have enough in-game gold to buy gems.

Mackdose.6504:

I didn’t have a specific set of skills, I was barred from content in GW1 by players. Just because there wasn’t a gear gate doesn’t mean there wasn’t a gate at all.

But at least it wasn’t very difficult to get those popular skills. Getting elite skills was actually fun, imho.

I am really so sad. And I think I will finally give up on MMORPGs. The let-down of Anet is too much

It will always be about that. Unless all armor and all weapons were exactly the same, there will always be some people who will be looking only for the best because they seem to think that will get them the best results.

And then as soon as all gear and weapons are equal, they’ll only want people who have run it X amount of times. Or who can run it under X amount of time. And they’ll add in more and more requirements.

We can’t blame the addition of Ascended items for this phenomena. It happened when there were only exotics and it would happen if all armor and weapons were equal. People like to think that they can be part of the best of the best. And they will actively seek it.

And there is nothing wrong with it as long as it isn’t predominant in the population.

Which it isn’t.

If you don’t like the mindset, ignore their looking for group stuff. I’ve been in dozens of pugs where no one was like that, so they’re out there. I’ll just keep running dungeons with my guildies who are decked out in greens and having a blast while doing it.

Loosifah.4739:

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

Not true! there are a lot ppl having it allready. 150 Gold and you can craft the bag. scale 10+ and you can get dropped the rings. Gear cheack will come to GW2. Oh it allready is, but it will get even worse, I promise you that. Its just like in other MMO. Eat it or be left behind.

dalendria.3762:

Loosifah.4739:

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

Not trying to challenge you but someone already posted proof that they have the back piece.

Which is the second point those of us against this move tried to make. Gear grinders will chew through this content fast as well. The only way to keep them engaged is to add more and more tiers of gear. WOW does this but it is a sub-based game.

Why does Arenanet now feel that they need a gear treadmill? I keep asking but not getting any evidence from anyone. What proof exist that gear grinders spend more real money in a cash shop than those that like horizontal progression?

Some people have even pointed out that they don’t need to. They will most likely have enough in-game gold to buy gems.

I’m not hardcore, and I like Vertical and Horizontal progression. I like the fact that I don’t have to chase ascended gear if I don’t want to, but if I change my mind, I have something long term to play for. Hardcore players want something to chase, and they have it. Everyone wins, except the player that thinks they have a right to be in whatever group they want, regardless of what the group is looking for.

I’ve been in plenty of pugs myself that did okay in those dungeons without a gear requirement.

Alicse.9854:

Loosifah.4739:

I call BS. Nobody and I mean NOBODY has ascended gear yet. There’s no way someone made 1300 tokens in the period of a weekend unless they played in shifts with friends so someone was on the character 24/7 and in a fractal the whole time.

Not true! there are a lot ppl having it allready. 150 Gold and you can craft the bag. scale 10+ and you can get dropped the rings. Gear cheack will come to GW2. Its just like in other MMO. Eat it or be left behind.

Be left behind where? By whom? What am I being left behind by? I don’t understand this rationale.

At level 10 shouldn’t the agony be kicking in pretty heavy though?

It makes a huge difference. Yesterday, I was in overflow doing the Lost Shores Phase 3 event, and at 2 hour 50 minute mark, we were still struggling at “Reinforcement phase 2”. Other servers are already done at 2 hour15 minute mark. We were late by about an hour. And mind you, we had as many people, if not more, than those other servers. I found out because I got disconnected, and ended up somewhere else.

Gears make a big difference.

Mackdose.6504:

AmBoSS.7129:

You are right of course, but that mostly happend in very hard dungeons and content, as far as I remember. But getting the skills required for certain builds was pretty easy (exeption beeing things like those stupid PvE-Skill, Ursaway and such).

And I do believe, and I think you will agree, that getting a few skills in GW1 was much easier than getting full exotic gear in GW 2.

Aren’t Fractals meant to be very hard content past a certain level? I mean, from what I understand you gear for fractals by doing fractals. So you gear up by playing the content you need the gear for. That’s why I’m scratching my head about this backlash.

I don’t feel cheated, and after Ascended becomes easier to get (which it will, with time) it’ll be the new Exotic, the plateau is back with infusions being the only thing that changes.

I’m just really tired of the arguments against the gear being “Hardcore players will be hardcore players, and that’s not fair to ME” News flash, there are many people like you who don’t have time to be Hardcore™, and I’m one of them. I’ll be happy to run the content with you without ascended gear because I enjoy playing Guild Wars 2 and I’m sure players like me outnumber the straw-man army of elitists.

I agree with the Fractals beeing hard content after a certain level. But that is one point. I am now on Level 3, and there is no such thing als agony, and we don’t need ascended gear for now.

But still, when you make a party, wouldn’t you want players with the best gear, meaning exotic? The thing is, I don’t want that choise, because obviously I would take the better ones (not saying skill-wise, they could be bad players for that matter), and I think you would too. The ascended items will make that even worse, I think it is pretty reasonable to think so.

And because getting those ascened items is so hard (I hope they will, like you said, be easier availabe after time) and require a lot of playing, the playerbase will get divided and get “elitist”.

AmBoSS

Discrimination happened to the same degree GW1, but it was in slightly different areas, namely faction rank(for certain faction specific skills) and build/runes/insignia. It wasn’t a problem to get the right gear and upgrades, but you still had to title grind to be considered viable for “those” pugs.

“T-Way LF LB8 UA” or “LF 1hp BiP R9/10”

Hycinthus.6483:

It makes a huge difference. Yesterday, I was in overflow doing the Lost Shores Phase 3 event, and at 2 hour 50 minute mark, we were still struggling at “Reinforcement phase 2”. Other servers are already done at 2 hour15 minute mark. We were late by about an hour. And mind you, we had as many people, if not more, than those other servers. I found out because I got disconnected, and ended up somewhere else.

Gears make a big difference.

So you knew the gear that everyone else had? And you’re sure it was better than yours? Cause that sounds like pretty baseless speculation. Just because a group finished faster doesn’t mean they had better gear. There are hundreds of potential reasons why they finished faster. You just covered a single one.

I’m not saying that a server full of people in full ascended won’t totally beat a server full of greens time wise. But… I don’t know of any server that is so much greater than others in such a way.

Also, given that both servers finished? Then even if the all green server managed to finish half an hour later, they still finished, which means they were still capable in their not ascended armor of finishing it. That is a HUGE difference in other games where unless you’re in top tier, you’re gonna bomb.