Guild Wars 2

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

Crafting and Infusing the Ascended back slots appears to require nearly as much gathering of resources and money as the high-end named exotics, i.e. Mjolnir, the Foefire weapons, the Mist weapons, ect. To do that for a skin is one thing, but for higher stats that’s actually a much bigger investment than most games that revolve around getting better gear ask for. Your relatively small group of players who got their Legendaries within the first few months are going to burn through acquiring Ascended gear and promptly look at you like, “That’s it?” The rest of the playerbase who sees Exotics as an achievable goal with a little work is going to throw up their hands when they see what’s required for Ascended gear, unless you really go out of your way in future updates to make them nearly as accessible as Exotics. And that would defeat the purpose of what you want them to do.

You have two goals in conflict. One is to create an endgame in which people don’t have to spend a lot of time preparing to run content, or grind to obtain the most powerful items in the game. The other is…well, to create an endgame in which people do have to spend a lot of time preparing to run content, and have to grind to obtain the most powerful items in the game. I’m not one of those people who defines “grinding” as “anything I don’t want to do,” but money is very hard to come by in GW2 (this is coming from someone who loves making gold), and in order to get it at a reasonable rate you need to do some farming. Legendaries require grinding; Exotics don’t require nearly as much. The halfway point you appear to want lies between “lots of grinding” and “very little grinding,” and ended up at “lots of grinding compared to Exotics, but not as much as Legendaries.”

I understand what you’re trying to do, but I really hope you’ll reconsider how it’s being implemented. Adding more mid-tier cosmetic skins would have been my solution; I don’t feel like going for a Legendary right now, so my long-term goal was going to be Foefire’s Power for my Guardian and full T3 cultural for my Thief. People who are likely to be unsatisfied with cosmetic rewards will also be unsatisfied with Ascended armor. It won’t be enough.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

There was no statistical gap between exotic and legendary — you invented one. Resistance to the Agony mechanic could have easily been introduced as a rune set, sigil or some other new kind of power-stat-free enchantment and still required the same amount of time investment as current Ascended gear.

The Ascended tier and Infusion mechanic was clearly and explicitly created as a gear treadmill, and continuing to feed players BS is only going to infuriate people more.

They did say it will be available to WvWvW. Just not right now and anyone who farm dungeon that much isnt likely going to pvp. So your not that screwed.

expect to see some sort of armor driller in TP in the future. driller can be used to create empty upgrade slot.

it is all Nexon’s fault !

Merthax.5172:

Real honest question:
How long (in gameplay hours) should it take to start a level 1 character and take it to max level with BiS items? Basically, I’m talking about reaching the maximum mechanical power of the character. Player skill, on the other hand, is an entirely separate matter.

If you have the Gold to buy the equipment and the crafting materials to level with? Not more than an hour or two, if you have the crafting routine down pat.

Let’s say two hours to do your crafting, two hours to grab the first few (and maybe the last couple) levels, so you don’t have to necessarily max every crafting profession, 30g or so to buy the reasonably-priced materials, and 20g to buy the actual gear.

So four hours, plus whatever it takes you to earn the Gold (whether that be farming because you’re the sort who can turn your brain off and play efficiently, dungeon runs because you prefer that style of play, WvW if you can make any money there, or even just the cash shop if the time is more valuable to you than the money).

The last part is particularly important, because you can, technically speaking, earn Gold while doing anything in the game besides sPvP, assuming that you have one outfitted level 80 character to start with – in which case the grind is realistically reduced to only four hours, because you earn the money via things you thought were just fun to play.

mjharrison.3209:

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

There was no statistical gap between exotic and legendary — you invented one. Resistance to the Agony mechanic could have easily been introduced as a rune set, sigil or some other new kind of power-stat-free enchantment and still required the same amount of time investment as current Ascended gear.

The Ascended tier and Infusion mechanic was clearly and explicitly created as a gear treadmill, and continuing to feed players BS is only going to infuriate people more.

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Jabronee.9465:

Some bought this game for the PvE part of it. And others bought it for the PvP part.
Please do not force us Pvpers to run Dungeons just to maxed out our stats.
If Anet had planned for this, they should also think about us who just love to pvp.
Like PvP Honor Gear or something that we could earn by doing WvWvW or maybe even sPvP.

I have seen the rationale for this before in another MMO. This is because adding “easily obtainable” (in the eyes of the PvE players) gear that is on par with the top-end PvE reduces the desirability of the gear. This is conjecture, but at the moment this is possibly why it is only obtainable in PvE.

If they follow in the footsteps of that other MMO, as they add new ascended slot items in new dungeons, the old slot items will gradually become more easily obtainable by other means, so that the other players feel included while at the same time letting the top-end PvE players feel like they are maintaining their “edge”. Everyone is “happy”, the PvPers and casuals just slightly later than the hardcore PvErs.

This is purely a guess; there is no indication that anything like this at all will happen. It’s just a possible reason for why they are doing things the way they are right now – one answer to your question.

mjharrison.3209:

There was no statistical gap between exotic and legendary — you invented one. Resistance to the Agony mechanic could have easily been introduced as a rune set, sigil or some other new kind of power-stat-free enchantment and still required the same amount of time investment as current Ascended gear.

The Ascended tier and Infusion mechanic was clearly and explicitly created as a gear treadmill, and continuing to feed players BS is only going to infuriate people more.

It was stated in several places clearly that the gap they reference is one of effort to acquire, not one of utility. When they talk about the gap between exotics and legendaries, they mean the gap in time/effort/grind to get -only-. You do your argument no favors by pressing an invalid point. It would be better to state there was no need to add stats to Ascended, or that the grind for Ascended is tilted a bit too close to the the legendary end of the spectrum, or other sorts of anti-Ascended gear arguments.

If ascended gear was created as a bridge between exotics and legendaries, why does it have better stats than exotics? There was no stat gap between exotics and legendaries until this new tier came along.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

People play MMOs for a sense of character progression. I want to improve my "guy’ every time I log in. If i can’t do that, what is the point in playing? To dance around LA in pretty dyed exotics that everyone else has?

I’m sorry, but this community is pathetic. You cry about everything. Most MMO’s need a carrot on the stick to keep people logging in and playing.

If anything this game suffers from an extreme lack of progression at end-game. The journey is fantastic. 1-80 is so fun, I’ve done it 3 times now since launch.

Fractals of the Mists are an amazing set of mini-dungeons, and I have had a blast running each one at least once. I have no desire to repeatedly run through them though with absolutely no chance at improving my character.

Only simpletons think that the only or even the best way to have character progression is to constantly get “moar stats” by running a gear treadmill in the newest dungeon over and over. Horizontal progression is better, period.

To reiterate what others have said, the issue with GW2’s end-game formerly was not lack of a treadmill or stat progression, it was lack of variety in general. The gap could have been filled in a hundred different (and more creative ways) ways that didn’t involve obsoleting gear that people had worked/paid money for or forcing people into a competitive tunnel to facilitate Wow-styled “progression”, which is entirely stale and outdated (and immersion-breakingly unrealistic), not to mention explicitly against this game’s original manifesto.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

Just can’t swallow that difficulty == gear check mechanic. I’m sorry but it’s either lazy design or its intentions reach beyond providing challenging content. And I don’t doubt for a minute that ANet has hired anything less than talented designers. I want challenging content. I don’t want artificial gates and gear checks that provide no value beyond catering to a group of players that gain their bragging rights from skill shallow efforts.

Erulogos.2591:

It was stated in several places clearly that the gap they reference is one of effort to acquire, not one of utility. When they talk about the gap between exotics and legendaries, they mean the gap in time/effort/grind to get -only-. You do your argument no favors by pressing an invalid point. It would be better to state there was no need to add stats to Ascended, or that the grind for Ascended is tilted a bit too close to the the legendary end of the spectrum, or other sorts of anti-Ascended gear arguments.

It’s still invalid, because there were – and still are - Exotics that are much closer to Legendaries in acquisition time and do a better job of closing the achievement gap than any existing Exotic items in the game.

There was no gap. No mechanical gap. No achievement gap. The “gap” is a fiction.

Yeh spend my time, gold and resource on ascended gear surely will get me closer to legendary equip. Does that sound logically right to you?

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

They did say it will be available to WvWvW. Just not right now and anyone who farm dungeon that much isnt likely going to pvp. So your not that screwed.

That is part of the reason why i reply to the dev.
It should be right now. Together with the Ascended Gear or just simply remove it for WvWvW till they implement it for us pvpers.

We Pvpers bought the game at the same price as Pvers.
Unless we have like 20% Discount cause we only Pvp then i have no say.

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Yeh spend my time, gold and resource on ascended gear surely will get me closer to legendary equip. Does that sound logically right to you?

This. At first I thought it was a new component towards getting a Legendary. Nope, completely different.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

People play MMOs for a sense of character progression. I want to improve my "guy’ every time I log in. If i can’t do that, what is the point in playing? To dance around LA in pretty dyed exotics that everyone else has?

How does gear stat progression = character progression? Is you character not more than gear? We have skills and traits. We have content. How about character progression based on getting new skills, traits, tackling new content, new combos, new weapons (still with same max stats), new pvp types for the pvpers, new type of group pvp like guild vs guild, new quality of life items like housing, new fluff items to pursue in open world like mini-pets, town clothes, etc?

I have just listed 9 things that represent character progression and have nothing to do with new “gear stat tiers”. Also, some of those things were done in GW1 that had no gear progression. That game is still being played. That game is a multimillion dollar seller. If its customer base wanted gear stat progression, it would have bombed. The servers would have closed down years ago. It has been around for 7 years and is still being played despite the launch of its spiritual successor, GW2.

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

I think the issue here is the amount of time and cost of resource it require to get these ascended gear. Which result in a so call grind fest is what people are really pissed about

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

People play MMOs for a sense of character progression. I want to improve my "guy’ every time I log in. If i can’t do that, what is the point in playing? To dance around LA in pretty dyed exotics that everyone else has?

I’m sorry, but this community is pathetic. You cry about everything. Most MMO’s need a carrot on the stick to keep people logging in and playing.

If anything this game suffers from an extreme lack of progression at end-game. The journey is fantastic. 1-80 is so fun, I’ve done it 3 times now since launch.

Fractals of the Mists are an amazing set of mini-dungeons, and I have had a blast running each one at least once. I have no desire to repeatedly run through them though with absolutely no chance at improving my character.

Speak for yourself. I and many others played GW1 with no gear progression at all and a very low level cap. Why? Because it’s fun. I could roll a new character, get to max level and max gear in a few hours tops. Then I could go do whatever I wanted: PvP, dungeons, Underworld, DoA. I didn’t need any carrot, just people to hang out with and play with.

There are dozens of MMOs that offer you your carrot: why the kitten do you people have to poison the one series that offers something to the rest of us?

Einlanzer.1627:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

People play MMOs for a sense of character progression. I want to improve my "guy’ every time I log in. If i can’t do that, what is the point in playing? To dance around LA in pretty dyed exotics that everyone else has?

I’m sorry, but this community is pathetic. You cry about everything. Most MMO’s need a carrot on the stick to keep people logging in and playing.

If anything this game suffers from an extreme lack of progression at end-game. The journey is fantastic. 1-80 is so fun, I’ve done it 3 times now since launch.

Fractals of the Mists are an amazing set of mini-dungeons, and I have had a blast running each one at least once. I have no desire to repeatedly run through them though with absolutely no chance at improving my character.

Only simpletons think that the only or even the best way to have character progression is to constantly get “moar stats” by running a gear treadmill in the newest dungeon over and over. Horizontal progression is better, period.

Horizontal progression in MMOs is a pipe dream unless heavily built into the game. GW2 has no where to go horizontally.

Eve Online is the only really successful MMO that has truly good horizontal progression.

The fix would be to add Agony across the board all levels. Develop new lands and dungeons for all levels. Perhaps a second 35, 45, 55 etc. Add in a Story line.

Allow players to add a slot what ever piece of armor/weapon that want too upgrading it. This could be hugely creative or very simple. Add in game all the components, crafted, dropped, etc. This fits the Forge and current designs.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

Ok, please. Step back and actually read WHY most players are complaining and leaving the game. It’s not because of just gated content, or how this new system encourages elitism and fragments the LFG-ers.

The primary reason WHY everyone has a problem with ascended gear is (and always will be!!!) because it has BETTER STATS than exotics.

What is wrong with you people for adding this stupid overall stat advantage. There wasn’t any NEED to ‘bridge the gap’ between exotics and legendaries, because legendaries had the same stats as exotics.

Right now, ascended gear typically has 10-40% more stats than its exotic equivalent, this is a HUGE advantage to not just the new dungeon but everything else in the game. Players feel like they absolutely MUST have ascended pieces, which negates all the hard/tedious/unwanted work they put into getting all exotics.

You do realize a lot of players don’t LIKE to grind/progress through gear? That they only did it to avoid ever doing it again? To have the best gear, and to go do whatever they want afterwards, including WvW, and, I don’t know, obtaining more and more sets of gear for differnt builds and alts? It’s called horizontal progression, something a lot less stressful and tedious than vertical progression.

If you just remove the stat advantage of ascended/legendaries over exotics and revert back to exotics having the highest attainable stats (read: ascended = agony stats only), I’m sure you will regain a HUGE chunk of players, including the ones who already got a refund.

ASB.4295:

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

I play GW1 for so many year not because i want a mini panda bear. Be nice if i did get one, but the point is that it was fun and if its fun you dont need gimmick to keep the player playing. Simple as that.

illgot.1056:

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.

Do you have any idea how WRONG that is?. The person you turn away could be better, skill-wise, than YOU, or any of the other people in your group. A person with crappy skills, and the best exotics is, for the most part, equal to a person with a TON of skill, and CRAPPY armor. His “armor score” doesn’t matter if you can’t TOUCH him.

Think about it like this. That person could be intentionally handicapping himself as a way to increase his skill. By going into a battle weak, he has to try harder in order to win. It would be essential for them to study, and learn all the “Tells” that mobs, and other players show when they use a skill. Now, somebody that goes into battle with the best of everything, doesn’t have to try as hard. As a result, their reliance on skill starts to diminish, effectively making them weaker as a gamer. It’s for these kind of reasons, that I NEVER turn someone away when looking for a dungeon group. I’ll admit, not EVERYONE in crappy armor is skillful. Some ARE pretty bad. But, with that being said, I HAVE seen quite a few low level players out preform lvl80’s in dungeons.

xeph.8410:

the top-end PvE players feel like they are maintaining their “edge”.

Edge? An edge based on gear. And more importantly, a gear edge because you spent more time online to get it than someone else.

How about an edge based on skill? The fact you are getting better at your profession, better with certain weapons not because of your gear but because of you.

There are so many MMOs in the marketplace with gear progression. Mike O’Brien and his team stated that they made Guild Wars for a niche to create a different MMO. He has been touting and supporting horizontal progression for years. He has made it clear that his product would only have max gear distinctions based on looks not stats tiers. That is the game they sold and supported for 3 months.

Lol I just come to realize something they really did introduce Agony tis why we are here XD

Crater.1625:

Erulogos.2591:

It was stated in several places clearly that the gap they reference is one of effort to acquire, not one of utility. When they talk about the gap between exotics and legendaries, they mean the gap in time/effort/grind to get -only-. You do your argument no favors by pressing an invalid point. It would be better to state there was no need to add stats to Ascended, or that the grind for Ascended is tilted a bit too close to the the legendary end of the spectrum, or other sorts of anti-Ascended gear arguments.

It’s still invalid, because there were – and still are - Exotics that are much closer to Legendaries in acquisition time and do a better job of closing the achievement gap than any existing Exotic items in the game.

There was no gap. No mechanical gap. No achievement gap. The “gap” is a fiction.

This. To use GW1 as an example, we actually had several cosmetic “tiers” of Exotics that worked in a similar way to the first game. The different types of easily-obtained Exotic armor you can get are equivalent to non-elite max stat gear skins in GW1 (Canthan, Sunspear, Rogue); “common” named Exotics are similar to the more accessible elite GW1 skins (Ancient, EotN prestige armor, Elite Kurzick/Luxon); crafted Exotics with a specific recipe that have a high material cost are similar to Vabbian; and Legendaries are often compared to Obsidian armor for a reason.

Jabronee.9465:

Or a simple solution is to just make Ascended Gear worthless for WvWvW.*

This right here.

I came to this game for balanced (at least on an easily obtainable level) siege warfare simulation. I quit the last (and only) MMO that I played when the PvP balance became completely lopsided in favor of people who either spent thousands (yes, thousands) of dollars on gear or grinded the endgame dungeons constantly and had several shop alts on multiple accounts trading for profit as well. I’m not looking to play that game again.

I’m enjoying most of the PvE and don’t care if one dungeon has gear that is required for higher levels of that dungeon. I DO care if that gear gives an advantage in PvP (yes, WvW is PvP, even if ANet doesn’t think so) and is only available through many many hours of gated content.

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

ASB.4295:

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

I play GW1 for so many year not because i want a mini panda bear. Be nice if i did get one, but the point is that it was fun and if its fun you dont need gimmick to keep the player playing. Simple as that.

Don’t tell me, I’m in the same boat as you. Gearing up is a chore, not fun or anything for me. ANet just increased the amount of time I have to spend to plateau and feel like I’m not wasting valuable time hunting skins when I could be farming to gear up. They want to slow us down, and I’m sorry, that’s not fun for me. Dog kitten

Alejandra Delacruz.5921:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

People play MMOs for a sense of character progression. I want to improve my "guy’ every time I log in. If i can’t do that, what is the point in playing? To dance around LA in pretty dyed exotics that everyone else has?

I’m sorry, but this community is pathetic. You cry about everything. Most MMO’s need a carrot on the stick to keep people logging in and playing.

If anything this game suffers from an extreme lack of progression at end-game. The journey is fantastic. 1-80 is so fun, I’ve done it 3 times now since launch.

Fractals of the Mists are an amazing set of mini-dungeons, and I have had a blast running each one at least once. I have no desire to repeatedly run through them though with absolutely no chance at improving my character.

Speak for yourself. I and many others played GW1 with no gear progression at all and a very low level cap. Why? Because it’s fun. I could roll a new character, get to max level and max gear in a few hours tops. Then I could go do whatever I wanted: PvP, dungeons, Underworld, DoA. I didn’t need any carrot, just people to hang out with and play with.

There are dozens of MMOs that offer you your carrot: why the kitten do you people have to poison the one series that offers something to the rest of us?

• Applaud *

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

dalendria.3762:

Edge? An edge based on gear. And more importantly, a gear edge because you spent more time online to get it than someone else.

How about an edge based on skill? The fact you are getting better at your profession, better with certain weapons not because of your gear but because of you.

I agree. Prior to this patch I thought GW2’s progression came in the form of getting better at the game over several classes, much like fighting games. I see now that I was mistaken – I only use the term “edge” as it was used in the official post here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

“Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Horizontal progression in MMOs is a pipe dream unless heavily built into the game. GW2 has no where to go horizontally.

Eve Online is the only really successful MMO that has truly good horizontal progression.

I cannot disagree on this because I have never played Eve Online. So let’s say you are correct.

How does doing a 180 turn and introducing vertical progression make the game better? Why not have a content release schedule that makes horizontal progression richer and satisfying? Why not focus on introducing new dungeons, new areas without a whole new, more powerful gear tier? Why not introduce a new profession or new skills/traits?

There are better posters than I who have provided suggestions for making this game richer without sacrificing horizontal progression. Arenanet is not even talking about those things anymore. They are only discussing how to please the very customer they did not design the product for in the first place (vertical progression, raid minded players).

ASB.4295:

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

ASB.4295:

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

I play GW1 for so many year not because i want a mini panda bear. Be nice if i did get one, but the point is that it was fun and if its fun you dont need gimmick to keep the player playing. Simple as that.

Don’t tell me, I’m in the same boat as you. Gearing up is a chore, not fun or anything for me. ANet just increased the amount of time I have to spend to plateau and feel like I’m not wasting valuable time hunting skins when I could be farming to gear up. They want to slow us down, and I’m sorry, that’s not fun for me. Dog kitten

Yep dedicated most of my free time and weekend on this game since launch – 3 days head start. And Im a family guy. Big disappointment especially like many other I had very high hope for this game knowing it wasnt going to be like wow. I hate wow

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Derk.3189:

Stormleaf.1769:

Erulogos.2591:

Quoting you both as you both make the same argument, essentially, and miss the same issue.

The issue is not with -current- content. No Ascended gear is required to finish every dungeon and kill every boss currently walking Tyria.

The issue is with -future- content. It was stated, when Ascended gear was announced, that Agony (and thus Agony resist) was something that would be involved in content going forward. It was not stated, one way or the other, if it would be required to even attempt future content, and it therefore becomes a simple question: grind Ascended and Agony resist now, so you are ready for the new content no matter what, or wait and see if it will be required, and hope that, if it is, enough other people waited that you can get groups to grind it out.

It is true that as of this moment in time, the grind heavy gear is not required to see any of the content in the game. But we don’t know when or if it will be, and Anet has not said one way or the other. A lot of folks saying it is required are basically taking the cautious path, assuming it will be and preparing for the worst.

The issue with this is that ArenaNet could have easily made this content require Agony resistance from the beginning as well, by making it some Mystic Forge thing and introducing Agony at fractal level 1. They didn’t; heck, they even made it so low levels can participate. Exotics aren’t even a requirement for the early difficulty levels. If they didn’t do it now, why do you think they’re magically going to start doing it in the future? None of the content in GW2 has been restricted like that. There is zero indication of ArenaNet ever restricting content like that, and it’s simply not helpful to base your argument on an assumption that they’ll magically start doing it.

AHHAHA You really think they did that for the players? Its just there to draw out the content, an additional carrot on another stick. Oh you want to see what agony is like? Hit me up 10 levels.

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

Please let us able to acquire them outside of the dungeon as soon as possible. I’ve already gave up on FOTM because people would always leave or disconnect (it happens) in the middle of it, making them unable to join our instance and we’re no longer able to progress any further. I’ve wasted so many hours because of this, yet I’m still only on difficulty scale 1. I absolutely despise this mechanic. It’s so frustrating because it seperates the players. Awful design. They should’ve atleast had players defeat all the fractals atleast once on that difficulty to progress to the next difficulty scale. Not force people to stay for three in a row.

And don’t say this isn’t a big deal. Many WvW players are pissed off because they need to get the gear if they want to stay competitive. The stat increase + the infusions for each piece can be quite a chunk. I’ve had my share of gear grinding in previous MMOs and I’m sick of it. The whole cosmetic progression wasn’t working out because there wasn’t as many interesting skins as people hoped. There are only few sets that looked cool and they are fairly easy to acquire. This patch really disappointed me.

Another thing about Ascended gear as filling some Exotic-Legendary gap:

Unlike Legendary weapons, you aren’t looking for just one Ascended piece. Estimating 20 hours of effort to acquire a single piece (probably more, but just for sake of argument) and the apparent eventual desire to have 20 or so pieces for your character, you are looking at 400 hours of time, if not more, to produce a single character and build.

So you are essentially creating a grind just a large as the one for Legendary weapons (which were always viewed as optional). BUT this one is for stats (which are NOT going to be viewed as optional). How does this square with your philosophy!?!?

Eh I just wish gear had no fixed stats that is all

Fortuna.7259:

So you are essentially creating a grind just a large as the one for Legendary weapons (which were always viewed as optional). BUT this one is for stats (which are NOT going to be viewed as optional). How does this square with your philosophy!?!?

That is their intended goal, yes. The stat increase and new armor tier were specifically added to make it NOT optional, so you have to keep spending time grinding away. That’s the whole point.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

Fortuna.7259:

Another thing about Ascended gear as filling some Exotic-Legendary gap:

Unlike Legendary weapons, you aren’t looking for just one Ascended piece. Estimating 20 hours of effort to acquire a single piece (probably more, but just for sake of argument) and the apparent eventual desire to have 20 or so pieces for your character, you are looking at 400 hours of time, if not more, to produce a single character and build.

So you are essentially creating a grind just a large as the one for Legendary weapons (which were always viewed as optional). BUT this one is for stats (which are NOT going to be viewed as optional). How does this square with your philosophy!?!?

I mean no disrespect to the game’s designers, but the obvious answer to this question is that they were under pressure to add new content for the end-game and did not take adequate time to think out all of the nuances or possible ramifications of what they were introducing, and now they’re being defensive and attempting to justify and rationalize their decision in myopic ways. The human psyche sure is fascinating.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Derk.3189:

Stormleaf.1769:

Erulogos.2591:

Quoting you both as you both make the same argument, essentially, and miss the same issue.

The issue is not with -current- content. No Ascended gear is required to finish every dungeon and kill every boss currently walking Tyria.

The issue is with -future- content. It was stated, when Ascended gear was announced, that Agony (and thus Agony resist) was something that would be involved in content going forward. It was not stated, one way or the other, if it would be required to even attempt future content, and it therefore becomes a simple question: grind Ascended and Agony resist now, so you are ready for the new content no matter what, or wait and see if it will be required, and hope that, if it is, enough other people waited that you can get groups to grind it out.

It is true that as of this moment in time, the grind heavy gear is not required to see any of the content in the game. But we don’t know when or if it will be, and Anet has not said one way or the other. A lot of folks saying it is required are basically taking the cautious path, assuming it will be and preparing for the worst.

The issue with this is that ArenaNet could have easily made this content require Agony resistance from the beginning as well, by making it some Mystic Forge thing and introducing Agony at fractal level 1. They didn’t; heck, they even made it so low levels can participate. Exotics aren’t even a requirement for the early difficulty levels. If they didn’t do it now, why do you think they’re magically going to start doing it in the future? None of the content in GW2 has been restricted like that. There is zero indication of ArenaNet ever restricting content like that, and it’s simply not helpful to base your argument on an assumption that they’ll magically start doing it.

AHHAHA You really think they did that for the players? Its just there to draw out the content, an additional carrot on another stick. Oh you want to see what agony is like? Hit me up 10 levels.

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

Well at least one of you guys is posting on here now so kudos for that. The problem is that you keep saying that this was intended to bridge a gap between exotics and legendaries but what you are conveniently omitting is that there was no gap there to begin with in regards to stats. Now in bridging this heretofore non-existent gap, you have introduced a stat gap between exotics and ascended (and soon legendaries.) Forgive me if I think your logic went on Thanksgiving vacation early.

There’s a couple of things I would like an answer to since you’re here:

1. What do you intend to do for WvW players that only play for WvW. They are going to be forced to compete against people that will now have higher stat gear. I know the company has said that ascended gear will eventually be available in WvW but let’s not kid each other, getting gear in WvW takes much, much longer than it does in PvE so what is your plan there?

2. Why did you guys turn your back on your stated goals of having a game with no gear treadmill less than 3 months into the life cycle of the game? I am going to be really honest here with you when I say that I had pretty much given up MMORPG gaming because I hate gear treadmills. After reading your manifesto and other pre-release statements, I bought two copies of your game because I thought it would be like GW1 where I could easily max out my character. Please tell me why you have thrown thousands of players like me under the bus less than 3 months in?

I don’t even have level 80 exotics yet and now I’m behind yet another tier of gear. I was excited about a game where there was supposed to be no gear treadmill, I’m really disappointed that standard MMO gear/stat progression is making its way into the game. I don’t understand why they gave the gear stats boost, if it had stayed the same stats as legendary it would have accomplished the same thing without alienating players like me who hate falling behind because we can’t play all the time.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

I would actually be ok with that… it’s basically how the first game worked. Levels 1-20 were basically a tutorial… longer in Prophecies, much shorter in Factions, and about right in Nightfall. You learned how the game worked, got some skills, and then you were tossed into the world at max level and max armor.

You improved by getting new skills and learning to make builds. You could buy runes and inscriptions that synergized with your build. But you never had to grind for additional gear.

Sure, there was gated content with PvE-only skills and rank, but it’s generally accepted that it was a bad idea for the very reasons we’ve described regarding Ascended Gear.

Again, I say… there are tons of MMOs offering gear progression. GW2 was advertised from the beginning to be different. Many, many players came to the game because of this. Why did the gear-chasers buy this game when it was advertised as something that didn’t offer them what they want?

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

I average over 10+ hours a day since launch playing GW2, I am the very definition of a locust/grinder and even I don’t want a gear treadmill/gated content. Optional =/= required last time I checked the dictionary, in fact optional also =/= recommended.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

Do you understand what inflation is in the real world. IE The only means to secure an increase in wealth is an increase in productivity (skill) not pay rises. If you don’t understand that then you’ll never understand MMO design tactics.

On a gear progression system your “guy” is never stronger he’s only less weak than the devs made him yesterday.

Is there a way to downvote threads? People are completely over reacting. I did the first 3 levels with a lvl 39 (he was 39 when we started) elementalist in my group and my guild tells me the fractals don’t get much harder at 8+.

Maybe in the 20’s and higher it will make a difference, but right now? Quit over reacting.

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Bonefield.9813:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

Hell why even have levels in the first place. Why is Orr “gated content”? I don’t have the time to get my Mesmer to 80, I want to run Arah at level 10?

If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.

Anet has to keep people interested in the game.

If you want a static environment, play sPVP, or play a single player game.

I can only speak for myself, but gear progression stops being interesting for me at max level because I realize that I’m not actually making my character stronger. I’m just keeping up with the monsters, which are only getting stronger to keep up with the need to make me work for more gear. It’s fun up to cap because my character is actually growing. What keeps me interested after that is new content, new gameplay modes, new areas, and so on. I have left other games because all resources have to go to making new endgame encounters and gear to keep people who must continue improving their characters in order to stay interested busy.

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

You don’t seem to get something that is very simple conceptually – The more a game allows you to “progress” vertically, the more content is gated. The more content is gated, the more restricting the actual game-play becomes. This creates a ‘tunneling’ effect, where at any given time most of the game world is useless for your character, this is fine if it’s a single player game and you’re playing through a narrative, but it’s a problem in an MMO.

It also means that if you are casual or go long periods of time without playing, you can’t keep up with content locusts and tend to stop playing because there are so few things you can participate effectively in. In most cases. this actually does damage to the longevity and sustainability of a game. Endless vertical progression is also just thematically stupid.

IMO, GW2 already made the relatively minor mistake of having too many levels and too large a power gap from 1-80, but at least with that you are exploring the world and doing a variety of things, and the dynamic leveling system helps you not only see levels as an abstract concept rather than a literal interpretation of power, but it prevents too much “backwards gating”, leaving more of the world accessible for whatever you want to do. When you get to the level cap you want as much of the world to be not useless as possible.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

a lightbringer title is nowhere near introducing a new armor tier and annihilating the previous one in stats, furthermore i never grinded for lightbringer and was still accepted and completed any dungeon with it nor i ever got kicked because my lightbringer was low, nor the content was gated because of it, besides the fact that it was only really suggested in 1 maybe 2 dungeons that i recall, this was years ago so for that last part i might be wrong.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

I understand that you still let us play old dungeons, but the problem is, everyone with common sense realises the new tier will affect every single area in the game and future content will be focused on it.
For those who are not on par with the LFGs currently available, its 90%+ fractal looking members and the rest for old school dungeons, i had waited around 15 minutes to get 1 last party member for CoE, its my first time it ever happens with such a crowded zone.
So i cant play the game the way i want anymore, let alone path 1 is broken since the start of this content updated and left untouched.
As for the gated content, although i really dont care for this fractal level because i believe other new dungeons wont have this level system, it gates all my alts too? it gates me from the rest of the world aswell, i didnt play for 2 days and my guildies are level 10+ while i was left behind at level 3, so now i have to find pugs to play with.

This ascended tier also ruined my effort for 3 other classes, i barely touched them in end game content, i have 5 full exotic gears now worth less because they are no longer max stats and soon worthless because grinders will get full ascended gear whenever itll be possible.

Mian.1945:

Swarthy Avenger.3072:

There is no difference in progress pre-80 versus post-80.

One is stat increases from experience, and the other is stat increases from drops.

Both drops and experience comes from killing mobs, doing hearts DE’s etc.

Maybe you can prance around at 80 and pick flowers, but like I’ve already said in this thread, when I invest my time and money into an MMO, it is to see my ‘guy’ stronger when I log off than when I logged in. I doubt I am alone here.

Do you understand what inflation is in the real world. IE The only means to secure an increase in wealth is an increase in productivity (skill) not pay rises. If you don’t understand that then you’ll never understand MMO design tactics.

On a gear progression system your “guy” is never stronger he’s only less weak than the devs made him yesterday.

Comparing gear to real world economies is a lackluster analogy. Sure stats inflate in MMO. So long as someone can jump on board and catch up to the progress wave later in the game, there is no problem.

Your last point is simply semantics. The end result is the player still feels a sense of progression.