I'll be honest about the gear and gearchecks
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
don’t see how this is any different than groups insisting you ping your build in GW1… people have an idea of how things should work, and they don’t like things that contradict that idea….
If you accept the concept of levels in MMOs, you must accept the concept of gear progression as well.
Why? The two things don’t seem inextricably linked to me. In fact, they haven’t been linked in this game for endgame gear, until now. Before this update, endgame gear progression was entirely cosmetic after the first week or two.
I haven’t noticed any lack of enthusiasm for dungeons or dragon fights, so clearly people can be motivated by something other than stat-based gear progression.
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
don’t see how this is any different than groups insisting you ping your build in GW1… people have an idea of how things should work, and they don’t like things that contradict that idea….
From your question i understand u didnt play GW1, no worries i can explain it to you.
There are ways u can get the required build in less than 5 minutes, if you already have all skills, then you can get it in less than 1 minute, hope that helps.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
Not adding a gear inspection would actually harm the game more at this point. Take my words with a bit of salt if you like since I already quit, but think about it:
Previously, unless I was in a party with all 80s, our guild would only accept one or two puggers because we knew that two terribly leveled/geared players would just make the dungeon intolerably boring and long. If there is going to be a larger and larger gear gap between players, people will completely retreat into their guilds and stop pugging altogether.
At the very least a gear score will keep people pugging rather than have them completely retreat into guilded groups. Guildless people with less gear can get into groups with slightly more powerful gear at the very least, which will be better than finding nobody.
At the end of the day, if you’re going the elitist WoW route, you gotta go all the way.
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.
Ok.
But WHY they have to be STRONGER then Exotics?
[LOCK] The Closed Society – Seafarer’s Rest
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
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.
These are good questions. I certainly feel that Guild Wars 2 would have been a stronger game had ArenaNet gone with the (reported) idea mid-development to do away with levels entirely.
The reason that they ended up going with a level system is, I suspect, so that players wouldn’t feel as though they’d been thrown immediately into the deep end in a game system that was unfamiliar to them.
It’s the reason that you start a new character with only your auto-attack, and you ‘earn’ the rest of your attacks with a given weapon one by one, giving you time to learn how each one works, instead of immediately presenting you with all five and telling you to get to work. The same reason that you can’t weapon swap until level 7, don’t get Traits until you’ve had a few levels to get used to weapon skills, weapon swapping, and learning/slotting different Healing and Utility skills. It’s just there to unveil the game to the player piece by piece, while making sure that they understand and learn to utilize each new mechanic as it’s presented.
Renown Hearts were added to the game mid-development for a similar reason: Players who were accustomed to the heavy signposting of quest-based MMOs, or the endless, mindless killing of randomly-spawned mobs that you find in lower budget or more old-school MMOs, weren’t really moving around the map and seeking out events the way that they were intended to. To help guide players along, Hearts were placed at locations that generally served as the start point or end point for a Dynamic Event, which was meant to be the ‘main course’ of the overworld. You did notice how there are no Hearts in the three Orr maps, or Southsun Cove, right?
The point is, Guild Wars 2 having levels, and gating players by level, is not necessarily something that many of us enjoy (see my post earlier about how long it should take to go from level 1 to maxed). Rather, they are a compromise – a necessary evil – to make the game less overwhelming and more palatable to players who are more used to typical RPG/MMORPG structure.
In fact, I think one major change that would heavily benefit the game would be to drastically reduce the amount of time needed to hit max level (bringing it roughly on par with the time required to hit 20 in GW1), and then overhaul the game accordingly, so that 25-50% of the game’s overworld is strictly level 80 content, instead of the laughable current scenario where the overworld shipped with one out of twenty-five zones truly meant for level 80 characters.
So no, it most definitely does not follow that we “must accept gear progression” if we “accept level progression”. Many of us simply tolerate it, and in many instances that tolerance is only extended because reaching the maximum level is quick, and because it is done once maxed out – at least until a proper expansion is released, at which point I will probably say “Please don’t raise the level cap”.
[snip]…
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.
The way that Legendaries were introduced there was no gap between them and Exotics. They followed the manifesto. There is, however, a huge gap between Exotics and Ascended gear. So, rather than fixing a gap, you’ve introduced one. So, this is my first hurdle to climb in understanding your logic. And, suppose I give you the stated fact that a gear-based, vertical progression treadmill was not intended with the introduction of the new tier of gear. Do you now understand that you have introduced what you didn’t intend? It’s a serious question. I would really like to know because it’s so obvious to so many people. How did you miss it?
I really cant see why anyone would bother with Guildwars 2 treadmill when WoW treadmill works better…
You’ve got to be joking.
In WoW, not only do you have grind and RNG, you get to top it off with a Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, or Ninja Looter that determines whether you even get a chance at the gear.
It’s dreadful.
GW2 is miles ahead of WoW in this respect and so many others.
The reality is that this situation has nothing to do with gear. It’s more of an elitism check.
I remember in EQ back in the kunark days, lower level characters didn’t have much to choose from armor wise and we could inspect each other, still, we invited practically anyone who was LFG as long as they were relevant level and the party wasn’t full, heck some people would even wait to get in this party. I loved these days. Then later it started to organize into that trinity like party, with sidekick damage.
I saw the downfall with my eyes and like hell I’d want that to happen again. I already like GW2 tries to rip the trinity apart because it was a bad idea from the beginning. It gives the player bias, and wizards are always OP.
People choose their own sense of entitlement because they think they’ve achieved something else only a few have. Which to a point is true, but just because you have something doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it. You can be as great of a player in green armor, might take a little longer to beat something(unless your a warrior).. it’s all a matter of understanding the strengths and weaknesses. Most people with full exotics and all that junk treat this game like WoW from the get-go. So there is no stopping them since they already were tainted.
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.
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.
The difference is that even though it existed before, it’s existence was due to player efforts. There were some development issues which led to this of course.
But now it seems that the development team is actively encouraging gating. With this new design philosophy for GW2.
This is not a new MMORPG design philosophy by any means. In WOW vanilla, this led to the Hardcore Raider vs Casual debate. Blizzard had to take steps to stop this. And has been moving forward with this ever since. But it seems that ANET is taking a step backwards.
These are not the droid you are looking for, move along… → ESO, FireFall, NW :)
you don’t need guild scores, it doesn’t matter even if the player is wearing all legendaries if that player has next to nothing of a piloting skills he’d still die, guild scores would ruin the game, you should look for party mates base on their skills not their gears.. don’t make this game like the game you USED to play, if you guys want it so bad go play THAT game instead
Blackgate
Shadow Legion of the Dovahkiin [ SLD ]
Shadow Legion of the Dovahkiin [ SLD ]
Not that anyone will read this so deep into the thread, but you people are kitten Seriously, I have never seen so many crybabies about something.
It’s like Arenanet is your god and they have dropped the ball on getting you to heaven.
They have made an amazing game with no treadmill. If you think that this is a treadmill, you are a moron.
They have bugs, they have glitches, and no I am not 100% happy, but these guys have released more content and fun for us in 3 months than most games do in their lifetime. Be happy you spent 60-100 bucks on a game you can play without a monthly sub that allows you to play how you like.
I was level 77 when I dd the first 2 levels of frac. I was in greens and blues, kitten about needing a gear check. More like a head check.
Thank you Anet and Andrew for speaking up. Don’t listen to the whiners. I love this game and will keep playing.
I really cant see why anyone would bother with Guildwars 2 treadmill when WoW treadmill works better…
You’ve got to be joking.
In WoW, not only do you have grind and RNG, you get to top it off with a Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, or Ninja Looter that determines whether you even get a chance at the gear.It’s dreadful.
GW2 is miles ahead of WoW in this respect and so many others.
Actually he has a point. WoW treadmill items are at least innovative with what effects the armor sets do.
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.
It’s a set of rewards that bridge with higher stats instead of better looks—completely different from the previously existing philosophy of the game.
My only conclusion is you guys couldn’t afford enough new art, and so had to take the cheaper way out and raise the stats instead.
You could have added 10 new Mjolnir-class weapons. You could have added armor that has Mjolnir-class difficulty and looks. You could have called these new items “ascended” and slapped some purple text on them to appease the people who can’t look past the color.
But that would have required new art, and you didn’t hire enough artists for it, so you added a stat treadmill instead.
To Andrew:
First, a thank you for facing this like a man and being brave enough to actually make a post. Understand some people are very upset right now and they may not speak in the most polite manner. I cannot speak for them however I do have a problem with your response and Mike’s on the “gap”.
Let us assume the gap is indeed the issue as people got exotics and saw say 300 hours worth of gathering items before they got the Legendary. I can understand wanting something that sits in the 150 hour range or even a couple that sit at 100 and 200 hour range. This gives players a milestone that says “Hey look I am making progress” to everyone. Nothing wrong with this and I would support this.
The downside is the Ascended armor is not gotten in the same way as the Legendary, it is not part of the Legendary steps.
So let us assume it takes 100 hours (generally what it takes to get the back item I believe) to get a ascended gear. That is 100 hours you are not using to work towards your Legendary. So this does not bridge any gap, in fact it makes it take longer to get the Legendary.
The second problem is the power increase. There was no power gap between Legendary and Exotic. This was manufactured strictly for the inclusion of this new item tier. This leads to people looking at what they should do in the game and having 2 choices. Play in the old areas/content without “progressing” or do multiple runs of the FoTM dungeon and be working towards something.
This is where the statement by Mike loses its ability to make sense. It is conflicting statements in the same announcement.
This does not take into fact that those that want to work for those items, will now be more powerful (no matter how slight or large the difference is it is simply a fact) then those that do not, making a split in the population. Those with it at best will be wanted for any further content further down the road then those that do not.
It all boils down to anytime you increase the stats of the top end level, you create a power curve that has further repercussions then the intimidate player base, in this case the dungeon runners.
Let us give an example.
2 Players both play 400 hours. Both are of equal player skill. Both at level 80. One did WvWvW and PvE exploring all aspects of the game. The other did nothing but FoTM over and over again.
Which one is more powerful? That is right the one that ground(grinded?) rather then explored. The one that focuses on less of the beautiful content you guys pored your heart and souls into is simply better for going to one zone, and repeating the same content endlessly.
That is the very definition of a gear grind. So many of us are very concerned that this was implemented so suddenly and with what seems very little for sought or care to the repercussions. If we are wrong, we just ask that it get explained to us.
Thank you for your time, I really hope to see a response to this.
Please get your priorities straight Anet.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
(edited by Ostra.3927)
good post
I wholeheartedly concur. I tolerate the time it takes to plateau, but I actually really dislike it.
Ascended gear, and the treadmill of gradually releasing infusion tiers I cannot tolerate.
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.
What happened to not requiring certain GEAR to even have a chance at completing content? What happened to max-stat gear being easily obtainable at the end game? What happened to not requiring players to grind for hours, days, weeks, months just to be ABLE to experience content? “Here at Arenanet, we call that waiting to have fun”.
Where is the manifesto and the game I paid for?
Arenanet lies.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
So how about arguing for more skills intead of begging to be treated like a hamster?
This industry just needs to move on. We’ve seen a bunch of “WoW 2.0” attempts, and
who actually wants that? Do we really want to be playing those same game mechanics for
another 5 or 10 years? -Mike O’Brien
who actually wants that? Do we really want to be playing those same game mechanics for
another 5 or 10 years? -Mike O’Brien
We don’t need a gearscore.
We don’t need more gear with higher tier stats.
What we do need is a return to true horizontal progression like we were promised this game would be in the manifesto.
All other requests are not in the spirit this game was originally designed to be. Neither is dungeons as the sole progression.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
How does acended gear hurt you guys? I don’t get it. I can do most exp mode dungeons below level 80 and do quite fine. I can pvp below 80 and have a good time. When, please tell me, when does WvW ever end in a 1v1?
Your scenarios are just so unrealistic. Nothing arenanet has done will affect your gameplay at all. The ONLY thing you might not be able to do is level 10 + in Fractal. If that really bothers you, then you are just butthurt because they didn’t hang all the apple super close the to ground for you.
There is nothing in this game that stops you from competing or having fun. The difference between rare and exotic gear does not change the outcome of a 1v1 any more than fractal will. Get over it. It is not he end of the world.
Oh, and I have run most exp dungeons in the last few days. They are not dead, no one is gear checking on my server. All is well. Please stop making this stuff up.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.
Arenanet lies.
If Ascended gear is aimed at new content yet to appear why the hell did you make them so insanely hard to make and aquire in the first place…
So all new content that appears will need this mechanic on our gear to complete said content in the future but no casual player can ever hope to make this stuff and even afford this…these Ascended gears should have been as easy to get as exotics (with the same stats)..
If i cannot play the future content without the need of this stuff i will drop this game so fast.
I cannot afford 65g a piece etc and they are insanely rare drops or not drops at all…
This whole direction needs to change now or Guildwars 2 wont last very long…
(edited by Dante.1508)
How does acended gear hurt you guys? I don’t get it. I can do most exp mode dungeons below level 80 and do quite fine.
For now, until the grinders have full ascended and claim (even more then now) that the exp AC is to easy and Anet revamps it to match what the players have for stats. Then you may not be able to do AC.
I can pvp below 80 and have a good time. When, please tell me, when does WvW ever end in a 1v1?
If you run with special squads, we did this a lot on JQ and most of the top tier servers do, 1v1 WvW happens fairly often but small group is much more common. 4-6 vs 4-6. Remember the days of the server having all the Orb bonuses? Yeah THAT is the same stat difference that we have with 1 piece of Ascended. Just wait til you face someone in full with your exotics lol. Stop running with the zerg like a sheep and you may learn something about WvW.
Please get your priorities straight Anet.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
You guys are really angry. I’m a mostly casual player, but a legendary has been a long term goal since the beginning. After I spend 500 hours on it, I’m not going to complain about a few extra stat points.
I’ve played each dungeon (not much FotM), and a fair bit of WVW, and no one has ever checked if I’m wearing blue, green, gold or exotic armor. In fact, with item transmutations you have no idea what anyone is using, especially since you can copy paste item codes to chat.
I trust ANet to incorporate these changes without major disruptions to WvW, and hell, make a “no-legendary” guild if you hate it that much in PvE. It will be months before there are enough legendaries around to make an impact anyway.
GL HF
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
The main reason this upsets me is that I was looking forward to them expanding the game through the addition of new content and activities that they’ve been talking about, and the addition of higher stats seems like they’re taking the path of least resistance. They did a great job with the Fractals, but dropped the ball on the open world additions—the event not going well was disappointing but understandable, but I’m really not sure why they bothered to add the new zone at all. It’s beautiful and it has a fun jumping puzzle, but they seem to really, really want people in the Fractals, and one of the major complaints about Southsun is that there’s not much reason to go back now that the event is over, if you’ve already explored it. The whole thing feels like they’re all over the place as to which direction they want to take the game.
Prior to this patch, they always seemed to be very certain about knowing what their focus was, and I think they need to get that back. They can do lots of things to keep people occupied, but I suspect their plans for future activities that don’t revolve around getting Ascended gear will suffer if they’re splitting their attention and resources.
I really cant see why anyone would bother with Guildwars 2 treadmill when WoW treadmill works better…
You’ve got to be joking.
In WoW, not only do you have grind and RNG, you get to top it off with a Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, or Ninja Looter that determines whether you even get a chance at the gear.It’s dreadful.
GW2 is miles ahead of WoW in this respect and so many others.
Actually he has a point. WoW treadmill items are at least innovative with what effects the armor sets do.
Not $180 a year innovative effects.
That’s IF you even get it after the RNG, Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, and Ninja Looter have had their first shot at it. Let’s not forget you only get this lovely chance at a chance once a week.
You have to be a masochist to play that game.
There’s a reason that GW2’s popularity is soaring.
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).
There was no power gap between exotic and legendary weapons before, so I don’t really quite follow that argument. It seems like it would be more accurate to say that a gap was added (or will be added, I guess) so that there would be a reason for ascended items to even exist.
Therefore we proceed to write a sig.
That’s IF you even get it after the RNG, Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, and Ninja Looter have had their first shot at it. Let’s not forget you only get this lovely chance at a chance once a week.
That gave me a good chuckle.
Therefore we proceed to write a sig.
How does acended gear hurt you guys? I don’t get it. I can do most exp mode dungeons below level 80 and do quite fine.
For now, until the grinders have full ascended and claim (even more then now) that the exp AC is to easy and Anet revamps it to match what the players have for stats. Then you may not be able to do AC.
I can pvp below 80 and have a good time. When, please tell me, when does WvW ever end in a 1v1?
If you run with special squads, we did this a lot on JQ and most of the top tier servers do, 1v1 WvW happens fairly often but small group is much more common. 4-6 vs 4-6. Remember the days of the server having all the Orb bonuses? Yeah THAT is the same stat difference that we have with 1 piece of Ascended. Just wait til you face someone in full with your exotics lol. Stop running with the zerg like a sheep and you may learn something about WvW.
your first point is moot as you have no idea what is in the future. While your second statement may have been true, as all of you have said, this isn’t the same game as any other. It is different. I have yet to see anything like this and do not think I will. A few folks with 10 more points of every stat is not going to kill me anymore quickly than before.
There is no evidence to prove the apocalypse has come. Calm down.
I really cant see why anyone would bother with Guildwars 2 treadmill when WoW treadmill works better…
You’ve got to be joking.
In WoW, not only do you have grind and RNG, you get to top it off with a Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, or Ninja Looter that determines whether you even get a chance at the gear.It’s dreadful.
GW2 is miles ahead of WoW in this respect and so many others.
Actually he has a point. WoW treadmill items are at least innovative with what effects the armor sets do.
Not $180 a year innovative effects.
That’s IF you even get it after the RNG, Raid Leader, Guild Master, Loot Council, and Ninja Looter have had their first shot at it. Let’s not forget you only get this lovely chance at a chance once a week.
You have to be a masochist to play that game.
There’s a reason that GW2’s popularity is soaring.
Yeah, soaring. So much so this forum is singing it with praise. So much so that there’s still 10 million subscribers in WoW.
You guys are really angry.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/#s:guildwars2-16
Mike O’Brien:
Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.
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.
I believe Colin Johanson said somewhere that: “The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. 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.”
Now is there a way we can be as powerful as those who can grind the fractals daily, without spending the same amount of time? I’ve seen posts of people with ascended gear, while I have yet to pass fractal level 2. I’ve never seen a vial drop as well. I can only play 2 hours a day, and stuck to this game because of the design philosophy I quoted, which already seem to be no longer the current design principle.
There was also this line: “The pursuit of fun in content led us to make many gameplay decisions” — and – this is just my honest opinion – it’s not fun trying to get a group for FotM with people venting on map chat that they don’t want people like you joining their group.
Honestly I don’t see the need for a gear treadmill, if this is how the game is indeed going, due to the fact this game doesn’t have a subscription fee. Most other MMO’s crank out new “better” gear for their gear treadmill to keep people striving for that next bit or piece of gear so they can suck more subscription fees from people. GW2 has the gem shop (which by the way isn’t that great right now, hopefully it’ll get better) and the initial purchase of the game to keep it running. Yes, they need to keep players interested enough to keep playing or at least to keep coming back to grab some gem shop things… but holidays and “special events” tend to do that anyway.
Example: Joe leaves GW2 because he’s mildly bored with it and wants to try other things. He’s already bought the game and maybe a few gems for a costume/keys/chests/minis and he feels he got his fun out of it and Anet got some money. He comes back for a “winter/Christmas” event since they are having a fun event. He also notices they have some fancy skin that looks like Santa or a Snow man or some such, he picks it up for probably around 5~10 USD and plays with it for a few days~week. The event then ends, Joe plays for a few days maybe a week and then leaves again, only to come back for “Spring/Easter” event. Cycle repeats.
Gamer’s like Joe are what games like this, games with cash shops as their main income that is, thrive on. Rarely do games that use cash shops actually rely on dedicated players outside of free publicity. Hell, we saw it with the Mad King event I bet you could find some people who had stopped playing in the first month who came back and spent boatloads on mad king chests and keys as well as the skins. We’ll see it with whatever holiday event they pull out for December and maybe even the next few random “world changing” events in between holidays.
To address those saying there is nothing to accomplish in GW2 after max level, yes they could have done more with skills and traits and probably should have/will. But there is so much more to do than level up and “grind gear” such as exploration, PvP, Legendaries getting multiple sets of exotics(now ascendants) so that you can be good for any circumstance (healing power, condition damage, strait up power, tankier via toughness/vit) and achievements to name a few.
This game was seemed meant to have an “elitist” culture as even the legendaries are mostly cosmetic in nature since the stats are fixed and can easily be outdone by exotics if they aren’t what you are looking for.
In summary: Gear Treadmill doesn’t belong in GW2 as it is not necessary for the game to continue on.
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.
Do I have to work for the tiers? Yes. Are the stats above the already defined maximum of stats? Yes. Are you upping the stats of legendary weapons to match this new stat? Yes. The gap is something your organization is creating with the Ascended gear. It didn’t exist before.
Furthermore, if you wanted to make this challenging based on the premise of the agony condition, then why not add that resistance to all gear? Why require a whole new tier? You are creating a gear treadmill. You are gating content. It’s that simple. I personally find these posts insulting – you and the other PR people are dodging the answer. While I’m willing to still play the game, I’m sure there are others that are not. You have to be able to see that a lot of people are not only upset about the introduction of a mechanic that goes against the game’s initial selling principles but are also upset about the double speak. The latter is inexcusable.
(edited by Destai.9603)
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.
No, a thoughtful player will realize he’s not stronger as the result of inflated stats. He or she will realize there is no progression whatsoever. The truth is he or she has gone nowhere (that’s why it’s called a treadmill). After the new tier is introduced, all the rats in the cage get on the treadmill and acquire the new gear. The mobs get stronger. No one has gone anywhere.
Study game design, there are many resources available on the internet. Power creep is a problem in game design, not a solution. It’s implemented by lazy developers and it satisfies simple players.
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.
I would believe this if exotics were an ingredient for Ascended, and Ascended was an ingredient for Legendary, so that you were required to do each tier in order, which is still a bad idea because it’s stupid, but at least it would make sense.
It was fine with exotics and legendaries, why did it need to change?
Tell Anet’s boss what you think: http://tinyurl.com/arkgzku
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.
No, a thoughtful player will realize he’s not stronger as the result of inflated stats. He or she will realize there is no progression whatsoever. The truth is he or she has gone nowhere (that’s why it’s called a treadmill). After the new tier is introduced, all the rats in the cage get on the treadmill and acquire the new gear. The mobs get stronger. No one has gone anywhere.
Study game design, there are many resources available on the internet. Power creep is a problem in game design, not a solution. It’s implemented by lazy developers and it satisfies simple players.
Well, thank you, sir for insulting generations of MMO players. What if I said games without treadmills are for children who can’t compete?
Yeah, broad generalizations do nothing. No one can yet actually give to me a good argument to justify this reaction.
Let’s say that all ascended gear guys have 20 more points of each stat than you. If you lose to them WvW, you would have lost to them in rare vs exotic.
BUT, let us be real. You will be able to obtain this gear via WvW and crafting. It will be available in many ways to get in a casual way.
Also, there is no proof of any of this causing a problem. None of the things you people are whining about is happening on my server.
The sky is not falling. Stop making stupid statements to try and justify your pathetic mentality of entitlement.
One thing. Just one.
The gear treadmill in this game is like exercising for 20 min in real life. It is easy. It is short. And you just do it because it is overall good for you.
Any complaints are basically people upset that they finished exercising while others are just now arriving at the gym.
If we get to the point that it takes a month to gear up, then I’ll worry. I’m not going to worry that it takes a few days. I’m the slowest person ever to make money and karma, and I had no problem getting an Orr set. And this was before the dailies reward Karma! Oh so much easier on alts!
Playing Devil’s Advocate since 1990.
your first point is moot as you have no idea what is in the future. While your second statement may have been true, as all of you have said, this isn’t the same game as any other. It is different. I have yet to see anything like this and do not think I will. A few folks with 10 more points of every stat is not going to kill me anymore quickly than before.
There is no evidence to prove the apocalypse has come. Calm down.
It is true I am not a seerer who knows the future. However I am an old gamer, played many types on many systems starting with Archon on my TI system. I have also been in the MMO scene before there was one way back on BB muds through UO and WoW and all the ones in between.
There is a common trend in all of them and GW2 is not THAT unique. Once you begin inflation of gear, it leads to more inflation of gear. The only real difference GW2 had was that its developers were one of the few if not only SUCCESSFUL developers to make an MMO of any type (GW1 was an MMORPG by definition, if only barely) that did not fall pray to increasing vertical stats throughout the years.
Increasing power horizontally yes but not vertically.
So now we get to today. GW2’s developers still seemed to want to break the mold. But when push comes to shove (finance or whatever) they ignore their previous success and instead attempt to fall into the same clone mentality of all the others chasing the WoW dream.
If you are a WoW player, then this shouldnt bother you. If however there is anything in WoW you did not like based on gear, gating or the ever increasing power and ease later on in that pursuit of power. Then this should make you worry.
Because Vanilla WoW also had a very good balance for the casual and the hardcore in mind. Until they let split that first stat increase and people accepted it as a “its not a bad thing, lets wait and see” and now… we have WoW 2012.
Please get your priorities straight Anet.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
Stat increase = gear grind.
Gear grind = no money from me ever again.
One thing. Just one.
The gear treadmill in this game is like exercising for 20 min in real life. It is easy. It is short. And you just do it because it is overall good for you.
Any complaints are basically people upset that they finished exercising while others are just now arriving at the gym.
If we get to the point that it takes a month to gear up, then I’ll worry. I’m not going to worry that it takes a few days. I’m the slowest person ever to make money and karma, and I had no problem getting an Orr set. And this was before the dailies reward Karma! Oh so much easier on alts!
Why should anybody be interested in “It’s not that bad because…” when nobody advocating the gear treadmill can seem to make the argument “It’s a good thing, because…” (without ultimately saying “because I like gear treadmills”)?
One thing. Just one.
The gear treadmill in this game is like exercising for 20 min in real life. It is easy. It is short. And you just do it because it is overall good for you.
Any complaints are basically people upset that they finished exercising while others are just now arriving at the gym.
If we get to the point that it takes a month to gear up, then I’ll worry. I’m not going to worry that it takes a few days. I’m the slowest person ever to make money and karma, and I had no problem getting an Orr set. And this was before the dailies reward Karma! Oh so much easier on alts!
It will take the majority of players a month to get ONE Ascended piece. If they’re lucky.
ONE
PIECE.
Out of a total of 14-16 (depending on whether you use two-handed weapons or main-hand/offhand).
You may commence worrying.
Arenanet lies.
your first point is moot as you have no idea what is in the future. While your second statement may have been true, as all of you have said, this isn’t the same game as any other. It is different. I have yet to see anything like this and do not think I will. A few folks with 10 more points of every stat is not going to kill me anymore quickly than before.
There is no evidence to prove the apocalypse has come. Calm down.
It is true I am not a seerer who knows the future. However I am an old gamer, played many types on many systems starting with Archon on my TI system. I have also been in the MMO scene before there was one way back on BB muds through UO and WoW and all the ones in between.
There is a common trend in all of them and GW2 is not THAT unique. Once you begin inflation of gear, it leads to more inflation of gear. The only real difference GW2 had was that its developers were one of the few if not only SUCCESSFUL developers to make an MMO of any type (GW1 was an MMORPG by definition, if only barely) that did not fall pray to increasing vertical stats throughout the years.
Increasing power horizontally yes but not vertically.
So now we get to today. GW2’s developers still seemed to want to break the mold. But when push comes to shove (finance or whatever) they ignore their previous success and instead attempt to fall into the same clone mentality of all the others chasing the WoW dream.
If you are a WoW player, then this shouldnt bother you. If however there is anything in WoW you did not like based on gear, gating or the ever increasing power and ease later on in that pursuit of power. Then this should make you worry.
Because Vanilla WoW also had a very good balance for the casual and the hardcore in mind. Until they let split that first stat increase and people accepted it as a “its not a bad thing, lets wait and see” and now… we have WoW 2012.
I don’t think WoW intended to be different at all and just did everything better than the other treadmill. I have played for some time as well and I have seen companies do what is best for them and the players. Anet will do what it takes to make money. If changing to a gear treadmill makes them money, then that is what people obviously want. I don’t think that is the case, so they won’t.
But WoW progression and Anet “progression” are not even comparable. WoW changes everything. Number changes are huge. You HAVE to have the latest and greatest to do any kind of serious dungeons. This is not and will not be the case with GW2.
10 extra power will not make that much of a difference. The fact that I can do the first 2 levels of fractal in greens below 80, that ascended gear will be available in WvW and crafting means the ONLY purpose for ascended gear is to give those that want to push themselves tot he extreme have a way to get to the end of fractals and THAT is it.
It will not affect any of you at all other than in your mind, you know someone somewhere has a piece of gear with 10 more power on it, and that, for some reason, is driving you crazy.
If every piece of “progression” is an extra 10 points of stats on gear, it will take 20 stages of progression to equal anything WoW has ever offered and will only take a a new player about the same amount of time to get, BUT that will not happen. 10 point gear progression is dumb.
This is a perfect way to let players play how they want. Play to the extreme and it doesn’t hurt you and your gameplay, maybe your ego, but not your gameplay.
I say again, calm down.
One thing. Just one.
The gear treadmill in this game is like exercising for 20 min in real life. It is easy. It is short. And you just do it because it is overall good for you.
Any complaints are basically people upset that they finished exercising while others are just now arriving at the gym.
If we get to the point that it takes a month to gear up, then I’ll worry. I’m not going to worry that it takes a few days. I’m the slowest person ever to make money and karma, and I had no problem getting an Orr set. And this was before the dailies reward Karma! Oh so much easier on alts!
It will take the majority of players a month to get ONE Ascended piece. If they’re lucky.
ONE
PIECE.
Out of a total of 14-16 (depending on whether you use two-handed weapons or main-hand/offhand).
You may commence worrying.
TBH, it doesn’t I am within reach of 2 pieces already. Its a matter of forking out a ton of gold (i need about 70 more powerful vials of blood). And unless I’m unlucky level 10 fotm will grant me a ring which might not have the stats I want. Its just unnecessary grind. Do i feel closer to getting a legendary? Nope. Could I do without them? Yes. Totally balltastically unnecessary.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.
Once I have full exotics, all you have listed is cosmetic.
I’m not interested in cosmetic progression.
I’ve said it many times this thread. I want my character to be better than it was when I logged in, when I log off.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.
Once I have full exotics, all you have listed is cosmetic.
I’m not interested in cosmetic progression.
I’ve said it many times this thread. I want my character to be better than it was when I logged in, when I log off.
You ignored all the other non-cosmetic options. And define better? You want your numbers to go up? Too bad. There will always be a cap on that, and this game was promised to be a game wherein that cap was easily achieved, because prolonging it does nothing for the game. Why don’t YOU focus on being better when you log off, rather than demanding a grind to make your CHARACTER better. If none of the multitude of options for enjoying this game appeals to you, TOO BAD. This was the game that was advertised, the game that was promised. They said time and time and time again before this game even hit beta that end-game progression would be horizontal. Cosmetic. If you bought it anyway, that’s on you. Demanding it be changed anyway to fit your needs is like moving to England and demanding they all drive on the right side of the road.
Arenanet lies.
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.
What makes leveling interesting for me is the ability to visit new areas and access more content as I get higher level. To a lesser extent, it’s things like traits and skills which let me change the way I play. Just because I’m not attached to watching numbers tick up doesn’t mean I want to prance around picking flowers at max level.
I get the vertical versus horizontal progression argument. I think there is a bit of burnout in the MMO community on sheer vertical progression after level cap. I think that is in part why you see people on these forums jumping down Anets throat for this new gear level (which c’mon guys, is fairly trivial).
The problem is that there is no progression at all in this game at level cap, neither vertical nor horizontal.
Shortly after level 30, I’ve unlocked nearly every single weapon and utility skill I will ever get. That’s pathetic.
At level 60 I’ve unlocked the top traits for my class, and that is artificially held back because each trait line is only 30 points.
I want something to play for. I like exploration too, but that only holds my attention for so long. I can never get more skills, so the only way I can improve is newer, and better gear.
Oh, there was no progression at level 80? Tell me more about how you maxed all your WvW, PvP, and PvE titles. Tell me about how you have acquired your Legendary. Hell, I’ll even settle for one of the rarer exotics, let’s say Volcanus. How long did it take you to max every crafting profession? Do you even have 100% world completion? Have you done every dungeon? Can you do every ounce of content in the game without being downed once? Because I can, and if you can’t, then your SKILL hasn’t progressed as far as it could have if you would actually learn to play this game rather than begging for SKILL to be subsidized for you via stat buffs and numerical superiority.
Once I have full exotics, all you have listed is cosmetic.
I’m not interested in cosmetic progression.
I’ve said it many times this thread. I want my character to be better than it was when I logged in, when I log off.
While I can agree that some people may like this, this is not what was advertised before launch, hence many people are angry. Tbh, I’m surprised you bought this game if this what you are interested in.
The inevitable balancing and power creep of everything else in respect to increasing armor tiers renders your “better” argument invalid anyway. Who cares if your gear is better than exotic, if the new content they release makes the ratio of your characters DPS, survivability, etc the same ratio as exotics pre-Ascended items? In the end, what you worked for was just pixels playing out higher numbers that mean nothing because all the other numbers went up to. Hate to break it to you, but what you’re describing….
IS A COSMETIC PROGRESSION.
My cosmetic progression just has better looking gear, while your cosmetic progression has bigger numbers listed in the alt-text. Guess whose kitten is bigger when I’m walking around with a slice of the rising sun and you’re sitting in armor that looks like your character just got made fapping to your numbers.
Arenanet lies.