Guild Wars 2

First of all huge Kudos and an Anet purple heart to Andrew for responding to posts in the lions den

The difference between what Andrew said about GW1 and player behavoir is that the ‘must take this or that’ gate was purely player determined. I.e you did NOT Need lightbringer 8 to do DoA, Ghastly stones proved nothing and many different team and build compositions could be used to beat the areas.

Now the ‘must take this or have ascended that’ is a GAME imposed restriction. Does’nt matter how skilled, or how great your build is sooner or later you’ll hit the ‘must have infused gear’ wall the GAME imposes. That GAME imposed wall is what is driving the undesirable behavior and will continue to do so. No amount of skill, build trickery or trying to break down sterotypes will stop it.

Two very different things.

That’s kinda the whole bitter-sweet thing with fractals. Sooner or later I know i’ll hit a game imposed wall that is nothing to do with my skill, willingness of my guild to help or my build and every time I complete a level that moments becomes ever closer.

Loosifah.4739:

I love how he actually comes here to answer questions and get’s nothing but attacks for actually doing so.

The gear treadmill has been here since the game launched. This thread is a prime example of it. “You need full 80 exotics to get into my party for this harder dungeon”.

All they did was add a new mechanic and a new tier of equipment above the existing top tier. Which by the way they never said was going to be the last one.

To everyone still complaining about something that’s obviously not going to change. Get the kitten over it and enjoy the game. Otherwise none of us want to hear your constant whimpering, whining, crying, or complaining.

Please stop sucking up or pretend you know what’s going on.
If ascended gear was added before launch this would not be an issue, because people would already be working towards that.
But right now just after 4 month after release many people who have spent hours and days gearing up exotic sets for their main and alternates, have been told they have to refarm all over again for a new tier.
Let’s cut the chase, there is still no official word saying this would be the last and final tier.
If I wanted a grindfest I would have stayed in other MMOs.
This is going to bridge and divide the once peaceful community.

Regards,
FooKFiGhTeR

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.

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’m sure this has been pointed out already by multiple posters, but I just wanted to add my own take on what you’re saying.

You say you don’t want to encourage that type of behavior…but that is exactly what you are doing. These new mechanics not only create almost endless barriers between players, but they also provide a simple, built-in method for players to enforce those barriers. You aren’t just encouraging the behavior, you are actively facilitating it.

You’ve got the endless delineation created by the difficulty scale, added to the gear check agony mechanic which requires a large amount of grind for both ascended items and infusions. It’s actually almost impossible for these mechanics to NOT separate players. The rewards scaling upwards actually incentivizes…REWARDS…players discriminating against each other and enforcing the barriers to social play.

It is in many ways entirely contrary to ArenaNet’s stated goals and design philosophy of encouraging players to play together. It is a cheap and ill-conceived attempt at artificially extending play for players who don’t like the game as it is, and it clearly stemmed from panic and over-reaction and not rational consideration of your own design. It does dramatically more harm to the long-term health of your community and game than any good it might do in terms of player retention. It’s very sad to see.

Raine.1394:

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

[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?

Indeed – in fact Legendaries will have to be changed to match the stats of Ascended that’s creating a gap. Players will always behave like that is a total cop out too… when you introduce -levels- in a dungeon and put the group to the -level- of the lowest player you aren’t just encouraging that attitude you are requiring it. And btw this “lions den” is self inflicted.

Norax.2405:

Erulogos.2591:

Mackdose.6504:

We’ll see how you feel when you hit FotM 20 and need people to be geared to continue to 21. I’m not sure why one game mode suddenly destroys the whole game.

I may never get that far. I expect by then Agony resist would be something of a must, and the grind to get the Ascended backs makes getting a full set of raid gear in WoW seem like a blink of the eye. Back when I played said game, you could acquire (via whatever token the current expansion was using) roughly 1 piece of gear per week using their random dungeon system, plus whatever the RNG gave you while raiding. Unless the Ascended rings have a much higher drop rate than exotics, and even possibly rares, once you get to Fractal 10+, Ascended gear is a heavy grind proposition.

I already make a second run to fractal 10->11, not because I like that level, its because agony is a pain in the kitten and I MUST grind the ring if I want to progress.

Not funny at all. I still remember when you need to make kanaxai 15 times to get the axe. They changed that to the dungeon tokens, and those where not even needed unless you wanted the skin. But now, I MUST grind some levels of that dungeon, because I may encounter huge problems with agony.

And way worse…. the ascendant items that exist atm, don’t even have the atributes I want. There is NOTHING focused on tou + Heal Pow. So to progress I must BREAK my build.

It doesn’t make sense at all.

Wait, so you aren’t even guaranteed the ring drop? Seriously!?

I want to thank Andrew McLeod for showing up in this thread as we, players, now more than ever need to stay in touch with game developers.
My opinion: only time will tell us if a treadmill has been created or not, but either way, what would really help the game and its population would be

- making ALL gear capable of Infusion (through quests, NPC or whatever)
- trying your best to avoid any other gear becoming useless

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.

To reiterate what we’re saying… what both you and Mr. Whiteside are saying is utter nonesense, and I think you know it.

Saying that it’s not intended to be a treadmill is a really nice trick of language. It obviously is a treadmill…but I suppose since we’re supposed to believe you are naive or inept enough to have not intended it to be a treadmill, we should forgive your oversight? Sorry, I have to give ArenaNet a bit more credit. I think you know exactly what you were doing, and it was entirely intentional.

The idea that you were bridging a “gap” between exotics and legendaries doesn’t even remotely hold water. It leads me to only two possible conclusions…

1) You have no idea how your own game works.
2) You think your players are stupid.

There was no statistical gap between exotic and legendary. This means that grinding for a legendary was entirely optional. Not having a legendary did not put a player at ANY disadvantage in any part of the game. You created a stat gap with the new ascended gear, and with the infusions, which forces players to obtain these items if they don’t want to fall behind in content or in competition with other players.

With this one change, you’ve added a total of six additional rungs on the ladder even if you never add any higher-stat items beyond ascended (I don’t believe you’ll stop, but we’ll deal with what we currently know)… each of which gives players a statistical and content-unlocking advantage over other players. Each of which creates a barrier between players and an easy method of differentiating and discriminating when grouping. Each of which also requires a very significant grind and severely limited options for acquisition (you say more are coming, but who knows when?).

1. Acended item
2. fine infusion
3. masterwork infusion
4. rare infusion
5. exotic infusion
6. ascended infusion

In addition, these new ascended items do nothing at all to “bridge the gap” to legendary items. Ascended items having higher stats means that players who do not wish to fall behind MUST spend their time and their materials reaching each new tier I mentioned above… which takes away from time and materials they could have been saving for a legendary. You have extended the time it takes to get a legendary by funneling player resources into a stat treadmill which will require hundreds and hundreds of hours and be doled out slowly to ensure that it absorbs maximum player time and effort.

You are “fixing” the legendary wall by adding six additional walls that players have to climb over. Players will be forced to choose in the future…do I follow the legendary path and just save up for those while staying far behind the power curve the whole time, or do I divert my time and resources to an intermediate step which will greatly extend the time it takes before I have a legendary?

You’ve created a fork in the road, not a bridge. You created a stat gap where there was none, requiring players to endlessly chase the next tier rather than playing the way they want. You didn’t intend to add a treadmill? Honestly?

Keep reiterating this nonsense all you want. I’ll get my shovel and high boots.

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.

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.

Really? You don’t want to encourage it? Yet you release a dungeon were you can’t skip levels, where levels are directly tied to loot rewards? On top of that you introduce resistances, that will be required as stated by another dev, directly tied for random number generated loot. Yes, you can’t stop people from doing that sort of behavior, but the least you can do is not no incentivise. Or did you not anticipate that the majority of the player base would go to the area with the best loot?

If you guys really are listening to community feed back but still want to keep progression, then the least you can do is remove the RNG component from the patch. It doesn’t create a sense of accomplishment or progression, its simply a gimmick to keep people grinding and help slow down the pace of progression. Any gear that is linked to progression and future content should be earned through the token system. Then, you should allow people to set the level of the group to the HIGHEST level obtained by any member of the group. This helps eliminate the gating aspect of the ascended system by allowing people to actually grind out the gear in lower levels, should they choose since its easier, instead of forcing people to do it because they weren’t lucky. With this change, its probably a good idea to also increase the token rewards as you increase in level.

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.

Thank you kindly for attempting to explain your reasoning. Let me address it in order.

1. Agony mechanics as a “difficult content for players looking for a challenge” are unnecessary. You create difficult content by designing a difficult content, not by introducing gear-based punishment mechanics. In this case it’s not the Agony or the content that presents a challenge, but getting Ascended items and infusions. You “overcome” the “challenge” not by playing well, but by having a better gear.
The whole mechanics is completely unnecessary, serving only as a (not needed) gear gate check.

2. The dungeon available for everybody to experience – it’s technically so (on early levels). Main problem here is that FotM drops are so much better than all the other dungeons (both in quality and exclusivity) that it has made all othe content obsolete. Unfortunately, it’s also true for the deeper levels. Additionally the “fractal level”, with the increased drop chance it offers, creates a bar for casuals, seriously limiting their ability to find a group. Much better solution would be to allow people to join higher difficulty groups, but getting drops according to their own fractal level (and bumping up fractal level by 1 anytime they finish a level at or above their current max). Also, see point 1 about Agony.
All the old content should also be updated as far as drops go – the last changes go in the right direction, but compared to the FotM are just not enough.

3. Ascended eq and “bridging the gap”. As many people already mentioned the Ascended eq do not in fact bridge the gap in rarity between exotics and legendaries, as there are already exotics that are equally hard to get. Solution here would be to bump all those exotics (both named weapons and cultural armor) to Ascended tier. What is really problematic is that introduction of Ascended tier creates a completely new gap – one far more noticeable and one that influences the whole game. While grinding for looks and bragging rights in itself is generally okay, better stats are not really optional (apart from the game itself being optional, of course). Making this decision you have caused grint to be mandatory and have taken a step back from the ideas you have advertised in your manifesto. Regardless whether you wanted it or not, as long as these new best stat items are hard and tedious to get, what you have created is an eq treadmill. If you still want to avoid it, the solution would be either to remove the items from the game (i know, not very likely by that point), or to make them (or their stat equivalent) much more easily available – both by significantly reducing time needed, and opening lot of other sources of the gear (other than Mystic Forge).

It would be interesting to hear your response.

I’ve spent a good 40 minutes reading this thread and I’ve had to stop reading for a while because i mostly fell out of my chair laughing, hurt my stomach so bad i had to stretch, choke on my food and drink.
so you are all saying oh you cant do lvl 11 fractals onwards without ascended gear. well, joke’s on you get this, casually walking through Lions Arch overflow to go to WvW because i didnt wanna use waypoint, and i see a group of 5 ppl talking in local chat discussing how they were doubting the effectiveness of agony, because they came from a lvl22 run and none of them used ascended items, i stopped for 10 min to talk to them and ask them what they thought about the ‘’new tier’’ and their response was ‘’well i wouldnt call it a new tier’’ ‘’yeah not really a new tier since its so easy to get once you know what you are doing’’ ‘’well i would really call it obselete if agony is staying this way because i’m having no problem doing a lvl 22 with no ascended items and not working my way around agony’’ so i asked them so, what gear do you run with? this is what amused me the most ‘’well i generally run with a Rare because i love the skin of it and the quote that came with the weapon, the stats i dont care about’’ ‘’i used exotics before, made it too easy and stopped me from enjoying laying into a mob so i downgraded to rare’’ ‘’i see how far i can feasably go with a masterwork item for the lolz, havent touched my exotic yet’’<- that guy was a legend because he had a 2 identical exotic daggers with him neither of them soulbound.

so… explain to me again. what is your problem when theres people out there who instead of min maxing to be the uber super dedicated DPS character, while these 5 will most likely roll you because they are doing as much dps as you are with lower stats because umm…. they are that awesome?
from what i’ve seen of the actual stat differences on the ascended items and exotics its not the freaking 15% ppl have been claiming, i see maybe 5 extra power, 5 extra precision 10 extra vitality. so how come its an issue when there are consumables out there that give around 4X the amount of that for a dirt cheap price?

[p.s small side story- in WvW playing on JQ home borderlands since im on Jade Quarry i ran face first flat into a warrior lvl 80 with a legendary and the title been there done that. im a level 50 ranger, with a longbow for lvl 48 and shortbow for lvl 50. that warrior hit the dirt and died while i strolled away at 75% hp going to max quickly because of troll unugent, i got a few badges off of him and i was happy about it, but kind of worried for me winning. so exactly why did i win against him again. oh right, i outplayed him while outclassed.]

Drasleona.5049:

I’ve spent a good 40 minutes reading this thread and I’ve had to stop reading for a while because i mostly fell out of my chair laughing, hurt my stomach so bad i had to stretch, choke on my food and drink….

Completely miss the point of complaints if you think people are only complaining about content locking in FOTM, or the current affect on stats in WvW.

Holy crap, I’ve seen this so much it’s sickening. Basically it’s your group = your rules. Period. If someone else makes a group and they have some sort of rules then so be it. Don’t like it? Make a group of your own. This isn’t rocket surgery.

And as far as mindset goes, here’s the mindset that I see: People need to conform to me because <insert reason here>.

It’s a sore point with me because I’ve seen this so many times. Someone will complain that they don’t have the time to get the gear and people who are making their groups shouldn’t have gear score as a consideration. My real bone of contention is who the kitten are you to say what other people should and should not do with groups they are making? It’d be nice if they didn’t consider gear score but they have every right to play the way they want, just like you do.

Xeres.3724:

Holy crap, I’ve seen this so much it’s sickening. Basically it’s your group = your rules. Period. If someone else makes a group and they have some sort of rules then so be it. Don’t like it? Make a group of your own. This isn’t rocket surgery.

And as far as mindset goes, here’s the mindset that I see: People need to conform to me because <insert reason here>.

It’s a sore point with me because I’ve seen this so many times. Someone will complain that they don’t have the time to get the gear and people who are making their groups shouldn’t have gear score as a consideration. My real bone of contention is who the kitten are you to say what other people should and should not do with groups they are making? It’d be nice if they didn’t consider gear score but they have every right to play the way they want, just like you do.

You’re right. That doesn’t mean ANET should encourage this type of behavior, or make a system were it can’t be circumvented. Why can’t I skip levels in the Fractal for instance? Why is gear progression tied to RNG?

Stormleaf.1769:

Skill can mitigate Agony, trait builds can mitigate Agony, playstyle can mitigate Agony, people are just refusing to even look at how it works or how they might be able to deal with it without ascended gear. Try looking at what even causes agony (such as evadable mechanics) before saying ascended gear is the only way to ever deal with it.

If it can be avoided, why introduce a new tier at all and not just require people to get skill? WoW, as bad as it may be in many aspects, actually required special tactics for each boss.

PS: how to you avoid the agony applied by Jade Maw?

Fozzik.1742:

It is in many ways entirely contrary to ArenaNet’s stated goals and design philosophy of encouraging players to play together. It is a cheap and ill-conceived attempt at artificially extending play for players who don’t like the game as it is, and it clearly stemmed from panic and over-reaction and not rational consideration of your own design. It does dramatically more harm to the long-term health of your community and game than any good it might do in terms of player retention. It’s very sad to see.

This.

1. It is a major shift in a core design feature that Arenanet has supported and had for 7 years.

2. It is artificial extension of play time. What happened to making a game fun so people will want and continue to play?

3. It is alienating the core customer base that bought the game based on horizontal progression. This is a niche market that was happy with an alternative to traditional MMOs.

4. It has not even been shown to produce revenue. You cannot buy Ascended gear so that is not an incentive for spending real money. No buy gems because can no buy gear. If the idea was to incentivize gem purchases for crafting mats, good luck with that. People who don’t hate running dungeons over and over again in a short period of time are already getting their Ascended gear. Why would they craft it?

It is a horrible change and huge marketing blunder. People outside of these forums have gotten wind to this and are calling Arenanet out on its “caving in” to the traditional MMO crowd.

I feel bad for the devs. For years, they have been saying that MMOs can be successful without gear stat progression. For years, they supported a successful game that did not have gear stat progression. This year, they successfully launch a new game without gear stat progression.

And now, because of some unknown force, they have egg on their face, because they have just introduced gear stat progression.

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

I’ve spent a good 40 minutes reading this thread and I’ve had to stop reading for a while because i mostly fell out of my chair laughing, hurt my stomach so bad i had to stretch, choke on my food and drink….

Completely miss the point of complaints if you think people are only complaining about content locking in FOTM, or the current affect on stats in WvW.

im laughing at every complaint. whats the matter with an optional tier if you are not going to run fotm, and if you are bad at it you will need the gear. so my point is. you people really love to make a mess of things. ooh its a cheap way to extend the game’s longevity. so you havent seen what else they are doing with the new area introduced into the world. the new dungeon is cool and shiny, but none of the previous content is obsolete. ive seen, heard and talked to people running fotm and explorables and theres been a whole variety of responses, especially on the rewards from the dungeons. most responses i got was , i dont really care for the rewards. im happy with what i have i just want to get better at this and that situational awarness+skill in pvp and prowess to take into sPvP and WvW.
so what is it you are suggesting take fotm and —>ALL<-- new content out? um why?
i have looked over the manifesto again and again and the ’’ascended’’ and i see no problem. the gating. bro, unless you are brain dead there is ‘’content gating’’ in absolutely everything, even if you dont understand it. for instance if someone has a weaker machine they are not going to be able to take part in content, just like how i didnt bother with trying to go after ancient karka, because i didnt want to stress my machine, so i went and had FUN.
from what i’ve heard of fotm, its fun, its hard, its new and a great learning experience for the player and devs, cos essentially they are getting data for their next content update etc.
so please do tell me where the heck am i not seeing the problems caused. all i see is bickering over the worst possible reasons.
if people cannot prove to someone that they can do content without needing the statistical advantage, guess what. i would hold on to that person and want to get to know them so their skill would rub off on me and i could learn from them, while not being a kitten to them because they dont want to get exotics because they know they dont need the stats.

so do tell me what am i missing? we are getting new free content, fun, challenging, hard, achievable gradual and not a vertical gear treadmill. so, what am i missing?

Drasleona.5049:

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

I’ve spent a good 40 minutes reading this thread and I’ve had to stop reading for a while because i mostly fell out of my chair laughing, hurt my stomach so bad i had to stretch, choke on my food and drink….

Completely miss the point of complaints if you think people are only complaining about content locking in FOTM, or the current affect on stats in WvW.

so do tell me what am i missing? we are getting new free content, fun, challenging, hard, achievable gradual and not a vertical gear treadmill. so, what am i missing?

The fact that these additions won’t continue and will be in future content patches where you’ll be required to meet the gear pre-request to have a chance of even completing the new content. The fact that this tier will eventually be a complete set that will require every WvW player to meet the new max stat to be the best they can be in WvW. The fact that it is a vertical progression, one tied to RNG. Just because its slow, doesn’t make it any less of a treadmill.

There’s already a gear treadmill at Level 80.

It goes White-Blue-Green-Yellow-Orange.

Can’t believe a little extra tier is provoking so much rage.

“Content gating is everywhere bro, if you have a weaker machine you cant play some content”

Ty Drasleona your post made me laugh.

Drasleona.5049:

snip

Came expecting a long, rambling disjointed post whose format and structure makes my eyes bleed, rendering arguments invalid. Was not disappointed.

Twaddlefish.6537:

There’s already a gear treadmill at Level 80.

It goes White-Blue-Green-Yellow-Orange.

Can’t believe a little extra tier is provoking so much rage.

Its not a treadmill because getting Orange doesn’t require me to repeat the same content over and over and over against to require it. Having that is vertical progression People really need to stop trying to alter the definitions of words to fit their agenda.

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

I’ve spent a good 40 minutes reading this thread and I’ve had to stop reading for a while because i mostly fell out of my chair laughing, hurt my stomach so bad i had to stretch, choke on my food and drink….

Completely miss the point of complaints if you think people are only complaining about content locking in FOTM, or the current affect on stats in WvW.

so do tell me what am i missing? we are getting new free content, fun, challenging, hard, achievable gradual and not a vertical gear treadmill. so, what am i missing?

The fact that these additions won’t continue and will be in future content patches where you’ll be required to meet the gear pre-request to have a chance of even completing the new content. The fact that this tier will eventually be a complete set that will require every WvW player to meet the new max stat to be the best they can be in WvW. The fact that it is a vertical progression, one tied to RNG. Just because its slow, doesn’t make it any less of a treadmill.

dude. doing a lvl 20 fotm should be impossible with sub-par equipment AND agony being there. so how are these 5 guys who don’t give 2 cents for stats but their own skill and prowess. the new set of gear thing, i say YAY more new skins, ooh what kind of themed armor is it, is it something from the fractals, same art style etc.

oh a new gate, well sorry but if you call such a lenient gate a problem then im starting to think you are not trying to argue against the ooh content gating is bad, but you are arguing no please don’t add more difficult content im not competent enough to improve to.

wow, really? okay then, well i guess you are going to need a booster in the form of stats and more and more agony resist arent you?
because to me agony=spectral agony. really, the function is the same, both couldnt be removed by normal means, but it sure as heck was easy to prevent, avoid recieving and down right fun thing having to factor into the team play. i played prophecies around half way through the missions where mursaat were present with their nasty tricks without infused armor, and i had no problems, it was by sheer interest in meeting the seer that i got infused armor, sure it made my life a little easier, but it still left me with a larger knowledge base and more skilled player. how did i prevent myself from getting owned by spectral agony? in a few ways, nr1- disrupting shot, nr2 daze condition, nr3 having means to get out of reach so the spell would fail, nr4 anti skill enchantments, nr5 anti +10%hp loss at a time at cost of energy enchantment[not really feasible in gw2 i think since no such skills exist, unless the pet taking the condition from me works] nr6 calling out targets that seemed to aggro towards me and they died in a nice ball of fire and fury, nr 7 team mate knockdowns on casters, nr8 aoe knockdowns nr9 pet knocking them down, nr10 a lovely skill from mesmers called blackout, nr11 the redicilous health and energy regen from troll unugent and melandru resilience combo.

im pretty sure i’ve missed a few ways it was countered, point is. there is no reason for me to worry about agony, because im pretty sure i can deal with it since whats most likely to happen with big fights is that there are minions present during the fight or other npc that when killed while downed will allow me to rally, so just have everyone kite around a 5% mob with them while messing up the main target. doesnt seem so hard to me, its a very popular technique for soloing champions if you havent heard of it by the way…

Maz.8604:

Drasleona.5049:

snip

Came expecting a long, rambling disjointed post whose format and structure makes my eyes bleed, rendering arguments invalid. Was not disappointed.

im sorry i didnt realise i was in an english lesson writing a paragraph to please your eyes.

Drasleona.5049:

Maz.8604:

Drasleona.5049:

snip

Came expecting a long, rambling disjointed post whose format and structure makes my eyes bleed, rendering arguments invalid. Was not disappointed.

im sorry i didnt realise i was in an english lesson writing a paragraph to please your eyes.

And more’s the pity, but apology accepted.

Drasleona.5049:

???

I don’t understand your point. And I’m serious, its not coherent.

The spectral agony and this system are nothing alike. This system is more akin to LOTRO’s resiliency system, which was eventually scrapped. For this to be like spectral agony ANET would have to remove RNG from the system and make the gear a guarantee item from reaching certain levels fractal, and they would also have to remove the gating mechanic.

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

???

I don’t understand your point. And I’m serious, its not coherent.

The spectral agony and this system are nothing alike. This system is more akin to LOTRO’s resiliency system, which was eventually scrapped. For this to be like spectral agony ANET would have to remove RNG from the system and make the gear a guarantee item from reaching certain levels fractal, and they would also have to remove the gating mechanic.

Do you not realise Draselona is a GW1 vet cause he went halfthrough the prophecies missions?
Draselona, im not even half impressed to what youve just said, furthermore it clearly shows you dont know much about GW1.

You also say Agony its exactly the same when it clearly isnt, hey im gonna call my car a Jeep, there! now its a jeep because i called it a jeep.

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

???

I don’t understand your point. And I’m serious, its not coherent.

The spectral agony and this system are nothing alike. This system is more akin to LOTRO’s resiliency system, which was eventually scrapped. For this to be like spectral agony ANET would have to remove RNG from the system and make the gear a guarantee item from reaching certain levels fractal, and they would also have to remove the gating mechanic.

Do you not realise Draselona is a GW1 vet cause he went halfthrough the prophecies missions?
Draselona, im not even half impressed to what youve just said, furthermore it clearly shows you dont know much about GW1.

i’ve completed prophecies fyi, and when i said i went through half way through prophecies at the stage where the main enemies were the mursaat i.e near the end of the missions i didnt have the ’’infusion’’ and in comparitive terms i wouldnt have the ascended gear. and i did fine. i know plenty about GW1 so do enlighten me, what do i not understand about the game?

and just saying i dont understand your point does not in any shape or form help me explain my point better…

really having a hissy fit over such a small thing, repeatedly is really just freaking childish already, all i see is oo another reason to throw a hissy fit. grow up?

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.

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.

Blame me for being a tad optimistic, but… this is the first time I see a Game Designer from Arenanet and/or a Arenanet Representative has at least recognised that people are unhappy about the (negative) impact this update has caused. I hope Arenanet will act upon this recognition.

well hes recognising the eltitism and segregation thats rising in the game , however hes not really accepting that they actually incentivised this to happen

The worst thing is it will fragment the areas of the game and if it isn’t the latest and greatest area it’s going to be a dead zone or one not populated with many players if they keep adding content like this and that fast. I had hoped we wouldn’t see the same trend of adding content so fast like we did in Guild Wars I.

At this point, as a more P vs E based player and one who wants to explore the game lore the content they are adding is only making my game smaller because the content they are adding is not going to make me want to grind new gear in-order to simply acheive the ability to be able to find a group. At this point right now unless it’s a group of my friends I can’t even see myself wanting to do these areas. The sad part is I do have a few friends who only play at night after work and with all the new content that’s been added they haven’t add the ability to experience it at all and are actually considering quitting. I still enjoy the game but I find the areas and people I enjoy gaming with shrinking everytime new content is added because it has not been added for your casual gamer.

agony= a given percent of max hp damage per tick.
spectral agony= Skill. (5 seconds.) Target foe has -1…30 Health degeneration; moves, attacks, and uses skills 80% slower; and loses 3…81 Health each second

so okay its not 100% the same, spectral agony is worse. it has degeneration while also doing ludicrous dmg per second. so 81×5=405 dmg +100 damage over 5 sec =505 damage, that is not negated by any other thing than infused armor.
to clarify about the 100 dmg, its the -30 health degeneration. the game rules are max 10 pips of degen= 20hp per second is lost. each pip accounts for 2 hp per sec you lose.

and at that stage of the game, average health pool for a ranger is roughly around 480-490 hp less if the individual opted for cheaper runes or any other useful runes available. now i knew that i would be taking that much damage over 5 seconds. and i had my goal. so every time i knew i was about to get blasted in the face with this, i just swapped weapon sets to things i couldn’t use with perfect[maxed] health benefit while also having maxed out health runes and insignias with an end result of 700-800 health , which did make my damage output a little softer, but compensated with aoe conditions, thats beside the point here, but figured i would leave it in.
fact is. i survived it and i can see myself finding wonderful ways of surviving agony too.

i do not need to IMPRESS you what so ever. why? because i frankly dont give 2 cents if you like me or not, but you cannot deny that there is more than 1 way to look at it.
when i heard about agony, my first reaction was joy. my thoughts went along the lines of ‘’oh heck yeah another condition like spectral agony, so how could i counter it with my current given set of tools.’’ and i’ve already found i think about 2-3 different ways of doing so. ill give you a tip and see if you can figure it out. rangers, pets and signets+shouts have fun

As an altoholic, I’ve always loved GW because of the ability to have multiple toons and split my time amongst them and not worry about getting left behind. Now however, I’m worried that I’ve spent all my time goofing around with 3 toons at once that by the time I get 1 to 80 I’ll be left in the dust, forced to attain exotics from karma vendors by grinding dailies & DEs rather than enjoying dungeon runs.

Drasleona.5049:

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

???

I don’t understand your point. And I’m serious, its not coherent.

The spectral agony and this system are nothing alike. This system is more akin to LOTRO’s resiliency system, which was eventually scrapped. For this to be like spectral agony ANET would have to remove RNG from the system and make the gear a guarantee item from reaching certain levels fractal, and they would also have to remove the gating mechanic.

Do you not realise Draselona is a GW1 vet cause he went halfthrough the prophecies missions?
Draselona, im not even half impressed to what youve just said, furthermore it clearly shows you dont know much about GW1.

i’ve completed prophecies fyi, and when i said i went through half way through prophecies at the stage where the main enemies were the mursaat i.e near the end of the missions i didnt have the ’’infusion’’ and in comparitive terms i wouldnt have the ascended gear. and i did fine. i know plenty about GW1 so do enlighten me, what do i not understand about the game?

and just saying i dont understand your point does not in any shape or form help me explain my point better…

really having a hissy fit over such a small thing, repeatedly is really just freaking childish already, all i see is oo another reason to throw a hissy fit. grow up?

You really wouldnt want to show off ur GW1 “skillZ” on me, trust me on that, youre embarrasing urself right there.

You dont understand the game because you have said agony here is exactly the same as agony there, which clearly isnt u get max stats agony resist in 1 mission less than 1 hour, agony resist can then be applied to any armor of any expansion pack of any color, furthermore completing prophecies once still doesnt make you experienced at the game at all.

Drasleona.5049:

‘’oh heck yeah another condition like spectral agony, so how could i counter it with my current given set of tools.’’

You could only counter it with your guild-mates and friends because a random group wouldn´t take you with them on a higher level without proper gear.

“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).”

this.argument.is.so.wrong.

i for one dont care about rarity, but about STATS because i want to PERFORM. if the best stats take 5 minutes ill take them and if they’ll take 200 hours ill grind them aswell. however i would not even dream of grinding for something rare that does not have the best stats so please would you drop that argument, it hits miles away from target. it IS a treadmill because the stats are better than exotic, nevermind about rarity and people grinding for legendaries, thats some completely different topic.

Another possible flaw of FotM and advantage of the better gear: people can stop progressing at a certain high level and just keep farming the easiest of the dungeons 24/7 for best loot in short time.

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

I mean not everyone in WvW has full exotics and the battles aren’t one-sided. Why are we saying that Ascended will really tip that scale when this hasn’t even been demonstrated yet between exotics and greens/blues? Yes, on a player per player basis exotics will generally give one player an edge over the other… but often defense/offense rarely relies on the abilities of one player; and even a handful of players in Ascended gear are only so effective.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

It’s not the stat increase alone. It’s the gate that ANet opened which they promised they never would.

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Drasleona.5049:

TheWarKeeper.5374:

Xpiher.5209:

Drasleona.5049:

???

I don’t understand your point. And I’m serious, its not coherent.

The spectral agony and this system are nothing alike. This system is more akin to LOTRO’s resiliency system, which was eventually scrapped. For this to be like spectral agony ANET would have to remove RNG from the system and make the gear a guarantee item from reaching certain levels fractal, and they would also have to remove the gating mechanic.

Do you not realise Draselona is a GW1 vet cause he went halfthrough the prophecies missions?
Draselona, im not even half impressed to what youve just said, furthermore it clearly shows you dont know much about GW1.

i’ve completed prophecies fyi, and when i said i went through half way through prophecies at the stage where the main enemies were the mursaat i.e near the end of the missions i didnt have the ’’infusion’’ and in comparitive terms i wouldnt have the ascended gear. and i did fine. i know plenty about GW1 so do enlighten me, what do i not understand about the game?

and just saying i dont understand your point does not in any shape or form help me explain my point better…

really having a hissy fit over such a small thing, repeatedly is really just freaking childish already, all i see is oo another reason to throw a hissy fit. grow up?

You really wouldnt want to show off ur GW1 “skillZ” on me, trust me on that, youre embarrasing urself right there.

You dont understand the game because you have said agony here is exactly the same as agony there, which clearly isnt u get max stats agony resist in 1 mission less than 1 hour, agony resist can then be applied to any armor of any expansion pack of any color, furthermore completing prophecies once still doesnt make you experienced at the game at all.

oh so what does repeating prophecies a second time on hardcore make a difference, while i have 80% hardcore missions done anyway. along with plenty of time in UW

Iruwen.3164:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

It’s not the stat increase alone. It’s the gate that ANet opened which they promised they never would.

This last sentence sums it all up. They’ve headed down a path that is going against what a large part of their fan base bought into. The ability to be on par with other players and not have to grind or pay in-order to keep up with the game. This opens the door to completely destroy that.

Iruwen.3164:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

It’s not the stat increase alone. It’s the gate that ANet opened which they promised they never would.

There was no promise…. a manifesto is not a promise or binding contract/document… it has no weight in forcing the author or reader to follow it. It’s generally a bad rule of thumb to stray from your guidelines, but it’s perfectly within their right to do it.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Iruwen.3164:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

It’s not the stat increase alone. It’s the gate that ANet opened which they promised they never would.

There was no promise…. a manifesto is not a promise or binding contract/document… it has no weight in forcing the author or reader to follow it. It’s generally a bad rule of thumb to stray from your guidelines, but it’s perfectly within their right to do it.

At the least it was false advertisement

Xpiher.5209:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Iruwen.3164:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

I think we’re over emphasizing the stat increase. I’m not saying it isn’t substantial, or that it should even be allowed in WvW, but I don’t think it’ll have the cataclysmic impact that folks seem to give it.

It’s not the stat increase alone. It’s the gate that ANet opened which they promised they never would.

There was no promise…. a manifesto is not a promise or binding contract/document… it has no weight in forcing the author or reader to follow it. It’s generally a bad rule of thumb to stray from your guidelines, but it’s perfectly within their right to do it.

At the least it was false advertisement

Agreed… but it was also the fault of the readers to assume these things as concrete to the point of being law. I would’ve preferred that they tried other options before opting into this path, but I can’t really say I’ve been betrayed because no actual promises were made other than “we promise to give you services if you pay for them and follow a certain set of conditions” (aka the EULA).

Bruno Sardine.2907:

There was no promise…. a manifesto is not a promise or binding contract/document… it has no weight in forcing the author or reader to follow it. It’s generally a bad rule of thumb to stray from your guidelines, but it’s perfectly within their right to do it.

I have to reluctantly agree with Bruno. What happened is that we took something that was in GW1 for granted and expected it to be the same in GW2. And at first, it really seemed like the route they wanted to stay on.

The only thing that I feel violates their manifesto is the amount of grind it takes to get ascended gear. I can see them turning it down in the future, and adding more ways to acquire it, which will decrease the amount of work you have to do. The new tier and the mere concept of vertical gear progression does not go against their philosophy. A good portion of people who WvW take it way more seriously than ANet intended it to be. They want perfect balance, a perfectly even playing field – things that really matter in a real, organized PvP scenario. I’m not saying that people should not demand equality for WvW. I’m just saying it’s not something ANet views as being worth balancing to a T.

So, old GW players and people who bought game for what it was in the beginning got basically conned. We gave them our money trusting them to keep things as they were. It’s a dick move, but it’s where they want to go with the game now. Our choices are to endure the treadmill or jump off.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Agreed… but it was also the fault of the readers to assume these things as concrete to the point of being law. I would’ve preferred that they tried other options before opting into this path, but I can’t really say I’ve been betrayed because no actual promises were made other than “we promise to give you services if you pay for them and follow a certain set of conditions” (aka the EULA).

You’re right about this, but then again, as previously stated, it still remains False advertising.

Which is, in most (if not all) occidental countries code of laws, punishable, even if the contract states otherwise (i.e.: there isn’t written anywhere, in the final contract, that the company will deliver the promises spoken out loudly in their advertising campaign) .

AmBoSS.7129:

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.

While on one hand it’s true that some more stats can give some advantage, in your reasoning a key point is missing: skill. And in dungeons, skill is everything.

Since exotic gear can be bought by basically ANYONE with less than 6 gold, it doesn’t require any skill in doing that. I saw plenty of people in dungeons that had exotic gear and still had no idea on what to do and what NOT to do. Another story would be people with dungeon exotics, like TA armor for example, that guarantees they ran a dungeon so many time they know how it works.

I personally have still rare magic find gear on my main, and I’m working to get dungeon exotics. Up until now I ran AC, CM and TA more or less 15 times each, often leading the group, so I can say, to some extent, I know how to play those dungeons. Yet, following this gear selection, a dungeon noob who just bought exotics on TP for 6 gold and is setting foot for the first time in dungeons would be better accepted than me.

Galandil.9641:

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Agreed… but it was also the fault of the readers to assume these things as concrete to the point of being law. I would’ve preferred that they tried other options before opting into this path, but I can’t really say I’ve been betrayed because no actual promises were made other than “we promise to give you services if you pay for them and follow a certain set of conditions” (aka the EULA).

You’re right about this, but then again, as previously stated, it still remains False advertising.

Which is, in most (if not all) occidental countries code of laws, punishable, even if the contract states otherwise (i.e.: there isn’t written anywhere, in the final contract, that the company will deliver the promises spoken out loudly in their advertising campaign) .

Trust me if you try to take this to a court of law, you’ll fail. Advertisers have gotten extremely good at deceiving customers while still staying within the legal boundaries. In this case, they actually didn’t falsely advertise the product to you at the time of purchase and there’s nothing in the body of advertisement that assured customers that the product would stay a particular way forever (other than maybe it’s genre type).

Bruno Sardine.2907:

Trust me if you try to take this to a court of law, you’ll fail. Advertisers have gotten extremely good at deceiving customers while still staying within the legal boundaries. In this case, they actually didn’t falsely advertise the product to you at the time of purchase and there’s nothing in the body of advertisement that assured customers that the product would stay a particular way forever (other than maybe it’s genre type).

Well, I’m not a lawyer, and I’ll take your word as truth about false advertising.

But I hope you’ll admit, at least, that there’s been a deceiving here. I myself bought the game basing the decision on 2 facts:

1) It’s from Anet, the developer of GW1, which got no vertical progression in terms of items.
2) They repeatedly stated in their so called Manifesto (both on video and written) that in GW2 there would never be a treadmill/grind for stats.

Even if they fall completely withing the boundaries of law to avoid a flase advertising suit, it’s still an unethical behaviour (unless we define “ethical” as anything that falls just inside the boundaries of law).

Don’t you agree with this point?

They even said in the beginning that not having a sub meant they could concentrate on making the game fun, rather than retaining people the max amount of time possible. “If you want to take a break and come back later, go ahead!”

I still don’t understand why there needs to be 30 threads all arguing the same thing. It’s in the game, it’s going to be able to be acquired in other ways and it’s most likely here to stay. I think people need to move along. This debate is getting worse than politics.