Guild Wars 2

Orion.7264:

I always asked people to ping when they grouped with me, but not because I wanted specific builds that I believed were required. I did it for two reasons:

1) Every once in awhile, you have a player that has no idea what they’re doing, and their build is awful. Bad skills with no synergy, no elite skill, etc. Better to catch this and give them a good build to run so they will be effective. (There are MANY “good builds” for every profession combo, for all content, btw)

2) Knowing what other people were running prevented you from running counter-productive builds within the party. Two ritualists running the same spirit build = essentially one build, since spirits overwrite each other. Too many necromancers running minions and you run out of corpses (required to make minions in GW1), essentially making the same problem. Two Paragons running Save Yourselves! builds was redundant. Things like this.

I know that there were problems with people requiring “THIS BUILD NAO” for certain things, but there were also legitimate reasons for requiring pings.

I completely agree, and did it myself for the same reasons that you listed. Pinging for the purpose of not overlapping spirits was standard practice among my small guild, which was made of friends that played together for years(and they are still my GW2 guildies). We all knew everyone was more than capable of making a good build, but it avoided the doubling of skills. I wasn’t implying that “ping your build” was always a bad thing, but the bad aspect of it was the intended focus for the comparison I made.

Mackdose.6504:

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

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

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

For those of us that came from GW1, Anet’s history of creating a game where gear was never more important than skill, because everyone had the same gear at max level. Look at the Mist PvP gear. All gear is the same.
The only thing that differentiates players is build, skill, and attitude (and maybe skins).

That’s the way a great many of us feel it should be.

When you have gear progression at max level, the game changes, and becomes one of “haves vs have-nots”, which ultimately leads to players being left out.

Add to that, the difficulty of the content, that is challenging and enjoyable, if geared properly for it, but frustrating, and overly difficult if the best gear you can get is greens or golds from the Karma merchants.

Even without the dungeon, I’m now finding that I need different gear sets and builds for different zones. With the new zone, I need to craft the new insignias, and I need to craft Exotics. Playing in Southsun is difficult enough in Exotics. I can only imagine what it must be like in Rares, or even Masters.

@ Orion.7264, mrstealth.6701 i totally agree with you. I mean i remember in the first month of GW1 when people were starting to do FoW / UW runs, build link was “mandatory” not because people asked but so the group knew what everyone had and what we could change up between ourselves. (Take into account this was a core thing for 8m Ranger trap UW parties ) And that was the nice thing if someone had something to say people were usually willing to fix / ask for understanding as to why we/they needed x skill.

In Guild Wars 2 i find i don’t care about the armor people were when i am doing a dungeon as long as they know the mechanics, if they don’t most people i have ran with have no problem explaining it, or showing what to do. Why? its polite and not hard to teach others how to get better at the game. Like you’ve said the gear issue =/= experience of playing the class is overlooked. I know i have played with folks with the same gear level weapon setup that i out play and its just the matter of experience.

As for gear grinding i guess all my years of raiding in WoW (ie the crack that keeps me playing) has made me blind towards gear treadmills. Sure they suck but i’ve had more fun doing new encounters then caring about the gear (not that i don’t want to get x items asap). Because i know i want/love FoM because the dungeon setup is different vs anything else i’ve tried.

And i think people forget its ok to carry people as long they do / ask what to do and hopefully learn what to do for future runs. Sure it might slow you down but whatever your playing the TO KILL TIME (enjoyment) after all. Plus if you can’t handle dieing your forgetting the penalties for death could be a lot worse then a simple 1.5s (or so) per death, you could be losing xp & even gear outright on top let alone loss of the character of it but guess what YOU DO NOT so take a chill pill and enjoy.

AmBoSS.7129:

Hi there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AmBoSS

I wouldn’t go so far as to ask people to link me their gear, but I would like to know what gear they have, and I would dislike running with someone who has horrible gear, and I do sometimes not repair my gear if it is hidden by other pieces of clothing so no one can see.

I remember playing FFXI and you can “Check” other people to see their level, title, their personal comment, race, gear, etc. I would always go around checking people to see what gear they have. Thats how I learned the stats and all the equipment. Honestly, in GW2 I don’t know all the equipment or gear or stats and how they compare cause I can only see my own. Its not like I can look at someone else’s gear and say “wow that looks cool” and then go wiki it to find out how to get it myself. I think thats something that this game really needs.

Being able to see other player’s gear will do more good than harm. Sure, some people will say “Your gear sucks” and kick you, but for every player like that there are 2 who won’t care. Most people don’t have full exotics, but having a feature like this is something even they would like because it sets you apart. There is no point in having cool great gear if people can’t admire it.

ASB.4295:

Leite.9475:

IF this tier ends up being the only one to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries…. then i don’t think ill have much of a problem with it, since it will just be another thing to work for …

Why is adding one tier okay, while adding more aren’t? Also, you’ll not only have to replace your gear with ascended, but also lower rarity infusions with higher rarity ones in the future.
I’m just curious about the answer.

mmm, idk i just kinda felt that there should be a more easily obtainable… or at least less rng based way to get a gear that is of a higher tier than exotics

and i guess with the different rarity of infusions, you would have some varying levels of work needed to obtain them

… that being said, i havnt even gone through level one of the fractals and i could be wayyyyyy off on this
….. but then again, if they keep the legendary tier of gear as top tier, then i personally wouldnt have much of an issue about them adding more tiers of gear in between ascended and legendary
the only thing i would have an issue with is if they were to add something over the legendary tier, removing that as the top tier
>_> apologies if that was confusing or jumbled… kinda hard to put it down in words

Apparently the “big” thread was closed, so newcomers to the forums won’t notice the big bunch of negative responses so easily. It’s still disappointing that the only information we got is a link to the post we all knew, that does deal with the issue by saying “no it’s ok, everything’s gonna be alright” without any substantial point.

But since I decided to not take this game seriously anymore, the bitterness vanished and maybe the following is more rational and way less emotional than my posts before, so I might just leave this community some thoughts:

Vertical progression is not an inherently bad system, it gives people a continuous stream of stuff to do and as you probably noticed a lot of MMORPGs follow that route because many people like that.
After years of these “traditional” MMOs a good portion of the players either got bored with the system or just don’t want to invest a lot of scheduled time anymore, while still wanting to play the “real” content, when they find time to do so. With vertical progression you have to spend a substantial amount of time before you actually get to the “good stuff”, and this barrier, that grows larger over time as additional ascended items are already announced, can’t be overcome with skill (like: “the only thing that should hinder me from completing a dungeon is me being too bad”) but with time investment and stats (namely agony).
All the rage doesn’t happen because these things are inherently bad, but because the game advertised them at not being there. And as multiple threads on these forums tell you, this was a major selling point for quite a lot of people, that specifically looked for a game that was “different” and didn’t have these properties. And I think it’s justified that these people feel cheated:
Additional vertical progression was added with this patch. No matter how you turn it, items, that have more stats than what was available before, were added with this update. This is no matter of how much better these items are – the ascended items are better, so this IS vertical progression. There is NO arguing around that.

What could have been done instead? How to give players something to work for without inflating stats? Many ways of visual effects haven’t been explored at all. Ascended items with the same stats as exotics, but with added visual effects, that add visuals to skills from your profession mechanic, like a Guardian popping his Virtues infuses affected allies in a color corresponding to the Virtue – that would surely be something other players notice and it gives bragging rights to whomever was able to get this amazing piece of equipment without ever overthrowing the fragile stat balance. Ranger Pets transforming into big fiery phoenixes without changing any of the game mechanics, Engineer turrets, that project a unique symbol in the air above them. Completely recoloring all your fancy attack skills in a different color etc. etc.
It’s really not like all cosmetic options have been covered already, so it’d be impossible to come up with anything new except for stats.

All the best GW2 with your new identity you traded your unique one in for with this patch. I’m out of here!

i would love gear inspect it will be awesome if we get it and also duel thing

I would also love 2nd option for people which don’t like grind and gear farm – give us ascended gear for gems in Item Shop. I don’t mind paying for gear and stats as long as I have to grind them insanely 36h per day.

No, I’m not sarcastic, I just want easy way, instead of 1000+ hours in dungeon and rng luck.

Eijolend.2485:

Apparently the “big” thread was closed, so newcomers to the forums won’t notice the big bunch of negative responses so easily. It’s still disappointing that the only information we got is a link to the post we all knew, that does deal with the issue by saying “no it’s ok, everything’s gonna be alright” without any substantial point.

It would seem AN are switching to the Bioware PR method which is “delete everything that disagrees with them”.

I would really love to know what the devil is going on inside their offices there to prompt such a massive shift in business ethics.

This thread illustrates a problem in overall design of the game, imho. It doesn’t quite know if its a skill based game or a gear based game and strives to accomplish both. With each update and introduction of new content and gear, and changes to mechanics and abilities, things shift from one area to another. The whole flavor of the month mentality is strong in this game, as with most mmo’s.

Most games are gear based games and the skill factor is secondary and really only comes into play when facing similarly geared opponents. That’s not quite true in this game, but it carries a lot of weight. I originally started playing this game, because I like skill based games, where player skill makes all the difference. Having played the game for a while, I can clearly see this is not a true statement with respect to GW2.

Sevati.6724:

It doesn’t quite know if its a skill based game or a gear based game and strives to accomplish both.

“If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”

This old adage should be nailed to every terminal in every video game development office in the world. I have seen so many potentially great titles go to the dogs because developers or publishers got greedy and tried to put their finger in far too many pies. It looks like GW2 will also be joining that list.

Aufero.2893:

E Tan.7385:

In this thread there is a LOT of constructive criticism about the ascended gear treadmill.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/page/222

But Anet closed it because of false excuse.

I wouldn’t categorize it as a false excuse – that thread had gotten pretty circular and pointless.

The problem appears to be that the decision to incorporate a long gear grind has already been made at a corporate level. In support of this, we’re being told it isn’t intended to be a grind at all.

It’s a bit like selling someone a cow, then replacing it with a pig a couple of months later and telling anyone who comments that it’s still intended to be a cow. We can’t help it if you keep treating it like a pig! It still has four legs, and we promise we’ll work on training it to moo!

This made me laugh. But it is a good example.

Although I like little piggies, I detest someone swapping out the product I bought with something I did not. I bought the game because of the “no gear stat” progression feature pre-launch (cow). I was encouraged when they said Exotics would be the max stat gear post-launch (cow). Now I have been given a pig.

Kyant.5296:

AmBoSS.7129:

Hi there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AmBoSS

I wouldn’t go so far as to ask people to link me their gear, but I would like to know what gear they have, and I would dislike running with someone who has horrible gear, and I do sometimes not repair my gear if it is hidden by other pieces of clothing so no one can see.

I remember playing FFXI and you can “Check” other people to see their level, title, their personal comment, race, gear, etc. I would always go around checking people to see what gear they have. Thats how I learned the stats and all the equipment. Honestly, in GW2 I don’t know all the equipment or gear or stats and how they compare cause I can only see my own. Its not like I can look at someone else’s gear and say “wow that looks cool” and then go wiki it to find out how to get it myself. I think thats something that this game really needs.

Being able to see other player’s gear will do more good than harm. Sure, some people will say “Your gear sucks” and kick you, but for every player like that there are 2 who won’t care. Most people don’t have full exotics, but having a feature like this is something even they would like because it sets you apart. There is no point in having cool great gear if people can’t admire it.

Not entirely sure this would help you as much as you’d like. Most of the attire people are wearing in this game have been transmuted. So it’s unreliable to be checking for item names. The only thing you’d need to know are the numbers.

You likely meant this, but you mentioned looking stuff up in a wiki, and so seeing the name of an item wouldn’t help you. I’m wearing a full Protector’s cultural set, but the stats are of the Draconic Berserker set. Working on a tankier set atm, and I bet I transmute those too.

Well, I for one, will continue to support them. Whilst they said that they wouldnt introduce gear treadmill I disagree with the many of you that adding one step means a treadmill. In a way, going to a new game, and doing it all over again, is just the same.

Hell starting a new character in GW2 is the same.

I don’t think they gave us any promises about anything either, they gave design principles and were very open about this, too open in fact. I wish they would have said nothing. then there wouldn’t be anything to talk about here.

ABout those with a sudden grudge over one “broken promise”. I dunno, but Arenanet is still one of the most forthcoming game companies. Sure, they changed their plans this time. Hell they changed their plans loads of times. I like Arenanet BECAUSE they are not afraid to change.

I mean gamers have been more wrong than right in the past (WoW with 12 million subscribers) And just can repeat general things from hearsay. I dare not to call out that this is a wrong decision, because, kitten I’m having fun playing this game, even though I dislike a stat increase to chase after. SO I can cut them some slack.

I can only see GW2 evolve over time. I don’t believe they are the same as all those other game companies. and their slight increase in gear progression, well i take THAT over any other game.

illgot.1056:

I feel we need a gear score.

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

Gear score where MF contributes nothing to the item’s score.

Based on the amount of raw “Waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!” I suspect that there is enough people with the same point of view regarding “elitism”, “gear treadmills”, and “gear scoring” that ANYONE out there could find a group of like minded people to play with, and play the way they all like.

The whole “I can’t get a run because gear tiers!” argument falls over when you have fifty people sitting around in a major city, all sooking about not seeing content due to/with other people. Why not throw some of your ilk an invite and (wait for it) run the content!

If you act like an elitist and exclude people based on gear (when the content does not) you are a fool. If you sit around sooking about not doing content with other sooking people, when you could be finishing the group and doing content you are a fool also.

Most foolish of all however is the player who has no mates, PUGs exclusively, refuses to engage with or listen to other players, and acts rudely or like a child. They end up being avoided (or outright shunned) by reasonable people, and get stuck dealing with other pricks like themselves, then sook about not having friends… oh sorry gear.

Iarkrad.8415:

illgot.1056:

I feel we need a gear score.

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

Gear score where MF contributes nothing to the item’s score.

I’d go one further and make it count against it.

Nar.8327:

Iarkrad.8415:

illgot.1056:

I feel we need a gear score.

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

Gear score where MF contributes nothing to the item’s score.

I’d go one further and make it count against it.

All MF on non-ascended gear should be stripped and replaced with something else. Then…ascended gear is statted equal to exotic gear, but with MF on it.

This solves 2 problems in one fell swoop:
-No one can complain about anyone running MF gear, because the option to sacrifice combat stats for MF no longer exists.
-Ascended gear is “better” than exotic, but doesn’t give anyone an actual combat advantage.

Merthax.5172:

Nar.8327:

Iarkrad.8415:

illgot.1056:

I feel we need a gear score.

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

Gear score where MF contributes nothing to the item’s score.

I’d go one further and make it count against it.

All MF on non-ascended gear should be stripped and replaced with something else. Then…ascended gear is statted equal to exotic gear, but with MF on it.

This solves 2 problems in one fell swoop:
-No one can complain about anyone running MF gear, because the option to sacrifice combat stats for MF no longer exists.
-Ascended gear is “better” than exotic, but doesn’t give anyone an actual combat advantage.

I actually really like this idea.

Nar.8327:

Merthax.5172:

Nar.8327:

Iarkrad.8415:

illgot.1056:

I feel we need a gear score.

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

Gear score where MF contributes nothing to the item’s score.

I’d go one further and make it count against it.

All MF on non-ascended gear should be stripped and replaced with something else. Then…ascended gear is statted equal to exotic gear, but with MF on it.

This solves 2 problems in one fell swoop:
-No one can complain about anyone running MF gear, because the option to sacrifice combat stats for MF no longer exists.
-Ascended gear is “better” than exotic, but doesn’t give anyone an actual combat advantage.

I actually really like this idea.

I like this, too. I’m not a huge fan of the magic find gear concept at all, but this solution solves two problems at the same time.
- Ascended gear gets an advantage, but is not outright better stat/power-wise. The time/money taken to get these items is rewarded by a better chance at recieving more valuable loot in the future.

- Current MF gear is somewhat biased towards certain professions and playstyles. The existing stat combos (excluding new items from last week) only offer power/precision or power/condition along with MF. A power/prec focused warrior might be losing +critcal damage, but they still have high base HP/armor. A condition focused elementalist is only getting a single useful stat bonus, and being stuck with low HP and armor.

My own personal thoughts, which are not based on any actual data or research.
I think the players using currently high amounts of MF gear are likely the same players that are attracted to this type of grind/progression. The same players that would farm the massive mobs at a few select event in Orr (Plinx/Penitent). That type of event is where MF has its greatest effect. Those of us not wanting a grind for higher stats I think fall into the group of players that aren’t greatly concerned with having high MF stats on their armor. The effects in normal play are not as obvious as with large-scale events with tons of mobs. And in any case, there are still other non-gear buffs that provide boosts to MF.

I have to disagree completely except maby when it come to fractals past lvl10. I have seen first hand how low level players finish dungeons much faster than some of those level80 groups that whipe constantly with their exotics. I do see how exotic gear might help but skill still play the major role.

Osculim.2983:

I have to disagree completely except maby when it come to fractals past lvl10. I have seen first hand how low level players finish dungeons much faster than some of those level80 groups that whipe constantly with their exotics. I do see how exotic gear might help but skill still play the major role.

Wow, this fairy tale agin.
Gear does play quite a heavy role in GW2 and the difference between a opt-in-slot-equipt 80 and some green/blue/yellow/chaos-gear-equipt 80 is miles.
Yes, skill does still play quite a role, but so does (and did always) the quality of your gear. Exotic doesn`t just help, it makes it easy especialy 1-10..you can steamroll most of the encounters or lessen the difficulty of some encounters amazingly…cause kitten just dies faster. This is imho fine..cause there are plenty of rather easy ways to aquire exotic gear.
But this whole discussion bout the new gear-grind will solve itself..the rate at which pop is declining is astonishing. Now people not only realize that most initial problems are not just “whining”, they also realize that it get`s freaking hard to get PuGs or even other groups together…go figure with 50diffrent dungeons in one place..where all need to be on the same level.
Nah, this is been perhaps the worst patch i`ve seen in MMO-History..they not just killed of 50% of the already existing content with this dungeon, they also invented artificial content-blockers (instead of stickin to their own design-philosophy) and segregated the player-community between 50-diffrent levels of grinding.
It feels like SWTOR three months after release..and that`s no hating, that`s just what i see ingame.

Iruwen.3164:

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.

Ah ok, so the United States Declaration of Independence is a rule of thumb.

munkiman.3068:

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.

As in politics, the only way to change things is to voice your opinion. ANet should just do a poll: increased stats on ascended items, yes or no. If the majority actually votes for yes, I’ll accept it.

There are plenty of polls, most seem either on the fence or like the change, yet some polls have a real bias toward hating it. Sadly, the sample size is pretty small, just like on here.

I have no issue with voicing opinions, i have a problem with people continually making new threads dealing with the same topic over and over, then people complaining that they are merged together, as if to silence them. This is one of the worst ways to voice your opinion, it honestly makes people look dumb and/or self centered as their opinion matters more.

There are plenty of people making comparisons, comparing the declaration to the manifesto is just downright silly.

Orion.7264:

I always asked people to ping when they grouped with me, but not because I wanted specific builds that I believed were required. I did it for two reasons:

1) Every once in awhile, you have a player that has no idea what they’re doing, and their build is awful. Bad skills with no synergy, no elite skill, etc. Better to catch this and give them a good build to run so they will be effective. (There are MANY “good builds” for every profession combo, for all content, btw)

2) Knowing what other people were running prevented you from running counter-productive builds within the party. Two ritualists running the same spirit build = essentially one build, since spirits overwrite each other. Too many necromancers running minions and you run out of corpses (required to make minions in GW1), essentially making the same problem. Two Paragons running Save Yourselves! builds was redundant. Things like this.

I know that there were problems with people requiring “THIS BUILD NAO” for certain things, but there were also legitimate reasons for requiring pings.

Funny story, there was this idiot friend of one of my guild members who insisted we go run to Gadd’s Encampment with, through the shards of Orr. I made a fatal mistake. I didn’t ask him to ping his build. We get out in the feild and I notice he also brought along a minion master (I had my heroes with Sabway at the time) and I was thinking ‘great this is gonna be a long walk.’

So we get to the shards, and the idiot takes the quest (even though I said not to) so we have the ultra pain in the kitten mobs to clear that is part of the dungeon chain, so now I’m just irritated and I basically told him to enjoy dying and left him to rot. I didn’t need to get to the outpost and the guy was just being unbelievably stupid, suiciding into mob groups, pulling big groups to us, etc.

He pops back into town, and at this point my morbid sense of curiosity kicks in and I asked him, what in the hell kind of build was he running, because in almost all the fights he was standing around just auto-attacking. So he pings me master of whisper’s build. It’s literally a skill bar full of just minion skills. His skill bar is basically all the minion buffs and corpse manipulation skills. His brilliant build, which by the way he actually defended and claimed worked, in spite of the utter fail of his live demo, was based on the idea that one person would summon the minions, and he the player would manage them.

When I pointed out the AI is better at auto-casting minion buffs and tracking them, he told me ‘nah I’m really good.’ When I pointed out if the mobs are the types that don’t leave exploitable corpses (for those that don’t know in GW1 you actually had to have a dead body to produce a minion) you will have two people in the party who are basically utterly useless, he was like… ‘well it still works!’

This my friends, is also why you asked people to ping their builds.

First off I competely understand the OP’s concerns re: gearing out and grouping up, I have been a hardcore MMO player for 7 years and a raid / group leader for 6 of those in other games (LOTRO being my most recent for 5 years and kin and raid leader).

However, I’ll be honest, while gear definetly helps in GW2 I find the biggest hurdle to be player skill level, I’ve ran many EM’s and FoTM with players who have subpar gear and done just fine, but a lack of coordination and simply put player ignorance seems to be the major issue with my experience. Unfortunately it does result in somewhat the same situation of an exclusive group that is difficult to become a part of. But hey just giving my 2 cents.

@OP While I understand as to why you want people in the group to have the necessary gear and it isn’t wrong to want players who meet this requirement, I shall say that personally I don’t share the same viewpoint.

If a person is friendly enough they can join my group. While success is what I want, I won’t alienate a player based on the gear they carry. I go into a dungeon to have fun.

I personally believe in bringing the player, not the gear, always have. If we don’t complete a dungeon then I chalk it down to us not working together hard enough. I have nothing against a party wanting x, y and z as at the end of the day it is their party and whatever they decide upon is their choice.

Would bringing players who have better gear increase my party’s success? Absolutely. But I personally find it more fun to beat encounters despite our gear differences. Where’s the fun in just steamrolling it with max gear eh?

I’ve beaten past encounters in past MMO’s despite people saying “you need this and that to win” simply so I can say “Do I really?”

Maybe, if we give it some time, we will see all the “bads” run off to another game again…

I know there are a lot of people who moved to this game to avoid gear-grinding as they spend a long time in other games being bounced from groups/content being told “your gear is not good enough”. They believed that was the issue and came over to a game which has a bit more twitch/skill style and are still “bads” as reasons not to include them was actually a little different..

Note in the above “bads” could be derrived from any combination of attributes about the player – not just skill, or just attitude, or just game understanding, or just commitment/reliability…

DootmasterX.3025:

This my friends, is also why you asked people to ping their builds.

I asked people to ping builds so I could see what they were doing, ask questions (“Why this skill?”) and then take a moment to look at my bar. If someone else had poison, no point in me bringing it. If there was an interrupt mesmer I would swap for Burning Arrow and tag things with it. If we were going to be basically balling up enemies I would bring Splinter-Barrage.

Someone once asked me to ping my build and said “why do you have a pet? They’re useless”. I said “watch”, and demonstrated what I called “pet pulling”. Send the pet in to take the first hit, res it with Comfort Animal (timed so it fell over and got right back up again), and now that the enemy wasted their first strike sweep in. Most times it worked in PvE, and it had the added benefit sometimes of pulling mobs out of position so someone with another res skill could get in there and save people being corpse-camped.

(It was almost a joke sometimes with alliance groups: “Greyfang works way too hard for this. He should get a break.” “I tried that, he chased some charr up a tree and I had to explain to Pyre it was nothing personal.”)

The one time I did get kicked, it was in Abaddon’s Gate when I offered to join up with a group and missed that I hadn’t turned my Lightbringer title on. So they kicked me assuming I wasn’t going to. I flicked on Holy Lightbringer and they tried inviting me again.

The Lost Shore patch turned a game I once loved into a grind like nothing else I’ve seen in the last few years. Also the FotM dungeon itself is nice, the Agony mechanic is just ridiculous and implemented in the most boring way possible. You can almost ignore it until lvl 20, cause it is mostly applied by attacks you would have dodged either way. And once at 20 you hit the Jade Maw wall were everybody that hasn’t enough agony resi just gets killed, there is no way to avoid that, which is really silly, especially cause you’ll hit the next wall at 30, 40 and so on.
That alone would still be a bad idea but kinda acceptable, if there would be a proper way to get that agony resi before you hit that wall. But that’s not the way it works, you either spend 250 t6 mats, 300 ectos and some rng FotM drops to get you t2 backpiece or your are at Fortuna’s mercy, if she decided that you deserve to get a ring or two in the daily chest you can proceed, otherwise you will have to find a team that is willing to drag you through. But the lunacy doesn’t stop there, not there is even more. The gear that drops is both account bound and unique so even if you get a ring its almost always worthless for your character, most of the time it either has the wrong stats or you already have the ring that just dropped. And since they are account bound on pick up all you can do is to vendor it or to hand it to one of your twinks, which doesn’t make much sense since the FotM progression is not account bound.
The “good thing” about that is, that a lot of people don’t have to bother with these problems yet cause they are still far away from reaching level 20+ cause it’s kitten hard to find a group at your level. Lion’s Arch is currently overcrowded on every server with people who spam “lfg/lfm FotM x” all day – or at least until the spam filter kicks in. In some level brackets it takes hours to find a group, not a problem if you have a lots of friends or a fixed team for your level, but the casuals out there spend way more time looking for teammates than actually playing the game. It sometimes happens to me too, but I don’t care that much since I just play Planetside 2 on my second monitor and let a neat little program that I wrote myself do the spamming, and since it also notifies me when someone whispers me I don’t have to pay attention to GW2 at all.
So, lets say we have our team together and already did a few fractals but weren’t lucky enough to get a ring. Hey, it doesn’t matter, at least we can spend the tokens we earned to get some items. Well, not really. First FotM nets you way less tokens per hour than any other dungeon out there and at the same time you need way more to get an exotic. The only items worth purchasing at the moment are the basic 20 slots bags for 150 relics – why would anybody buy the exotic bags for 250, it makes no sense since exotics don’t drop that often -, the infusions and maybe the gift. There is no set and not ascended gear we could buy, and even if there were, with the price of 1350 relic for the exotic back piece I seriously doubt we would be able to afford it.

Seriously Arena Net? Seriously? This is what you understand by “not making grindy games”? This is how you treat your faithful GW1 fanbase? What happend to “you can get the best gear in the game anyway you want”? In my book, whoever is responsible for that should be fired. Hey, I still like the individual fractals, some of them have really fun mechanics, but the concept behind tokens and ascended gear is just horrible.

I’m waiting for the results of the reddit AMA today. And I really hope that you won’t be avoiding the important questions about the future of GW2 again. Just be honest and tell us whether this was a bad mistake or this is what future content patches will all look like. If you decide to got down the gear grind road I won’t be mad, I’ll just leave and play something else. Of course it would be sad but at the end of the day GW2 is your game and you ruin it any way you want. But since we bought the game and a lot of us spend money on the Gem Store you owe us honesty about your plans at the very least.

A disappointed (no-longer-)customer.

As long as people will be lazy kittens who prefer to gear check than to skill check, any multiplayer RPG will become a social hell.

It’s not the dev’s fault, it’s because people are too selfish to spend a few minutes to check a player’s gamestyle rather than his kitten gear (even if I don’t support gear trendmill mentality).

Last I checked the game I puchased was Guild Wars 2, the Guild Wars philosophy has always been gear parity at max level. I am not so sure what is so hard about that to understand. It’s what made GW different to WOW. Put in a gear treadmill and what do you have? just another kittenier version of WOW.

“As long as people will be lazy kittens who prefer to gear check than to skill check, any multiplayer RPG will become a social hell.”

I hate gear check too but the only thing I’ll say it “skill check” games like LoL aren’t much better. I’d actually say they are a lot worst.

The only real gear check is the agony resistance… the +stats have little impact in that dungeon or elsewhere. Yes, +stats make someone that much harder to kill in WvW and blah blah…. pretty sure it takes more than a handful of folks with +stats to capture keeps/garrisons/towers.

The boring aspect of the gear check is the RNG for progression, it’s falling into the same issue D3 had. My progression is literally stifled because I’m not lucky enough…. D2 was perfectly capable of allowing a player to use skill to get you through the content (naked runs through hell difficulty on normal or hardcore mode), and the rest of the time could be devoted to gearing up, leveling up, and perfecting your toon. Let the RNG for the daily reward be in the stat variations, not whether or not you actually get gear with agony resistance or inscriptions.

On top of that, the design of certain encounters is such that the scaling creates a total imbalance making some encounters insanely tougher and others just take longer.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Derk.3189:

Stormleaf.1769:

Erulogos.2591:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Whiteside’s post points out there was no real gap between exotics and legendaries except for that in grinding time required to obtain each. I still can’t figure out how adding a tier with slightly better stats addresses said gap though.

As far as I can tell ascended items really don’t contribute at all towards obtaining a legendary since they don’t function as precursors. It’s a purpose for further grinding functionally independent from obtaining a legendary. It also makes obtaining a legendary even more expensive since it apparently increases the price of shared materials like ectos.

There’s no actual reason adding multiple precursors with the same stats as exotics wouldn’t serve that purpose outside Anet appealing to the vertical progression croud.

EDIT: A person aiming to obtain a legendary item has no reason to waste money on ascended and a person who couldn’t care less about obtaining a legendary would be perfectly fine holding on to their exotics.