Guild Wars 2

ASB.4295:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

I would like to see links to any of your suppositions re gear progression in GW1 being actual statements by any Anet management.

Until then, I will assume you really can’t speak as to what Anet planned, who their target demographic was, or anything else you are claiming.

“Suggests”, ’had they known" "probably"" IMO" etc is supposition, and does not, in any way, validate an absolute statement like “ANet never was against gear progression”

It is all opinion. In my opinion.

It’s all suggestions, interpretations and implications here on this forums, even if someone quotes a dev. They have said that GW1 has become stagnant, and by the powers of logical deduction, which are looking at their stance towards gear progression now, and the lack of marketing towards a stagnant/horizontal progression demographic in GW1 suggests to me that that this is their point of view. Whether or not, my interpretation of ANet’s actions and words was not point of my last post, or the thread.

Here’s something more relevant to the discussion: Vertical progression is needed because without it, a large MMO like GW2 couldn’t survive financially. The amount of players preferring stat progression greatly outnumbers the amount of players that do not, and are necessary to being marketed toward you want to break even or make at least some profit. Proof? None. Indications? ANet’s introduction of end game gear progression and the innumerable posts on other MMO’s fansites such as TERA, SWOTOR, TSW in favor of end game gear progression compared to those against it. The most common complaint about from players about gear grid these days is that it’s too repetitive, or takes too long, not that it’s there at all. ANet improved your run of the treadmill(hah, see what I did there?) gear grind with a balanced, optional gear progression. Grated, it still needs to become more accessible in certain parts of the game, but this is something being worked on as we speak.

GW1 was extremely successful, one of the best selling mmos of all time. Your reasoning is flawed.

GW2 isn’t much of a gear treadmill. It will feel like a huge one compared to GW1, cuz in GW1 there were no level restrictions on gear, and it was attribute distribution that affected skill potency.

As for people who prefer vertical progression over horizontal… they haven’t been around the block enough to figure it out. The rest of us are waiting patiently. lol

Fractals are not GW2, they are one part of it. If you don’t like it you don’t have to do it.

Some people come from Raid Progression games like WoW and they want more progression instead of a static world where there’s nothing left to progress or achieve more in comparison to other players or guilds.

Some people come from GW1 where the hook wasn’t gear progression raids and dungeons.

To please them both is impossible and the attempt do so is what you have now in GW2. Personally, I support the keep it like GW1 direction. Something about the combat in this game is fundamentally different from GW1 so there’s the start to consider changing.

Just my 2 cents.

Grim West.3194:

GW1 was extremely successful, one of the best selling mmos of all time. Your reasoning is flawed.

I never attacked GW1 or said it wasn’t successful. That’s bs. All I said about GW1 is mentioned how the devs look at it and that one of its shortcomings(easy to reach power plateau in PvE), was due to their vision of PvP being the endgame for their player base, and not because they wanted total equality in PvE.
It may have very well been that what they perceived to be a flaw was what a certain demographic craved and liked, and if that was the case, they were lucky to have struck this virtually untouched vein of horizontal progression purists as consumers.
I’m not dissing GW1, I’m just saying that GW2 couldn’t survive if it had the flaw that made GW1 so unique. Will we ever find out if that’s the case? I don’t think so, and I’m sorry that all I can provide you with are theories and educated guesses.

you know most of the people I know who played all of GW1 also played somthing like WOW or EQ2 right there with it. GW1 often being there Fall back

Hell i have an Ex who used GW1 as her fall back game. I would see her and her frinds playing GW1 when ever somthing was up with EQ2 on there raid nights

omg, ASB it wasn’t a flaw. XD
How do stat capped players tackle monsters that had no restrictions. The players had to rely on earning new skills, tuning builds to tackle specific areas, make the effort to engage in more thoughtful tactics, and develop more conscientious attribute spreads.
They simply had to become better players. It was just like sports and I thought it was genius.

Redfeather.6401:

omg, ASB it wasn’t a flaw. XD

Uhm, I didn’t say I think it was a flaw. I said that ANet themselves might have looked at the low power plateau for PvE in GW1 as a flaw, judging from their(CEO’s) quote about the game having become stagnant. In the context of ANets current philosophy, stagnancy is unlikely to be something positive. What else could I have said to adequately describe ANet’s view of GW1? They didn’t want this kind of stagnancy for GW2, which in their eyes makes the lack of long term gear/stat progression in GW1 not a feature but a flaw.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The only thing that bugs me with Fractals and progression is this.

“increasingly better rewards compounding with higher scaling difficulty”

No argument. Except, apply it to everything. There is no reason players should be walking away from defeated Champions out in the world with 0 loot, or a Porous bone to show for it as we are currently doing now.

Don’t nerf my porous bones. They are my main source of income.

Paradox.5498:

In GW2 you can see every content available even if you’re wearing full rare gear, e.a. as soon as you hit lvl80. Arenanet introduced ONE challenge that keeps increasing in difficulty IF YOU WANT and now it’s a treadmill?

Finally some sense on the forums, what people fail to understand is that fractals are the only place where ascended gear could ever be required and the gear will be obtainable by various different means. They’re merely rolling the gear out slowly in order to get properly balance and adjust the way it works.

Another thing people fail to understand is unlike WoW where the dungeons each requires some attunements and gear to enter, this game provides no real restriction on viewing content. Fractal level 2 is the same as 50 for what you can see and do and yet people call an optional activity a treadmill when they don’t know the meaning of the term.

Seems to me that there is no treadmill/grind unless you want it. I’m only playing about every other day, just enjoying the open world content and the random dungeon invites from guildies. Not grinding and having no problem fully kitting out my character in the exotics I want and slowly gathering mats for my legendary. I would bet that I would end up with a legendary in the next 3-4 months. I’m sure I’ll get around to running fractals when I feel like it, but when I do, it’ll be on my terms and with like minded people.

If you’re looking for it to go faster you’re probably going to be disappointed in this game really.

ASB.4295:

Redfeather.6401:

omg, ASB it wasn’t a flaw. XD

Uhm, I didn’t say I think it was a flaw. I said that ANet themselves might have looked at the low power plateau for PvE in GW1 as a flaw, judging from their(CEO’s) quote about the game having become stagnant. In the context of ANets current philosophy, stagnancy is unlikely to be something positive. What else could I have said to adequately describe ANet’s view of GW1? They didn’t want this kind of stagnancy for GW2, which in their eyes makes the lack of long term gear/stat progression in GW1 not a feature but a flaw.

You are still pushing off your own, personal opinions as being " ANet’s view of GW1’ based on one quote that was more to the order of “not being able to handle all we wanted to do” vs “stagnant”

State your opinions. Stop trying to validate them as ANet views or positions, because they are yours.

Still stating absolutes on conjecture.

And, I discovered and ended up in GW1 to escape progression, tiers, gating, all of those good things you maintain we all want. The sole reason I bought GW2 was the assumption, and their Design Manifesto, that indicated traditional MMO was not where they were going.

If I want gear progression, Ill go back to EQ2, they have done it longer and are better at it. I still play both off and on, GW being my escape and relax game.

There is a reason I am here now, and not there. Gear gating and progression being pretty big on the list.

Amos.8760:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

The only thing that bugs me with Fractals and progression is this.

“increasingly better rewards compounding with higher scaling difficulty”

No argument. Except, apply it to everything. There is no reason players should be walking away from defeated Champions out in the world with 0 loot, or a Porous bone to show for it as we are currently doing now.

Don’t nerf my porous bones. They are my main source of income.

I’m thinking of diversifying into crab meat, myself.

Redfeather.6401:

omg, ASB it wasn’t a flaw. XD
How do stat capped players tackle monsters that had no restrictions. The players had to rely on earning new skills, tuning builds to tackle specific areas, make the effort to engage in more thoughtful tactics, and develop more conscientious attribute spreads.
They simply had to become better players. It was just like sports and I thought it was genius.

Yet even in sports they are always upgrading to the Newest/Best perfomance Shoes/Pads/Helmets/Balls/Bats whatever the particular sport used. In order to do they they had to perform with what they had and earn newer and wealthier sponsers…..kinda sounds like a gear grind.

This thread is getting pushed off topic pretty hard.

He’s not saying anything about ascended gear being a gear treadmill. That’s what all the other threads are complaining about.

The problem he’s talking about is that Robert Hrouda has explicitly come out and said that “you’re not getting past Fractals 50 until we say so”, which is confusing, because the content already exists up to 80, as players have found out.

Fractals wasn’t added to give people a gear treadmill, it was added to give players a sense of progression in a difficult dungeon. The progression and difficulty is there at higher levels, but it has an agony resistance treadmill tacked on. While you can beat every other boss with 0AR, you can’t beat Jade Maw unless you keep up with the treadmill. That’s not fun.

Regarding Jade Maw 50, I am on both sides of the argument.

One one side, there should have been no one past 50 in the first place, but due to bugs/explots/oversights, you could get past it. We would have been none the wiser about the existance of Fractals up to 80.

On the other side, I don’t think it’s good game design to have a brick wall that we’ll never get past until they change the damage agony deals on Jade Maw, or releases 950 agony resistance to survive it (it deals 1172% HP per second, and agony resistance subtracts a flat 6% per 5).

Eladriel.7295:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Each new piece of AR gear is meant to allow you to progress to further fractal levels, which have increasingly better rewards compounding with higher scaling difficulty.

This is the statement.

I ever since was a defender that gw2 is not that kind of game, since fractals were released I told ppl that it’s not since you don’t need any ar to get to lvl 80 (I’m there so don’t argue about that if it’s possible or not ) But after the update the game changed to what the dev stated now. I really think this is a bad direction the game takes and I’m as a former gw1 fan dissapointed and afraid that it goes in this direction.

I don’t need to care I have the cap for the next year + nothing left to do for me there. But I care in generally that this is the bad direction the game takes. So I hope I find supporters that are gonna make the dev rethink their new system.

thanks for your oppingons

How many times has Anet told you people that you will not get another tier of gear aside the ascended gear? Do they have to continue til they are blue in the face to get it through that thick head of yours that The ascendant gear is the only tier you will get? Just because they are giving you the gear piece by piece doesn’t make it a gear grinding game. If they add another tier of armor then you can legitimately call it a gear grinding game. In the future do more research on what gear grinding really is.. Wow has that down perfectly… I’m not talking about piece by piece.. I’m talking about full sets to the next full set….. ect..

Um NO and No and NO Again.
They said there isnt anything planned in the imminent future – far far different from no more new gear. Lol go back and read the ama. There will be more tiers to come right after ascend is finished. That is their model and the VP Plan.

The fist now second step to the treadmill has started get running or walking cause it aint going to stop. No Way No How – that is the plan. More gear with hire stats. Then after that comes the expansion with level cap raise and guess what?
More New Gear Tiers

More for the VP to chase and grind behind agony and whatever type of gated content they want to put in.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

You are still pushing off your own, personal opinions as being " ANet’s view of GW1’ based on one quote that was more to the order of “not being able to handle all we wanted to do” vs “stagnant”

I didn’t say my interpretation of ANet’s words are correct or the only one. I welcome anyone to interpret their actions and words in their own way, because that’s all we can go by.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

State your opinions. Stop trying to validate them as ANet views or positions, because they are yours.

Again, these aren’t my opinions, but what I think ANet means. My interpretations may be wrong, yes. I’m voiced my opinion as my interpretation of what the devs say and how I think the number of customers/players disliking vertical progression is not high enough to keep a large MMO like GW2 alive. I didn’t say my opinions where ANets way of thinking, thank you very much.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

And, I discovered and ended up in GW1 to escape progression, tiers, gating, all of those good things you maintain we all want. The sole reason I bought GW2 was the assumption, and their Design Manifesto, that indicated traditional MMO was not where they were going.

I didn’t say it’s what you all want, but what I discovered the majority wants after I started researching when the Lost Shores Patch hit. I never attacked you or people like you for being angry about how ANet choose to not take over the traits you mentioned from its predecessor. All I said with regards to players is my opinion that the horizontal progression crowd is too small to financially support a game like GW2.

emikochan.8504:

Fractals are not GW2, they are one part of it. If you don’t like it you don’t have to do it.

Except you dont get the best gear and get left out of the loop and are not at peak in WvW or even mob tagging in PVE.

And before you jump the next one let me say this,
You dont need armour but have it on why? You can WvW and PvE naked especially dungeons they are a face roll. Advantage right.

If I was able to get ascend gear outside of the grind of dungeons or daily/monthlies then I would nt care but I cant. I must grind out that or not get geared.

This is 100% a treadmill replacing my exotics with ascend then whatever next they come out with then we get expansion and level cap raise. Guess what after that? I doubt they will stop at just 2 new tiers after all the point was to have VP and you cant stop that treadmill cause we all know what happens then.

ASB.4295:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

You are still pushing off your own, personal opinions as being " ANet’s view of GW1’ based on one quote that was more to the order of “not being able to handle all we wanted to do” vs “stagnant”

I didn’t say my interpretation of ANet’s words are correct or the only one. I welcome anyone to interpret their actions and words in their own way, because that’s all we can go by.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

State your opinions. Stop trying to validate them as ANet views or positions, because they are yours.

Again, these aren’t my opinions, but what I think ANet means. My interpretations may be wrong, yes. I’m voiced my opinion as my interpretation of what the devs say and how I think the number of customers/players disliking vertical progression is not high enough to keep a large MMO like GW2 alive. I didn’t say my opinions where ANets way of thinking, thank you very much.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

And, I discovered and ended up in GW1 to escape progression, tiers, gating, all of those good things you maintain we all want. The sole reason I bought GW2 was the assumption, and their Design Manifesto, that indicated traditional MMO was not where they were going.

I didn’t say it’s what you all want, but what I discovered the majority wants after I started researching when the Lost Shores Patch hit. I never attacked you or people like you for being angry about how ANet choose to not take over the traits you mentioned from its predecessor. All I said with regards to players is my opinion that the horizontal progression crowd is too small to financially support a game like GW2.

Totally disagree – it was them that supported and launched the game. They would have made Anet even more money had they decided to go that route. They would have supported Anet by a multiple of what they get now.

Had they took the stand and told them HP is the way to go here is why give x amount of time to prove it things would have been tremendous.

But they threw everyone who supported them under the bus in an attempt to woo the wowers. It failed horribly – they lost the supports and the VP people all at once.

In fact I say adding ascend gear VP cost Anet a significant and persistent amount of revenue.

They amount of players this game has lost over Nov 15 + and what not is almost identical for what Biowares TOR was at just before it went F2P. The only reason this game hasnt collapsed is simply the production costs and ROE isnt as high at ea was with bioware/tor.

But you can see how bad things are getting with the drive in the gem shop to force people to buy gems.
Now they have Bioware level hatefans all over the web posting on fan sites and no amount of backroom deals can get them to delete the posts fast enough. SWG level of hate.
The mismanagement and direction/vision of the game has been lacking and it shows.
They need someone to step up and set up a real vision and accountability and communication with the remaining players in order for the game to succeed.

@ ASB
I didnt buy the game at launch, I never do, so I can see what is actually there. And I saw no gear progression or indication there would be anything but horizontal progression with the same differentiation of Rare Skins as GW1.

Apparently several million copies of the game were purchased on that same knowledge. There was no indication of “vertical progression” when several million copies sold. That is the “too small to financially support GW” group?

Nobody had a clue that there would even be "fractals’ much less agony gating and progression.

So, now you are maintaining that, from what I understand, several million people bought this game in “hopes” of progression being introduced? That is novel. Buying a game on hopes that a feature you want will somehow appear.

And since the above poster referenced SWG, I cant help but see this as a Smedley, to a degree. It’s the same, we have a captive market, we got them, now lets just tweak the game a lil bit to attract a totally different crowd. And we all know how well NGE turned out, financially.

its a treadmill as long as they keep puting in better stat gear.

as it is; its a treadmill.

doesnt matter if its 1%stat or 50%.

is it a game that “requires” you to do the treadmill to see the content, no.
but it’s still a treadmill to be on par statwise.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

That is the “too small to financially support GW” group?

I’m not trying to pass what I say off as facts, I’m trying to make sense of what I see unfolding before me. The only assumption I make in any of my theories regarding this is that any action ANet has taken and will take is based on taking the game in a direction they think is fun, unless they absolutely have to compromise their vision in order to secure the future of their product.
I won’t speculate on their hand being forced by their owners, and I firmly believe they aren’t so inexperienced that they’re unable to foresee the impact their patches will have.
You can accuse them of being sold out, acting with any other malcontent all you want, and maybe you are right. I’m trying to guess what is most likely, which is what my past posts have been about.

Narkosys.5173:

A lot of players left and people are bashing the game on other sites.

I don’t want to sound rude, and maybe I’m just not visiting the right sites, but could you give me a pointer where all these negative posts are concentrated? Since Nov. 2012, I have checked what I think are most of the big hubs on the net discussing MMORPGS, and what I have seen is that the outcry over ascended gear dropped off gradually over about two to three weeks, until there was maybe one or two threads a month.

most people (not all, nobody needs to jump and scream here),
are doing “dailies” and “fractals” to get their ascended stuff.

Narkosys.5173:

Maybe just maybe they wont lie to people in the prelaunch about their intentions with the game to get money from them.

That’s unlikely to happen. Pre-launch hype is easy to generate; actually developing a game good enough to generate post-launch hype is difficult.

As countless of people have said it so far, if you see GW2 as anything other than fun, artistic, and casual video game in which you’re supposed to focus on the uniqueness of its features, you are DOING IT WRONG.
So far, especially compared to other mmorpgs such as WoW, GW2 hasn’t even seen grind…Hell, it hasn’t even tasted grind. It doesn’t even live in the world that knows grind. Some of you need to get out there and play REAL grindy mmorpgs in which your performance entriely depends on that +15 strength or what have you.
Unfortunately, poor ArenaNET has to deal with people who take everything so literally to the point that they want exactly that and nothing else. And, when they finally get it, they complain about something else – such as the lack of “endgame”. It’s sad really, and for his fact alone (this indecisive community), I will always have Anet’s back no matter what they decide to do.

Attila.6348:

As countless of people have said it so far, if you see GW2 as anything other than fun, artistic, and casual video game in which you’re supposed to focus on the uniqueness of its features, you are DOING IT WRONG.

well, thats how i felt before they started to unleash ascended stuff here and there faster than i can aquire it unless i spend 100% of my 15h a week doing what anet wants me to do in pve; dailies and fractals.

oh well… no dead npc in my zone im exploring now…
ok frak it, ill teleport to that spot i know where npcs are always dead…
seriously?

fail.

Attila.6348:

As countless of people have said it so far, if you see GW2 as anything other than fun, artistic, and casual video game in which you’re supposed to focus on the uniqueness of its features, you are DOING IT WRONG.

So what you’re saying is, if we try to compare GW2 against any other game, or hold any expectations for or about GW2, then we’re doing it wrong.

Is this really how the dev team thinks?

This community seems split by the mentality of grinding and not grinding.

There are those who love spending hours on end in FOTM and dungeoning and those that are fine with spending a few in these places not 30+. Interestingly Anet once stated many times how in this game you wouldn’t grinding for stats, and only grind for cosmetics.

In my opinion stat grinding is getting way out of hand. Fotm is a clear example of this, money grinding for stats and one could even argue dungeon grinding (since it takes in many cases over 30 runs to get a set).

Anet once also stated that they were against gear treadmills and now look what we have? With more promised to come! Personally I would be fine with them breaking their manifesto say a couple of years in. Perfectly fine on the condition one could get the ‘new gear’ just as easily as previous gear and with many different methods at that.

Anet the community you attracted to play this game feels lied to. I for one play GW1 and loved it. One of my favourite parts was NOT grinding for stats. I was content on grinding for cosmetics but even that ‘grind’ you gave us so many different options.

As of now we are generally stuck with doing A, B or C.
A being grind for gold in areas like the Tunnel in Orr.
B doing FOTM forever and ever…
C is the option of becoming an investor in the economy and hoping for an okay turnout on our investment.

Anet please at the very least address us your loyal fans and tell us what your future plans on this issue is. Or will you address it at all?

Thank you

I guess everybody missed the memo where they actually did state very clearly that there would be more progression in terms of stats on gear, just no new tiers of gear.

Mike O’brien said: ““I hope we’ve been clear that Guild Wars 2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like Guild Wars was.”

And Chris Whiteside added: “We have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intend to focus on horizontal, but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/28/arenanet-guild-wars-2-gear-debate/

Ansultares.1567:

Attila.6348:

As countless of people have said it so far, if you see GW2 as anything other than fun, artistic, and casual video game in which you’re supposed to focus on the uniqueness of its features, you are DOING IT WRONG.

So what you’re saying is, if we try to compare GW2 against any other game, or hold any expectations for or about GW2, then we’re doing it wrong.

Is this really how the dev team thinks?

Comparing GW2 to any other mmorpg would be wrong, however if you wish to do so, be free. I’m curious how you would compare GW2 and WoW considering they share absolutely nothing apart from the same genre. As far as expectations go, do have them, however these expectations should probably be the same as they were before GW2 was released. If they are, I don’t see why you’re unhappy now. I’m having as much fun in WvW as I did on the release day, especially in an organized group. PvE is the same, everything is the same.
Why? Because fractals don’t affect me in the slightest. I spend most of my time in WvW, and in these 150 hours I have clocked in, I have not once complained that somebody beat me because they had this uber sword or armor. Unlike in WoW, where if you try to PvP at earlier levels, you get twinked to death. Now I could go on forever comparing these two games, but what would be the point? GW2 was created with something entirely else in mind than WoW did. And for me, it delivered.

AlietteFaye.7316:

I guess everybody missed the memo where they actually did state very clearly that there would be more progression in terms of stats on gear, just no new tiers of gear.

Mike O’brien said: ““I hope we’ve been clear that Guild Wars 2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like Guild Wars was.”

And Chris Whiteside added: “We have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intend to focus on horizontal, but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/28/arenanet-guild-wars-2-gear-debate/

A little is fine, but what we have here is a monstrosity. You cannot deny this.

Revolution.6301:

AlietteFaye.7316:

I guess everybody missed the memo where they actually did state very clearly that there would be more progression in terms of stats on gear, just no new tiers of gear.

Mike O’brien said: ““I hope we’ve been clear that Guild Wars 2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like Guild Wars was.”

And Chris Whiteside added: “We have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intend to focus on horizontal, but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/28/arenanet-guild-wars-2-gear-debate/

A little is fine, but what we have here is a monstrosity. You cannot deny this.

I don’t deny anything. I think it is a treadmill, and that they blatantly (and underhandedly) sold a very large amount of their copies to customers that were under the impression of Guild Wars 2 not having any grind/stat progression.

Attila.6348:

Comparing GW2 to any other mmorpg would be wrong, however if you wish to do so, be free. I’m curious how you would compare GW2 and WoW considering they share absolutely nothing apart from the same genre.

Both have a leveling process, both have crafting, both have PvP formats, both have instanced PvE formats (dungeons, and in WoW’s case raids as well).

How are they different?

Attila.6348:

As far as expectations go, do have them, however these expectations should probably be the same as they were before GW2 was released. If they are, I don’t see why you’re unhappy now.

I had no expectations, because I paid no attention to the game’s development.

Attila.6348:

GW2 was created with something entirely else in mind than WoW did.

What, exactly? Other than revenue, which they both share with every other MMO ever made.

Attila.6348:

and in these 150 hours I have clocked in

Well now that makes sense.

Can you guys stop going back and forth about general gear treadmills please? That’s not what this topic is about. This topic is about Fractals and agony resistance, specifically Jade Maw 50.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Revolution.6301:

AlietteFaye.7316:

I guess everybody missed the memo where they actually did state very clearly that there would be more progression in terms of stats on gear, just no new tiers of gear.

Mike O’brien said: ““I hope we’ve been clear that Guild Wars 2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like Guild Wars was.”

And Chris Whiteside added: “We have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intend to focus on horizontal, but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/28/arenanet-guild-wars-2-gear-debate/

A little is fine, but what we have here is a monstrosity. You cannot deny this.

I don’t deny anything. I think it is a treadmill, and that they blatantly (and underhandedly) sold a very large amount of their copies to customers that were under the impression of Guild Wars 2 not having any grind/stat progression.

Yep, it was a bait and switch.

I don’t mind grinds for rare cosmetic gear. Thought that was cool in GW1 and it is TRULY optional.

But grinding for stat plus 1 in endless instanced dungeon runs, forces players into the chase the carrot mentality, while simultaneously emptying out those areas that do not give the same rewards. It is the worst possible design for mmos because they totally devalue all the art assets they worked so hard on while herding everyone into a small, ugly room. Really, really boneheaded design.

The end result has been an empty world and endless Lion’s Arch overflows with people begging for FoTM groups. Sooo much fun… really… the best fun ever invented /rolls eyes.

Revolution.6301:

A little is fine, but what we have here is a monstrosity. You cannot deny this.

What do you mean by that exactly? Do the items demand too much grind? Are the items themselves too powerful? Both?

You see, you can’t just add any gear with any amount of grind required to satisfy people that like prestigious gear progression. If the price is too low, everybody will be able to acquire it very fast and the journey ends too early. If you give some prestigious piece of gear a minimal stat increase and require 1000 hours of play time to get it, even if its virtually ineffective and not required for any content, people will either complain about the unreasonable price or the stat increase being not worth it. You have to strike a balance between relative effectiveness to the next best piece of gear and the time/price/skill it takes to acquire. Ascended gear is noticeably better than exotic gear, but not by a ridiculous amount, and since it’s not needed to experience any PvE content(except agony fotm), the prices can be relatively high compared to other gear tiers.

Could you elaborate on what “monstrosity” you are referring to?

ASB.4295:

Could you elaborate on what “monstrosity” you are referring to?

That it has increased stats at all? That would be my guess.

As far as I’ve been told, Ascended gear and agony resist were put in to create some sort of challenging end-game content for heavily PvE focused players. Agony resist alone carries the mechanic.

All the extra stats serve is to make the gear attractive to less heavily PvE focused players. Basically, all the extra stats serve is to generate the QQ we see on the forums.

Pinch.4273:

That’s not what this topic is about. This topic is about Fractals and agony resistance, specifically Jade Maw 50.

Are you in the wrong thread? Or was your thread merged into this one?

Grim West.3194:

AlietteFaye.7316:

Revolution.6301:

AlietteFaye.7316:

I guess everybody missed the memo where they actually did state very clearly that there would be more progression in terms of stats on gear, just no new tiers of gear.

Mike O’brien said: ““I hope we’ve been clear that Guild Wars 2 is not a game with virtually no stat progression in it like Guild Wars was.”

And Chris Whiteside added: “We have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intend to focus on horizontal, but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.”

Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/28/arenanet-guild-wars-2-gear-debate/

A little is fine, but what we have here is a monstrosity. You cannot deny this.

I don’t deny anything. I think it is a treadmill, and that they blatantly (and underhandedly) sold a very large amount of their copies to customers that were under the impression of Guild Wars 2 not having any grind/stat progression.

Yep, it was a bait and switch.

I don’t mind grinds for rare cosmetic gear. Thought that was cool in GW1 and it is TRULY optional.

But grinding for stat plus 1 in endless instanced dungeon runs, forces players into the chase the carrot mentality, while simultaneously emptying out those areas that do not give the same rewards. It is the worst possible design for mmos because they totally devalue all the art assets they worked so hard on while herding everyone into a small, ugly room. Really, really boneheaded design.

The end result has been an empty world and endless Lion’s Arch overflows with people begging for FoTM groups. Sooo much fun… really… the best fun ever invented /rolls eyes.

they havent yet nailed pve open world endgame content.
so they dumped the fractals in so most people can shut up and grind.

now you have to grind dailes, for laurels.
are you really exploring the world? or you go to places that you know will enable you to finish the daily; lot of events, dead npc and such.
and then do your fractal daily.
and then realise its time to go to bed.

one day… an mmo will “evolve”.
as much as gw2 created an amazing leveling/story experience.
everything beyond exotic gear is, imo, for hardcore players.
but the problem is; they given them more “stats” so the casual feel forced to keep up and they slowly start to hate the game.

Ansultares.1567:

Attila.6348:

Comparing GW2 to any other mmorpg would be wrong, however if you wish to do so, be free. I’m curious how you would compare GW2 and WoW considering they share absolutely nothing apart from the same genre.

Both have a leveling process, both have crafting, both have PvP formats, both have instanced PvE formats (dungeons, and in WoW’s case raids as well).

How are they different?

Attila.6348:

As far as expectations go, do have them, however these expectations should probably be the same as they were before GW2 was released. If they are, I don’t see why you’re unhappy now.

I had no expectations, because I paid no attention to the game’s development.

Attila.6348:

GW2 was created with something entirely else in mind than WoW did.

What, exactly? Other than revenue, which they both share with every other MMO ever made.

Attila.6348:

and in these 150 hours I have clocked in

Well now that makes sense.

As I said, the only thing they have in common is that they are both mmorpgs. This means that they will have what almost all if not ALL mmorpg have, that is: crafting, pvp, pve, dungeons, etc. However, that’s where the similarities end.
GW2 crafting is entirely different than WoW’s.
GW2 has WvW, WoW does not. Yes WAR did have WvW, but it kinda failed. Not for me, but for majority people it did. Not only that but one of GW2’s main features is the WvW. WoW’s is not.
GW2 skill system is different than any game out there.
GW2 dungeon system isn’t as time consuming as any other mmorpg’s dungeons.
GW2 prides itself in its art directions, other mmorpgs do not.
GW2 is NOT based on gear, unlike what half of this community currently thinks. It is not as “obvious” a WoW’s reliance of gear. In WoW, you can’t point out whether you were killed by the skillful player, or someone who just bought his gear with real money and you were killed by his stacked stats.

I could go on forever about this, but what would be the point when people seem to ignore the very things that are in front of them. I have never in my gaming experience, in any mmorpg just stop to look at the surroundings and admire the beauty developers put into it. It was always, get to this spot as quickly as I can and kill things. If you bought Gw2 for this fact alone, you missed half of its premise.

Ansultares.1567:

Pinch.4273:

That’s not what this topic is about. This topic is about Fractals and agony resistance, specifically Jade Maw 50.

Are you in the wrong thread? Or was your thread merged into this one?

No. You guys have started diverging way off course. Go read the first post. It’s about agony resistance and Fractals from a quote by Robert Hrouda.

Ansultares.1567:

All the extra stats serve is to make the gear attractive to less heavily PvE focused players. Basically, all the extra stats serve is to generate the QQ we see on the forums.

Yeah, that’s what I was talking about in my last post. New gear has to have some sort of increased overall effectiveness to justify the amount of grind. If ascended gear was only exotic stat gear with an infusion slot, the current price for it would have had to be lowered, which would make the gear as easy or even easier to acquire than exotic gear. The whole point of ascended gear being prestigious exclusive end game gear would then become moot.

ASB.4295:

The whole point of ascended gear being prestigious exclusive end game gear would then become moot.

I think this is why we see so many complaints about Vertical Progression and Ascended gear, it’s exclusive and has higher stats.

If it was exclusive and had exotic stats, no problem.
If it was higher stats but easy to get, no problem.

Both? ANET LIED, MANIFESTO RUINED, GIVE ME A REFUND, VERTICAL PROGRESSION MEANS MANDATORY GEAR GRIND, WOWCLONE, etc.

ASB.4295:

New gear has to have some sort of increased overall effectiveness to justify the amount of grind. If ascended gear was only exotic stat gear with an infusion slot, the current price for it would have had to be lowered, which would make the gear as easy or even easier to acquire than exotic gear. The whole point of ascended gear being prestigious exclusive end game gear would then become moot.

I was under the impression that the content itself was enough for these players (the ones demanding “endgame”).

Now you’re telling me that they need superior shinies?

Sure sounds like the WoW approach to me.

Your tears feed my treadmill…just sayin’

I wonder how people who defend fractals would think if ANet made it so that the only place to acquire ascended items (before the laurels update) was in sPvP or WvW.

Eladriel.7295:

How many times has Anet told you people that you will not get another tier of gear aside the ascended gear? Do they have to continue til they are blue in the face to get it through that thick head of yours that The ascendant gear is the only tier you will get?

Anet spent years promoting the game on horizontal progression, that progression would be cosmetic only and that a player would not be “less powerful” if they chose not to follow that progression, that the game would have no treadmill and was the “non -mmo” MMO, that the game would only be released when it was ready (LOL) etc, so they’ve already broken their pre-game philosophy, so Anet’s word they won’t break it further does not mean much (especially when you consider they can simply add ever increasingly powerful infusions), which part of that are you having difficulty getting through your own thick head?

Sylosi.6503:

Eladriel.7295:

How many times has Anet told you people that you will not get another tier of gear aside the ascended gear? Do they have to continue til they are blue in the face to get it through that thick head of yours that The ascendant gear is the only tier you will get?

Anet spent years promoting the game on horizontal progression, that progression would be cosmetic only and that a player would not be “less powerful” if they chose not to follow that progression, that the game would have no treadmill and was the “non -mmo” MMO, that the game would only be released when it was ready (LOL) etc, so they’ve already broken their pre-game philosophy, so Anet’s word they won; tbreak it further does not mean much, which part of that are you having difficulty getting through your own thick head?

They maybe promoted it to YOU that way, but I can assure you 100% they did not promote it to ME that way. From day one they promoted a game to me that would be a MMO and be played like one with no subscription fee. If I would have though for a second that it’d be like GW1 with that drab progression system(and not an mmo) I would have never came near it. I knew from the first time I read the announcement in pcgamer that it’d have stat progression and higher levels.

Ansultares.1567:

Now you’re telling me that they need superior shinies?

Sure sounds like the WoW approach to me.

As far as I can see, there has never been a single triple A MMORPG without long term stat progression. It’s not a question of “Did WoW do it?”, or “Does the fact that WoW did it make it bad?”, but simply an answer to a player’s desires, which is to feel like they make themselves better.

You might say stats don’t make a player better, skill does, to which I would agree, but this is about the feeling of improvement, not actually improving yourself. Since the mobs and world don’t learn from your actions and evolve naturally like human NPCs, a player’s ability to feel like they are becoming better in PvE through sheer skill is very limited. The stimuli of beating a discreet piece of content can last only so long before it stops being satisfying. With AI, especially if it’s limited to a simple set of behaviors one can count on the fingers of one’s hand, simply cannot provide content developers with enough versatility to continually create new and unique challenges. Players want and crave the primitive emotion of “ME BETTER, ME STRONGER”, even if is illusionary and doesn’t last forever either. The point is, it’s a reliable way of providing a majority of players with this feeling, over and over. The same type of emotion can be attained in high level fotm. Fotm is simply stat progression applied to the game world, plus some added AI mechanics here and there I believe.
Unique, challenging PvE content, although theoretically a superior form of player progression, is far to expensive and laborious to create in a reliable way that is guaranteed to make a big part of the player base feel better about themselves once they have beaten it. Stat progression is a predictable, reliable and cheaper “Dinging” stimulant to produce. It may not feel as good for some, but overall, its a lot less risky. Usually. It’s not so safe if you give players the impression they wouldn’t be confronted with it and then implement it in a half-aƒƒed way.

You can get up to fractal level 19 without any AR. Agony does almost nothing before level 20. The stat increase is barely noticeable.

problem with stat increase is that it creates a rat race.

there must be a way to reward player repeating content without needing a “stat increase”.