Guild Wars 2

Heijincks.9267:

The cynicism on this forum…

It’s been earned by the disappointment some people felt, at various points. Drop rates aren’t good enough and Black Lion traders charge “too much” as they play the market for profit. Ascended Gear was put in, though currently it’s low-impact on anything other than Agony. The one-time event of Lost Shores didn’t meet up with hype due to half a dozen reasons. The idea of Fractals doesn’t mesh with what they want to be doing with their time. The only thing to really do after hitting level 80 and doing map completion is moving into PvP or WvW. The list grows the more you listen to people.

The thing that gets me is . . . a lot of this sort of thing was going on the first year of GW1. I did start playing the week after it got released publicly and it evolved a lot since the beginning. And even still, lots of the complaints above can be carried backwards and applied to GW1 the same way. And some old ones about GW1 can still apply to GW2. (Exhibit A: “These festival hats stunk, why can’t we have something cooler?”)

Now, as for on topic . . . to the original poster:

From your perspective GW2 is “gear treadmill” based. I don’t see it there yet. There’s a definite progression, but I find it hard to call it a “gear treadmill” based on there being 6 rarities of gear and somewhat easy access to 5 of them while the 6th is barely existing just now.

And before you start aiming at me over that last paragraph, I said “not yet”. It can still happen, it may still happen, but I don’t think we’re there yet. But you won’t see me apologizing, recanting, and raving about it if it happens . . . mostly because I’ll be just moving on to the next game if it gets bad enough to discourage me from playing.

Heck maybe I’ll finally try to learn how to play Dwarf Fortress.

This is the easiest game set on easy mode…

people still rage about how hard it is…

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Thay may still believe that but at the end of the day there still a business and there in it to make a profit. You may believe that people like you who want only horizontal are the majority but thats just not true.

I don’t see how they can make money from gear grind, on the contrary. Either way, I am not going to grind for gear in order to be able to play the only part of the game that has some lasting interest.

As is Anet is trying to compromise, giveing us new tears of gear but without forceing us to have them in order to do content.

The power difference is to great, you won’t stand a chance in exotics going against a player in ascended. And as it stands, ascended gear is too much of a grind to acquire.

Astralporing.1957:

Heijincks.9267:

Introduction of better than ascended isn’t guaranteed

I’m basing my expectations on dev info, in which they clearly said that they are going to continue forward with “item progression” (including such things as adding items with increased stats within already existing tiers, for example). And 2014 is, interesingly enough, the moment just after all ascended eq will be released (so, we can expect it to be obsoleted as soon as a month after you complete the full set).

And i didn’t start as cynical – my attitude changed as a result of things happening in this game since release. In fact, i’m still afraid that i’m not cynical enough.

Well I sure haven’t seen them say they were going to bring forth stuff higher than ascended. I don’t expect them to not do so, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say they’re going to do what you say they’ll do.

I’d like to see this.

Heijincks.9267:

Astralporing.1957:

Heijincks.9267:

Introduction of better than ascended isn’t guaranteed

I’m basing my expectations on dev info, in which they clearly said that they are going to continue forward with “item progression” (including such things as adding items with increased stats within already existing tiers, for example). And 2014 is, interesingly enough, the moment just after all ascended eq will be released (so, we can expect it to be obsoleted as soon as a month after you complete the full set).

And i didn’t start as cynical – my attitude changed as a result of things happening in this game since release. In fact, i’m still afraid that i’m not cynical enough.

Well I sure haven’t seen them say they were going to bring forth stuff higher than ascended. I don’t expect them to not do so, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say they’re going to do what you say they’ll do.

I’d like to see this.

They’ve said they won’t be coming out with a new tier of gear every three months like other games. They also said this was a missing tier, something they’d want have included at launch but they couldn’t hold back launch any longer (paraphrasing here).

Basically this was put in to give people a tier of stuff between exotics and legendaries because they leap between the two was too far. I don’t think it’ll be a big deal in the long run.

It’s only a big deal now because people are scared. They really don’t see why the devs did it. I’m not scared because I see exactly why they did.

Astralporing.1957:

Heijincks.9267:

Introduction of better than ascended isn’t guaranteed

I’m basing my expectations on dev info, in which they clearly said that they are going to continue forward with “item progression” (including such things as adding items with increased stats within already existing tiers, for example). And 2014 is, interesingly enough, the moment just after all ascended eq will be released (so, we can expect it to be obsoleted as soon as a month after you complete the full set).

And i didn’t start as cynical – my attitude changed as a result of things happening in this game since release. In fact, i’m still afraid that i’m not cynical enough.

Yeah, its a pity but you really aren’t be cynical at all. If you were being cynical you would really be looking at this like a slippery slope but you not. Your looking at it as what it is.

And to continue, just remove stats from ascended or make it as easy to get as exotic, and let people sell ascended in the TP.

frans.8092:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Thay may still believe that but at the end of the day there still a business and there in it to make a profit. You may believe that people like you who want only horizontal are the majority but thats just not true.

I don’t see how they can make money from gear grind, on the contrary. Either way, I am not going to grind for gear in order to be able to play the only part of the game that has some lasting interest.

As is Anet is trying to compromise, giveing us new tears of gear but without forceing us to have them in order to do content.

The power difference is to great, you won’t stand a chance in exotics going against a player in ascended. And as it stands, ascended gear is too much of a grind to acquire.

Exactly.

The fact is if you compare 1 piece of exotic vs asended there is a small difference but ADD up all the differences between them in a full geared character and its quite huge.

No if people want a treadmill play ANY mmo. Maplestory does an amazing job with that. Or Perfect World.

I just wish that the game was still designed in a manor where its leaning towards casuals.

IMO legendary weapons for a person that plays an hour a day will take over a year maybe even 2 to get. If the time was lowered from 1000 hours to 250 to get on average then atleast the casuals -ones with jobs and schools and social lives would have a chance.

All the gear hating people, what do you want ? that we remove all gear from the game ?

Zeanix.8624:

All the gear hating people, what do you want ? that we remove all gear from the game ?

Or make it widely accessible, through all the same methods as exotics, at no more than twice the cost/time/effort. That’s for ascended.
Preferably, of course, all the top tier gear would have been accessible more easily than exotics currently (like it was in GW1). Too bad that didn’t happen.

Basically, i do not want gear to take the place of content. Instead i want actual content.

Revolution.6301:

frans.8092:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Thay may still believe that but at the end of the day there still a business and there in it to make a profit. You may believe that people like you who want only horizontal are the majority but thats just not true.

I don’t see how they can make money from gear grind, on the contrary. Either way, I am not going to grind for gear in order to be able to play the only part of the game that has some lasting interest.a!

As is Anet is trying to compromise, giveing us new tears of gear but without forceing us to have them in order to do content.

The power difference is to great, you won’t stand a chance in exotics going against a player in ascended. And as it stands, ascended gear is too much of a grind to acquire.

Exactly.

The fact is if you compare 1 piece of exotic vs asended there is a small difference but ADD up all the differences between them in a full geared character and its quite huge.

No if people want a treadmill play ANY mmo. Maplestory does an amazing job with that. Or Perfect World.

I just wish that the game was still designed in a manor where its leaning towards casuals.

IMO legendary weapons for a person that plays an hour a day will take over a year maybe even 2 to get. If the time was lowered from 1000 hours to 250 to get on average then atleast the casuals -ones with jobs and schools and social lives would have a chance.

and yet i still kill people with ascended gear in wvw, not that it matters much because WvW is ment to be show and be bassed on the over all stringth of the sever.

So seeing that in in pve it dosnt matter how much stronger thay are than you because you can still do ALL THE CONTENT!

Astralporing.1957:

Zeanix.8624:

All the gear hating people, what do you want ? that we remove all gear from the game ?

Or make it widely accessible, through all the same methods as exotics, at no more than twice the cost/time/effort. That’s for ascended.
Preferably, of course, all the top tier gear would have been accessible more easily than exotics currently (like it was in GW1). Too bad that didn’t happen.

Basically, i do not want gear to take the place of content. Instead i want actual content.

Even if I had read it dozens of times, GW1 top tier gear being more accessible than GW2 exotics is something that I don’t know if I should agree with.

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).
Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon? There wasn’t any green weapon rewarded on campaign completion, and both collector and crafted weapons (idk if this last one even existed, but 5 plat would had been a really good chunk of money at that time) were lacking upgrades/bonuses you had to RANDOMLY recycle from other rare items.
In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.
Even if buying a raw top-tier armor was really cheap, superior health runes were still pretty expensive and some insignias (which were given to you for free on vanilla, but must to be bought at this point) were more expensive than the armor itself (a shaman ritualist insignia was for a bit more than 4 plat iirc while armor pieces were 1 plat each).
Getting a good weapon was far easier for many reasons. Crafteds were much more accesible money-wise, you were rewarded with a green weapon on each campaign completion, there were a lot of champions along the world that dropped complementary green items, salvaging wasn’t random, …
I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

Narkosys.5173:

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.

Whatever… I know what I read. So get over it.

Soulstar.7812:

This is the easiest game set on easy mode…

people still rage about how hard it is…

I assume you posted this in the wrong thread, because it has nothing to do with what’s being discussed in this one.

Even if this were entirely true, supposing for arguments sake, what else is there to do at the end-game of an MMO? WoW has raiding, but that itself is a gear treadmill/loot pinata.

Dailies? We have that, a small version of it, and trying to implement more would likely do the same to GW2 as it did to WoW in the last quarter – hemorrhage subscriptions/players.

PvP? So far as I have seen, there is no perfect balance in any game, but we like to complain anyway.

Dungeons? We have tons of those, and it is certainly grindy to complete an armor set and get the weapons you need – but grindy can be motivating.

This is the typical formula for most games, and while I’m not saying that I would oppose more variety, I am just not sure what the answer is. Mini-games and jumping puzzles make me want to die, so none of that. >_>

Vargamonth.2047:

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).
Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon? There wasn’t any green weapon rewarded on campaign completion, and both collector and crafted weapons (idk if this last one even existed, but 5 plat would had been a really good chunk of money at that time) were lacking upgrades/bonuses you had to RANDOMLY recycle from other rare items.
In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.
Even if buying a raw top-tier armor was really cheap, superior health runes were still pretty expensive and some insignias (which were given to you for free on vanilla, but must to be bought at this point) were more expensive than the armor itself (a shaman ritualist insignia was for a bit more than 4 plat iirc while armor pieces were 1 plat each).
Getting a good weapon was far easier for many reasons. Crafteds were much more accesible money-wise, you were rewarded with a green weapon on each campaign completion, there were a lot of champions along the world that dropped complementary green items, salvaging wasn’t random, …
I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

Yeah, and the point where the PvE only skills got a lot of exposure was where a lot of people I heard in towns were saying GW1 had “died” much in the same fashion as the Ascended Gear added into this game are making this splash. Eye of the North was received with very mixed reactions but it petered out because people actually quit rather than hung around saying how much it sucked.

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

Lastly, while it was easy to get a maximum stat weapon . . . it was not easy or cheap to get a dropped one with “Requirement 9” on it, which would allow people to free up large bits of their build. Let alone the rare, and often-hunted maximum stat requirement 8. For those you could name your price if it was a rare skin.

Green weapons were often not looked for for stats (except in some cases where they dropped/came with combinations which could not be replicated) but because they often had the rarer skin/dye combinations people wanted. And, as people will point out, the green uniques you could get post-campaign were often lackluster. At least when they added them to Prophecies finally they allowed you to weaponsmith the skins as a “Rare” and add your own mods

Vargamonth.2047:

Astralporing.1957:

Zeanix.8624:

All the gear hating people, what do you want ? that we remove all gear from the game ?

Or make it widely accessible, through all the same methods as exotics, at no more than twice the cost/time/effort. That’s for ascended.
Preferably, of course, all the top tier gear would have been accessible more easily than exotics currently (like it was in GW1). Too bad that didn’t happen.

Basically, i do not want gear to take the place of content. Instead i want actual content.

Even if I had read it dozens of times, GW1 top tier gear being more accessible than GW2 exotics is something that I don’t know if I should agree with.

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).
Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon? There wasn’t any green weapon rewarded on campaign completion, and both collector and crafted weapons (idk if this last one even existed, but 5 plat would had been a really good chunk of money at that time) were lacking upgrades/bonuses you had to RANDOMLY recycle from other rare items.
In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.
Even if buying a raw top-tier armor was really cheap, superior health runes were still pretty expensive and some insignias (which were given to you for free on vanilla, but must to be bought at this point) were more expensive than the armor itself (a shaman ritualist insignia was for a bit more than 4 plat iirc while armor pieces were 1 plat each).
Getting a good weapon was far easier for many reasons. Crafteds were much more accesible money-wise, you were rewarded with a green weapon on each campaign completion, there were a lot of champions along the world that dropped complementary green items, salvaging wasn’t random, …
I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

Rune of Major Vigor = Health +41
Rune of Superior Vigor = Health +50

9 hp difference xD

Erick Alastor.3917:

Vargamonth.2047:

Astralporing.1957:

Zeanix.8624:

All the gear hating people, what do you want ? that we remove all gear from the game ?

Or make it widely accessible, through all the same methods as exotics, at no more than twice the cost/time/effort. That’s for ascended.
Preferably, of course, all the top tier gear would have been accessible more easily than exotics currently (like it was in GW1). Too bad that didn’t happen.

Basically, i do not want gear to take the place of content. Instead i want actual content.

Even if I had read it dozens of times, GW1 top tier gear being more accessible than GW2 exotics is something that I don’t know if I should agree with.

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).
Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon? There wasn’t any green weapon rewarded on campaign completion, and both collector and crafted weapons (idk if this last one even existed, but 5 plat would had been a really good chunk of money at that time) were lacking upgrades/bonuses you had to RANDOMLY recycle from other rare items.
In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.
Even if buying a raw top-tier armor was really cheap, superior health runes were still pretty expensive and some insignias (which were given to you for free on vanilla, but must to be bought at this point) were more expensive than the armor itself (a shaman ritualist insignia was for a bit more than 4 plat iirc while armor pieces were 1 plat each).
Getting a good weapon was far easier for many reasons. Crafteds were much more accesible money-wise, you were rewarded with a green weapon on each campaign completion, there were a lot of champions along the world that dropped complementary green items, salvaging wasn’t random, …
I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

Rune of Major Vigor = Health +41
Rune of Superior Vigor = Health +50

9 hp difference xD

9 hp for a 540 total health pool equals 250 for a 15k one. It’s far from a lot and I used myself a major one (as almost everybody i guess) for a really long time, but still an obvious upgrade and something that IMO should be taken to account when arguing about max stat gear and how things were much easier on GW1 (we are talking about something that would give 25 attribute points on GW2).

Its funny like all threads like this becomes 4 to 5 ppl saying the same thing over and over though nearly all the pages. I am not sure if the official forms are the places to have an what “talk at” because this is no argument no points of views will be changed by reading this.

Anet really should comment on this, and tell how why they’re changing things to such an extreme.

ASB.4295:

What most probably happened was that they had one part of the Lost Shores patch ready, but not the other. Either the dungeon wasn’t ready, or the agony resistance mechanic buggy, who knows. Judging from how empty SCove is, my money is on unfinished maps/dungeon.

The dungeon was probably in design before release. Whether they originally intended to employ the stat padding ascended received is unknown. Whether the dungeon was even intended to use the agony mechanic is unknown; the level progression makes sense if you remove agony and view it simply as a “endless” dungeon, or it makes sense if you pull a Jay Wilson and take your current gating mechanic and “double it,” but it doesn’t make sense if you’re designing agony from the ground up and aren’t looking to intentionally screw with players by pulling the Wilson.

The zone was obviously thrown together at the last minute in order to facilitate the release of the dungeon. Unless F&F revamps it, it probably won’t receive an update for a very long time, because redesigning a throwaway zone seems like a low priority compared to designing brand new zones.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Eye of the North was received with very mixed reactions but it petered out because people actually quit rather than hung around saying how much it sucked.

They probably stuck around saying how much it sucked and then quit.

Narkosys.5173:

Yup Dungeon grinding gated content game.
Treadmill is alive and well.
It is just another clone and does nothing unique and so on to the next game.
Maybe just maybe they wont lie to people in the prelaunch about their intentions with the game to get money from them.
And another Dev goes on the banned list to not buy from.

Thanks for playing see you next time.
PS they stated this in Nov 15 so really is nothing new. I have the same opinion then as I do now.
Now is the time for the fanboi rally – Tally ho all

Why is it that people who disagree with you are fanbois?

The game does many things unique, or at least uncommon.

Your main skills are based on what weapon you’re wielding and how much use of the weapon you have, instead of what level you are. That’s refreshing and pretty new.

Gathering materials aren’t based on your profession or crafting profession, you have the same access as everyone else. You can gather for your alts who have different crafting skills. That’s a pretty open gathering ability. If you change crafting professions, you don’t lose your learned recipes. That’s way different than the standard crafting understanding.

Weapon/attunement switching in combat. Greatest solution ever to the cooldown blues.

The levelling down of high level characters in low level areas. Sure, some games do side-kicking and mentoring, but not many reward you as well for helping out lower level characters. On the flip side, uplevelling of characters for wvw and pvp is also fairly uncommon, a chance to try stuff out before committing your character to a specific trait path.

There’s many more but these are what stuck out for me.

pdboddy.4162:

There’s many more but these are what stuck out for me.

Does JDPower give awards to car manufacturers because they include power steering?

Minor and obvious in hindsight improvements are never recognized, only copied.

Personal nodes will be standard in any AAA MMO from here on, to the point where you’ll probably even see unique nodes re-introduced specifically for players to “fight” over.

Still, not as hilarious a claim as the guy who said Anet is the only MMO developer to care about the art direction of its game. Every development studio cares about its art direction, except for BWA with SWTOR; they cared so much that they outsourced it.

People are taking the whole “gear treadmill” thing completely out of proportions.

Ever since the start of the game, there’s always been a gear treadmill. Is not going from masterworks to exotics a gear treadmill in one sense or another?

Then people whine about “Ooooooh, ascended. WoW clone now”.

Which is simply completely wrong. The “gear treadmill” of GW2 does not even come close to the likes of almost every other MMO. Sure, it might require you to “catch up” in terms of gear, but doing so doesn’t even take a fraction of the work you’d have to do if you were playing another MMO. In other MMOs, you can never, ever have the best gear unless you pour your entire life into the game, and sometimes that isn’t even possible.

I reckon that people who say that are really inexperienced with MMORPGs.

Vargamonth.2047:

Even if I had read it dozens of times, GW1 top tier gear being more accessible than GW2 exotics is something that I don’t know if I should agree with.

Well, it’s not something you can disagree on because quite frankly, it was readily accessible for everyone.

If you look at vanilla Prophecies, making tons of money was far from something you achieve naturally. By the time you reached Droknar, you probably had to invest all your funds in order to get the top-tier armor which still came without runes at all (and a Superior Health one wasn’t exactly cheap).

Majors were dirt cheap, actually the better choice for many cases and, since you mention it, the Major vigor one was 9 HP away from superior (out 480). Besides, I had them drop occasionally, they were hardly rare.

Then you had the weapon issue. ¿How were you supposed to get your top tier weapon?

Collector weapons were top tier, they didn’t have the skins and you had to put the upgrades on them yourself, but those could be salvaged from stuff you found.
And actually, a gold bow dropping meant something, exciting. I’d be curious for it, now, we all know what, where and what to get, some even before they make a character.

I didn’t have my first and main fully equipped by the end of the campaign, but I never had to grind for what was missing by then.

Ascended gear will take a month of doing dailies per item.

In order to get, lets say, a perfect health sword pommel, you needed: a) a rare sword to drop, b) that sword having a pefect health sword pommel and c) getting randmoly the pommel instead of any other upgrade the weapon could had.

Mhh, you can select the upgrade, might have been different at launch but I can’t remember not being able to select the upgrade I wanted salvaged. And you could buy stuff from other players.

If you look at latest versions, gearing could seem easier since money was given to you nonstop, but it still had its tricky parts.

Why you could buy everything. Most runes and insignias were dirt cheap and the ones that weren’t because of popularity weren’t the best pick anyway.

I feel however that there are a couple of points about the latest versions of GW1 that affect the “gearing” process and need to be taken into account
a) The game became highly oriented to 7H groups, which means that you should probably unblock skills and get some runes/insignias/weapons for each one of your 7H, probably more (and obviously unblock the heroes themselves).
b) There were really powerful PvE-only skills which performed based on rank levels, so even if it wasn’t gearing at all, you still had to earn/farm those rank points (which were character based iirc) in order to perform at full potential (this was eased A LOT with one of the latest patches, not too far from the launch of GW2).

a) By the time 7H were introduced my main was quite capable of gearing them on a whim. And you didn’t have to take 7 heroes, you could still use the same henchmen you used before, seven of them if you wanted.
b) Most became quite effective at levels obtainable by playing through content. But yeah, they where grind material, that’s true.

Vayne.8563:

Right, my point is it was one line, in one interview. I think there was a second line somewhere. Dozens of things have been changed in this game since then. People keep saying Anet went against their manifesto. They didn’t. They said one thing in an interview, with one guy, and that in essence is the problem.

So what would you do. Anet had a game with exotics being easy to get. They saw people not going after lengendaries, the grind was too long. And you have a TON of people who came to this game who wouldn’t go for cosmetic gear unless there was SOME stat increase. You’d do what they did. You’d compromise.

You give people a single dungeon to grind. You’d keep the main damage to that dungeon, and you’d make the stat upgrade really really minor, which it is. It’s a compromise. It wasn’t their original idea. Big deal. But so many things have changed since this game was annouced.

They announced energy potions and then changed it so the game had no energy. They talked about energy potions endlessly, trying to sell us on the idea. Until they did away with energy. And no one said word one because they liked it.

This was a change they didn’t like and suddenly everyone is saying that they went against their manifesto. No. They didn’t. They changed a single aspect of the game to appeal to a certain type of player, while trying to affect everyone else as minimally as possible.

One line in an interview in an MMO, a game type that changes constantly isn’t a betrayal, or even going back on your word…because I’m sure when that was said that the dev who said it believed it could work. And then they found it wouldn’t.

The only thing going on here is that fans are seeing this as a precusor (pun intended) to a full blow gear grind, and it’s not. It’s Anet making a compromise to try to keep the larger number of players. It’s a sound business decision.

Well the problem is that one guy is the president of ANet, not just some dev. What he says carries weight. Reading that interview and others like it, plus the manifesto is what convinced me and I’m sure others to pre-purchase the game and support their original ideas they were touting, which attracted certain types of players ie. the ones looking for something different.

Changing such core features around once the game was released is deceiving and really if they didn’t know they could keep such promises, then they shouldn’t of over hyped the game with such claims. Revolutionary MMO? Not anymore now that they caved and compromised to imitate other MMOs that are already out there.

I honestly thought ANet would stick to their philosophy they kept preaching pre-release, I now know they just like most mainstream devs out there, willing to flip flop for an extra buck. That’s fine, their a business, but not the kind I’m willing to support. It also throws out another question, what will they flip flop on next to increase profits?

LOCO.1785:

Vayne.8563:

Right, my point is it was one line, in one interview. I think there was a second line somewhere. Dozens of things have been changed in this game since then. People keep saying Anet went against their manifesto. They didn’t. They said one thing in an interview, with one guy, and that in essence is the problem.

So what would you do. Anet had a game with exotics being easy to get. They saw people not going after lengendaries, the grind was too long. And you have a TON of people who came to this game who wouldn’t go for cosmetic gear unless there was SOME stat increase. You’d do what they did. You’d compromise.

You give people a single dungeon to grind. You’d keep the main damage to that dungeon, and you’d make the stat upgrade really really minor, which it is. It’s a compromise. It wasn’t their original idea. Big deal. But so many things have changed since this game was annouced.

They announced energy potions and then changed it so the game had no energy. They talked about energy potions endlessly, trying to sell us on the idea. Until they did away with energy. And no one said word one because they liked it.

This was a change they didn’t like and suddenly everyone is saying that they went against their manifesto. No. They didn’t. They changed a single aspect of the game to appeal to a certain type of player, while trying to affect everyone else as minimally as possible.

One line in an interview in an MMO, a game type that changes constantly isn’t a betrayal, or even going back on your word…because I’m sure when that was said that the dev who said it believed it could work. And then they found it wouldn’t.

The only thing going on here is that fans are seeing this as a precusor (pun intended) to a full blow gear grind, and it’s not. It’s Anet making a compromise to try to keep the larger number of players. It’s a sound business decision.

Well the problem is that one guy is the president of ANet, not just some dev. What he says carries weight. Reading that interview and others like it, plus the manifesto is what convinced me and I’m sure others to pre-purchase the game and support their original ideas they were touting, which attracted certain types of players ie. the ones looking for something different.

Changing such core features around once the game was released is deceiving and really if they didn’t know they could keep such promises, then they shouldn’t of over hyped the game with such claims. Revolutionary MMO? Not anymore now that they caved and compromised to imitate other MMOs that are already out there.

I honestly thought ANet would stick to their philosophy they kept preaching pre-release, I now know they just like most mainstream devs out there, willing to flip flop for an extra buck. That’s fine, their a business, but not the kind I’m willing to support. It also throws out another question, what will they flip flop on next to increase profits?

This is persisly why threads like this are created.
Look if people love gear treadmills go to any other mmo out there that has it. Wait..ALL mmos have it. For example Vindictus. WoW, Maplestory, Runescape, ALL Perfect World games etc…

It would just be nice if the treadmill ended in this game. And fix the current one. Really 2 hours to get through 1 dungeon! I don’t have 2 hours! Nor does alot of others. We have our hour, thats it. So please get rid of it. Or make it shorter with the same rewards as the full length one.

There once were MMOs with no gear treadmills, and one is still out there somewhere, though I don’t advocate going to look for it. It is a primitive and brutal place where player versus player exists anywhere you’re not in a town (and if you’re guilded, in town too). The monsters are laughably simple to kill and farm, money is simple to make, and there’s no fee for playing.

And then there’s Ultima Online, which had no gear treadmill so to speak. And it still had plenty wrong with it :P

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

There once were MMOs with no gear treadmills, and one is still out there somewhere, though I don’t advocate going to look for it. It is a primitive and brutal place where player versus player exists anywhere you’re not in a town (and if you’re guilded, in town too). The monsters are laughably simple to kill and farm, money is simple to make, and there’s no fee for playing.

And then there’s Ultima Online, which had no gear treadmill so to speak. And it still had plenty wrong with it :P

But thats because they didn’t do the no-gear treadmill correctly. Anet is full of smart people that I’m sure can figure out how to make it.

For example improve rewards on jumping puzzle chests! For ridicilously hard ones give us a few rare with a chance of an exotic.

LOCO.1785:

Vayne.8563:

Right, my point is it was one line, in one interview. I think there was a second line somewhere. Dozens of things have been changed in this game since then. People keep saying Anet went against their manifesto. They didn’t. They said one thing in an interview, with one guy, and that in essence is the problem.

So what would you do. Anet had a game with exotics being easy to get. They saw people not going after lengendaries, the grind was too long. And you have a TON of people who came to this game who wouldn’t go for cosmetic gear unless there was SOME stat increase. You’d do what they did. You’d compromise.

You give people a single dungeon to grind. You’d keep the main damage to that dungeon, and you’d make the stat upgrade really really minor, which it is. It’s a compromise. It wasn’t their original idea. Big deal. But so many things have changed since this game was annouced.

They announced energy potions and then changed it so the game had no energy. They talked about energy potions endlessly, trying to sell us on the idea. Until they did away with energy. And no one said word one because they liked it.

This was a change they didn’t like and suddenly everyone is saying that they went against their manifesto. No. They didn’t. They changed a single aspect of the game to appeal to a certain type of player, while trying to affect everyone else as minimally as possible.

One line in an interview in an MMO, a game type that changes constantly isn’t a betrayal, or even going back on your word…because I’m sure when that was said that the dev who said it believed it could work. And then they found it wouldn’t.

The only thing going on here is that fans are seeing this as a precusor (pun intended) to a full blow gear grind, and it’s not. It’s Anet making a compromise to try to keep the larger number of players. It’s a sound business decision.

Well the problem is that one guy is the president of ANet, not just some dev. What he says carries weight. Reading that interview and others like it, plus the manifesto is what convinced me and I’m sure others to pre-purchase the game and support their original ideas they were touting, which attracted certain types of players ie. the ones looking for something different.

Changing such core features around once the game was released is deceiving and really if they didn’t know they could keep such promises, then they shouldn’t of over hyped the game with such claims. Revolutionary MMO? Not anymore now that they caved and compromised to imitate other MMOs that are already out there.

I honestly thought ANet would stick to their philosophy they kept preaching pre-release, I now know they just like most mainstream devs out there, willing to flip flop for an extra buck. That’s fine, their a business, but not the kind I’m willing to support. It also throws out another question, what will they flip flop on next to increase profits?

I don’t care WHO said it. It was still one line from one interview. He was talking casually about an idea, or a concept. You can’t translate that into saying there’ll never ever be a gear increase in Guild Wars 2, particularly because that interview was pre-release. Development stuff changes all the time.

Taking a line from a prerelease interview from anyone and saying I bought the game based on that is pretty risky if you ask me. And again, there is NO gear treadmill here. It’s a gentle slope. I don’t have a single piece of ascended gear and I do everything in the game. You do not have to go get that gear.

Anet isn’t going back on it’s core principles, so much as trying to please people on both sides of the fence. That’s the problem with a good compromise. Neither side feels they get the best of the deal.

Revolution.6301:

Anet really should comment on this, and tell how why they’re changing things to such an extreme.

They have and sadly the verdict is not good, they’ve basically decided to keep everything that’s controversial, game breaking, and that harms the player community.

I learned that as a legit farmer the day they said “they love legit farmer type players and they want nothing more then to adjust DR to make it not harm the players anymore” and then turn right around the next week and nerf the last dragon event’s loot so that it no longer drops any rares anymore unless you’re one of the “secret loot table lottery winners” that seems to be rampant. One side of the aisle is getting nothing while another is getting every drop.

Revolution.6301:

But thats because they didn’t do the no-gear treadmill correctly. Anet is full of smart people that I’m sure can figure out how to make it.

For example improve rewards on jumping puzzle chests! For ridicilously hard ones give us a few rare with a chance of an exotic.

. . . you’re not comprehending me. “No gear treadmill” doesn’t make a game good by simply having that. Saying “if there wasn’t any gear treadmills games would be better” fails to acknowledge there’s other aspects that make a game not so good.

Guild Wars 2 has problems other than the perceived “gear treadmill”. Even if everyone was handed top-shelf equipment as they hit 80, there would still be 90% of the problem which people have noticed and complain about. Just erasing the “gear treadmill” doesn’t fix the rest of the problems, nor does it begin to address them.

tigirius.9014:

Revolution.6301:

Anet really should comment on this, and tell how why they’re changing things to such an extreme.

They have and sadly the verdict is not good, they’ve basically decided to keep everything that’s controversial, game breaking, and that harms the player community.

I learned that as a legit farmer the day they said “they love legit farmer type players and they want nothing more then to adjust DR to make it not harm the players anymore” and then turn right around the next week and nerf the last dragon event’s loot so that it no longer drops any rares anymore unless you’re one of the “secret loot table lottery winners” that seems to be rampant. One side of the aisle is getting nothing while another is getting every drop.

Strangely, I usually get at least one rare out of the Claw of Jormag chest. Unfortunately, it’s usually been a Crest. Of a type I don’t use. It’s the Temple chests I have real issues with. All that crap going through for defeating the Risen Priestess of Lyssa and I get 4 blues and a small bundle of coin. . . . I’d love for them to take a look at chests and rework how it chooses loot so it would guarantee a Rare item or higher, but only once per day. (Why that last bit? Because they won’t just guarantee a Rare with no strings, that’d be silly and feed into people purposefully trying to let the Temples flip just to retake them again for another Rare.)

Incidentally, this is sort of one of the problems I mentioned earlier – the chests from large meta-events in later levels have such a broad loot table it’s really difficult to acquire good drops out of them.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

I earned 15k+ from an evening playing pvp, which I completely enjoyed. The earnings in WvW are really abysmal by comparison. An armbrace was SO much more affordable than a highly demanded precursor. Really, the only GW1 item comparable was a full set of Obsidian Armor. And even that does not compare to the full requirements of a Legendary weapon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

tigirius.9014:

Revolution.6301:

Anet really should comment on this, and tell how why they’re changing things to such an extreme.

They have and sadly the verdict is not good, they’ve basically decided to keep everything that’s controversial, game breaking, and that harms the player community.

I learned that as a legit farmer the day they said “they love legit farmer type players and they want nothing more then to adjust DR to make it not harm the players anymore” and then turn right around the next week and nerf the last dragon event’s loot so that it no longer drops any rares anymore unless you’re one of the “secret loot table lottery winners” that seems to be rampant. One side of the aisle is getting nothing while another is getting every drop.

Strangely, I usually get at least one rare out of the Claw of Jormag chest. Unfortunately, it’s usually been a Crest. Of a type I don’t use. It’s the Temple chests I have real issues with. All that crap going through for defeating the Risen Priestess of Lyssa and I get 4 blues and a small bundle of coin. . . . I’d love for them to take a look at chests and rework how it chooses loot so it would guarantee a Rare item or higher, but only once per day. (Why that last bit? Because they won’t just guarantee a Rare with no strings, that’d be silly and feed into people purposefully trying to let the Temples flip just to retake them again for another Rare.)

Incidentally, this is sort of one of the problems I mentioned earlier – the chests from large meta-events in later levels have such a broad loot table it’s really difficult to acquire good drops out of them.

Yeah, wish we’d get atleast 1 rare out of them. And doing jumping puzzles could (if they did it properly) become a way to make money.

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly? There was also the expense of the prestige armor, which cost 15k per piece to start with, then cost rare materials which might not be easy or cheap to get. There was the insane cost of getting certain weapon skins, or buying Armbraces. As much as people want to talk about the high cost of Precursors here? I just remember what some people were charging for Armbraces (and by extension “Gem Sets”) in the end days I was on GW1 and sigh.

I earned 15k+ from an evening playing pvp, which I completely enjoyed. The earnings in WvW are really abysmal by comparison. An armbrace was SO much more affordable than a highly demanded precursor. Really, the only GW1 item comparable was a full set of Obsidian Armor. And even that does not compare to the full requirements of a Legendary weapon.

. . . no? I’d beg to differ. Obsidian Armor required an obscene amount of both Ectoplasm and Obsidian Shards which you could only get two ways: drops in either Underworld or Fissure of Woe, or purchasing them (either from the Trader or other players).

Then you had to have the platinum to afford it, and be sure you had the whole set of materials in hand when you enter Fissure of Woe and go to complete the series of missions to allow the Eternal Forgemaster to make it for you. This was, naturally, the easy part of it.

There are people in my guild who never made that armor. As far as I’m aware we had only one person who decided they wanted it for the appearance on their Paragon and it took a lot of effort to get it. Seven years, and the closest I came was having something like 30 Ectos and 10 Shards before I started the prerelease for GW2. To put it bluntly, if you were not grinding your fingers off you were exceedingly lucky. Or you were both.

That last sentence right there also adequately describes your hunt for a Legendary weapon here in GW2.

Edit: Also feel the need to clarify, the 15k armor was 15k PER PIECE, for a total of 75k cost for the whole suit.

“Gear” and potions/food (a photo in your back pack) is the only items the game currently offers to play for. The main problem is lack of items to play for, which makes the gameplay feel like “grinding, treadmill, trademill” to get that ONE special item offered.

Putting fun into the game needs:

—tons of items to play for
—lots of new items added regularly to continue playing for.
—a place to show off earned treasures/achievements/trophies (custom player housing)
—personalized group settings add social (customizable guild halls)
—a rewarding crafting system.

Most would agree that finding/earning and showing off their treasures/achievments is the main reason to play an online game.

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed. For a start I dont understand those that moan about the path to a legendary- these items are meant to take months to get. The only exception here is the inflation on precursors which does need capping but other than that its just entitled players thinking they should have everything when they want it. Same goes for every other item that people ‘grind’ for- whats the point in grinding? Whats the hurry?

An exception to the above are ascended items. They do offer a stat increase and therefore the so called ‘treadmill’ has started, this cannot be refuted. However explain to me how hard it is to get ascended items (except the +5AR and shiny looks that come from throwing LOTS of ectos). Seriously, I dont understand. The so called treadmill in GW2 is more like a leisurely stroll through open woodland compared to other games! Everything has been slowly fazed in and you can get there without grinding.

Those that complain about the ‘grind’ in GW2 are entitled players who would love nothing more that to be given everything as soon as they hit 80. Theyd then quit saying it was too easy and there wasnt enough to do. Youre trying to rush content that wasnt designed to be rushed and then are complaining about the fact its a grind. This is a casual game! Treat it that way and, like me, youll have no problems with ‘grind’. I do what I want to do and work at my own pace towards my goals. This is how to play GW2. Sure, the game isnt perfect and there are many improvements that can be made but im just tired of entitled players moaning about something of their own making.

Thereon.3495:

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

Really? Then explain to me why in order to get ascended drops from fractals, you have to first do the fractals 10 times.

Or why part of the possible dailies is a trip to the Laurel Vendor. For real?!

That’s not grinding?

ThiBash.5634:

Thereon.3495:

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

Really? Then explain to me why in order to get ascended drops from fractals, you have to first do the fractals 10 times.

Or why part of the possible dailies is a trip to the Laurel Vendor. For real?!

That’s not grinding?

Actually, it’s not grinding. Because I don’t do it and I don’t have to do it to play the game. I do everything in the game without grinding.

I’m currently up to fractal 8. Not having ascended gear has stopped me from doing nothing. I"m running dungeons, farming Orr, WvWing, SPvPing.

People can’t tell the difference between something they NEED and something they WANT. And there is a difference.

In Rift, you NEED 100 focus on your stats to even queue for specific dungeons. Understand this. The game will not let you queue for that dungeon if you don’t meet that stat requirement. Therefore, to do that content, you MUST have that requirement.

I can see every single fractal without ever getting ascended gear. That content isn’t gated. If you WANT the ascended gear, and it’s worth it to you, you have the choice to go further.

But you don’t need ascended gear to play this game. You only want it.

So yeah, there’s no grinding, unless you CHOOSE to grind.

Thereon.3495:

…
The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

Wrong, ascended items are only obtainable through grind.
The only way you don’t (gear)grind is when you play the story and then quit.

An exception to the above are ascended items. They do offer a stat increase and therefore the so called ‘treadmill’ has started, this cannot be refuted. However explain to me how hard it is to get ascended items (except the +5AR and shiny looks that come from throwing LOTS of ectos). Seriously, I dont understand.

30-35 laurels for the trinkets, I expect the armor to be more. You get a laurel when completing a dailies, so for one trinket you have to log in every day for a month. Three weeks if you manage to get the monthly in that time. How is that not grind?

Those that complain about the ‘grind’ in GW2 are entitled players who would love nothing more that to be given everything as soon as they hit 80.

I find that an insult and I have reported it.

Youre trying to rush content that wasnt designed to be rushed and then are complaining about the fact its a grind. This is a casual game!

You will not get a single ascended item by playing it as a casual game. The only way to get top-tier, ascended, rings and amulets is trough grinding dailies or dungeons

Hello,

This thread has derailed with inflammatory and condescending comments, and do not invite to constructive & healthy discussion.

Please remember to respect each other opinion, and post in a constructive and respectful way, so everyone can benefit from your argumentation.

Thank you for your understanding.

“You will not get a single ascended item by playing it as a casual game. The only way to get top-tier, ascended, rings and amulets is trough grinding dailies or dungeons”

Still…an optional undertaking. Not needed to play any aspect of the game that I wish to play.

So….the treadmill is where again?

This reminds me of the weight loss fad/industry. Some are overweight and don’t care. Some care and have found the gym. You either know it’s there and go, or know and don’t care. That’s far from some treadmill that’s ruining the game

Thereon.3495:

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

They do lock them. It doesn’t make the problem disappear however

Thereon.3495:

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

It’’s rather obviously designed for different playing styles that it was marketed for, then.

Thereon.3495:

However explain to me how hard it is to get ascended items (except the +5AR and shiny looks that come from throwing LOTS of ectos). Seriously, I dont understand.

One month of everyday playing for one ascended amulet. 20 runs of fractals for one ring of chosen build (+up to 10 for each next one). 250 T6 mats + 50 extos for one backpiece.
If that isn’t a grind, i don’t know what is.

Thereon.3495:

This is a casual game!

With a lot of content that a casual player will never, ever be able to achieve.

Vayne.8563:

ThiBash.5634:

Thereon.3495:

Yet another ‘This game is a grind’ thread… I wouldnt mind if the mods started deleting these.

The game is not a grind if you play it how its been designed.

Really? Then explain to me why in order to get ascended drops from fractals, you have to first do the fractals 10 times.

Or why part of the possible dailies is a trip to the Laurel Vendor. For real?!

That’s not grinding?

Actually, it’s not grinding. Because I don’t do it and I don’t have to do it to play the game. I do everything in the game without grinding.

The fact that you decided to ignore parts of the game do not make those parts less of a grind than they are.

Vayne.8563:

But you don’t need to play this game. You only want it.

So yeah, there’s no grinding, unless you CHOOSE to grind.

Fixed that for you.

Winfernal.9208:

Vayne.8563:

The content isn’t gated. People’s minds are gated.

Aye!

I agree it’s the player’s mentality that needs to change !
even within my guild I’m seen as an elitist if I dare ask for say for example:
LFM CoF path 1 need 2 warrior 1 mesmer and 1 guardian only.
or LFM fractals lv XX must have agony resist.

Oh boy, every time I ask that the uproar is insane !

I said look if you want to run it normally go ahead I ain’t stopping you but
I do not want to spent 30-40 minutes in there instead of 7-8 minutes, which is why I asked for that setup.

Players need to understand the difference between gated and choice.

On subject :

No other part of the game is closed to you by not having ascended gear at all, not even fractals themselves
the only part that is a bit difficult to get to w/o ascended gear is high level fractals themselves, does that mean it is gated ? no it doesn’t, the game does need some kind of progression to keep people playing and coming back other than simple cosmetic stuff, not to say cosmetic stuff is wrong but, if it is the only kind of progression present than yes it becomes a problem.

Anyone who brings up the argument that you don’t need to play this game, in response to someone saying you don’t need ascended gear has clearly missed the point.

Of course you don’t have to play the game. You don’t need to. But if you are playing the game, all the content can be accessed and played well without ascended gear. If you don’t play the game, this clearly doesn’t matter.

When people talk about gear treadmills in other games, they’re talking about gated content, not grinding for something you don’t really need. So we don’t have a gear treadmill here, unless you feel, for some reason, that you must have ascended gear.

You don’t need it to play any content by the fractals, which is where you get it. Everything else is just perception.

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who brings up the argument that you don’t need to play this game, in response to someone saying you don’t need ascended gear has clearly missed the point.

No…you missed the point

I do not “need” ascended gear to play this game…at all. Neither do you.

Want

Need

Look up the words

hildegain.2106:

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.

I agree and disagree. I agree that there is absolutely no reason to have best in class gear in 99% of PVE content. This is the reason I’m not going to grind for Ascended gear for my alts (just the thought of collecting 1250 powerful blood makes me queezy)

However, ascended gear provides an advantage in WvW that is not insignificant. If you have each piece of ascended great available (Amulet, rings, and backpiece) you can do approximately 3-5% more damage. You don’t need it (the same way you don’t need to be level 80 to WvW). But you’ll die more often if you don’t have it.

Finally, I think ArenaNet is rolling out ascended gear slowly to maintain a sense of progression without having a ridiculous escalation in the power level of gear. Spend two months grinding fractals for rings, a couple of months getting an amulet, next will be earrings, etc.

well Ascended should be there but only as a cosmetic feature. People love their skins. Love to show off. Anet just let them love and all will be good again.

And then fix the stats and let us casuals get stats easier.

Thank you

Revolution.6301:

well Ascended should be there but only as a cosmetic feature. People love their skins. Love to show off. Anet just let them love and all will be good again.

And then fix the stats and let us casuals get stats easier.

Thank you

I’m a casual, and I think options for all player types is good for the game. Stop acting like casuals are losing out on something because of ascended gear, we’re not.

Mackdose.6504:

Revolution.6301:

well Ascended should be there but only as a cosmetic feature. People love their skins. Love to show off. Anet just let them love and all will be good again.

And then fix the stats and let us casuals get stats easier.

Thank you

I’m a casual, and I think options for all player types is good for the game. Stop acting like casuals are losing out on something because of ascended gear, we’re not.

Not yet. Eventually, when all content will be updated with ascended stats in mind (and the devs said it will), everyone else will be left behind.