Guild Wars 2

Slic.2406:

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

If ascended gear had been in at release would you all still be complaining? I think most of the complaints are coming from people with full exotic that don’t like the fact they’re not top-tier any more. I understand the frustration there but I still think people need to look at this as a new rarity and not a new tier.

They explained it pretty well in the dev blog: the rarity levels had a gaping hole between exotic and legendary, they needed something to plug the gap. They’ve already said this stuff will be obtainable in WvW as well so the people whining about having to run the fractals for it have nothing to complain about.

Hate to break it to you but.. Do you realize how LONG it will take to get each piece of ascended gear? It takes ~2000 fractal tokens to get the stuff required to craft each piece. 1350 for the exo backpiece then 500 for the asc gift.

Guess the rate at which you get fractal tokens. Give up?

5 tokens every room, with every room taking 15-30mins to complete. PLUS running into an agony-wall gear-check that will force you to spend time looking for someone who can allow you to enter the lower levels again (i.e. a newcomer who hasn’t played the dungeon to death that you have to ‘carry’). We are talking DAYS/WEEKS of grinding for each ascended piece, as opposed to getting exos with the choice of your stats for 1-5g a peice from TP or crafting them (lvl a craft 0-400 in 1-2 hrs, and ur g2g).

I’m sorry, the thought that should be running through your mind is: “ok, the stats would have been acceptable as a top-tier (it is now NOT acceptable period), but the grind/time-sink sure as heck is NOT, considering the game is named GUILD WARS, not Lineage 2, Aion, WoW or Rift”.

At what point did you accept anet’s lie/broken promise. They specifically and repeatedly told everyone that there would not be ANY vertical progression or treadmill, ever. And now, they’re not even saying there won’t be more tiers between exo/legendary, because there very likely will be. Welcome to Grind Wars 2, would you like a Lineage 2 T-shirt with that?

If this is even close to true…that is just disgusting. Why any company thinks it’s okay to design content where you have to repeat something hundreds of times to get anywhere is just beyond me. Arenanet was convincing when they talked about how they were different….but if this is true they are not.

Yes there are multiple “minidungeons” in the fractals, and yes what you do is random…but still we are talking about repeating each mini-dungeon MULTIPLE times to get any of the equipment. Again, I would be fine if all of that made no stat difference, and it was just for “bragging rights” (IE: Same stats as exotics)…but for better stats? That is just the wrong direction IMO.

If they wanted to add a tier between exotics and legendaries to “bridge” the time-gap….then that tier should have ALSO been cosmetic only. The gap between exotics and legendaries is ENTIRELY OPTIONAL because the stats are the same. This tier that they haven’t is clearly not becoming “optional” because they designed (for no real reason that is clear to me) to make the stats increased on ascended gear. Why not just make them look different, plus have agony resistance ONLY (so they are only useful in the dungeon)….why the stat increase? It just ruins the whole idea of the game.

Shilian.5873:

Fritz.5026:

OEXTRA.1780:

I’m greatly disjointed in how most of you forum gamers are behaving. Yeah sure the new armor rank has its ups and downs but why are ya’ll acting like it’s the end of the world?

first off most people would have stuck with a dedicated pve game if they wanted to grind items like its their job. there are already several fully fleshed out games dedicated to grinding items that cater to the no-lifer crowds making them feel like spending their life in front of a monitor is rewarding in some way.

and secondly, its been 3 months and they already have the next ‘tier’ of gear released. do you honestly think this will be the end of it?

There is always sPvP, by the way.

You mean that paid tournament small scale junk? Oh yes, please, may I?

Haette.2701:

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

If they add another tier beyond ascended then I’ll take my words back but I still see this more as them fixing an oversight in terms of giving players something to work towards.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. My last shred of faith is hanging by that thread. If it goes any further than this, I’m out for good.

The german site had an official post that directly stated that they would NOT confirm there will not be additional tiers after ascended because they didn’t want to be accused of lying of they had to add more again later….so they are definitely leaving the door wide open there.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/139a4j/official_post_ascended_items_on_german_forums/

Feel free to check it out yourself.

This whole ascended gear and infusions thing is making me on a metaphysical level rather sick to my stomach.

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

Fact is, if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, the negative backlash against adding a ridiculous grind and gear treadmill has been way, way, way more prolific, heartfelt, and well-argued than any of the “If I can’t have bigger numbers, I don’t know what to do” moaning was.

If this is a response to player feedback, then Ascended gear should be removed based on much stronger player feedback.
If this is a top-level decision being implemented by ArenaNet just because they want to, then I think they need to offer some more robust reasoning that actually holds up to five seconds of scrutiny.

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

If people want a dungeon grind for end game…that shouldn’t effect other people who DON"T want that.

So ascended gear should provide bonuses for the dungeon (Agony resistance) but NOT stat increases….because as soon as you start throwing on increased stats, that means that people who see endgame as not a dungeon grind (For example, WvW players), also feel “forced” to do the content just to keep up with those who do.

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

So the endgame went from being able to do essentially whatever you wanted (Dungeons, Events, PVP) to fractals (JUST fractals).

The gear ladder doesn’t anger me as much as limiting the new gear ONLY to fractals. A guy that spends as much time in PVP, or doing events, or even doing previous dungeons as a person doing fractals should be able to have access to that gear. As of now, if you want Ascended gear, you are pigeon-holed into fractals. That’s crap.

And yes, I know they said they would make the gear available from other facets of the game later on, but who knows when that will be. 3 months at the very earliest, so from now until then anyone that has no intention of farming fractals all day gets shafted.

Crater.1625:

Fact is, if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, the negative backlash against adding a ridiculous grind and gear treadmill has been way, way, way more prolific, heartfelt, and well-argued than any of the “If I can’t have bigger numbers, I don’t know what to do” moaning was.

If this is a response to player feedback, then Ascended gear should be removed based on much stronger player feedback.
If this is a top-level decision being implemented by ArenaNet just because they want to, then I think they need to offer some more robust reasoning that actually holds up to five seconds of scrutiny.

Anet is too busy gambling away our interest/spending potential to the content locusts and grinders that want to be special/stronger than others just because of time spent doing repetitive/unimpressive things.

Apparently, anet thinks those kinds of players will spend MORE money than someone like me or you. When, in fact, those kinds of players are usually more broke and less willing to pay anything but a cheap monthly sub…

They’re making a huge mistake, but at this rate, once I film & release my last set of pvp vids, I won’t care, because my mark has been left, and my time up ’till now has been fun.

And I uninstall GW2. Thanks ANET, I’ll never buy another themepark MMO again.

Blacksarevok.8104:

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

So the endgame went from being able to do essentially whatever you wanted (Dungeons, Events, PVP) to fractals (JUST fractals).

The gear ladder doesn’t anger me as much as limiting the new gear ONLY to fractals. A guy that spends as much time in PVP, or doing events, or even doing previous dungeons as a person doing fractals should be able to have access to that gear. As of now, if you want Ascended gear, you are pigeon-holed into fractals. That’s crap.

And yes, I know they said they would make the gear available from other facets of the game later on, but who knows when that will be. 3 months at the very earliest, so from now until then anyone that has no intention of farming fractals all day gets shafted.

Ya that is definitely a significant part of the problem.

If ascended gear ONLY provided Agony resistance, and otherwise had the same stats as exotics, I wouldn’t care if it was ONLY found in dungeons.

But thew ay it is now it provides a stat bonus and is ONLY found in the dungeons. Yes they plan on expanding that, but like you said we have no idea when. Exotics worked well as a final tier because you could obtain that tier in MANY MANY ways…so basically anything you did you were working towards them.

If they wanted to add a new tier that affected all facets of the game (which is what they did), they should have added a means to acquire it in ALL facets of the game at once….I understand that is much more work, but it is just wrong to do it this way….to pigeonhole people into one activity for the time being if they want the best gear.

OEXTRA.1780:

Fritz.5026:

OEXTRA.1780:

I’m greatly disjointed in how most of you forum gamers are behaving. Yeah sure the new armor rank has its ups and downs but why are ya’ll acting like it’s the end of the world?

first off most people would have stuck with a dedicated pve game if they wanted to grind items like its their job. there are already several fully fleshed out games dedicated to grinding items that cater to the no-lifer crowds making them feel like spending their life in front of a monitor is rewarding in some way.

and secondly, its been 3 months and they already have the next ‘tier’ of gear released. do you honestly think this will be the end of it?

It seriously doesn’t take much time to attain any piece of exotic. I’d be full exotic out if I decided to collect the other dungeon sets, but alas the dungeon set I want (CoE) is hardly played by anyone on my server. At 1st I was just going to go ahead and get the CoF armor since that always gets played but after getting 3 pieces in like 2-3 days, I decided to stop since I don’t really like how the armor looks. Since then I’ve been logging on to see if I could get a CoE party and if I can’t I log off.

Long story short, if I wasn’t stubborn and picky, I could’ve been had full exotic in a week tops. But it’s not really necessary. And as I said yeah, I highly doubt new ranks will be added later, if anything just new infusions (which sound like runes/sigils to me).

Send me 30+ gold i use on my sets since they are so easy to get, i will not mind if you can send me more since you sir is a farming god. Or even 15 hours of farming one dungeon. 15 hours of my life gone in a flash!

mulch.2586:

Crater.1625:

Blacksarevok.8104:

They gap between Exotic and legendary was an effort gap.

Ascended gear was intended to fill that gap.

However, by adding better stats to ascended gear they successfully created ANOTHER gap to take the original gaps place.

GG Arenanet on becoming EA; fix one problem, create another even worse problem.

There wasn’t even an effort gap! They put Ascended items in for no reason except to cater to people who can’t live without higher numbers.

Fact is if you’ve been watching feedback here and on other gaming sites, there were a lot of people who felt like there’s not much to do in GW2, no endgame, boring after you hit 80, “i don’t want legendary and got full exotics right after I got 80, so I quit logging in” and over and over, the flames about no endgame.

So… here’s some endgame. With fractal, so no matter how you do it, it never ends. Smoke em if you got em, we’ll be here a while.

Using troll feedback isn’t exactly a smart way to refine your game. I am perfectly aware of people who bought the game and then quit because of a lack of a treadmill, but that’s like buying Mario Bros and being mad at a lack of hookers.

Well I think this does it for me.

Do we know that infusions have any effect outside of Fractals of the Mist?

Is +5 condition Damage worth a rage quit?

Some have bemoaned that they will have to do the FotM Dungeon to get ascended gear. That’s actually not the case. They have already stated that they will be adding other ways of getting Ascended Gear outside of FotM, including via WvW.

I would prefer that Infusions only function within FotM. I hope that’s the case. If not? Well, I still don’t see it as a big deal. In a genre where expansion packs routinely trivialize hard earned raid gear with insane gear inflation that sees new greens trumping the old top tier gear, this very minor gear inflation is close to nothing.

We still don’t know what their big expansion strategy is. Will they raise the level cap with a yearly expansion? Or, will they stick with 80? If there is no level cap increase, do you really think the game would thrive with out some form of ongoing progression?

By the outrage expressed by the vocal minority, you’d think that they had spent hundreds of hours earning the Exotic Gear that will no longer be the pinnacle of power as Ascended gear enters the game! The easiest to acquire Exotics just do not take very long, no matter which of the available paths you chose to take in acquiring them. Arenanet isn’t trivializing some extremely long and difficult Exotic gear grind with some arbitrary gear inflation treadmill.

The inflation is minor. Starting with just Rings and Back Armor, with additional pieces providing a horizontal progression to the ascended tier of gear, Arenanet can add some sense of progression to match the expansion of Fractals of the Mist over the months and years to come.

I do get that some people latched onto the announced design approach that would have duplicated the GW1 ceiling on gear power. It was a feature that sounded pretty good to me as well. However, they need to be able to adapt to the live environment and respond to the needs of the player base. The game’s design looked close to perfect on paper a year ago. On paper is the operative qualifier, because once a game goes live and hundreds of thousands or millions of people start playing, some of the things that looked good on paper just won’t hold up in the live environment.

We shouldn’t be looking to hamstring Arenanet as they seek to adjust and expand the game in a way that will maintain or increase it’s popularity and financial viability.

They aren’t adding this new tier of gear to thumb their noses at players and the original game design. They are doing it in an effort to improve the game. If the inflation where more drastic in nature, I’d probably be right with the people expressing outrage. However, this is such a careful, measured implementation of “gear inflation” that I just can not see the “outrage” expressed by some as anything other than a gross over-reaction.

Give Arenanet some benefit of the doubt and give the new system a chance. I think Arenanet and the game deserve at least that much.

its +5 condition damage, on top of the already higher base stats. and thats with a FINE infusion. Imagine what an ascended infusion would do? PER ITEM.

Derk.3189:

its +5 condition damage, on top of the already higher base stats. and thats with a FINE infusion. Imagine what an ascended infusion would do?

That’s only a blue-level infusion? Umm…

…

Ok, well. That means an orange-level infusion would be ~4x that, so.. ~20 cond damage. No concrete evidence in this case, but if you compare blue to orange on existing pieces of gear, that’s about right.

So actually. It’s not just a 40-50% increase to primary stats. With the high-end, grind-your-face-off infusions (that they are saving ’till we grind-our-face-off getting these crappier ones), the overall primary stat increase of ascended over exotic would be closer to 75%. GG? Ah, if I could spend the 60 bucks I spent on GW2 on a time trip back to GW1 instead…

Slic.2406:

Derk.3189:

its +5 condition damage, on top of the already higher base stats. and thats with a FINE infusion. Imagine what an ascended infusion would do?

That’s only a green-level infusion? Umm…

…

Ok, well. That means an orange-level infusion would be ~4x that, so.. ~20 cond damage. No concrete evidence in this case, but if you compare green to orange on existing pieces of gear, that’s about right.

So actually. It’s not just a 40-50% increase to primary stats. With the high-end, grind-your-face-off infusions (that they are saving ’till we grind-our-face-off getting these crappier ones), the overall primary stat increase of ascended over exotic would be closer to 75%. GG? Ah, if I could spend the 60 bucks I spent on GW2 on a time trip back to GW1 instead…

Don’t forget that exotic isn’t even the top level anymore, there could well be ascended infusions.

This is all assuming infusion is a static upgrade, similar to adding gems, sigils and runes. If it’s a cumulative upgrade instead, it really will throw all remaining sense out of the window.

Fiontar: If ArenaNet would come outright and say something like..

-this is the new and final plateau of stats
-infusion only work in the Fractals dungeon
-Ascended will be the same as exotic outside of dungeons

or anything like that which is a definite, final statement so as to calm concerns over power creep and gear treadmills, then people would give them that benefit of the doubt.

But they have been purposefully vague and overly quiet in response to this. A lot of PR speak in response and avoiding the tough question. That’s not a good sign.

kipz.8701:

Id like to propose a question to the guys crying about this.

Did it take you long to get fully exotic’d? and not the “skin” I mean just the gear with stats.

It’s ridiculously easy to get exotic gear, so yes, there is a huge gap where I think ascended gear fits nicely. Comparing gear in GW2 to GW is just showing how narrow minded some of the community can be.

no, but I don’t enjoy grinding so that was fine.

Fiontar.4695:

Do we know that infusions have any effect outside of Fractals of the Mist?

Some have bemoaned that they will have to do the FotM Dungeon to get ascended gear. That’s actually not the case. They have already stated that they will be adding other ways of getting Ascended Gear outside of FotM, including via WvW.

yes we do. over time is when they will let us get the better gear. what does that mean?

This whole thing is ruining my patch experience.
Thinking about leaving yet another game that I trusted to try to be different.
A game that wanted people around that can’t get a game that doesn’t force them to chase gear. A game where your name matters in the community, a game where people greet you on returning to the game instead of linking their gear to you.
When is this game coming!
I’m going to go eat, find a pet to cuddle, then watch movies.

Maybe I need to make this game we want, off to ponder.
So many years we have waited.

Fiontar.4695:

In a genre where expansion packs routinely trivialize hard earned raid gear with insane gear inflation that sees new greens trumping the old top tier gear, this very minor gear inflation is close to nothing.

We still don’t know what their big expansion strategy is. Will they raise the level cap with a yearly expansion? Or, will they stick with 80? If there is no level cap increase, do you really think the game would thrive with out some form of ongoing progression?

By the outrage expressed by the vocal minority, you’d think that they had spent hundreds of hours earning the Exotic Gear that will no longer be the pinnacle of power as Ascended gear enters the game! The easiest to acquire Exotics just do not take very long, no matter which of the available paths you chose to take in acquiring them. Arenanet isn’t trivializing some extremely long and difficult Exotic gear grind with some arbitrary gear inflation treadmill.

The inflation is minor. Starting with just Rings and Back Armor, with additional pieces providing a horizontal progression to the ascended tier of gear, Arenanet can add some sense of progression to match the expansion of Fractals of the Mist over the months and years to come.

Hello? Are we on the same page?

http://www.gw2db.com/items/71368-solaria-circle-of-the-sun <- not insane gear inflation?

Gradual gear inflation is really just gear inflation, it can be slow drug like tobacco. Once you got hooked onto the idea that you need to grind in order to enjoy the next thing as the other guy.

Never had I died in WvW thinking the other guy has better gear than me, although I’m only wearing rares. In the future, even with I equip myself with exotics I might want to think twice if that guy was really just pimping stats.

And because of gear inflation this game will ALWAYS be compared to WoW.

@Fiontar (i don’t want to quote you because it would be too long

While yes the stat increases right now may seem minor…at least in my case what worries me/upsets me more is the TREND they seem to be setting. It’s minor now because it’s only a ring and a backpiece. But they will be adding a whole set. After that what next? If they were willing to add a new tier now with higher stats, I no longer put it past them to add ANOTHER tier in 6 months or a year….That fact that they are doing this once, means they could do it again. Before this, I had assumed (and was wrong) that they were sticking to their original plan…that is to say, no increases in stats on gear.

Furthermore, while I agree it is nice they have plans to add the gear to other parts of the games….I think it sends the wrong message to initially add it ONLY to one facet of the game. It makes it seem like their priority is dungeons, and the rest is sort of “secondary”…a kind of “Oh we will get to that later”. That sends the wrong message, in my opinion. They should have added it to the whole game…even if that meant delaying its release. We have no idea when they will be obtainable in other parts of the game, and we don’t even know if that will happen BEFORE the other pieces are added. Will it be a full ascended gear in dungeons before they are added other places? Or will they add them to other places first? Again…just sets the wrong message in my opinion.

Yes it is a “slow measured” inflation…but as of right now it is a “slow measured inflation” in one ONLY aspect of the game. If I want to continue to just do WvW (which is what I do now), I will gain none of this gear. If the rest of the ascended gear is added before they allow me to get it in WvW….I will be an entire tier down that I will need to “grind” at some point so that my stats match.

Again I have repeatedly asked (with no real explanation) why they couldn’t just make ascended gear give the Agony resistance and be otherwise THE EXACT SAME as exotics. That would make it a dungeon “progression” system where it was a TOTALLY OPTIONAL tier for people who want to run dungeons and get new tiers of gear for “Harder” dungeons. It wouldn’t effect anyone outside of dungeons. The fact that they felt the need to increase the stats on all the items moving forward to me is the major problem. It is no longer about “satisfying a group of people who feel like they have nothing to do” (dungeon runners). It is now about changing the whole design of the game into what most games are composed of: Gear treadmills (no matter how “slow” it is, it is still a treadmill with the potential for no end in sight since they haven’t confirmed that ascended gear is the end of this whole fiasco).

To be the biggest issue with all of this is the PRECEDENT it sets. Before this I just didn’t even imagine they would add new gear with higher stats…but they had us all so convinced that wasn’t part of their game design. No matter how slow or gradual this change is, it is now clear that they ARE willing to add a gear treadmill. So what is next? I now have total doubt over what is coming in this game, and to be honest with this as the first major content patch it definitely APPEARS to be heading in the wrong direction. Am I right? I have no idea, like you say we have to wait and see…but this still sets a poor precedent in my opinion, for a variety of reasons (of which I won’t repeat but I’ve already stated).

BlackDeath.8106:

OEXTRA.1780:

Fritz.5026:

OEXTRA.1780:

I’m greatly disjointed in how most of you forum gamers are behaving. Yeah sure the new armor rank has its ups and downs but why are ya’ll acting like it’s the end of the world?

first off most people would have stuck with a dedicated pve game if they wanted to grind items like its their job. there are already several fully fleshed out games dedicated to grinding items that cater to the no-lifer crowds making them feel like spending their life in front of a monitor is rewarding in some way.

and secondly, its been 3 months and they already have the next ‘tier’ of gear released. do you honestly think this will be the end of it?

It seriously doesn’t take much time to attain any piece of exotic. I’d be full exotic out if I decided to collect the other dungeon sets, but alas the dungeon set I want (CoE) is hardly played by anyone on my server. At 1st I was just going to go ahead and get the CoF armor since that always gets played but after getting 3 pieces in like 2-3 days, I decided to stop since I don’t really like how the armor looks. Since then I’ve been logging on to see if I could get a CoE party and if I can’t I log off.

Long story short, if I wasn’t stubborn and picky, I could’ve been had full exotic in a week tops. But it’s not really necessary. And as I said yeah, I highly doubt new ranks will be added later, if anything just new infusions (which sound like runes/sigils to me).

Send me 30+ gold i use on my sets since they are so easy to get, i will not mind if you can send me more since you sir is a farming god. Or even 15 hours of farming one dungeon. 15 hours of my life gone in a flash!

Exotics are already overkill for all the content I’ve experienced in the game in nearly 500 hours of playtime. Two rings and a back piece that are a fairly minor step up from their exotic counterparts is nothing to rage about.

For people who pass on Dungeons and other “End Game” level content, preferring to take advantage of the expansive, dynamic world and level scaling to enjoy Tyria as a free form experience, end game gear inflation means nothing.

For people who actively pursue Dungeons and other end game level content, the new gear progression is something that will just happen during the course of their ongoing game play, while incentivizing ongoing play. Saying that the inflation means the acquisition of Exotics was a waste of time would be like saying that all the armor you acquired from level 1-80 was a waste of time. It’s just part of the natural, ongoing progression of game play. That’s it.

For WvW, they’ve already said that Ascended Gear will be available via WvW and other means as well, so, once again, just an extension of the gear progression that already exists from level 1-80 in the game.

A lot of people wanted some form of post 80 progression and this new system provides it in about as benign a way as possible. IMO, Arenanet seems to have struck a very good balance here and I’m sure that if the level of inflation needs to be adjusted, they will adjust it. They aren’t trying to force an extended progression on people who don’t want it. They are trying to provide some progression for those who do want it, while minimizing the impact on players who could care less.

Fiontar.4695:

By the outrage expressed by the vocal minority, you’d think that they had spent hundreds of hours earning the Exotic Gear that will no longer be the pinnacle of power as Ascended gear enters the game! The easiest to acquire Exotics just do not take very long, no matter which of the available paths you chose to take in acquiring them. Arenanet isn’t trivializing some extremely long and difficult Exotic gear grind with some arbitrary gear inflation treadmill.

As of now, with full Exotic gear I have maxed out equipment.

Once Ascended gear hits, I am one tier under maxed out equipment.

Functionally, this patch is exactly the same as if ArenaNet had taken away all of my equipment, and replaced it with Rares.

And to get my ‘Exotics’ (ie: top-level gear) back, I have to run on the arbitrary gear inflation treadmill for what seems to be, according to all concrete information released so far, hundreds of hours of grinding.

Shilian.5873:

Fritz.5026:

OEXTRA.1780:

I’m greatly disjointed in how most of you forum gamers are behaving. Yeah sure the new armor rank has its ups and downs but why are ya’ll acting like it’s the end of the world?

first off most people would have stuck with a dedicated pve game if they wanted to grind items like its their job. there are already several fully fleshed out games dedicated to grinding items that cater to the no-lifer crowds making them feel like spending their life in front of a monitor is rewarding in some way.

and secondly, its been 3 months and they already have the next ‘tier’ of gear released. do you honestly think this will be the end of it?

There is always sPvP, by the way.

so if i dont want to be a gear grinder i can forget WvW ?

seems legit.

+5 condition damage isn’t a big increase at all. Considering it’s a “fine” level one, let’s say they cap out at +10 condition damage. With 14 gear slots, that’s over +140 condition damage that you are missing out on, which is roughly 12% increase on a pretty standard 1100 condition damage build.

Honestly, it’s not about a stat increase like that. I played WoW using (mostly) welfare gear and I functioned just fine, but I had to filter myself out of the cutting edge content. What it is about, however, is that once you introduce stat creep through a gear grind, you promote an entirely different mindset out of players. Player skill or build can easily trump supposed stat increases from ascended gear, but it is FAR easier to filter players based on a concept like gearscore. This is what we are fearing right now, especially if infusions are left open ended for more stat creep.

I am all for a level 80 grind, because I’ve hit that wall (and I still have exploration to finish!), but a gear treadmill is not what I want.

Give us:
-More jumping puzzles
-Time trials on jumping puzzles
-More places to explore with adequate rewards
-Minigames
-Skins
-Unlock new visual effects on skills (blue fire!!)
-DIFFERENT stats or stat combos

But not a gear treadmill. If people start filtering WvW or dungeon runs based on their gear (no ascended = no thx), I will cry the manliest tears I can – but I will still cry.

Fiontar.4695:

For WvW, they’ve already said that Ascended Gear will be available via WvW and other means as well, so, once again, just an extension of the gear progression that already exists from level 1-80 in the game.

(I’m practically a sole WvWer so I am focusing on this)

Again…it’s great that they have “plans” to add it to WvW…but it is honestly insulting that they add it to another area of the game EXCLUSIVELY to begin with, with no real “timeline” for when the rest of us will get access to it.

The items have clear stat benefits, considering the infusions that we are seeing in this thread. WvW is a competitive game. This is therefore giving a statistical advantage to those who run dungeons in addition to WvW. WvW should be about WvW, not about what you do in a dungeon.

And I’ll just stick this in a separate post to reduce the amount of muddling: The idea that it “doesn’t take long” to get Exotics is completely misleading.

First: It takes quite a long time to get full Exotics (even if you buy the cheapest, most baseline Exotics in the game) if you’re playing more than one character.

Second: It takes quite a long time to get full Exotics (even if you buy the cheapest, most baseline Exotics in the game) if you play more than one build on a particular character, and need different stats to make the most out of each build.

Third: It takes quite a long time to get full Exotics, if you want Exotics that look nice, instead of the cheapest, most baseline Exotics in the game.

It’s not people who wanted goals and meaningful progression who didn’t have anything to do. There were lots of goals and lots of progression to be had within the game.

The only people who had “nothing to do” are the people who expected to be able to play one character, in one way, with no cosmetic advancement, and to be able to keep advancing forever.

That is an unreasonable expectation and those people should not be catered to.

Fiontar.4695:

For WvW, they’ve already said that Ascended Gear will be available via WvW and other means as well, so, once again, just an extension of the gear progression that already exists from level 1-80 in the game.

Except we don’t know WHEN this will happen. Most likely it won’t be for another 3 months when the next big patch happens.

All we know is right now is that it’s only available in fractals, so anyone that doesn’t like grinding dungeons gets screwed. How is that fair?

Crater.1625:

Fiontar.4695:

By the outrage expressed by the vocal minority, you’d think that they had spent hundreds of hours earning the Exotic Gear that will no longer be the pinnacle of power as Ascended gear enters the game! The easiest to acquire Exotics just do not take very long, no matter which of the available paths you chose to take in acquiring them. Arenanet isn’t trivializing some extremely long and difficult Exotic gear grind with some arbitrary gear inflation treadmill.

As of now, with full Exotic gear I have maxed out equipment.

Once Ascended gear hits, I am one tier under maxed out equipment.

Functionally, this patch is exactly the same as if ArenaNet had taken away all of my equipment, and replaced it with Rares.

And to get my ‘Exotics’ (ie: top-level gear) back, I have to run on the arbitrary gear inflation treadmill for what seems to be, according to all concrete information released so far, hundreds of hours of grinding.

I believe the most agreed upon calculation is something like ~90hrs per ascended backpiece/ring with (over-geared, over-inflated) stats of your choosing. I personally think (well, more like HOPE) that this number is closer to ~70hrs per piece, but yeah. I’m just nitpicking at this point.

In comparison, in GW1, you could get a full set of max armor and weapons (with the corresponding high-end runes of your choice) in about 1-5hrs after you dinged 20. And, when I logged in to GW1 to make sure my account was linked to GW2 right before launch, I saw that I still had max-statted gear on all 4 of my PvE toons, and was able to do any end-game content I desired, including solo farming really hard areas of the game, with high-risk, high-reward, quick-timing scenarios.

LordGustoff.3752:

Though, now that I have had time to think about it… is it possible that the stats on the infusions only take effect when in the Fractals? In which case this is perfectly fine. Infusions wouldn’t affect PvE or PvP/WvW… you would only need better infusions to do Fractal OMFGHARDMODE

Just keep trying to find any reason to deny the truth. Over and over again arenanet says that they added this to give a sense of gear progression and that it’s a tier of gear higher and more powerful than exotics and people just won’t believe it.

It’s true. They have added something that’s better. It doesn’t just work in the fractals, the infusion doesn’t delete your runes, it’s not somehow mysteriously worse than exotic gear.

Obviously, there are people who do not buy into the “Horizontal Progression” argument.

Too many MMOs polluting us with lack-of-quality-content.

Now it looks like grinding = content-consumption.

And I thought GW2 is supposed to be low-commitment game?

Wasselin.1235:

LordGustoff.3752:

Though, now that I have had time to think about it… is it possible that the stats on the infusions only take effect when in the Fractals? In which case this is perfectly fine. Infusions wouldn’t affect PvE or PvP/WvW… you would only need better infusions to do Fractal OMFGHARDMODE

Just keep trying to find any reason to deny the truth. Over and over again arenanet says that they added this to give a sense of gear progression and that it’s a tier of gear higher and more powerful than exotics and people just won’t believe it.

It’s true. They have added something that’s better. It doesn’t just work in the fractals, the infusion doesn’t delete your runes, it’s not somehow mysteriously worse than exotic gear.

And it is extremely telling in my opinion when you look at the reddit translation from the german developers…who cannot “Confirm or deny” whether ascended gear is the last tier.

Just the mere fact that they are “leaving options open” implies, to me, that at this point anything is a possibility….and every design idea about the game from the get go is thrown out the window. Really anything goes at this point.

the biggest thing i hate about the infusions is it will basically make runes, sigils, crests and gems obsolete.

because you have to use infusions to further progress in PvE.

Crater.1625:

Fiontar.4695:

By the outrage expressed by the vocal minority, you’d think that they had spent hundreds of hours earning the Exotic Gear that will no longer be the pinnacle of power as Ascended gear enters the game! The easiest to acquire Exotics just do not take very long, no matter which of the available paths you chose to take in acquiring them. Arenanet isn’t trivializing some extremely long and difficult Exotic gear grind with some arbitrary gear inflation treadmill.

As of now, with full Exotic gear I have maxed out equipment.

Once Ascended gear hits, I am one tier under maxed out equipment.

Functionally, this patch is exactly the same as if ArenaNet had taken away all of my equipment, and replaced it with Rares.

And to get my ‘Exotics’ (ie: top-level gear) back, I have to run on the arbitrary gear inflation treadmill for what seems to be, according to all concrete information released so far, hundreds of hours of grinding.

I have three level 80s. I play all three. One is fully equipped with Exotics. One is half equipped and one has only rares. I have zero problem playing what ever content I want with my Exotic free character. I pursue my Exotics for the sense of progression, not because I need them.

The only people who ostensibly “need” Ascended gear will be people pushing the difficulty limits in Fractals of the Mist and those people will aquire it as part of the natural progression. Arenanet has said that Ascended Gear will be available via other routes, not just FotM, including WvW. For the WvW-centric players, that gear will come as they play the game.

If you plan on delving deeply into FotM, You’ll get your ascended gear in a natural progression, your exotics just being another stepping stone along the way, like every other piece of armor you aquired from levels 1-80. If you WvW, you will eventually aquire your Ascended gear and maintain your gear parity with the other WvW-centric players. If you aren’t interested in WvW or FotM, you’ll still have some ways of acquiring Ascended gear, but let’s be honest, outside of WvW or FotM, there is no actual need for Ascended gear, other than to provide a sense of progression for those who want/need it.

As to what changes tomorrow, let’s put things into perspective. Yes, with the shortage of back armor in the game, the ascended back armor will be desirable. However, as far as I’m aware, there are no current exotic or even rare back armors in the game, so ascended back armor is not trivializing your previous efforts by offering something new and improved. The only other Ascended gear at this time are rings. Are people really going to get bent out of shape because there will now be upgrades to pursue for two exotic rings? Really?

Perspective.

Besides, what gear inflation there is in the jump to Ascended Gear is miniscule compared to the routinely ongoing gear inflation in almost every other MMORPG we’ve seen in the last ten years and is literally nothing compared to the gear inflation seen with full expansions for games like WoW, where the new Greens often render obsolete gear that took hundreds of hours progressing through multiple tiers of raids to acquire.

Perspective.

Here are all the infusion gem item codes I could find:
Edit: The codes appeared to be a little bugged and aren’t showing the entirety of the text for some reason. Go to http://pastebin.mozilla.org/1944010 to see a list of all the item codes. All of them end in “==]”.

There were no other items with a similar ID except for a couple completely unrelated council commendation items that appears to be storyline related.

For those too lazy to see what stats they are (I know I’m too lazy to record it), they are, for the most part, very basic +5 X stat items. There are a couple that are slightly different, i.e. +1% boon duration, +2% agony duration reduction. The gems are all 2 stat only, with the second stat always being +5 agony resistance. There are also a couple items in perfect English that are only +5 agony resistance – no secondary stats.

For anyone interested in looking more into possible item codes, just convert the following hex code to base64:
02 00 01 91 00 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
The “01” is the number I modified (from 00 to 12 or so) to get all the above item codes. When changing/removing any of the other numbers, it either didn’t do anything, broke the code, or completely changed what the item was.
Once you have the base64, just add “[&” before it and “]” after it and you have your item code you can paste ingame.

Edit 2: Argh, apparently gw2db beat me to the punch. http://www.gw2db.com/search?search=Infusion#t1:items

TimeBomb.3427:

Here are all the infusion gem item codes I could find:
[&AgAAkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgABkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgACkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgADkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgAEkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgAFkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgAGkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgAHkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgAIkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgAJkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgAQkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgARkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgASkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA] [&AgATkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[&AgAUkQAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==]

Edit: The codes appeared to be a little bugged and aren’t showing the entirety of the text for some reason. Go to http://pastebin.mozilla.org/1944010 to see a list of all the item codes. All of them end in “==]”.

There were no other items with a similar ID except for a couple completely unrelated council commendation items that appears to be storyline related.

For those too lazy to see what stats they are (I know I’m too lazy to record it), they are, for the most part, very basic +5 X stat items. There are a couple that are slightly different, i.e. +1% boon duration, +2% agony duration reduction. The gems are all 2 stat only, with the second stat always being +5 agony resistance. There are also a couple items in perfect English that are only +5 agony resistance – no secondary stats.

They’re also blue-quality, and several anet staff have confirmed that there will be rare/exotic and maybe even ascended quality infusions in the future.

Welcome To Grind Wars 2—-

Their decisions really just confuses me if you take all the personal feelings out of the equation.

Obviously there is a market for gear treadmills or games such as wow, rift, and so on would not be successful.

However I find it difficult to believe that A-net thinks the most profitable section of their playerbase rests firmly within this crowd. They advertised and sold their game with the expectation that this would not be a gear treadmill game.

At this point doing a complete turn around seems the quintessential suicide maneuver.

I am being completely objective about it. Its akin to selling someone a laptop and then shipping them a desktop. Its sort of similar, but it is not what the person ordered and most people are going to get mad about it.

NoZaku.7120:

the biggest thing i hate about the infusions is it will basically make runes, sigils, crests and gems obsolete.

because you have to use infusions to further progress in PvE.

No, they don’t. Infusions are specifically geared to allowing players to push deeper into the difficulty of Fractals of the Mist. They have nothing to do with any other form of PvE play; world PvE nor non-FotM Dungeons.

FotM is a pretty unique take on the Dungeon Crawl. I see FotM as almost separate mode of play in the same way that sPvP and WvW are almost games with in a game. Some people will dedicate much time and effort to FotM. Some will dablle and others will ignore the dungeon entirely and find there fun elsewhere.

I will be shocked beyond belief if Infusions ever are needed for progression in World PvE or in any of the other Dungeons available in game. I can’t rule out some other form of PvE content in the future that would take advantage of infusions, but Arenanet seems committed to expanding FotM on a fairly regular basis in the months and years to come. It’s possible we may see more stand-alone dungeons in the future, but I have a feeling that FotM will be the main focus for ongoing Dungeon development.

Fiontar.4695:

stuff

“Need” is irrelevant.

I had equipment at 100% of the maximum power level.

After the addition of Ascended gear, I will have equipment at less than 100% of the maximum power level.

The only way for me to get back to exactly where I started, with 100% of the maximum power level, is to grind out Ascended equipment in the new dungeon.

That’s just not acceptable to me.

Fiontar.4695:

NoZaku.7120:

the biggest thing i hate about the infusions is it will basically make runes, sigils, crests and gems obsolete.

because you have to use infusions to further progress in PvE.

No, they don’t. Infusions are specifically geared to allowing players to push deeper into the difficulty of Fractals of the Mist. They have nothing to do with any other form of PvE play; world PvE nor non-FotM Dungeons.

FotM is a pretty unique take on the Dungeon Crawl. I see FotM as almost separate mode of play in the same way that sPvP and WvW are almost games with in a game. Some people will dedicate much time and effort to FotM. Some will dablle and others will ignore the dungeon entirely and find there fun elsewhere.

I will be shocked beyond belief if Infusions ever are needed for progression in World PvE or in any of the other Dungeons available in game. I can’t rule out some other form of PvE content in the future that would take advantage of infusions, but Arenanet seems committed to expanding FotM on a fairly regular basis in the months and years to come. It’s possible we may see more stand-alone dungeons in the future, but I have a feeling that FotM will be the main focus for ongoing Dungeon development.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
read the “The Future of item progression”

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.

its heavily implied that infusions is needed to further progress in end game PvE content

Fiontar.4695:

I will be shocked beyond belief if Infusions ever are needed for progression in World PvE or in any of the other Dungeons available in game. I can’t rule out some other form of PvE content in the future that would take advantage of infusions, but Arenanet seems committed to expanding FotM on a fairly regular basis in the months and years to come. It’s possible we may see more stand-alone dungeons in the future, but I have a feeling that FotM will be the main focus for ongoing Dungeon development.

Ascended equipments (w/o infusion) makes Sigils, crests, runes and gems obsolete.

You wouldn’t want to get some superior divinity runes because you can just grind for Ascended equipments which comes with better stats with options for infusion (which means possibly more stats enhancements).

Sigils, crests, runes and gems become fodders for stats-giving Infusions just like Exotics become fodder for Ascended.

Slic.2406:

Derk.3189:

its +5 condition damage, on top of the already higher base stats. and thats with a FINE infusion. Imagine what an ascended infusion would do?

That’s only a blue-level infusion? Umm…

…

Ok, well. That means an orange-level infusion would be ~4x that, so.. ~20 cond damage. No concrete evidence in this case, but if you compare blue to orange on existing pieces of gear, that’s about right.

So actually. It’s not just a 40-50% increase to primary stats. With the high-end, grind-your-face-off infusions (that they are saving ’till we grind-our-face-off getting these crappier ones), the overall primary stat increase of ascended over exotic would be closer to 75%. GG? Ah, if I could spend the 60 bucks I spent on GW2 on a time trip back to GW1 instead…

You are making a lot of assumptions and your math makes zero sense on top of it all.

Tomorrow we will have the ability to earn Ascended Rings, Ascended Back Armor and Fine Infusions. NOT a big deal. As the system expands over time, (perhaps over a pretty long time, considering they’ve already said that FotM will be expanding over the months and years ahead), Arenanet will make what ever adjustments to the system they need to make.

You and others are imagining the worst possibilities when you fill in the vast blanks that exist in our knowledge of Ascended Gear and Infusions, extrapolate forward on those negatively biased guesses and then assume that the entire thing is set in stone, with no adjustments to ensure that the quest for ascended gear does ruin all other elements of game play.

Rings, Back Armor, Fine Infusions. Example stat comparison showing an ~ 8% stat boost between Exotic Rings and Ascended Rings. That’s what we know. Let’s fill in a lot more blanks with facts before we start crying that the sky is falling and also offer Arenanet some benefit of the doubt before deciding that they are somehow determined to ruin the game with some new arbitrary gear inflation!

Talloc.6835:

http://i.imgur.com/BeyFB.png

Good lord.

I’m a bit late to the party, but lets do some math!

Emerald Orichalcum Ring of the Knight has a stat total of 218 (I use this ring because it has no percentages and thus is easy to calculate). This ring has a stat total of 309 (31 + 31 + 31 + 31 + 64 (3% = 48 stat points going by Ruby Orichalcum Ring of the Berserker, thus 4% is 64) + 31 + 31 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 5 (1% critical on a gem) + 6.25 (6) (1% magic find on a jewel). Thus using the power of math this ring is ~41% better than the exotic ring. Now that’s not technically true because you’re unlikely to use ALL of those stats, but if you are it’s an amazing item (like the Triforge Amulet and the PvP Celestial Amulet and Divinity runes).

Brought to you by the person who mathed Ascended would be an 8.5-8.9% upgrade (before infusions). Boy was I wrong.

Last I checked nobody was complaining about the gear progression from fine – > masterwork -> rare -> exotic, so why are you all complaining about ascended gear? Is it because it’s gained through a dungeon… that everyone can enter (and aside from that we know nothing else) because as near as I can tell having ascended gear is only useful in the new dungeon and possibly WvW, and in WvW nobody is complaining about people running around in exotic gear while they have fine gear so it’s not going to be much of a problem in 2 months when it’ll be the norm.

It’s like people are overreacting to assumptions with little to no evidence to back up their overreactions… and if I remember correctly that’s one of the favorite hobbies of people on the WoW forums, you know… the people who play the game some of you are comparing GW2 to.

By proxy if you are complaining about something based on pure speculation then you are already half way to the WoW mindset, so you may as well do the deed and go all the way.

it’s not speculation anymore. the new gear is a huge increase over exotics, lol

Fiontar.4695:

Slic.2406:

Derk.3189:

its +5 condition damage, on top of the already higher base stats. and thats with a FINE infusion. Imagine what an ascended infusion would do?

That’s only a blue-level infusion? Umm…

…

Ok, well. That means an orange-level infusion would be ~4x that, so.. ~20 cond damage. No concrete evidence in this case, but if you compare blue to orange on existing pieces of gear, that’s about right.

So actually. It’s not just a 40-50% increase to primary stats. With the high-end, grind-your-face-off infusions (that they are saving ’till we grind-our-face-off getting these crappier ones), the overall primary stat increase of ascended over exotic would be closer to 75%. GG? Ah, if I could spend the 60 bucks I spent on GW2 on a time trip back to GW1 instead…

You are making a lot of assumptions and your math makes zero sense on top of it all.

Tomorrow we will have the ability to earn Ascended Rings, Ascended Back Armor and Fine Infusions. NOT a big deal. As the system expands over time, (perhaps over a pretty long time, considering they’ve already said that FotM will be expanding over the months and years ahead), Arenanet will make what ever adjustments to the system they need to make.

You and others are imagining the worst possibilities when you fill in the vast blanks that exist in our knowledge of Ascended Gear and Infusions, extrapolate forward on those negatively biased guesses and then assume that the entire thing is set in stone, with no adjustments to ensure that the quest for ascended gear does ruin all other elements of game play.

Rings, Back Armor, Fine Infusions. Example stat comparison showing an ~ 8% stat boost between Exotic Rings and Ascended Rings. That’s what we know. Let’s fill in a lot more blanks with facts before we start crying that the sky is falling and also offer Arenanet some benefit of the doubt before deciding that they are somehow determined to ruin the game with some new arbitrary gear inflation!

yea let’s just cry after it’s too late. Ata boy!

Coffeebot.3921:

Last I checked nobody was complaining about the gear progression from fine – > masterwork -> rare -> exotic, so why are you all complaining about ascended gear?

Because:

1) None of those tiers except Exotic has ever been positioned as 100% of maximum power. If the game had launched with only White, Fine, Masterwork, and Rare, and ArenaNet was just now introducing Exotic equipment, I would have exactly the same reaction.

2) The functionality of Exotic gear is relatively easily obtained. I could stand to see it lowered, but 1.5-3g per piece for a cheap (ie: crafted) Exotic piece of equipment is easy enough to obtain that I can grit my teeth and push through the grind.

In comparison, Ascended equipment 1) Is being introduced after Exotics are already established as the top tier of equipment, meaning that the introduction of Ascended equipment is a functional downgrade to every piece of existing equipment in the game. If Exotics are now 100% of max power, they’ll be 90% once Ascended is in the game; if Rares are now 90% of max power, they’ll be only 80% once Ascended is introduced, and so on. And 2) The amount of grind to get one piece of Ascended equipment, from all the information we’ve been given so far, is, at the absolute minimum, on par with the amount of grind needed to get an entire, full set of dungeon equipment. That’s more of a grind than I would ever put up with for a non-cosmetic upgrade in a game.