Guild Wars 2

At this point, I’ve noticed one group of people hit the hardest by the recent changes. It seems that quite a few of you, more than I thought in any case, bought gems, converted to gold and then bought exotics off the tradepost. I imagine it seemed like a good idea at the time- gear plateau, no level increases, etc. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut that didn’t work out so well, huh?

Take this lesson to heart. Gems are alright for a lot of things- bag slots, bank slots, whatever. But if you use it to buy gear of any kind, be prepared that they will become obsolete. New tiers may come out. Quotes from pre-launch interviews suggest that level cap increases will be possible with expansions (which, of course, could make ALL current gear obsolete). Or any other unforseen possibilities that Arenanet might throw out there in the near future.

Any RL money you spend on gear, or items to get gear, unless it is just for a look you want is like flushing your cash down the toilet. This is the lesson they taught with the Nov 15th patch, and its one I hope many of you take to heart.

Unless you buy your way in the legendary grind! Then you are a “dedicated player”, the cream of the crop!

Well, seeing as how the only ascended items are a backpiece and rings, and it will be a year until the entire set is available…I think the Exotic gear they bought will still be viable for a good long while.

As silly as it is to buy gems for that since an Exotic set is easy enough to get through crafting, dungeons, or even flipping exotics you get from map completion rewards to the ones you want specifically…

It’s less silly than this “observation”.

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

I can imagine ANet locking this thread as it may deter people from spending their hard-earned money on the gem store.

This is true. If you use gems to buy gear, as I did, you must be prepared to continue shelling out dollars to buy gear as vertical progression progresses. There is no in-game economy by which you can support yourself as in other MMO’s, sadly, so it’s buy gems or simply don’t keep up with the gear progression.

There’s so many easy ways to get exotic gear without the TP. I doubt many people use gems to equip their characters, especially how the cost of gems for gold keeps going up…

But regardless, there’s only rings and a backpack to upgrade. Whether you got your gold from a gold-seller, the gem store, or earned in game hardly matters. Nor does it really matter if you use dungeon gear, invaders, karma, crafted, or TP, it all wears the same.

Do ya really advocate hanging around in masterwork gear until the level cap increases? I dunno if I’ll even be playing GW2 that long.

Raine.1394:

This is true. If you use gems to buy gear, as I did, you must be prepared to continue shelling out dollars to buy gear as vertical progression progresses. There is no in-game economy by which you can support yourself as in other MMO’s, sadly, so it’s buy gems or simply don’t keep up with the gear progression.

I agree. If only there was some way in the game to procure exotics without buying gems. That would be a fine thing. But unfortunately they just appear magically on the TP without human intervention, leaving us all to scramble to spend upwards of $2 to buy them or face being less competitive in ways which only we will really notice.

Curse you Anet. You are taking food out of the mouths of hypothetical children that I made up in order to make this complaint more dramatic.

EDIT: So here is a thing, the forum automatically doesn’t display any paragraph that starts with the format “(blank) you Anet”, where (blank) is a censored word. Lol

no please, we need more people converting gems to gold to lower the exchange rate!

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

That’s an apples and oranges statement.

This plain grey rock I’m offering to sell you could potentially last 100 years! and is in fact usable as many things including a paper weight! clearly it’s worth a thousand dollars right?

GregT.4702:

Raine.1394:

This is true. If you use gems to buy gear, as I did, you must be prepared to continue shelling out dollars to buy gear as vertical progression progresses. There is no in-game economy by which you can support yourself as in other MMO’s, sadly, so it’s buy gems or simply don’t keep up with the gear progression.

I agree. If only there was some way in the game to procure exotics without buying gems. That would be a fine thing. But unfortunately they just appear magically on the TP without human intervention, leaving us all to scramble to spend upwards of $2 to buy them or face being less competitive in ways which only we will really notice.

Curse you Anet. You are taking food out of the mouths of hypothetical children that I made up in order to make this complaint more dramatic.

EDIT: So here is a thing, the forum automatically doesn’t display any paragraph that starts with the format “(blank) you Anet”, where (blank) is a censored word. Lol

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

Good point. Even if it’s not the last gear you wear in game, that hardly matters to if you’ve enjoyed it, given how very slow and small gear upgrades are coming out. Cheap rent. Altho I enjoy pizza, too.

Hellkaiser.6025:

mulch.2586:

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

Good point. Even if it’s not the last gear you wear in game, that hardly matters to if you’ve enjoyed it, given how very slow and small gear upgrades are coming out. Cheap rent. Altho I enjoy pizza, too.

Would you like to buy this lovely rock sir? it’s got a whole host of uses, and is a steal at $1000

+1. That made me chuckle.

Hellkaiser.6025:

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

That’s an apples and oranges statement.

This plain grey rock I’m offering to sell you could potentially last 100 years! and is in fact usable as many things including a paper weight! clearly it’s worth a thousand dollars right?

What I’m saying is that I have ALREADY got my money’s worth out of the gear I bought. I got it, frankly, on the very night that I crafted the gear, and tried out some dyes on it, and linked it to my guild, and then did a dungeon in it. That was five hours of fun, which is about what I expect from $10 of DLC. Everything since then has been gravy.

Your argument that there’s no point in buying gear with money because it will be made obsolete assumes two really sad things:
(1) that people would buy gear as an investment, rather than for its immediate worth, and
(2) that the value of having the gear is for the content it unlocks, rather than that the gear is content in and of itself.

You’re entitled to hold those beliefs; I’m just saying it’s a sad and lonely way to game and if that’s your honest opinion you’re unlikely to get much happiness from gaming in either the short or long term. You’re likewise entitled to believe that exotic gear is not worth the price I paid for it; that’s great, you get to sell it to people like me and make a profit. You should celebrate that.

GregT.4702:

Hellkaiser.6025:

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

That’s an apples and oranges statement.

This plain grey rock I’m offering to sell you could potentially last 100 years! and is in fact usable as many things including a paper weight! clearly it’s worth a thousand dollars right?

What I’m saying is that I have ALREADY got my money’s worth out of the gear I bought. I got it, frankly, on the very night that I crafted the gear, and tried out some dyes on it, and linked it to my guild, and then did a dungeon in it. That was five hours of fun, which is about what I expect from $10 of DLC. Everything since then has been gravy.

Your argument that there’s no point in buying gear with money because it will be made obsolete assumes two really sad things:
(1) that people would buy gear as an investment, rather than for its immediate worth, and
(2) that the value of having the gear is for the content it unlocks, rather than that the gear is content in and of itself.

You’re entitled to hold those beliefs; I’m just saying it’s a sad and lonely way to game and if that’s your honest opinion you’re unlikely to get much happiness from gaming in either the short or long term. You’re likewise entitled to believe that exotic gear is not worth the price I paid for it; that’s great, you get to sell it to people like me and make a profit. You should celebrate that.

Ya know, hopefully you can tell already that I’m not an unreasonable or irrational kinda guy, although sometimes I do tend to be a little wordy or rant a bit when I’m riled up which is a personality flaw I fully admit to.
When you say you would pay literally 10AUSD for a set of armor, even if it’s just for the aesthetics you worry me. You’ve literally just given an insane value (comparatively) for a set of armor that you can obtain by just playing the game. Does this mean you’d rather throw money at a game instead of playing it? I’m trying to understand here, not ridicule you, I mean where does this mindset stem from and do you not feel that by buying something such as that via gold conversion, instead of buying the actual “cash shop aesthetic overlays” you encourage the belief that rather than creating more aesthetic overlay items, they can just sell you the armor direct from the cash shop?

As for DLC, there was a name for that a long time ago in the gaming world, it was called modding, when it was official modding it was called an expansion. Some lovely fellow seen fit to take the idea of the game expansion and or mods and monetize them into the “day one DLC” garbage we see now, and players don’t like it as they feel it continually harasses them in an attempt to gouge them for their money.

The other assumptions you make about me are baseless however, and I’m at a loss as to how you reached said assumptions. The one I least appreciate however, is the claim I don’t get much happiness from gaming or must lead some lonely existence which almost borders on in some way claiming I’m to be pitied?

My opinion, as you can see is that I think you paid far too much for something that’s got such little value. You then go on to liken it to a gourmet pizza.
By all means pay through the nose for a pizza, or a piece of armor ingame. That’s your perogative, but don’t blame other players for thinking you’re selling yourself short or being taken for a muggins. It’s more out of a genuine concern for a fellow consumer as opposed to a personal attack. I do hope you see that and I apologize if my stab at humour missed it’s mark prompting you to feel you had to respond in kind

Oh and as a small side note, If crafting actually warranted its existence in profitability, there wouldn’t be this issue, the idea that your lack of issue with throwing money at the game for gear is my gain being the primary point, is one that is based on an assumption that we’re all greedy and selfish and don’t believe in fair trade. We’re not all huge capitalists who believe in the dog eat dog world.

Well anet has also never said that the level cap wont be increased.

When that happens, that means a whole new level of gear to get.

Just throwing that out there.

Let’s just make a quick comparison here:
- going to the movies with your girlfriend costs 2×7 euros for tickets + 2×7 euros for snacks which totals up to around 28 euros. It was a bad movie and your girlfriend dumps you 2 weeks later. 28 euros down the toilet. This is the main reason I don’t like going to the movies.

- my girlfriend on the other hand bought me a 28 euro gem card last week. I could deck out my alt in full exotics, get a craft up to 400 and get another bank slot. In fact, I did. Since full ascended armor won’t come any time soon, and take time to get, this 28 euros lasts for months if not years (not to mention I love my girlfriend even more for supporting my favourite game).

While this may be apples and oranges, I do see a clear 28 euros for 1.5 hours of a puppy movie compared to 28 euros for months and months of fun in a game. I’m not an economist like John Smith but I’d still call the gems the better investment.

marnick.4305:

Let’s just make a quick comparison here:
- going to the movies with your girlfriend costs 2×7 euros for tickets + 2×7 euros for snacks which totals up to around 28 euros. It was a bad movie and your girlfriend dumps you 2 weeks later. 28 euros down the toilet. This is the main reason I don’t like going to the movies.

- my girlfriend on the other hand bought me a 28 euro gem card last week. I could deck out my alt in full exotics, get a craft up to 400 and get another bank slot. In fact, I did. Since full ascended armor won’t come any time soon, and take time to get, this 28 euros lasts for months if not years (not to mention I love my girlfriend even more for supporting my favourite game).

While this may be apples and oranges, I do see a clear 28 euros for 1.5 hours of a puppy movie compared to 28 euros for months and months of fun in a game. I’m not an economist like John Smith but I’d still call the gems the better investment.

I had no intention of buying gems to convert to gold, but this analogy makes a lot of sense. You sir, have convinced me.

I bought groceries for 50€ last week, guess where that kitten has landed by now?

Tolmos.8395:

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

Or -gasp- you can also not. Let’s see…full karma armour is like~250k. You can get 40 jugs in 1 month just from achievements. At almost 8k karma per jug, that’s 320k karma. Look, there’s your karma exotic set. Now, if in that one month you also bothered with random stuff like dungeons, WvWvW, resource gathering(where you are bound to run into a few events), you also made a decent amount of gold, got some mats and extra karma. Oh, almost forgot, if you leveled by doing maps and not with crafting or wvwvw and didn’t accidentally delete all your gold, you’d probably have 5-10g saved up to buy a piece or 4 from the TP with it. But, yeah, you can go grind till your eyes bleed out. After all, games are not about having fun, but about getting everything and getting it right kittening now.

Hellkaiser.6025:

That’s an apples and oranges statement.

This plain grey rock I’m offering to sell you could potentially last 100 years! and is in fact usable as many things including a paper weight! clearly it’s worth a thousand dollars right?

He belongs exactly in the group the OP was referring to, it’s in no way guaranteed that you will have the maximum armour when buying your armor through the gem system, true. But it’s still the same case, where one person can enjoy one armor set he bought, where the other had set his or her mind on using the bought armor forever.

It’s not as much as lesson learned, more than if you think it’s worth it to “grind less” by using the gem transfer, knowing the gear might be not the maximum at some point, then why not.

Plus all these complainers about plinx being nerfed need to get out of Orr more. lol. I never did the Plinx event more than once and I still have loads and load of karma. They simply nerfed it because people were banging their head against it, doing nothing else but plinx, in the same way everyone is now doing fractals. Both seem a less than optimal situation.

TWMagimay.9057:

Tolmos.8395:

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

Or -gasp- you can also not. Let’s see…full karma armour is like~250k. You can get 40 jugs in 1 month just from achievements. At almost 8k karma per jug, that’s 320k karma. Look, there’s your karma exotic set. Now, if in that one month you also bothered with random stuff like dungeons, WvWvW, resource gathering(where you are bound to run into a few events), you also made a decent amount of gold, got some mats and extra karma. Oh, almost forgot, if you leveled by doing maps and not with crafting or wvwvw and didn’t accidentally delete all your gold, you’d probably have 5-10g saved up to buy a piece or 4 from the TP with it. But, yeah, you can go grind till your eyes bleed out. After all, games are not about having fun, but about getting everything and getting it right kittening now.

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

lol u guys make it seem like we dont have the option to transmute gear after we buy it...

In my view, getting exotic 80 level armor is not very hard to do from karma vendors in Malchor’s Leap or the Cursed Shore. It is only the weapon what I had to buy in the TP, because my characters do not do any weapon/armor crafting (since it is needed to use “blood” as a component, that makes it to be akin to a necromantic crafting and they are not necromancers).

Tolmos.8395:

Any RL money you spend on gear, or items to get gear, unless it is just for a look you want is like flushing your cash down the toilet. This is the lesson they taught with the Nov 15th patch, and its one I hope many of you take to heart.

Agree completely. I am reminded of the old saying: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

And before anyone rages at me for saying that, I’ll admit that I am feeling very foolish for the show of support I gave ArenaNet by buying some gems back in October. November 15th made me feel very, very foolish indeed. If I’d had any clue that ArenaNet would go against their manifesto in such a blatant manner, and completely screw the people who did support them in the gem store, I’d never have bought the game, much less any gems.

Unfortunately, I fear that if I ask for a refund for the money that I spent on those gems, my Guild Wars account that’s linked to my GW2 account will be deactivated.

We need the First Lady to start a “Say no to gems” campaign…

Chuo.4238:

And before anyone rages at me for saying that, I’ll admit that I am feeling very foolish for the show of support I gave ArenaNet by buying some gems back in October.

Not raging here, since that’s all opinionated. I’m glad you went and support the game I still like to play, so you have my thanks. ^^

(And yes I have spend some money on the gem store too)

But really, thanks alot. =)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

Last I checked, karma booster, guild buff and banner affect jugs and drops bringing jugs to almost 8k per and drops to about 700. If they changed it, I missed the patch notes and can’t log in to check right now(might forget later). So, anyway…did they actually change that?

TWMagimay.9057:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

Last I checked, karma booster, guild buff and banner affect jugs and drops bringing jugs to almost 8k per and drops to about 700. If they changed it, I missed the patch notes and can’t log in to check right now(might forget later). So, anyway…did they actually change that?

Not that I know of. I was curious about the number is all because last time I used a Jug to see the value it was 4500 Karma.

Of course, each Jug can be boosted . . . and you don’t count the Karma earned in the course of doing the Daily, nor the final reward from that chest you open. (Also, at level 80 it’s at least 5 silver. Sometimes close to 6 silver but I don’t yet know what triggers that.)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TWMagimay.9057:

Tolmos.8395:

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

Or -gasp- you can also not. Let’s see…full karma armour is like~250k. You can get 40 jugs in 1 month just from achievements. At almost 8k karma per jug, that’s 320k karma. Look, there’s your karma exotic set. Now, if in that one month you also bothered with random stuff like dungeons, WvWvW, resource gathering(where you are bound to run into a few events), you also made a decent amount of gold, got some mats and extra karma. Oh, almost forgot, if you leveled by doing maps and not with crafting or wvwvw and didn’t accidentally delete all your gold, you’d probably have 5-10g saved up to buy a piece or 4 from the TP with it. But, yeah, you can go grind till your eyes bleed out. After all, games are not about having fun, but about getting everything and getting it right kittening now.

I thought it was 4500 Karma per jug? Just a minor correction.

actually its both

its 4500 karma per jug like you say but if you activate guild karma boost + a karma booster you can boost it up to 7k + a bit more

People actually buy gems with the idea in mind that they’d use them to buy exotic gear? Serious question.

fellyn.5083:

People actually buy gems with the idea in mind that they’d use them to buy exotic gear? Serious question.

Apparently so.

I had my full set ready to go only a few days after hitting 80. I just didnt bother spending karma as I leveled, really there was no point. Saved it for when I hit 80 and voila, free exotics. Wasn’t hard.

tkalamba.2541:

fellyn.5083:

People actually buy gems with the idea in mind that they’d use them to buy exotic gear? Serious question.

Apparently so.

I had my full set ready to go only a few days after hitting 80. I just didnt bother spending karma as I leveled, really there was no point. Saved it for when I hit 80 and voila, free exotics. Wasn’t hard.

Ugh… if people did a minimal amount of gathering they’d have more than enough materials to make a few pieces of exotic armor as soon as they hit 80. Then there is karma and dungeons. The time it takes to get a full set of dungeon armor is so quick now compared to what it was at launch as well.

These are likely the people who also complain about not having anything to do in game, too, I bet.

I wonder if I can call GW2 a gear treadmill if the treadmill is running slower than any game I’ve ever played. Still, I would rather have no treadmill of stats. Just give me new aesthetics and an achievement system to incentivize the collection of all currently available armor sets. Horizontal progression made easy.

(go home spellcheck, you’re drunk)

OP, I’m a pretty casual player and I have no problems at all to get the gold/mats i need without buying gems, the only time i converted gems to gold was on halloween when there was a huge spike on the conversion rate and i just couldn’t resist xD but thats it, so stop complaining and try enjoying the game for a bit… getting shinys isn’t everything, if you keep playing and enjoying the game you will eventually get those shinys

Minibiskit.6158:

I wonder if I can call GW2 a gear treadmill if the treadmill is running slower than any game I’ve ever played. Still, I would rather have no treadmill of stats. Just give me new aesthetics and an achievement system to incentivize the collection of all currently available armor sets. Horizontal progression made easy.

(go home spellcheck, you’re drunk)

Honestly, It’s still way too early to even use the term “treadmill”

We’ve only seen one addition… It’d only be so if we see a new tier every so often. We have no evidence to really support this yet.

I think the lesson learned is actually, don’t get the current top tier armour no matter what. Just get the level or two below it. Sure you will have imperfect stats, but it will be a helluva lot cheaper – and since exotics are now officially going to be imperfect, all effort spent to get exotics in terms of gold (ectos+mats) was wasted effort. Everyone should have stuck with masterwork or rares, as it is much more cost efficient.

Eventually ascended stuff will be much easier/actually realistic to aquire, so get it then. Stay an infusion tier behind the current max infusion tier, cus we know it will be obselete in terms of “max stats” soon enough.

Do the gear treadmill, but do it a cycle behind everyone else. Essentially don’t play the game the designer’s want you to play, cus the way they have set it up screws over a lot of people (a lot of people may actually argue it is BAD design).

Only problem is WvW, but tbh until culling has been fixed, and people stop circling he map in zergs, I dont think armour will affect it much.

My son read a review (I think it was by Pokket, but when I googled I didn’t find it) of GW2 by someone who’d bought gems-gold and leveled fast with crafting. It’s certainly an endorsed play style. And if you’re a journalist who needs to see endgame quickly for a review, it makes sense to hurry it up, so you can get on to writing the next article.

Similarly, if you look at time in RL vs in-game, a small amount of $$ on gems gets you plenty of gold, and in this game you can buy end-game gear (unlike most other games I’ve played where top gear wasn’t tradable). It’s certainly not the only way to get it, but it is part of the rule-set and design.

The premise that buying gear (with gold/karma/tokens/badges) is a bad prospect because it may in some day be replaced — I find that concept baffling.

Get gear, wear it, salvage/sell it… that cycle worked fine 1-79, and it keeps on working fine at 80.

I sold some gems for gold. You know why? I make real life money faster than ingame money. Well, I use until until the dungeon update which gives you more money for completing it.

BTW, I have full exotics (berserker) with 6/6 superior runes of the eagle, bloodlust on dagger and shortbow. All from dungeons that I enjoyed doing. We all didn’t buy our gear with RL money.

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

Yeah, OP is right.

Just like I don’t own a tv, because if I spent money on the best tv in a year it would be obsolete.

Same with computers. I don’t own one because if I spend money on it something better will come out.

Or a car. Why spend money on a new car when next year there will be a better one?

Or cell phones. I bought an iphone 4 and then a few months later the 4s came out making mine obsolete…

brilliant observation, friend.

I really don’t get how people can justify using real life examples and compare to a video game lol … I’ll never take that seriously.

Lettuce be cereal, OP has a point. Eventually a full set of ascended gear will exist, making exotics inferior stat-wise and that will affect the balance of the game.

Rukia.4802:

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

Yeah, OP is right.

Just like I don’t own a tv, because if I spent money on the best tv in a year it would be obsolete.

Same with computers. I don’t own one because if I spend money on it something better will come out.

Or a car. Why spend money on a new car when next year there will be a better one?

Or cell phones. I bought an iphone 4 and then a few months later the 4s came out making mine obsolete…

brilliant observation, friend.

I really don’t get how people can justify using real life examples and compare to a video game lol … I’ll never take that seriously.

Lettuce be cereal, OP has a point. Eventually a full set of ascended gear will exist, making exotics inferior stat-wise and that will affect the balance of the game.

So what? So we’ll replace the gear we’re wearing now? Just like we replaced our previous gear with this set, and the gear before that, and the gear before that…

I’m just baffled by how this one step is at all an issue, given how many thousands of times I’ve upgraded gear in MMOs.

The only difference here is that gear has such a small influence on your character’s performance, and the increments between gear levels are so small… you could likely never see an upgrade in GW2 that will noticably affect your performance.

its the same rationale that applies to real life. buy iphone 5, then 5 months later iphone 6 will come out. dot dot dot.

but yeah, i get you. i also bought gems for gold to gear my first character, thinking that they’ll be the maxed gear for a very long time. but i was wrong.

Let’s see:

Regular Gear – character half-life (in combat) 1.1 minutes
Exotic Gear – character half-life (in combat) 1.15 minutes
Ascended Gear – character half-life (in combat) 1.3 minutes

Yep——gonna run out and buy those gems!!!!

Lets take a look at a worse case, you buy the gems to get the gold to buy your gear then Omg Omg whats this you were hacked and everything is gone even that legendary item. You contact cumstomer support you are told we are very sorry and understand the fustration you are going thru unfortunality we dont have a program in to roll your account back we are working on it but by the time we get it out you will have straightened all this out. So good luck. There are worse things that can happen then being in outdated gear.

Hellkaiser.6025:

GregT.4702:

I spent about $10 AUD back in October and used it to buy the mats I was missing to craft a full set of exotic Rampager’s Leather. I’ve enjoyed that set of armour for two months now, and given my lack of interest in Fractals I’m likely to continue enjoying it until they add Ascendeds as world drops or craftables, at the earliest.

For half the price of a gourmet pizza, I honestly have not the slightest regrets.

That’s an apples and oranges statement.

This plain grey rock I’m offering to sell you could potentially last 100 years! and is in fact usable as many things including a paper weight! clearly it’s worth a thousand dollars right?

Not really.
$ 20. ->Gourmet Pizza= a nice little luxury meal to enjoy at a reasonable price.
For half of that price, he was able to craft a nice set of gear that s/ he will get a lot of use out of in a game s/he enjoys playing.

All this person is saying is that they feel like they got their money’s worth.

The only thing you NEED Ascended gear for is higher level Fractal dungeons. Unless that particular bit of content, or simply having the best of everything, whether you actually need it or not, is your personal Holy Grail of Gaming; it’s really no more valuable than any other Exotic tier gear. Its value is subjective.
That said; if a luxury item (which is exactly what Ascended and Legendary gear is in the context of this game) is easy to obtain by most players, then it is no longer a luxury item, but common.

If you spend money for gears, it means you have strong desires for vertical progression. You’re a dedicated player by heart. You wanted to achieve “the best”. You must realise that Lv1 to Lv80 is already a vertical progression.

If the money you spend is on something that you enjoy whatever which way…..

……than who gives a crap what anyone else thinks?

How many of us bought the collector’s edition, hmm?

Do I need that statue of Rytlock?

No but its sterile and i like the taste.

Wait….

Rukia.4802:

HyDraLiNsK.2470:

Yeah, OP is right.

Just like I don’t own a tv, because if I spent money on the best tv in a year it would be obsolete.

Same with computers. I don’t own one because if I spend money on it something better will come out.

Or a car. Why spend money on a new car when next year there will be a better one?

Or cell phones. I bought an iphone 4 and then a few months later the 4s came out making mine obsolete…

brilliant observation, friend.

I really don’t get how people can justify using real life examples and compare to a video game lol … I’ll never take that seriously.

Lettuce be cereal, OP has a point. Eventually a full set of ascended gear will exist, making exotics inferior stat-wise and that will affect the balance of the game.

Yeah.. Full ascended gear will be out in a years time. Now tell me, in a years times how many new games will come out that require you to upgrade your computer? Or In a years time how many new phones will be released with new features your’s doesn’t have? It’s the SAME! You buy armor in a game because it is the best and will make dungeons ect easier (but not 100% needed). You upgrade your computer becasue new and more powerful games come out (a upgrade is not needed, but it makes the game run smoother and look nicer) You’re playing a MMO, i’m not being funny but somewhere down the line new gear will come out regardless if it’s new looks or new stats, don’t turn around and moan because you brought your old armor. Football teams have a new football kit each season right? So do fans sit there saying “No i wont go and buy this seasons kit because next season, they will have a new one”At the end of the day if you couldn’t wait afew days to get full exotics without spending anything (crafing, TP, Karma, Dungeons – it’s really not hard and takes less then a week for a very casual player) and brought your gear with real money, then accept that one day that armor will be useless and it will be a waste of money.

Tolmos.8395:

GregT.4702:

Raine.1394:

This is true. If you use gems to buy gear, as I did, you must be prepared to continue shelling out dollars to buy gear as vertical progression progresses. There is no in-game economy by which you can support yourself as in other MMO’s, sadly, so it’s buy gems or simply don’t keep up with the gear progression.

I agree. If only there was some way in the game to procure exotics without buying gems. That would be a fine thing. But unfortunately they just appear magically on the TP without human intervention, leaving us all to scramble to spend upwards of $2 to buy them or face being less competitive in ways which only we will really notice.

Curse you Anet. You are taking food out of the mouths of hypothetical children that I made up in order to make this complaint more dramatic.

EDIT: So here is a thing, the forum automatically doesn’t display any paragraph that starts with the format “(blank) you Anet”, where (blank) is a censored word. Lol

Sure, you can grind until your eyes bleed, since every decent karma farming method keeps getting nerfed… not that you have to worry about that, since no one is farming karma in Orr anymore but instead standing in Lions Arch yelling “LFG LFG LFG”.

I can’t express how happy I am that I got my armor while Plinx was still at 100%.

I couldn’t disagree with you more on the karama issue – ever since the daily and monthly get you karama liquids it’s been fairly easy to get any karama set you want.
i gathered about 22 large bottles and 30 small bottles in less then a month, used my Karama 50% boost and got me 5 out of 6 items and a culture weapon (greatsword)with all the leftover karama i’ve gotten from previous quests.

before i couldn’t imagine a buy karama item, maybe 1. but now, i have all the armor/skin i want/need.