Guild Wars 2

As Regina Buenaobra had said “most of the people who had an opinion about the issue have already voiced their thoughts” (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/page/222) and following Mark Katzbach advice “People are welcome to provide constructive feedback on any aspect of the game, ascended gear included.” (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Not-even-allowed-to-talk-about-Ascended-Gear):

I would like to say what I think, please note this isn’t a flame or hate post and I trust this will be taken as it is, my opinion.

Never played GW1, 1 level 80 char, full exotics, I do Pve/Pvp/WvWvW

Ascender Gear: Really bad idea, not only because it’s a tier and it take grind to get it (A grind we were told would not exist, not like “grind” for exotics, please, note the difference) and makes exotics obsolete, I had started to get a different set of gear so I could switch builds in Wv3, now it’s feels useless. Why? Easy, I get max gear for mental tranquility, so, If a player does something better than me I can just say “It’s not the gear, he’s just better” (Balance apart) It’s like a mental self inflict trap in some ways, a pretty nice one, also, I don’t believe the “cover gap” thingy:

1. Comestic grind gap: The legendary grind is for cosmetics, a mid tier would be higher difficult/more time demanding cosmetics than Dungeon armors, nothing to do with stats.

2. Stats grind gap: Inexistent, nothing to cover

The difference is simple:

Before: I wasn’t interested in Legendaries, not even a little, I could care less if they all disappear, pluff.

After: I better get Ascended (Even Legendary) if I want to keep my “mind peace”, and it’s not gonna be easy…

Content: Nothing bad to say, FOTM are great and can be experience totally without any added grind, new area is ok and event, well, laggy, but I can take it.

Company attitude: Awful, really sad, it’s obvious people are not happy, It’s pretty obvious this is not what they sold us (This alone is just enough) and the responses had being discouraging.

I can’t understand this change, another profession, new skills for existing ones (Even unbalanced, it’s better than this), new races, focus on pvp or Wv3, new town clothes, armors, even “hard mode” for existing dungeons, there were millions better solutions than a new tier of gear.

Even if all the people who complain are totally wrong, If I was Anet I would be concerned about a good number of my clients feeling lied, tricked or whatever, for me it would be like “What?! Not guys, nothing like that, here, let me explain it, feel free to question anything, I will answer”

Thank you for letting me express myself. (Sorry, english is not my first language)

Op though you and I agree on this point, I was surprised that the gear stat progression does not appeal to you.

On paper you seemed to be the type of person that they are now trying to target.

1. Never played GW1 (so you would not have experienced horizontal progression).
2. Lvl 80
3. Only one character.

If you liked the fact there was no gear stat progression, why did you keep playing?

Arenanet seems to think that they had to do this for people who reached lvl 80 and really needed character progression based on gear tiers.

I honestly do not think the added tier of gear with higher stats ( even though they are only slight) is whats getting the player base in an uproar, its the way they are required to obtain that gear is the issue. The game was designed as a play how you want and enjoy the content, gear was secondary. What resulted is that whole +2 (insert stat type here) per piece, and ONLY being able to aquire that said piece in FOTM unintentionally reverted back the mindset of the player base of what has become standard and typical over the years in MMO’s as “if I do not get the most up to date gear I will be left behind” mentality, thus again unintentionally created an image that ALL CONTENT other than FOTM is now obsolete and not worth doing.

Now the most logical fix IMO to this added tier issue is to make it obtainable through all sources of play (WvWvW, ALL dungeons, Karma, etc) and make the world vibrant and alive again and let the players have the choice of how to get the new tier on their own instead of herding them all into 1 instance. The one thing that really killed alot of games for me was feeling forced to run the same content over and over to get the most up to date gear, never seeing old content again, I know if I was a developer it would be heartbreaking for me to see no one doing the content I created anymore. After about 5 days’ish the only groups I can find are for FOTM, very rarely do I get to do anything else, which really stinks cause I really like some of the other dungeons better.

Anet don’t let something as silly as +2 Power or (insert stat here) ruin all your content, players won’t care if it looks ugly as long as they can have +2 power also.

dalendria.3762:

Op though you and I agree on this point, I was surprised that the gear stat progression does not appeal to you.

On paper you seemed to be the type of person that they are now trying to target.

1. Never played GW1 (so you would not have experienced horizontal progression).
2. Lvl 80
3. Only one character.

If you liked the fact there was no gear stat progression, why did you keep playing?

Arenanet seems to think that they had to do this for people who reached lvl 80 and really needed character progression based on gear tiers.

Well, the MMORPG that I’ve played more hours has been Rising Force Online, official server and two other private servers, in this games the level max was 55 (At least, was in my time), if you were using other armor (Even 53) you were weak, really weak. This game had a cash shop an upgrades for the armor, so a lvl 55 +4 armor was clearly better than a lvl 55 +1, but all in all at level 55 you were more or less done, this game focused heavily in what would be Wv3 in Guild Wars 2 (A lot more simple), with the majority of zones being open pvp.

What I liked about this game is that in lvl 55 I was (again,more or less) free to play, with my friends, with my guild, dpsing that horrible regenerating bosses or raiding in communal farming zones, that was fun for me, actually the process to make a new 55 character was quite boring and tiresome.

So this game sounded like a great one for me, and its been, but I don’t like the way things seems to be turning into.

For me stats are not important in this kind of games, they can matter in single player games because its me vs the game entities, and the game entities don’t give a dam if I “outgear” them, nor do I viceversa, and the content is locked, so I know for sure the hardest enemy will be the hardest enemy tomorrow, as will be the max stats I can reach, if I want to.

Why I kept playing in lvl 80? Well, playing this game is fun, it’s really only that, even with the pvp imbalance, even with Wv3 bugs and problems, its really fun, I love dodging, jumping puzzles, the skills, the lore, the dinamics, hell, I like this game.

I’m currently level an alt some times, just because its fun, not because I run out of thing to do with my main, I just want to experience the other zones with other character, other skills, other ways, also, playing in Wv3 with a lvl 15 char with your friends is really funny.

I’ve been playing for 275-300 h’s aprox, and I honestly think I can really play another 300 more with just the actual content, heck, even more…

So this game is not for everyones taste, like any other in the world, but I really think that reading “Guild Wars 2: One of the most played e-sports of the year” because your pvp is nicely crafted and finely balanced, fun and varied it’s a better way to earn money than trying to catch everyones attention: “who defends everything defends nothing”

I understand people who want to gear for grind, I don’t want to offend anyone but I don’t think it’s a healthy way to play, chasing always the next and not enjoying what you do in the present is a unhappy way to live life, IMHO of course.