Guild Wars 2

This thread takes the cake for worse use of analogies I have ever seen.

Astraea.6075:

I’m sorry to use you as an example of what I see is a problem with these sorts of threads, but I see multiple instances of statements that the company is refusing to be honest with it’s customers. What leads you to believe this? There was a blog post where they stated their reasons, and all the people in an uproar decided that it was just a PR exercise.

While you may disagree with the reasoning (and I’ve seen some good examples of this), what has lead you to think the blog post wasn’t sincere?

My main issue with the blogpost by Chris Whiteside is:

“Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two.”

I want to know what he means by “massive jump in reward between the two” when at the time of the post there were no difference in benefits between the two tiers.

I want to know more about the “item progression initiative” that Lindsey Murdock mentioned in the initial post which started the entire kittentorm.

Without clarification on those statements or the vision of the future, those blogposts contained so much conflicting information that, while it may not be a flat out lie, is at best misleading.

Anet you lied to us. Cmon you realize in your so called ‘statment’ you broke some many logical fallacies. I hate not being taken for an intelligent human being. I truly can’t stand it.
Look we want to know what you lied. Yes, as this may be a shocker to you but breaking the rules of logic will not sway this intelligent community.

I am level 80 and I’m grinding my way to heaven now though heaven looks so far away and with this no tier well I don’t think I can even see it anymore -well its more like a star in the night sky. Its there and shinning but no matter how far you stretch you can’t grab it.

Look if you want this game to be called Farmwars. Then please make it more accessable. At the very least make it so it’s not a migrane.

Shindar the Reaver.2518:

Their response is riddled with lies and betrayal. From Chris Whiteside’s post:

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. " – What can be said about this other than it’s a flat out lie? That it’s technically a truth because the gear treadmill is a means to an end (attracting a different demographic) rather than their primary goal? That’s about the best you’ll do. They have stated their intentions to continue along this same path of stat-based gear progression and gated content. It is a lie. No amount of word-twisting will change that reality.

“Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. " – An intentionally misleading statement, attempting to justify the stat-grind by subtly, purposely confusing the two separate ideas of a cosmetic reward and a stat based reward. There was no massive jump in stat based rewards that had to be ‘fixed’, but that’s what they’re trying to make you think. Intentionally misleading someone is as good as lying.

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.” – Another thing that may be technically true, if stretched to its limits, and yet is practically false. They are adding ascended gear bit-by-bit, so yes, there will periodically be new stat improvements that you will have to chase after. Today it is back pieces and jewelry. A few months from now maybe it will be weapons and chest pieces. After that, maybe helms and pants. There is no practical difference between that and there being an actual new tier beyond ascended. Heck, maybe once they reach 6 months from now they will add a whole new tier beyond ascended and start the cycle anew. Technically it wouldn’t lying. Practically, it is.

And the biggest lie of all was the manifesto. The promises that none of this nonsense would come to pass in the first place.

Thank you for addressing my question, and while I don’t agree with everything you say, it at least allows for a conversation about the issues. My take on this whole thing has been that a lot of the differences in opinion are based on how people are interpreting the things ArenaNet have said.

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. " Prior to Chris’ post, I saw a lot of concern on the forums about Ascended gear being merely the first “step” in a treadmill and that ArenaNet would continue to add tiers as the game went on. I am assuming (rightly or wrongly) that this is the point Chris was trying to address. To be fair, I don’t think ArenaNet have done themselves any favours by not explicitly ruling this out. I also don’t believe that ArenaNet intend to introduce content gating based on gear, but that’s possibly something for another thread.

“Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. " – Prior to this patch, exotics were easy to obtain, but legendaries were a big grind that a lot of people weren’t even going to bother attempting them. If ArenaNet wanted to put in more legendaries (including legendary armour), then what would compel more players to think about going after them? The answer of a new tier that is harder to obtain than exotics, may not be correct (and I personally think it’s a mistake), but I can see what their intention is… when a player reaches level 80 they have a short term goal → exotics, a medium term goal → ascended, and a long term goal → legendary

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.” – again, I see this as addressing the concerns a lot of people expressed on the forums prior to his post about future new tiers. The ascended tier is being phased in slowly, but I think that’s preferable to it all being released in a single patch.

I can see why people don’t like the stat increase between exotic and ascended, but try this as a thought experiment. Would your opinion on ascended gear be different if it was available at launch, but still required some grinding to get?

Clearly the thread merging to begin with was designed with this in mind: one easy swoop to delete all feedback. Trivializing and ignoring the outcry of your player base is a stupid move, Anet.

You just deleted the 210+ page thread and not even MENTIONED ascended items in the feedback you just asked!! Why?

I can see why people don’t like the stat increase between exotic and ascended, but try this as a thought experiment. Would your opinion on ascended gear be different if it was available at launch, but still required some grinding to get?

Assuming that ascended was the very last tier in that situation?

If ascended gear was available at launch I would still see it as far too much of a stat-based grind game for me. There is some (subjective) range of grinding that is acceptable to every individual, and some amount where it’s just too much. In the case of people like me, needing multiple sets of exotics was enough of a grind, but still within acceptable levels. It’s too much of a timesink for me to want to get ascended gear for a single character, let alone multiple sets for multiple characters, which is how I prefer to play games.

But at least in that situation the complete 180 in direction after a purchase wouldn’t be present. I would’ve avoided the game altogether rather than buying it and being disappointed.

Astraea.6075:

I can see why people don’t like the stat increase between exotic and ascended, but try this as a thought experiment. Would your opinion on ascended gear be different if it was available at launch, but still required some grinding to get?

My feeling for ascended would still be negative because it doesn’t address the need to grind in order to stay on par with those that have more time to grind (the other major selling point of the game until now).

The new Arenanet manifesto – Shut down the 11000+ post thread and pretend the issue will go away.

Why bother with the effort of lying and PR BS when you can do that eh?

(slow clap)

Harbard.5738:

You just deleted the 210+ page thread and not even MENTIONED ascended items in the feedback!! Are you trying to get people even more pissed?

Hmm afterspending a long .000000000005 seconds thinking about this their answer must be..

Yes.

Can’t say I didn’t tell you so

Merthax.5172:

“Not acceptable?”

Unfortunately, you are going to eventually have to accept it and move on.

Not at all. Keep pushing the issue.

Why should ArenaNet even say anything if everyone is going to call every single thing they ever post a lie or PR spin or whatever, regardless of what they say? This is exactly what everyone is doing to them. Get over yourselves, people. Show a little respect and rationality.

Stormleaf.1769:

Why should ArenaNet even say anything if everyone is going to call every single thing they ever post a lie or PR spin or whatever, regardless of what they say? This is exactly what everyone is doing to them. Get over yourselves, people. Show a little respect and rationality.

They need a straight yes or no to the question of whether or not there will be new stat-increased tiers of gear beyond between now and the next expansion. If it’s a yes then people will leave. If it’s a no then the whole outrage will die down.

They aren’t answering that question and its only making people more worried.

etiolate.9185:

Stormleaf.1769:

Why should ArenaNet even say anything if everyone is going to call every single thing they ever post a lie or PR spin or whatever, regardless of what they say? This is exactly what everyone is doing to them. Get over yourselves, people. Show a little respect and rationality.

They need a straight yes or no to the question of whether or not there will be new stat-increased tiers of gear beyond between now and the next expansion. If it’s a yes then people will leave. If it’s a no then the whole outrage will die down.

They aren’t answering that question and its only making people more worried.

Pretty sure “we’re not making a gear treadmill” completely answers that question.

Stormleaf.1769:

etiolate.9185:

Stormleaf.1769:

Why should ArenaNet even say anything if everyone is going to call every single thing they ever post a lie or PR spin or whatever, regardless of what they say? This is exactly what everyone is doing to them. Get over yourselves, people. Show a little respect and rationality.

They need a straight yes or no to the question of whether or not there will be new stat-increased tiers of gear beyond between now and the next expansion. If it’s a yes then people will leave. If it’s a no then the whole outrage will die down.

They aren’t answering that question and its only making people more worried.

Pretty sure “we’re not making a gear treadmill” completely answers that question.

Not really. The statement is “Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill.” That’s different, as you can always adjust your goal and get shifty with the definition of gear treadmill. The more assuring part is that they don’t plan to introduce new tiers of gear every three months. Yet even that has wiggle room in it’s statement:

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”

They can just claim that people don’t need to get ascended gear to enjoy all parts of the game and pretend that the behavior of the populace has no relevance to their intentions. Essentially, they can create a tiering problem that spreads to other parts of the game and just claim ignorance to its existence as their defense.

In addition, the problem is that other answers have been less assuring and have created a mix message.

That’s why a straight yes or no answer to a straight up question needs to be had. ArenaNet needs to regain trust with the public that they have lost due to their announcement and then carefully coded response.

Stormleaf.1769:

etiolate.9185:

Stormleaf.1769:

Why should ArenaNet even say anything if everyone is going to call every single thing they ever post a lie or PR spin or whatever, regardless of what they say? This is exactly what everyone is doing to them. Get over yourselves, people. Show a little respect and rationality.

They need a straight yes or no to the question of whether or not there will be new stat-increased tiers of gear beyond between now and the next expansion. If it’s a yes then people will leave. If it’s a no then the whole outrage will die down.

They aren’t answering that question and its only making people more worried.

Pretty sure “we’re not making a gear treadmill” completely answers that question.

The thing is that exact line is already known to be a lie. The fact that infusions have been confirmed to have higher rarities to be released later means that they DO intend to add a gear treadmill.

They’ve just been incredibly underhanded about it by trying to disguise the new tiers as item upgrades instead of actual pieces of gear.

I’m pretty much done with the game after this whole debacle. I wish I could refund, but from what I’m hearing: since I was a sap that believed in this game and its (original) vision, I can’t as I bought it the day it opened.

Their whole handling of this issue has been complete, total and utter horsekitten. So you complain about some imaginary gap in reward between exotic and legendary, when the only gap was cosmetic not statistical – so you introduce an actual stat gap between exotic and legendary. This is the same kind of stupid kittened up logic that ruined the ending of ME3, “Uhh we don’t want robots to kill you, so we use robots to kill you.”

If they really wanted to create a 2nd tier, then they would have added Ascended gear to the Mystic Forge as an intermediary in the very same way that items like Abyssal Scepter or Foefire are already in there. Those items take a significant more time investment than regular weapons – but also significantly less than legendaries. BOOM! Problem solved!

The fact is, they have kicked their philosophy of gear parity to the curb, lied to their customers, treated them like idiots with a totally disingenuous, paper-thin reply then continued to ignore them and ultimately attempt to silence them. Never thought I’d see that from this company – it’s quite sad.

You won’t be getting anymore of my money Arenanet. My guild has pretty much abandoned this game and things like this are the reason why. Instead of adding creative progression into the game, you have went with the tired old method of adding gear. It’s PRECISELY what you said you WOULDN’T do!

You could have added so much more to the game over time to keep hardcore players here:

- New traits
- New combo fields, combo mechanics
- New skills
- New Elite skills
- New exotic runes with rune combinations and mechanics
- Refining WvW and adding purpose and progression there

…and instead you chose the easiest, dumbest, least creative, least fun method you could, that by the way also completely invalidates your manifesto (which I had on my guild site for months): gear grind.

Good riddance.

Whiteside: “We’re not making a gear treadmill.”

Forum users: “YOU LIE AND YES YOU ARE”

Whiteside: "We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”

Forum users: “WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU. YOU ARE WRONG.”

Chill out guys. I think the concerns about ascended gear are pretty much covered. Ascended is the “mid-term goal” and is just as optional as legendaries ever were in all content aside from high level fractals. Which, let’s get real here, aren’t gated content. They’re a harder version of the same content you can do just fine in exotics.

As for WvW balance in terms of ascended gear… Which is a larger benefit to your team. 100g on ascended items, or 100g on siege weapons bps and cap upgrades?

The only effect Ascended gear, implemented as it is, will have on WvW is to change the excuses people use when they die. In stead of “outnumbered” or “cheese tactics” they’ll now blame ascended gear. Once the ascended gear moves over to WvW acquisition and becomes more common they’ll find something else to blame.

Gibbel.5734:

Think that after the rage thread they gonna make ascend gear easier to get just like excotics

“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. "

Also think this is the NEW MAX gear cap ever.. atleast i hope so…. you would think after al the rage they learned there lesson.. I am guesing this is the only way to try and salavage it without making the Hamsters rage.

that wouldn’t help… the core problem isn’t that ascend gears is hard to get… it is that the ascends gears would make people’s effort on collecting their exotic set useless… They would have to abandon the things they work so hard for 3 months because the gears is mandatory in Fotm level 10 +

Believe me or not, A LOT of people came to gw2 because they don’t need to feel that their efforts in collecting the highest tier would be wasted when a new patch comes…and this is exactly what this patch did.

unless Infusion slot would be add to the current exotic gears, and that ascends gears would have hte same stat as extoics…. people will continue to complain and quit…

hell… if i want to abandon my gears every couple months in an mmo… I would do it in wow.

PopeUrban.2578:

[cut]and is just as optional as legendaries ever were in all content aside from high level fractals.[cut]

why is it so hard to understand that there is a difference between a SKIN and a STATS IMPROVEMENT?

Why not to put ascended items with same exotics stats + infusion?
Because sadly GW2 took players from WoW base.
So “I play more I deserve more”.
Too much attention and effort in useless unrequired events and still a ton of bug in the game. yeah yeah i know … different teams and blablabla … reduce developement team and add ppl to the fixing team.
We CAN’T play because of that culling issue!

Gilandred.9870:

Anet broke off the relationship. You’re hurt. Confused. You want to know what happened, what went wrong. Like any relationship gone bad, does it really matter in the end? Just time to move on……they have, and so should you.

ha! that forced a sardonic smile upon my face. ;S

Obviously they will not be adding new gear every three months. It will be every four months, starting from here on out.

Once in March to line up with spring break, once in July to line up with the summer, once in November to match up with the start of the winter holiday block. They’re marketing to predominantly males 14-26 living in Europe and North America. Those dates line up with school breaks — that’s why the weekend was chosen for the karka event.

The fact is we need a real statement.
This is not going to go away, the more time passes, the more obvious it will be how badly the the game was damaged by this.
Locking the threadnaught seems like an attempt to silence players on the issue.
This is not right.
If they have really heard our voices they should acknowledge it.
And no- I don’t mean a ridiculous PR piece that is an insult to my intelligence.

carson yuen.6739:

Gibbel.5734:

Think that after the rage thread they gonna make ascend gear easier to get just like excotics

“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. "

Also think this is the NEW MAX gear cap ever.. atleast i hope so…. you would think after al the rage they learned there lesson.. I am guesing this is the only way to try and salavage it without making the Hamsters rage.

that wouldn’t help… the core problem isn’t that ascend gears is hard to get… it is that the ascends gears would make people’s effort on collecting their exotic set useless… They would have to abandon the things they work so hard for 3 months because the gears is mandatory in Fotm level 10 +

Believe me or not, A LOT of people came to gw2 because they don’t need to feel that their efforts in collecting the highest tier would be wasted when a new patch comes…and this is exactly what this patch did.

unless Infusion slot would be add to the current exotic gears, and that ascends gears would have hte same stat as extoics…. people will continue to complain and quit…

hell… if i want to abandon my gears every couple months in an mmo… I would do it in wow.

They could have avoided this problem entirely if instead of making ascended armor the way they did, they just made it an item upgrade system.

I don’t think anyone would be upset if the concept of ascended gear was: take exotic gear -> spend some effort to put an infusion slot on it -> infuse your existing armor.

“OH NOES but how will we handle having both infusions and runes/sigils/gems/etc on the same item?” Why, concerned internet user, who cares! Just clearly mark the item to say “unused infusion slot” and “unused upgrade slot” and people will figure it out.

That is ALMOST what they have done with the current system. Just put those bonus stats on the infusions. It’s the same result, everyone wins, previous work isn’t invalidated, people don’t need to start from scratch, and so on. It’s so numbingly basic that I almost wish I lived in Seattle so I could sit in on their meetings and see what the kitten they do with their time.

Daendur.2357:

PopeUrban.2578:

[cut]and is just as optional as legendaries ever were in all content aside from high level fractals.[cut]

why is it so hard to understand that there is a difference between a SKIN and a STATS IMPROVEMENT?

Why not to put ascended items with same exotics stats + infusion?
Because sadly GW2 took players from WoW base.
So “I play more I deserve more”.
Too much attention and effort in useless unrequired events and still a ton of bug in the game. yeah yeah i know … different teams and blablabla … reduce developement team and add ppl to the fixing team.
We CAN’T play because of that culling issue!

Legendaries were technically a statistical improvement as well, before this change, yet many people were completely willing to say ‘well it isn’t much gain, and I don’t want to grind because I can still do the content without it’

My point is that this is true of ascended items as well. You can still easily complete the content without them if you don’t want to grind, UNLESS you’re looking to do high difficulty fractals, in which case you’re already grinding the same content to grind the same content at a tougher difficulty. Some people like this style of play, some people don’t.

The fact is that for all the complaining about best in slot, required tier gear, etc. the only “treadmill” that ascended items bring to the game is increasing difficulty level of the fractals eventually requiring ascended-only agony related stats. Past that, guess what? You can still kill people win WvW wearing exotics. You can still do full on explorable runs wearing exotics.

You, the player have decided that you need the new tier, despite the game being designed in such a manner that you don’t need it for anything but 10+ fractals.

People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.

I just plain don’t get it. it isn’t as if open world zones or explorable mode dungeons are being made somehow harder, or that future non-fractal content is being balanced around them before they’re available outside of fractals.

TLDR: You don’t need ascended items unless you’re doing the content you seem to hate having to do to acquire them.

PopeUrban.2578:

TLDR: You don’t need ascended items unless you’re doing the content you seem to hate having to do to acquire them.

for an anet apologist you are extremely shortsighted.

do you really think that they arent developing other uses for the a-gear?

wake up.

PopeUrban.2578:

People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.

Forgive me if I’m being ignorant or bothersome, but which statistical advantage are you speaking of, dear friend?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudzu

I might not be the most well-informed player, but I am relatively certain that these items are statistically identical.

@PopeUrban.2578

“The fact is that for all the complaining about best in slot, required tier gear, etc. the only “treadmill” that ascended items bring to the game is increasing difficulty level of the fractals eventually requiring ascended-only agony related stats. Past that, guess what? You can still kill people win WvW wearing exotics. You can still do full on explorable runs wearing exotics.”

Can a player in full exotic Arah gear run level 20 Factals? If not then how is Ascended gear not tiered to enjoy game content?

Kerithlan.1659:

PopeUrban.2578:

People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.

Forgive me if I’m being ignorant or bothersome, but which statistical advantage are you speaking of, dear friend?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudzu

I might not be the most well-informed player, but I am relatively certain that these items are statistically identical.

Prior to anyone actually making an legendary and what we drew from Beta, Legendaries were under the idea they had a minor stat increase in their stats (similar to what ascendant gear has to exotics atm).

Leonard.2867:

@PopeUrban.2578

“The fact is that for all the complaining about best in slot, required tier gear, etc. the only “treadmill” that ascended items bring to the game is increasing difficulty level of the fractals eventually requiring ascended-only agony related stats. Past that, guess what? You can still kill people win WvW wearing exotics. You can still do full on explorable runs wearing exotics.”

Can a player in full exotic Arah gear run level 20 Factals? If not then how is Ascended gear not tiered to enjoy game content?

As someone who has actually encountered Agony, yeah you can run level 20 Fractal without ascended gear. Agony as a mechanic during boss fight is simply tacked onto most large scale AoE attacks/projectiles as it is. So if you avoid the circles and dodge the balls of fun coming you’re way, you will more or less be able to clear the content without Ascendant Gear.

Aye, thank you for answering. So from your experience, why does one need ascended gear then? Why do we need +stats and anti-agony?

ascended items are more powerful than exotics. Even some exoitcs are more powerful than others, and this is wrong and stupid. It is against everything we were told about this game gear system.
And what is even worst is that They are denying what they are doing.
If i punch you in the face saying “i’m not punching you in the face” you’ll feel good? Because this is exactly what ANet is doing to us.
Obviously you will find someone that will like to be punched and will ask for more….

Leonard.2867:

Aye, thank you for answering. So from your experience, why does one need ascended gear then? Why do we need +stats and anti-agony?

It’s there to help those who either mess up with the dodge rolling and the +stats are just to help make things run faster. I imagine the trash mobs do eventually scale up in difficulty to how some trash mobs of the harder mobs introduced (lvl 84 veteran karkas I’m looking at you). As for the bosses themselves, the agony mechanic is rather shallow if you do avoid the hits.

And yeah I don’t have Ascendant(Ima call Pink) Gear. I have a ton of those vials though. Those things drop like candy. Pink Gear themselves are too expensive to craft outright and I am not one to farm T6 mats for such a minor upgrade in stats. I’d rather save it for my legendary I’ll eventually get.

I think my only wish if they had rolled Pink Gear into Exotic Gear (Like throwing in your Exotics with a Gift of the Mist and it spits out an Pink Version of it) and having infusion slots added with the minor points added from the Infusions you can get via crafting the way Sigils and Runes are.

Aleaf.8174:

Kerithlan.1659:

PopeUrban.2578:

People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.

Forgive me if I’m being ignorant or bothersome, but which statistical advantage are you speaking of, dear friend?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudzu

I might not be the most well-informed player, but I am relatively certain that these items are statistically identical.

Prior to anyone actually making an legendary and what we drew from Beta, Legendaries were under the idea they had a minor stat increase in their stats (similar to what ascendant gear has to exotics atm).

I was in the Beta and was never under any such impressions. I understood ArenaNet’s attitude toward gear from my years of experience with Guild Wars 1. Could you either elaborate as to who “we” were, or link to an article by a developer describing legendary items prior to their emergence in-game stating that they would have better stats?

Look at them sweep this 11k posts thread under the rug like nothing ever happened.
Amazing.

They could have saved thousands of man hours and millions of dollars just by going back to work for Blizzard if all they intended to do was emulate them or make a WOW expansion. Whats next over the horizen, Pandas?

Rhydian.5412:

They could have saved thousands of man hours and millions of dollars just by going back to work for Blizzard if all they intended to do was emulate them or make a WOW expansion. Whats next over the horizen, Pandas?

Nah, next are Kodans!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kodan

Kerithlan.1659:

Aleaf.8174:

Kerithlan.1659:

PopeUrban.2578:

People never felt they had a need for legendaries to do the current content despite the statistical advantage, but suddenly, people feel they have a need to acquire ascended gear for purposes other than the only place were you actually do need the gear.

Forgive me if I’m being ignorant or bothersome, but which statistical advantage are you speaking of, dear friend?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Longbow
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudzu

I might not be the most well-informed player, but I am relatively certain that these items are statistically identical.

Prior to anyone actually making an legendary and what we drew from Beta, Legendaries were under the idea they had a minor stat increase in their stats (similar to what ascendant gear has to exotics atm).

I was in the Beta and was never under any such impressions. I understood ArenaNet’s attitude toward gear from my years of experience with Guild Wars 1. Could you either elaborate as to who “we” were, or link to an article by a developer describing legendary items prior to their emergence in-game stating that they would have better stats?

While I would love to find ya a picture of the old legendaries on the Wiki, I don’t have the time nor the care to look for them. I can assure you that’s how they were originally thought to be. Even at that, we’re looking at an additional 8 power/precision on zerker gear. That’s literally a tiny increase in stats. I get more from a stack of Might.

What was the answer, seems I miss it

I have no issues with ascended gear.

It’s a minor boost for people who want to go that 3% further with their stats.

Personally, I won’t be getting ascended gear, and it literally makes no difference to me, because I know for a fact that PVPing in rares/exotics is very similar, it’s more about the right choices of stat combinations than about a few extra stat points.

Abigarus.4813:

Rhydian.5412:

They could have saved thousands of man hours and millions of dollars just by going back to work for Blizzard if all they intended to do was emulate them or make a WOW expansion. Whats next over the horizen, Pandas?

Nah, next are Kodans!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kodan

I guess that will be the Lord of the Frozen Toilet expansion then?

Rhydian.5412:

Abigarus.4813:

Rhydian.5412:

They could have saved thousands of man hours and millions of dollars just by going back to work for Blizzard if all they intended to do was emulate them or make a WOW expansion. Whats next over the horizen, Pandas?

Nah, next are Kodans!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kodan

I guess that will be the Lord of the Frozen Toilet expansion then?

Mists Of Kodanaria!

Auum.3410:

As far as I know, Anet haven’t taken away any content – have they?

And yet somehow i have lost some of my BiS eq, and have been told that i will lose all the others as well soon.

Astraea.6075:

Would your opinion on ascended gear be different if it was available at launch, but still required some grinding to get?

No. It is the grind that makes them problematic, not the stats themselves. I’d have no problem with them making a new tier every 3 months, if it took me less than a day per toon to update (regardless from which tier i have started).

That 11000 post thread with the same GW1 fanboys posting the same circular rage reply is not indicative of any majority. All the rage over dungeons that are kitten fun and gear that is easily attainable Welcome to MMOs and not your GW1 lobby game.

Merthax.5172:

“Not acceptable?”

Unfortunately, you are going to eventually have to accept it and move on.

Nope, he can avail himself of various online buying sites to bring justice.

Natural.7013:

That 11000 post thread with the same GW1 fanboys posting the same circular rage reply is not indicative of any majority. All the rage over dungeons that are kitten fun and gear that is easily attainable Welcome to MMOs and not your GW1 lobby game.

“I’m going to shuffle aside community outcry as nonevent, stroke my kitten, hop on the elitism bandwagon and then make a baseless statement to try to belittle the game that made this one possible. Arrogantly.”

Did I summarize your post adequately, or did I miss something?

Aleaf.8174:

Leonard.2867:

Aye, thank you for answering. So from your experience, why does one need ascended gear then? Why do we need +stats and anti-agony?

It’s there to help those who either mess up with the dodge rolling and the +stats are just to help make things run faster. I imagine the trash mobs do eventually scale up in difficulty to how some trash mobs of the harder mobs introduced (lvl 84 veteran karkas I’m looking at you). As for the bosses themselves, the agony mechanic is rather shallow if you do avoid the hits.

And yeah I don’t have Ascendant(Ima call Pink) Gear. I have a ton of those vials though. Those things drop like candy. Pink Gear themselves are too expensive to craft outright and I am not one to farm T6 mats for such a minor upgrade in stats. I’d rather save it for my legendary I’ll eventually get.

I think my only wish if they had rolled Pink Gear into Exotic Gear (Like throwing in your Exotics with a Gift of the Mist and it spits out an Pink Version of it) and having infusion slots added with the minor points added from the Infusions you can get via crafting the way Sigils and Runes are.

20%+ higher stats are why this gear will be mandatory.

Natural.7013:

That 11000 post thread with the same GW1 fanboys posting the same circular rage reply is not indicative of any majority. All the rage over dungeons that are kitten fun and gear that is easily attainable Welcome to MMOs and not your GW1 lobby game.

They could show us the data they collected based on which they took that decision… oh wait, they have nothing to show.

I’ll preface this with I don’t like gear grinds either. Someone probably has already brought this up but how is something you don’t need a grind? You don’t have to do it. You only need ascended gear to do the one optional dungeon at higher than base difficulty. So you are not locked out of doing any game content. In fact you don’t even need it to have the dungeon be harder. It is only there for those players who “NEED” to have some reward given to them by the game for doing something more than once that they feel is better than they had before.

It is no better than any gear already in the game when used outside of the harder modes versions of this dungeon’s mechanic. Heck even exotic gear is not required and by no means offers any significant advantage over rare. It’s not even 15% better like how customizing your weapon in GW1 and that was not seen as an advantage over those who chose not to customize their weapons. There are far too many variable associated with combat mechanics for it to be. If both you and the opposition stood in place and did fixed damage to each other and one side did X% more than the other then yes it would be an advantage. But again ascended gear does not grant X% more over the current top gear in the game. And as such there is no gear grind just as there is no gear grind in the game up to this point.

Exotics and related gear are meant to be something you earn for long term sticking with the game. You simply go about playing the content you enjoy doing and eventually you get what is needed to make it. Only those who enjoy making getting the gear their sole goal for playing should dedicate their time to getting it that way. For everyone else just enjoy the game the way you like to play it and get the gear when, as a result of dong what you like to do, finally happen to get what you need for the gear. Things only become a grind when you are doing something you don’t like to do so why do something you don’t like to do when you can get the same thing by doing something you like to do. Do you (generic you) really have to have everything fast? If so then even casual MMOs might not be the kind of game for you.

Stormleaf.1769:

nachodragon.8159:

Stormleaf.1769:

Just because you think they’ve reversed their philosophy doesn’t mean they have. Clearly they don’t feel the same way, and in the end, it’s their philosophy, not yours. It’s not ArenaNet’s fault that you fail to/refuse to understand their design goals. They know what they’re doing with their game, you do not, no matter how much you want to believe that you do. Just because you think they’re going down a road of endless gear-grinding and player-ignoring doesn’t mean they are.

But, if people can’t accept that, try thinking of it this way:

Prior to this patch, I bet you thought ArenaNet would never introduce your idea of a gear grind, right? But then they did. Therefore, going purely by past precedent, you have terrible judgment. Now you think they’re going to add an endless gear treadmill, right? Chances are, you’ll be wrong about that, too. So calm down!

A ridiculous argument? Yes. But then again, so is most of the rage over this issue.

By your own logic, you have called them Liars. They have told us on several occasions they would do one thing, and now they have done another.

If I tell you I am baking you a cookie and you get excited for a cookie, then I hand you a carrot, does that mean you should not have gotten excited for the cookie? Are you going to eat the carrot when you were told you would get a cookie? Or do you look at the person giving you the carrot and ask why?

Except they haven’t. Incrementally adding a single new tier of gear is not something they never said they’d do. Just because people say this is going to result in a philosophy-shattering chain of more and more new tiers, despite the fact that ArenaNet said this isn’t what they intend to do doesn’t make it true.

so hold on we,re to accept waht they done simply cos they never assured us they would never do it…. however we should also carry on believing what they tell us there after ?
in other words your sage wisdom is we,ll just bend over and say thanks for anything we get and blindly accept any and all changes in direction cos Anet never expressly told us they wouldnt do anything.

ye ok, problem is I dont feel that loyal to any game/brand/company.

if you keep saying one thing , or even hinting strongly , then do soemthing else entirely once you got my money then i tend to say get Fecked and not listen to you any more after .. thats just me tho