Guild Wars 2

Aioros.4862:

TChalla.7146:

I blame modern day television advertising for the argument that is going on over ascended gear.

“Buy Nike running shoes. You’ll run faster!”

I have never worried about gear in an MMORPG. At the end of the day, I still suck at the game. With ascended gear, I’d still suck.

You’d suck more in exotics.

Which means I’d die faster. Why prolong the inevitable? This is a time saver.

I’ll stick to exotics.

Yeah, in that perspective, i haven’t died in WvW for a long time, it’s like i’m immortal … i simply don’t join.

I don’t have a problem with Ascended gear, per se, at all. Are the stat increases at this point material? I believe so. The average player in ascended probably enjoys an average 10% increase in power at this point over a player in exotics. The difference is material but not game-breaking.

But it doesn’t really matter. How so? Remember, I said I don’t have a problem with Ascended, per se—how is that? Ascended gear, then trinkets, when introduced, was simply the means of introducing vertical progression to GW2. How do I know that? Anet confirmed it in their AMA on the subject.

What is vertical progression? Vertical progression can be described by an integer series 1,2,3,4,…,n where each number represents an increase in the power level of the game over time. In makes no sense, at all, to argue whether the difference between 1 & 2 is material. Vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping. Eventually it will be material to everyone posting whether you understand an integer series or not. Or, consider a power curve on graph. VP exists as a positive relationship between time and power. As time progresses, the power level of the game increases. How do I know that? That’s simply what VP is by definition.

This thread follows the standard form of arguing over points 1 & 2 of an infinite series. And, it misses the real issue entirely.

The point that I failed to get across is that while there is a definitive advantage to the gear (the numbers are there), I personally don’t think the advantage is great enough to warrant going out and actively grabbing up ascended gear. I am fully aware that the gear could be advantageous, and I will eventually have it. But it’ll be over the course of normal gameplay and not “grinding” for the gear. If it magically showed up in my bank box at some time, of course I’d wear it. But I don’t feel I need it to continue playing the game, regardless of what I’m doing, whether it’s PvE or WvW. I think my skill (or lack thereof) weighs more than the numbers.

I’m a mathematician by trade. Throwing that out there for information purposes.

AcidicVision.5498:

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• An increase in the overall effectiveness of the players’ characters (objectively provable; game effectiveness is determined by math; Ascended provides higher numbers)

I disagree with this because I think player ability and attitude plays as large, if not larger role in their character’s effectiveness.

lol /clapclap

milo.6942:

AcidicVision.5498:

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• An increase in the overall effectiveness of the players’ characters (objectively provable; game effectiveness is determined by math; Ascended provides higher numbers)

I disagree with this because I think player ability and attitude plays as large, if not larger role in their character’s effectiveness.

lol /clapclap

Right. Player skill is always a hypothetical. Power on gear confers concrete advantage in any encounter.

To understand the effect of gear in, especially, a pvp encounter you always hold player skill constant and vary only the power on gear. Why is this done? Anyone who has taken any science 101 class will understand the scientific method employed here. If you want to understand the effects of gear, you hold player skill constant, i.e., assume two players of equal skill. Then you will know if and how much gear figures into the equation. And, btw, the verdict is already in, gear does matter.

Raine.1394:

I don’t have a problem with Ascended gear, per se, at all. Are the stat increases at this point material? I believe so. The average player in ascended probably enjoys an average 10% increase in power at this point over a player in exotics. The difference is material but not game-breaking.

But it doesn’t really matter. How so? Remember, I said I don’t have a problem with Ascended, per se—how is that? Ascended gear, then trinkets, when introduced, was simply the means of introducing vertical progression to GW2. How do I know that? Anet confirmed it in their AMA on the subject.

What is vertical progression? Vertical progression can be described by an integer series 1,2,3,4,…,n where each number represents an increase in the power level of the game over time. In makes no sense, at all, to argue whether the difference between 1 & 2 is material. Vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping. Eventually it will be material to everyone posting whether you understand an integer series or not. Or, consider a power curve on graph. VP exists as a positive relationship between time and power. As time progresses, the power level of the game increases. How do I know that? That’s simply what VP is by definition.

This thread follows the standard form of arguing over points 1 & 2 of an infinite series. And, it misses the real issue entirely.

I agree, which is why I hope Ascended and Legendary gear (at Ascended level) is the final step in vertical progression when it comes to gear and instead we get soft vertical progression via non gear related avenues (like GW1 PvE titles or WvW ranks).

If more gear tiers are added I believe Anet would suffer for it in their bottom line. People in Exotic gear would actually come out on top because they didn’t waste time getting ascended. That’s unless of course Anet made it so you needed lots of agony resist to go to the areas that give post ascended tier, being the true spirit of vertical progression. Then those who were in exotics would be way behind.

A couple months ago it did seemed Anet suggested they were going back to horizontal progression with new skills etc. rather than implement more gear beyond legendary armor. Then not long after and the one thing that always sticks in the back of my mind, was when Anet made the comment about Legendary weapons when introducing Ascended weapons. To paraphrase they basically said Legendary weapons will be able to interchange stats combos and will always be equivalent to the highest tier weapons essentially. Which again hints at more weapon or armor tiers coming down the road even though they hinted at no more vertical progression.

Confusing to say the least. I don’t believe Anet has been able to make up their mind where they want this game to go design wise. The people who wanted vertical progression and grind already left the game 3-4 months after launch.

TChalla.7146:

The point that I failed to get across is that while there is a definitive advantage to the gear (the numbers are there), I personally don’t think the advantage is great enough to warrant going out and actively grabbing up ascended gear. I am fully aware that the gear could be advantageous, and I will eventually have it. But it’ll be over the course of normal gameplay and not “grinding” for the gear. If it magically showed up in my bank box at some time, of course I’d wear it. But I don’t feel I need it to continue playing the game, regardless of what I’m doing, whether it’s PvE or WvW. I think my skill (or lack thereof) weighs more than the numbers.

I’m a mathematician by trade. Throwing that out there for information purposes.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s definitely more cost effective to slowly gather and create the materials for Ascended gear. By just doing a couple extra things a day for about an hour or two, people can build up the resources to make the gear over a couple months. Getting to 500 crafting is way easier and cheaper than most people think. 400-425 is just crafting t6 materials, 425 to 450 can be reached by salvaging the right dungeon armor/weapon stat sets for free pretty much. 450-470ish can be done for free refining t7 materials for a couple days or weeks, and 470-500 can be done for free by using dungeon tokens to buy exotic weapons/armor again.

Speaking of vertical progression, did they go through with that sprocket pickaxe?

thaooo.5320:

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Take your masterwork wearing warrior to wvw please.

Yeah, don’t post silly things, thank you.

Well you guys like to give the berserker example well take you full ascended berserker warrior to wvw you will sure be useful…

milo.6942:

Speaking of vertical progression, did they go through with that sprocket pickaxe?

That’s not vertical progression but is pay for a new bonus (bonus sprockets) on a bonus item (Sprocket Infinite Pickaxe) in which earlier versions of the same type of item (Molten and Bone Infinite Pickaxes) don’t have a comparable function and is thus unfair to those who previously supported Anet by buying said items with gems.

To be vertical progression it would have to impact on actual gameplay, give stat increases and be required for another tier of gameplay. All it does is give you sprockets which are a dime a dozen and we just got a sprocket node for meta achievement in the same patch that gives about 5-10 per day. The armor set they create isn’t all that great. Basically glass support set, so most people will only be using sprockets for Jubilee Runes/Sigils.

But yes I’m pretty sure it was and maybe still is on the TP.

Edit:

Teckos.1305:

thaooo.5320:

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Take your masterwork wearing warrior to wvw please.

Yeah, don’t post silly things, thank you.

Well you guys like to give the berserker example well take you full ascended berserker warrior to wvw you will sure be useful…

True even exotic/ascended Zerker is a bit glassy for WvW, but he still gets the bonus of having 3 tier higher gear than you which scales much more from masterwork to rare, rare to exotic than exotic to ascended. I haven’t done the calculation but it’s possible his base defense may actually come close to outpacing toughness bonuses on masterwork gear. Meaning his armor may be comparable to tanky masterwork while also doing very high damage. Masterwork gear, especially building to actualy survive somewhat in WvW, would hardly do any damage to anyone there.

I really don’t like the “Masterwork is fine” argument. It really isn’t and even the newest characters should at least be in rares. When Masterwork was “fine” everyone and their dog was chain wiping all the time in dungeons like CoF.

The problem I have with ascended gear is that some stat combos do benefit a lot more from ascended and vertical progression than others. Zerker gets a bigger bonus than other stats due to having 3 stats improving one another. While a condition stat combo isn’t going to see much improvement at all except 1-3 more damage on bleed ticks, 50-100 more points in 1-2 other stats.

Raine.1394:

Right. Player skill is always a hypothetical. Power on gear confers concrete advantage in any encounter.

To understand the effect of gear in, especially, a pvp encounter you always hold player skill constant and vary only the power on gear. Why is this done? Anyone who has taken any science 101 class will understand the scientific method employed here. If you want to understand the effects of gear, you hold player skill constant, i.e., assume two players of equal skill. Then you will know if and how much gear figures into the equation. And, btw, the verdict is already in, gear does matter.

You cant hold player skill constant and come to any objective conclusion. This debate is something the fighting game community solved ages ago. Since characters can be broken down into hp, attack power, and frame data you can always find the character that should be mathematically superior. Tiers are created isolating that data and pairing it with other characters in an “all things being equal” encounter to produce a chart that indicates how many matches out of ten each character would win.

The problem is that player skill is too much of a contributing factor in the result and cannot be a controlled variable. Even using AI programmed to be equal is flawed since it isn’t subject to input error or input lag.

Instead of tier charts being a be all end all “these characters are the best” list, they end up being a quick reference of good and bad matchups. Character A loses to B 7/10 times. That does not mean you have a 70% chance of losing, mathematically, it only means that it’s not a favorable matchup for you and your individual skill will need to make up for frame or archtype disadvantage. Which it can, especially as you become more familiar with the match.

AcidicVision.5498:

Raine.1394:

Right. Player skill is always a hypothetical. Power on gear confers concrete advantage in any encounter.

To understand the effect of gear in, especially, a pvp encounter you always hold player skill constant and vary only the power on gear. Why is this done? Anyone who has taken any science 101 class will understand the scientific method employed here. If you want to understand the effects of gear, you hold player skill constant, i.e., assume two players of equal skill. Then you will know if and how much gear figures into the equation. And, btw, the verdict is already in, gear does matter.

You cant hold player skill constant and come to any objective conclusion. This debate is something the fighting game community solved ages ago. Since characters can be broken down into hp, attack power, and frame data you can always find the character that should be mathematically superior. Tiers are created isolating that data and pairing it with other characters in an “all things being equal” encounter to produce a chart that indicates how many matches out of ten each character would win.

The problem is that player skill is too much of a contributing factor in the result and cannot be a controlled variable. Even using AI programmed to be equal is flawed since it isn’t subject to input error or input lag.

Instead of tier charts being a be all end all “these characters are the best” list, they end up being a quick reference of good and bad matchups. Character A loses to B 7/10 times. That does not mean you have a 70% chance of losing, mathematically, it only means that it’s not a favorable matchup for you and your individual skill will need to make up for frame or archtype disadvantage. Which it can, especially as you become more familiar with the match.

You actually must hold all other variables constant if you want to know the effects of changing one variable. If you are interested in the effects of different levels of gear you assume two players of equal skill. This is simply the scientific method at work.

You say that player skill “cannot be a controlled variable”, and you are correct here. That’s why you remove it entirely. There is a metrics site with a measure called PvP Dummy for another game. They assume that the two players stand and trade blows. Why is that? They are assuming two players of equal skill. And, this measure demonstrates only the effects of gear on an encounter. This should be straightforward.

AcidicVision.5498:

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• An increase in the overall effectiveness of the players’ characters (objectively provable; game effectiveness is determined by math; Ascended provides higher numbers)

I disagree with this because I think player ability and attitude plays as large, if not larger role in their character’s effectiveness.

We have all seen that scrubby bear/bow Ranger with Kudzu that leans on auto-attack, and we have all seen that warrior in Ascended with Dusk that causes a wipe or keeps getting downed because they can’t play with a team.

You are totally abstracting the player out of the equation. Well if you want to do that, then apply it to both sides (math principles, yay!). A character fully geared in Ascended, if you remove the player, has a total 0% effectiveness.

The only way you can use numerics, strictly, to create tiers of effectiveness in twitch, reflex, or memory based game play is to consider an environment where all things besides gear are equal. That includes player, profession, personal abilities, hardware and network connection. And that environment is impossible to create.

You cannot conclude objectively that player A is more effective than player B solely based on gear.

When comparing the effectiveness of two things, all other factors must remain constants or results will be skewed. If it helps, think of a comparison of the same player using the same profession and same play-style. Objectively, stat numbers are higher with Ascended, and thus effectiveness will be greater. This is especially true if you sample over time (to allow for extraneous random factors to average out).

Please note that the statement you quoted mentioned nothing about Player A and Player B. Put another way, what was stated was that any player/character with full Ascended will perform better that that same player/character with full exotics.

Nor does the statement talk about the degree of the effectiveness increase. That issue has been debated ad nauseam and the conclusions vary depending on who is doing the comparison and what they are comparing.

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Content like the new Wurm is not balanced around masterwork equipment. And the existence of ascended has at least encouraged them to rework critical damage in a way that will damp down max dps builds by ~10% (at least, that’s their goal).

Saying that ascended is unnecessary is missing the point — adding new tiers of gear means either the content will be trivially easy with that, or it will be balanced against the new tier and hard with other tiers.

A good player can compensate some of the time, but now ANet is adding difficulty with a timer … that’s a purely numeric gauge where 5% or 10% will make a difference.

I honestly don’t understand why this is even a question. Yes, you can have fun without ascended gear — I don’t have it on most of my characters. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t becoming necessary … as more people get ascended gear, the content will be scaled to the percent who do, and if you’re unlucky and in a group where few people have BiS gear, the content will be difficult or impossible.

Was adding ascended gear a slap in the face of the people buying in to the mantra of “fun over gear”? Yes. (myself being one of them)

Is it game breaking? No.

Will ascended gear have an advantage over people with weaker gear? Duh, yes.

Is it game breaking? No. (if people looked up the actual increases in stats per color tier they’d soon realize that ascended is a non-factor. also people would stop spouting nonsense like masterwork vs ascended is fine. exotics are where it’s at value-time-gold wise.)

Now my favorite: Will a player with full ascended beat a player with full exotics in WvW?

No. Factors as:
- class matchup
- build matchup
- player skill
- amount of people involved in the fight
- position of the moon relative to the earth and sun affecting the tee you drink…

all have a bigger effect on wvw fight outcomes. I’ll even go this far, having full ascended might even negatively affect your wvw performance since you will be less inclined to try out different stat setups or have less switch-out gear for different situation.

Is ascended gear better for PvE? Yes.

Is it game breaking? No. As long as this game is designed around exotic gear being more then enough for PvE, this is a non-factor.

Will your OCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_disorder) make you have to get “best in slot” gear for you character? Yes.

Does any one care that you are incapable of playing for fun but rather pleasing a mental condition? No.

Same stat bonus difference between Lawbringer and Judgement from WoW. However our set bonuses are not tied to armor, so it in that sense is less of an issue. Ascended runes when?

To recap, kitten T2 from World of Warcraft is the same jump from Exotic to Ascended.

Do not forget that STARS beat Black Temple in tier 3 gear on the majority of the players. In some sense you didn’t “NEED” the best gear to do all the content in WoW.
Gosh that sounds awfully familiar.

Enjoy your stay in World of Tyria. . .CRAFT.

I concede that the stat increases on Ascended gear make no difference. Which makes the solution to the “problem” of Ascended gear obvious. Do I even need to say it?

Nerf Ascended gear to have the same stats as exotic. The stat increase does not matter, so nothing is lost and everyone wins. What possible objection could there be to this meaningless, inconsequential nerf?

Judge Banks.9018:

Same stat bonus difference between Lawbringer and Judgement from WoW. However our set bonuses are not tied to armor, so it in that sense is less of an issue. Ascended runes when?

To recap, kitten T2 from World of Warcraft is the same jump from Exotic to Ascended.

Do not forget that STARS beat Black Temple in tier 3 gear on the majority of the players. In some sense you didn’t “NEED” the best gear to do all the content in WoW.
Gosh that sounds awfully familiar.

Enjoy your stay in World of Tyria. . .CRAFT.

Are you seriously comparing WoW itemization with GW2?

As in one game where min maxing and established holy trinity of damage, tank and damage classes is a core concept and the other where itemization is handled completely differently?

Even IF that were the case, the correct comparison would have been to compare required amount of epic gear for heroic dungeons and 1 tier overequiped epic gear for heroic dungeons (you know, the one where you afk run along since stuff just instant dies).

Still, can’t believe you went there. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Taurok.6708:

I concede that the stat increases on Ascended gear make no difference. Which makes the solution to the “problem” of Ascended gear obvious. Do I even need to say it?

Nerf Ascended gear to have the same stats as exotic. The stat increase does not matter, so nothing is lost and everyone wins. What possible objection could there be to this meaningless, inconsequential nerf?

A part of the player base wants to have goals put in place for them. As in minor useless stat increases they can work towards no matter how ludicrous those might be. Those players will get bored and leave the game reducing earnings and player base. The stats might be inconsequential, their reason for being there goes beyond min-maxing game aspects though.

But if you say it’s irrelevant, how is that a goal? Why would someone chase something they feel is irrelevant?

Taurok is right, the only solution is to nerf it to exotic levels.

(And here’s the kicker, it’s not irrelevant, the people who want the gear want the stat advantage over people who will eventually be cannon fodder to them, as we haven’t seen the last of this ascended sham, because otherwise grinders will leave)

Aioros.4862:

But if you say it’s irrelevant, how is that a goal? Why would someone chase something they feel is irrelevant?

Taurok is right, the only solution is to nerf it to exotic levels.

(And here’s the kicker, it’s not irrelevant, the people who want the gear want the stat advantage over people who will eventually be cannon fodder to them, as we haven’t seen the last of this ascended sham, because otherwise grinders will leave)

I never said they “feel” irrelevant about the stat benefit. I said the benefit is irrelevant. People can give anything value if they deem it relevant(aka they “feel” it’s important to them). That alone doesn’t make it so.

Look at all the achievement hunters. Those give no substantial benefit yet people still do them. Same goes for people who wear rares instead of exotics on accessory slots because they don’t feel the need to upgrade (even though a clear stat benefit could be measured).

As is, ascended gear and the way it’s implemented provides a bridge between vertical and non-vertical progression. It’s vertical, but provides so little value that it can be ignored (if you look at it objectively and not with OCD glasses).

Would I have prefered non-vertical progression? Hell yes!

Am I realist enough to understand that the game would have a fraction of its player base? Yes.

Stop chasing the non-vertical progression dream in mmorpgs and face reality. For a big tripple A title, it won’t work.

You want Living story, balance patches, new content, holiday events, stable servers, multiple developer teams working on your game? Stop hating on the fact that money needs to be made. Vertical progression is just one of the easy ways of monetization (creating content where there is none for people).

Cyninja.2954:

I never said they “feel” irrelevant about the stat benefit. I said the benefit is irrelevant. People can give anything value if they deem it relevant(aka they “feel” it’s important to them). That alone doesn’t make it so.

Look at all the achievement hunters. Those give no substantial benefit yet people still do them. Same goes for people who wear rares instead of exotics on accessory slots because they don’t feel the need to upgrade (even though a clear stat benefit could be measured).

As is, ascended gear and the way it’s implemented provides a bridge between vertical and non-vertical progression. It’s vertical, but provides so little value that it can be ignored (if you look at it objectively and not with OCD glasses).

I think you make a good point, but I have one issue with it. Presumably then, the only reason people chase an irrelevant stat increase is their own set of OCD glasses. Everyone involved has OCD, so it’s not condemning. If the illusion of being more powerful is real and valid then the illusion of being less powerful is also. In effect, you’re proposing the stat increase specifically as a psycholigical motivator, but extending the priviledge of feeling more or less powerful only to people who share your opinion. If the psychological motivator works as intended, but they don’t agree with you that it’s a positive addition, then they have “OCD”. It may not be your intention, but this seems like eating your cake and having it both. How you’re permitted to feel about the efficacy of the stat increase shouldn’t be tied to whether you think it’s a good idea or not, which seems to be your attitude. Again, in operation, not necessarily by intention.

I think the result of all this is we arrive back at square one of the great “verticle vs. horizontal progression debate”, whether we’re dealing with a concrete or illusory advantage. And this is continuing under the assumption that the stat increase has no meaningful effect on gameplay, which is a whole other thing to get into.

Cyninja.2954:

Would I have prefered non-vertical progression? Hell yes!

Am I realist enough to understand that the game would have a fraction of its player base? Yes.

Stop chasing the non-vertical progression dream in mmorpgs and face reality. For a big tripple A title, it won’t work.

You want Living story, balance patches, new content, holiday events, stable servers, multiple developer teams working on your game? Stop hating on the fact that money needs to be made. Vertical progression is just one of the easy ways of monetization (creating content where there is none for people).

This falls under the category of “personal problems”. Claims were made. I also doubt it is true, and I don’t think “hating on the fact that money needs to be made” is a fair characterization.

Cyninja.2954:

Judge Banks.9018:

Same stat bonus difference between Lawbringer and Judgement from WoW. However our set bonuses are not tied to armor, so it in that sense is less of an issue. Ascended runes when?

To recap, kitten T2 from World of Warcraft is the same jump from Exotic to Ascended.

Do not forget that STARS beat Black Temple in tier 3 gear on the majority of the players. In some sense you didn’t “NEED” the best gear to do all the content in WoW.
Gosh that sounds awfully familiar.

Enjoy your stay in World of Tyria. . .CRAFT.

Are you seriously comparing WoW itemization with GW2?

As in one game where min maxing and established holy trinity of damage, tank and damage classes is a core concept and the other where itemization is handled completely differently?

Even IF that were the case, the correct comparison would have been to compare required amount of epic gear for heroic dungeons and 1 tier overequiped epic gear for heroic dungeons (you know, the one where you afk run along since stuff just instant dies).

Still, can’t believe you went there. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

.

Are you denying that there is not 5-12% statistical increase between Exotic and Ascended; just like there’s a 5-12% statistical increase between T1 and T2?

However I admit I know nothing of itemization for anything post-wrath, as the game was barely worth following, let alone paying attention to.

There’s a clear parallel in which games they draw inspiration from and which games they do not when it comes to certain design choices. For instance Gear in GW2 more resembles WoW than it does Guild Wars. Another example would be combat and damage formulation, which as we all know is as simplified as WoW, and not nearly as complex as Guild Wars.

I can’t believe that anyone can’t believe that such an easy comparison was made, albeit I find it a bit more humorous than profound.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Sounds like your scenario only happens in PvP. I’m not that fond of PvP, as others are not, so it is optional.

But, of course, not being fond of PvP will most likely make me sub-optimal in some eyes. And that’s ok with me. =)

Agree…

But it’s not about any PvP mode but exclusively about WvW mode. Where people mostly fight in large groups. And you have no influence on who gets to fight beside you(it could be a someone who is level 80 full ac gear warrior or up scaled level 40 with level 30 fine gear engineer). So it was always unfair – even without ac gear. I know there is a slight chance that ac gear could have an impact on the outcome of a single fight. But I’m sure that it didn’t have any meaningful influence on the outcome of the whole battle.

Cyninja.2954:

I never said they “feel” irrelevant about the stat benefit. I said the benefit is irrelevant. People can give anything value if they deem it relevant(aka they “feel” it’s important to them). That alone doesn’t make it so.

Ah, ok, so the ascended gear matters to the people who want it because they feel the stats matter, but they really don’t.

Ok, thank you for enlightening me.

Just a reminder: the game is balanced around having rare stats which means that for non-hardcore players exotic gear should be more than enough and for hardcore players obtaining ascended armor/weapons won’t be an issue.

You seem to forget players in rares, exotic and ascended are pitted against each other.
No one is using rares in WvW unless they are recent lvl 80s or upleveled, or they like pain.

Argon.1563:

The price far outweighs the stat increase. Its nowhere near worth the ludicrous amount of money to get 500 in a crafting profession, then make the actual gear.

I’d rather horde my money until Arenanet makes decent looking legendary weapons.

Really how I feel about the matter. You can’t even change it easily. Once you have it, you’re stuck with it for a month or two at least.

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Sigh.

You also don’t need to have raid/tier gear in order to raid in WoW either, yet people on this forum loathe the WoW raiding/gear treadmill stuff.

Why do people think that Arenanet’s version of a treadmill is differen’t than WoW? Many that play GW2 loathe the WoW treadmill and say GW2 is nothing like it. But it is the same.

You don’t need Ascended gear to do any content other than high level fracta.s
You don’t need raid/tier gear to do any content other than the highest raid tier.

It might take you 2-3 months to be fully decked in ascended gear(provided you aren’t playing 24/7)
It takes you two or three months to be fully decked in a raid tier.

What is so different? Subtle differences, but I see more similarities than differences. Stop being naive people…

Its the same system as the WoW treadmill, masked differently.

It’s way worse, in my opinion.

cesmode.4257:

Martrim.1078:

yes it does give your stats a boost, but you don’t NEED it to do any content.
Therefor it is completly optional

ps: U used a warrior as an example……..u can be in Masterworks and still be fine in any of the end game content using that class.

Sigh.

You also don’t need to have raid/tier gear in order to raid in WoW either, yet people on this forum loathe the WoW raiding/gear treadmill stuff.

Why do people think that Arenanet’s version of a treadmill is differen’t than WoW? Many that play GW2 loathe the WoW treadmill and say GW2 is nothing like it. But it is the same.

You don’t need Ascended gear to do any content other than high level fracta.s
You don’t need raid/tier gear to do any content other than the highest raid tier.

It might take you 2-3 months to be fully decked in ascended gear(provided you aren’t playing 24/7)
It takes you two or three months to be fully decked in a raid tier.

What is so different? Subtle differences, but I see more similarities than differences. Stop being naive people…

Its the same system as the WoW treadmill, masked differently.

I am afraid I have to fundamentally disagree. First of all, BiS is divided. You have PVE BiS, and PVP BiS (SoO gear, vs Prideful Gladiator’s gear). So the issue of BiS depends on your game style.

Sure, they’re interchangeable, however PVP gear is principally better for PVP by virtue of things like PVP power and PVP resilience and other effects which are better for PVP like CC resistance, reduction, increasing your CC and the like – majority of which are largely useless in PVP against big bossess.

Then, you have gear acquisition. You have SoO Heroic, which is the highest potential form of gear till.. Well, the next Tier, and Prideful, which is for PvP as we visited earlier. You also have however random drops from bosses in raids. This means you don’t need to vendor everything; YOu can also win just by doing to content itself. The vendors are for tokens. Keep in mind, that whilst the drop rates are quite low, the number of players are also more controlled, roles are more organised and the overall system is much more refined with loot, loot prioritization, stat prioritization, re-rolling loot vendoring loot, and the most important things in my opinion, Item Trading and streak breakers.

In GW2, we have none of those things. Amongst the drop rate for ascended is the chance it drops your required gear. You can’t set it to “Drop-Zerks Only”. You can’t trade your sunless weapons to other people who participated in that run. And fundamentally, you can do hundreds of Tequatl runs and never get anything. You can kill thousands of champs, and nothing remotely interesting will drop.

In WoW however, assuming you only raided, eventually you’d get something you can use. If you don’t, if you go through Flex/Organised groups, you can re-roll for something better suited to you. I might get a hammer that’s better for a healer, and re-roll, and get the DPS one instead. On the topic of which you might just avoid the healer hammer all together, and get something that grants Mastery over haste when haste is what does best with your build.

Do we need roles? I don’t believe we do (Even though we are supposed to have control/support/dps.. Whatever happened to that). Do we need closed instance raids? Probably, unless Anet fixes their optimization issues. I can’t do any of the major events without giving my computer PTSD, and what good is a game about cosmetics if you keep the visual qualities to the minimum? Seems purpose defective to me. And my laptop isn’t too bad for what it’s worth.

Do we need an improved looting system? Yes. Do we need more things to loot? I belive that’s part of the problem. In WoW a boss can drop well over a dozen different items. In GW2, you have like.. 20 items or so, on two bosses. But loot is personalized, so to keep the economy stable and value and rarity stable, the droprates are waaaaaaaay too low to really farm anything. In addition to that, majority of bosses don’t have unique loot tables or the like. The drops are very, very generic and repetetive. All temple bosses drop Orrian _ of the _____s. All champions drop Champ boxes. But only a handful of bosses have anything unique tied to them in the way of loot. So the drop rate for those things is strangled, and the variety overall is miniscule. And no, we’re not including black lion ticket skins. Those should be icing on top. This game, in regards to cosmetics, should have ENOUGH in game cosmetics on it’s own without the need for the Gem-Store. ANYTHING in the gem-store should be a bonus sort of skin. And yet we’ve got the exact reverse – the majority of cosmetics are gem-store guided, regardless if you gold > Gems or Gems > Gold.

Edit: Item trading, as in item trading with people in the group with you.

@Seven Star Stalker: Could you TLDR that for me?