Guild Wars 2

As is leaving stuff out of patch notes is unacceptable.

There have been sample test and a lot of personal experience from a lot of players about the drop rate of ascended gear and cost increase of acquiring ascended gear pre-HoT.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18IHVJao5j85KOp6lBTOgO8qs4VYD3Xty-jKPZo8o-Q4/pubhtml

Pre-Hot there was at least a chance to get drops from doing Fractals, the higher you go the higher the drop rate but post patch the drop rate has been severely nerfed (almost non-existent about as rare as Black Lion Keys).

Now if this is a bug, there has been no communication (besides off-hand comments about Looking at it on another website) about it being so even though there is a huge influx of concerns and threads but if this is deliberate, then why can’t ANet just come out and say it is instead of trying to not say so, I understand you don’t want to upset people but just staying quiet is blatantly disrespectful to your player base.

Now the cost of Ascended is rising due to this because the idea that the new PvE content Raiding will be a lot easier with it, new players and players who are not the 1% who can throw around all the gold can’t really afford a new set unless they grind it out.

It’s clear to anyone who has done Fractals pre-hot, that post-hot the drop rate has been obliterated which should have been fixed by know or at least talked about. Saying there is a road map for “Looking at it” in the future in an interview on another site is disheartening.

Don’t get me started on these new TF2 styled Fractal Rewards aka Gold Sinks. You already destroyed Dungeons, now it seems you guys are hell-bent on making Fractals as un-fun as possible so people are forced to try Raids and when they fail come clamoring for the increasing priced ascended mats.

TL:DR – Ascended Gear drop rate severely nerfed without saying Post-HoT, no communication between players and Anet besides some off-hand comments in an interview on another site and the rising tide of Ascended Prices seem to fall into the Gold Sink / Grind 2 Play theme of the HoT expansion.

This.

It’s been all over reddit with spreadsheets and everything and just ONE serious comment from Anet would suffice that they are aware of this.

They nerf dungeons to focus on fractals and “claim” it to be their focus for end game when fractals ended up being nerfed to heck as well – it’s seriously a grind system now that isn’t rewarding at all. I have so many guildies and friends who quit doing fractals above 50 and solely do em for dailies now that it’s literally just a chore. I hope Anet doesn’t shoot themselves in the foot as it’s lookin’ like a pay 2 play just to get ascended gear with these insanely inflated prices.

At LEAST un-nerf the frikkin’ dungeons or something.

Playing fotm is absolutely pointless right now, you get no gold or ascended gear from it, only ascended recipes which arent worth playing fractals for at all

Yes, i really think they need some dev interaction here. Because fractals should be one of the best places to obtain ascended gear, its actually required to progress.

And no, crafting ascended gear is not appropriate to fractal progression:
you dont get mats
you dont get a variety of ascended account bound
you dont get gold

this aside from the player type that likes fractals, is looking for challenges and goals, which tend to prefer trial oriented progression over time gates, and material gathering/crafting.

they changed a lot about fractal drop rates, the point of fractal level, and they never even told anyone.

They really need to say what their intention is, and what type of reward/progression they expect fractals to have

Exactly. I played because the rewards were awesome (even if by a practical chance) when doing the challenges. Now, it’s literally a chore with sub-zero drop rate.

Introduction of ascended salvaging? Yeah that was another fail on top of the mountains of fails (concerning 5-man dungeons) since all it does is steal your gold.

At the moment, fractals is NOT the way to go and I would avoid doing them for nothing more than your dailies. As of right now, the devs have killed any sort of 5 man team dungeons for guild wars 2.

5 man team instance is pretty rip right now yeah

Stoaga.8190:

5 man team instance is pretty rip right now yeah

It’s pretty obvious they are pushing to make raid semi-ascended needed . Nerf the drop rate without telling anyone, pushing the prices further and further up .

Making the PvE content HoT-Gated along with Gold Sinks for the ride .

It took like 4 months for them to fix this after they messed it up the last time. Then they still hadn’t fixed it completely. And it took another 3 months or so to fix it again. So I wouldn’t expect anything too soon. Just saying.

Speak with your playing time people… when their numbers reflect no one doing fractals, there statement of “we want fractals to be endgame for PVE” will be a joke and everyone will know it. Just dont do fractals till they relent and fix it. Speak with your time…

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Speak with your playing time people… when their numbers reflect no one doing fractals, there statement of “we want fractals to be endgame for PVE” will be a joke and everyone will know it. Just dont do fractals till they relent and fix it. Speak with your time…

Not really, don’t do fractals that’s cool with ANet, you’ll do Raids but wait maybe you’ll need Ascended and how do you get that without forking over a limb ? Oh right, pre-hot Fractals .

They are making Raids the new Shiny new content while not adding any new fractals and making them a lot less fun for a reason .

Maikky.8526:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Speak with your playing time people… when their numbers reflect no one doing fractals, there statement of “we want fractals to be endgame for PVE” will be a joke and everyone will know it. Just dont do fractals till they relent and fix it. Speak with your time…

Not really, don’t do fractals that’s cool with ANet, you’ll do Raids but wait maybe you’ll need Ascended and how do you get that without forking over a limb ? Oh right, pre-hot Fractals .

They are making Raids the new Shiny new content while not adding any new fractals and making them a lot less fun for a reason .

you can get ascended without having to do fractals… yes its a bit costly, but so was the first sets everyone ever made unless they held out and only looted their pieces…which often times didnt match in runes and set stats… It has also been said that the new raids can be done with exotic, it would just be harder to do at the latter raids without ascended. Thus giving you time to loot pieces along the way… or craft them….

FINALLY, I’ve been waiting for this topic to show up.
Just leaving this comment so I can stay updated on this.
Waiting on someone from Anet staff to answer this; Fractals turned into a joke, these drops are ridiculous and they have the audacity to tell us “we are nerfing dungeons, focus on fractals, rewards will be better”…

438 fractals: 0 ascended box drops. 300,000,000 boss events including Teq and TT and no ascended drops.

Gotten a few Ascended box drops from Spvp and WvW though. PvEing for Ascended boxes seems pointless.

Honestly the longer I play this game, the more I dislike the stuff that Anet does to screw over its’ playerbase.

I’ve come to the realization that I now play a kitten-tier class in PvP, will never have ascended gear so I wont be able to do Fractals/Raids, and am relegated to open world pve or blobbing in WvW, which is also unsupported by Anet.

I need a new f2p MMO.

I got a chest of Ascended Rampager Armor (I get to select the piece) yesterday.

From Pvp (random box in the Maguuma Wastes track)

Maybe the drop rate was not nerfed in pvp and maybe Pvp is now the place to go for ascended armor drops. But what about Tequatl, TT Wurm and WvW? Those places are probably still reliable for ascended drops.

nekretaal.6485:

snip…

But what about Tequatl, TT Wurm and WvW? Those places are probably still reliable for ascended drops.

HAHAHAHA good one! That was funny hehehehe!

I don’t understand what their economist is thinking. I understand wanting to tweak the economy but he really needs to put more thought into things. Any tweaking needs to be done in a way that avoids losing customers.

You see, in Real Life™, as long as I am alive, I am forced to participate in the Real Life™ economy. I have to have a job, I have to pay taxes, I have to eat, and I have to live somewhere. But in a video game, I can just disengage completely when “The Great Recession” hits. Saying there will be “tough times”(*) is the wrong approach. Tweaking the economy so “times aren’t so tough” while still getting to the end goal is what’s called for.

(*) https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-economy/

CorrynnStarr.7942:

you can get ascended without having to do fractals… yes its a bit costly, but so was the first sets everyone ever made unless they held out and only looted their pieces…which often times didnt match in runes and set stats… It has also been said that the new raids can be done with exotic, it would just be harder to do at the latter raids without ascended. Thus giving you time to loot pieces along the way… or craft them….

Honestly, it’s mainly the false promises when it came for the dedicated playerbase that loved doing frac/dungeons is my biggest concern. I can see those who loved doing dungeons suck it up, finally test out fractals, only to be disheartened even more – and that’s what really upsets me for them (I was a fractals player as opposed to dungeon running)

BurningEdge.9708:

FINALLY, I’ve been waiting for this topic to show up.
Just leaving this comment so I can stay updated on this.
Waiting on someone from Anet staff to answer this; Fractals turned into a joke, these drops are ridiculous and they have the audacity to tell us “we are nerfing dungeons, focus on fractals, rewards will be better”…

Same – I wanted to voice my concerns on this and we should definitely keep this alive until we get a definite, whole-hearted answer on fractals.

bLind.6278:

I’ve come to the realization that I now play a kitten-tier class in PvP, will never have ascended gear so I wont be able to do Fractals/Raids,

I’ll disagree with you on this one – there’s no need for ascended in Fractals. You mostly just need agony, but I feel that fractals is a great precursor to “gear” you towards the bigger content, aka, Raids.

nekretaal.6485:

I got a chest of Ascended Rampager Armor (I get to select the piece) yesterday.

From Pvp (random box in the Maguuma Wastes track)

Maybe the drop rate was not nerfed in pvp and maybe Pvp is now the place to go for ascended armor drops. But what about Tequatl, TT Wurm and WvW? Those places are probably still reliable for ascended drops.

In my GW2 career, I’ve gotten 4 ascended chest boxes: 2 armor from PvP track, 1 armor from Living Story 2, and 1 Weapon Chest from fractals. And that’s after tons of fractals. And no, teq is a terrible source for Asc chests – My whole guild for the past 3 months who do it every day has gotten maybe 1 or 2 drops.

Land of Cheese.2584:

I don’t understand what their economist is thinking. I understand wanting to tweak the economy but he really needs to put more thought into things. Any tweaking needs to be done in a way that avoids losing customers.

I agree, after HoT was released I’ve never seen so much griefing on the forums for the same things, and honestly most of them boil down to two things: Drop rate, and economy prices since they are the foundation of everything. The community can only last for so long after Anet’s pushed out all the possible new content they can before players actually begin leaving. Like I said before, I hope Anet takes these next couple months in stride as it will be crucial for them.

This stealth nerf really makes me sad. I don’t understand the reasoning either. It’s not like everyone has ascended. Heck, 90% of anyone I run into doesn’t.

I have 1 fully decked out character in full ascended armor, weapons and trinkets; and I had to make 3 of the armor pieces. I have been playing the game since launch and I can understand how they want some things to be rare, but this is just insane. I don’t do many fractals, and spend a goody part of my time in WvW, but still the drop rare everywhere is extremely terrible.

Although with the change to fractals it just makes them even with the rest of us I suppose, but that don’t make it right I can’t even imagine what a weekend warrior has to go through to get any. Well I can, but it involves opening your wallet and buying the gear with gems to cash. Working as intended i guess…

Tommyknocker.6089:

I have 1 fully decked out character in full ascended armor, weapons and trinkets; and I had to make 3 of the armor pieces. I have been playing the game since launch and I can understand how they want some things to be rare, bur this is just insane. I don’t do many fractals, and spend a goody part of my time in WvW, but still the drop rare everywhere is extremely terrible.

Sounds about right. I’ve exhausted all my energy and a lot of gold crafting an entire medium set for my main and a heavy set for favorite alt (celestial even). I got an Armor box from Lum armor achievement that I gave to my Necro and I play all the time, since launch, and I’ve gotten 2 Armor boxes from Spvp and that is it, and that was long after I finish crafting since I never got any boxes during that to speed it up.

My Necro is still waiting for 3 more boxes that I’ve done tons of content for without ever seeing the next one yet. Farming a full set of armor just isn’t possible and crafting Light set is just too expensive on top of what I’ve already done.

You’d think Dwayna would show pitty and mercy on me and let me finish my last alt after I already put so much work into crafting 2 entire sets but apparently that’s simply the only way to ever get it.

Functioning as intended,

It’s not like we want to give them away for free.. you need to grind for it, long and hard, to make sure youdo this we made the boxes dfrop with twice the chance of a pre in the precursor drop list, so not only do you have no longer any chance for an ascneded box, IF you do got one, it means you loast another shot at a pre.

Of course we also made sure the drop rates are so low as we made crafting more rewarding by making sure you need to grind more for it as well…

Of course this has been done cause we know you all appreciated grinding. And myuch more RNG and gliding will be added to further enhance your frustration in this game.

- possible A-net answer-

/sarcasm?? I doubt it…

owns
2 full heavy asc armors (viper/ zerk)
1 full medium asc armor (zealot)
2 full light asc armors (zealot/zerk)
and a number of loose pieces.

SeriousSituation.3462:

This stealth nerf really makes me sad. I don’t understand the reasoning either. It’s not like everyone has ascended. Heck, 90% of anyone I run into doesn’t.

This is the challenging content they were talking about ! Of Course ! Not that the actual Fractals would be challenging, but the quest to get access to them !

You know….

I’m miffed on this as well.
There’s 0 reason to have altered fractal drop rates in this direction. In addition to having the mission be having more inclusive fractals, you also wanted them to be more rewarding. Right now both of those aspects are missing. I know there’s a giant thread in the fractals subforum about why fractals are currently bad but this is just another reason.

I mean, if we have to salvage 6-10 (not sure on exact numbers here) ascended gear/weapon for the backpiece alone….shouldn’t the odds of getting these in higher end fractals be above the previous rates by a good margin ?

Doggie.3184:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I have 1 fully decked out character in full ascended armor, weapons and trinkets; and I had to make 3 of the armor pieces. I have been playing the game since launch and I can understand how they want some things to be rare, bur this is just insane. I don’t do many fractals, and spend a goody part of my time in WvW, but still the drop rare everywhere is extremely terrible.

Sounds about right. I’ve exhausted all my energy and a lot of gold crafting an entire medium set for my main and a heavy set for favorite alt (celestial even). I got an Armor box from Lum armor achievement that I gave to my Necro and I play all the time, since launch, and I’ve gotten 2 Armor boxes from Spvp and that is it, and that was long after I finish crafting since I never got any boxes during that to speed it up.

My Necro is still waiting for 3 more boxes that I’ve done tons of content for without ever seeing the next one yet. Farming a full set of armor just isn’t possible and crafting Light set is just too expensive on top of what I’ve already done.

You’d think Dwayna would show pitty and mercy on me and let me finish my last alt after I already put so much work into crafting 2 entire sets but apparently that’s simply the only way to ever get it.

3 years in and most people are still farming the best (stat) equipment. What is wrong with the Developers? That is shameful.

What’s up with the player base too? Why would one single prepurchase HoT with the game in it’s current state? I let my wallet do the talking for me. If more people did that we’d be seeing a completely different game right now.

Element.4319:

This.

It’s been all over reddit with spreadsheets and everything and just ONE serious comment from Anet would suffice that they are aware of this.

They nerf dungeons to focus on fractals and “claim” it to be their focus for end game when fractals ended up being nerfed to heck as well – it’s seriously a grind system now that isn’t rewarding at all. I have so many guildies and friends who quit doing fractals above 50 and solely do em for dailies now that it’s literally just a chore. I hope Anet doesn’t shoot themselves in the foot as it’s lookin’ like a pay 2 play just to get ascended gear with these insanely inflated prices.

At LEAST un-nerf the frikkin’ dungeons or something.

Keep in mind that even with inflation while your gold and vendoring trash may not go as far your liquid assets can be sold at the inflated prices.

You can’t seriously expect same drop rate when the fractals are so dumbed down is almost no challenge at all.

Not to mention you only do 1 instead of 3 and if you are doing 3 you can chose 3 which are quickest and suit your party the best

lol 5mans. Get back to farming with your 1 and F key, as your ANET overloads demand!

Anet pushed fractals as “the new dungeons” — content open to anyone. What they gave us are fractals that are even more “hardcore” than they ever were. The equipment you need to get into them is more prohibitive to get, you have to grind masteries, and if you deviate from the dailies, at all, for any reason, you lose about 1/3 of the money you put in unlocking encryptions (unless, of course, you buy keys with matrices).

This is embarrassing.

(I was doing level 50s before HoT, I’m not complaining about it not being made “easier” for me, I’m complaining about the changes being … confusingly poor.)

I concur, hell even rings are rare now. I got like 4 rings in the past 5 days and i did all my dailies wtf? Pre HoT I could get 1-2 armor boxes a week and so many rings that I have no idea what to do with them. With the new leather changes its also much more expensive to craft ascended, not to mention getting the crafting profession up to 500 as well, if you are a med armor class.

Nephziel.6053:

You can’t seriously expect same drop rate when the fractals are so dumbed down is almost no challenge at all.

Not to mention you only do 1 instead of 3 and if you are doing 3 you can chose 3 which are quickest and suit your party the best

This isn’t a question of whether the new system is faster or easier, it is but it’s obvious that the same amount of time spent now compared to the amount of time you spent pre-hot is grossly nerfed in regards to ascended drops .

Now you can do an entire week of all the dailies even post Frac 50 and your chances of getting an ascended is extremely slim (actually near zero percent) compared to pre-hot where you would get a decent chance at ascended for doing a bracket of fractals .

Land of Cheese.2584:

Anet pushed fractals as “the new dungeons” — content open to anyone. What they gave us are fractals that are even more “hardcore” than they ever were. The equipment you need to get into them is more prohibitive to get, you have to grind masteries, and if you deviate from the dailies, at all, for any reason, you lose about 1/3 of the money you put in unlocking encryptions (unless, of course, you buy keys with matrices).

This is embarrassing.

(I was doing level 50s before HoT, I’m not complaining about it not being made “easier” for me, I’m complaining about the changes being … confusingly poor.)

It’s k we have Raids kappa

Bumping to the first page for visibility.

On the subject though I know ANet wants to push the crafting aspect of the game. Some people don’t want to do that kind of thing though and after all were we not told we could play the game the way we wanted to? And even if the new players wanted to craft some ascended gear (mostly armor/weapons) they have an extremely costly uphill climb to get it.

I also know that ANet wanted ascended to be the pinnacle of achievement, but all it shows currently with this change is that your bank roll is thicker than 99% of the players; or you are exceptionally lucky!

All I think that many of the players in this thread are saying is that you need to rethink ascended drop rates across the board, no matter what game mode you prefer. If it is in your game and you want us to play it (duh) then it should be rewarding, right?

3 years, 8k hours, 21k APs and one full equipped character tell me otherwise though.

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Tao.1234:

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Would you be interested in selling a few of those horseshoes?

Please just wash them good first!

Tao.1234:

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Sorry but saying this is like comparing the life or a wealthy man and someone who’s starving, this is only you and nothing else…

Also, making ascended crafting more expensive makes no sense, it was already very costly, now it became just like crafting a legendary weapon especially for light armors, I should have crafted every ascended class way back when it was below 500g for everything…

True they’ve nerfed the daylights out of dungeons and fractals…just one observation though…and it’s more about human nature than it is about the actual nerfing…pre-HoT, many forum commenters were QQing a lot about the fact that they had so many ascended rings from fractals that they didn’t know what to do with all of them and that they were taking up too much storage space. Now it’s about how it’s a grind/gold sink to get ascended gear. What I don’t get is why the devs have such a tough time balancing the game…whether it’s drop rates, or content, or skillz that are either too OP or just terrible. Kinda reminds me of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears….the porridge is either too hot or too cold…rarely is it ever “just right”. Maybe it’s just in the nature of MMOs that it’ll always be that way.

Playing since release, only got 1 ascended weapon drop ever ( I’m not doing fractals though). At the same time, I got 2 precursors. So for me, ascended is rarer than precursor.
This game might have a problem with drop rates.

Amineo.8951:

Tao.1234:

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Sorry but saying this is like comparing the life or a wealthy man and someone who’s starving, this is only you and nothing else…

Also, making ascended crafting more expensive makes no sense, it was already very costly, now it became just like crafting a legendary weapon especially for light armors, I should have crafted every ascended class way back when it was below 500g for everything…

Hidden point is simple.

I doubt drop rate has changed.

I do PvP reward tracks on 2 accounts and ascended chest/ring drop rate is pretty stable.

Tequatl Hoard for me is like ~1 a month at least.

Regarding making it more expensive – it’s not bad actually.

Finally, Thick Leather Sections are sellable in Trade Broker.

And what I get a feeling for as about Anet’s approach regarding Gold cut direct supply – they pushed players to use Trade Broker more often.

I think it’s a good thing. Supply of certain materials is high, and demands are stable as well.

Right now, doing any event and dropping anything extractable means profit due to sell in Broker.

Dungeon farmers can also use their tokens to purchase exotic stuff from Vendor and either extract and sell mats along with insignia or flush it in Mystic Forge with hope for Precursor.

Tao.1234:

Amineo.8951:

Tao.1234:

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Sorry but saying this is like comparing the life or a wealthy man and someone who’s starving, this is only you and nothing else…

Also, making ascended crafting more expensive makes no sense, it was already very costly, now it became just like crafting a legendary weapon especially for light armors, I should have crafted every ascended class way back when it was below 500g for everything…

Hidden point is simple.

I doubt drop rate has changed.

I do PvP reward tracks on 2 accounts and ascended chest/ring drop rate is pretty stable.

Tequatl Hoard for me is like ~1 a month at least.

Regarding making it more expensive – it’s not bad actually.

Finally, Thick Leather Sections are sellable in Trade Broker.

And what I get a feeling for as about Anet’s approach regarding Gold cut direct supply – they pushed players to use Trade Broker more often.

I think it’s a good thing. Supply of certain materials is high, and demands are stable as well.

Right now, doing any event and dropping anything extractable means profit due to sell in Broker.

Dungeon farmers can also use their tokens to purchase exotic stuff from Vendor and either extract and sell mats along with insignia or flush it in Mystic Forge with hope for Precursor.

Considering the tests say otherwise that the drop rate has changed, id say it changed. These are the same tests that ANET listened to /last/ time this happened.

Tao.1234:

I got Knight stat Ascended armor chest from Greater Jungle Wurm 2 days ago.
Today I got Tequatl’s Hoard.

Yesterday I got Zojja’s Weapon Chest from PvP rewards.

I would say that overflow of ascended chests is too high.

Well there you have it guys.

Ascended drop rates are fine. Nerf them more in fact.

Nephziel.6053:

You can’t seriously expect same drop rate when the fractals are so dumbed down is almost no challenge at all.

Not to mention you only do 1 instead of 3 and if you are doing 3 you can chose 3 which are quickest and suit your party the best

You seem to not understand where the ascended drops come from in fractals. They come from the daily chests. It matters not if you did easy or hard ones, but only that you did the daily, same as before the expansion.

Everything is fine.

Everything is just as it should be…

Pretty much what the above poster posted. We seem to be in that situation right now with FOTM rewards.

Is it still as bad as described here with the ascended droprates?

It’s worse than ever now that HoT made ascended armor cost over 1k gold in mats to craft. Can’t even make a second set of armor for different buildz so forced to spend tons of gold to change it and destroy all your runes/sigils.

Shavanna.3758:

Is it still as bad as described here with the ascended droprates?

Supposedly changing with today’s patch

Serophous.9085:

Shavanna.3758:

Is it still as bad as described here with the ascended droprates?

Supposedly changing with today’s patch

Though, based on the previous experience with Anet, even after the buff they won’t even get close to the pre-HoT levels. Assuming of course that the drop rebalancing we’re getting will be a buff – after all, with HoT we were supposed to get increased fractal rewards, and instead we got a massive nerf.