Guild Wars 2

This is such great news!!! I don’t understand why people are so mad that they will be able to make their characters more powerful. I plan on playing this game for years to come and don’t want to be stuck in exotic gear 2 years from now, with a bank filled with hundreds of cosmetic skins or back-pieces. Cosmetics are cool and all but what are players gonna do years from now with all those cosmetic pieces, keep spending money on bank space? I think ANET is making the best choice, and unlike most mmo’s they are making the progression of ascended gear nice and slow by first releasing rings than a few months later accessories, and so forth.

With gear/power creep, a lot of problems enter the MMO space that cause problems.

A friend of mine used to play Rift, but he had a job and all. Used to raid with his guild. Everything was cool. Then the new expansion came out but he was busy for a month with work. Couldn’t play much. So his entire guild is onto the new content, where he still had to grind the gear he needed to be able to play with them. It wasn’t much fun grinding alone, and by the time he got to where they were, they’d be working on the next tier of gear. He stopped playing Rift because of this.

Right now, anyone in my guild can do any dungeon with anyone else in my guild (exception is high level fractals). But any other dungeon in the game is open season. Even people gone six months and come in and play with us no problem.

Not so in most MMOs.

lol wut? They give you bigger numbers so you do more damage. But then the game is too easy so they give the enemies more health. And nothing has changed except you have purple items instead of orange, and everyone has to waste their time getting them.

Though I’m pretty sure this is just a kittenol…

Yes, really amazing news.

We will not be stuck on exotic gear. Instead we will park chars on rare and wait until we can buy ascended for them . Why spend time on exotic anyway?

Sure cosmetics keep looking great, but nothing – NOTHING – beats a +2 epicness stat?

Oh wait… We’re “stuck” on ascended gear now? I mean really??? Crap… Back to the drawing board

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

I think the same could be said for your point of view. So negative if we take them to heart you will kill the thing that your i guess trying to save?
You knew it was going to happen there was and still nothing you can do about it. I guess if you forgot about it hard enofe it would stop existing?

Jski.6180:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

I think the same could be said for your point of view. So negative if we take them to heart you will kill the thing that your i guess trying to save?
You knew it was going to happen there was and still nothing you can do about it. I guess if you forgot about it hard enofe it would stop existing?

really did not understand what you mean !
my english is bad.

Tiger.7506:

Jski.6180:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

I think the same could be said for your point of view. So negative if we take them to heart you will kill the thing that your i guess trying to save?
You knew it was going to happen there was and still nothing you can do about it. I guess if you forgot about it hard enofe it would stop existing?

really did not understand what you mean !
my english is bad.

I think i missed read your post and took it the wrong way sry.

Adding a gear treadmill doesn’t increase the power of your characters, there is a reason why it is called a “treadmill”, because you basically have to work to stay at the same power level.

Gearing up alts and alt builds is already stupidly time consuming with Ascended Jewellery, and most people can no never hope to gear up their alts to 100%. A treadmill will just put the nail in the coffin for people who like having multiple builds and a number of alts… all so that people like you OP, can see you’re abstract numbers be bigger abstract numbers… while turning the PvE into even more of a joke.

I understand theres lot of people whose game objective are gear, gear, gear; personally i like better gameplay and more difficult AIs for enemies, and of course the more important: history!!!.
New gear, like is introduced, make rewards only for time spent, not gaming skills. Also it make more easy actual content and i like hard things (yeah me im not talking about you and this is a forum not some axiomatic discussion).
And for the sake of inmersion: My superarchi flaming sword that is the best of the best is necesary to be replaced every year for some supersperarchi flaming sword, etc; just because theres not better way to make people thinks to get more powerfull than to get more gear. So lol.

Still i love this game and will get the ascended armor… hope some day they give us more custumization for alredy existents abilities.

Everyone wants to experience a sense of character progression. Progression through ever increasing stats is the worst possible way to do it. I played WoW for years. My main is now pushing 400k HP. I can still remember playing him at 10K years ago. Nothing has really changed. The mobs die just as quickly and I die just as fast. I did, however, have to spend countless hours on a treadmill just to arrive at the same place I already was. If you think it through, you’ll see the emperor of treadmills is wearing no clothes. It really has nothing to offer in the way of true character progression.

Anet, in the blog post, is talking about meaningful character progression through expanding skills rather than chasing stats that everyone else riding the treadmill will have anyway. I believe they are wise in pursuing horizontal progression as it will be a less grindy, more skill-based game.

If you expect gear grinds because that’s all you’ve ever known, I invite you to google “vertical progression” and “horizontal progression” and check out the distinctions. You may find the old way of doing it isn’t so shiny after all. There’s a good video on it you might enjoy:

http://taugrim.com/2012/04/19/why-games-should-scale-horizontally-instead-of-vertically/

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

cillercammy.8064:

I plan on playing this game for years to come

“Enthusiasm is a supernatural serenity.”

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

Something I do wonder is if ascended gear will be overly limited in its stat distributions.

Exotic Trinkets and Exotic Armor both have equipment slots where you can throw in jewels and runes and stuff. This lets you mix ’n match equipment easily, use hybrid sets of runes to make some pretty interesting products from them.

Ascended items just have an infusion slot. From the looks of things, ascended items might be stuck with a default stat distribution of “their class + the corrosponding jewel equivlaent” in order to make room for their infusion slots. In this manner, ascended armor would be valuable because it would have more stats, but exotic armor still would have a place by allowing mixing stats and runes.

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

it wouldn’t be a problem if it wasn’t time-gated

Vote “NO” on time-constrants!

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m also happy about the changes that are coming, even the Ascended gear. Granted, I’m not an altaholic. I don’t care about getting Ascended on ALL of my characters, just my main one. It’s taken me time to get all the trinkets, now I’ll just have to spend a bit more getting armor and weapons and eventually a legendary. Honestly, it gives me something to do. Let’s face it, Exotics are too easy to get. Go for Ascended!!!

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, as you may recall I played WoW for years—I’m pretty much ground out. I am interested in your thoughts on the blog post today. When they talked about Progression Advancement, or character progression, they prefaced it by saying that they don’t want us grinding out gear every 3-6 months, and then began by saying and this is what we are going to do instead. They then talked about a common element of horizontal progression, which is skill or ability progression. The “instead” seemed like a strong transition. Do you believe it represents a stronger commitment to horizontal progression in the game? Did you read any of that into it?

As someone with 8 level 80s, I am very concerned. They said that making ascended gear will be time gated, so that means no amount of work I do will bring me any closer to gearing up all of my characters.

I find this incredibly stupid.

Dog.1472:

As someone with 8 level 80s, I am very concerned. They said that making ascended gear will be time gated, so that means no amount of work I do will bring me any closer to gearing up all of my characters.

I find this incredibly stupid.

I’ll admit I don’t have nearly as many alts, but I fail to see the issue here. Having ascended gear will have minimal effect on game play over all. You’ll still be able to play those alts effectively in their current gear. Personally, if I were to make any ascended gear, it would be for one character. Then, if I felt the gumption to do so, I’d work on a second. If not, I’d play the character as is.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, as you may recall I played WoW for years—I’m pretty much ground out. I am interested in your thoughts on the blog post today. When they talked about Progression Advancement, or character progression, they prefaced it by saying that they don’t want us grinding out gear every 3-6 months, and then began by saying and this is what we are going to do instead. They then talked about a common element of horizontal progression, which is skill or ability progression. The “instead” seemed like a strong transition. Do you believe it represents a stronger commitment to horizontal progression in the game? Did you read any of that into it?

See, I don’t think Anet has ever “changed its spots” the way what many others have. This is because I’ve followed the devs for a long, long time. You don’t suddenly turn around and say to your core group of players, okay, full gear grind now with no reason. I know through channels that I’m not supposed to know that just about every tester that they want to with ascended gear hated and complained about it. Anet did it anyway. Why would any company risk putting off their entire player base unless they felt they needed to.

The point is, they didn’t start a “treadmill”. It’s not a full on gear grind. It’s something quite different. Why did they do it? Because they felt they had to. There was no other reason. It’s not a cash grab, because ascended equipment can’t be sold on the auction house. It doesn’t profit them at all, unless they felt their backs were against the wall.

But I also know the company and know the game that they made. I listened to what was said. I read between the lines. This isn’t a company that embraces vertical progression. They did, as I’ve always said, compromise…because they felt they had no choice. It was costly to them either way, but they did what they felt was right.

They needed something in this game that was sticky. They didn’t have it and they KNEW they didn’t have it. Even me, a so-called fan boi, knew that I wasn’t as attached to my characters as I was to my GW 1 characters. And I knew why. More importantly Anet knew it. This is a good MMO but it’s by far the least addictive MMO I’ve ever played. I didn’t enjoy WoW, but found it more addictive than this.

So now, this living story/achievement things has provided the stickiness Anet has been searching for. Not for everyone surely, but it’s something they have and they’re building that other games dont’ have and probably can’t match. It’s a different kind of progression. They can now start to take off the training wheels.

I don’t know that we’ll ever see another tier of gear past ascended. If so, maybe legendary. What’ I’m 100% we won’t see here is a full on gear treadmill like other games. Even with all the gear out so far, I can still beat all the content in the game, except high level fractals, with rares.

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Imbune.5497:

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

facepalm
Ignorance is bliss….research ‘therapeutic index’…maybe then you’ll understand the point he was making…maybe

…oh Lord

I understood the point he was making; give me a break, how could you miss it? But, I don’t think it pertains. For those of us who equate VP with poison, why would we ever think a little of it was good? It is wisdom of a proverbial nature, that while it may be true (with the usual qualifications—i.e., intent is a factor, poison is poison, medicine is medicine), is here misapplied.

People associate VP with poison because of how other games have used VP. That doesn’t mean that all VP is going to necessarily be the same.

I agree that in the past, most games have been effectively destroyed by VP at least for players like me. Yet I don’t think VP itself is at fault.

The question becomes, can you have any VP at all without a full on gear grind. I think Anet thinks you can.

For me the jury is still out. So far, I’m not overly stressed by ascended stuff, because it’s not gating content for me (which is another sign of a gear grind).

But I am approaching this issue cautiously. I just don’t have the automatic negative reaction that you do….more like a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, as you may recall I played WoW for years—I’m pretty much ground out. I am interested in your thoughts on the blog post today. When they talked about Progression Advancement, or character progression, they prefaced it by saying that they don’t want us grinding out gear every 3-6 months, and then began by saying and this is what we are going to do instead. They then talked about a common element of horizontal progression, which is skill or ability progression. The “instead” seemed like a strong transition. Do you believe it represents a stronger commitment to horizontal progression in the game? Did you read any of that into it?

See, I don’t think Anet has ever “changed its spots” the way what many others have. This is because I’ve followed the devs for a long, long time. You don’t suddenly turn around and say to your core group of players, okay, full gear grind now with no reason. I know through channels that I’m not supposed to know that just about every tester that they want to with ascended gear hated and complained about it. Anet did it anyway. Why would any company risk putting off their entire player base unless they felt they needed to.

The point is, they didn’t start a “treadmill”. It’s not a full on gear grind. It’s something quite different. Why did they do it? Because they felt they had to. There was no other reason. It’s not a cash grab, because ascended equipment can’t be sold on the auction house. It doesn’t profit them at all, unless they felt their backs were against the wall.

But I also know the company and know the game that they made. I listened to what was said. I read between the lines. This isn’t a company that embraces vertical progression. They did, as I’ve always said, compromise…because they felt they had no choice. It was costly to them either way, but they did what they felt was right.

They needed something in this game that was sticky. They didn’t have it and they KNEW they didn’t have it. Even me, a so-called fan boi, knew that I wasn’t as attached to my characters as I was to my GW 1 characters. And I knew why. More importantly Anet knew it. This is a good MMO but it’s by far the least addictive MMO I’ve ever played. I didn’t enjoy WoW, but found it more addictive than this.

So now, this living story/achievement things has provided the stickiness Anet has been searching for. Not for everyone surely, but it’s something they have and they’re building that other games dont’ have and probably can’t match. It’s a different kind of progression. They can now start to take off the training wheels.

I don’t know that we’ll ever see another tier of gear past ascended. If so, maybe legendary. What’ I’m 100% we won’t see here is a full on gear treadmill like other games. Even with all the gear out so far, I can still beat all the content in the game, except high level fractals, with rares.

Finally, somebody gets it. Thank you!

But isn’t ascended gear crafting only and account bound? I think that’s what they said in the announcement or whatever… So if I want ascended stuff I am forced to craft and I hate crafting. I’ll just stick with exotic stuff on my characters. At least those things will be cheaper and they are just slightly “worse” than ascended, lol.

Mea.5491:

But isn’t ascended gear crafting only and account bound? I think that’s what they said in the announcement or whatever… So if I want ascended stuff I am forced to craft and I hate crafting. I’ll just stick with exotic stuff on my characters. At least those things will be cheaper and they are just slightly “worse” than ascended, lol.

The great thing is, contrary to what many might tell you, you can do just that and get away with it. Isn’t it great? You’ve chosen not to shoot for it, and you won’t be hindered in any way. Isn’t the game great?

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

There’s something to this, and I kinda enjoy the current implementation of ascended gear. I’m very worried though that this might spiral out of control.

I currently have so many laurels and tokens, I can deck a new toon in 6/6 ascended the second he’s 80. The system already works the same as exotic. What sense does it make on the long run?

lol yeah, I mean, I don’t really do anything except for living story stuff, dailies, monthlies and helping people on maps with skill challenges and events. Dungeons and fractals are not my thing, so… Exotic is enough for the nab PvE content I do. I really don’t wanna start crafting just to get what, 10% better stats? But that’s just me. I’m pretty sure many people will start crafting now. xD

If a game lacks deep gameplay, its better to make existing mobs +1 and forcing players to get their +1 sword

You are still fighting the same stuff and dealing the same damage.

But hey you have a +1 sword and you are Killing a +1 mob you should feel proud.
You are progressing….

I just hope they don’t take the EQ2 route when they capped levels. Instead of just getting higher level items, they just cranked up the crit damage/monster crit resist. Of course that made all the old content, along with mercs, completely pointless. That my friends is an artifice.

cillercammy.8064:

This is such great news!!! I don’t understand why people are so mad that they will be able to make their characters more powerful. I plan on playing this game for years to come and don’t want to be stuck in exotic gear 2 years from now, with a bank filled with hundreds of cosmetic skins or back-pieces. Cosmetics are cool and all but what are players gonna do years from now with all those cosmetic pieces, keep spending money on bank space? I think ANET is making the best choice, and unlike most mmo’s they are making the progression of ascended gear nice and slow by first releasing rings than a few months later accessories, and so forth.

Anet will have to make some kind of wardrobe for PvE.

Vayne.8563:

A friend of mine used to play Rift, but he had a job and all. Used to raid with his guild. Everything was cool. Then the new expansion came out but he was busy for a month with work. Couldn’t play much. So his entire guild is onto the new content, where he still had to grind the gear he needed to be able to play with them. It wasn’t much fun grinding alone, and by the time he got to where they were, they’d be working on the next tier of gear. He stopped playing Rift because of this.

So what? I know people who stopped playing because they already have their exotics.

Vayne.8563:

Right now, anyone in my guild can do any dungeon with anyone else in my guild (exception is high level fractals). But any other dungeon in the game is open season. Even people gone six months and come in and play with us no problem.

But why do want to even go to that dungeon again if you already have everything you can get there?

The only issue I would have is that I might have less incentive to switch between outfits (i keep a couple of different ones but with the same stats, just to change my main char’s looks sometimes). I will def pick one outfit and gradually transmute that into the ascended stats, but the other outfits will have to be weaker. Not something I’m too concerned about as I’m mostly a open world player. Of course, then there is the issue that I might want to respec, but my current gear is already very all-round. Could be a problem for people with very specialized specs that they have to bet on that spec always being viable or be ready to maybe start over with a second set of ascended gear. Then again, we don’t know the exact time gating and it might not take that long to get a new set.

I’m not worried that people would start asking for ascended gear in new LS dungeons and such. If anything, the latest dungeons have been more about player skill and less about gear. DPS and/or big health doesn’t seem that much of an issue, at least not to the degree where the exotic/ascended difference would mean failure/success.

HiddenNick.7206:

Vayne.8563:

A friend of mine used to play Rift, but he had a job and all. Used to raid with his guild. Everything was cool. Then the new expansion came out but he was busy for a month with work. Couldn’t play much. So his entire guild is onto the new content, where he still had to grind the gear he needed to be able to play with them. It wasn’t much fun grinding alone, and by the time he got to where they were, they’d be working on the next tier of gear. He stopped playing Rift because of this.

So what? I know people who stopped playing because they already have their exotics.

Vayne.8563:

Right now, anyone in my guild can do any dungeon with anyone else in my guild (exception is high level fractals). But any other dungeon in the game is open season. Even people gone six months and come in and play with us no problem.

But why do want to even go to that dungeon again if you already have everything you can get there?

Farming lodestones, helping guildies, in Guild Wars 1 you could try for a specific drop (something they should put into GW 2 in my opinion), just because you enjoy the dungeon (I can’t tell you how many times I ran Bogroots Growths in Guild Wars 1)….there are many reasons to run a dungeon besides just tokens.

And diminishing returns doesn’t mean you get no tokens, it means you get less tokens.

And contrary to popular belief, some people run dungeons for fun. There’s a woman in my guild who runs HoTW all the time. She enjoys it. She already has 2000 tokens, and she STILL runs it.

Not everyone plays only for rewards.

Ohh, It’s awesome! When it will be released?

There’s a difference between a gear treadmill, and not being able to get the best gear within 30 seconds of hitting 80. GW2 launched with the latter, and I’m glad A.net realized it wasn’t going to cut it.

Ascended is what exotic SHOULD have been at launch; an easily accessible and mildly time gated set, but something that isn’t just handed out. Cosmetics are still supreme, as they should be.

Great decision on their part to recognize the problem so early after launch, and I’m excited for the rollout to continue to all slots.

Celeras.4980:

There’s a difference between a gear treadmill, and not being able to get the best gear within 30 seconds of hitting 80. GW2 launched with the latter, and I’m glad A.net realized it wasn’t going to cut it.

Ascended is what exotic SHOULD have been at launch; an easily accessible and mildly time gated set, but something that isn’t just handed out. Cosmetics are still supreme, as they should be.

Great decision on their part to recognize the problem so early after launch, and I’m excited for the rollout to continue to all slots.

I understand why Anet did it, but I’m still not sure it was the right decision.

Some of Anet’s staunchest supporters walked away over the release of ascended gear and many of them have not returned.

Raine.1394:

Tiger.7506:

The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose.

Gw2 need a little bit of vertical progression.

This works well in the context of traditional Chinese medicine. We in the west have a simpler and more straightforward understanding. Poison is poison and medicine is medicine. I do agree with you if you are alluding to gear grind treadmills as poison, but would disagree that a little poison is a good thing.

Too much of a good thing is bad.
Everything in moderation.
Taking too much medicine will kill you.
Botulinum toxin is the world’s most powerful poison, yet people inject it into their skin and they don’t die from it because they inject small doses.

So yes, Tiger is correct. The difference between medicine and poison is in the dose. Gear treadmills won’t destroy a game instantly, and remember, there is the placebo effect.

I’m uncertain on where I stand with Ascended gear. I’m not too fussed by the general idea of it, I think … I hope that they introduce a new method of upgrading it other than infusions, however, because I don’t run fractals (and I may be wrong, but don’t you need drops from fractals to make the infusions? Please correct me if it’s otherwise!)

I’m not overly keen on restricting it to crafting only. I like that crafting means more, and that you CAN craft items for the Ascended tier, but I’m unsure what to make of the way you get the new mats for it … seems like I’d more or less be required to run dungeons (don’t really want to). Yes, I know I don’t NEED Ascended gear, but if I’m interested in it I’d like to know whether or not to stay interested in it or forget it altogether.

Also, I have the Master Crafter title … if they’re raising the bar to 500 instead of 400 to cap crafting, I’m not too keen on levelling all the different crafts up by another 100 each … does anyone know if they’ll remove the fact that I have this achievement, like the diving achievement?

Hello,

As there is a dedicated thread for this subject here, this one is now closed to avoid duplicates.

Thank you for your understanding.