Guild Wars 2

Several times over the past few week since Ascended gear was announced, people claimed that Arena.Net ‘violated them’ and broke the Manifesto. They’re claiming lies, claiming that the Manifesto should be “amended”, and have the gull to request refund for a $60 game they’ve played for nearly 3 months now (if you /age and have played more than 100hrs, you’ve gotten your money’s worth for sure and deserve no such refund).

So, what’s this stone tablet document that people seem to bow to? What is the Manifesto? Well, there’s two of them:

Video Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtGxVj3msM

Blog Manifesto:
http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Out of both of those Manifestos, I find that neither of them once state “No vertical gear progression” as people claim. They both promise a fun game (check), different style action-based combat (check), and a more unique approach on questing outside the norm (check).

So, I’d like to see a stop of the lies misinformation on this forum: ones claiming that the Manifesto told them absolutely no vertical gear progression. Those lies misconceptions are nothing but manifestations of people trying to push their own expectations and interpretations of the game upon others. I’m sorry that Guild Wars 1 never had gear progression and this one does, but right from the start the developers said they were making a true blue MMORPG and not just another Guild Wars stamped with the number 2.

This should be stickied.

Everyone who thinks that Anet “broke” their design principles are wrong, period.

I didn’t buy into GW2 being the second coming of christ; I just wanted a AAA MMO with no sub made by ArenaNet. And it’s awesome.

the stat progression, as mild as it is, is in opposition to their original intent.

and the reason why it changed, is still unknown to us;
most players like this ?
somebody forced them ?

hard to say.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

If that was true they would have added an LFD tool so that we could go out into the world and actually play the game while looking for dungeon groups instead of standing around in LA/other towns for an hour beforehand screaming “LFG LFG LFG” or “LFM LFM LFM”

The game was never pure horizontal progression, couldn’t you tell by the fact that there was:

1. Different Tiers of Gear
2. A real leveling curve
3. Separate capped sPvP gear

Those were red flags for Vertical Progression augmented by collecting “skins.” Nevermind that different skins had different stats, yet another red flag.

Vertical progression is only bad when also used with gated content, in my opinion. I’m not a hardcore player by any stretch and I don’t feel threatened by the power curve in this game. I’m not sure why anyone would.

While I agree with your point, and have been saying this all along… that doesn’t mean folks are no longer allowed to be against the direction of the game. There’s technically nothing between the EULA and all they said that your character or his/her gear is permanent or yours as well… so they could feasibly wipe it all out your gear and assets; doesn’t mean you have to like that.

I did a significant amount of research into GW2 before i bought the game – i was looking for an MMO that was horizontal progression ( after an initial levelling period to learn the game) and more ‘sand boxy’ than WoW without the horrible funnelling through linear quest chains within zones that characterised new WoW xp’s.

GW2 was the closest i could find to that – its USP ( unique selling point) appeared to be lack of treadmill and access to all areas of the world no matter what your level or if you had taken a break. I bought the game ultimately on the lack of treadmill which many WoW type players would have done because after all whats the point in leaving your established MMO to start all over again if its a grind?

I can assure you i am the worlds biggest cynic having worked with PR types for years and i felt confident that – gating, elitism and unaccetptable levels of grind, vertical progression were NOT what the game was about.

Avatar.1923:

the stat progression, as mild as it is, is in opposition to their original intent.

But that’s flat out incorrect. Mike O’Brien is on record stating that (mild) vertical progression has always been on the road map.

Thank you. I was wondering this myself but didn’t feel like listening to the video to see if there was some word I missed.

So uh… what’s gonna be the new buzz word or phrase?

Rococo.8347:

I did a significant amount of research into GW2 before i bought the game – i was looking for an MMO that was horizontal progression ( after an initial levelling period to learn the game) and more ‘sand boxy’ than WoW without the horrible funnelling through linear quest chains within zones that characterised new WoW xp’s.

GW2 was the closest i could find to that – its USP ( unique selling point) appeared to be lack of treadmill and access to all areas of the world no matter what your level or if you had taken a break. I bought the game ultimately on the lack of treadmill which many WoW type players would have done because after all whats the point in leaving your established MMO to start all over again if its a grind?

I can assure you i am the worlds biggest cynic having worked with PR types for years and i felt confident that – gating, elitism and unaccetptable levels of grind, vertical progression were NOT what the game was about.

Actually, your interpretation of the game’s USP is what’s wrong.

The USP is that you don’t need the maximum stat gear to see content, you’re not “preparing to have fun.” You don’t need exotics to see all of the content in the game currently, let alone need ascended items. None of the “unacceptable grind” is mandatory.

So no, there is no treadmill.

“We don’t make grindy games” that’s the part of the manifesto they broke.

Maybe they will change that, Chris’ statements gave me some hope. But on the other hand, getting a piece of ascended gear is currently 8-10 times more expensive/time consuming that it should be, so I seriously doubt that they really will remove the grind, even if they make ascended gear easier to achieve.

blog

…but it’s not just the same game repeated again. We took this opportunity to question everything,

Sure during the beginning of the BETA’s (something that is a test for adjustment and ever changing content), Exotic gear was the highest. But, as with most MMORPGs, this game will change in a live environment.

Legendaries were mentioned to always have the highest tiered stats. I understood this to be that say they launched an expansion with new gear tiers and new levels, Legendaries would change to match that. Even if they didn’t, by being a look and having Transmutation Stones, a player can only expect to use those and apply the highest stats to a Legendary weapon (that’s my own expectation of logic here).

Edited by moderator: post edited since the message quoted does not exist any more

indeed, if you feel like grinding the fractals for 60 hours for the shinny; so be it, have fun.

thing is, most people goal in pve in this (lets say it) simplistic in its way game, is to explore, kill badies and find gear.

eventually (maybe around 300h) you have explored a lot of the map/dungeon and you have the best gear.
so whats left ? new gears and new maps.

thats the game, and its fine. and i dont feel that threatened by a player who played 10times as much as me… really… i just play and its fine.
but it kind of scks that its almost impossible to do story dungeons anymore..

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

Avatar.1923:

indeed, if you feel like grinding the fractals for 60 hours for the shinny; so be it, have fun.

thing is, most people goal in pve in this (lets say it) simplistic in its way game, is to explore, kill badies and find gear.

eventually (maybe around 300h) you have explored a lot of the map/dungeon and you have the best gear.
so whats left ? new gears and new maps.

thats the game, and its fine. and i dont feel that threatened by a player who played 10times as much as me… really… i just play and its fine.
but it kind of scks that its almost impossible to do story dungeons anymore..

Congratulations. You are the customer that Arenanet is building for (And in my personal opinion, a relatively sane gamer.)

The game is meant for fun.

Also, your inability to do story dungeons is being addressed based on Chris Whiteside’s replies in the AMA thread, where he indicated that they are attempting to keep all content valid for top of the line drops.

We don’t know how yet, but they do acknowledge it as a problem.

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

Narkosys.5173:

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

They appeal to me, and plenty of other people, who like the presence of both sides of the coin, in more moderation than is typically presented in modern triple A MMOs.

Please do not speak for us.

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This. In the Manifesto they are speaking to people who understand vertical progression (treadmills) and horizontal progression. With vertical progression the gear grind is preparing to have fun while grinding for a future fun reward. But, I agree that you would have to understand what they are talking about to get “no vertical progression” out of the Manifesto. Their problem now is that a lot of us understood what they were saying, just as they understood what the said at the time, and are disappointed that they could so cavalierly jettison the design philosophy and promises they made.

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

The power difference between current ascended items and exotic items is incredibly slight.

The advantage it affords is minimal, and currently has little to no impact on the outcome of a fight.

Based on what we currently have in the game, I’m pretty sure my argument states a valid and a clear window into the mindset of the people that are so angry about this.

This is not becoming World of Warcraft. It is becoming a nice niche in between World of Warcraft, and GW1, where vertical progression exists for those who want to experience it, and can be safely ignored by those of us who just want to play around in all portions of the game.

I am at FOTM 2. I W3 constantly.

No problems here.

Raine.1394:

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This. In the Manifesto they are speaking to people who understand vertical progression (treadmills) and horizontal progression. With vertical progression the gear grind is preparing to have fun while grinding for a future fun reward. But, I agree that you would have to understand what they are talking about to get “no vertical progression” out of the Manifesto. Their problem now is that a lot of us understood what they were saying, just as they understood what the said at the time, and are disappointed that they could so cavalierly jettison the design philosophy and promises they made.

Your interpreting it your own way in the same sense that an NRA member would say that “right to bear arms” means that everyone can own a bazooka.

That whole quoted statement was from a section about the game’s combat called Rethinking combat. The point of it was to explain that the combat was to be fun, explaining how player can max out their abilities early, get all weapon unlocks from the get go, and have fun in the game from level 1 instead of waiting for the fun to start at level 80.

Guess what? A level 37 player can go into the Fractals of the Mist with a bunch of level 80 guildies and have FUN! Ya, I know…crazy, right? I mean, to have a level 37 go in there and you’re all having fun killing cultists and freeing a giant Colossus. It’s unheard of!

Bluebird.1890:

This is not becoming World of Warcraft. It is becoming a nice niche in between World of Warcraft, and GW1, where vertical progression exists for those who want to experience it, and can be safely ignored by those of us who just want to play around in all portions of the game.

This. A thousand times.

This is the MMO I wanted, the fantasy game I wanted, I co-op game I wanted, the PvP game I wanted, the siege warfare I wanted.

I like knowing that there’s another 1% increase in character power just around the corner for me to achieve if i want it and if i don’t, then the 1% increase won’t keep me from participating in all of the content available.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Mackdose.6504:

Bluebird.1890:

This is not becoming World of Warcraft. It is becoming a nice niche in between World of Warcraft, and GW1, where vertical progression exists for those who want to experience it, and can be safely ignored by those of us who just want to play around in all portions of the game.

This. A thousand times.

This is the MMO I wanted, the fantasy game I wanted, I co-op game I wanted, the PvP game I wanted, the siege warfare I wanted.

I like knowing that there’s another 1% increase in character power just around the corner for me to achieve if i want it and if i don’t, then the 1% increase won’t keep me from participating in all of the content available.

Thank you for better articulating what I was failing to say

This is exactly how I feel. +1 to this man!

nachtnebel.9168:

“We don’t make grindy games” that’s the part of the manifesto they broke.

Yep. FOTM violates the spirit of the manifesto as a whole and that specific bit of it. I don’t see how anyone can even try to argue otherwise.

Now maybe the manifesto is wrong. Maybe people want a gear treadmill. But that is very clearly not what the game was marketed as and originally supposed to be.

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

counts to ten

You do seem to make a good call here. Players on “our side” may have gotten confused on certain lines, and at times made claims past them – like between manifesto and other press releases/promises, and between ‘grind’ and ‘vertical progression’ (which are usually, but not necessarily the same). And that is a tendency of mob opinion – thanks for that reminder. While I don’t think I’ve made that claim, if I did, my apologies.

However, be careful not to step in the same trap. Your wording assume these people lied (rather than simply being wrong), and tied them directly to people demanding refunds – is that an accurate representation of the argument? This can easily get another falsehood started, and frankly, will turn people defensive instead of thinking about whether they crossed this line. Which I tried to demonstrate in the first line. So while I welcome the rebuke, if you’re talking to “our side”, you may wish to pick your words so that the rebuke actually arrives, instead of being felt as slander from the other side.

Addition: how about we not turn this into another thread of fury, but instead accept the criticism where applicable? I’d say go to the other threads, read through the AMA, assume good faith and let it sink in for a while. And wait for ANet to do as they’ve said.

Yukishiro.8792:

nachtnebel.9168:

“We don’t make grindy games” that’s the part of the manifesto they broke.

Yep. FOTM violates the spirit of the manifesto as a whole and that specific bit of it. I don’t see how anyone can even try to argue otherwise.

Now maybe the manifesto is wrong. Maybe people want a gear treadmill. But that is very clearly not what the game was marketed as and originally supposed to be.

FOTM violates this because it forces you to do only FOTM over and over for ascended gear, and not WVWVW, or PVE, or other dungeons.

Which, Chris Whiteside has already stated in the Reddit AMA, will be changing. Soon.

Again, where is the problem?

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This deserves attention but not so much because of looking for groups. This quote deserves attention because Ascended gear and the Fractals dungeon fly in open defiance of this statement. An Ascended gear piece will prepare you to have fun past Fractal 10 and additional pieces will prepare you to have fun deeper in the dungeon and so on. Looking for groups is certainly a valid concern as well, but not because we have to create our own (it’s honestly preferable to a LFD system as direct interaction is much better assurance of the player’s investment rather than a passing “oh I guess I’ll do this if the queue pops and the group isn’t horrible”).

You’d think the giant rift in the community that was created after the Fractals and Ascended gear were added would be evidence that people are not having fun from moment to moment. We’re seeing it all over the discussion and suggestion forums. Almost all the loud voices have taken a side on it to the point that someone’s common-sense post about treating each other’s posts with respect and adhering to the basic forum rules got stickied. Such a post should not have had to be made, much less get stickied to make sure no one missed it, but it was and it did because either a large or a loud (judging by in-game observation I’m leaning more toward large instead of just loud) portion of the community feels “betrayed” for lack of a better word. Ascended Gear is turning out to be a grind because they rolled it out without all the availability options and without realizing how bad things could turn out because of that. Whether they stated it’s changing soon or not, this happened because of the lack of forethought.

I still don’t see a reason to go through with vertical progression. They would have better-served their own intentions and the game community by altering Exotics rather than add an entirely new stat set to progress to.

Bluebird.1890:

Narkosys.5173:

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

They appeal to me, and plenty of other people, who like the presence of both sides of the coin, in more moderation than is typically presented in modern triple A MMOs.

Please do not speak for us.

Bluebird, can a toss of the coin be both heads and tails at the same time? If they go with vertical progression, we all will need to hop on the treadmill. It doesn’t matter where they put the treadmill (dungeons, open world, crafting, etc.); if you want to “progress” you will need to hop on the treadmill. No one will get out of the requirement to participate in the treadmill.

I played WoW for years and came to GW2 because they promised a different kind of MMO without a gear grind or treadmill. It’s a tired element of game design that is easy to develop and satisfies only one class of player. Remember, you don’t get the coin, you get heads or tails.

But, let’s look closer at the nature of the treadmill. Before the new tier is introduced all players are at power X as are the mobs. Then a new tier is introduced and everyone hops on the treadmill. When everyone hops off they are now all at power Y and the mobs have assumed power Y. There is no progression as there has been no change in the relative power of players and environment. This is why it’s called a treadmill. It’s just tedious work to arrive at the place you were before the treadmill. You have in fact made no progress whatsoever.

Smart players more and more see that vertical progression does not offer progression of any kind. They have seen the Emperor and he is naked. They’ve seen the Wizard and he’s just an old man behind a curtain. This was the promise of GW2. It was marketed as a different kind of MMO and specifically an MMO without a gear grind. The game didn’t follow through on the promises and people are disappointed. BTW, they are also smart enough to know that they are not going to get both sides of coin. The coins been tossed and those who bought GW2 and wanted to change it back to a tired, old formula won. You got your grinder so rejoice. Just don’t be surprised that people are disappointed with the departure from the promises.

Archmortal.1027:

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This deserves attention but not so much because of looking for groups. This quote deserves attention because Ascended gear and the Fractals dungeon fly in open defiance of this statement. An Ascended gear piece will prepare you to have fun past Fractal 10 and additional pieces will prepare you to have fun deeper in the dungeon and so on. Looking for groups is certainly a valid concern as well, but not because we have to create our own (it’s honestly preferable to a LFD system as direct interaction is much better assurance of the player’s investment rather than a passing “oh I guess I’ll do this if the queue pops and the group isn’t horrible”).

You’d think the giant rift in the community that was created after the Fractals and Ascended gear were added would be evidence that people are not having fun from moment to moment. We’re seeing it all over the discussion and suggestion forums. Almost all the loud voices have taken a side on it to the point that someone’s common-sense post about treating each other’s posts with respect and adhering to the basic forum rules got stickied. Such a post should not have had to be made, much less get stickied to make sure no one missed it, but it was and it did because either a large or a loud (judging by in-game observation I’m leaning more toward large instead of just loud) portion of the community feels “betrayed” for lack of a better word. Ascended Gear is turning out to be a grind because they rolled it out without all the availability options and without realizing how bad things could turn out because of that. Whether they stated it’s changing soon or not, this happened because of the lack of forethought.

I still don’t see a reason to go through with vertical progression. They would have better-served their own intentions and the game community by altering Exotics rather than add an entirely new stat set to progress to.

If you aren’t having fun running the fractals, then stop running the fractals.

Ascended gear will soon be attainable in any portion of the game, as Chris Whiteside has attested to, and apologized for it not being done all at once.

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

What is said and what is done are sometimes two different things, though I’m willing to take a wait and see approach. However, the point was that at no time did devs correct the apparent misunderstanding that there would be no gear released later that would make the current, easy to get best level 80 gear obsolete.

That quote isn’t even a good one, I’ll find you some that better illustrate the point. Players almost universally assumed no gear progression. The only exception to that might be the acknowledgement that levels might increase (I doubt many assumed levels would increase but gear would not).

Raine.1394:

Bluebird.1890:

Narkosys.5173:

If that were the case then legendaries should have just been skins and not stats.
They should have clearly stated that they will go wow lite and add a huge grind and say that lengendaries are mandatory because they will always be BiS. That way you never have to grind weapons again.
This game was marketed to the casuals because of the low grind availability of top tier gear.As of right now there is 1 way to get that gear and is 1 hell of a grind.

Now if you go back and see the material you will notice that most people got the impression of no stat increase because the devs directly inferred it and that the gear grind was minimal. This was a major selling point for them and many fan sites touted this.

At the very least this is disingenuous not to state that VertProg will always be a persistent factor.
Also they should have changed the name as this game goes against the fundamental principles of the original and should have not been used as a marketing tool so that no misconceptions could be made.

As of right now they are trying to appeal to everyone and in the end appeal to no one. Clear vision and road map would help with any further miscommunications.

They appeal to me, and plenty of other people, who like the presence of both sides of the coin, in more moderation than is typically presented in modern triple A MMOs.

Please do not speak for us.

Bluebird, can a toss of the coin be both heads and tails at the same time? If they go with vertical progression, we all will need to hop on the treadmill. It doesn’t matter where they put the treadmill (dungeons, open world, crafting, etc.); if you want to “progress” you will need to hop on the treadmill. No will get out of the requirement to participate in the treadmill.

I played WoW for years and came to GW2 because the promised a different kind of MMO without a gear grind or treadmill. It’s a tired element of game design that is easy to develop and satisfies only one class of player. Remember, you don’t get the coin, you get heads or tails.

But, let’s look closer at the nature of the treadmill. Before the new tier is introduced all players are at power X as are the mobs. Then a new tier is introduced and everyone hops on the treadmill. When everyone hops off they are now all at power Y and the mobs have assumed power Y. There is no progression as there has been no change in the relative power of players and environment. This is why it’s called a treadmill. It’s just tedious work to arrive at the place you were before the treadmill.

Smart players more and more see that vertical progression does not offer progression of any kind. They have seen the Emperor and he is naked. They’ve seen the Wizard and he’s just an old man behind a curtain. This was the promise of GW2. It was marked as a different kind of MMO and specifically an MMO without a gear grind. The game didn’t follow through on the promises and people are disappointed. BTW, they are also smart enough to know that they are not going to get both sides of coin. The coins been tossed and those who bought GW2 and wanted to change it back to a tired, old formula won. You got your grinder so rejoice. Just don’t be surprised that people are disappointed with the departure from the promises.

Again, I do not grind. I don’t have a single Ascended piece. I have FOTM level 2.

I log in, and I do something random. I craft. I W3. I SPVP. I PVE. I run story dungeons. I run explorable dungeons. I explore. I look at builds.

I didn’t get a grinder. I got everything that you just said doesn’t exist.

So, yes. I got both sides of the coin. So did plenty of other people.

If you don’t agree, I am sorry that you don’t enjoy the game. Just stop trying to make it look like everyone who does is some WoW vertical progression grinding raider fanboy.

We aren’t.

Several days of looking at the game in various places online tells me that i had a good rounded view of exactly what the game was short of playing it – so rather than kittening at me for ‘not understanding the USP’ – how about we turn it around and say that Anet did a questionable job of making their approach clear – and i have a multitude of proffessional gamer journalists, saying no more power creep/vertical progression that back me up – you know – those same journalists that were given the heads up on the game direct from Anet and invited to play and ask questions so that they would produce positive reviews.

But by all means make pithy put down statements where you wallow in your own sense of superiority – it just reminds me how much the community has changed here – i almost feel at home having come from Wow

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Ok, so Darkwasp is an ANet representative? Just making completely sure. Honestly, I’m okay if you more put me on a trail. Give me some names and I’ll go digging in the guru forums for posts they’ve made.

Sorry, I’m really not trying to be patronizing, rude or difficult. I’m just the type who, when they see another whole side to the story, loves to go root through it to see what else has or hasn’t been said.

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Corvindi.5734:

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Corvindi.5734:

Bluebird.1890:

Siphaed, that post was deleted for trolling. You may want to remove the quote.

And yet your post implying that those of us unwilling to PvP in WvW against better geared enemies are insane goes untouched. You might want to reword that, humorous as I find your assertion.

As far as the Manifesto goes, if we misunderstood it, they should have corrected our perceptions prior to putting the game up for purchase. They lurked many a forum as well as Reddit where posters constantly assumed level 80 gear available upon release would be the final gear and very easy to get. They even justified the gems for gold system to those of us who disliked it by pointing to the lack of vertical progression at level cap.

Links to proof please?

It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just like to double check my sources. So far a lot of the issue has come from people having different interpretations and I want to see if they actually said all of this in black and white.

I can, of course. The real question is, how many links and quotes do you want?

We’ll start with this one:

By DarkWasp on a Guru thread on microtransactions from February:

Keep in mind that Guild Wars 2 will be somewhat like Guild Wars in the way that you should be able max out your level and items in a month or two.

So selling of max stat items and XP potions would have a much smaller impact than other MMOs. However, if you play with others buying such a thing would be a kitten thing to do. They have not said they would sell these things, BTW. In fact I think they confirmed NO xp potions two years ago.

Just something you should think about before anyone freaks out about GW2’s micro-transactions. Aside from the fact that there are micro-transactions at all, that is kind of worth freaking out about if you’re an older gamer with a history and all this new market stuff rubs you the wrong way. But hey, at least there’s no monthly fees.

Source:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/23920-gw2-cash-shop-info-changes/page__st__240

Chris Whiteside already admitted in the last AMA that the current grind for Ascended items will be being reduced.

I’m not sure where the problem is here?

What is said and what is done are sometimes two different things, though I’m willing to take a wait and see approach. However, the point was that at no time did devs correct the apparent misunderstanding that there would be no gear released later that would make the current, easy to get best level 80 gear obsolete.

That quote isn’t even a good one, I’ll find you some that better illustrate the point. Players almost universally assumed no gear progression. The only exception to that might be the acknowledgement that levels might increase (I doubt many assumed levels would increase but gear would not).

Thus, the apology from Chris Whiteside, stating that they should have closed the time gap between exotic and legendary attainability prior to launch by implementing ascended gear beforehand.

Then, perhaps it could have been better balanced and less of a grind.

People are literally angry over something that has already been openly apologized for and is being worked on. It’s absurd.

Bluebird.1890:

If you aren’t having fun running the fractals, then stop running the fractals.

Ascended gear will soon be attainable in any portion of the game, as Chris Whiteside has attested to, and apologized for it not being done all at once.

It wasn’t about me. It was about what I see from the people talking about it.

Archmortal.1027:

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This deserves attention but not so much because of looking for groups. This quote deserves attention because Ascended gear and the Fractals dungeon fly in open defiance of this statement. An Ascended gear piece will prepare you to have fun past Fractal 10 and additional pieces will prepare you to have fun deeper in the dungeon and so on. Looking for groups is certainly a valid concern as well, but not because we have to create our own (it’s honestly preferable to a LFD system as direct interaction is much better assurance of the player’s investment rather than a passing “oh I guess I’ll do this if the queue pops and the group isn’t horrible”).

You’d think the giant rift in the community that was created after the Fractals and Ascended gear were added would be evidence that people are not having fun from moment to moment. We’re seeing it all over the discussion and suggestion forums. Almost all the loud voices have taken a side on it to the point that someone’s common-sense post about treating each other’s posts with respect and adhering to the basic forum rules got stickied. Such a post should not have had to be made, much less get stickied to make sure no one missed it, but it was and it did because either a large or a loud (judging by in-game observation I’m leaning more toward large instead of just loud) portion of the community feels “betrayed” for lack of a better word. Ascended Gear is turning out to be a grind because they rolled it out without all the availability options and without realizing how bad things could turn out because of that.

I still don’t see a reason to go through with vertical progression. They would have better-served their own intentions and the game community by altering Exotics rather than add an entirely new stat set to progress to.

Fair points, to be sure, but you can actually get quite far in fractals without ascended gear. I’ve seen players claim level 21 without infused ascended pieces.

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

Corvindi.5734:

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

---

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

1) Again, max level gear is intended to be attainable by everyone through normal gameplay, thus ascended gear drops being implemented in other places than FOTM in the future.

2) You aren’t quoting an Arenanet employee.

3) You are taking an argument on P2W in the item shop out of context to prove another point, which is completely unrelated.

I knew as soon as this game was announced years ago that it would have vertical progression. Never saw anything to tell me otherwise. It was announced at release that it’d be an online game like wow/rift/etc and not a single player game with online like diablo/gw1/nwn etc. Just not with the crazy grind like in most of them. It’s lived up to that for me in every sense. I can go buy the best gear in the game for about 1.5 gold on the market if I want with no grind whatsoever. Soon enough I’ll be able to do that with ascended too. It seams like most people just tried to hear what they wanted to hear and never actually opened their eyes and watched the game in action.

Bar Ascended gear and legendaries and WvW armor there isn’t one single grind-y part of this game and guess what?

WvW armor and legendary weapons are just skins and as such are horizontal progression.

As for Ascended gear in the AMA they stated that the way it was implemented was not what they wanted and that they were going to implement other ways of acquiring ascended gear.

Combined with the fact that I don’t see any inclination to horizontal progression only I see the statements released as “oops, we really didn’t mean for our ascended gear to be this much of a grind…please be patient we’re fixing it.”

Good enough for me.

I don’t think people literally mean the Manifesto video itself when they talk about Arena Net not living up to the “Manifesto”.

Arena Net spent 4 years selling us on how other MMO’s were doing it wrong and it was time to change the genre.

Player separation, competition over mobs, nodes, and quest objectives were going to be a thing of the past. They sold us on WHY this game was going to change things.

Walls that prevented players from grouping with anyone anywhere were being torn down, which was the main reason behind the trinity being removed.

They spent 4 year telling us WHY GW2 would be different and free us from the grind with dynamic events, and extraordinary open world game play where we all wear flowers in our hair and just play for fun.

“we don’t think its ok to force player into dungeons at endgame”

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

Then with one patch they introduce player separation, grind, and turn the open world into a lobby for the never ending FotM hamster wheel.

They have all but admitted this was a mistake and it’s obvious with the divide it’s created in the community, can you really blame people for feeling betrayed.

Logun.2349:

I don’t think people literally mean the Manifesto video itself when they talk about Arena Net not living up to the “Manifesto”.

Arena Net spent 4 years selling us on how other MMO’s were doing it wrong and it was time to change the genre.

Player separation, competition over mobs, nodes, and quest objectives were going to be a thing of the past. They sold us on WHY this game was going to change things.

Walls that prevented players from grouping with anyone anywhere were being torn down, which was the main reason behind the trinity being removed.

They spent 4 year telling us WHY GW2 would be different and free us from the grind with dynamic events, and extraordinary open world game play where we all wear flowers in our hair and just play for fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“we don’t think its ok to force player into dungeons at endgame”

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

Then with one patch they introduce player separation, grind, and turn the open world into a lobby for the never ending FotM hamster wheel.

They have all but admitted this was a mistake and it’s obvious with the divide it’s created in the community, can you really blame people for feeling betrayed.

No. What we can blame people for is not having some patience after the apology is made to give them some time to try and fix the mistakes they obviously want to correct. We can also blame them for blowing the mistakes completely out of proportion to make it seem like the current status of the game is grind FOTM or you will be weak in comparison to someone who has grinded FOTM.

Neither of which is correct.

Siphaed.9235:

Raine.1394:

Tolmos.8395:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.”

This. In the Manifesto they are speaking to people who understand vertical progression (treadmills) and horizontal progression. With vertical progression the gear grind is preparing to have fun while grinding for a future fun reward. But, I agree that you would have to understand what they are talking about to get “no vertical progression” out of the Manifesto. Their problem now is that a lot of us understood what they were saying, just as they understood what the said at the time, and are disappointed that they could so cavalierly jettison the design philosophy and promises they made.

Your interpreting it your own way in the same sense that an NRA member would say that “right to bear arms” means that everyone can own a bazooka.

That whole quoted statement was from a section about the game’s combat called Rethinking combat. The point of it was to explain that the combat was to be fun, explaining how player can max out their abilities early, get all weapon unlocks from the get go, and have fun in the game from level 1 instead of waiting for the fun to start at level 80.

Guess what? A level 37 player can go into the Fractals of the Mist with a bunch of level 80 guildies and have FUN! Ya, I know…crazy, right? I mean, to have a level 37 go in there and you’re all having fun killing cultists and freeing a giant Colossus. It’s unheard of!

You are perhaps unaware of the nature of a straw man argument. Google it. What it means is that you have not advanced the discussion and you’ve given me nothing to engage with. I’m actually accepting what they actually said about the nature of the game. Read the quote. By the way it was not in the section “Rethinking Combat”. It was in the summation of the entire article. If you were thinking they were talking about combat with that statement I can see why you would be confused by it.

Rococo.8347:

Several days of looking at the game in various places online tells me that i had a good rounded view of exactly what the game was short of playing it – so rather than kittening at me for ‘not understanding the USP’ – how about we turn it around and say that Anet did a questionable job of making their approach clear – and i have a multitude of proffessional gamer journalists, saying no more power creep/vertical progression that back me up – you know – those same journalists that were given the heads up on the game direct from Anet and invited to play and ask questions so that they would produce positive reviews.

But by all means make pithy put down statements where you wallow in your own sense of superiority – it just reminds me how much the community has changed here – i almost feel at home having come from Wow

I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.

I didn’t put you down or condescend. I refuted your points with how the game actually plays in practice, not emotionally fueled hyperbole backed by “game journalists” whose opinion is arguably no more valid than my own.

If you want to sidestep my points in favor of painting me like some elitist, that’s your prerogative, but that’s not what I said or implied.

Yukishiro.8792:

nachtnebel.9168:

“We don’t make grindy games” that’s the part of the manifesto they broke.

Yep. FOTM violates the spirit of the manifesto as a whole and that specific bit of it. I don’t see how anyone can even try to argue otherwise.

Now maybe the manifesto is wrong. Maybe people want a gear treadmill. But that is very clearly not what the game was marketed as and originally supposed to be.

This. +1 sir.

Also, honestly, can anyone here say they repeat a dungeon over and over for any reason other that they need the loots?

Don’t get me wrong a couple times with friends and the “lulz” is cool. But anyone really keep hitting it up just for the “fun”?

And if the answer to that question is yes, if you couldn’t run it with your friends, would you still consider it fun?

Bluebird.1890:

No. What we can blame people for is not having some patience after the apology is made to give them some time to try and fix the mistakes they obviously want to correct. We can also blame them for blowing the mistakes completely out of proportion to make it seem like the current status of the game is grind FOTM or you will be weak in comparison to someone who has grinded FOTM.

Neither of which is correct.

This applies to both sides of the argument though. The people that actively participate in arguing against points like Logun is trying to make are just as good at blowing said points and mistakes in phrasing out of proportion and not being patient enough to wait for the game to soothe the anger/opinion/whatever.

To be completely fair though I haven’t seen someone say people who don’t do Fractals are weak compared to people that do. Has that actually happened? I know the opinion exists that once ALL of the Ascended armor slots are out people without Ascended will seem weaker, but still.

Corvindi.5734:

Same thread I linked, page 12:

“Whoa there. I wasn’t trying to start a fight. I’m sorry if it sounded that way.

ANet has already made it clear (in past announcements, interviews, etc.) that max level gear will be available to everyone through normal game play. I’m paraphrasing, but they said that by level 80, everyone should have max gear. By that reasoning, we can extrapolate that the items available in the shop will be cosmetic in nature, and not confer any statistical advantage.

There will almost certainly be armor and weapon skins that are difficult to get in game, but since they won’t provide any advantage, then it really doesn’t matter if you get them. They will be a matter of personal preference only.

There is nearly literally no way for them to make the game P2W based on the game model."

---

Again, how many examples do you want is the question, I could probably find you hundreds. I’d rather not and I’m pretty sure I’ll get infracted if I actually did post hundreds of quotes, but I could do it.

Well, I meant quotes from actual ANet representatives, not the people who are potentially quoting them. Sorry if I’m misunderstanding and these are ANet people.