Guild Wars 2

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The thing is, I’m not saying the dungeon shouldn’t exist or that ascended gear needs to be removed. What I am saying is that ANET panicked and dropped the ball. They presumably had more players than they were ready for and several of them wanted more vertical progression than was present currently, and it wasn’t a completely unreasonable request (though it was often worded so). So they opened up their pocket-watch and examined the gears inside to see how they could solve the problem and decided to spread a bunch of jam all over it (+1 internet to every one that gets that).

Now here’s the other thing. I am of the understanding that ANET is releasing Ascended gear pieces for every weapon/armor/trinket slot. If they are going to continue introducing more gear with higher stats beyond that then as a player I am effectively unable to ignore it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a dungeon, crafting or WvW, the things I did for fun will be required of me in order to not fall behind the progress of those around me and if I stop having fun along the way, that’s too bad for me. ANET said this outcome was not okay and I sincerely hope they meant it and that Ascended is simply a new gear cap and not the beginning of a perpetual power creep. A lot of people have already stated that they don’t have the time or patience to put up with a 180 in design philosophy like this where fun is no longer just fun, but work to be done in order to have fun. If this design trend continues with more power creep and Endless Grinds, ANET will lose quite a few of the people that moved over from GW1, those that were attracted to the game based on the advertisement of “no gear treadmill,” and those that would rather play World of Warcraft for their vertical progression fix.

This thread from the start was not about the dungeon being optional or not, but that its design is in blatant contradiction to the original design of the game and the original philosophy of its developers. I have not discussed it from a personal standpoint. Nowhere have I said that I do or do not run Fractals or that I do or do not enjoy running Fractals. I am merely discussing how and why the Fractals are poorly designed and have even gone so far as to give an example of a way to make the grind less demanding as I see no way to stop it from being a grind without altering the nature of the dungeon itself (i.e. giving it a clear end/goal/final reward).

-edit-

And of course, none of this huge double-post even addresses all the other collateral damage the Fractals dungeon has caused in-game. There are even fewer people exploring the world in favor of grinding the dungeon which on smaller servers is essentially a death-of-fun-sentence for those exploring the higher level zones and especially Orr. Elitism, impatience and intolerance are going stronger than they ever did before the introduction of the dungeon which itself is causing groups to be harder to find for any given level below that of the Elitists. The Fractals design has tangibly punished the game world itself.

beren.6048:

Aerwyna.2541:

Oh well if its just to be able to do Fractals, then it wont matter if you dont care to see that correct? And if you do, you will spend the time doing what is needed.

Guess so It must be said that I seen the stats and they are a lot better. The problem starts if they start demanding ascend gear when you go AC or other dungeons. Or if other future content requires infusion. Also, maybe you want to do fractals but you go slow or you are new. Already it will be hard to find a level 2 group.

I wouldnt worry. Rare → Exotic is a bigger jump then Exotic → Ascended Yet with a Rare gear set you have no trouble playing any content including WvW! I have no doubt some people will ask for Ascended because they’re all about 100% efficiency just like sometimes you come across groups that want level 80s for AC and what not. Just wait for the next group thats all there is to it !

As for finding group levels for FoTM thats more of an issue then the other dungeons true. This will be somewhat addressed by Arenanet’s intention to split levels into tier. So everyone can do level 1-5 and then those that get to 5 can do 5-10 etc… But I am sure there will always will be casual players as well as new players who will not mind running previous levels!

Archmortal.1027:

(cut for length)

I undrestand what you’re seeing completely and you are correct that FoTM is meant to be an endless grind, thats why it has no level cap but I disagree that its bad design, I personally think its actually brilliant design and I will explain why. Probably running in the length issue

So Gw2 is a game designed to meet the needs to different play styles. It was already appearant at release but now they came out and said it straight. Gw2 is definitely not a horizontal progression, its not a vertical progression game either, its both !

To merge horizontal and vertical progression in a single game is not easy! both horizontal gameplay and vertical gameplay have concepts that are opposite to each other and havent seen it with my own eyes I wouldnt have believed both play styles could co-exist in the both games! Let me go through these before finally explaining how FoTM ties in all of this.

with Vertical progression you get power creep. Old content becomes absolute leaving you only a small amount of content to play at any one time! You mentioned WoW so lets go with that. If you’re level say 45 how much content do you have to play? 2 to 3 hrs worth of? anything else is either too hard or too easy not to mention non-rewarding. Gw2 fixed that by using level scaling. At max level the whole game world is open for you to play in none of it is made irrelevant!

Vertical progression is all about power. Now Gw2 did solve this issue but not perfectly in my view. Cause the way they did it is you can still get better gear there are tiers unlike Gw1 but it is designed so that even using a common set you can play really any content ! In fact If I had to guess I would say that the game is balanced around masterworks … having better gear makes the game really easy. Having worst gear makes it slighty more challenging. Thus unfortunately made the whole game feel easy imho but people who are for vertical progression had some progression to go through. People who are into horizontal can safely ignore gear

PVP .. A horizontal progression player is very likely to have sub par armor compared to a vertical progression armor for a long while. That’s because vertical progression players focus on getting the best gear while horizontal players tend to be well distracted by things. GW2 solves that issue by having everyone on equal footing for sPvP. In Case of WvW there is this is issue a little bit but because this is a skill based game first and foremost and because there are so many variables upsetting the balance much more then any gear advantage could ever give you its not that important!

Vertical progression is generally all about the combat! I mean if you’re entire game objective is to get the best gear its likely you just like to use that gear as much as possible. Horizontal progression is generally more about exploration, lore, story,doing a diverse number of tasks etc.. GW2 solves this problem by allowing you get all gear in any activity you like

So in summary things are setup in such a way that playing one way or another works! But it comes at a cost! Resources are always finite and horizontal gameplay is very demanding on that! Arenanet done an amazing job in that department, the horizontal width of the game is huge! 5 starter areas, multiple zones of the same level, 15 different ractial storylines a main storyline that branches multiple times etc… The price for that was that Gw2 doesn’t have that much vertical progress to do though! 2 weeks people were easy able to get to max level and have a full exotic set! 3 months in and I haven’t even fully explored ½ the world yet! There is quite a big chasm there! That’s where FoTM comes in ! Nearly endless vertical progress replayablity!

How does GW2 make FoTM work with the Horizontal play style? They used The Infusion/agony mechanic to drive progression but didn’t even make it kick in until level 10 of the dungeon. Thus not only enabling horizontal players to experience all it has to offer but also have some level of difficutly to play with if they don’t want to go into the whole progression aspect of it ! They designed the dungeon to be expandable thus enabiling them to keep the infusion / agony progression tied to the dungeon and still provide future content to the whole progression playbase while having 0 effect on horizontal game play ! While not in yet The gear itself will also be obtainable using any activity in the game!
(to be continued)

In Esscence FoTM was an elegant solution to the problem of how do we give progression players content to do ! The only price horizontal players have to pay for that if they don’t wish to partake in it, is a miniscule … VERY miniscule disadvantage in WvW especially after Ascended gear is made craftable or acquired with other means! The only difference then will be the high level infusions that are to be had in FoTM.. I think its quite brilliant design really ! They provide, progression that is required to get to harder levels without actually gating everything! How would this work in other MMOs? You’d have a dungeon that rewards a new gear tier which will then enable you to do the next dungeon that has the next gear tier! What are the problems there? Without getting the nth gear tier you cannot do the n+1 dungeon essentially gating you from that content! Gear tier n will make content that’s below level n irrelevant ! If you don’t have Gear tier N fighting a player that has it puts you at a sevre disadvantage! None of that is true in Gw2 That’s why I don’t agree calling it sloppy, its actually very well thought out imho!

I think they found a good balance and its win win for all in all honesty!

taomang.2183:

All the questions have been answered in the Reddit AMA. You made this post for nothing. The direction of the game is clearly stated on Reddit AMA.

Sry but it is not! Also @ Galen Grey when I say they don’t know what to do it was in reference to the recent changes. When you read the AMA I found not the statements they made but the reaction to some of the comments really interesting. Also the questions they do not answer. There is no clear direction. All they are saying is some of the consequences where not intendet, sry we will change this somehow in near future. How? When? Is it really possible to limit gear treadmill to FOTM? Are they willing to do that? Can’t find any answers to that in the AMA.

@Archmortal /sign 100%
I guess the question is if there can be something like a limited gear progression not effecting the rest of the game. So far ANet failed if that still is there intention. My personal view is it’s like saying only a little bit pregnant. How can this be? Well the belly is on a shallow growing rate!

Yoss Elendil.5862:

taomang.2183:

All the questions have been answered in the Reddit AMA. You made this post for nothing. The direction of the game is clearly stated on Reddit AMA.

Sry but it is not! Also @ Galen Grey when I say they don’t know what to do it was in reference to the recent changes. When you read the AMA I found not the statements they made but the reaction to some of the comments really interesting. Also the questions they do not answer. There is no clear direction. All they are saying is some of the consequences where not intendet, sry we will change this somehow in near future. How? When? Is it really possible to limit gear treadmill to FOTM? Are they willing to do that? Can’t find any answers to that in the AMA.

@Archmortal /sign 100%
I guess the question is if there can be something like a limited gear progression not effecting the rest of the game. So far ANet failed if that still is there intention. My personal view is it’s like saying only a little bit pregnant. How can this be? Well the belly is on a shallow growing rate!

Unless I missed something all the we didnt intend to do that was directed at the level of grind because of the high material costs. Thats not an exact science. I mean you’re trying to create an item set that takes a lot of effort to aquire / craft. I bet they had the opposite experiance with exotics. I bet they thought people would take longer so they over compensated. Thing is you’re trying to strike a balance between effort and time. The biggest effort required the more time you buy before you have to come up with something new people have to get! We saw quite well how that can be extremely problematic with this update so better err on the side of caution. Of course you dont want to alienate players either so hence the we didnt intended to be like that! They intent was to provide something that takes a long time to aquire but they didnt intent to make it frustrating at the same time. They just didnt hit the desired sweet spot in my opinion and not exactly a case of lack of direction. Thats my personal opinion of course, you might also be right!

I think they absolutely managed to create a limited gear progression that doesnt effect the rest of the game! All the impact people are talking about is all percieved none of it real ! I mean nothing in the game changed from before the update and we didnt even have any ascended gear though suddenly people are acting as you cant PvE without ascended gear? or people think you cannot be competitive in WvW without Ascended gear! Players, my self included have been playing WvW without an exotic set without any problems ! I even have a ridicolous kill to death ration that if gear was so much a factor I definitely shouldnt have ! I get it that people feel they have to have the set! but I am completely disagree it is required by anything in the game except FoTM post level 10 !

Galen Grey.4709:

I think they absolutely managed to create a limited gear progression that doesnt effect the rest of the game! All the impact people are talking about is all percieved none of it real ! I mean nothing in the game changed from before the update and we didnt even have any ascended gear though suddenly people are acting as you cant PvE without ascended gear? or people think you cannot be competitive in WvW without Ascended gear! Players, my self included have been playing WvW without an exotic set without any problems ! I even have a ridicolous kill to death ration that if gear was so much a factor I definitely shouldnt have ! I get it that people feel they have to have the set! but I am completely disagree it is required by anything in the game except FoTM post level 10 !

The perceived impact is very real, else how could we come into these threads and say we see it happening in-game already?

Again I say, whether it’s required by anything else or not, because it was implemented as a new tier of gear with higher stats than what was currently available it inherently is causing a disruption between players because the game design does not support a power creep. As-is it may not turn out to be a power creep once the full set of Ascended gear is available, but if it does turn into a power creep with new tiers of gear for new dungeon mechanics then it still may not be “required” of anything but special dungeon mechanics, but it will constantly be a reminder to everyone that there is a carrot in front of them and they aren’t going to reach it or catch up to the people with it unless they work for it. Again, ANET stated very clearly they were not okay with this and it is something that did not change with their AMA.

Trying to say “well the stat difference is insignificant” is missing the point. If a power creep starts, eventually it will be significant. Still not trying to say ascended gear needs to go away, but ANET would have avoided all the backlash and simultaneously given the vertical progression crowd something to reach for within the original and never-corrected-until-they-realized-they-mislead-the-players interpretation of the Manifesto by simply making alternative exotics with the same stat distributions as the ascended gear (core stats + upgrades with no upgrade slot) and slapping the infusion slot on it. People with Exotics that don’t have the infusion slot would have still had the same overall stats minus agony resistance and people with the new exotics could have continued as they are doing so now, feeling like they are getting more powerful because they are resisting more agony and getting deeper into the Fractals than the average bear.

One last point about the stat difference. Exotic → Ascended feels insignificant now, but it won’t once the full set is available. Having a full set of Rares and bumping three trinkets up to exotic is similarly insignificant, but when you have a whole set of Exotics above Rare the difference is tangible and therefor significant. If a power creep starts, those that try to ignore it “because it’s not required” are going to be tangibly less capable than those that participate in every aspect of the game, whether that difference in capability is masked by a group effort or not.

IndigoSundown.5419:

arcaneclarity.5283:

KillSlash.6148:

One of the biggest annoyances I have with many of the posts upset with ArenaNet, is that they do not even know what the word LIE means.

Even IF way back when, they said something would work one way and now it doesn’t, it does NOT mean you were lied to.

Lie:
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.
So unless you really believe when they put out a given statement, it was their intent at that time to be untruthful, it is not a lie.

Either we accept Chris Whiteside’s statement that this was planned all along, in which case they lied then, or it wasn’t planned all along and they are lying now. Either way, they lied. There is one thing a company can do to instantly lose all respect in my eyes and that is lie. I don’t like being lied to.

Ascended was planned all along? I don’t remember that part of it. I remember, “It was not specifically designed before launch. However the concept of progression rewards with a shallow curve bridging other rewards was. Hope that makes sense.” Vague as kitten in some respects, but clear in others. There was always going to be some vertical progression in the game (there were 5 tiers of level 80 gear, now there are 6), but that statement tells me that the current implementation of Ascended gear was not intended all along.

If you want to hang onto the idea that they lied, I cannot stop you, but it might be better to look at all the facts after a while, once their ideas for making the new gear more accessible are out, and people have cooled down.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

Colin Johanson

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

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

Just quoting this again to make sure the OP gets the message that he’s wrong. This statement explicitly states that the rarest items (ascended) are not more powerful than other items (yes, they are).

Actually, the rarest items are legendaries, and those will not be more powerful than Ascended will be. Of course, we took that gap to be between Exotic and Legendary. You can give them a chance to fix the Ascended accessibility, or you can uninstall and never give ANet the time of day, again. The first option might result in your being able to enjoy playing a game you are obviously passionate about. The second will mean you won’t, but you’ll get to be “right” about how ANet “betrayed” you.

Yes very passionate over bugwars 2 -_-

Right now, the only area where ascended gear is NEEDED is FotM lvl 10+. Everywhere else it only provides a slight advantage in stats. You can win over a player with ascended gear if you wear exotic gear. You can to the same PvE content as a player with ascended gear. Even fractals up to lvl 15. After that agony is going to kick in too much to be tolerated without any resist.

But if you don’t want to grind or repeatedly do any content, you won’t even get to fractal lvl 15. So your only disadvantage are slightly lower stats. But the new gear will be made available for all by introducing new methods of getting them eventually. But that takes time.

Mackdose.6504:

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.

Which is just PR bullkitten and lies.

Pretty sure they said in at least one of their manifestos this would be a relatively grind free game.

How long does it take to get ascended items so far?

I rise thee from the depths of the unliving!