Guild Wars 2

Okay, we all know that ascended armor is coming. The real question is how will it be implemented. Since the Devs lately have been coming on here and reading posts I suggest we start suggesting ways they could implement it that are better than the way they implemented Ascended weapons.

I’ll start with what I think happened that was “wrong” about ascended weapons. Personally I think the worst thing with ascended weapons were the increased stats on them over “regular” exotics. Had ascended weapons been simply exotic stats but with an added infusion slot (to add infusions for fractals or slightly better stats) everyone would have received them much better. They ould have even increased the stats on legendaries and no one would have cared! After-all, they are legendaries!

So, my solution to ascended armor is thus: Ascended armor should have the exact same stats as Exotic with two exceptions: #1, they should have an infusion slot for people to add infusions to aid in higher and higher fractals or to put a slight enhancement on it (+5 to a single stat is not game-breaking). #2, To make ascended armor worth the grind (you know it will be one) allow them to have “selectable” stats like legendary weapons do. This would give people a reason to grind for the armor but not grant much of an advantage over people that did not grind. This also gives them a purpose within the game. Right now most of my characters carry two sets of armor, one for PVE and one for WvWvW and PvP. I used to carry three sets (one with MF).

By giving selectable stats to ascended armor people could customize their loadout for each dungeon that they enter (or if they want to change builds) and gives people something to work for after they finally get their exotic armor….but yet, since the stats are the same as exotic, it doesn’t give them an advantage over the people who have only exotic. It would justify the grind, since it would replace multiple sets of carried armor with a single set…and go nicely with the people who already have their legendary but not be game-breaking in WvW or PvP.

Heck, even without the infusion slot, selectable stats on ascended armor would make people want to do the grind to get it and it makes it ALT-friendly! You can grind towards a set for each of your characters.

Post your ideas. How could ANET implement ascended armor with minimal impact to the community where it wouldn’t create the outrage that you see from ascended weapons?

Hopefully they implement it the same as the weapons. Which to me were implemented quite well (they’re very easy to get).

Ahlen.7591:

Hopefully they implement it the same as the weapons. Which to me were implemented quite well (they’re very easy to get).

If this were true, you wouldn’t see people complaining about it. In particular, people with ALT’s. I have rarely seen people with more than one ascended weapon, and know from my casual playing friends, that none of them even have one ascended weapon. This does not make them “easy to get” Getting to crafting level of 500 alone is not “easy to get” since the majority of players do in fact have trouble getting the near 200 gold worth of materials to get to that point, much less the materials then needed to give them their ascended.

But I actually do not want to argue over how difficult it is to get ascended…but this does show the controversy regarding ascended weapons.

Instead, I want to keep this productive. Does anyone have ideas for implementing Ascended armor that would be less controversial than ascended weapons?

Ahlen.7591:

Hopefully they implement it the same as the weapons. Which to me were implemented quite well (they’re very easy to get).

Very funny.

Moshari.8570:

Ahlen.7591:

Hopefully they implement it the same as the weapons. Which to me were implemented quite well (they’re very easy to get).

If this were true, you wouldn’t see people complaining about it. In particular, people with ALT’s. I have rarely seen people with more than one ascended weapon, and know from my casual playing friends, that none of them even have one ascended weapon. This does not make them “easy to get” Getting to crafting level of 500 alone is not “easy to get” since the majority of players do in fact have trouble getting the near 200 gold worth of materials to get to that point, much less the materials then needed to give them their ascended.

But I actually do not want to argue over how difficult it is to get ascended…but this does show the controversy regarding ascended weapons.

Instead, I want to keep this productive. Does anyone have ideas for implementing Ascended armor that would be less controversial than ascended weapons?

No seriously, they are easy to get. It is really not that hard. The actual ascended weapons themselves reaaaally don’t take many materials. And crafting can be leveled with time (30 minutes a day to do Ori/Ancient wood runs).

I feel like people who don’t have at least one craft to 500 at this point, are not even trying.

You only carry 2 sets? I carry 3-4! I have between 12 and 18 slots reserved for my other stats gears (which happens to have different skins of course) not counting my equiped gear. But since there are no legendary gear, I think it would make perfect sense that the ascended have selectable stats.

However, I think the bonus ascended gives is quite small and I do not mind if it sticks with the added % they gave to the weapon.

Ahlen.7591:

And crafting can be leveled with time (30 minutes a day to do Ori/Ancient wood runs).

And do the 30 minutes a day to mine Ori/Ancient also give you the 60+ globs of ecto and 60+ T6 mats needed to level up one profession?

Wolfheart.1938:

Ahlen.7591:

And crafting can be leveled with time (30 minutes a day to do Ori/Ancient wood runs).

And do the 30 minutes a day to mine Ori/Ancient also give you the 60+ globs of ecto and 60+ T6 mats needed to level up one profession?

If that’s the only thing you do? No of course not.

Are you really expecting to max out on everything in the game, and get the next step up of gear without putting any effort in at all? Without playing the game?

Doing ANYTHING ELSE in the game will get you globs of ecto and T6 mats, are you expecting to sit in LA and just have materials flow into your collection?

Do you and others want to do nothing in the game and be rewarded?

We all know the ascended armors are coming but the question is when?

I think each piece of ascended armor should be a grind proportional to the grind for ascended weapons.

It took me 3 weeks to get to 500, w/o spending gold, but I have plenty of free time atm so that kind of skews it. It wasn’t overly hard, but it was grindy. The difference is, I only needed one weapon for my main and there was an adequate supply of mats I could farm to level (this is proprotionate to my playtime and how I played _ I sympathise with those who have less time and use it more constructively than I)

Armour is different. You can’t node farm the mats – only salvaging and loot bag RNG is your option outside of the TP. For 6 pieces of armour, that is going to to be excessive as it stands for most people. The other issue is the stat gain is very small (+2 I saw on one set) and I believe there is no AR slot either, so I’m slightly puzzled as to the incentive to obtain the armour compared to the weapon.

Moshari.8570:

If this were true, you wouldn’t see people complaining about it.

how long have you been in the forums? People here complain about everything.

Ahlen.7591:

Yet another “effort” (farming is putting effort by the way) post

First of all, don’t try and sway the subject of my post. You said that with 30 minutes a day I could level up the professions. Truth is, that 30 minutes a day only give you a portion of what you need, so if we were to gauge how much playtime you need to level up a profession, your statement would be a plain lie. “Just do ori/ancient” runs doesn’t cut it. At all.

Secondly, do I really need to dig up the “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game” from Game Director Colin Johanson? Even if what you typed were my expectations (and they aren’t), this quote alone would justify them.

Moshari.8570:

#2, To make ascended armor worth the grind (you know it will be one) allow them to have “selectable” stats like legendary weapons do

This is a great idea! Unfortunately, this will be reserved for Legendary Armor (yes, they already confirmed that it is coming AFTER Ascended – grind grind grind)

Just make Ascended armor available in a variety of ways: WvW tokens / Laurels / Fractals / KARMA/ Crafting. Personally, if it doesn’t LOOK COOL I have no interest in ascended.

Maybe ascended armor could be indestructible instead of having a power boost?

Release ascended and legendary armors at the same time. at least that way, people would have an option which ever they want to go for and future wise it’ll probably be easier to accept this one time release of both tier.

Lets not get into an argument on gathering of mat’s. That isn’t the point of the topic and I am trying not to get too far off of topic. Like I said, that is part of the debate over ascended weapons. We know Ascended armor will be a grind, but what would make ascended armor worth the grind in its implementation so that the majority of players not only think it is worth it, but would strive for it?

Wolfheart.1938:

Even if what you typed were my expectations (and they aren’t), this quote alone would justify them.

Well this comment was made quite long ago, what if Anet saw that this didn’t work out, players got bored and wanted more progression and things to work towards to? This actually happened if I remember correctly, so Anet listened, worked on it for months and delivered.

It’s still very much possible to get even for the most casual players. You don’t have to run difficult dungeons in instanced content. You can do this without relying on other people. It only takes a bit longer than the “free loot” exotics you can buy in the trading post after a single dungeon run.

F I R S T.3976:

Release ascended and legendary armors at the same time. at least that way, people would have an option which ever they want to go for and future wise it’ll probably be easier to accept this one time release of both tier.

I actually truly agree to this. We need to see if it is worth it to go for the ascended, or keep going towards a legendary. It would suck to get ascended armor, only to find out a month later that you could have only gathered a few more mats and have legendary and you wasted those mats on ascended.

Or perhaps have a way to turn ascended into legendary? Or maybe even turn exotic into ascended…into legendary.

On topic, I would suggest more than one way to get them.

One way, of course would be crafting. With crafts up to 500, and a decent list of materials that one could get from the world and don’t involve forcing someone to do dungeons or WvW. Mostly, because face it. There are those out there right now who won’t ever be able to craft their ascended weapons because for whatever reason, they are unable or unwilling to do certain parts of the game.

Another way would be random drops from world boss chests, but with a decent drop rate that doesn’t involve a 1 in 1,748,302,896 chance.

Yet another way would be to have certain events drop a certain piece, such as finishing Scarlett would award a random piece, Teq would award a different piece, etc. If you get a piece from Scarlett, and you finish a second time on the same character, you would not get another piece. This way, alts could get ascended armor as well as mains.

But, if I had the power to choose how they would be implemented I would choose a guaranteed reward from an epic quest line or finishing an epic achievement meta. Award the whole set with stats you choose, but make it so that if you complete that particular meta, you would be guaranteed to get the whole set. It would have to be epic, spanning the globe, and have certain aspects that were only available if you do the prerequisites to get there. That way, anyone seen with ascended gear would be known as someone who actually played the game rather than a)buying from the TP or b) endless running of Dungeon X path Y for some obscure material that can only be gained in that place.

Just my opinions, so take it how you will.

Cheers!

What is this I don’t even. Surely casuals aren’t barred from getting Legendaries too right? They just need 2 years per weapon, but hey, apparently reasonable timeframes aren’t part of the equation here.

Face it, Ascended Weapons are a time/money sink that serve no other purpose other than giving you a carrot to chase. And in one swoop they manage to hamper skin diversity, build diversity and of course alt-friendlyness. Also worth nothing that this makes balance changes (a necessary evil) a nastier thing, because that set you spent so much time to get might now be very weak.

So I am presented with 2 choices: either chase them to obtain them at a reasonable rate (doing things I dislike like farming nodes or doing 15 temple events per weapon), or play the way I want ( WvW, SPvP, alt levelling, changing builds ) and see 1 of them each 2 months.

Getting these two has been one of the most boring things I’ve ever done in GW2 and reminded me one of the reasons I don’t play MMOs. So I simply decided to stop caring and will probably get my next ones at a snail’s pace.

Edit: sorry for derailing the thread OP, will refrain from further posting.

Wolfheart.1938:

What is this I don’t even. Surely casuals aren’t barred from getting Legendaries too right? They just need 2 years per weapon, but hey, apparently reasonable timeframes aren’t part of the equation here.

Face it, Ascended Weapons are a time/money sink that serve no other purpose other than giving you a carrot to chase. And in one swoop they manage to hamper skin diversity, build diversity and of course alt-friendlyness. Also worth nothing that this makes balance changes (a necessary evil) a nastier thing, because that set you spent so much time to get might now be very weak.

So I am presented with 2 choices: either chase them to obtain them at a reasonable rate (doing things I dislike like farming nodes or doing 15 temple events per weapon), or play the way I want ( WvW, SPvP, alt levelling, changing builds ) and see 1 of them each 2 months.

Getting these two has been one of the most boring things I’ve ever done in GW2 and reminded me one of the reasons I don’t play MMOs. So I simply decided to stop caring and will probably get my next ones at a snail’s pace.

Edit: sorry for derailing the thread OP, will refrain from further posting.

And this is why I have quite playing for now. Have not played for serveral weeks. It was just getting way too tedious with gather this, and gather that and do your dailies, etc etc. The reason I bought GW2 was because it was suppose to be different. I could take a step away for awhile and come back and be at the same level as everyone else. Now that is gone. I would be behind on everything now.

But to answer the ops questions. I would make the armor available through all currencies, karma, gold, etc. I would make it available the same way exotics are today, with just an increase in costs. For karma instead of costing 45K or so now that exotics do, make it cost 100K or something in that line. Do the same for the other ways but make it reasonable.

My two cents worth

Selectable stats will be reserved for legendary armor. I hope they will introduce more ways to obtain the armor. Most important will be that all ways require the same amount of time.

I seriously hope that crafting the Legendary armor will craft a full set. I can’t imagine taking 1 year to craft 1 piece on 6 only (maybe 7 with underwater slot?). That is, if there will ever be a legendary armor in the game.

Drop the stats back to exotic levels. That’d work.

Moshari.8570:

Getting to crafting level of 500 alone is not “easy to get” since the majority of players do in fact have trouble getting the near 200 gold worth of materials to get to that point, much less the materials then needed to give them their ascended.

The only way getting to 500 would cost 200 gold to get to is if you never played the game, never collected resources as you played, and never decomposed your drops.
I’ve spent maybe 20g getting to 450 because I was an idiot and made the wrong things. Also you can begin messing with your ascended drops which if you play the game at all, you should have tons of each (Empyreals, Bloodstones, even Dragonites I have way to much of). I really don’t expect to spend more than 50g total to have my Ele wield dual ascended daggers and that includes the cost of leveling Blacksmithing to 500.

At least this is MASSIVELY better than the stupid laurel time gating garbage for trinkets. If you want to point to something that hurts people with lots of alts it’s that. At least with the crafting path you get one character up to that level (which again if you actually play the game and collect as you go is relatively cheap) and you can make ascendeds for all your characters, really just limited by your access karma and laurels.

If anything, I want them to make ascended trinkets craftable. The more I level and play around with alts, the more I hate it the trinket ascended acquiring system.

Wolfheart.1938:

And do the 30 minutes a day to mine Ori/Ancient also give you the 60+ globs of ecto and 60+ T6 mats needed to level up one profession?

No, just playing the game does. I don’t even focus on grinding anything except maybe doing a few fast dungeon paths when I can. After about a month I had nearly 90 ectos and that’s with not even trying. Honestly I really should learn to stop listening to the initially whining on game forums. It’s way overblown how hard it is to acquire this stuff.

To not implement it at all.

Ahlen.7591:

If that’s the only thing you do? No of course not.

Are you really expecting to max out on everything in the game, and get the next step up of gear without putting any effort in at all? Without playing the game?

Doing ANYTHING ELSE in the game will get you globs of ecto and T6 mats, are you expecting to sit in LA and just have materials flow into your collection?

Do you and others want to do nothing in the game and be rewarded?

Actually I’d rather be rewarded for real effort. I’d much rather be able to gain tokens for running fractals to buy it with. The higher the fractals, the faster you earn it.

You’re right about itm though. It’s easy. Its dumb easy. I have enough mats to make 3 Ascended weapons and have yet to make 1. My weaponsmith is at 470 and have the mats and assets to level that to 500, but haven’t bothered. Why? Not for lack of trying, but for lack of caring. What moron can’t stand in front of a crafting station and press a button?
You can sit there and say people complaining about Ascended implementation wanting something for nothing, but as I see it, it something for nothing now. I’d rather have something I can actually do something for besides run the same farm route and press a crafting button.

Should it be limited to fractals only IMO? No, keep the crafting method, but add something else where I can actually do something besides swing a pickaxe to get this stuff.

Lostwingman.5034:

Wolfheart.1938:

And do the 30 minutes a day to mine Ori/Ancient also give you the 60+ globs of ecto and 60+ T6 mats needed to level up one profession?

No, just playing the game does. I don’t even focus on grinding anything except maybe doing a few fast dungeon paths when I can. After about a month I had nearly 90 ectos and that’s with not even trying. Honestly I really should learn to stop listening to the initially whining on game forums. It’s way overblown how hard it is to acquire this stuff.

I agree.

The only thing people need to do to easily get Ascended gear is be like Lostwingman.
You just need to have the same RL time schedule and responsibilities as Lostwingman, play as much as Lostwingman, prefer the same playstyle and content as Lostwingman and have the same online circle of acquaintances as Lostwingman.

Problem solved, case closed.

Yes, if it’s okay for me why can’t it be for anyone else?

And if I gather 200g of mats or buy 200g of mats it’s the same alltogether, it’s still 200g worth of things you need in order to have BiS items. Opportunity cost rings a bell for you?
Last month I spent 20h+ inside SAB because I loved trib mode, how many mats did I get for “simply playing the game?”.

They should make each piece twice as grindy as ascended weapon, and use new materials instead of dragonite and emp shards.

The worst they can do is release an expansion worth of new content to obtain ascended materials instead of making you repeat existing content.

OP – as much as we appreciate your suggestions – I doubt the things you propose will be done.
Ascended items already have better stats than exotics – that will not change for armor – they’ve decided to go this way and for better or worse they’re " all in " they can’t really go back and change it now. Same thing goes for crafting them – it is the most boring and obnoxious way to get them. A million other – better ways could have been implemented for getting ascended weapons ( and armor) but they started with crafting and for better or worse they have to finish it like this.

The stat switching? that would be cool but let’s be honest with ourselves – it will never happen.
The whole concept behind ascended is to keep you playing and grinding. Once you get it you’d have nothing to go for – since you had all stats. Like this if you want build variety you’re in for some grind and game time.
Plus – the switch option is reserved for legendary armor.

In my opinion – what will make or break the release of ascended armor comes down to two things :

1) How hard it is to get – if it’s too hard – people will hate it and it will push them to not get it – since they’ll be intimidated by the amount of grind they need to put in to deck out their chars. I play one char – and I’ll need 2 sets – it’s doable. I pity anyone who plays all 8 classes and runs multiple builds on each char.

And more importantly:

2) How good it looks – yes – you heard me. How good this armor will look will determine how people receive it.
If it looks gloriously awesome – a good portion of players will be willing to overlook the grind and difficulties associated with it and will welcome the challenge.
Guild Wars 2 is a primarily cosmetic driven game – we’re all basically playing for shiny things and rarer items – and if ascended looks great people will want to have it – not because of the stats but because of the looks.
However – if it doesn’t look good ( just like the weapons were rather bland and …well meh – or like the version of ascended armor that was data mined ) then we’re in for a bumpy road since players will have little or no incentive to subject themselves to that grind.

Wolfheart.1938:

Yes, if it’s okay for me why can’t it be for anyone else?

And if I gather 200g of mats or buy 200g of mats it’s the same alltogether, it’s still 200g worth of things you need in order to have BiS items. Opportunity cost rings a bell for you?
Last month I spent 20h+ inside SAB because I loved trib mode, how many mats did I get for “simply playing the game?”.

Nice cherry picking the one example of temporary content that only has its own rewards as your example of “playing the game”. I for one saw no benefit to playing it, didn’t like the content, and would rather prioritize doing things that BOTH were enjoyable and paid off. I too could spend my time all day-erry-day doing one of the pointless side activities, but at least I’d be willing to admit I’m forgoing the benefits of normal gameplay content and events rather than be disingenuous about it.

Also yea, so hard taking 5 seconds to gather materials you come across as you run around. Pls ANet make mats magically appear in my bank, is so hard.

Ahlen.7591:

Hopefully they implement it the same as the weapons. Which to me were implemented quite well (they’re very easy to get).

Hopefully. I like getting equipment with better stats and I also want to have custom stats be legendary only. Looking forward to legendary armors.
Ascended stat boost is fine. They are reasonable easy to get. Nothing to cry about.

SPvP, how much does it earn me? Ops sorry, not “Playing the game”. Ever noticed how PvP lobby has way less people since the introduction of ascended weapons? That’s because players that liked both that an PvE stopped because it’s fun, but not profitable.

Wanna talk about WvW? How many orichalcum nodes do I gather while in there? How many t6 and globs? Wait, don’t capture that keep, I gotta stop to mine that rich iron ore.

Go back to your fun and profitable activities (champ trains? cofp1 over over again?), you are wasting potential g/h by posting in here. What a condescending and unsufferable attitude. I’m done addressing your bigotry.

PsyOnic.3108:

To not implement it at all.

qft

Like this game needs more grind. Grinding gear is’t content.
I expect that they will do it through crafting. It’s probably a bit late to suggest other ways, the huge amounts of ascended mats dropping says crafting. It has made it pointless to level crafting any longer other than to sell trash and gain levels to craft ascended. No reason they are going to stop at just destroying half the crafting professions, they will do the same to the rest.

+1 to the no implementation, weapons were implemented horribly. Not everyone crafts nor has the money to craft to 500. I have so far made a total of 4 ascended weapons but it’s cost me an arm and a leg and I’ve had to resort to playing the game in “most profitable” and definitely not “how i want” mode. Also every other method of obtaining an ascended weapon (dropped by chests) is a tease at best.

Crafting ……

PsyOnic.3108:

To not implement it at all.

Best option I heard so far.

Needless to say, my post history will indicate my fervent anger and dislike that Ascended was ever introduced at all. However, I’m smart enough to know that that ship has sailed, and we should not waste time re-litigating this topic. It is what it is, and that being the case, it’s time to move forward and offer viable and reasonable methods to lighten and facilitate the acquisition of Ascended items, as opposed to unrealistic and absurd fantasy scenarios where Anet rolls back the Ascended Gear.

Given this, I think it is important that we focus on making suggestions that move Ascended items towards a multi-acquisition mode (like exotics) as opposed to utterly wasting time in a debate about Horizontal vs Vertical progression. A debate in which, they are NOT going to roll back anything, and they are going to stand by their claim that they had always intended to have low-power curve vertical progression through ascended gear, and possibly other ways in the “distant” future.

So there is nothing to debate, despite their pre-release marketing, Gw2 is now a vertical progression game: period, end of story.

That said, I love the graphics of this game, it’s truly beautiful,. And I love the no must-have classes (trinity), and I enjoy WvW roaming, PvP and also some of the DEs and Dungeon paths. And what’s more, truth be told, there simply is nowhere else for me to go (at least for right now) for my particular play-style as far as mmo’s are concerned. Eventually a company will create, and stand by, a 100% horizontal progression game that also has modern graphics and solid game play – and when they do, I’m all in, but that moment, is not now. For now what we have is a plethora of Vertical Progression MMO’s to choose from, and given the choices I have, I choose GW2.

For my part, I intend to flood whatever thread they create on the subject of Ascended gear with suggestions that lead to a faster, cleaner and far less grindy means of acquisition.

I would say no to ascended armor immediately.

If it does happen what would be the least damaging implementation? My guess
- same armor value as exotics
- a base +5 agony resistance
- no infusion slot
- normal rune slots
- no stats but a slot with a new token that would assign stats at exotic level
- jewelry crafting can make new tokens at an affordable cost (to change armor stats)
- armor can be acquired through ascended crafting or a fractal reward barter currency

The next question is whether it would be good to have a purpose to all this agony resistance. Should there be new content that is only accessible with high ar? Should there be new rewards available only to players with high ar? No. That breaks the game philosophy of open access for all players. It becomes a gear based gate on player achievement. The conclusion however is that all this agony resistance from armor is either (a) ultimately going to be unnecessary or (b) will provide a gear gate that excludes players without ascended gear.

Agree with OP, the ascended stuff should not be that grindy as it is now. Otherwise it will be an MMO just like all other. For me GW is the MMO to be fair and competitive.

I agree, that it would be stupid to delete all the ascended, but they should make it easier to get them for casuals…

Ascended were introduced because exotic was too easy to get. Making them easier to get than now would defeat their purpose.

They need to remove ascended everything or make it much, much easier to get ascended stuff.

Ascended was the breaking point for me. If I’m going to have to grind gear, I’d rather play WoW. Which I went back to, because the gearing process is a lot more fun.

Malediktus.9250:

Ascended were introduced because exotic was too easy to get. Making them easier to get than now would defeat their purpose.

This is also true. Exotics are pretty much as easy to get as rares. They’ve basically moved down a tier at this point.

Ascended is the new exotic.

My concern is for all the transmutation stones that I will need for my armor.

I hope / wish there was a means to upgrade our existing armor appearance instead of being forced to use splitters.

There are 30 different armor looks, but seemingly only one ascended look. What sense does this make? Did the appearance grind suddenly end and now we are playing a traditional gear stats treadmill?

PsyOnic.3108:

To not implement it at all.

+1

Or hand it out for free, or by doing a personal quest chain.

Imagine that, we would get some awesome award for playing a awesome quest. A reward for having fun.

Why on earth is it so hard for ANet to implement something like that?

Moshari.8570:

. We know Ascended armor will be a grind, but what would make ascended armor worth the grind in its implementation so that the majority of players not only think it is worth it, but would strive for it?

That’s what the higher stats are meant to do.

That is literally the only reason there’s higher stats.