Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Because you thing stats are “the” way to progress, you think that you need these items. I don’t see stats as “the” way to progress, so I don’t. I’m quite happy to play my characters that don’t have any ascended gear at all.

I need these items to gain the best performance my character can possibly get. Fact
You can deny the extra stats all you kitten well want, but at the end of the day, having these items still boosts one’s combat performance.

I don’t want these items, because I hate grindy gear progression, but I need to have them in order to have maximum battle performance.

Milennin.4825:

Vayne.8563:

Because you thing stats are “the” way to progress, you think that you need these items. I don’t see stats as “the” way to progress, so I don’t. I’m quite happy to play my characters that don’t have any ascended gear at all.

I need these items to gain the best performance my character can possibly get. Fact
You can deny the extra stats all you kitten well want, but at the end of the day, having these items still boosts one’s combat performance.

I don’t want these items, because I hate grindy gear progression, but I need to have them in order to have maximum battle performance.

So? If you can beat everything in the game without it, why do you need it? This is where it’s in your head. You’re so competitive in your thought process, that you must have this higher number, but in reality it translates to a second or two per kill. Maybe. If that.

That’s what I’m saying. Two people go out and buy cars. One buys a sporty, eight cylinder one and someone buys a family car. But at the end of the day, when you’re driving to work, it don’t really matter.

Vayne.8563:

So? If you can beat everything in the game without it, why do you need it? This is where it’s in your head. You’re so competitive in your thought process, that you must have this higher number, but in reality it translates to a second or two per kill. Maybe. If that.

Why does it matter whether I can beat everything in the game or not? (even though I cannot, because the Jade Maw flat out kills me if I lack the Agony resist)
The topic is about need vs want.

When it comes to obtaining maximum battle performance it clearly points towards there being a need to have Ascended items, not a want.

Time is money. If a superior piece of equipment can make a boss who has an annoying to dodge ability that does a lot of damage go faster, or clear an unskippable trash pack faster, then it is a basic human survival instinct to acquire that gear. If having that instinct makes you a spoiled child, then I’ll play with the spoiled children, rather than someone who meanders aimlessly instead of filling his belly.

Milennin.4825:

Vayne.8563:

So? If you can beat everything in the game without it, why do you need it? This is where it’s in your head. You’re so competitive in your thought process, that you must have this higher number, but in reality it translates to a second or two per kill. Maybe. If that.

Why does it matter whether I can beat everything in the game or not? (even though I cannot, because the Jade Maw flat out kills me if I lack the Agony resist)
The topic is about need vs want.

When it comes to obtaining maximum battle performance it clearly points towards there being a need to have Ascended items, not a want.

But you can kill the Jade Maw without doing dailies, because before dailies existed people killed the Jade Maw, even at high levels, quite frequently. You needed rings and back pieces which you didn’t get from dailies, which is what this topic is about.

Need: a lack of something wanted or deemed necessary

/thread

Vayne.8563:

If all you think about is winning fights, and optimal characters (by stats) then there’s nothing else for me to say to you. Other people really do get what I’m talking about.

People who play games like Skyrim or Dragon Age, they don’t worry about the same type of optimal you do. This is where the RPG part of the game really gets lost in the math. The fact that you see this as the only way to be optimal means to me that we’re playing very different games.

I just don’t care about stats all that much, and never will. But when my character looks the way I want him/her too, that’s optimal to me.

Please understand what I’m saying before commenting. I’m talking about optimal preformance, about making a character the best they can be when playing with or against others.

Want, need, force and grind all come into the big picture.

Us that want the best gear to be optimal, need to grind what we are forced into since there are few options. We set out to do what there is to do in the game to progress our character to be the best he/she can be. We want more options to do so.

You who dont care much about stats or optimal gear is the one that makes the optional choice. But the OP is making it sound like its us, that want to experience and have the best possible equipment to make our toons the most optimal we can, who are doing something thats “optional” and not forced on us.

Just the dailies alone is proof of forced content, since we cant decide to skip it some days a week without falling behind. It’s worse than a system where everyone can grind at their own pace.

You are making the active optional choice to not be part of the different things in the game. We play the game for what it is and take part in everything it has to offer. It’s no different to want BiS gear compared to wanting max level on a character. It’s all about forging your character, little by little as content is released.

Stats is the only progression we can work on right now that improves the effectivness of the toon. I dont want to grind gear, I would be happy if exo was the best possible gear, but since it isnt I want to improve my character(s) the way I can, which happens to be through ascended gear, it’s just not a choice.

This is in order to be optimal in situations where I play with others. Since thats how I am, I do it for the good of me and my fellow players, since its a cooperative game not only outside of WvW, where my server is still my friends.

And when it comes to WvW winning is all, thats what its about, winning is fun. So of course aiming for best gear for best possible odds on the outcome of a fight is a nobrainer for me.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Vayne.8563:

If all you think about is winning fights, and optimal characters (by stats) then there’s nothing else for me to say to you. Other people really do get what I’m talking about.

People who play games like Skyrim or Dragon Age, they don’t worry about the same type of optimal you do. This is where the RPG part of the game really gets lost in the math. The fact that you see this as the only way to be optimal means to me that we’re playing very different games.

I just don’t care about stats all that much, and never will. But when my character looks the way I want him/her too, that’s optimal to me.

Please understand what I’m saying before commenting. I’m talking about optimal preformance, about making a character the best they can be when playing with or against others.

Want, need, force and grind all come into the big picture.

Us that want the best gear to be optimal, need to grind what we are forced into since there are few options. We set out to do what there is to do in the game to progress our character to be the best he/she can be. We want more options to do so.

You who dont care much about stats or optimal gear is the one that makes the optional choice. But the OP is making it sound like its us, that want to experience and have the best possible equipment to make our toons the most optimal we can, who are doing something thats “optional” and not forced on us.

Just the dailies alone is proof of forced content, since we cant decide to skip it some days a week without falling behind. It’s worse than a system where everyone can grind at their own pace.

You are making the active optional choice to not be part of the different things in the game. We play the game for what it is and take part in everything it has to offer. It’s no different to want BiS gear compared to wanting max level on a character. It’s all about forging your character, little by little as content is released.

Stats is the only progression we can work on right now that improves the effectivness of the toon. I dont want to grind gear, I would be happy if exo was the best possible gear, but since it isnt I want to improve my character(s) the way I can, which happens to be through ascended gear, it’s just not a choice.

This is in order to be optimal in situations where I play with others. Since thats how I am, I do it for the good of me and my fellow players, since its a cooperative game not only outside of WvW, where my server is still my friends.

And when it comes to WvW winning is all, thats what its about, winning is fun. So of course aiming for best gear for best possible odds on the outcome of a fight is a nobrainer for me.

See I can understand this in other games. In games were content is gated and you must have that to play. But in this game…I just think it was designed with a different thought process. People come to Guild Wars 2 with all the programming they get from other games. And yes, I get that people have this “need” to have this BIS gear, but I don’t think people have really adjusted to the different mindset that is Guild Wars. And it IS a different mindset.

The only place I could conceivably see BIS gear really mattering is in SPvP and everyone is equal there, at least in gear. PVe is cooperative not competitive, and WvW is certainly not balanced for 1v1..even though 1v1 can happen some of the time. More likely it’s zerg vs zerg and whether you have an ascended amulet or not is pretty unlikely to turn the tide of a battle.

I just think that if people had less preconceptions of this particular game they wouldn’t care nearly as much about gear. Gear in most games is far more important than it is here.

SneakyErvin.3056:

You who dont care much about stats or optimal gear is the one that makes the optional choice. But the OP is making it sound like its us, that want to experience and have the best possible equipment to make our toons the most optimal we can, who are doing something thats “optional” and not forced on us.

This is absolutely true. You made a CHOICE to go for the BIS gear, it was not forced upon you. Nothing is forced upon you, you made a commitment of your own free will.

That commitment involves doing many different kinds of content so you either:

A: Commit to doing the content required to acquire BIS gear.

or

B: Do whatever content you want and do not acquire BIS gear.

Having made a choice, you don’t get to cry “unfair!” because you don’t like what that choice involves. If you don’t want to do the content, you don’t get the goodies.

It’s something like someone wanting to be a doctor but complaining that med school and all the stuff that’s required to be a doctor takes too long. Your choices are: do the work and become a doctor, or don’t do the work and don’t become a doctor. You choose which path to take, it’s not forced upon you.

Actually as a hardcore WvW player I do NEED to spend all of this time doing these things. That 8% stat increase is significant enough to be the determining factor in a fight between myself and an equally skilled player. There’s been several times where one of my builds perfectly counters another and said fight turns into a never-ending battle. If I’m hitting 8% harder, or taking 8% less damage or have 8% more health the numbers keep going up, and that balanced fight tips in favor of me winning. I don’t know if the OP has ever played a game with a gear treadmill before, but essentially higher stats are a need if you’re in the competitive world.

And competing in that “world” (itself a concept that makes me ROTFL) is itself a CHOICE. Therefore you WANT these things, they are not forced upon you.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Actually as a hardcore WvW player I do NEED to spend all of this time doing these things. That 8% stat increase is significant enough to be the determining factor in a fight between myself and an equally skilled player. There’s been several times where one of my builds perfectly counters another and said fight turns into a never-ending battle. If I’m hitting 8% harder, or taking 8% less damage or have 8% more health the numbers keep going up, and that balanced fight tips in favor of me winning. I don’t know if the OP has ever played a game with a gear treadmill before, but essentially higher stats are a need if you’re in the competitive world.

If you truly think that your not “hardcore WvW player” as you put it because you should know its not about the one person its about the group in wvw. Your trying to turn WvW into a 1v1 pvp game and that will never work out in the open nature of wvw.

Or are you using that as an excuse why your losing in fights?

Add note
You getting full ascended gear not going to do any thing to stop your server from losing this week. (losing that major guild is going to very much dropped your power i am sry that it happened please do not take it out on not having the top gear i know a lot of FA wvwer do not have ascended level gear)

CobaltSixty.1542:

I believe you will find that there are exactly 0 scenarios in Guild Wars 2 where your base stats are not taken into account.

If I gave you a full set of exotic gear and a full set of ascended gear and asked you to compare the stats and give me a percentage increase that the ascended gear afforded you, would you give me the (incorrect) value of 10% or the correct value of 3%?

The point of the argument is not a overall estimate of the power gain as we can not know that at the moment. I am arguing for the power increase for the items that we have now. I am simply showing the increase from one Exotic ring to a Ascended ring. Base stats are not on the ring. Trying to include numbers not on the item is skewing the result.

Base stats affect overall character potential and not the increase in power on the item. It is a importance difference the majority of the community is misrepresenting.

Also to your question: The full difference just between the exotic set versus the ascended set <—— asking in this manner does not include the base stats. You are asking questions you don’t fully comprehend. If you want a overall power difference of the character with the exotics versus the ascended then you will need what the others posted. Yet, that is not possible at the moment as we do not know by how much each item is going to increase (aka what I am showing you for one of the items now).

Ayrilana.1396:

Actually you have it backwards. The first example is misleading. The percentage difference between items is irrelevant when comparing the impact they have when equipped. An item that has 30 points is 200% better than an item that has 10 points. The impact of this change radically changes when the base stat is included. You must include the base stat when determining the impact of the character between the two items.

If you have 100 base points then the difference is 18.18% [(130-110)/110]. If you have 200 base points then the difference is 9.52% [(230-210)/210]. If you gave 300 base points then the difference is 6.45% [(330-310)/310)]. I think you can see my point. The reasoning behind this is called diminishing returns. As you add more points, they gradually have less of an impact.

This is why going by just the stat differences between exotics and ascended by themselves is misleading. It doesn’t show the impact that it will actually have on your character. This is what the argument is as arguing about the stat difference between the items is pointless.

I’ll also add that an item that gives a 4% increase does not go to 8% when another item with a 4% increase is added. It doesn’t work like that. I know you didn’t state that in the post but this is more for everyone in general since I wouldn’t be surprised if someone jumped to that conclusion. I just don’t want to see someone claiming that equipping all 12 slots (minus weapons) with items that have a 4% increase yields 48% overall.

You are wrong. You are giving and asking for two different values. Asking for the base stats including is asking for a overall power difference on the character and not of the item. We are discussing the overall increase of the item, not the character. In my example I am showing the overall percentage increase of the item, because that is possible at the moment. Trying to give a exact number on what the overall affect of Ascended gear will be when more than half of it is not released is not possible. You can do a estimate if you like, but it will likely be off. However you can clearly see the power increase percentage by looking at the two rings. The difference in percentage (the formula that has been thrown around this forum) does not matter because it will not give you the actual increase of power or any other stat on the item.

You can do a partial over view of the actual increase of the gear if you want since we have: Backpieces/Rings/Earrings/Amulet. You can see the difference in what having those Ascended trinkets will do versus the Exotics if you wish, but that is not what I was showing nor was it what the original person I quoted was trying to show.

need /n?d/
Verb
Require (something) because it is essential or very important: “I need help now”.
Noun
Circumstances in which something is necessary, or that require some course of action; necessity: “the need for food”.

want /wänt/
Verb
Have a desire to possess or do (something); wish for.
Noun
A lack or deficiency of something: “houses in want of repair”.

Pretty much says it all.

Just like we all have different play styles and views, our requirements and desires for the game are different, all the posts here reflect that. One person will not be satisfied with what is offered in the game because of their point of view/needs that have not been met. Others will be satisfied with what they have so far since they feel their needs/wants have been met or they enjoy surmounting the challenges with what has been offered. Neither are wrong. Anet has the burden of trying to satisfy both sides of this seesaw and I do not envy their position, though it does lend to pushing for a lot of creativity.

I see Need as something you feel you MUST have in order to progress to where you want to be in the game. Want is something you would like to have or have happen with the game to make it more interesting, easier, harder or whatever. Neither is a game ender for me. I do what I can within my capabilities and try to be satisfied with that and find myself thrilled when I find I have stretched myself and achieved more. I admit my Needs are reasonably met for myself. I see for the completionists and hardcore it appears to be more of a Need for them than simply a Want. That is their playstyle and I respect that.

re·spect (r-spkt)

1. To feel or show deferential regard for; esteem.
2. To avoid violation of or interference with: respect the speed limit.
3. To relate or refer to; concern.
n.
1. A feeling of appreciative, often deferential regard; esteem. See Synonyms at regard.
2. The state of being regarded with honor or esteem.
3. Willingness to show consideration or appreciation.
4. respects Polite expressions of consideration or deference: pay one’s respects.
5. A particular aspect, feature, or detail: In many respects this is an important decision.

We need to respect each other’s views rather than denigrate them. It is the differences of the players that makes this game so interesting and continues to challenge Anet to meet those needs and wants of such a diverse population.

Its true. I WANT balanced PvP in WvW without having to grind for 12 months to equip all my characters with the stats I WANT. I also WANT WvW gear to be independent of PvE, but I guess this game doesn’t WANT that.

nirvana.8245:

Its true. I WANT balanced PvP in WvW without having to grind for 12 months to equip all my characters with the stats I WANT. I also WANT WvW gear to be independent of PvE, but I guess this game doesn’t WANT that.

Exactly, it’s not what the game or the devs want. At least I remember reading long time ago (before release, actually) that WvW isn’t meant to be balanced on a 1 on 1 player basis, but on a server Vs. server one. sPvP is the one that was meant from the beggining to be balanced 1 on 1, which is why we get normalized gear there.

@Vanthian

I was not addressing the OP but what I saw in this thread and others just like it. Yes, I understand that you were just comparing the item themselves. The thread went the direction of whether it was necessary or noticeable on the character overall.

As long as you don’t argue that the difference would be noticeable, the gear is necessary, etc then it good. If you do then base stats have to be included.

Jski.6180:

If you truly think that your not “hardcore WvW player” as you put it because you should know its not about the one person its about the group in wvw. Your trying to turn WvW into a 1v1 pvp game and that will never work out in the open nature of wvw.

1v1 still happens even in T1, a zerg of players all in ascended gear will have the clear advantage agasint a zerg with players in exotics.

All I know is this game is in desperate “NEED” of something players “WANT”

morrolan.9608:

Jski.6180:

If you truly think that your not “hardcore WvW player” as you put it because you should know its not about the one person its about the group in wvw. Your trying to turn WvW into a 1v1 pvp game and that will never work out in the open nature of wvw.

1v1 still happens even in T1, a zerg of players all in ascended gear will have the clear advantage agasint a zerg with players in exotics.

And a level 10 has the advantage to a level 2 that WvW its not made to be fair.

Vayne.8563:

Leo Paul.1659:

Ascended armors give very miniscule ‘advantage’ so why the need to implement them in the first place? Some of the arguments here make it sound like Anet just added some more exotics with a different colored fonts. We can sugarcoat it via semantics (needs vs wants) or diminish its value via math, but a gain is a gain regardless.

What purpose do these ascended items serve really? And if they hardly do anything as a higher equipment tier, why even add them to the game? At this point, I’m only being more and more convinced that adding them was a poor decision.

Because sometimes a compromise is called for. The questions are these…how many people left the game because of them? How many people would have left the game without them? I don’t think we’ll ever know.

But Anet apparently saw a lot of dissatisfied people that wanted “end game”. That takes a lot of time to make. Content was burned through fast. And Anet was scrambling for an answer. Any really “good” answer would have taken a lot more time. How many people would have left during that time?

Anet, in my mind, was caught between a rock and a hard place. The really believed most people would be satisfied with just cosmetic gear upgrades. And most Guild Wars 1 players certainly would have. But this game isn’t just made of GW 1 players. We have people coming in from other MMOs, who are used to numbers going up. Take that away from them and they feel that their character isn’t going anywhere. It’s a psychological thing.

Anet didn’t want to add a stat increase that would completely break the game, but they had to do something (in my opinion) to keep those people in the game. After all, more people in the game doesn’t usually hurt most MMOs. And fractals seem to have been popular with certain people. A lot of people played a lot of them.

So yeah, the upgrade is low, because Anet had to appease both groups of people. There are people at the edges of both groups, the die hards, who did leave. There’s no question about it. But I’m pretty sure more people stayed because of ascended weapons than left because of them.

Ascended items feel so all over the place in the process. I believe this could’ve been handled so much better. As I see it, people who are going for these ascended items defend their value (stat advantage in wvw for example) to legitimize their superiority, and the people who don’t care for them are trivializing the gain as some form of rationalization or sourgraping.

Ascended items should’ve been a real higher tier, with clear gains from the amount of effort/length of time to complete them. As of now, they’re worse than cosmetic items in that at least cosmetic items’ merit is visible. Any advantage they bring at the moment hardly matters it seems (based on the posters’ math) and that just makes me think ascended items are wasteful and ultimately fails its purpose (unless their real purpose was to buy Anet some time)..

Jski.6180:

morrolan.9608:

1v1 still happens even in T1, a zerg of players all in ascended gear will have the clear advantage agasint a zerg with players in exotics.

And a level 10 has the advantage to a level 2 that WvW its not made to be fair.

This doesn’t make any sense. No it isn’t fair but a player can swing the odds more in his favor by getting BiS items hence it becomes a need if you want to be as good as you can. Just like a level 2 player can level up and compete on a more even playing field.

Milennin.4825:

CobaltSixty.1542:

Probably about 6-7%.

And you can have that extra 3-4% if you’re willing to give up your runes. Runes alone can give you +165 power, about as much as you’ll get from your ascended gear.

Wrong.
If you compare Ascended trinkets you’ll notice they are about 10% better than Exotics. So why should we assume that armour and weapons are going to give a much lesser boost over Exotics than the trinkets do?
On top of having ~10% higher stats, the armour bonus and damage bonus will be increased as well (something that trinkets don’t do).
If I give up my runes to make up for the loss in Power I’d lose group support (using Dwayna).

On the topic of need vs. want:

-You don’t need to play the game, but you want to.
-You don’t need to level up in the game, but you want to.
-You don’t need to move your character, but you want to.
-You don’t need to get gear for your characters, but you want to.
-You don’t need to kill things ingame, but you want to.
-You don’t need to do events, but you want to.
-You don’t need to pick up loot, but you want to.

List could go on and on. In the end, nothing you do really needs to be done. You only do it because you want to.

Soooooo wrong. You’re not taking into account your base stats which constitute more than 50% of your total stats.

Yes a single piece of ascended gear is 10% stronger than an equivalent exotic piece, but that 10% does not translate into a 10% boost for your character.

People need to want to need things…
Human nature, can’t solve it.

nirvana.8245:

Its true. I WANT balanced PvP in WvW without having to grind for 12 months to equip all my characters with the stats I WANT. I also WANT WvW gear to be independent of PvE, but I guess this game doesn’t WANT that.

Except that Anet said from the very beginning that WvW was never supposed to be balanced for 1v1.

Someone said if I meet a player of equal skill and they have better stats due to ascended gear, they’ll beat me. This statement is only true in a complete vaccuum.

First different professions are different. Different builds are different. If a person’s build is made in such a way that it counters your build, even if you’re better, you’re going down. If your build depends on having lots of buffs and the other person is specced to debuff you, then you’ve got a problem even if you have three ascended rings.

The skills they use, the profession the play, the traits they take, their skill and FINALLY their gear are part of whether you win or lose. So the real premise is this.

I have to meet someone who has a build that isn’t particularly suited to taking me down and I have to have a build that isn’t particularly suited to taking them down. I have to be playing a profession that isn’t particularly thwarted by the other profession. I have to have about the same skill level of that guy, fighting was we are where we are, we have to be completely alone with no interferance from anything else (player or AI or siege weapon) and then, MAYBE if he has ascended gear and I don’t he can beat me.

Gear overall is a single part of the equation in Guild Wars 2. In other games, it’s a much bigger part of the equation.

morrolan.9608:

Jski.6180:

morrolan.9608:

1v1 still happens even in T1, a zerg of players all in ascended gear will have the clear advantage agasint a zerg with players in exotics.

And a level 10 has the advantage to a level 2 that WvW its not made to be fair.

This doesn’t make any sense. No it isn’t fair but a player can swing the odds more in his favor by getting BiS items hence it becomes a need if you want to be as good as you can. Just like a level 2 player can level up and compete on a more even playing field.

But you can still play WvW non the less your just trying to make up for small leaps when it comes to gear its level and your team that makes or brakes a wvw team and your over all world. Its a want not a need even in WvW.

Chessrook.8643:

This is something that has been bothering me for a while… the comments that seem most often common on these forums when complaining about things.

“Dailies suck because they FORCE you to do these things!”
“Ascended items suck because you NEED to do this and this to get them!”
“Why are you adding the gear grind? Now I NEED to get the best armor!”
“More Ascended? I have eight characters, now I HAVE TO spend WEEKS equipping all of them again! Thanks for the laurels!”

NO YOU DO NOT.

You do NOT need. You WANT. These things are optional, and in a majority of cases, you can get them through other methods. Ascended items forced? Nope, they’re only a small percentage better than exotics. Not enough to really be THAT noticable. Dailies? Look over the things you can get for laurels, and you’ll see that a majority of them can be gotten in other ways, the few exceptions being the minipets and cat tonic. (And before you point out the tools and boosters, really, they’re practically equivalent to similar types.).

You people need to learn the difference between “Need/Forced” and “Want/given the option”

You are right, but at the same time, these are likely the same spoilt pepz who NEED ipads and iphones and the newest tech even though they’re only 12.

As for ascended trinkets atm compared to exotics. It’s about 1-3 % damage difference. So if you hit 1k you’ll hit 1,030? I’ll leave it to the people to decide whether it is significant or not

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LordByron.8369:

Its like OP never played a mmorpg…
OFCOURSE you NEED best equipment……its one of the basic concepts of mmorpgs since release.

Okay, just stop and explain why “of course you need it”. Saying it is easy, explaining it is harder.

I get where it’s a subconscious thing, people instinctively think about it as needed, “just in case” but I actually have found . . . well, I’m simply not that much stronger unless I Infuse with Agony Resist. As Vayne put it, things which drag my ranger all over the landscape still do it.

(That includes rampant hordes of angry opposed-server WvW players. Yeah, Ascended is not going to save my sorry behind from 30+ people no matter if they were using basic (White) weapons or not.)

What I really need it for is higher Fractals. And I kind of actually do want it now, if only so I don’t get pasted in the Volcano by that grawl. However, I need to be quite patient to get my Infusions all lined up for Agony Resist.

(Worth noting I chose . . . poorly on the amulet I got which had a Utility Infusion. Hey, look ma, no Agony Resist for my Neck! -headdesk- )

this is just wasting time in reasoning.

You don t need a work, you don t need a family, you don t even need to eat or sleep…
If you want to play with philosophy you actually don t need anything in the world.

If you want to be realist you NEED top tier gear to play a mmorpg……
As you can find ANET already buffed most PvE areas according to new stats possibly.

So if there is still someone that didn t understand the Whole concept of giving you the +1 sword to beat the GOBLIN with +1 resistance to damage well they should browse internet more about mmorgs.

Worst thing is to repeat the same things for 10 years (yes that discussion its that old and seems the same existence of GW2 and the reduced grinding every new generation of mmorpgs speaks for themselves)…….

I know some people want to be “original” denying obvious old things….but i think after many years and the success of GW1 its not wort beating the dead horse.

P.S. brief explanation already given too many times…
People WANTS to play EVEN matches….
So even a 5% (that is actually not unnoticeable) of “handicap” is unfair (expecially when you do 5% less damage and you get 5% more).

Would you play a chess tournament where your opponents have 2 queens and you don t have any?

Needs and wants vary by what you’re talking about.

Life:
Need- Something you must have/do in order to survive(food, shelter, air, etc) and this can extend to things like work because work= $ = Food+shelter
Want- something that would make life better but is not necessary to survive.

However needs aren’t restricted to just life, they apply to everything you do and help determine what you do.

Games-
Need- Something you must have/do in order to continue playing
Want- Something that would make the game better but is not necessary to continue playing.

So the question becomes whether obtaining ascended gear is necessary for people to continue playing the game. The simple answer here is yes and no. It all depends what you’re playing the game for. A WvW player would certainly not want to be at a stat disadvantage so you can see how max stats would be a need for them. For others it could be making runs faster(makes them more bearable and they can continue playing longer). One of the biggest in MMO’s is just progression, since ArenaNet made the switch from horizontal to vertical it’s a need for many people who want character progression to get ascended gear.

Ask yourself what you need to continue playing GW2. What keeps you running dungeons, PvPing, WvWing, or just doing events. It will vary person to person; some might just need the social element, others need competition, and probably a dozen other things. It’s not really fair to tell someone what their needs are in order to play the game. If someone says they need ascended and feel forced to do things they don’t want to in order to get it, then that’s probably how they feel. What they need might seem like a want to you but that’s just your bias.

The biggest question now is what will ArenaNet do to allieviate the problems they have implemented(inflicted). When people feel like they are being forced to do things they begin to re-evaluate their needs, meaning they think about whether they want to play or not anymore. Since there is zero chance of the major mistake(introduction of ascended gear) being removed, the simplest band-aid is making it available through all currencies in the game. This way players can do what they want in order to fulfill their playing needs without feeling forced to do things they don’t want to do. Well there will be the exception of those that don’t want to be forced into vertical progression but again it can no longer be removed.

Legendary weapons should grant permanent boons (meteorlogicus could grant perma swiftness for example). I wonder how the community would react to this…

And Incinerator gives permanent burning? After all, you hand is on fire when you use it.

Ayrilana.1396:

I completely agree.

The game is grindy because people choose to make it that way.

That’s what i have afraid, next will be like ascended armor or something? someday legendaries will have ascencded stats as well for sure, now the sum of the extra stats will make the diference on the battlefield by good amount of damage.

ScottBroChill.3254:

I think the problem is, is that ascended armor is always better than exotic and the rest of the max level armor. Not always necessary, but always better. Anet talked and talked and talked about how they didn’t want this and then added it once people got bored. It seemed like a last resort.

They said the game wasn’t about the grind to have the best armor. It’s supposed to be easily obtainable. So, in order to be as good as those that grind for armor, you need the best armor. Although maybe not a significant difference, it’s a difference and it adds to the sense that time>skill.

This. They added an element of game design, vertical progression, to address the bored people who “had nothing to do”. Vertical progression defines a gear grind. There is no question as to whether vertical progression is “grindy”. That’s what it’s for. It gives people something that they must do if they want to keep up with the ever escalating power level of the game. It provides a sense of progression and motivation for continued play. Horizontal progression also provides this and it doesn’t carry the additional baggage which includes a forced grind that vertical does. Need and want really don’t enter into the discussion around ‘grind’ in GW2. It is now ‘grindy’ by definition.

Raine.1394:

ScottBroChill.3254:

I think the problem is, is that ascended armor is always better than exotic and the rest of the max level armor. Not always necessary, but always better. Anet talked and talked and talked about how they didn’t want this and then added it once people got bored. It seemed like a last resort.

They said the game wasn’t about the grind to have the best armor. It’s supposed to be easily obtainable. So, in order to be as good as those that grind for armor, you need the best armor. Although maybe not a significant difference, it’s a difference and it adds to the sense that time>skill.

This. They added an element of game design, vertical progression, to address the bored people who “had nothing to do”. Vertical progression defines a gear grind. There is no question as to whether vertical progression is “grindy”. That’s what it’s for. It gives people something that they must do if they want to keep up with the ever escalating power level of the game. It provides a sense of progression and motivation for continued play. Horizontal progression also provides this and it doesn’t carry the additional baggage which includes a forced grind that vertical does. Need and want really don’t enter into the discussion around ‘grind’ in GW2. It is now ‘grindy’ by definition.

Vertical progression doesn’t have to define a gear grind. That’s your definition. There was vertical progression in this game prior to gear grind. For example, 80th level masterworks was inferior to 80th level rare, which is inferior to 80th level exotic. Each of those items are tiers of power within level 80.

The real issue, for me anyway, is whether or not I need to have that gear to play the game…since I don’t, it become a non-issue for me. I can completely ignore it, unless I want to do high level fractals (and if I do, I get that gear anyway).

Vayne.8563:

Vertical progression doesn’t have to define a gear grind. That’s your definition. There was vertical progression in this game prior to gear grind. For example, 80th level masterworks was inferior to 80th level rare, which is inferior to 80th level exotic. Each of those items are tiers of power within level 80.

The real issue, for me anyway, is whether or not I need to have that gear to play the game…since I don’t, it become a non-issue for me. I can completely ignore it, unless I want to do high level fractals (and if I do, I get that gear anyway).

I can get those exotics with a day or two of play with a character I level to 80 with an hour or two of crafting. It’s ridiculous to compare the grinding needed to obtain the two.

As far as the issue of this being a non-issue, then why do you care if ascended gear is obtained with laurels or guild tokens from time-gated content or something else that’s easier to obtain? If it truly is a non-issue for you, why are you even in this conversation?

Benjamin.6235:

Vayne.8563:

Vertical progression doesn’t have to define a gear grind. That’s your definition. There was vertical progression in this game prior to gear grind. For example, 80th level masterworks was inferior to 80th level rare, which is inferior to 80th level exotic. Each of those items are tiers of power within level 80.

The real issue, for me anyway, is whether or not I need to have that gear to play the game…since I don’t, it become a non-issue for me. I can completely ignore it, unless I want to do high level fractals (and if I do, I get that gear anyway).

I can get those exotics with a day or two of play with a character I level to 80 with an hour or two of crafting. It’s ridiculous to compare the grinding needed to obtain the two.

As far as the issue of this being a non-issue, then why do you care if ascended gear is obtained with laurels or guild tokens from time-gated content or something else that’s easier to obtain? If it truly is a non-issue for you, why are you even in this conversation?

I’m in this conversation for the same reason you are. To express my point of view, and the point of view of others like me. Just because someone says vertical progression is gear grind doesn’t make it so.

And the one elephant in the room that really makes the difference is gear-gated content. Because that’s the culprit in most games that really does force people to grind. Without that component, using the same language, gear grind, to describe what’s in Guild Wars 2 is at least a little misleading.

I’ve experienced gear grind in other games…this isn’t it.

Well technically you don’t NEED to do anything in a video game. And yet, here we all are…

We all need the items that we want to make our experience in the game richer and more pleasant. The thing is that there could have been better systems implemented for us to get those items instead of spending hundreds of hours getting them, either through doing the content itself, or doing something else a million times (CoF) and just buying the kitten thing off the TP.

The problem of people feeling being forced to grind is that most items are just really unreasonable and can hardly justify the amount of time needed to get them. And by unreasonable i mean hundreds and hundreds of hours, unless you get extremely lucky and find something valuable to sell and trade it for the things you need. Most people NEVER get lucky, and this is the problem.

You can discuss about how people want and need things, but that still doesn’t make the actual problem go away. No one expects people to get anything for free. Even if you cut 250 hours for one item to 20 hours, that’s still 20 hours of work, casual grind or hardcore. And let’s not even start about “Legendaries” that are so common nowadays.

In a game where dressing up is the only point we have, yes i do need that fancy item to make my toon look like Sailormoon.

When it comes to ascended items, i really really don’t give a crap about them and i don’t even pursue them. I do dailies but i will get the ascended items maybe one day. At the same time, i am on the side of those that think what Anet did with this new tier of gear is simply despicable and i will not be a part of that until they are made to be obtained with the same effort as exotics. Through crafting without needing 250 ectos.
Also i don’t think what games did OP play in the past, but in every decent RPG gear was important otherwise we would all be in the first set of gear we got when we started. If gear wasn’t important we would all be doing dungeons in blues.

You don’t need greens, but they sure beat whites and blues and make your life a lot easier.

Jski.6180:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Actually as a hardcore WvW player I do NEED to spend all of this time doing these things. That 8% stat increase is significant enough to be the determining factor in a fight between myself and an equally skilled player. There’s been several times where one of my builds perfectly counters another and said fight turns into a never-ending battle. If I’m hitting 8% harder, or taking 8% less damage or have 8% more health the numbers keep going up, and that balanced fight tips in favor of me winning. I don’t know if the OP has ever played a game with a gear treadmill before, but essentially higher stats are a need if you’re in the competitive world.

If you truly think that your not “hardcore WvW player” as you put it because you should know its not about the one person its about the group in wvw. Your trying to turn WvW into a 1v1 pvp game and that will never work out in the open nature of wvw.

Or are you using that as an excuse why your losing in fights?

Add note
You getting full ascended gear not going to do any thing to stop your server from losing this week. (losing that major guild is going to very much dropped your power i am sry that it happened please do not take it out on not having the top gear i know a lot of FA wvwer do not have ascended level gear)

That major guild we lost was TL, the one in my signature. Ascended gear on one guy in WvW isn’t going to help the collective, and you’re right. However, if many people do as I’ve done and gather 6 ascended trinkets on top of their normal build, it adds to the collective. An entire zerg that’s 8% better than the enemy zerg is going to win, no contest.

Arguably, no one needs to do anything… People want to play this game and they are going to want/expect certain things. Actually need doesn’t come into play with any game, period. Need is a term of convenience, it’s often supplemented for want with a sense of seriousness to a situation, like survival. Seems silly to call out needs versus wants, since so many people use them interchangeably.

munkiman.3068:

Arguably, no one needs to do anything… People want to play this game and they are going to want/expect certain things. Actually need doesn’t come into play with any game, period. Need is a term of convenience, it’s often supplemented for want with a sense of seriousness to a situation, like survival. Seems silly to call out needs versus wants, since so many people use them interchangeably.

I don’t think it’s silly at all. The fact is, even within the context of this game, many people feel they need something that the game doesn’t require them to have. And expressing this desire as need gives people reading a false sense of what the game is about.

In other games, you absolutely, within the context of the game, need certain gear to progress to certain dungeons or raids. That situation doesn’t exist in this game. Even something like the fractals.

Playing level 1 will eventually show you every single bit of content in the game, for which you need to special gear. In fact, people play up to level 14 with no special gear. So special gear is not needed. Beyond that the gear you need to go further is built into the fractals themselves. The gating is self-contained.

But no other area of the game requires ascended gear. People do…but the game doesn’t. It’s important to make that distinction.

Not every need is a need due to external forces. If you look at Maslow’s heirarchy of needs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

You’ll see that near the top are needs that fit very nicely into this discussion. I don’t need ascended gear for safety (in game), but I may need it as an achievement. (An excercise in patience perhaps.)

In a pokemon game, I don’t need to fight gym leaders, I can just keep leveling my pokemon against the level 2 caterpie’s because I like the battle sequences. In CoD I don’t need to kill things, I can just hide in a corner because I dislike dying. In GW2 I can use level 30 armor on a level 80 if I wanted to. Sure, If I don’t want to be the best I can be I can work at McDonalds the rest of my life and live in a crappy apartment, but does that mean I’m going to?

Does anyone else agree that this argument is invalid and doesn’t apply?

The point of no vertical progression is so everyone’s stat’s plateau. No vertical progression means that at a certain point I can’t get my stats better and nothing will be added to make my stats better, then I can freely be on an equal playing field as everyone else and truly play as I please. If your okay with not being the best you can be go for it, but human nature contradicts this that’s why there’s evolution in technology, life, and everything else.

ScottBroChill.3254:

In a pokemon game, I don’t need to fight gym leaders, I can just keep leveling my pokemon against the level 2 caterpie’s because I like the battle sequences. In CoD I don’t need to kill things, I can just hide in a corner because I dislike dying. In GW2 I can use level 30 armor on a level 80 if I wanted to. Sure, If I don’t want to be the best I can be I can work at McDonalds the rest of my life and live in a crappy apartment, but does that mean I’m going to?

Does anyone else agree that this argument is invalid and doesn’t apply?

The point of no vertical progression is so everyone’s stat’s plateau. No vertical progression means that at a certain point I can’t get my stats better and nothing will be added to make my stats better, then I can freely be on an equal playing field as everyone else and truly play as I please. If your okay with not being the best you can be go for it, but human nature contradicts this that’s why there’s evolution in technology, life, and everything else.

Except that there WAS vertical progression at launch and no one said a word about it. Not one.

In fact, had this game launched with Ascended gear, the number of people that would have complained about it would have been tiny. I mean really tiny.

Are you really saying that exotic weapons to legendary weapons is so contiguous that they didn’t need a tier in between? Because last I looked legendaries took forever to get ane exotics took no time at all. That’s why I believe they needed to add a tier of gear.

It’s not unreasonable for a game to require BIS gear to be just a tiny bit hard to get. Exotics really weren’t. My dog could have gotten exotics just by saving her daily karma boosts.

I really liked how it worked in GW1. The cooler you looked, the more expensive the mats tended to be, while stats were mostly all the same.

Which is a strange thing about how GW2 materials worked. In GW1 you had things like “feather farms” because some professions had cool, tribal-looking appearances that required feathers, and so on. Here, you have “trophies” which are used to make the prefix, which does not affect the appearance at all.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not unreasonable for a game to require BIS gear to be just a tiny bit hard to get. Exotics really weren’t. My dog could have gotten exotics just by saving her daily karma boosts.

And that was a great thing that set this game apart from others that a lot of people here don’t want to play. It was the game anet heavily advertised it to be.

This whole need vs want argument is preposterous and dishonest at its core. There’s no reason to deliberately misinterpret people. There are things I want from this game or else I’m gonna stop playing. That makes no sense. You know what sentence does make sense? There are things I need from this game or else I’m gonna stop playing. Ignoring the context and sticking to one of the many definitions of need only to try to invalidate complaints is the most dishonest part of this argument.

Vayne.8563:

ScottBroChill.3254:

In a pokemon game, I don’t need to fight gym leaders, I can just keep leveling my pokemon against the level 2 caterpie’s because I like the battle sequences. In CoD I don’t need to kill things, I can just hide in a corner because I dislike dying. In GW2 I can use level 30 armor on a level 80 if I wanted to. Sure, If I don’t want to be the best I can be I can work at McDonalds the rest of my life and live in a crappy apartment, but does that mean I’m going to?

Does anyone else agree that this argument is invalid and doesn’t apply?

The point of no vertical progression is so everyone’s stat’s plateau. No vertical progression means that at a certain point I can’t get my stats better and nothing will be added to make my stats better, then I can freely be on an equal playing field as everyone else and truly play as I please. If your okay with not being the best you can be go for it, but human nature contradicts this that’s why there’s evolution in technology, life, and everything else.

Except that there WAS vertical progression at launch and no one said a word about it. Not one.

In fact, had this game launched with Ascended gear, the number of people that would have complained about it would have been tiny. I mean really tiny.

Are you really saying that exotic weapons to legendary weapons is so contiguous that they didn’t need a tier in between? Because last I looked legendaries took forever to get ane exotics took no time at all. That’s why I believe they needed to add a tier of gear.

It’s not unreasonable for a game to require BIS gear to be just a tiny bit hard to get. Exotics really weren’t. My dog could have gotten exotics just by saving her daily karma boosts.

Yeah, exotics aren’t hard to obtain and that’s what makes them not a problem. Now we have hard to obtain armor for….. the stats specifically. No cool skins, but the stats. That’s the problem, that’s vertical progression. Hard to obtain stat’s. and legendary’s are another topic only because they are so unobtainable to the majority of the playerbase. I never said I was ok with legendaries being stronger in strength. They should have just added the strength on to exotics instead of making another step, but nope. Sort of seems like another way to annoy people into buying transmutation stones from the store. Although that’s a ridiculous claim, it doesn’t seem too farfetched.

Viking Jorun.5413:

Jski.6180:

Viking Jorun.5413:

Actually as a hardcore WvW player I do NEED to spend all of this time doing these things. That 8% stat increase is significant enough to be the determining factor in a fight between myself and an equally skilled player. There’s been several times where one of my builds perfectly counters another and said fight turns into a never-ending battle. If I’m hitting 8% harder, or taking 8% less damage or have 8% more health the numbers keep going up, and that balanced fight tips in favor of me winning. I don’t know if the OP has ever played a game with a gear treadmill before, but essentially higher stats are a need if you’re in the competitive world.

If you truly think that your not “hardcore WvW player” as you put it because you should know its not about the one person its about the group in wvw. Your trying to turn WvW into a 1v1 pvp game and that will never work out in the open nature of wvw.

Or are you using that as an excuse why your losing in fights?

Add note
You getting full ascended gear not going to do any thing to stop your server from losing this week. (losing that major guild is going to very much dropped your power i am sry that it happened please do not take it out on not having the top gear i know a lot of FA wvwer do not have ascended level gear)

That major guild we lost was TL, the one in my signature. Ascended gear on one guy in WvW isn’t going to help the collective, and you’re right. However, if many people do as I’ve done and gather 6 ascended trinkets on top of their normal build, it adds to the collective. An entire zerg that’s 8% better than the enemy zerg is going to win, no contest.

So every one will zerg harder!!! I though it was WM that you guys lost hmmm odd. Any way i am tired trying to sell you this game (that you bought and play often) if you want to think Ascended gear going to make it all better once you get them think so no one can talk you out of it.

Okay, Anet never said top tier gear would be kitten easy to obtain. So far, ascended gear isn’t that hard to attain, in fact, some of it is pretty kitten easy. (yes I typed out kitten I didn’t curse).

As I said before, and I truly believe, if ascended gear had been in there from day one, no one would have said anything. And because content isn’t gated because of it, only a small percentage of people “really” care.

They’re the loud ones.

LordByron.8369:

this is just wasting time in reasoning.

My friend, everything I do here is wasted time. Whether there’s a well-stated point, something actually useful, all of it is wasted time. There is nothing meaningful in any large way to what I could post here.

You don t need a work, you don t need a family, you don t even need to eat or sleep…
If you want to play with philosophy you actually don t need anything in the world.

If you want to play with philosophy, you’d better come better prepared. You do need to eat, drink, sleep, and “use the restroom”. You need at least a mother or father (how else did you get here?) and they needed mothers and fathers so you probably have grandparents. You need some semblance of human interaction, for a healthy social mind.

You need, currently within society, to pay fees for most of these things. Utilities and food at the least. Unless you are provided for (lucky you, if so) then you need to be collecting money to pay for these things. So, that means you need some sort of income. A job? Possibly, but something has to be coming in.

If you want to be realist you NEED top tier gear to play a mmorpg……

Funny, I haven’t had top tier gear in any MMORPG I played, and I got along well enough. Yes, even EverQuest when I finally hit the Plane of Time. (Gates of Discord had come out, so it was no longer “best in slot”.)

As you can find ANET already buffed most PvE areas according to new stats possibly.

Did they? I have not noticed a significant change, other than them tweaking large group encounters for the massive crush of people showing up so the targets could stand half a chance of staying alive for all the people who showed up to get credit..

So if there is still someone that didn t understand the Whole concept of giving you the +1 sword to beat the GOBLIN with +1 resistance to damage well they should browse internet more about mmorgs.

This is not something we currently have in Guild Wars 2. Not “goblins” and “+1 swords”, but to the point of enemies requiring certain gear to damage. The closest we get is the 1% of the game (again, currently) where Agony arrives to slap around anyone who isn’t able to dodge/deal with it.

This isn’t D&D Online, where this stuff was actual, tracked, and important.

Worst thing is to repeat the same things for 10 years (yes that discussion its that old and seems the same existence of GW2 and the reduced grinding every new generation of mmorpgs speaks for themselves)…….

Repeat what for 10 years?

Would you play a chess tournament where your opponents have 2 queens and you don t have any?

. . . that depends. Amateur player? No. But I do know of some chess players when I was active who would “spot me a queen” by removing theirs from the board at the start. They would still handily beat me.

I play Magic the Gathering, my friend, you really have to dig deeper to convince me about people not wanting handicaps to play a competitive game