Guild Wars 2

So I read that the new dungeon, Fractals of the Mists, will contain a new tier of gear called Ascended. It’s supposed to be “slightly stronger” than exotics and have a slot of some kind that can be upgraded to keep it on par with things in the future.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/news/read/26040/Guild-Wars-2-A-Peek-into-the-November-Update.html

What does this mean for legendaries? They’re going to get boosted to those stats yes, no? I don’t personally own a legendary but I still wonder. Personally I don’t particularly like the idea of another gear Tier. The game isn’t supposed to be about stat grind but if this keeps happening it definitely will be.

Say what you will, but with a new tier in, everyone is going to expect that you have your ascended weap or whatever when doing dungeons soon enough. Also, if Legendary weaps don’t get a boost then WTF!?

Sounds like Ascended gear is armor-only for now. Legendary/exotic wapons will probably still be best-of-the-best.

Also I don’t see Ascended gear being SIGNIFICANTLY better than exotics, and if they are they won’t be absurdly difficult to get. Arenanet has never been about gear gating: any incredibly difficult to get equipment will offer a very small benefit over very easily-obtainable gear.

If you take a look at Massively’s preview of the Lost Shores content here: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/11/12/guild-wars-2s-lost-shores-content-primer/ specifically the segment on the new dungeon, you’ll see that ArenaNet is introducing something called ascended armour which is “slightly more powerful than exotics” and holds an “infusion slot” which will allow you to “increase your character’s power”.

Did anyone else read this and think “oh no”?

I can’t help but worry that the slippery slope has begun and we’ll start to see a gear treadmill after all. For all the talk of only having cosmetic progression, we see more powerful gear introduced in the very first major content update?

If ascended armour turns out to be simply the armour equivalent of legendary weapons, well, that’s OK. But ArenaNet, if you’re reading this, please, please, PLEASE don’t take this any further.

im against this ascended having better stats than exotics. keep the exotic stat ceiling and just make the armor look epic.

Less than three months in, and the power creep begins. WTK*, guys? I though the end game was suppose to be about having fun and chasing cosmetics, not grinding out gear upgrades.

*what the kitten

this sucks. exotics should be the maxed. they should reserve this armor buffs in an expansion.

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

szthesquid.9576:

I can’t help but worry that the slippery slope has begun and we’ll start to see a gear treadmill after all. For all the talk of only having cosmetic progression, we see more powerful gear introduced in the very first major content update?

Yep, power creep within less than 3 months. And as we all know in MMOs, even slightly better is still better…let the gear grind BEGIN!

Yea I read that and was like “oh… no… no no no no for kitten’s sake no”.
I don’t know why would they do that but… I don’t know. It makes no sense, they basically driven all the people that wanted the gear treadmill away from GW2, and IMHO it’s a good thing. And now that? Seems kinda weird.
Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see… But I’m watching you aNet. Please, don’t go off and brake my heart.

added because it got buried and being ignored by people trying to rationalize this as anything but what it is:

http://www.buffed.de/Guild-Wars-2-PC-169660/News/Guild-wars-2-November-Update-mit-Item-Progression-1034934/

Dies ist eine Abkehr vom Prinzip, dass eine Verbesserung derGegenstände im Spiel nicht vorkommen sollte – eigentlich sollte das Ende derWerte-Fahnenstange mit den exotischen oder den gleichwertigen aber vielhübscheren legendären Waffen erreicht sein. Arenanet begründet diesesKurswechsel mit dem Feedback der Fans und Spieler. Die Aufwertung der eigenen Ausrüstung sei für viele eine große Motivation.

in english:

This is a departure from the principle, that an improvementof items should not be in the game rather the exotics (and the more beautiful butequal legendaries) should be the end of the value-flagpole. Arenanet reasonedthis change of course with the feedback from fans and players. The appreciation of equip is a big motivation for many

original post below:

this is polar opposite of one of the fundamental features of this game – no mudflatoion, no progressive tiers of gear, no wow clone dungeon grind for ever increasing stats.

this is one of the fundamental stand out features of the game, that set it apart from wow clones. it’s one of the reasons many of my guildies are still playing the game.

i feel scammed, duped. i’ve sunk hundreds of dollars into this game, with teh goal of having outfitted toons at 80 in gear that would last me. based on hte explicit ideology of not having exactly this in teh game ever.

and here we are, another broken promise- more than a broken promise, making liars of themselves, making fraudsters adn scammers of themselves.

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

Not happy with this at all, the whole reason I got this game was to avoid the gear grind that other games have.

well, seems anet´s no gear grind-stand faltered to the grind crowd´s demands pretty quickly. Not half a year into the game and now we are facing power creep allready, making all the time invested in getting exotic gear wasted. Way to go…

Not 3 months in and already power creep and gear grind?

Unless this Ascended armor is here to replace already-hard-to-get exotics and make it easier to obtain max-stats armor, this isn’t a good addition to the game.

I’m a little concerned about the beginning of a gear treadmill here as well, especially because of the wording here, bold mine:

some of the rarer Ascended items will also feature a new Infusion slot that will make players even more powerful so that they can tackle new challenges that ArenaNet plans to throw at them as they continue to expand on the dungeon over the coming months and years.

That’s pretty much the definition of gear grind. I’m wondering if it was put that way simply because the site is used to talking about that kind of gear treadmill for other games, but on the other hand, they’ve done a lot of reporting on GW2, so they are familiar with the design philosophy.

I’m just wondering now if that design philosophy has changed. I’m hoping some of the devs may pop in here and give some clarification.

I’ve buyed GW2 because of the absence of endgame gear progression (as they have stated).
I don’t like this, and i don’t like “infusion slot” thing too. I don’t like this AT ALL!.

Or, this will be the balanced out cap stat max from now on and they just couldn’t get the original content out for it at launch.

I for one welcome our new Ascended Overlords.

Rather disappointed to see this myself.

Thought GW2 was about the cosmetic grind and getting max stat gear was easy, it was just about cosmetics (like in GW1).

Now they are introducing yet another tier with stronger stats. Looks like all our gear we worked for is going to be useless now. Time to grind the next tier gear. Starting to feel like WoW gear progression now instead of a cosmetic grind.

I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.

Seems a bad idea to introduce power creep and gear grinds so early.

This is a serious misstep.

Why not just see what they really are before exploding into rage?

im cool if this ascended armor can’t be sold in the TP for 400g a piece.

please don’t go further with this crappy wow-like gear grind

If this is true I will probably never log in again. Bad choice AGAIN Anet!

I agree about the power creep concerns, in an MMO any upgrade is a MUST HAVE. I like the thought of an above poster tho, stating that this will be the balanced final tier and it just didn’t get in in time. I guess we can hope, but the whole infusion thing makes me worry still..

where can i get a refund for the $400 or so i’ve spent on gems on this game under the agreement that there would be no mudlfation/wow/eq style stat based gear progression?

that the endgame progression would be based on gettign cosmetic stuff, getting the look we wanted, not on grinding ever higher stats and more powerful gear to fight dragons with more and more hp.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand there we go.

The ship has started sinking.
They lied about half the stuff they said pre-release, and now post-release they’re going to go back on the other half.

Welcome to World of Guildcraft 2: Electric Geargrindaloo

How is it that you guys can read “slightly more powerful” and conclude that exotics are automatically obsolete and it’s the end of the world? O.o Have you noticed ANYTHING Anet’s done so far in GW1 or GW2? If they offer ANY sort of significant game advantage I can guarantee you they’ll take less than a week of casual gaming to obtain.

Stop judging Arenanet based on the standard set by other treadmill games when there’s no precedent for it and you have NO information on what Ascended gear will actually be.

So, what next? You re going to put some mounts?
Stop this nonsense

A BIG no-no. I always supported GW2, I don’t mind its many flaws – I just say give them time, the game will get better.

Well with that it won’t. It’ll get grindier. And kitten me, they’ll brake their word and make total liars out of themselves if they let it slide. Gear treadmill is the one thing that made me buy this game – if they take a dump on that… Well I’m going to be disappointed.

I still have hope in you guys, don’t backstab me! Please?

If you played Guild Wars 1, there is a phase called infusion run where you infuse your gear to fight the Strong Mursaat.

I’m thinking that this infusion will be similar to that. Just bring your maxed exotic gear to be infused by a quest or an NPC and you’re good to go. No grind

I hope that’s the infusion that A.NET is talking about.

The thing is, even if players would like to stop playing Guild Wars 2, they’ve already paid.

Errant Venture.9371:

How is it that you guys can read “slightly more powerful” and conclude that exotics are automatically obsolete and it’s the end of the world? O.o Have you noticed ANYTHING Anet’s done so far in GW1 or GW2? If they offer ANY sort of significant game advantage I can guarantee you they’ll take less than a week of casual gaming to obtain.

Stop judging Arenanet based on the standard set by other treadmill games when there’s no precedent for it and you have NO information on what Ascended gear will actually be.

Even if it has the same stats as exotic, but comes with an “infusion” slot, whatever that may be, it means exotic armor is obsolete, thus introducing mandatory gear grind.

Hey, ANet, what are you doing exactly?

First, you say that – oh, we understood that exotic and legendaries are far too long-time goal for most of the players, so we gonna figure out how to make them slightly easily accessible.

And now you introduce new type of armor which is grinded from difficulty-wise upscaling dungeons. Nice.

I fully understand that lvl 80 PvE players without clear in-game goals is your concern. Armor is a handy carrot on a stick. “Hey, look at this! This is what you want get next!”.

But stay with your initial ideas, please!

alcopaul.2156:

If you played Guild Wars 1, there is a phase called infusion run where you infuse your gear to fight the Strong Mursaat.

I’m thinking that this infusion will be similar to that. Just bring your maxed exotic gear to be infused by a quest or an NPC and you’re good to go. No grind

I hope that’s the infusion that A.NET is talking about.

the article is pretty explicit.

two seperate statements:

ascended is a tier of gear above exotics based on power(stats)

they have an infusion slot that make the player even more powerful.

Ok, this is really incredibly worrisome to me and I really REALLY hope Anet knows what its doing with this.

If this is just the final tier of armor that can only be attained by exceptionally challenging content (like the new dungeon purports to be), and it will NEVER go higher than this, then I applaud this change and am pleased with the concept. This game does need to start rewarding exceptional skill and persistence over grind. If this is the beginning of the slippery slope to gear treadmilling, then I dunno if I can keep playing this game. That sort of design is really exhausting, unpleasant, and I expect better from the amazing developers who brought us this game.

i can understand more powerful gear in the first (real) expansion after one year since the release date…
but after 3 months?? wtf

alcopaul.2156:

im against this ascended having better stats than exotics. keep the exotic stat ceiling and just make the armor look epic.

Yes please, by all means give us cool skins but please stay away from stat creep.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Errant Venture.9371:

How is it that you guys can read “slightly more powerful” and conclude that exotics are automatically obsolete and it’s the end of the world? O.o Have you noticed ANYTHING Anet’s done so far in GW1 or GW2? If they offer ANY sort of significant game advantage I can guarantee you they’ll take less than a week of casual gaming to obtain.

Stop judging Arenanet based on the standard set by other treadmill games when there’s no precedent for it and you have NO information on what Ascended gear will actually be.

Even if it has the same stats as exotic, but comes with an “infusion” slot, whatever that may be, it means exotic armor is obsolete, thus introducing mandatory gear grind.

it’s ok if the maxed exotic that you have can be tailored by an NPC to have an infusion slot. so your exotic is not obsolete after all.

Could be nice if you could “slot” any preexisting exotic with that thing instead of having to drop brand new stuff.

I seem to remember than GW1 added such “slot” thing in their weapons with the Nightfall expansion, isn’t it? The “inscriptions” or something.

I too was hoping this game would follow the Guild Wars model of just releasing new content with the idea being that the gear you already have will be good enough to get through it provided you bring the skill. Now it seems like we’re going to have to being the right gear for the content. I hope there is a quick response to this, and it’s of the variety that this was an error in the article. I don’t want to see GW 2 turn into a game where we have gear requirements for entering and succeeding at new content.

it’s the wording of it that’s the issue.
hopefully Anet will clear things up, but im in agreement with Alcopaul that this will only effect things like monster skills in dungeons and such.

otherwise this could be a disaster of a design decision.

I’m going to reserve final judgment until I see it implemented…. I would love some more cosmetic options, armor with some neat particle effects, and if they are ‘slightly’ enough better… okay, great.

But…. this is GW, and part of what I loved about GW1 was that once my character had max armor and was max level, I could stop worrying about needing to ‘improve my character’ to go play whatever content I wanted. I will work for weeks to get the armor look I want, but I prefer to be able to jump in wherever I’d like to go, and do whatever content I’m in the mood for (or whatever content my guildmates are organizing for.) All without having to worry “is my gear good enough for this?”

I know there are groups that are at max level and bored, but I’m still at a stage where my guild chooses our dungeon for the weekend based on the average maximum level available…. If Ascended armor is like Infused Armor (no fighting Mursat w/o it, too painful), I’m not looking forward to saying to lower level guildmates “sorry, you don’t have Ascended armor yet, can’t take you on this dungeon…”

I dunno, I guess we’ll see this weekend.

alcopaul.2156:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Errant Venture.9371:

How is it that you guys can read “slightly more powerful” and conclude that exotics are automatically obsolete and it’s the end of the world? O.o Have you noticed ANYTHING Anet’s done so far in GW1 or GW2? If they offer ANY sort of significant game advantage I can guarantee you they’ll take less than a week of casual gaming to obtain.

Stop judging Arenanet based on the standard set by other treadmill games when there’s no precedent for it and you have NO information on what Ascended gear will actually be.

Even if it has the same stats as exotic, but comes with an “infusion” slot, whatever that may be, it means exotic armor is obsolete, thus introducing mandatory gear grind.

it’s ok if the maxed exotic that you have can be tailored by an NPC to have an infusion slot. so your exotic is not obsolete after all.

I doubt that will be the case, unless the articles have played a bit too much with the wording.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

Errant Venture.9371:

How is it that you guys can read “slightly more powerful” and conclude that exotics are automatically obsolete and it’s the end of the world? O.o Have you noticed ANYTHING Anet’s done so far in GW1 or GW2? If they offer ANY sort of significant game advantage I can guarantee you they’ll take less than a week of casual gaming to obtain.

Stop judging Arenanet based on the standard set by other treadmill games when there’s no precedent for it and you have NO information on what Ascended gear will actually be.

Even if it has the same stats as exotic, but comes with an “infusion” slot, whatever that may be, it means exotic armor is obsolete, thus introducing mandatory gear grind.

Why do you think it’ll be a grind?!?!?! Even EXOTICS weren’t a grind. You could get a full set of exotics by doing 1-2 dungeons a day for a week! You guys are basing all this hysteria on ONE sentence in a MAGAZINE and your perceptions of treadmill games from the past.

Why don’t you WAIT to hear from Anet about the items and how they’re acquired. Right now we know NOTHING about how they’ll work or how they’ll acquired. Jeez, is EVERYONE on the forums a Chicken l\Little?

This is about where I check out on games. Tired of the never ending gear grind.

Either ArenaNet learned that the average player requires a carrot, unless it’s super hard to obtain, then it’s the hardcore players need something above the average player, or the speculation is just speculation.

If I were to assume that they wouldn’t go against their own rules, then ascended armor is as its name implies. Similar to infused armor, this armor will have increased offense/defense against ascended creatures.

Cray.3740:

Hey, ANet, what are you doing exactly?

First, you say that …

I think we have already seen how things have gone. Things they have said in the past didn’t hold out on release. Dye account bound, etc.

Anyway, time to scrap getting exotic armors and skip right to ‘ascended’ armor.

I really hope they don’t do this.

i’m not going to say anything until I see the armor and its effects with my own eyes.

But I do hope the doomsayers are wrong.