Guild Wars 2

Has anyone paid any thought to the fact that GW2 may have an evolving end-game? What’s the point of the new content if it doesn’t add to the experience of level 80 characters? ANet has implemented a cosmetic armor grind already (crafting, karma, etc). They’ve done this in order to satisfy as much of the gaming spectrum as possible (casual to hardcore).

The stat bonuses from infused armor will probably be naturally acquired through the new content. As saurus has been mentioning in his posts, it’s possible that different levels of infusion may be required to survive certain areas of the game (like GW1). These infusions may be awarded through events in the new areas.

Whatever happens, I can say this for sure. ANet listens to its community MUCH more than Blizzard ever has. They’re definitely aware that we don’t want a content-required gear-grind like WoW has. To-date, they have not implemented a system in which we have to compete with other players for gear.

Lastly, to anyone who absolutely abhors any sort of expanded, end-game content I say this:
You payed for the game without this new content. You’ve already received what you paid for. This expansion is free for anyone who desires to take part in it and is unlikely to diminish the experience you already paid for. If you don’t like it…don’t play it. Unlike other MMO’s, you’re not paying a monthly sub so there is no loss if you don’t partake.

I hope They will not do this mistake.
Character progression is ok to me, maybe add other abilites (like DAOC’s ML) but don’t nullify what we did.

From the sounds of it, the ascended gear will only come from the dungeon, meaning it’s for the dungeon. They also say it’s rare, meaning unlike the other dungeon gear (tokens), it’ll probably only drop off bosses/chests similar to dungeons/raids in other games. Since it’s supposed to be a rare dungeon drop, it may or may not be tradeable (I’m guessing not), it all depends on if they’re using this as a progression tool or status symbol – so don’t expect it to be buyable.

The big question is, what color will it be. Red?

Also, infusion slots will probably be for flavor. Such as skill X now does Y against Z, or the very basic +X% damage vs Y.

lordkrall.7241:

I love how people always over-react to things before we have ANY kind of information.

For all we know the “slightly better stats” means an increase of 5 points. Guess what?
Those 5 points won’t make the player immortal.

And for all we know this set is specific for the dungeon, meaning we can ONLY use it in the dungeons.

Stop whining until we actually know what is going on.

You can’t stop them. They just like to complain about things before they even know what they’re complaining about. They’re not gonna get the devs to change this update. Best to wait and stop them from doing it again when we know more info.

To everyone who says exotics are hard to get…… Please
They are easy. Hell you can get your weapon smith and armor smith up and make the kitten things. So yeah.
Gear grind can be a good thing if it’s done right. The problem is, no other game ever did it right. So maybe Anet will get it right.

This is awful, I just don’t have the words for how much I hate this move. The game is already too dungeon-centric in PvE, now dungeon grinders are getting a powered-up armour tier?

Are you that desperate to force us to run your blasted dungeons?

Thereon.3495:

Why is everyone panicking? The time was always going to come where those that are stronger, more dedicated players get rewarded for being that way. Think of this as raising the level cap based on skill alone and you get the idea.

Also, why would the devs make it so that all dungeons apart from the new one give you obsolete gear? Expect either present dungeon rewards to change or the ability to upgrade exotics.

This ^

Rememer the ability to “Infuse” armor in GW1. I am betting that the Ascended armer is merely “Upgraded” exotics. Take a few deep breaths before you reformat your HD to remove GW2 from it.

Well, for a game that was promised not to have a silly gear progression race, Ascended armor smells a lot like ‘gear progression race’ to me. I am very much not impressed by this idea. If I had wanted to do grind ridiculously difficult instances over and over to get 2% better gear that will be invalidated every two months by 2% even better gear ad infinitum, I could have bought WoW.

Bad, bad, bad, bad idea.

lordkrall.7241:

I love how people always over-react to things before we have ANY kind of information.

For all we know the “slightly better stats” means an increase of 5 points. Guess what?
Those 5 points won’t make the player immortal.

And for all we know this set is specific for the dungeon, meaning we can ONLY use it in the dungeons.

Stop whining until we actually know what is going on.

Come on, why would they increase that stats by merely 5 points? What is the point of increasing the stats if it’s by that little, other than to piss off the players?

If ascended gear even is one stat point better than exotics I will quit this game and no longer spend a single cent on it.

I’ll be waiting to see how this plays out, but I am also not interested in power creep regardless of how slight it is.

People complain about updates in content what is the gaming world coming too.. So what when you get max armor and stuff and play for a while with that don’t you want something else to look forward to upgrade too? Would life be fun if you only had to obtain your wants once and they never increased?

The thing is, you blathering sheep who support ascended, that it doesn’t raise the level cap based on skill. It raises it based on who has a bunch of friends who still play the game and are max level and good at it. Thats a handful of you. All my friends left when ANet kept screwing the proverbial pooch and ruining their game with each giant buffoonish movement.

My friends are all either in different games that the devs actually treat the players correctly by not lying to them, or they are on at different times.

And don’t tell me that PUGS will be a viable solution for the new content because I highly doubt it will work out 99% of the time.

I am tired of you Dark Souls hugging elitist sociopaths who gauge self worth based on being “hardcore”. The fact of the bloody matter is that I wanted to have fun and I started this game on the premise that ANet said that exotics were top tier. I spent all my gold I spent all my time getting on getting to that max stat tier so I would be able to have fun and slowly farm for skins. I didn’t sign up for WoW, I signed up for what GW2 was going to be.

I’ll wait to see what it actually is before I hit the panic button. Hopefully it’s just a misunderstanding or poorly explained concept and not real power creep. If it is I guess we’ll just have to protest it vehemently and hope to get Anet to return to it’s original vision.

The moment I read about a new item tier I thought ‘nah, this can’t be real. We’re talking about Guild Wars here …’ then I realized I got the link to the article from Arena Net too.

I think this is a really really bad idea. Because even if the stat increase is only a slight one, and even if the infusion slots do NOT give any special abilities/boni, the most players will want the new ascended armor. But many may not want to change their armor skin, so as long as this new armor doesn’t come with free transmutation we’re forced to buy Fine Transmutationstones. Not cool, again. The moment you start forcing people to use items you usually can only get via Gems to stay ‘on Top’ you are stomping those fundamentals that make the game great into the ground. You are gonna -kitten- a LOT of players

Then again this would really be the first time Arena Net would make a decision (or change to the game) that disappoints me. So here his hoping this all sounds much worse than it actually is …

[Also PLEASE fix the Arah event chain. I couldn’t finish my personal story yet, cause every time (or weekend) I try to get into it with my guild the kitten event chain is stuck again]

@Thereon.3495
Its not panic. I still , over all the problems , i love this game, and when i see they are trying to take BAD things from aion, wow , rift, etc… i really hope i can give my voice and try say its not good. I, as many ppl here , have my own opinion on game, i find for example legendary to be worst thing in GW2 coz its grind fest, but i dont wish to see this game frikken die coz of mistakes. Its such a good game , u can see soooo much effort placed into many aspects of it…
All i seen so far is many , many mad ppl, and i seen SO many ppl quit (lets be really we are losing ppl). This game should not fail, u know why , coz someone, some part of GW2 placed insane effort to make it, and did great job.
I think , that at least on this u will agree with me, i DONT wonna this game to be ruined by copy/paste mistake that all other mmos did.

I’m very skeptical about these news. If those ascend armors are only good as a skin and against those BAMs as a reward for completing them with your usual armor I “might” accept it but still…

I’ll wait for more clarifications before throwing my 2 cents.

One thing I’m sure: I love this game and we are in need of something new. Areas, Challenges, Skins, Features.

Can’t this be part of a spinoff game instead? Call it World of Guildcraft or something…

Reserving judgment and feedback until I see the content, how Ascended armor works, and how it ultimately affects gameplay. Too little detail right now based on a single paragraph in a press article. The amount of overreaction and hyperbole in this thread is not unexpected considering the modern MMO playerbase, but it’s still staggering.

Wait til you actually have it in-game before submitting your feedback, folks. I know that means waiting a week or two after the patch, and I know patience fails to be a virtue among many MMO players, but we’re honestly not going to see how this impacts things til it’s actually out in the wild. If ANet is going to change something, it’ll be after the patch is out, not before.

I too dont think this is what it seems. I mean lets try to be objective, no gear treadmill is a core phylosofy of the game design dont see them going away from that lightly.

And if we take a look at all the facts, we got these Karka beings that are to start with immune to damage until we do something to counteract that (ascended armor perhaps that has some bonus damage against these beings?)

Then we have the new dungeon that according to massively: " In the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, you can go indefinitely farther in." ergo the challange will keep increasing and to solve that perhaps the armor can be also upgraded as the challange gets harder and harder but that upgrade might only apply against this Karka things only.

That would be a good middle ground in my opinion. While I dont want to see a gear threadmill I am okey with having it apply to just one dungeon and it will provide some content for people who like such things.

I think Arenanet have been honest and loyal enough to the game vision to have earned our trust. I dont like gear progression but at this stage even though those article seem to suggest it we dont know for sure thats what we’ll be getting here.

I’m at the point where I think the GW2 community is more sensationalist than the WoW community. Please stop pulling your hair out until we have factual information. Complaining and threatening to quit over something you know nothing about is such a toxic attitude, and you’re giving a really bad impression to possible new comers to the game.

Thereon.3495:

Why is everyone panicking? The time was always going to come where those that are stronger, more dedicated players get rewarded for being that way. Think of this as raising the level cap based on skill alone and you get the idea.

Also, why would the devs make it so that all dungeons apart from the new one give you obsolete gear? Expect either present dungeon rewards to change or the ability to upgrade exotics.

THERE was no raising the level cap in GW 1 (even after datadiscs), thats why players plays GW 2 .. many of them

Oh no! The sky is falling! I, for one, welcome this addition. Having a full exotic set the moment I was able to equip it was very anti-climatic. Looking forward to checking some of the new stuff out!

Metafrank.9017:

displacedTitan.6897:

Look at all you knee jerk reaction people. Seriously wait till its released to complain or make judgements.

Yeah right, dont stop them from building the bomb, but wait for it to be dropped on some poor country and then complain.
You, sir/madam, are a prime example of what is wrong with the modern generation.

So waiting until we have FACTs instead of random speculation is whats wrong with the modern generation? Seriously dude if thats whats WRONG then I dont want to be right.

What is your “generations” plan? Speculate beforehand and ruin things before they even start?

I am so bloody glad they are adding some gear treadmill to the game…personally I feel exotics are way too easy to get…10g and your all decked…farm Orr for a couple of days boom sell ori sell mythril sell omnom etc etc…6gold. half way done.

Now while I personally am loving this upgraded gear idea etc…I also respect and understand why some people don’t want it at all…For that reason I hope that the difference between the 2 armors etc is as minimal as can be…simply because I feel people like me that want to min max the kitten outta everything will happily grind it out…but again because I know people have differing opinions I don’t want the difference between the 2 armors to be that dramatic that its a must.

Hopefully yas can pull it off. Either way…don’t listen to the people all mad. This reminds me kind of like the complaints x dungeon was too hard…I distinctly remember yas saying we are just going to leave it you guys will get better and suddenly you will breeze through it…it happened like that in gw1 etc. Similar attitude making informed decisions without caving to the masses qq’ing. I appreciate that Anet keep that sexy content coming…cough pvp cough. =P

If this a new tier of gear that is only available through dungeons.. Then I am out. I had my gear and I was enjoying my WvW. I refuse to be placed onto another treadmill like all the other EQ/WOW clones. There are to many other game options out there that already offer this kinda progression.

Don’t kitten up something good Anet.

Cyferwolf.1089:

I’ll wait to see what it actually is before I hit the panic button. Hopefully it’s just a misunderstanding or poorly explained concept and not real power creep. If it is I guess we’ll just have to protest it vehemently and hope to get Anet to return to it’s original vision.

Or, you know, you could find another game?

I think this is a fantastic idea and if they back down from this, it will end badly. This game needs some kind of long term character progression goals. There are none. You can get the best items in a matter of days, finish all the current “endgame” in a matter of days as well. Then you have nothing to do, nothing to aim for. Although gear treadmills are kind of a cheap way of keeping people playing, they work. And if done right, it doesn’t feel like a chore or a grind, it can be fun. We’ll have to see how challenging and fun the new dungeon is. I’m very excited though.

Besides, this is for PvE only. If they added a gear treadmill to PvP…then you can QQ about it.

Advising that people wait until the update is released makes no sense. Right now is the only chance we have to change ArenaNet’s mind on this very foolish move. The moment it is released, and some players have ascended items in their inventory, there’s no going back. ArenaNet is not going to remove them at that point. In all honesty, it’s already too late. They are doing it. The gear grind and power creep is now a part of GW2. We’ll all just have to decide what to do as players.

I’ve seen this happen so many times in this genre…it’s like a broken record. The whiners come out in force asking for the fundamental philosophy of the game to change. The developer sees their active players dropping, and panics. They start trying to be all things to all people, and they alienate and push away the dedicated fan base they had left. The players they are trying to lure back to the game will never like it, will never be happy, and ArenaNet will keep chasing them until it ruins the game.

For those saying that a small stat increase doesn’t matter, let me ask you…are you going to be happy with exotic gear, or are you going to go after the “better” stuff? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Once something “better” is put into the game, it’s all that matters. And a small stat increase will mean another, and another, and another. The whining will never stop, and if ArenaNet has chosen to cater to those players who don’t enjoy the game as designed at the expense of the players who do…then there’s no reason at all that they won’t keep introducing higher stats and content that requires them.

I just did google for “say NO to mmo grind”.
This is first page i found:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/28/guild-wars-2-review-part-one-still-grinding-after-all-these-years/

Really for 100th time , please dont make it grind fest, please.

I came to GW2 to get away from the gear treadmill. (Thanks WOW and SWTOR for burning me out!) This is terrible news for me, I thought Arena net “got it” about the gear treadmill thing…

I hope they discrepancy between exotics and ascended armor isn’t too much…for the record I’m sooooo kittening glad they are adding a tiny amount of gear treadmill…but I understand and respect that others don’t want it at all.

For that reason I hope its small enough that the min/max people like me will still happily do it but it won’t punish the casuals too much. Keep up the great work Anet…Don’t listen too much to the qq’ers.

Oh guys drop the melodrama, seriously! I don’t like this much either, but come on. Why aren’t you crying about the disparity between exotics and rares? And rares and masterwork? There’s already a gear grind, it’s just not terribly long. And did anyone notice is said “slight” in regards to it boosting stats? Are you guys kidding me? This is completely ridiculous. Have any of you even heard of exotics? Why didn’t you quit when you had to start grinding for them?

Give ANet a chance, cool your jets, think rationally. ANet could mess things up, true, or this could be implemented so it’s not much different than exotics. But go ahead, pre quit before you even have a clue how it’s going to turn out. That sounds completely reasonable!

Metafrank.9017:

displacedTitan.6897:

Look at all you knee jerk reaction people. Seriously wait till its released to complain or make judgements.

Yeah right, dont stop them from building the bomb, but wait for it to be dropped on some poor country and then complain.
You, sir/madam, are a prime example of what is wrong with the modern generation.

To follow this example.

This is like listening to Fox News about said bomb dropping and it turns out to be a load of exaggerated bull.

You people seriously need to chill out. Even if the gear has 2% more stats that doesn’t make a kitten difference. It’s not required for anything, 2% more stats would never make such a difference in the first place.

5 years of shouting from every mountain and mole hill to anyone standing near by even if ti meant going to every other games’ channels forums and so on to do so that there would be no wow style gear grind.

3 months of retail to knee jerk reaction into doing the exact opposite of the core premise of the game.

didn’t evne bother to try expanding or improving the cosmetic skins endgame model, despite being shipped with lack of variety of skins in a destrcutive model that coincedentally kinda made some other advertisement points moot.

simply straight to the knee jerk reaction paradigm we’ve been seeing since headstart.

and have absolutely no doubt this has been in the works for quite some time.

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

this is a straight up bait and switch scam. sell the product as one thing, give the customer something entirely different.

displacedTitan.6897:

Metafrank.9017:

displacedTitan.6897:

Look at all you knee jerk reaction people. Seriously wait till its released to complain or make judgements.

Yeah right, dont stop them from building the bomb, but wait for it to be dropped on some poor country and then complain.
You, sir/madam, are a prime example of what is wrong with the modern generation.

So waiting until we have FACTs instead of random speculation is whats wrong with the modern generation? Seriously dude if thats whats WRONG then I dont want to be right.

What is your “generations” plan? Speculate beforehand and ruin things before they even start?

If we wait till it’s released we wait till it’s too late. If we wait till we get official information on it, we probably also wait until it’s too late, because the GW2-Edition of ArenaNet prefers not to inform players wtf is going on.

I don’t wanna ruin things before they start, but I prefer to step on the brakes BEFORE the car hits the wall.

I just spent so much money on exotic armor for my THREE level 80 toons. Now all of that is going to be subpar? I would have just waited to outfit. I guess it doesn’t matter because if they up the equipment tiers now, they will do it again.

Guild Wars 1 was a great game BECAUSE of the fact that you could get max gear early, so your skill was what mattered most. Guild Wars 2 is heading in the exact opposite direction.

And yet you took the possible way and outcome to increase our endgame time. From what i’m seeing in the new content, it looks like we will need to raid a new dungeon if we ever hope to stay up to date in gear. And this goes against everything you promised us not to do.

What is wrong? haven’t you learned anything at all from GW1? There are better ways of handling this. You could have revamped the loot from champions/areas/chest and added unique loot to them like Gw1 had(remember green items?). It would incentive people to get out of orr and do different dynamic events. Or even added something called event points which rewards people for doing different events on the course of a week. At end you could trade for materials and new skins.

But from what i’m seeing, we will just flock to the new area/dungeon instead of Orr. Meanwhile all the other areas will remain mostly untouched because it isn’t worthy to come back.

Infusion like Guild Wars 1? Ok, no problem here.
Change in the way Anet first said the game would have been? Sadly, i will quit

I think some clarification on what exactly this will be is very important right now ANet.

Come on, show us that you still “get it” and this was some well crafted dungeon based mini-game with mini-game specific gear progression or something.

Or, at least have the testicular fortitude to tell us you’ve changed your minds and have decided to become the next ex-MMO for a lot of people.

I’ve been thinking:

Since this “Ascended” gear is exclusive to this new dungeon (and probably newer dungeons going forward), what if the upgraded Ascended stats only apply to versions of the dungeon that require it? Maybe we’ll see “Ascended” versions of current dungeons.

Something to consider is the Level Scaling that occurs throughout the game. Perhaps that same system could also apply to max-level gear as well.

Meaning: let’s say I have a full set of Ascended gear. I decided to do current 5-man Explorables. My gear would probably scale back to Exotic stats and the Infusing slot might be disabled, therefore the content remains moderately challenging. However, if I do the “Ascended” version of that dungeon, then my gear would return back to Ascended stats. I think it might be a suitable compromise.

Simply put: Let’s say Anet implements multiple max-level dungeon tiers (let’s hope not but let’s assume they just did). They could allow max armor to scale back to lower tiers appropriately so that players don’t easily Roffle-Stomp through content with overpowered gear. That means if I wear Tier 3 gear and I engage in Tier 2 content, then the stats on my gear could be scaled back to Tier 2 stats. Likewise, if I engage in Explorable dungeon content, then my stats could scale back to Exotic level stats.

There is vertical progress, yes; but as long content remains challenging for even entry-level tiers, then I wouldn’t mind revisiting old content while being decked out in ultra-high end gear.

Metafrank.9017:

If we wait till it’s released we wait till it’s too late. If we wait till we get official information on it, we probably also wait until it’s too late, because the GW2-Edition of ArenaNet prefers not to inform players wtf is going on.

I don’t wanna ruin things before they start, but I prefer to step on the brakes BEFORE the car hits the wall.

Yeah, it’s already been in development long enough that you’re probably a few months late. And besides, you don’t know at all how it’s going to be implemented at all. It could be no different than how exotics behave compared to rares. Anyone else notice that it said “slight”?

Many Pesky Monk.3140:

Or, you know, you could find another game?

Well, I for one came here because GW2 did -not- have a silly ‘endgame’ that made all other content either obsolete or worthless as soon as your character reached maximum level.

The question is rather why don’t -you- play another game if you want that sort of content. It’s not that not pretty much every other MMO has a gear progression race, no? This game was advertised as being different, which is why I bought it. “Endgame” is a cuss word for me, you know? Is it too much asked for that the product I bought doesn’t do a bait and switch on me now and becomes just like every other MMO?

Knote.2904:

kiranslee.4829:

I just did google for “say NO to mmo grind”.
This is first page i found:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/28/guild-wars-2-review-part-one-still-grinding-after-all-these-years/

Really for 100th time , please dont make it grind fest, please.

The whole game is a grind fest.

??

No it isn’t. The only grind this game has at the moment is optional cosmetic grind.

Most, if not all people agree with that. A gear-threadmill however, is not OK.

“… but 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.”

So what can we learn from this?

For future challenges we need infusion, but only certain gear will have this option. This means this gear will be required for some future content. Therefore people will feel forced to jump the carrot bandwagon.

So, people will complain and it will become easy to get it by the time or shortly after it becomes needed.

Of course, then the hardcore players will be upset and Anet will have to pull a similar stunt again…oh wait, it’s the gear treadmill we know from all other games.

Anet, I don’t know all the details yet, but I will be looking closely this release. You stated as a principle that gear progession was not for GW2. Now you take a step in that direction.

Once you go to A, the next step is B. I would like to point out that A is the first letter of Arenanet and B is the first letter of….well, you catch my drift.

Turtlemilk.1064:

I don’t understand why so many people are upset. All players are balanced out in structured PvP anyway… what’s the problem?

Many more factors here. Players take breaks and end up behind. Players want to do WvW and not be FORCED into doing PVE content.

The other big reason, cause Anet said they would not. If they turn out to be liars, many will walk.

above mars.4586:

fishergrip.4082:

I just dropped 40g for full exotics on my warrior last night. This makes me very, very sad.

40g? You’re doing something wrong. It cost me 6g and the mats i had in the bank to craft my armor when i hit level 80 (knight’s draconic). Run all paths of AC twice and you have your boots and gloves, along with 3g in rewards.

exotic weapons + accessories + back armor.

Arius.7031:

Metafrank.9017:

If we wait till it’s released we wait till it’s too late. If we wait till we get official information on it, we probably also wait until it’s too late, because the GW2-Edition of ArenaNet prefers not to inform players wtf is going on.

I don’t wanna ruin things before they start, but I prefer to step on the brakes BEFORE the car hits the wall.

Yeah, it’s already been in development long enough that you’re probably a few months late. And besides, you don’t know at all how it’s going to be implemented at all. It could be no different than how exotics behave compared to rares. Anyone else notice that it said “slight”?

even if it’s +1 stat budget over exotics, it’s still a betrayal of the core concept this game has been sold on for the past 5 years.

so does that mean I have to grind multiple of the same armor if I want to retain my look for specific dungeons?

Metafrank.9017:

displacedTitan.6897:

Metafrank.9017:

displacedTitan.6897:

Look at all you knee jerk reaction people. Seriously wait till its released to complain or make judgements.

Yeah right, dont stop them from building the bomb, but wait for it to be dropped on some poor country and then complain.
You, sir/madam, are a prime example of what is wrong with the modern generation.

So waiting until we have FACTs instead of random speculation is whats wrong with the modern generation? Seriously dude if thats whats WRONG then I dont want to be right.

What is your “generations” plan? Speculate beforehand and ruin things before they even start?

If we wait till it’s released we wait till it’s too late. If we wait till we get official information on it, we probably also wait until it’s too late, because the GW2-Edition of ArenaNet prefers not to inform players wtf is going on.

I don’t wanna ruin things before they start, but I prefer to step on the brakes BEFORE the car hits the wall.

You mean you like to incite panic through speculation about a Wall that may or may not exist.

So not only is there going to be stronger gear that makes the stuff we worked for become outdated but you have to do dungeons to get it as well? Well looks like the 15th will be the end of this game for me, just when I thought I had found the MMO for me.

Can’t believe people are happy about this.