Guild Wars 2

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

“Introducing Ascended items, artifacts of great power that can be improved by a special new type of upgrade called Infusions, which can be found in dungeons. Look for more information about Ascended gear soon”! NOTHING here explicitly states these items are better in way than exotics, if any thing they could be the same stats with different methods of customization<be it cosmetic or Effect(not statisical). To be honest this thread has killed my faith in the GW2 community, i feel as if every last raging person in this thread needs to quit gaming and get therapy and stopi acting like a kittening idiot.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Zefiris.8297:

If there are new items with better stats (I don’t know yet), a main reason I gave this game a chance is gone. Therefore, I would quit.

Not angry, though. I got my money’s worth, I simply would cease business with this game. Which’d be a shame, but in my case, I simply value “no statgrind” above any other issue in this game.

As much as I love jumping puzzles and the exploration love. This would be a dealbreaker.

Why did you play the game at all then? you do know that there are items with better stats then blues right? why didn’t you quit the game the first time a green item dropped for you?

Yep. People seem to have forgotten the fact that there is a masterwork > rare > exotic gear treadmill in the game right now.

I would LOVE someone who’s angry over this change to explain to me why that doesn’t anger you but this does.

And please, no slippery slope arguments, thanks (ie. “but that mean’s they’re going to add more tiers in the future!”)

Not everyone who playes WvWvW zergs. I know that may, or may not, be a surprise, but we don’t. A group of 3 to 5 people can still do wonders in case you haven’t tried it yet. I think that may only be a small population of the populace though

Hailing from DaOC retail I can say without a doubt that some of us prefer it this way and do very well.

It doesn’t remove the zerg argument I guess. However, I like how the overall stats as they are here and now make it known. T/S-PvP it doesn’t apply because you have what is in the store.

Why did you play the game at all then? you do know that there are items with better stats then blues right? why didn’t you quit the game the first time a green item dropped for you?

It’s about max stats, obviously. The important part is a)they don’t change and b)are easy to reach.

Exotics fulfilled that.

If they change it, I’m simply out. Not a big deal, all it means no more reason for me to buy from the cash shop here. The money will go to good old games instead.

Of course it doesn’t say those items are better but people just have the need to start bashing and whining before they have seen anything. Best thing to do is just stop reading, because it’s not good for the few sane people that are here.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

Actually, if the new gear really has better stats than Arena Net turned on their fanbase not the other way round.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

I admit it did make me a little nervous when I first read the news, because one of the reasons biggest my friends and I enjoy this game is its casual atmosphere towards gear. I’m going to wait for the blog post before any assumptions though. : ) I’m sure it won’t be as bad as our imaginations are making it out to be. Looking forward to the Lost Shores update. ^^

I can understand feeling anxious over this, but seriously, you guys are way overreacting. We have absolutely no hard details yet. We have no idea what Ascended gear actually entails, and a lot of us are freaking out over irrational fear.

It’s okay to be a little bit concerned, but calm down. It’ll be fine. There’s going to be a blog post later, and I’m willing to bet a fistful of silver a lot of us are going to feel really sheepish after reading it.

Crapgame.6519:

Not everyone who playes WvWvW zergs. I know that may, or may not, be a surprise, but we don’t. A group of 3 to 5 people can still do wonders in case you haven’t tried it yet. I think that may only be a small population of the populace though

Hailing from DaOC retail I can say without a doubt that some of us prefer it this way and do very well.

It doesn’t remove the zerg argument I guess. However, I like how the overall stats as they are here and now make it known. T/S-PvP it doesn’t apply because you have what is in the store.

I agree, I do like the small group effort, but unless organized well enough, it won’t beat a full out zerg fest in capturing points. :\

At this point in this thread I honestly hope everyone claiming the sky is falling because of a change they know nothing about follows through on their threats to leave. I would really rather have sane, rational, PATIENT people playing this game than impatient 6 year olds whining that their toy is broken before they even know if it’s broken or not.

nachtnebel.9168:

If this new tier of gear can only be used in that new dungeon and nowhere else, not even in other dungeons, than it would be acceptable. I don’t care if players can use the skins or not as long as the stats are downgraded outside of the new dungeon.

If Arena Net really designed that new gear with better stats and they don’t restrict it to that particular new dungeon they betrayed a lot of their most faithful fans, they betrayed those that played GuildWars for years.

If Arena Net starts the Gear Treadmill I won’t spend any more money on GW2, I’ll continue playing as long as it’s fun, but I won’t buy Gems or an expansion.

I would never want to put work into something that could only be used in certain areas in PvE. The idea that if such gear wasn’t restricted to a special area it would be a “betrayal” has no basis in any fact that I know of.

Were you ever told to expect such a thing? Nope, so not getting it isn’t a betrayal. You were also never told specifically (not anywhere that I ever saw, anyway) that there would never be any gear that’s better than what’s in the game now. So that also is not a betrayal.

What we have is a design philosophy that values the process over the reward. If the rewards are being increased, what that tells me is that the process itself perhaps is going to get harder.

We really have so little factual information about this right now, reacting emotionally like this isn’t really helping anything.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t understand the people flipping out over this… how is:

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange< Ascended any different or worse then

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange

There is no gear treadmill. A gear treadmill would be if you needed exotic armor to complete one tier of content and then you needed ascended gear to complete the next tier. This is not at all what is happening. You can still run all the content in the game in blues.

White->Blue->Green->Yellow->Orange is a gear treadmill. It’s already far from ideal.

I tolerate it – and I wouldn’t, if Exotics were any more of a grind to get than they are now – with the implicit understanding that a full set of Exotic gear means that you are done improving your equipment, and that any equipment obtained after getting a full set of Exotics will either A) Not be any more powerful than your existing equipment, but will carry a different-but-equally-strong stat distribution that allows you to alter your build and playstyle, or B) Offer no mechanical advantage or improvement whatsoever, existing only as a cosmetic change to your equipment’s appearance.

The game is currently at the absolute limit of the amount of gear grind and vertical progression that I can put up with. Any more, and I’m simply not interested in the game.

azurrei.5691:

MrLee.6892:

azurrei.5691:

MrLee.6892:

Erasculio.2914:

diabluz.2860:

Reality is the majority of MMO players want a gear treadmill.

So explain to us why all WoW clones have failed, with the latest being The Old Republic. It’s easy to say “the majority of MMO players want feature X, which is just like WoW”, ignoring how WoW clones are dying all around.

Rift is doing just fine….

You mean the game that just (abruptly) shutdown half of it’s remaining servers due to “awesome new server tech” and has to constantly give people reasons (look at all this cool stuff we will give you!!) to prepay months (if not years) worth of subscriptions to meet revenue goals? yeah, doing fine indeed.

There are major companies looking at what Trion has done for their servers and they want to do the same to theirs.

Here is CNN for example.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04/10/cnn-looks-at-rifts-server-technology/

But I am sure you will still see this as “Rift Fails Hard”.

That article was from 4/10/11 – if you have played Rift for any amount of time on one of the more populous servers (say, Faeblight) you would know what a horrible, laggy mess it is when a zone wide event takes place. In fact, because of how they have their servers coded, an event taking place on the live server affects RAID instances – oh how fun HK was with lag from Ember Isles events…total failure. 3s+ lag between key presses being recognized by the server makes for a fun game…

Just like gw2, rift suffered from lack of things to do at endgame. In rifts case, you could basicly only raid or do scenario pvp. Noone wants to do that ALL the time.
In gw2 you can grind events, or do meaningless wvw.
Rift kept their playerbase better the first months, and i think it will go up a bit again with the expansion. Many of my guildies is gonna try it out.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

No, this is wrong.

I defend ANet to hell and back. I accept their balance changes, even when they are annoying. I spend money in the Gem Shop just to make sure they maintain a healthy revenue stream. I tolerate bugs, glitches, and hackers.

Hell, I even nodded and accepted when they outright REMOVED orbs from WvW because fixing them was more difficult than expected.

But this is potentially a deal breaker.

It remains to be seen what their intention and purpose is, and how this will be implemented. This could be all for naught – or it could be the end of GW2 for a lot of people.

Some people say… “well its only +1%, so it’s basically optional”.
I think you don’t truly understand the gravity of the issue for us whom think this really does matters.

“Yep. People seem to have forgotten the fact that there is a masterwork > rare > exotic gear treadmill in the game right now.”

You are correct. However, they are static and stalled more or less. Furthermore, you can buy, beg, borrow, craft, steal lvl 78 exotics that are actually better than level 80 rares…

So yes, there are levels of gear. The problem is they have a end stat and exotic vs. legendary is only cosmetic. Look at it this way if you every played World of Warcraft.

Let us say you played Season 1 Arena’s. At the end if you played well and what not by the time you are done with the season you had a full set of gear, weapons, etc. Now season two starts. Item weight is a bit higher now. At first not a lot, but enough.

Let us say you now take a break. Go on vacation for 2 weeks or have a lot of school work, work, what have you. RL gets in the way. Before you know it they are now on season 5…

You think that a season 1 geared player can realistically compete against a season 5 player? No, they can’t. Blizzard also knew this which is why they have vendors selling the previous seasons with honor. The kicker though?

You still have to play bg’s to earn honor to compete. May take you a week, or more, depending on your play style….

New Ascended Gear & Infusions

Introducing Ascended items, artifacts of great power that can be improved by a special new type of upgrade called Infusions, which can be found in dungeons. Look for more information about Ascended gear soon!

I pretty much highlighted the most important part, dungeon*s*, as in not just the new one, I’d assume. ArenaNet said they’ve heard the cries about dungeons having lackluster loot.

Ascended gear may very well be the answer to the problem. I’d reckon all dungeons will have it to an extent, making this the new reason why we’d want to do dungeons.

krookie.6378:

hoeppy.4567:

I disagree Larger numbers make for larger variations in stuff. This allows for things like boss mobs to use higher damage moves and kill / not kill a wider range of people because the stats have a greater range in them. It opens the door for Ideas and mechanics that may have only had this or that out combs to have this or that or that or that because with higher stats comes more ways to combined them and come out with different numbers.

That can just as easily be done without bigger numbers. Just scale the new move to the current stat cap. No need to raise the stat cap just so a mob can hit harder. That’s the lazy/boring way to do things.

Harder content in terms of more interesting and varied mob mechanics, that’s how you make the game more interesting and fun. Just making the mob hit 10x times harder is just “meh.”

Just to be clear, you quoted the wrong person. I pretty much said the thing you said.
More interesting mechanics > bigger numbers.

I think you don’t truly understand the gravity of the issue for us whom think this really does matters.

I totally understand the gravity of the issue, and I promise you, it’s going to be fine. Could we please, as a community, relax?

gear treadmill in the game right now.

Nope, there isn’t. I never needed to get greens or yellows at 80, it was straight to full exotics for me.

But hey, you’re right. It’s nothing to be angry over, which is why I’m not angry. It’s just a reason to pick a different game. No big deal at all, after all, I picked a different game after skyrim as well.

Games aren’t religions, if one stops being fun, you pick another. Unless it’s Valkyrie Profile, of course, that game DOES count as religion

A broken promise is a broken promise. People came to this game believing in this philosophy: http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

I have not seen ONE person in the game, in my guild of almost 500 active players, or any friends of mine complain that there is no gear treadmill/power creep/carrot on a stick/whatever you want to call it. If as they say, the PLAYERS changed their mind of this? Who are they listening to? ONE group of people? What about everyone else that came here expecting to play a game for it’s content, and not for its gear grind? I have no problem with the current set up of going from Common to Exotic. Exotic needs to STAY the top item tier, though and the game as is in this regard.

Anet PROMISED this would not happen with this game, It’s been in all their pre-launch interviews, etc. Keep your promises, and don’t disrupt the philosophy/vision you had for this game before one vocal minority changes everything for everyone else. Because if this changes, GW2 will become little more than any other MMO that has hit the market to this day. It will be more of the same, and there will be a big backlash for this.

What I HAVE seen, from my almost 500 active player guild I mentioned before, is A LOT of anger and frustration over this “ascended” gear. You can count me among them on this, and among the rest of the players here posting against ascended gear. Don’t break your promises, and don’t break what will become known as “what was ONCE the vision of GW2.”.

Crater.1625:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t understand the people flipping out over this… how is:

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange< Ascended any different or worse then

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange

There is no gear treadmill. A gear treadmill would be if you needed exotic armor to complete one tier of content and then you needed ascended gear to complete the next tier. This is not at all what is happening. You can still run all the content in the game in blues.

White->Blue->Green->Yellow->Orange is a gear treadmill. It’s already far from ideal.

I tolerate it – and I wouldn’t, if Exotics were any more of a grind to get than they are now – with the implicit understanding that a full set of Exotic gear means that you are done improving your equipment, and that any equipment obtained after getting a full set of Exotics will either A) Not be any more powerful than your existing equipment, but will carry a different-but-equally-strong stat distribution that allows you to alter your build and playstyle, or Offer no mechanical advantage or improvement whatsoever, existing only as a cosmetic change to your equipment’s appearance.

The game is currently at the absolute limit of the amount of gear grind and vertical progression that I can put up with. Any more, and I’m simply not interested in the game.

So you expected to leave the tutorial and be handed a shiny new set of exotics? Yeah, good luck with that…

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

That’s what happens when the core principle of the game which caused people to be fans of it in the first place is reversed.

Right now people are saying that if this happens it will be bad / they will quit / whatever. Only very few are actually making a decision now because it’s currently unclear what how they are “more powerful”.

But that’s no reason not to discuss something nor is it a reason not to make sure ANet is aware of your concerns.

Discussion & feedback are the purpose of the forums.

nachtnebel.9168:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

Actually, if the new gear really has better stats than Arena Net turned on their fanbase not the other way round.

Nope. Game is the friendship. You and Anet are friends. When Anet messes up, you walk away. Anet however is always gonna try to make the game better. And keep the friendship alive. Kinda corny but true. Anet is going to listen to your woes and fix them if bad enough or try to do something else to make you happy, but most of these people don’t care anymore and just walk out without giving it a try. So I agree to disagree, you guys turned on Anet.

nachtnebel.9168:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

Actually, if the new gear really has better stats than Arena Net turned on their fanbase not the other way round.

How? there was a gear treadmill from level 1-80…….what is the difference after 80? nobody said we were going to HAVE to grind dungeons for them.

Zefiris.8297:

Why did you play the game at all then? you do know that there are items with better stats then blues right? why didn’t you quit the game the first time a green item dropped for you?

It’s about max stats, obviously. The important part is a)they don’t change and b)are easy to reach.

Exotics fulfilled that.

If they change it, I’m simply out. Not a big deal, all it means no more reason for me to buy from the cash shop here. The money will go to good old games instead.

We could still have that. The problem was exotics were TOO east to obtain. It took 1 day to get a full set of exotics and then the game was essentially over, you had seen all the content and the only thing to do was grind the same event over and over again until you could get a better looking weapon.

They are replacing that mindless grind with a series of dungeons that allow you to infinitely progress and get a slower progression of the next tier of gear so you can progress even further down the infinite dungeon.

All the current content in the game can still be completed in exotics. You certainly aren’t losing anything. It just seems silly to me to quit if you are having fun in the current game when nothing about the current game is changing. The changes will mostly effect people who have done all the current content and want something new and harder to achieve.

Zefiris.8297:

gear treadmill in the game right now.

Nope, there isn’t. I never needed to get greens or yellows at 80, it was straight to full exotics for me.

But hey, you’re right. It’s nothing to be angry over, which is why I’m not angry. It’s just a reason to pick a different game. No big deal at all, after all, I picked a different game after skyrim as well.

Games aren’t religions, if one stops being fun, you pick another. Unless it’s Valkyrie Profile, of course, that game DOES count as religion

It’s still there, you had to work harder to get the 80 exotics than you would have if you got the 80 rares, would you not?

Nimmi.1650:

I admit it did make me a little nervous when I first read the news, because one of the reasons biggest my friends and I enjoy this game is its casual atmosphere towards gear. I’m going to wait for the blog post before any assumptions though. : ) I’m sure it won’t be as bad as our imaginations are making it out to be. Looking forward to the Lost Shores update. ^^

This guy deserves an award. Good mindset, spread the positive energy!

Any deviation from the way they tiered things in GW1 is a deviation from what Anet said they would do. End of story.

So who at NCsoft pushed for this, I wonder? Just like the “We don’t want you to grind so we put in anti-farming code” vs “We want you to grind for your legendary.” I guarantee a business type had their hand in this mess.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

Until February, when they announce Mythical gear, then next June with the dark side Diabolical gear, following next October on their annual release with Malevolent gear. They just need a few more tiers, then they will stop. Seriously. They will stop this time.

Trust them. Just ignore their previous marketing attempts. No gear treadmill indeed.

Ebon.7641:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Zefiris.8297:

If there are new items with better stats (I don’t know yet), a main reason I gave this game a chance is gone. Therefore, I would quit.

Not angry, though. I got my money’s worth, I simply would cease business with this game. Which’d be a shame, but in my case, I simply value “no statgrind” above any other issue in this game.

As much as I love jumping puzzles and the exploration love. This would be a dealbreaker.

Why did you play the game at all then? you do know that there are items with better stats then blues right? why didn’t you quit the game the first time a green item dropped for you?

Yep. People seem to have forgotten the fact that there is a masterwork > rare > exotic gear treadmill in the game right now.

I would LOVE someone who’s angry over this change to explain to me why that doesn’t anger you but this does.

And please, no slippery slope arguments, thanks (ie. “but that mean’s they’re going to add more tiers in the future!”)

Then you should read back as this point has been made and responded to many times in this thread.

The existing gear is easy to acquire. You can craft, loot, dungeon grind, buy with karma, buy with gold, even buy with cash if you want to brave the gem => gold exchange rate.

Items which require dungeon farming are completely different. They enforce a single playstyle in a game where not only acquiring gear but also xp (you can hit level 80 while never killing a mob, barring the tutorial) is currently possible pretty much any way which you can imagine.

:edit:

The whole “if you don’t want a geargrind then you must not want any progression!” argument is such a strawman argument BTW, lets try to avoid it.

karma.8763:

nachtnebel.9168:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

Actually, if the new gear really has better stats than Arena Net turned on their fanbase not the other way round.

How? there was a gear treadmill from level 1-80…….what is the difference after 80? nobody said we were going to HAVE to grind dungeons for them.

You play and buy the game you know anything about ? thats really sad

The whole ideology of Guild Wars is that exotic armor is the best armor you can ever get. From day one to the last expansion. Everything they ever add, armor, weapons etc. Will be just cosmetic and skin.

This is the reason why thousands of players plays Guild Wars in first place. If they add better and better gear after every expansion, they break everything GW stands for !

Players that came to Guild Wars and didnt even know this game is about horizontal progression has NO rights to throw arguments and tell long time Guild Wars players to leave the game. Horizontal progression was promised from day 1 and if they change it, they gonna loose big portion of players base. The core one…

yup, gear progression, that’s nice. More incentive to play GW2.
It’s better that way than just give out various weapon skins as reward. One step closer to become the best MMO in the market.
For those players that think not enough end game for GW2, now they have reason to return. Expect people who is on the fance of purchasing GW2 due to end game, to finally make their jump to the game.
3M copies sell here we come.

I am wary of the ascended items because power creep is one of the main reasons why I lose interest in mmos. I play more then just a casual player but would hesitate to call myself ‘hardcore’- most of my time I spend playing with friends or leveling alts. I enjoy doing dungeons and pvp but don’t do either very frequently. Because of this, as time goes by I find it harder and harder to participate in either of these two activities- as better gear is added to dungeons, and more players attain that gear, dungeon groups are then almost solely composed of these geared players who are uninterested in inviting anyone else to come along with them.
I recognize that these ascended items are only supposed to have a ‘slight’ increase in power, but this combined with the infusion slots combined with the fact that they are being released three months after launch COMBINED with the fact that the mmorpg.com article says this is supposed to “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” makes me very worried that Guild Wars 2 is about to take a path that Arenanet has so far seemed very much against in both GW1 and GW2. One of the philosophies behind this game (that Arenanet has emphasized time and time again) is encouraging people to play together, and introducing gear imbalances is definitely going against that goal.

However, if they decide to redo the Ascended items as the armor version of Legendary weapons I would be totally fine with that. That seems much more in tune with their purported goal of having an equal player base.

Eveningstar.6940:

I can understand feeling anxious over this, but seriously, you guys are way overreacting. We have absolutely no hard details yet. We have no idea what Ascended gear actually entails, and a lot of us are freaking out over irrational fear.

It’s okay to be a little bit concerned, but calm down. It’ll be fine. There’s going to be a blog post later, and I’m willing to bet a fistful of silver a lot of us are going to feel really sheepish after reading it.

I really hope all the people saying ridiculous things like “Me and my guild of 500 already quit and uninstalled” feel like fools. Then again, a fool is a fool is a fool.

Fooled once by jumping to conclusions.

Fooled twice by posting something so asinine on this thread.

Fooled a third time when the blog post points out the major errors in their assumptions.

Once a fool always a fool.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did you play Guild Wars 1? That had it too.

See, it’s not about tiers existing in general. It’s about the MAXIMUM level of gear not changing.

You are, essentially, missing the point. Come on, some more reading comprehension, please. It’s not hard.

Zefiris.8297:

gear treadmill in the game right now.

Nope, there isn’t. I never needed to get greens or yellows at 80, it was straight to full exotics for me.

But hey, you’re right. It’s nothing to be angry over, which is why I’m not angry. It’s just a reason to pick a different game. No big deal at all, after all, I picked a different game after skyrim as well.

Games aren’t religions, if one stops being fun, you pick another. Unless it’s Valkyrie Profile, of course, that game DOES count as religion

So your logic here is that… You ignored the other tiers of gear so they didn’t actually exist in your mind and that is ok.

But a hypothetical new tier of gear that you have never seen and know nothing about is evil and game breaking?

Well ok… not going to bother arguing with a statement like THAT.

EgonVenkman.1907:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

Until February, when they announce Mythical gear, then next June with the dark side Diabolical gear, following next October on their annual release with Malevolent gear. They just need a few more tiers, then they will stop. Seriously. They will stop this time.

Trust them. Just ignore their previous marketing attempts. No gear treadmill indeed.

Slippery slope fallacy. And totally irrational. No one has any idea what the Ascended gear is actually all about. You’re just assuming Ascended is a new tier gear, and it’s going to lead to a whole new ladder of tiers, and before you know it the game is dead and we’re playing another WoW clone.

That is a massive cognitive leap considering that we have no information about the upcoming changes.

Would it kill you to relax, be patient, and wait for the blog post?

I do not see anyone asking the only relevant question… assuming the Ascendant items are a new tier… what colour will their names be written with ?

Guys remember that this game is made for all of us and for different type of gamers.

Personally I support gear progression, is what makes me keep logging into GW2 and keep getting character progression. Right now GW2 has character progression in the sense that you can dungeon hunt armor “skins” and weapon but alot of players are put off by that…most of my friends that purchased GW2 with me went back to World of Warcraft because once they reached level 80 they didn’t have any character progression at all….everything you could have can be purchased in the Trading Post with gold and they didn’t really like hunting for “skins”.

I enjoy hunting for skins, and have a complete DPS set from TA and a complete tanking set from AC and I can’t wait for this ascended to go live…

It will give me ONE more reason to keep playing the game.

ANET please continue to give us new ways to progress our character, we start finding the game boring when we can’t get character progress.

This thread is so off the rails I think I need a boat. I say it should be locked until the blog post is released, lest this never ending cycle just repeat itself until that happens anyway.

Zefiris.8297:

gear treadmill in the game right now.

Nope, there isn’t. I never needed to get greens or yellows at 80, it was straight to full exotics for me.

But hey, you’re right. It’s nothing to be angry over, which is why I’m not angry. It’s just a reason to pick a different game. No big deal at all, after all, I picked a different game after skyrim as well.

Games aren’t religions, if one stops being fun, you pick another. Unless it’s Valkyrie Profile, of course, that game DOES count as religion

Yeah, at a stage I did dungeons in some greens and later only yellows before moving onto my exotic dungeon set.
In WoW, if you’re not geared properly, well, first your party will chew you up and spit you out, and secondly you wouldn’t even be able to do heroics. Your damage/healing/mitigation wouldn’t hold and your party will constantly die. Then, you need heroic gear to even think about doing raids… In GW2 you can do explo in greens, and you don’t even need to be max level!

Anyone who thinks GW2 has gear progression grind has no idea what they’re talking about.

MinkoAk.7049:

I do not see anyone asking the only relevant question… assuming the Ascendant items are a new tier… what colour will their names be written with ?

Pink. Obviously.

Watch your own MMO Manifesto again Anet! U break it now!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I feel sorry for Anet. Their initial fanbase turn on them so easily.

The sad part is that these people are turning on them for something that has been in the game since launch.

Did none of you notice the different tiers of gear before this?

Did none of you notice the PvE stat boosters in the Gem Shop?

It’s like none of you have actually played the game you are now complaining about. Tiers of gear power have been here since the first week of beta, nothing is changing, they are just adding the next tier, it is literally no different then to what is already in the game.

Crater.1625:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t understand the people flipping out over this… how is:

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange< Ascended any different or worse then

White<Blue<Green<Yellow<Orange

There is no gear treadmill. A gear treadmill would be if you needed exotic armor to complete one tier of content and then you needed ascended gear to complete the next tier. This is not at all what is happening. You can still run all the content in the game in blues.

White->Blue->Green->Yellow->Orange is a gear treadmill. It’s already far from ideal.

I tolerate it – and I wouldn’t, if Exotics were any more of a grind to get than they are now – with the implicit understanding that a full set of Exotic gear means that you are done improving your equipment, and that any equipment obtained after getting a full set of Exotics will either A) Not be any more powerful than your existing equipment, but will carry a different-but-equally-strong stat distribution that allows you to alter your build and playstyle, or Offer no mechanical advantage or improvement whatsoever, existing only as a cosmetic change to your equipment’s appearance.

The game is currently at the absolute limit of the amount of gear grind and vertical progression that I can put up with. Any more, and I’m simply not interested in the game.

no, the gear goes naturally with your level.

if your level caps at level 10 and there are more armors that goes beyond your level, then its a gear treadmill.

souldonkey.9534:

No one has stated anywhere that the Ascended Items will “permanently double your attack power” so how bout we wait for some facts before spreading hyperbolic crap like that. The article was very vague in saying that it would “increase power”. No one has any clue what that means. I’m speculating that it’s probably similar to Weh no Suh, or Infusion. You’re claiming the sky is falling because it will somehow “double your attack power”. All Arenanet has said is that they are “artifacts of great power”. That does not say anything about them increasing power or increasing any stats.

You do not have good reading comprehension skills. You are bad at it. That was (pretty obviously) a hypothetical example to illustrate why one of those ideas is fundamentally, in principle, absolutely fine, and why one of those ideas is fundamentally, in principle, absolutely not fine.

I don’t know where you got it in your head that I – or anyone - is claiming to know exactly to what extent the Ascended equipment will improve your character. I haven’t even claimed that it will offer your character a flat vertical increase in power over current gear.

What I have said is that flat vertical increases in power are bad in principle and that if that’s what Ascended equipment amounts to, then they should not be added to Guild Wars 2, and that I am uninterested in playing the game if that’s what they are. I don’t know that they will be, and I hope that they won’t be.
Maybe all they’ll let you do is double-jump, and they’ll be useful for newer, harder jumping puzzles. That would be fun.
Maybe they’ll have stats that are equal in value to Exotic equipment, but can be customized on the fly so that you can shift between Berserker stats, Cleric’s stats, or Traveler’s stats – or create your own stat spread, not offered on any current equipment – simply by opening up your Hero menu, without having to waste an extra 6-12+ inventory slots on a completely new set of equipment. That would be fantastic, and would represent a decrease in equipment grind that would breathe new life into the game.

But maybe you’re going to get an extra 300 Power, deal 25% more damage to Karka, and gain 10% Endurance every time a Karka hits you. That would be awful, and I would not want to continue playing the game.

Nobody is claiming that the sky is falling. What people are saying is that if ArenaNet is setting up plans to knock the sky down intentionally, we would like them to reconsider, and that if they do go ahead with knocking the sky down, we’re probably not going to be there when it hits the ground.

Selo.1250 said:

“Just like gw2, rift suffered from lack of things to do at endgame. In rifts case, you could basicly only raid or do scenario pvp. Noone wants to do that ALL the time.
In gw2 you can grind events, or do meaningless wvw.
Rift kept their playerbase better the first months, and i think it will go up a bit again with the expansion. Many of my guildies is gonna try it out.”

Hey Selo – google “80 Things to Do At Level 80” and then come back and tell me how much of that list you have completed. If you completed all 80 then I guess you have nothing to do.

However, if you haven’t even touched half you are nowhere near done.

evil and game breaking

Why are you flipping out over my statement? Why so angry that you don’t even properly read it? Am I offending you? If so, I apologize, it wasn’t my intention. I really don’t know what in my posting could have incited you so, though. :S

The logic is explained one further post above. In this case, it’s about the max stat gear. Like GW1. It’s a design decision that has a lot of impact, and was why people a)liked GW1 in particular and b)flocked to GW2.

A small steps of increase here does break this. It’s like a diet. If you suddenly start chugging down diet coke, it’s all for naught.