Guild Wars 2

Poinky.3079:

Zaxares.5419:

As an aside, did anybody else notice this little snippet?

“As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).”

Complimentary Ascended and Legendary items? As in, we’ll get a FREE Ascended/Legendary item when Lost Shores is released?

No, they mean to compliment the new content. Ie, increase the stats again.

No, the word “complimentary” is used to indicate stuff that is given out free of charge. It’s possible that Linsey made a mistake and meant to say “complementary”, which would be more in line with what you were suggesting, but “complementary” wouldn’t make sense given the context of the sentence.

alanis.6094:

Beraphim.3476:

All of the responses here reminds me of the tiered trait system unveil.

There were much more people in favor of the trait tiers than this…

The problem here was that since the beginning we were told there wouldn’t be a gear treadmill. Then they added exotics, now they’ve added ascended. What’s next? I don’t care about gear at all, I just want to be able to enjoy all the content in the game. But I can’t even do that since some of this new content requires ascended gear and presumably that will also be the case in the future. I actually question the whole need for different item stats. I would love it if things were just in like spvp, you get your accessories to customize your stats. But the items themselves would remain the same and level with you.

Assuming Magic Find is ~13 Stat points for 1% MF, the Main stat attribute goes up from 92 to ~130. The secondaries go up from 63 to 68 each. That’s around a 48 overall point jump from one ring piece. One. That is a -huge- kittening point difference for just a single piece. You throw in a full ‘Ascended’ gear set and compare it to an Exotic and the difference will probably be staggering.

This isn’t even taking into account the Infusion slot. It may be used for Agony mitigation. But why would an ‘Offensive’ Infusion slot have any form of damage mitigation in it? Offensive would imply some form of damage increase. So as of right now, that is anyone’s guess. But the numbers are from Exotic to Ascended are a bit ridiculous at first glance.

Props to Arenanet for showing us a Magic Find ring though. At least that way it looks like the stat differences aren’t nearly as large as they are.

Zanthrax.6538:

She is saying there is a happy medium…min max hardcore people get their gear increase which in all honesty only helps making getting through that dungeon easier and has little effect everywhere else…it promotes PvE leaderboards who cleared x dungeon when etc. While at the same time despite how much whining you casuals are doing the 2 stat difference will not effect your ability to enjoy the game in any way shape or form…if you feel forced to get this better gear its your own fault for falling into the pit of assuming you need it. You don’t the gear has no effect on your other pve or wvw experiences.
She’s basically saying that they are adding gear grind to combat gear grind.

I don’t know how many MMOs you have played but I have played many over the years, starting with Ultima Online. The simple fact is that “this gear is only powerful to help with the next tier of dungeon” doesn’t really work in MMOs where this gear applies the same stats to normal PvE, other dungeons and PvP.

Better stats = stronger character across the board, not just in one dungeon.

I do not care about the gear, other than there had better be a way for people, like my self, that solely WvW to obtain it, with out having to do instances to gain it. The current cost of PVP armor from the vendors is unrealisic, with how the drop rate fluctuates sooo rapidly depending on what role your forfilling with in WvW, ie scouting, supply camp running, defending keep / tower, attacking said tower keeps etc.

This is where the biggest effects of any new type of armor comes into play. Stats on items have a massive difference in WvW, and it’s very easy to tell the people who are current in exotics vs those that aren’t. Lets not forget those below level 80 with their scaled up items as well.

So again if your bringing in more powerful armor make it obtainable for all players, maybe via Karma since alot of people like myself have no need for it once we’re set up the way we would like to be, and have zero insterest in the amount of farming required for a legendary skins.

I’m not a big fan of gated content, which this is what it is after reading Lindsay’s post on the matter. Please reconsider making this a hard to acquire “stat”. You only had to find six seers to get your armor infused in GW and become fully resistant to agony. This sounds like you’re going to use it as a means of slowing down players for exhausting your content, while giving the illusion that they are progressing. It’s tacky, and it lacks real challenge. Develop new AI, new boss mechanics player shave to learn, or new skills/environmental weapons to be used; but don’t create a gear grind to actually succeed at a dungeon.

Thank god the gear-treadmill comes back. After a thousend years of WoWDAoCEQRIFTWhatever there is absolutely no other way for me to have fun in a game, but grinding points.
Tough luck for everyone else.
Ultima Online doesn’t count. Only old people talk about Ultima Online.

Thanks Anet, for saving me from just playing the game.

Linsey Murdock

By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach….

This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.

So they’re adding power to monsters, giving players new gear to put them on par with these monsters, and will continue to expand this trend as the future rolls along? WoW! I’m so glad that’s not a treadmill!!

I’ve read all the details on the ascended gear hoping it wouldn’t be so bad, but honestly, this is still a disappointment all around.

If they keep this 2 month pace up we’ll need gear score soon.

To all those who say that the increased stats aren’t impressive and/or significant: are you that deficient in 101 math skills?

If this is the road taken by anet (and yes, the “a” is not in caps, not this time, they don’t deserve it at all), we’ll arrive at a certain point with full ascended gear. They’ll mantain, for sure, the same difference in bonuses from exotics/legendaries for all the pieces.

So, let’s see at the difference with a set that gives Power. The Ring has about 8% more Power than the Exotic one (to all the deficient at math, 68-63=5 points of difference, 5/63=0.0794 rounded -> +7.94%).

This means that a character who will run in full ascended, against a player who uses the same stat types on exotic, will get a +8% in Power. And this means, simply, that in WvW he’ll deal +8% damage in respect to the one who runs with exotic, because the formula is Power*Weapon Damage*Skill Coefficent/Armor. The same goes for Vitality, Toughness, etc. And I bet that the ascended weapons/armors will have a higher damage range/higher defence than exotic ones, thus bringing the difference more in favour of the ascended owners.

Kudos anet, you should be ashamed of yourselves, firstly because you decided to laugh in the face of all the players that bought GW2 believing in your “manifesto” (what are you, politicians?) and steering away from it in the worst way possible, and secondly because you put alot of effort to this non-sense gear grinding aspect while the sPvP is still a horrendous joke of a competitive mode, with no ladders, 3 (no, 4 now, yay!) maps, rewarding just more grinding even there instead of real skill and making the crafting professions in PvE completely useless if you don’t add recipes to craft ascended items (and even if you put, I’m sure that they’ll be something crazy like legendaries).

DONO.8760:

Lord of the Rings Online tried this with their “legendary” weapon system and their “radiance” gear. Both were a miserable failure, though Turbine only admitted radiance gear was a failure. Agony sounds a lot like the radiance mechanic from LotRO, and these new ascended items that have upgrade slots…exactly the same as the less than fun legendary system in LotRO. Why is this turning into a gated gear grind?

This was exactly my problem with LOTRO. I would always play my characters up to level 50 then quit. Why? Legenday item grind.

The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions[…]

assuming you can’d dodge/avoid agony in any other way than having infusion, i’m disappointed.
the only way you can give us “challenging end game content” is by introducing a simple gating mechanic? wow.. i’ll try it, but so far i’m not excited about this part of the update.

I love how everyone defending this is saying “Theres the door”. Hey, there are enough of us disgruntled players that if we were to leave, who would you run this new dungeon with? The small handful of people that support this?

Right..

zaxziakohl.5243:

That link, niether the video nor the text manifesto said anything about not adding more higher stat gear later. The closest mention is :

“Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceralCombat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral. So we’ve put a huge focus on strengthening our combat, giving the player limitless choices, and providing the thrill and joy of being in combat.”

This isn’t changing. Combat hasn’t magically become static combat because they added a few points to gear. It doesn’t magically mean you don’t have to dodge, or cleanse yourself of conditions, or get behind a mob, or anything like that. If you stand still you could have another 20 points to stats and there is a good chance your going to die!

Nothing in these manifestos has been broken in any way by adding this gear.

It’s still not about the spreadsheet, and the grind, it never was. You didn’t need to have exotics. As I’ve said before and will say again, you can do the same content in pretty much any quality of gear.

The only difference now is going to be the dungeon, and you will still have access to the ENTIRETY of the dungeon.

People seem to be missing this, but all 9 fractals will be available on lower difficulties, so Ascended gear isn’t needed to experience the content.

Remember the content itself doesn’t change the higher the difficulty gets, they just scale the mobs. It’s not like at level 50 all of the sudden there is a new fractal, that’s not the case.

The entirety of the game is still open to everyone at any gear quality, just like before.

It’s not going to screw up WvW because of a few points. If a couple stat points get players killed, then either the player with stats is really good, or the players dying suck. That’s all there is to it!

In WvW you can go in at level 40 with level 40 gear and be competitive, that is a hell of a lot more of a gear change than this minor stat difference.

Jeez I take my level 10’s in and do well in WvW. Gear really truly doesn’t have a huge affect on gameplay!

Like I said, its not about how it affects the game, its about how ANET wanted to make an MMO different from the rest and now they are trying to change it and make it the same as the rest. Its sad.

Phoenix.7928:

Thank god the gear-treadmill comes back. After a thousend years of WoWDAoCEQRIFTWhatever there is absolutely no other way for me to have fun in a game, but grinding points.
Tough luck for everyone else.
Ultima Online doesn’t count. Only old people talk about Ultima Online.

Thanks Anet, for saving me from just playing the game.

Now watch as the rest of us vaporize into steam. Just like WAR, SWTOR and every other fail for the past several years. More of the same doesn’t keep people around. They will bail to the next thing that comes along.

Gear treadmills are bad. I’ve been enjoying playing this game because I could get my max stats set of gear easily and then work on getting the looks of what I want on each set. For the love of all that is holy please discontinue this terrible plan of continuing to scale up gear! If you do insist on making the most powerful gear only available through pve then please keep it out of my wvw. I do not want to have to participate in dungeons just to stay on an even playing field with others.

Cercie.1025:

Ffolks.3708:

I can only hope that they decided to add karma recipes to the vendors so that crafters can create gear on par with these new ascended items.

I agree there should at least be an alternative way to get the equivalent items. If it’s going to be a treadmill, then make one for the different players. PvP, PvE, Crafters, ect.

Well, they did mention that the Lost Shores will include new crafting resources and over 200 new recipes, so here’s hoping that it also introduces a new tier of crafting at rank 400 that allows us to craft Ascended-equivalent gear!

Well I’m not happy that they decided to abandon the design principles for the game. I’m still going to play and I look forward to the Lost Shores patch otherwise, the new content sounds neat.

Guess I’ll have to start grinding for the new gear soon, hopefully it’s not some ridiculously insanely expensive stuff.

Webba.3071:

stefanplc.5234:

Free content being added slowly so there’s more stuff to do at max level. Everyone, HURRY! Quit! This is madness!

As has been said before, new content – wonderful, bi montly gear progression – terrifying. Its NOT hard to understand.

It’s not like there will be a NEW set every month to grind for. They’re adding a few items now and once you get them, that’s it, those are best in slot until next expansion. Do you honestly believe that a few months from now they’ll come out and say hey guys, we have a new set of gear that’s slightly better than ascendants but lower than legendary, bla bla bla?

3 items are being added right now which is basically 2 types, rings and backs. This whole process could take between 4 and 10 months to finish, probably just in time for a new expansion.

I know there are a ton of people on here going crazy. However, I know tons of people who left the game due to not having anything to do after getting level 80, 100% map completion, and doing all the explorables. Not to mention they did this on a couple characters. Before this announcement all you heard were people crying for end game. Not just on these forums but on any MMO forum you happen to read.

I honestly do not believe Anet would do this, if they didnt have ample people calling for it. A lot of people seem like they are going nuts because they are afraid of where this may lead. How about we just sit back and see what happens. These infusion things may only be for this dungeon, if its not your cup of tea, then why worry about it – just dont do that dungeon. Just like I choose to not go after a Legendary, or do WvW. Point is, if its an aspect of the game you dont want to do, then dont do it.

I’m really worried about four things:

1. Does this mean WvW players are expected to PvE?

2. Will the rings be RNG drops or from tokens? If they’re RNG, that will be horrible. Making progression so random is not a good idea.

3. Will the rings have every stat combination? Going by ArenaNet’s history with shaman and rabid gear, it’s possible that might not be the case.

4. What does the “Unique” label mean? Does that mean I can’t use two rabid rings? Because that will make the ring a downgrade everywhere but the dungeon for me, which means I’ll only be using a worse ring in the dungeon for resistance. Not ideal, fun game design.

I think this might be interesting.

Some things to consider: Ascended is a new “rarity” of gear instead of a new “tier” of a current quality. Meaning that Ascended should be treated as its own quality level instead of “Tier 1 Exotic”, “Tier 2 Exotic”, “Tier 10 Exotic”, and so on. Ascended is also exclusive to level 80, whereas Exotic starts somewhere around late 60’s. It’s just another thing to look forward to when you reach max level. Vertical in a way, yes, but I’m not surprised that this would be implemented, considering that GW2 has attracted way more than just the old GW1 crowd. ANet had to find a way to please those who have came from other MMOs with similar gear mechanics. I’m just hoping it doesn’t go overboard with “tier gear” under fancier names instead of the typical numbered tier system.

If anything, you should start worrying if/when ANet would introduce “Tier 2 Ascended” items.

Anet should do some research before adding gear like this. Other companys have tried essentially the same thing before and it never worked out well. I don’t even mind the marginal core stat increase compared to exotics, but the Agony stat is the worst thing they could go. Like others have stated, this is simply a gating mechanism, even if Anet does not intend it to be that way. Those who played Lotro remember Radiance and Gloom mechanics, I’m sure. Remember how that worked out? I hope Agony is gonna be limited to this one dungeon and we won’t need to have this gear set to attempt the next dungeon released in the future.

Another issue with this new stat (probably have been mention already) is that it leads to lazy design. Instead of creating dungeons with interesting fight mechanics, they are simply going to be balanced by Agony levels. Seen it countless times in other MMOs.

Of course, we’re going to have to wait and see how it plays out, but I don’t think I can be optimistic anymore. It just seems like Anet is going completely against the progression philosophy they’ve been advertising for so long. I dunno… I just feel betrayed I guess…

zaxziakohl.5243

Jeez I take my level 10’s in and do well in WvW. Gear really truly doesn’t have a huge affect on gameplay!

The scaling system is kinda out of whack, my level 2 guardian raised to lvl 80 is doing at least 2x the dmg that my lvl 80 full exotic ele can. He is doing 2-6k per swing in starter gear.

Real test is true 80s in exotics vs true 80s in Ascended. By looks of things, Ascended with legendary weapons will win unless they are truely bad.

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative.

please stop while youre ahead. youve already just made a bunch of gw1 vets very upset for going against your supposed core design principles (source: manifesto).

i don’t think the majority of your loyal players want power creep. give us a variety of shinier skins/effects, varied ‘endgame’ zones (note: zones is plural), and newer, better, more interesting boss/dungeon mechanics. i’m kinda dumbfounded as to how you assumed gear grind was tolerable.

We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach.

a small gear grind is still a gear grind.

and, lets be realistic: if you’re implementing ‘gear progression’ to palliate the complaints of players who’ve already farmed their legendaries and somehow ‘have nothing to do’, who do you think will be the first to complain when they farm their new ‘ascended’ sets and now ‘have nothing to do ingame’?

from a consumer standpoint, the further you deviate from gw1 & your manifesto the less inclined/compelled i am to purchase gems for my personal use. and this is, in my opinion, a rather large deviation.

I just came back from reading the article and I have a few questions which hopefully some of you guys can answer…

The first set of ascended gear hitting us (this friday) is only going to be rings and upgrade slots? Will there be any actual armor or weapons coming to us in the coming days? Moreover, can someone explain the condition “agony” a bit more?

Thanks and much appreciated

This is my first post on this forum, and its unfortunately to show my utter disgust at this poorly disguised attempt to implement a gear grind into this game. Out of all the MMO’s, this is the one that I assumed knew that PROGRESSION DOES NOT EQUAL POWER CREEP.

There were a myriad of different ways to introduce progression that they could have done ala GW I: Add new abilities (give us more elite options maybe?) or add new crafting recipes or add new tiers to the story or just add more titles or give us unlockable emotes. Instead, they opted to go with the absolute laziest lowest denominator: a gear grind.

Bravo devs, way to take a steaming pile right on your manifesto and on your customers. UGH.

OK so we’ve seen the blog post and we’ve even seen an example.

ArenaNet, you got it wrong. You got it so wrong. Put someone else in charge of items and crafting. The person you currently have doing it crossed the line.

This is a gear treadmill, I don’t know what cool aid you thought we were drinking but it wasn’t strong enough.

I am honestly baffled at how badly they can screw this up after coming from GW1 which did it right. Seriously, where was the problem? Why are we compromising design philosphies for this?

Are you also going to refund my transmutation stones every time you make my exotic/ascended item redundant and I have to pay money again to keep the look with my near treadmill grinded gear?

I can’t believe Martin said those things on Twitter when this is exactly what everyone feared it would be and exactly what ArenaNet said the game would not be when they sold it to us. I suspect you guys are becoming desensitised to all the negative feedback on this issue so I don’t feel like I can say anything more that will be meaningful.

You got it wrong.

All Legendary items going forward will be of Ascended power.

Yes, this is what I wanted to hear. It has always felt wrong that legendary items are on par with exotics, and this change makes a lot of sense.
The only question I have is:

1 – What are infusions exactly? What do they do? Saying that there are offensive, defensive and omni doesn’t really say what they give you, exactly. Weill it just be more stats, or something else entirely?

I hope it’s something else, because just throwing more power or toughness on just feels a little redundant.

2 – Why can you only find ascended gear in dungeons? What are the non-dungeoneering players supposed to do?

Also, you will receive your new gear* in exchange for tales of you great deeds in the Fractals of the Mists. Simply report to Trahearne with news of your exploits, and he will gladly tell everyone of his successful campaign against these new foes. After all, he sent you into the unknown depths after giving a speech and all that, so we truly have him to thank!

*Be on the lookout for the new Trahearne rarity type in future updates! Note, legendary gear will not be upgraded.

Well I wanted to wait and see what Anet officially said on this and I can’t say I am happy with the direction they are taking.

I loved how exotic armor and weapons were the best you could get, it made it ok for me not to feel like I need to waste all my time and money to get a Legendary weapon which I honestly do not see myself ever getting.

It made me feel good to know I didn’t have to be hard-core to be on par with hard-core players. I said let them have their Legendary weapons good for them!

But now…they are upping the stats on things, as well as Legendary weapons….I dunno what to say just not happy.

No, Linsey, we all are not excited about these new items as you are.

:’(

It’s not THAT bad… it’s not the end of the world… it won’t even be noticeable in WvW…

But I can’t help feeling that someone stole my stapler and it will all end in flames.

Dev A: “Hey guy’s i’m already tired of making kitten for this game, we need to kill it off ASAP”

Dev B: “Gear treadmill dat hoe”

Dev A: Brilliant, off to lunch

Currently legendarys have the same stats as exotics

I have The dreamer which comes with power, toughness and vitality, I along with alot of other players that have legendarys have transmuted the stats to more usefull ones for my proffesion.

In the future, legendarys will be upgraded to ascended stats. I was wondering if this will include those of us that transmuted the stats already.

Lol, this won’t keep the gear grind guys around anyways. They will have their full set in a few days then they will go back to complaining and or back to that other game. Honestly, why listen to them? Why??!

Let today mark the day that they decided to kill their own game in the prime of its infancy. How sad. All the potential squandered, and for what? To please a small percentage of the player base that can never, ever be pleased? Didn’t the ArenaNet founders used to work for Blizzard? Why are they trying to be like Blizzard?

I like this change Anet. Thank you for giving me something to do at 80 since I now sit at 3 level 80s in full exotic, 1600g, thousands of dungeon tokens(enough to kit another 3 or 4 alts out).

My whole guild and dungeon group likes this change and are looking forward to it. Smart move.

fixit.7189:

More than 2 stats once totaled, combining all stats on these items and all the other parts. They are adding full set for this so +2 is more like +68 at the minimum which in Wv3 will make all the difference between victory or defeat. It’s not a small difference, it’s a HUGE difference once the full set is put in.

And I like to point out that now they have thrown the manifesto out the window, new gear will pop up every few months just like that other game. If I wanted a gear grind, I’d be playing that other game and not GW2!!!

6 gear pieces on release 2 stats per piece 12 stat increase total…they are only doing back and the 5 trinkets. Shoosh now.

Arenanet employees, read this thread. All of it. Realize that you have messed up, royally. There’s still time to change this. A gear treadmill goes against the very foundation of guild wars and goes against the numerous promises made about this game.
It will do more harm then good upon releasing this update. Focus on bug fixes. Dungeons and professions are a broken mess, warriors dominate nearly every aspect of the game, and people are leaving because of this. Adding in a gear treadmill and enemies and a dungeon that you need specific armor to combat instead of developing a proper dungeon that takes player ingenuity and skill is the wrong decision to make.
I, and numerous others were excited for this update, up until this very blog post which is absolute evidence that you have gone into the deep end. You might as well have just told us that your promises about the game were bogus straight off.

aaron.7850:

Its too late for them to reconsider. They dont walk with us that much.

I will certainly wont quit the game for a small stat increase in just 2 slot items, but this new game philosophy will be an itch and a reminder of a broken manifesto everytime I play.

that 2 per item, will be 10 soon. They said “this is just the beginning”

I MIGHT be ok with this if this ascended gear dropped from any other Explorable mode dungeon..give us a reason to still run those.

Doomdesire.9365:

I just came back from reading the article and I have a few questions which hopefully some of you guys can answer…

The first set of ascended gear hitting us (this friday) is only going to be rings and upgrade slots? Will there be any actual armor or weapons coming to us in the coming days? Moreover, can someone explain the condition “agony” a bit more?

Thanks and much appreciated

They are adding rings and black slot items with this update. The rest of the slots will be included in the future updates and eventually becoming the new standard for max character gear.

The way I understood it is Agony is a new condition that will be used by mobs in the new dungeon. As you’re starting out, on easier difficulty, agony will be manageable. Eventually you will get to a point where you will not be able to progress unless you have ascension gear with defense against Agony infusion upgrades.

I’m not sure if agony will be applied by mobs directly or if it will be an aura in the dungeon.

raahk.2786:

You might as well have just told us that your promises about the game were bogus straight off.

But then we wouldn’t have bought the game.

Just remember ArenaNet: you can shave a sheep plenty for its wool but you can only skin it once.

Read it, disappointed in the broken manifesto. Seriously very, very, very disappointed in Anet.

Congratulations on the people complaining about hitting a “wall” and convincing them to be “forced” into breaking their promises and philosophy…

Guild Wars 1 player. I bought the game for the Guild Wars experience. I feel like every time mentions that game now, it’s like they’re taking its name in vain. GW2 is nothing like GW1. I played GW1 to avoid everything that is wrong with MMOs. GW2’s manifesto purported to do the same thing. This update is the total, complete bankruptcy of that vision and a shameless attempt to jump ship from that vision onto standard MMO conventions, because I’m sure they were seeing that the numbers were not projecting to sustain their financial model in the long term.

The Guild Wars franchise is dead to me. The item rarities, the forge, the prolonged grind to get to max level, to get max level gear, the total destruction of the old combat system with the replacement of a MOBA-style, generic combat system, the complete destruction of GW style PvP, and so on. This is not Guild Wars. I thought perhaps you might retract your mistakes and return to the GW1 vision, but you’ve chosen your side. Thousands and thousands of hours poured into the first game. You’re just WoW/LoL/(take your pick) 2 now. You’re catering the game to WoW players, and flipping GW1 players the bird. You will never see the inside of my wallet, ever again.

stefanplc.5234:

Webba.3071:

stefanplc.5234:

Free content being added slowly so there’s more stuff to do at max level. Everyone, HURRY! Quit! This is madness!

As has been said before, new content – wonderful, bi montly gear progression – terrifying. Its NOT hard to understand.

It’s not like there will be a NEW set every month to grind for. They’re adding a few items now and once you get them, that’s it, those are best in slot until next expansion. Do you honestly believe that a few months from now they’ll come out and say hey guys, we have a new set of gear that’s slightly better than ascendants but lower than legendary, bla bla bla?.

Yes, I do. The blog expressly states this is the first of many and as this arrives just 3 months after the release of the game they have set the precedent right there. Do you really think that now those people who want this know Anet can give them a new tier in 3 months are going to wait for longer than that in the future? If Anet doesn’t deliver on the schedule they have now set for themselves not only will they lose those of us who don’t want this, they will lose everyone who does, too.

I understand people are angry/disappointed/annoyed, but why are so many of you being so melodramatic?

I don’t like the idea of gear grind or forcing us to have certain gear to experience certain content but threatening to quit or demanding a refund based on a blog post is really over the top.

Zanthrax.6538:

6 gear pieces on release 2 stats per piece 12 stat increase total…they are only doing back and the 5 trinkets. Shoosh now.

“This is just the beginning…”

The floodgates have been opened.

Manifesto has now been burned in a fire.

Fin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bKtGxVj3msM#t=133s