Guild Wars 2

Alright, I waited for the blog post and read it carefully. It’s stated in no uncertain terms that this is just the beginning of gear progression.

Sorry, ArenaNet, but this simply isn’t what I signed up for. I strongly dislike the standard MMO model and I purchased GW2 because it did things differently. If you get more business introducing a gear treadmill, so be it, but I won’t be a part of it. I’m truly disappointed.

I do agree that the loop tables need some tweaking. I meant to say that increased loot by itself is no endgame. You need the cash and mats from your loot to get something out if eventually, something to use it on.
If there is no use for your mats and gold, any drop is as useful as a black lions chest.

Bunch of drama queens in this thread. People complained because legendary weapons weren’t better than exotics. People complained that there wasn’t legendary armor and that full exotics were too easy to get.

Anet is giving everyone exactly what we’ve been asking for for the last 3 months. More end game. Something to do.

Besides that we don’t even know exactly how it’s going to work yet. I for one am excited for the up coming changes. More than I’ve been since the game was released. Bring it on.

I’m disappointed in Anet. Until now I had faith that they would stick to their design choices and manifesto. But they’ve thrown that out of the window after just 3 months.

I will probably keep playing, since there isnt really another game out there that appeals to me right now. But the magic is definately gone.

I’m not done with my exotics, had only two days ago decided what armor I wanted to go for. I didn’t mind that I would take longer to get there compared to other players, I do have a life and so I simply can’t play daily. I didn’t mind because I knew I would get there eventually. Now I don’t see myself getting there. I’ll just keep on falling further and further behind. If they introduce a new tier of gear this fast, I simply can’t keep up. And yes, that takes away a lot of the appeal for me. It’s that feeling that no matter how much I do, I will never achieve that freedom that I felt when I first got to level 80. Simply because that is not good enough anymore.

It’s a huge bummer and yes, I feel slapped in the face. They have not “taken everything we love about GW1 and put it in a persistent world”. They’ve simply taken “Wow and tried to cram it in the GW universe”.

Feels like a cold shower. I’m definately not excited for this new Lost Shores update anymore.

fellyn.5083:

Bunch of drama queens. People complained because legendary weapons weren’t better than exotics. People complained that there wasn’t legendary armor and that full exotics were too easy to get.

Anet is giving everyone exactly what we’ve been asking for for the last 3 months. More end game. Something to do.

Besides that we don’t even know exactly how it’s going to work yet. I for one am excited for the up coming changes.

The ones complaining about no gear grind and legendaries having the same stats as exotics are the vocal minority.

Shanna.4762:

…Lol…ArenaNet mod deleted my post saying…

RIP Manifesto. Goodbye GW2 when the next big release comes around, because you completely eliminated a huge part of what made your game stand out.

They’re really trying to censor out the truth because they can’t keep a promise? It’s the truth, and they won’t even admit to it. That blog post was nothing but a commercial trying to hype us up for something we don’t WANT. ArenaNet PROMISED this would not happen with GW2 MANY times, you can find it in many pre-launch interviews, even post launch interviews. You can find it on the website in the videos section with the Manifesto videos. (Until they delete those, too ?) In Lions Arch, my guild of 480 people, EVERYONE is angry about this that I have seen.

What made it stand out is you get visual armor skins instead of a tiered system? Just this one fact. Quite clearly that’s all that’s left for some? I guess everyone is out doing jumping puzzles in their end game gear? This is their response to the game needing an endgame and the demand for it. IT’s a new level 80 zone with a new dungeon for folks sick of running the same event chain over and over again. There is plenty there for folks who want to play the way they were.

I will give away all my gold and uninstall Guild Wars 2 later this afternoon. I am actually looking forward to it. Never another mmorpg for me since not even a game which main selling point is “no gear grind” can stick to that policy. I bought the game a few weeks ago. Not even 80 and just have several characters around level 30-40 and around 20g. I will leave just as fast as I got here.

Guess gear treadmill is unavoidable in mmo’s so I guess I will just stay as far away as possible from future mmo’s. Will focus on real life and console gaming instead.

I am having fun now though thinking of a fun way to give away my 20 gold. Hide and seek? Quiz? Keep me alive while naked running through a swamp? Hmm…

I uh can’t even play right now; for past few hours I just been starring at this forums. I am in shock after hearing this total 180. Ugh…

Fallen Angel.5092:

krookie.6378:

This infusion thing reminds me of WoW’s standard dungeons vs heroic versions. You can do most standard instances virtually naked while heroics require certain gear level. Are heroics content? They most certainly are. The major difference is that WoW revolves around a gear treadmill so gear gated content is basically part of the overall philosophy. GW2 does not revolve around a gear grind, yet, and up until this new patch you have access to all content, provided that you’re a competent player.

The artificial barriers that other players put on each other to make their gaming time easier is not the same as a forced barrier by the game. With player created barriers you can still do the content with other players, with a dev enforced barrier you cannot.

Indeed, it is content, but because it is a gear progression game, and awards higher quality gear, it is a necessity. Now, if the further difficulty level of increasing Agony is like a Challenge Mode Dungeon, and only rewards the same thing you can get in a level 0 run, there is no problem. It’s all for kitten flexing rights, nothing more. It’s the reason people do challenge modes in WoW. Bragging rights or some cool rewards. Maybe at Fractals 100 you get a sweet helmet to transmute or a cool Greatsword skin. We don’t know what those rewards will be. I sincerely doubt it’s going to be another tier of gear, so I can only speculate it to be something cosmetic or slightly more loot drops. More does not always necessarily mean better rewards

I think that this new agony con and infusion only on ascended items thing is to simply justify their switch to gear progression and make new gear desirable.

They could’ve achieved the same challenge mode dungeon by simply adding infusion slots to current exotics and legendaries. Or requiring some other variable, without adding slightly better gear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=100s

This really feels like a cold shower after having been so enthusiast about this game. I can’t begin to understand why the devs would turn their heads on one of the core ideas of Guild Wars.

Instead of that power creeping nonsense, I think they should bring back the prestige armor and make them quite a bit harder to obtain compared to the current exotic armors. Then make the new dungeons drop the materials so those that run dungeons can get the items first.

I mean, I didn’t like the first Guild Wars game much. From the absurd skill sets to the frustrating PvE missions that last 45+ minutes and have you start over on the first wipe, I found the game more frustrating then fun. However, ask me one thing that Guild Wars 1 did better then any other MMO and I’ll answer with the lack of power creeping. I absolutely loved working on gearing my warrior with an Elite Templar armor, it really felt like an accomplishment when I was done: my warrior looked awesome (I like “knighly” gear) and I knew that set which cost me a fortune would never become obsolete because gear power was capped.

I wouldn’t lie if I said that “aesthetic” progression is in the top-3 of the reasons why I purchased this game. After having played (and still playing) WoW I can say that Guild Wars 2 felt like a breath of fresh air. WoW’s power creeping is out of control, and getting epic gear doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment because I’ve seen 15 other tiers of epic equipment become deprecated before that.

Have I got it all wrong ???? I’ve read that this gear will only be good inside the new dungeon………. That won’t change anything outside this dungeon, you will still use your other armor outside the dungeon, and even if it’s good outside the dungeon the added power is probably minimal, like between Exotics and Legendary right now….

PLEASE STOP GOING CRAZY ! We need to learn more about this before we can judge……

I’m afraid I’m a no-life nerd, with too much time to waste, addicted to videogames (and no other videogame that I like but GW2), so… yeah. I’ll grind these items out. I was actually enjoying the more… “casual” approach but I was sure it wouldn’t have lasted. That’s a pity. I was hoping to take a break from all this run-a-dungeon-100-times-so-you’re-on-par-and-can-do-[X] thingy…Well, time to work my puppy out. Cya.

Whoa whoa guys, if you want to yell at each other go to one of the other treads. You have voiced your opinion on the pole. No reason to try to bend others to your will. Lets keep this thread civil shall we?

Craiger.8579:

Have I got it all wrong ???? I’ve read that this gear will only be good inside the new dungeon………. That won’t change anything outside this dungeon, you will still use your other armor outside the dungeon, and even if it’s good outside the dungeon the added power is probably minimal, like between Exotics and Legendary right now….

PLEASE STOP GOING CRAZY ! We need to learn more about this before we can judge……

Infusion slot is the only part that is dungeon only. The rest of the stats works outside of the dungeon.

Banquetto.9521:

I’m not going to start frothing at the mouth until we see some concrete details.

But if ArenaNet intend to move away from their originally expressed principles, and introduce content patches which inflate gear power, I will be very, very disappointed indeed.

So, the details are out, and it’s official: ArenaNet does intend to move away from their originally expressed principles, this content patch does inflate gear power, and further inflation is promised for the future.

I’m very, very disappointed indeed.

mjalkar.5284:

No.

Because in GW1 and in 7 years of its life you NEVER needed to add another “tier” (visual apart) and i don’t think it’s needed here too.

This, this, a million times this.

DUAxWolff.2759:

Whoa whoa guys, if you want to yell at each other go to one of the other treads. You have voiced your opinion on the pole. No reason to try to bend others to your will. Lets keep this thread civil shall we?

Tempers run hot when the developers of the game you love decide to go back on everything they said this game would be.

I’m not excited. I hate it. And by extension, everyone working on this game, and their families.

I take back all the good I’ve said about this game.

fixit.7189:

I uh can’t even play right now; for past few hours I just been starring at this forums. I am in shock after hearing this total 180. Ugh…

yup same here, and I haven’t even slept yet (it’s 10am here)..

I don’t see how anyone can hate them when we don’t even know exactly how it’s going to work.

Drama queens.

P.S. No where did Anet ever say exotics would be the final tier of armor. People just assumed that. The only clarification they need to address if they will be making more tiers of higher powered armor in the future.

Has anyone mentioned the fact that this will crash the market on crafted rings? Not nearly as important as sticking to a design philosophy, but yet another negative side effect of this planned update. If we get ascended armors, ascended weapons, etc. in the future, why should we bother crafting at all?

I do not support the gear treadmill, I feel lied to and I can’t believe I actually did believe them all these years that they’ve preached their steadfast belief in content over items, and promising not to do this very thing.

There, gave my vote.

If ascended gears are better than exotic gears, than what’s the difference between GW2 and WoW? or even other Korean OLGs? This news really make me feel disappointed at GW2.

So back in April ArenaNet released their very nice Manifesto. A quote from there states “It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment”.

What happened to that? They made an awesome game that holds so much promise for years of fun. Why change stance now and implement systems that games like WoW and Lotro tried and abandoned?!

Their clarification just makes me more worried! This kind of gear progression will just segregate ppl and if this how it will work in coming dungeons I can’t take a break for a couple of months and run current content with friends since I won’t have full ascended gear… :p

It’s an old stupid system, lazy, and boring game design to have this kind of artificial barrier in group content. I held ArenaNet to higher standards than this and hope they think long and hard regarding the path they take!

Hope the community can in an ordered and constructive fashion enlighten ArenaNet that this is not the game we bought and hoped to be playing years to come!

Cheers, Agaetis

Having played numerous MMO’s I eventually identified the one characteristic which drove me away from all of them. The gear treadmill. A gear treadmill is a linear design concept where every time new content is released, new gear is added with higher stats, effectively making all previous acquired gear obsolete (As well as your previous time & effort).

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

“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.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

Perhaps I am misinterpreting your meaning but what I am reading as a customer is:

“We are going to continue to add better gear with addition of every content update rendering your previous gear void & oh yeah, your friends who haven’t logged on in a few months they will no longer be able to do content with you because they are not ascended.”

Now if I am not mistaken in GW2’s mission statement/manifesto was it not stated that GW2 would “NOT” be a gear treadmill based MMO?

So back in April ArenaNet released their very nice Manifesto. A quote from there states “It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment”.

What happened to that? They made an awesome game that holds so much promise for years of fun. Why change stance now and implement systems that games like WoW and Lotro tried and abandoned?!

Their clarification just makes me more worried! This kind of gear progression will just segregate ppl and if this how it will work in coming dungeons I can’t take a break for a couple of months and run current content with friends since I won’t have full ascended gear… :p

It’s an old stupid system, lazy, and boring game design to have this kind of artificial barrier in group content. I held ArenaNet to higher standards than this and hope they think long and hard regarding the path they take!

Hope the community can in an ordered and constructive fashion enlighten ArenaNet that this is not the game we bought and hoped to be playing years to come!

Cheers, Agaetis

No, to endless gear treadmill.

fellyn.5083:

I don’t see how anyone can hate them when we don’t even know exactly how it’s going to work.

Drama queens.

P.S. No where did Anet ever say exotics would be the final tier of armor. People just assumed that. The only clarification they need to address if they will be making more tiers of higher powered armor in the future.

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

This image shows us everything we need to know to be concerned.

And it’s not about whether or not this is the “last” tier of items. It’s about the three months we’ve been playing, assembling our exotic armor sets to personal preference, only to have it thrust on us that all of it is going to become obsolete. This never happened in Guild Wars 1. That’s why we’re upset. If you put down Guild Wars after Prophecies and came back years later for Nightfall or EotN, your character would not have become less powerful than everyone else’s in that time.

“A well thought-out “endgame”

Thats your answer look no further, the game was rushed the endgame was unfinished thousands upon thousands of people left the game because there was nothing to do after full exotics that took only a week to obtain, which resulted in the mess they are having now. The endgame was not thought out and they let botting run rampant, now they are playing catch-up to fix it before everyone is gone.

To be honest i was going to try and convince my friends to buy this game now i’m having second thoughts.

Aerocell.5762:

The funny thing is that the vocal minority that wanted this change is already back to playing WoW.

Have you been in game? Where are the countless people running any but a select few DE’s? Being that there are only two level 80 zones, only one of which ever has a significant population involved with it. There is dungeon matchmaking in Lion’s Arch again making the world feel rather dead. None of this is what the Manifesto professed either, it was time to move forward. If it is a minority why do 1000’s of players farm Plixx? ET, all.

SiNoS.2147:

Craiger.8579:

Have I got it all wrong ???? I’ve read that this gear will only be good inside the new dungeon………. That won’t change anything outside this dungeon, you will still use your other armor outside the dungeon, and even if it’s good outside the dungeon the added power is probably minimal, like between Exotics and Legendary right now….

PLEASE STOP GOING CRAZY ! We need to learn more about this before we can judge……

Infusion slot is the only part that is dungeon only. The rest of the stats works outside of the dungeon.

Okay….. But my point still stands that the gear will probably not be better than exotics, well it’s going to be “better”, but it’s probably minimal like I said…..

And like someone said in another thread, it’s not like we can’t get to certain content without getting this gear…… We can get to all 9 parts of the dungeon with exotics or lower, it’s just that we need to get that gear for us to get to higher difficulty…. And you will get gear by doing the dungeon….

This is just a way to stop people from just getting to the “end” of the dungeon the same day it comes out, and then complain about there being no endgame…..

Don’t you think you’re being too dramatic, guys? I mean, I don’t like the vertical gear progression, but even me, a very casual player, has 3 80’s on his account with full exotics… Ascended items aren’t more than other armors that instead of using runes and jewels, uses infusion. Where’s the problem, QQ’s? (GW1)

It’s siiimple, eeeeeasy, and you don’t need to griiiiind…

Yamiino.1827:

Wiggles.6248:

i love how a large group of people complained there was nothing to do end game (apparently), so they gave everyone something to do… now no one wants to do it???

My game was fine, I still have A LOT of things to do in this game, sorry for those that claim that they finished the game in a week, but they havent, they just can’t think of a better thing to do than farm in Orr…

Such as run through empty zones and do jumping puzzles. Roger.

Nar.8327:

fellyn.5083:

I don’t see how anyone can hate them when we don’t even know exactly how it’s going to work.

Drama queens.

P.S. No where did Anet ever say exotics would be the final tier of armor. People just assumed that. The only clarification they need to address if they will be making more tiers of higher powered armor in the future.

https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png

This image shows us everything we need to know to be concerned.

So? All that shows is a ring that is slightly better than an exotic. Perhaps you should go back and reread what I said.

Craiger.8579:

SiNoS.2147:

Craiger.8579:

Have I got it all wrong ???? I’ve read that this gear will only be good inside the new dungeon………. That won’t change anything outside this dungeon, you will still use your other armor outside the dungeon, and even if it’s good outside the dungeon the added power is probably minimal, like between Exotics and Legendary right now….

PLEASE STOP GOING CRAZY ! We need to learn more about this before we can judge……

Infusion slot is the only part that is dungeon only. The rest of the stats works outside of the dungeon.

Okay….. But my point still stands that the gear will probably not be better than exotics, well it’s going to be “better”, but it’s probably minimal like I said…..

And like someone said in another thread, it’s not like we can’t get to certain content without getting this gear…… We can get to all 9 parts of the dungeon with exotics or lower, it’s just that we need to get that gear for us to get to higher difficulty…. And you will get gear by doing the dungeon….

This is just a way to stop people from just getting to the “end” of the dungeon the same day it comes out, and then complain about there being no endgame…..

Its going to be the same boost or more as exotics were over rare. That wasent a little boost.

Even more so than Ascended gear ……

a new Condition is being brought into the game called “agony” where you will have to focus on a specific “resistance stat” in order to beat tougher content because of Agony.

this scares the hell out of me, i have seen a few games try to add a specific “defensive stat” to PVE encounters. this is usually done as a gate mechanic and usually seperates communities between those that have it and those that don’t. you think you will see “group looking for 2 more with Ascended gear”? no what you will see is "group looking for 2 more must have 300+ “agony prevention stat”"

i have seen this type of defensive stat added to one of my favorite MMOs … EQ2. It was called Crit Mitigation and if you did not have enough you would get one shotted by raid mobs, and no amount of skill would stop that from happening. Eventually you needed X amount of Crit Mit in order to even join PVE groups especially raid group.

EQ2 finally removed this stat from the game EVERYONE was happy, from the casual game to the Hardcore Raider.

i think Agony is a terrible mechanic, thats going to split the PVE elitist from the rest even further. this is in my opinion worse than ascended gear.

If I wanted to play a gear grind game, I would play Rift. It’s grind is far better and so is its itemization.

Why have such a messy tier tree?
Basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, Legendary for both weapons and armour would have been fine.
Legendary being changed to have slightly better stats like you said you are gonna do.
Now you are adding some weird gear gate, that overlaps with legendary.
Just drop the infusion idea all together, its terrible idea and just add the dungeon as more content.
The people who wanted more gear grind, can go away and start grinding their legendary armour, thats alot of pieces to grind for, should keep them amused for year or so, make it brutally difficult to get.
You can even make the excuse you arnt breaking your manifesto, because you always planned to have legendary armour.
Dont understand how you came up with this, its just a mess, calm down, breath, take a step back and let things settle.
After this content update, start moving people over to bug fixing and everything will be fine.

Drazharm.1829:

Don’t you think you’re being too dramatic, guys? I mean, I don’t like the vertical gear progression, but even me, a very casual player, has 3 80’s on his account with full exotics… Ascended items aren’t more than other armors that instead of using runes and jewels, uses infusion. Where’s the problem, QQ’s? (GW1)

It’s siiimple, eeeeeasy, and you don’t need to griiiiind…

Infusion…okay, for the PvE players, if they really need gated content to feel cool…include runes. Sure, it would get too complicated with runes, infusions and all that stuff – so just include good PvE runes with magic find in the gear itself. Great, why not!
Oh, and just add a 8% stat increase!

It would have been fine, when they left the stats as they are right now!

just pushed my jeweler to 400 yesterday

99% of the game is still free of gear progression. Only this one endgame dungeon requires increasing amounts of “Agony” resistance, this is the one area where they’re building in progression, so people that would otherwise stop playing have a place to run 20 times per day.
It’s kinda like a Diablo minigame in the game. If you don’t like it, just skip it.

Besides, I’m sure that the next endgame dungeon will have… “Corruption” or something, that makes your Ascended gear full of Infusion completely useless, so you can start over again slotting “Purity” upgrades. (and at the same time, not having Infusion will not set you back in this new dungeon).

There is a simple solution: a gear slope instead of a gear treadmill.

Have magic-findish gear lower your effective level or give you some kind of other vulnerability to make non-endgame zones difficult for level 80s, with some kind of increased reward for players that choose to do this.

Cyrus.8261:

Besides, I’m sure that the next endgame dungeon will have… “Corruption” or something, that makes your Ascended gear full of Infusion completely useless, so you can start over again slotting “Purity” upgrades. (and at the same time, not having Infusion will not set you back in this new dungeon).

This would be even worse.

Snow.5269:

Having played numerous MMO’s I eventually identified the one characteristic which drove me away from all of them. The gear treadmill. A gear treadmill is a linear design concept where every time new content is released, new gear is added with higher stats, effectively making all previous acquired gear obsolete (As well as your previous time & effort).

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

---

“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.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

---

Perhaps I am misinterpreting your meaning but what I am reading as a customer is:

“We are going to continue to add better gear with addition of every content update rendering your previous gear void & oh yeah, your friends who haven’t logged on in a few months they will no longer be able to do content with you because they are not ascended.”

Now if I am not mistaken in GW2’s mission statement/manifesto was it not stated that GW2 would “NOT” be a gear treadmill based MMO?

There is no other way to make a MMO other than using the treadmill. Theres no progression without a treadmill… How do you guys not see that, how can sitting in the same gear since you turned level 80, and downing bosses that don’t vary in toughness be fun!?

Khemizt.5104:

Snow.5269:

Having played numerous MMO’s I eventually identified the one characteristic which drove me away from all of them. The gear treadmill. A gear treadmill is a linear design concept where every time new content is released, new gear is added with higher stats, effectively making all previous acquired gear obsolete (As well as your previous time & effort).

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

---

“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.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

---

Perhaps I am misinterpreting your meaning but what I am reading as a customer is:

“We are going to continue to add better gear with addition of every content update rendering your previous gear void & oh yeah, your friends who haven’t logged on in a few months they will no longer be able to do content with you because they are not ascended.”

Now if I am not mistaken in GW2’s mission statement/manifesto was it not stated that GW2 would “NOT” be a gear treadmill based MMO?

There is no other way to make a MMO other than using the treadmill. Theres no progression without a treadmill… How do you guys not see that, how can sitting in the same gear since you turned level 80, and downing bosses that don’t vary in toughness be fun!?

WvW?

no i would rather have new exotics with new skins that are dropped from this dungeon.