Guild Wars 2

Ganzo.5079:

MajorMelchett.6042:

Teknobug.3782:

Riaky.8965:

I’m very excited and gonna pwn a lot of people in WvWvW w/ my new Ascended gears to whoever doesn’t want to do the new dungeon & QQers!

<3 Anet!

This is my other concern, this can create pvp imbalance.

I actully hope it does create an imbalance, this will force them to make a change to remove the imbalance – they can’t just say “well if you want an even playing field in WvWvW, go do dungeons”.

It will create imbalance for sure!
Think about a mirror match (same class, same build) with 2 equally skilled players! Better gear = WIN

WvW was never intended to be balanced…

Cappy.2786:

Only ppl that didin’t play GW1 will rage,nuff said

Its the people that DID play GW1 that are raging, because we know how awesome it was to play a game for 6 years and never have to upgrade gear that entire time.

Right or wrong design decision , I do believe we as the mmorpg community need to hold companies accountable when they break their word, or we can expect more of the same in the future.

jG Geej.6459:

Even after playing through many MMOs over many years, I have to say that I am still surprised by this community’s reaction over the forums (I do realize it is only a small fraction of the playerbase). Moreover, people’s reaction is ridiculous.

First off, things change. Period. ANet said there would be no gear treadmill, but people blew through the available gear tiers and complained. We now have Ascended gear as a response to complaints. It is a good business decision and a good decision for their game.

Second off, the stat difference is miniscule. An 8% stat increase at level 80 is nothing and will not sway a battle in WvW – where, by the way, equal gear for all was never intended. There are more than enough people complaining about the stat increase, saying it’s meaningful, but +8% of a stat on a piece of gear does not translate to +8% damage output.

Third off, Ascended gear is not barring anyone from the new PvE content. I know all of you complainers can read, but did you skip through the description of how the dungeon will work? You can experience all of the content to your heart’s content, but if you want to do it on super-hard-mode then you better start putting on protection from Agony.

Fourth off, Ascended gear is not customizable. Read that again. Exotic gear has upgrade slots that you can use to customize your stats to whatever build you would like. Ascended gear only has a modification slot for infusions – you cannot modify the stats however you would like. This is the tradeoff.

Fifth off, grow the hell up. This raging portion of the community is acting like a group off pre-pubescent teens, feeding off of one another’s displeasure. If you want change, be constructive, ie. after you have had a chance to actually test the content.

This change will be fantastic for the game. Ascended gear will still allow everyone, including casual players who are bad, to play all PvE content. For players who spend too much time playing games and casual players who are good, infusions and Agony will provide a proper gating system into the hardcore content. Above all, infusions will have no effect in WvW. This change is brilliant.

TL;DR: If you skipped here, you are most likely part of the problem.

If you seriously think people wont be asking for ascended gear for content other than Fractal, you need to think again. Players will always take the path of least resistance meaning that if you have more powerful gear, you will be considered above those that don’t have it.

Ascended gear will block players from current grouped PvE content as well as the new stuff. Have you not seen the people that are specifying ‘level 80 only’ for AC and such? Just wait for the ‘LFM, must have Ascended!’.

Taek.4671:

Smartbean.5960:

If you keep the bold bit within the quote above in mind, reading the article linked in the OP would make an awful lot of sense, so people who didn’t play Lotro, but do play GW2 can see what’s coming.

In my opinion the Acsended gear and even the infusion slots could be interesting, BUT the Agony condition is a very very bad idea as it’s the same gating mechanism as Radiance was in Lotro, locking out players from experiencing ‘new’ content!

Imo, it would be best to revert this mechanic asap, before it’s too late.

I still don’t agree you can compare the two. Agony is a damage type and dread isn’t. In Lotro you have mitigation to negate the damage types e.g. all the new wound, diseases, etc. that were introduced, plus could bump this through character stats. Raid sets had bonus mitigations on them. You could try hard mode without it but it would be extremely hard or do it with them and be easier. I see this as the same, except there is no easy mode and hard mode, but phases from easy mode to hard mode. Based on what I have read we will be able to do the early levels without anything special, but to do the harder levels we will.

To me this is like saying hard mode in Lotro is gating because you need to do easy mode to get the gear to do hard mode.

With radiance there was no chance of even doing easy mode without it. To me that is the difference.

I see what you mean. However, the dread (caused by lack of amount of radiance) also influenced your incoming and outgoing damage by percentage (excluding mitigations). Dread could only be countered by a combination of Hope tokens and Raidance gear. Later that got split up and Hope tokens countered Dread and Radiance countered gloom (not sure of the term now).

But unfortunately in GW2 we don’t have mitigations to counter effects, we only have boons and conditions, and with this Agony condition being ‘forced’ upon you and you only have 1 way to counter it (i.e. acquiring and slotting a specific infusion into your gear) there’s this gating mechanism created for which you need to get an item in order to experience the rest of the content. And in that light I think it has the same effect like Radiance had in LotRO; it prevented people from progressing and/or experiencing (new) content.

Only understanding I am getting out of this is I will have to grinds legendaries and Ascended gear in PVE to play with the big boys in Wv3 and then have to do it again over and over as more gears is put in. It’s kinda depressing and a far departure from what this game was initially supposed to be about. It becomes just like every other MMO out there right now thus not being unique no more.

Agreed.

Currently we have a thread mindlessly saying that it’s the oft-quoted “5% minority” complaining on the forum and now this thread that are being kept open.

Intelligent posts outlining some potential problems with the current direction the game is going are being locked, deleted or merged.

Admit. The. Hypocrisy.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

about 4000 posts about this issue in two days lets me wonder: how come the conclusion that most of the gw2 players want a gear progression?

Because most of the gw2 players aren’t here on gw2forums.

Natural.7013:

I love vertical progression. This game had no depth. They are moving in right direction.

If you love vertical progression, why are you playing GW2? Seriously it is the game that people that dislike vertical progression has flocked too.

I cannot help but feel, that it is people like the above that are forcing Anet to add power creep.

The thank you threads are being merged into the Thoughts on Ascended Gear thread.

Which makes NO Sense!!! What are you doing ArenaNet?

Also Thank you! I can’t wait for some gear progression also!
Now if we could get 8 or 10 player raids then I would be very happy!
My friends and I have a BLAST raiding!! Good times!!

Im disappointed too but not surprised. Look, since the game went live a week later people have been coming here and whining about no end game, easy dungeons, and easy gear multiple threads every day. A vocal minority maybe, but it seems anet is acquiescing to the complaints. Instead of a massive gear grind which is what this will be, why not just 1 epic piece you get for doing the new event, like with the Halloween thing.

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

You’re kidding right? What “new market”? If by “new market” you mean WoW’s subscription base….gotcha…..

The game was advertised a specific way. People who came from other games knew what to expect if they did any research on this game all the way up-until-now. This game was designed in the model of GW1 from the start. It is only now, two months into release, that there has been a complete reversal of philosophy.

And this game is dying? Since when? Of the 24 US servers, 16 are full and the rest are heavy.

They are going to mold the game around what brings in the most revenue, no matter what they promised. If they feel gear progression is preferred by more people that buy gems than static gear and cosmetic carrots, that is what they will do. they are first and foremost a business.

If they honestly thought that this change in direction would lead to a drop off in revenue , it would never have made it past the brainstorming phase.

This is a question for ArenaNet. It would be really nice if you could post a personal answer to it.

Why do you need to put grind in your game? That is, when you admit that no one enjoys it and promise everyone that the game will not be grindy, you put it in. Why?

For what reason did you decide that players need to do dozens if not hundreds of dungeons, just to get some cosmetic armor? Why don’t you completely remove all grind from your game?

So what if everyone has exotic or ascended items? Aren’t these MMOs supposed to be about community and challenges? Why did you place time sinks and grind in the game? Even ‘grind’ in GW1 was more fun.

Why are you punishing people for playing Guild Wars 2?

Sorry, but it escapes my understanding. Thanks.

So, what do people think will come after Ascended items once all slots are released to keep the grind going?.

It needs to be 1 word and sound better than Exotic and Ascended but not as good as Legendary,

Metafrank.9017:

prenavo.3926:

This question only works if the majority of the games population answers this question. For that the majority of the players would have to be on the forums. I’m pretty sure more than half of the people who play never visit the forums.

So who were the people that were for it? Because Linsay states that the decision was made due to feedback of the community. Well, it’s certainly not THIS community, I think that is pretty obvious now.

This is actually something that I’d love to know myself. I really wish they would tell us exactly how they find out this stuff. I’m all for the new content coming in, but this one thing remains a mystery to everyone. To be fair, I think it’s something we should all know the specifics of.

Just read through the article linked from the game log-in. My first thought – No, ANet, No!

The thing about infusion in GW1 was that it wasn’t “progression.” You could get it as part of the story line. Even if you were playing WiK, it wasn’t too hard to run and get your armor infused. Plus, if you happened to forget, the story line still wasn’t impossible. I had at least one character that finished the Battle for LA without a single piece of infused armor.

But now, in GW2 we have to use the mystic forge to get this gear? And its rarity is somewhere between exotic and legendary? Gah! That stupid forge has dropped only 1 exotic for me out of 50 lvl 75 and above rares I put into it. Somehow I am supposed to get a full set of gear that is rarer than that in order to play new content adequately?

Blech – just blech

Not to mention the fact that, if it has better stats than exotic, eventually we will be forced to get it to play even standard content if we are to feel like we are really contributing to the team and not just tagging along.

No! No! No! No! and No!

This is not progression – is just a rat wheel.

Just reading this thread Anet should know easily that the majority of players dont want this Ascend gear. They dont want gear progression. Thats why they play GW2 instead of other games. The people who complained about no gear progression/no end game are a minority of people.

Instead of using this gear progression to try to “create” “end game” please use your ingenuity to create more fun content for us to “do” and have fun in this game. Keep grinding for gears is not “end game” is “getting to” to end game like other games where your goal each time you log on is to grind for that “best gear” then after some time you need to grind for the “next set” of gear. That does not sound fun if you think about it. Because whatever your gear it will become useless. and end game is just grinding for gear and always “getting to” and never at end game. As you probably know aready that is why most GW 2 players left other games.
Please dont do this. Use your ingenuity to create for your players some REAL fun end game content.

MajorMelchett.6042:

So, what do people think will come after Ascended items once all slots are released to keep the grind going?.

Descended gear with even more stats increase and an addition slot for a new condition called Hope.

If you do not have enough hope, your skills cooldown is doubled.

Katie Feathermoore.5031:

Cappy.2786:

Only ppl that didin’t play GW1 will rage,nuff said

Its the people that DID play GW1 that are raging, because we know how awesome it was to play a game for 6 years and never have to upgrade gear that entire time.

Agreed, I played GW1 from its release and stuck with very much the same gear throughout the expansions only sorting runes on my armour, I think its a very bad choice given for the game as a gw1 player due to the amount of consistent upgrading people may need to grind for. If I wanted this Id of played warcraft o.<

MajorMelchett.6042:

So, what do people think will come after Ascended items once all slots are released to keep the grind going?.

It needs to be 1 word and sound better than Exotic and Ascended but not as good as Legendary,

For my guild, it if they go through with this, they could just as well call it “Abandoned”.

Lifeson.4352:

An idea I had for Ascended gear is to have normal exotic stats PLUS magic find. Then you will get something out of it but not have more power than people without it.

That’s what i was thinking, the picture shows magic gear only, if they kept ascended to magic gear only it wouldn’t be that bad.

showatt.9413:

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

While many would appreciate that, it would have been quite OK if they had stayed true to their original claims.

Vorch.2985:

Ganzo.5079:

MajorMelchett.6042:

Teknobug.3782:

Riaky.8965:

I’m very excited and gonna pwn a lot of people in WvWvW w/ my new Ascended gears to whoever doesn’t want to do the new dungeon & QQers!

<3 Anet!

This is my other concern, this can create pvp imbalance.

I actully hope it does create an imbalance, this will force them to make a change to remove the imbalance – they can’t just say “well if you want an even playing field in WvWvW, go do dungeons”.

It will create imbalance for sure!
Think about a mirror match (same class, same build) with 2 equally skilled players! Better gear = WIN

WvW was never intended to be balanced…

It never intended that a WvW only player must have a gear less strong then a dungeon runner. Not the badge gear is less avaible then dungeon gear, but its still there… with ascend items, there is no choice.

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

Because it’s not a compromise!
Simple as that. You can’t have cookie and eat it.
In this case, there is always either vertical progression, or no vertical progression.

Every single other MMO on the market has vertical progression, true. Sad but true.
GW2 was advertised – and recently – as a game different from those MMOs, also in thsi aspect. So this is not only not compromise, it’s a betrayal of customer trust.

If you didn’t like lack of gear grind in GW2, you should have looked for a different game. Saying gear grind is neccessary is a false assumption, GW1 was fine for years without it: it even stayed fine after ANet has officially stated no more expansions will be made! Game does not need gear grind to be succesful, despite what all the other MMOs made you think.

Sam.4728:

Either merge this thread too, or admit the hypocrisy.

I owe the forum moderator an apology. You just can’t be in every thread at once. Sorry for the bile.

xtorma.1283:

They are going to mold the game around what brings in the most revenue, no matter what they promised. If they feel gear progression is preferred by more people that buy gems than static gear and cosmetic carrots, that is what they will do. they are first and foremost a business.

If they honestly thought that this change in direction would lead to a drop off in revenue , it would never have made it past the brainstorming phase.

That’s not necessarily the case. MMO development companies are notorious for implementing drastic changes to the game as they become jealous of WoW’s subscription base. Afterall, if Blizzard can do it….so can they.

More often than not it is a complete and utter failure and it has never even come close to reaching WoW’s success.

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

If I wanted to play a game based on gear progression I wouldnt choose this one.
If I chose to play GW2 is to have equipment parity among all player base, and not a race to get a weapon that deals 9999dmg

Cappy.2786:

Only ppl that didin’t play GW1 will rage,nuff said

Its the people who did play Guild Wars 1 that are raging and saying “leave my precious Guild Wars 2 just like Guild Wars 1” Don’t ever change a thing darn you!!

Those are the people who are raging.

You know they could go back to Guild Wars 1 if they don’t like it!
At least they have that option!!

\

Algreg.3629:

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

well, then it would have been rather up front of them to say “we are making a WoW-hybrid with lots of grinding” instead of boasting for years “we will reinvent the genre and there will be no powercreep and gear treadmill”, wouldn´t you agree?

But then less people will buy their game.

Have you ever heard of a guy called Peter Molyneux?

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

No, most people here don’t want it to be exclusive to GW1. They only point out that you can have a game without gear treadmill that will last for years. Gear treadmill isn’t required. GW2 wasn’t to be about getting the max stats, as those would be fairly easy to get. GW2 was about getting the awesome looks. And those would require more work. And now ANet has decided to scrap that and start to implement a gear treadmill. Only tiny steps at first, but the precedent is there.

gadenp.7586:

MajorMelchett.6042:

So, what do people think will come after Ascended items once all slots are released to keep the grind going?.

Descended gear with even more stats increase and an addition slot for a new condition called Hope.

If you do not have enough hope, your skills cooldown is doubled.

Pretty good actully, i can actully see that coming.

I do not like ascended gear because I do not want to have to farm new WvW gear every balance update AND tier update.

Let WvW use pvp gear or put a fork in ascended gear… or both…

Spectral Agony from GW1 required armor infusion to mitigate. It wasn’t a problem.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spectral_Agony

Which is why I say wait and see before you rage yourself to death…

I love ascended gear – the stat difference is too low for it to be a requirement and the fact that it’s non customizable means someone in exotic gear will be balanced instead of focused. That means they will do less DPS than an exotic spec’d in damage, have less HP than an exotic spec’d in HP and do less healing than an exotic spec’d in healing power…

MrLee.6892:

Its the people who did play Guild Wars 1 that are raging and saying “leave my precious Guild Wars 2 just like Guild Wars 1” Don’t ever change a thing darn you!!

Do you really think that GW2 is anywhere near to GW1? Apart from name and story there are hardly any similarities anymore.
(That itself doesn’T make GW2 a bad game, though.)

I posted this is in an other thread and I shall post it here too.

I don’t understand where all the people are coming from who are saying that gear grind is required to keep a game alive. Almost every game that has a gear grind and was released after WoW’s release, died. In the meanwhile games like EVE Online, League of Legends, Minecraft, and other similiar games are still going strong even though none of them have a major gear grind going on. Heck, even WoW lost 3 mil subs after they focused way too much on raiding and raiding only in Cataclysm, hence why they are putting lots of “horizontal” content in WoW like the Darkmoon Faire Island, pet battles and the new brawler thing. All of these things don’t reward any progressive gear, apart from the Darkmoon decks that is.

Vorch.2985:

Spectral Agony from GW1 required armor infusion to mitigate. It wasn’t a problem.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spectral_Agony

Which is why I say wait and see before you rage yourself to death…

Yeah but you could infuse any armor in GW1 and it did not require you to trash your old WvW gear and farm new gear.

MrLee.6892:

Cappy.2786:

Only ppl that didin’t play GW1 will rage,nuff said

Its the people who did play Guild Wars 1 that are raging and saying “leave my precious Guild Wars 2 just like Guild Wars 1” Don’t ever change a thing darn you!!

Those are the people who are raging.

You know they could go back to Guild Wars 1 if they don’t like it!
At least they have that option!!

\

The same could be said about people who want gear progression. There’s dozens of MMOs already in existence with this same exact model of gameplay.

Telling people to hit the road is never a good idea.

After reading the blog post and through this thread, I have only 1 word to describe it.

“Depressing”.

pregnable.1954:

I do not want to have to farm

Same here.

wtf how many flame, guys the patch is not out yet you are flaming for nothing

don’t say “omg i got farmed for mounths to get exotic” it is not true, i got farmed 4 hours for get my full exotic

ascendant is better than exotic? 2 stat yeah, with my green on my alt i am able to kill full exotic enemy, these stat are not really important

there is 1 screen about 1 ring magic find, maybe they put only magic find ascendant? or maybe not

what about “lfm only ascendant”? the dungeon got 1 difficul level progress, so at lv 1 you don’t need ascendant gear but you drop ascendant for do the lv2 etc etc

are we sure you can use theese item in wvwvwvw?
are we sure you can’t get theese item in wvwvwvw version?
theese item are craftable? there are 200 new recipe in the patch note and new resource craft

if they are craftable like i bet then theese item are easy to obtain like exotic gear, you will spent at least only 1 or 2 hours for get full accesory, where is the problems?
the only hard item to obtain is the “infusion” for the dungeon and maybe the back

we haven’t full info, so you are raging for theory and speculation
wait the patch release and they you are free for raging or not

PS: usually the qq people that said “i quit the game”, after the release, are the first to farming….

Either you get with the program, that progression is needed and it’s needed now, or you can kiss Guild Wars 2 completely goodbye.

This game needs a carrot that’s not Legendaries. Folks, if you think that this isn’t being done because they are having a retention problem, then you need to look again.

If ArenaNet doesn’t put something in there to keep people playing, and quickly, GW2 is toast. I love the game, but that’s just the truth.

pregnable.1954:

I do not like ascended gear because I do not want to have to farm new WvW gear every balance update AND tier update.

Let WvW use pvp gear or put a fork in ascended gear… or both…

I just don’t get comments like this.

What I see is: I get to level 80, get all the gear I wanted then sit and pvp/WvWvW or run dungeons for the rest of the games lifespan and have no new goals to strive for.

How is that fun?
I really don’t get it!!!!

For my part, as soon as GW2 starts having a gear threadmill, with gear “tiers” above what the game launched, I’m likely to just abandon the game.

I started playing mostly because I thought GW2 would have a very strong gear parity, similar to GW1, with everyone capable of obtaining gear that is effectively BIS gear soon after dinging max level and content access being based exclusively on skill. The grind to get exotic gear was already a let down, and a major reason I’m not playing for the last month or so; as soon as I started the grind, I lost most interest in the game. If ANet then goes and add new, higher gear “tiers”, I’m most likely leaving the game permanently.

Even worse, from the blog post, that “Infusion”/“Agony” mechanism is an almost identical rehash of LotRO’s old, failed experiment with a “Radiance” stat on gear and a “Dread” mechanic that uses that stat. It’s an intentional gear threadmill intended to prevent players from completing the content without gear grind; from the blog, “Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must”.

In other words, ANet is not only adding a larger gear grind / threadmill, but resurrecting some kinds of stat-based restrictions to progression speed that LotRO, and even WoW (with resistance gear), used in the past and discarded as being harmful to the game. It’s turning a game where, up until now, skill was the most important thing for progression, into a game where how much time the player has spent grinding gear is more important than skill, at least when it comes to progressing in the new content.

cherrie.8907:

munkiman.3068:

I won’t be defending ANet’s decision, but rather to say that this was a much needed thing. Yes, they can certainly travel down the path of a gear treadmill if they continue this trend, but i highly doubt they will. It just feels right now it’s that little extra polish the end game really needed.

I’m sorry but i simply can’t see how.

The whole game was balances (where it was balanced…) with Exotic gear stats in mind, exotic was meant to be the top tier, always.
How is adding a new tier for no-life farmers who didn’t read game description before they bought it adding polish to the game?

Balanced to exotics? Hardly, most of the game (including dungeons) can be done in blues. Even in WvW your not at much disadvantage running green gear, it’s such a zerg right now. Also, you don’t have to be a no life farmer to have an exotic set, there are 2 pretty tried and true ways to get them without farming. I’m pretty sure acquiring basic ascended types will be the same deal. From what i can tell by reading that blog post, it seems as though there will be a rarity level to ascended stuff as well. I also don’t doubt they will either not touch PvP gear or just bring all that gear up to stat, eliminating any issue there at all. There is also the fact that those that spent time farming for dungeon gear can transmute the look onto ascended gear stats, which basically makes all their work for gear hardly un-worthwhile with the intro of this new type.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

showatt.9413:

fixit.7189:

Wow, this thread is a mess. They are cramming anything related to this topic right into this one and making it even more confusing than it already is. What real dev is going to even bother reading it now? lol.

It’s actually best that they don’t.

honestly most people here are all about GW1 and wanting to make the game exclusive to GW1 fans.

They don’t want to game to reach out to a new market – instead they’re happy to close their eye and pretend the game isn’t dying because the lack of progression.

Gw2 is nothing like Gw1, which is why the “diehard” gw1 fans have already gone back to gw1.

Gw2 is a game on its own, and it has attracted not only gw1 fans but also fans of other MMO. to satisfy everyone’s need, compromises have to be made. It’s really sad how most of the community doesn’t seem to understand that.

No, most people here don’t want it to be exclusive to GW1. They only point out that you can have a game without gear treadmill that will last for years. Gear treadmill isn’t required. GW2 wasn’t to be about getting the max stats, as those would be fairly easy to get. GW2 was about getting the awesome looks. And those would require more work. And now ANet has decided to scrap that and start to implement a gear treadmill. Only tiny steps at first, but the precedent is there.

A treadmill, which caters to the need of those that comes from a hardcore grinding background, hence reaching out to more audience, instead of catering the game exclusively to GW1 player who prefer only the skin.

GW1 player is pointing out you can have a game that last for year without gear progression – aka Gw1.

Gw2 is , once again, not Gw1.

Gw1 is about getting awesome Skin.

Gw2 is a young game, too early to tell what it is going to be about.

At the rate its heading, I’m pretty sure gw2 will be a game that ‘caters to both fan of gear progression and those who doesn’t want them.’

how do they achieve that?

Well for starter you can’t use better gears in pvp. Spvp are still free of gear grind. Only thing that’s changed is PVE (which is good because doing dungeon is made easy by better gears ) and Wpvp (which you can avoid).

If you want to prove your own worth as a player and show off ur skill, uninfluenced by gears = Spvp

IF you want to do dungeons and get better gear ONLY if you want to = Pve

If you want to help your server win by getting better gear = Wpvp

This is Anet reaching out to new audience.
Somehow you still don’t seem to understand that.

Vorch.2985:

Spectral Agony from GW1 required armor infusion to mitigate. It wasn’t a problem.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spectral_Agony

Which is why I say wait and see before you rage yourself to death…

The infusion was available on your regular armor though – they are creating a whole new armor set to combat Agony. Please don’t throw this argument out there, it’s asinine.

Why is everyone freaking out and acting like this is “God 1 hit everything” gear? its only 8 more stat points, 3% magic find, and You cannot even apply a talisman/rune to it. Not to mention that the stats are ONLY power/prec/magic find. Also, it has similarities to legendaries. And yes, legendaries ARE better than exotics, even though it isnt by much. So basically, this gear is only good for dungeons since there is agony condition.

Sam.4728:

Like most other players, I first read the ascended armor blog post to be the addition of gear treadmills to GW2. I was outraged. However, after a more careful reading of the blog post, I think that this is NOT what Arenanet has actually said.
…

I do remember posts about requesting another tier between exotic and legendary and it seems this will be the gap filler between those. This made me think about where Ascended will evolve, although the blog post explains this better than the news media, it still leaves some questions in the air like you point out.

Are the new Ascended gear stats final ? Will these stats change with future content or will they remain the optimal stat gear only changing the different infusion upgrades?

“…The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items…”

This is what many people fear, if with future content…
… will new tiers be introduced with new infusion slots leading to the optimal stat threadmill or just new items to finish itemization of this new tier ?

If just a Tier filler and gear stats will be final for future content releases, it will be fine…
… just wished this would happen earlier to save me the trouble of gearing up 3 toons with exotics and skip straight to Ascended…

Nevertheless, i think further explanation by Anet would be nice, to clear up this mess…