Guild Wars 2

Fiontar.4695:

I think most of the posters in the thread need to re-read the information on ascended gear and Fractals of the Mist dungeon, including the blog post, over and over until they actually understand it. there is nothing here to be up in arms about. Nada.

Ascended Gear has stats on par with Exotic Gear that has enhancements already applied. Ascended gear removes enhancement slots in order to be able to provide infusion slots. This gear will not be more powerful, outside of Fractals of the Mist, than properly enhanced Exotic gear! Ascended gear will provide another method for players to acquire exotic quality end game gear, but some may miss the opportunity to customize their stats via enhancements.

Where Ascended Gear shines is when equipped with infusions, or when the item comes with resistance to the new FotM exclusive monster condition built in. This system will allow players who play a lot of FotM to get deeper and deeper into the FotM experience on a given extended run.

It’s an end game dungeon progression, but the gear progression provides zero gear inflation outside of FotM!

I look at FotM as another form of adjunct game play in the same vein as WvW and sPvP. They are optional forms of alternative game play meant to appeal to people with particular play styles and content preferences. You can completely ignore FotM dungeon, if you wish, and you will not see the rest of your game play suffer as a result. Others may play FotM almost exclusively. It’s just another way for the game to broaden it’s appeal and offer players more game play options to suit thier changing mood!

^^
This.

I already stated it. Ascended Gear has built-in upgrade slot, yes, but you cannot put your runes in it. Only Infusions. This is what i surmised after having read the blogpost at least six times (i am not english native, so i have to read multiple times).

So, Ascended could be WORSE than exotics, because of the lack of stats from upgrades!

Nerth.3940:

Webba.3071:

And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?

So many people seem to forget that you already bought the game, there is no sub fee so customer retention is a myth. What you want as a company in a B2P or F2P game is to sell items in a cash shop.

It doesn’t matter if people play or don’t play as long as you generate enough revenue to keep the game alive.

I have already spent money (100€) on gems to upgrade my bank, character slots and bag space because I thought I was in for the long run and I don’t mind spending a lot more for cool armor skins but there aren’t any.

So, instead of populating the gem store with cool stuff to buy I will get the same gear grind I’ve left other MMOs for? That has to be the best business decision ever.

And I can assure you that the best customer is a paying customer with money to spend. Long gone are the collage days when I had a lot of time but little money. Nowadays, I have enough disposable income but a lot less time to “grind” in games.

Guess what I will do if this goes through? I won’t spend any more on the gem store because I know that several months to a year down the line the difference won’t be just 8% in stats. Been there, done that and I’m done with gear based MMOs.

I understand, but high schoolers with access to credit to their mom’s credit card, sadly, aren’t. There are also many other people who enjoys gear progression – its one of the reason why so many f2p games out there rely solely on item mall and they still manage to do well.

Teenager with access to their parent’s credit card.

They’re the ones who are ruining the industry.

I just don’t get it why change this casual friendly stats progression and force people into grinding this particular dungeon to get “slightly” better stats. Can’t you add those ascended gear items into every dungeon then? Give us “hero explorable” mode and put ascended armors in that dungeon rewards as well?

I understand peoples feelings but in my opinion its good and bad. its good because lot of people NEED something to let them stay and pure cosmetic is not enough for lots of people. i see no bad thing in adding some better gear though i do heavily agree its too early.

Fabsm.5897:

So, Ascended could be WORSE than exotics, because of the lack of stats from upgrades!

Look carefully at the picture in the preview. The upgrades are BUILT into the Ascended item. The stats are flat out better. You lose customisability, but gain an infusion slot.

We are arguing and complaining, slitting some throats, but where the kitten is Anet? You need to calm your player base asap, because the majority is freaking out. Give us a real reason why you did this, because the reason your provided is a crappy one.

You guys were more responsive during the intensive development of the game before its release than you are now… for the love of god answer us BEFORE the 15th, because as it stands… many of us are VERY unhappy and I know you can see that.

Don’t be a bunch of b**terds please…

Dimeschemo.5493:

the way around all this is to have dungeon sets unlock hidden fights for you in the ex modes of the dungeons that way u do the first ex paths with normal gear but the sets of that dungeon unlock hidden paths make the game more fun for people quit using stale old ideas of mmo ,

This.

What is wrong with expanding the current dungeons? It’s not like they take up physical space. And fix the bugs and loot and whatever else is making dungeon people unhappy.

New island for 80s? Fine! New land! New dungeons even, if you think that’s really necessary. But new gear? Really? That’s not innovation. That’s old and tired.

New shinies? Bring them on! Finally some strong incentive to play the game…farming Plinx was getting quite boring…

Ascended gear will most likely be more powerful than exotic gear. Why would they say there are “offensive, defensive, and omni” infusions if they didn’t change stats and only protected against spectral agony?

Ok, brief summary of horizontal vs. vertical in the Gw franchise from my perspective.
Gw1: Max lvl and gear reached quickly. Further character development was in the form of an increasing amount of available skills, more attribute points to spend on different lines further increasing your possiblities in builds, secondary proffessions to be explored and so forth. All this to be able to overcome incresingly difficult content. At some point you were “maxed” out on the above(if that was even possible) but the content still got harder, so you had to think and be creative with all the tools at your disposal.
Gw2: All basic skills unlocked within an hour or so of charater creatiion, rest is utility, some oddities that mildly increses possibilities in your playstyle. Now you need to lvl up to 80, while constantly collecting gear. Now you are 80, congrats, get the final gear, and perhaps the last few utlities/elites. Min/max abit with traits.
And here comes the dilemma. Should we smack on new challenges along with a gear treadmill to to overcome them, and when they are done with that content, we do it again? Or should we learn from the prequel?
No brainer in my humble oppinion.
Give power to the players, and precent them with challenges to overcome. Dont give challenges to the players, and present powergear to overcome them. There is more than enough vertical progression in the game as it is atm.
Really…. “New content is super hard, but once you have collected this and this, its not so hard anymore.” Where’s the propect in that?

At the present moment the Guild wars 2 staff are sitting around a big table discussing what to do.

Later they will come onto the forums and give us some diplomatic bullkitten that will hopefully in their eyes cool everyone down.

They have too much self pride so they will not do anything about the issue everyone is complaining about.

Get rid of the stat increase and this infusion crap keep the stats the same and POOF everyone is happy again.

E Tan.7385:

So far, GW1 keeped player for 7 years pretty easyly, why ? because tons of skills ( 200skills per class + multiclass ), tons of differents possible builds. It mean ALWAYS change your gameplay.
And the only farm was 100% cosmetic. It worked perfectly.

it work too for Mabinogi ( VERY old mmo ) why ? also a skill based game with no class, you can learn and play everything ( melee / ranged / magic / alchemy /..etc )
But you have to rank skill to make them more powerfull ( painfull grind part, but with a faraway more interesting goal ), and the rock – paper – scissor game style is just very interesting.
But you have nearly 0 gear grind, except for the skin too.

This game work like a charm since 2004, and 2008-2009 in NA.

Its a skill based game. focused on the GAMEPLAY. like GW1 was.

But GW2 only have a real poor gameplay and choice to make build like all boring mmo. No real party gameplay, poor dungeon only based on dodge and not on skill like GW1.. etc.
It mean get bored really fast, so only way to keep player “forcing” play is the gear grinding.
Also, the pvp is far away less interesting than the GW1 one ( no arena, no GvG, no HoH )
Anet really fail his “GuildWars” 2 even if there is quiet a lot interesting idea.

So like many here i just hate the gear grinding, but at see the poor GW2 gameplay possibilities i’am not surprised that Anet choose this easyest way instead of take the hard way to improoved smartly the GW2 gameplay.

So fail.

This, and that’s why game like lol, dota2 got a lot of players.

The ascended gear has fixed stats and cannot be upgraded. In the future, when the armor pieces come out, don’t expect to be able to rune them. Also don’t expect for them to provide every stat combination imaginable. For example, if you run with stacked crit damage, exotics will probably still be the best.

For the “treadmill” it will not happen for the gear itself. There won’t be tier 2 ascended gear. If they did go that route, it would be a different rarity. What they did leave open is the infusion slots. Since they’re starting at fine rarity, that means they can upgrade them over time for harder dungeons.

Since the ascended gear is supposed to be rare and I’m assuming rare as in dropped rather than because there’s only 2 pieces available, then I do expect that people will have to grind for it by killing the spawned bosses every 6 levels. Certain bosses will probably drop certain pieces, unless they went full on RNG, then that’s just mean. Either way, there’s probably not a lot of stat variations, meaning the example ring could very well be one of the only rings, for now.

As for gating content, there is no gate. You do not need ascended gear to complete the dungeon. You only need it for the challenge mode style of the dungeon, which revolves around repeating the dungeon over and over until you die due to agony.

There is a lot of exaggeration flying around and some people are way too quick to jump ship. It’s not like it’s raid gear that allows you to faceroll that only the 1% can obtain. And for those complaining, thinking they never had to change their gear again, a level cap increase would have eventually forced you to anyways.

i for one am not going to up and quit all toghter like come back for dailys and monthlys and such but it really puts a hurt on helping my friends out and the amount of time i would like to injoy this game cause it is preety darn good but just way to much i mean way to much adding new content when your og content is bugged beoynd any 12 hour patch matnince can ever fix and i think the fact is adding new stuff when you cant do half the stuff already needs to be fixed first and if you look adding new gear isnt a big deal the big deal is when the gear out stats the other 80 gear.

I think that we’ve been given the worst possible gear example for ascended item – a magic find ring. The thing that everyone is missing is, that power and precision are secondary stats on that item and magic find is primary.
If other ascended items are going to follow that schema then we’re facing:
42% increase in primary stat (going from 7% to 10%) – that is huge
8% increase in secondary stats (going from 48+15 power/precision to 50+18) – that looks OK, but on full gear makes enough difference.

Primary stat on all other rings would go from 92 on exotic to 131 on ascended – and again – that is huge difference. Currently its like upgrading from blue to exotic – that’s 3 tiers difference not 1 and that can’t be right, unless magic find scales a lot better then all other stats or there wont be ascended items other then magic find.

Crackbone.5710:

jboynton.7894:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

jboynton asks: “How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?”

How does aborting the design manifesto – which, arguably, drove those sales in the first place – help raise revenue from a game that has no subscription? Are hardcore players the top consumers of cash shop items? I doubt it. Are hardcore gear-grinders going to produce the same kind of B2P expansion sales (when one comes out) as launch? If ANET alienates everyone who bought GW2 because of that manifesto, and because of the non-grind “whole-world” end game philosophy, what are those expansion sales going to be?

It seems to me we’re witnessing a potential SWG moment here; ANET can alienate everyone who came here specifically because of what GW2 was billed as, promised to be, and for three months now has delivered by changing the core nature of the game. And for what? Players that endlessly run from game to game seeking a means to satiate a never-ending quest for avatar progression/power?

You quoted the wrong person. I posted that the game is financially doing fine and am against vertical gear progression.

I hope you are right.

Every sensibility and every experience I’ve had to date tells me that something clearly isn’t right in their model. It’s not having the desired effect.

I’d love to be wrong on this, and that they’ll read this rage thread and decide, you know what, we’re going to kittencan this whole vertical gear progression and go another route.

I don’t think it’s that simple. Again, you don’t do this, something so very against the core of your marketing and endgame model if everything is just fine.

MMOs require far fewer players to be profitable than people believe. Even Bioware stated that TOR only required 500k players to continue making money, and it’s development was significantly longer and more expensive.

Greed is the pure and simple driving force behind this change.

Fabsm.5897:

Fiontar.4695:

I think most of the posters in the thread need to re-read the information on ascended gear and Fractals of the Mist dungeon, including the blog post, over and over until they actually understand it. there is nothing here to be up in arms about. Nada.

Ascended Gear has stats on par with Exotic Gear that has enhancements already applied. Ascended gear removes enhancement slots in order to be able to provide infusion slots. This gear will not be more powerful, outside of Fractals of the Mist, than properly enhanced Exotic gear! Ascended gear will provide another method for players to acquire exotic quality end game gear, but some may miss the opportunity to customize their stats via enhancements.

Where Ascended Gear shines is when equipped with infusions, or when the item comes with resistance to the new FotM exclusive monster condition built in. This system will allow players who play a lot of FotM to get deeper and deeper into the FotM experience on a given extended run.

It’s an end game dungeon progression, but the gear progression provides zero gear inflation outside of FotM!

I look at FotM as another form of adjunct game play in the same vein as WvW and sPvP. They are optional forms of alternative game play meant to appeal to people with particular play styles and content preferences. You can completely ignore FotM dungeon, if you wish, and you will not see the rest of your game play suffer as a result. Others may play FotM almost exclusively. It’s just another way for the game to broaden it’s appeal and offer players more game play options to suit thier changing mood!

^^
This.

I already stated it. Ascended Gear has built-in upgrade slot, yes, but you cannot put your runes in it. Only Infusions. This is what i surmised after having read the blogpost at least six times (i am not english native, so i have to read multiple times).

So, Ascended could be WORSE than exotics, because of the lack of stats from upgrades!

Nope. Stats from ascended are greater than exotics plus upgrades, just look at the image from the blog post.

Burn.5401:

Exactly. This gear is meant to be used specifically in the new dungeon and I suppose only the hardest encounters will require that special condition protection. Whiners gonna whine.

…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. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions…”

Guys:

Gw1——→ CORPG
Gw2——→ MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/The-End-Game-Debate/

Nerth.3940:

Webba.3071:

And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?

So many people seem to forget that you already bought the game, there is no sub fee so customer retention is a myth. What you want as a company in a B2P or F2P game is to sell items in a cash shop.

It doesn’t matter if people play or don’t play as long as you generate enough revenue to keep the game alive.

I have already spent money (100€) on gems to upgrade my bank, character slots and bag space because I thought I was in for the long run and I don’t mind spending a lot more for cool armor skins but there aren’t any.

So, instead of populating the gem store with cool stuff to buy I will get the same gear grind I’ve left other MMOs for? That has to be the best business decision ever.

And I can assure you that the best customer is a paying customer with money to spend. Long gone are the collage days when I had a lot of time but little money. Nowadays, I have enough disposable income but a lot less time to “grind” in games.

Guess what I will do if this goes through? I won’t spend any more on the gem store because I know that several months to a year down the line the difference won’t be just 8% in stats. Been there, done that and I’m done with gear based MMOs.

Like I said, you get no argument from me. The fact remains though, that Anet are rational people and therefore must believe they are acting in their own best interests, and the best interest of the game. In other words, there must be a reason for what they are doing.

Bhelliom.5324:

At the present moment the Guild wars 2 staff are sitting around a big table discussing what to do.

Later they will come onto the forums and give us some diplomatic bullkitten that will hopefully in their eyes cool everyone down.

They have too much self pride so they will not do anything about the issue everyone is complaining about.

Get rid of the stat increase and this infusion crap keep the stats the same and POOF everyone is happy again.

this is so true….

Even don t release the patch we will gladly wait for a christmas update rather than this

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

Bingo.

Bad bad idea Arenanet. I played GW1 for 6 years without any need to chase a carrot on a stick. Why? BECAUSE I ENJOYED YOUR PVP SYSTEM! I got into your PvE system without a constant need for the carrot either. The dungeons in GW1 kept me playing for a chance at a rare skin and the challenge.

Ok, it’s true, I will not quit the game due to this patch since I want to see how Acended gear thing works. However, if dungeons are the only way to obtain this gear (sorry, I’m not running a dungeon 10-20 times, no way, not going to happen) and a power creep starts happening, I’m as good as gone since I’ve been through this before in games like LOTRO where I precious few seem to enjoy grinding 2400 medallions for a set of raid gear, which keeps increasing in power in every patch, while the rest are left with their crafted gear from a year ago with no other way to improve.

However, if there are other methods of obtaining ascended gear like it is now with exotics (WvW, Karma, whatever…), then perhaps this can slide, but other than the mystic forge I see no mention of obtaining this gear any other way (and who knows, the mystic forge may need an item only obtainable by the dungeon. That’s the same thing). Which is just lieing to your customers at this point.

Yeah yeah, I get it. You want the game to appeal to the intense daily gamers (I hate the word hardcore), but they will burn through this content in a fraction of the time compared to the obtaining legendaries and we will be left at square one! Only this time, you pissed of a decent amount of your returning customers and casual playerbase.

Seriously, rethink this and if you have to do it, think about your other players also. You know, the ones who might not enjoy running a dungeon 10×.

you just have to look at GW1, Urgoz, DOA, etc…

Well. Last night I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but people were somewhat right. It wasn’t worth freaking out over until we knew what was what.

I get up to find that it’s pretty much exactly what we dreaded. And yet I’m still thinking “I STILL don’t know how concerning it is” The blog post completely fails to address quite a few peoples concerns: Will this new gear function in WvW, or is it dungeon-only?

I could give a crap about dungeons personally. I don’t find them particularly fun, and I usually only do them with guildmates when we’re bored. But I fully recognize that there’s people out there that do enjoy them. And wasn’t that the entire design philosophy behind the game? That you could play the game however you found most fun, and progress just as well as other people doing other things?

I enjoy WvW. I’m out there all the time fighting, and apart from issues which are mainly bugged (Rendering issues, etc), it’s balanced pretty well. But I’m telling you, the first time some raidtard beats me down solely because he did a dungeon to get better gear, I’m going to have a serious problem. That kind of crap wasn’t fun in WoW, and it certainly won’t be fun here.

If the new ascended gear is pve-only, fine. I don’t particularly like it for philosophical reasons, but it’s not a game-breaker for me. I certainly see why pve players are upset as well though. I for one will stand with my pve brothers in opposing “traditional” gear treadmilling.

So please, anet. Clarify things, don’t just post a PR-speak laden puff piece of a blog post. There’s still confusion and concerns about this system, are you going to address them and calm people down, or just stay silent?

Sky asks: The last question in my mind is – will Ascended be the final tier, and this was just a one time correction to a miscalculation… or is Ascended the first of many more to come?

They explicitly stated this is just the beginning of a new “item progression initiative” specifically intended to satisfy hardcore players and establish a new “end game” concept that directly contradicts their design manifesto about the “whole game” being the end game. They think they can kitten down our back and call it rain if they use horizontal paths to hide unique content only hardcore players can keep up with.

New “end game” mechanic Agony will enable you to exclusively farm Agony-specific content. Next – upper tier Agony content, or perhaps Psionic Content, or some other X, Y, Z – specific content that excludes everyone except the most hardcore players from pursuing that content. Meanwhile, where’s the investment of time and resources for the rest of us as ANET tries to keep ahead of the powergamer curve?

Crackbone.5710:

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

Bingo.

Only people with little MMORPG experience, who only knew EQ/WoW clones, can think a gear grind is the only way to make a MMORPG “end game”. Any veteran who played those games since UO or before know WoW only took the easy route, and that there are many more ways to make a good MMORPG.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

jboynton asks: “How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?”

How does aborting the design manifesto – which, arguably, drove those sales in the first place – help raise revenue from a game that has no subscription? Are hardcore players the top consumers of cash shop items? I doubt it. Are hardcore gear-grinders going to produce the same kind of B2P expansion sales (when one comes out) as launch? If ANET alienates everyone who bought GW2 because of that manifesto, and because of the non-grind “whole-world” end game philosophy, what are those expansion sales going to be?

It seems to me we’re witnessing a potential SWG moment here; ANET can alienate everyone who came here specifically because of what GW2 was billed as, promised to be, and for three months now has delivered by changing the core nature of the game. And for what? Players that endlessly run from game to game seeking a means to satiate a never-ending quest for avatar progression/power?

This post cannot be stated enough. This is the crux of the matter.

Easy; the way Guild Wars 1 did it.
Add more max level content, new areas and new dungeons. We don’t need better gear to have a fun and challenging dungeon. Neither do we need better gear to explore new areas.
Better gear means older content becomes even easier too. Content shouldn’t be made easier (unless it’s broken of course…)

Korrigan.4837:

Crackbone.5710:

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

Bingo.

Only people with little MMORPG experience, who only knew EQ/WoW clones, can think a gear grind is the only way to make a MMORPG “end game”. Any veteran who played those games since UO or before know WoW only took the easy route, and that there are many more ways to make a good MMORPG.

And this isn’t a sandbox.

If this were a sandbox, you’d have a valid argument, alas, it’s not. It’s not for that type market.

I’d suggest you go give Darkfall : Unholy Wars a try later this month if that’s what you are looking for.

So if I understand this correctly, Legendary items will be boosted and become “best-in-slot”.

Someone explain to me why I’d want to play a game that requires that much grind to get “best-in-slot”. I thought Guild Wars was better than that.

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Guild Wars anymore. Thanks for the WoW clone, ArenaNet.

i’m very disapointed,
bt not with anet, with a lot of players!
i’m one of those who agrees with the changes planed for the patch, i never writed on the forum, i prefere to play instead.
lately i found myself bored with this sistem, you never feel powerfull and brings to 0 the taste of a new drop!
i don’t see the point of people scratching skin away from their head for such a small change, when it is not in place yet!
what if they can be obtained with karma? and what if they drops like rain in november?
what if and otherwise is lie y?
i don’t really want gw2 to be like diablo3, but on that anet seem to listen our complains!
I seems that everybody was so blind that nobody seen the part of article saying “better ways to find legendary precursors”.
the problem is that the whole thread is dominated by supermegaultra hard core gamers wvw oriented, casual gamers like me have no time to write bullkitten but we are te biggest slice of the cake.
pvp is allready leveled, and as an e-sports work well like stone-paper-scissor game, can’t allways win with everybody!
casual gamer like me, didn’t spend 250€ on gems, or 9000hours of grinding for exotic.
i have a full exotic set and, know what, i just used TP!
no exploits, no cheats!
wht is ridiculus is the drop rate of legend precursors, the drop rate of lodestones and ectos, the mistic forge system for getting precursors.
Is allso significant that nobody is doing certain dungeons, because not worth of it.
what anet can improve IMHO is the way you get in dungeons, it should be like pvp browser!
also an official space for guilds would be great.
btw i’m looking for a big good friendly pvx guild, but it must seem like a comunity not a military organization oriented to steal you a gold per week!
I never played wow, lol, msk, her,dod, aopi or what else, i like the game as it is and any improvement cannot get a so enormus game to be a sh++!

keep on like that ANET!!

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

It is not, we were promised a skill based MMO, not a gear based MMO. You can find many quotes from top people at ANet stating there won’t be any statistical end-game gear progression in this game only cosmetic “progression”.

If I wanted a gear based MMO I’d still be playing WoW, LOTRO, Aion, SW:TOR, Rift just to name a few.

The irony with your name is very entertaining Made me laugh for the first time reading this behemoth of a thread. Thank you for that. Nothing personal, I’m sure you’re a very skilled player.

Nimraphel.7819:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

jboynton asks: “How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?”

How does aborting the design manifesto – which, arguably, drove those sales in the first place – help raise revenue from a game that has no subscription? Are hardcore players the top consumers of cash shop items? I doubt it. Are hardcore gear-grinders going to produce the same kind of B2P expansion sales (when one comes out) as launch? If ANET alienates everyone who bought GW2 because of that manifesto, and because of the non-grind “whole-world” end game philosophy, what are those expansion sales going to be?

It seems to me we’re witnessing a potential SWG moment here; ANET can alienate everyone who came here specifically because of what GW2 was billed as, promised to be, and for three months now has delivered by changing the core nature of the game. And for what? Players that endlessly run from game to game seeking a means to satiate a never-ending quest for avatar progression/power?

This post cannot be stated enough. This is the crux of the matter.

Wintyre, my new friend, you nailed it. Couldn’t have said it better.

Teva.2807:

Devildoc.6721:

Teva.2807:

alanis.6094:

Most of what you have written here is incorrect.

Please do list what is incorrect.

Legendaries are currently the same stats as exotics.

There will also be ascended gear that has other stat combinations other than magic find. I have a hunch they showed the magic find because the power/prec differences will be LOWER than if you showed berserker or rampager or any other stat combo. Each piece of gear level 65+ has 3 stats, 1 major stat, and 2 lesser stats.

I didnt say same stat. I said legendaries are better. That means appearance and that extra 80 attack.

They don’t have an extra 80 attack. GW2DB uses old data. You can watch youtube videos of people crafting their legendaries and see they have the same attack ratings as an exotic of the same weapon type.

Mandrax said: “I think that people aren’t spending enough in the cash shop because there’s nothing worth buying. I would certainly spend more if there was something worthwhile. I’ll bet I’m not alone.”

Seconded. It just goes to show you what ANET will be – mistakenly, IMO – focusing on: keeping the insatiable powergamers happy.

showatt.9413:

NoobOnSteroid.7192:

showatt.9413:

Whether or not this game is heading towards a bad direction or not depends entirely players and not the design itself, as none of the new designs are actually game breaking.

If their new choices go directly against everything they’ve said about the game in the years leading up to release, you might say it’s going in a bad direction.

Not so much because it completely ruins the game (I’m pretty sure a lot of people will just keep on playing), but because you’re undermining the trust your own audience has in you. I’m disappointed, and I cannot see any reason for buffed stats on the new items. Ascended could just as well be a copy of exotic/legendary, outfitted for the new dungeon (with the addition of a “harmless” dungeon-only infusion slot).

I for one CAN see the reason for a buffed stat – to accommodate harder dungeons and make existing dungeons SLIGHTLY easier to do.

Naysayer will be the only reason why this game fails – if it ever does.
Not the design.

Because – as much as everyone of you hated what’s coming – you have to admit gw2 is a well designed game, unlike Swtor, where you start lagging when more than 20 people are playing in the same area.

The game works perfectly.
Players who welcome the changes will help the game open to new possibility and venture into the unknown, while the naysayer who keep repeating how they’ve been cheated or how gear progression is bad like a broken record, will lead the game to its downfall.

So?

Are you gonna come on board and enjoy the ride, regardless of the direction that the ship is heading and constructively helping the developers to navigate this ship?

Or are you gonna stand on the shore and screaming and shouting ‘traitors’ and cling onto your belief that Gw2 is better off as just another GW1 clone and that no change is best change?

I’m on board! Cant wait much needed end game patch!

I personally don’t mind the additional slot for infusions in the Ascended gear as long as they are usable only inside that specific dungeon BUT i am strongly against any slight stat increase, even if it will be only 0.000000001% better than Exotic gear!

It would simply negate one of the mayor reasons why i bought this game.

I played WoW for 6 years and i am sick of the endless gear treadmill and yet here it starts again in GW2 where i was told it won’t ever happen (excluding expansions).

I don’t understand you people. What is the difference of grinding FOR A SKIN vs. grinding for a minimal stat increase? It probably isn’t going to be more than a 1 point stat difference like crafted vs. dungeon. Get over yourselves. You will grind for a legendary for 1 more point stat, but not armour? Oh well, to the cry babies, goodbye and send me your stuff when you rage.

Legendaries are a good example of it being done right.
No advantage, but something shiny to show off.

New armor skins, new titles, new areas to explore, new stories to experience.
New jumping puzzles, new challenges of all sorts.
These are the things I’m sure most of us like to have.

I like that there’s a new area to explore. I like that there are new Dynamic Events.
I like that they are fixing bugs!
I don’t like gear tiers.
Not except for games designed from ground up to be gear fests (Borderlands, etc) or singleplayer games.

Crackbone.5710:

Korrigan.4837:

Crackbone.5710:

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

Bingo.

Only people with little MMORPG experience, who only knew EQ/WoW clones, can think a gear grind is the only way to make a MMORPG “end game”. Any veteran who played those games since UO or before know WoW only took the easy route, and that there are many more ways to make a good MMORPG.

And this isn’t a sandbox.

If this were a sandbox, you’d have a valid argument, alas, it’s not. It’s not for that type market.

I’d suggest you go give Darkfall : Unholy Wars a try later this month if that’s what you are looking for.

AC1 wasn’t a sandbox yet didn’t have a gear grind either. Your argument doesn’t hold any water, except showing how limited your vision about what a MMORPG can be is.
Don’t limit what is possible to the limits of your own imagination.

Crackbone.5710:

It’s the almighty Dollar, Euro, etc.

They won’t be getting enough over the long term with only horizontal progression. It’s crystal clear.

Wake up folks. It’s a business. Business or lack-thereof likely dictated this change.

The problem with that is that Guild Wars made far less money, and if anyone wants to argue “server costs” I would like to remind everyone that ArenaNet was the team that attacked that lie the most out of everyone back then.

There is no such thing as a server cost. It is so low that it appears only as a footnote on NCsoft’s yearly.

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/9108/nccost.jpg

In other words, if what they are getting is not enough at this early stage , then I guess we were being lied to throughout seven years and they actually hated developing Guild Wars for an above-normal wage instead of an “I own a smaller country” wage, and now they want not only the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but the leprachun too.

In which case all love is lost.

But I still don’t think that it’s just that. I mean I still see them as a good dev group. They have history of success. I would be sad if it’s just about that and not just a disagreement in developement or somebody’s bad influence or something like that.

I do believe that Guild Wars 2 made a relatively good ammount of money at start, and if people are leaving… well… this is not the good way to get them back.

I can’t express how appaled I am about ANet’s decision to add a gear stat treadmill to this game.

Not only did they introduce a gate to higher-end content (i.e. Agony), but they also made the new items more powerful stat-wise!

Why is that?!?!
If they want to gate one kind of gameplay (dungeons), why do they also have to impact other aspects of the game, such as WvW?!!?
They could have just introduced a new item type that still has the same stats as exotics with an additional slot for Infusions.
Where is the need to also increase the stats?

I am really disappointed, disgusted about this change. The main reason I left all the other games was because of the gear stat treadmill – I’m NOT going that way again. Ever.

Bottomline:
Bad move, ANet! Take it back! It’s not too late yet.

Simple, make content that is worth doing multiple times by making the content itself right and the gameplay deep and fun. I played GW1 for 7 years, because it had great pvp and good gameplay.

After reviewing my feelings on this, i’m pretty much good with this move. I played diablo 3 for many months and that had no where near the content. I honestly think they won’t turn this into a long standing treadmill. There are a bunch of passionate posts here, but i really feel like most of them are unfounded or overly concerned. I played GW since beta and a lot of those passionate people even back then would go nut’s over changes.

LFM FoM, must need ascended gear with infusions, link gear in whispers

Korrigan.4837:

Nimraphel.7819:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

jboynton asks: “How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?”

How does aborting the design manifesto – which, arguably, drove those sales in the first place – help raise revenue from a game that has no subscription? Are hardcore players the top consumers of cash shop items? I doubt it. Are hardcore gear-grinders going to produce the same kind of B2P expansion sales (when one comes out) as launch? If ANET alienates everyone who bought GW2 because of that manifesto, and because of the non-grind “whole-world” end game philosophy, what are those expansion sales going to be?

It seems to me we’re witnessing a potential SWG moment here; ANET can alienate everyone who came here specifically because of what GW2 was billed as, promised to be, and for three months now has delivered by changing the core nature of the game. And for what? Players that endlessly run from game to game seeking a means to satiate a never-ending quest for avatar progression/power?

This post cannot be stated enough. This is the crux of the matter.

Wintyre, my new friend, you nailed it. Couldn’t have said it better.

And you don’t think they’ve gone over this internally ad nauseum? You aren’t stating anything they haven’t discussed, of that I am sure.

Every argument and counter argument for the introduction of this new tier of gear has likely been gone over with a fine tooth comb.

Good job Anet, you’ve thrown your manifesto out the window in favour of a loud minority and put everyone else in misery because of it.

No really, this game is going to excel because you decided to go against what made most of the players pick up this game.

Runes

It seems a bit hasty to conclude that the new ascended gear are a “must have” for situations other than ones where baddies can inflict “agony”. Looking for the positives here – I don’t think Anet will make exotics obsolete (and clearly piss nearly everyone off) and force people into a gear treadmill for “must-haves”.

The Ascended gear does not account for set bonus given by runes. If anything, perhaps the Ascended gear might become a “third set/fourth set” that one wears for specific instances if they choose to do them (when bored with Plinx, etc). MF set, wvw set, now Ascended set for Fractals.

Many seem to be jumping to the conclusion that the difference between, say, an Exotic coat or pants vs the Ascended coat/pants will be of X% such that Ascended will necessarily make exotics obsolete. We simply do not know this to be the case yet, escpecially considering the lack of rune options on the Ascended.