Guild Wars 2

Corvindi.5734:

Doesn’t look like the Ascended gear announcement is doing NCSoft’s stock any favors today:

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

It’s had no effect yet. The stock is still falling form the “dim” 3rd qt report. If we see another 5-10% in the next ffew days, we will know.

I kinda think investors like this move. They are probably hanging around to see how the cash shop mixes in this.

Unfortunately I had to write what was probably the first piece of bad press that GW2 has ever gotten because of this. I did not enjoy it.

http://www.examiner.com/article/guild-wars-2-may-take-it-s-first-critical-mis-step-upcoming-lost-shores-exp

castlemanic.3198:

ArenaNet, these are quotes from YOUR manifesto. And now, you’ve gone completely against them by adding in a new tier that has increased stats and affects all of the game.

- What new tier of items?

You won’t be required to obtain a certain item level just to enter a dungeon and Structured PvP is balanced out regardless anyway. What is the problem?

(…last part of my previous post)

You created a huge world which is worth exploring! Still most players know every corner of the maps of orr while they hardly managed to explore a minidungeon anywhere else in the world. This is because drops and events in orr are so much more rewarding regarding money and karma, than other zones, so it feels a bit like a waste of time to visit them after reaching mapcompletion.

So since reaching level 80 in this game is really fast and easy, please consider making the whole world of Tyria (or most of it) a playground for these level 80 characters. Also please keep track of your initial goals and keep the cosmetic rewards a mainfocus of GW2. Right now the ascended equipment appears to be just a new “base armor” that needs to be transmuted with the “right” skins, thus making it just more expensive and harder to obtain the desired armorsets.
Also keep in mind that you are making current endgame content irrelevant by adding gear with better stats: There are named exotic armorsets which can only (?) be obtained by using the Mystic forge right now – these do NOT have unique skins, but rather unique stat combinations with fitting runes. All those will become irrelevant for players, if there is gear with better stats, since the skins are not unique after all.

Im not sure how this will impact my playing experience.

I almost have am full exotic set on one character, and was feeling comfortable that maybe I could start working on some alts, but with the introduction of higher tier gear I do not want to lose the time I put into making the character competitive.

Though on the other hand, I like having items to work towards. The implementation is going to be key here, since at start, they are only adding rings and backslots. So that slows down players from achieving a full “Ascended” set immediately, and gives people time to get themselves some ascended pieces. They already mentioned that some pieces will be craftable in the forge, so there is at least one other alternative available to obtaining Ascended gear instead of grinding the dungeon to death.

We will see how things pan out on Friday.

Or you could just wait and see what the content really looks like?

Honestly, people…chill the hell out. You have no idea what is going to happen.

If someone posts in the middle of a 10,000 response thread and no one reads it, does it make a sound?

Crackbone.5710:

In a full fledged MMORPG, players expect progression other than skins.

A certain segment of players expect adherence to a “traditional” model of MMORPG, that has been rendered “traditional” by the anomalous success of one title and by industry conventions in South Korea.

- MMO is a genre, not a model or formula.
- MMORPG is a subgenre, not a model or formula.
- There is no model or formula to which any MMO or MMORPG must conform.
- There are multiple examples of MMOs and MMORPGs that have not used the “gear grind” model, and have been sustainable over a long-term.
- The gamer demographic that responds to the grind formula does not appear to be particularly pronounced in the States. NCSoft is apparently having a hard time reconciling with this. What works for the South Korean audience has demonstrably not worked for the American audience anywhere near as well.

Crackbone.5710:

Do you honestly think that internal projections and retention numbers aren’t at the heart of this addition? That they haven’t studied this in depth?

If they’d studied the issue at a depth that let them know what the player base actually thought, this current situation would not exist.

If they knew for a fact that progression-minded players would flock to the game in droves because of three accessories that improve 3/14 equipment slots by 8%, they would also have an inkling of just how negative the backlash would be from the players who don’t want to see that kind of progression.

If they had any conception of what the negative backlash would be like, they would have made the decision that they either care what those players think, or they don’t.

If they cared, they would have either tried to mitigate it, by communicating quickly and clearly with the dissatisfied player base, and they would have explained what their goal is, and why those players should not feel betrayed.

If they [didn’t care, then the natural implication would be that they were willing to go all-in on attracting (and keeping) the progression-minded players. If that were the case, it is extremely doubtful that their big announcement would consist of a paltry three pieces of equipment (two of which are not even visible) that improve the player’s stats – in that slot and that slot only – by 8% compared to the absolute best in the game besides that. And it’s even more extremely doubtful that they would just let the negativity fester on their forums for as long as they have.

Your argument that ArenaNet is shrewdly operating according to the best possible data doesn’t hold up to the timeline of events we’ve seen so far. If they knew, and didn’t care, that this backlash would occur, they would have announced a proper, robust equipment progression scheme, with big gains, rather than modest ones.

What is much more likely is that they wanted to do something to retain those progression-minded players who had left or were about to leave, but also hoped that their additions would be modest enough that only the purest of the purists would take issue with an additional equipment tier. And they miscalculated.

This sort of silence in the face of what is becoming a gigantic PR disaster is not indicative of everything going to plan.

Please give us more progression and continue tiers. We also need more competitive pvp.

All of us, regardless of view, can’t do much anyway. Content is to be released on Friday.

Too late even if they did listen.

Zoid.2568:

The new dungeons are for hardcore endgame players. You don’t have to do any of the content, you can sit in a corner in Divinitys Reach if you want. It’s ok.

and same could be said for LOTRO, yet they still scrapped and and considered it a failed mechanic.

its not even about the grinding.. Only noob people do grind in this game. i dont even understand why people grind. when you can get endgame gear set in 1 week or maybe less. maybe for karma? but karma in this game is everywhere hahhaa … mystic forge he give all same endgame crap that only differ in looks… dungeon coin use to buy endgame gear that has same stats and level i dont understand that.. people asking for less grinding game this is it. the game for you..the game is even super less grindy… i ask myself why did i play the game? first pop to my mind HUGE dragon fight kitten as i saw those really epic dragon picture in the web im playing this game.! World vs World PvP kitten im so playing this game! but when i started playing the game at first i was so highly motivated to level 80 cuz i want to fight to real dragon fight that i wasnt able to see in the other game. as i go level up i was impress and keep me out of bored with those jumping puzzle, hearts, tringle, skill points and the view its really fantastic then there’s no repeatable quest like other mmo i played before.. so i said this game is really really cool this is gonna be my final game ever! so as i move on i realize something weird why am i getting same loot as the other map hmm i said maybe bug game is still baby anyway so its ok i move on same goes to all bug i encounter ingame. so i continued doing my campaign quest and i was in the quest where the undead evading the lions arch and i saw a the dragon i said holy $#! and my friends told me thats just pet of zhaitan dude better rush to 80 so we can kill the real dragon zhaitan. i hardcorely go 80 in just 3 days cuz i already tested all hearts triangle etc anyway. im 3days headstart btw.. so after i hit 80 i was like an idiot asking around where can i find zhaitan and my friend told me yo dude you can find him in a dungeon.. and i was like day dreaming ow must be in inside a huge cave and im gonna need an allaince to kill that guy" btw i was thinking about same as aion padmarashka fight but whole huge hardcore dragon fight" then i found out it was an instance and just needed a group 5 people… i said lol this is so funny that huge dragon gonna get down by just 5 people? Anet just kidding right? i was so upset! i ran the dungeon and i was so amaze with the fight.. after running it i was daydreaming imagining what if we fight that dragon outside the dungeon it be awesome all people in the server join together fighting real time huge dragon to keep tyria in peace.. and i said oh well i wish that what was happen.. so i continued with my campaign and i was expecting different fight like me and npc fighting this dragon in the battle ground getting farty color breath.. and at the last part it says run arah dungeon story mode and i said $#% $%#$… and i move on started getting good gear and running dungeons with friends preparing for WvW we did daily sPvP… fight with jormag ,shatter, and tequatl and finally really having fun PvP in WvW but the thing is i play MMO for PvE and i saw PvP in MMO as my casual thing to do… when i got PvP i play LoL, Starcraft, Dota 2, HoN and BF3 … reason i play MMO is for Team Play with other people fighting challenging strategying Huge dragon or whatever hardcore monster.. To improve my gaming skill with cooperative skill.. the dodge in the game come on its a basic thing for gamer to know how and when to dodge… well i cant qq more around so yeah but lemme ask you something how about you ask yourself why do you play the game? and tell me about it) sorry im very poor in grammar and paragraph reason why im typing this is cuz i see potential in gw2 i really big thing on it i just cant tell what it is .but theres something missing!) anyway thank you)

Grun this was sorta how Infused armor worked in gw2 – you took an existing set of armor and basically “blessed” it. So you would take less damage from certain mobs.

Over all I like that idea heck of allot more then a new set of gear. So you do the dungeon get cool new looking armor and a seal that applies infusion onto any type of armor you want. ect ect

Vocal minority. I thought Anet understood what this means.

Now look at this thread. These are the players that were satisfied with the game.

You gave in to the few people on the forums that complained about “not enough to do”. Those people with short attention-spans are long gone.

What you did was alienate those who stayed because they liked the non gear-based game they had.

Who greenlights something like this?

ESO aka Elder Scrolls Online is coming next year… yes I’ll be in for future free updates but you might as well save your money since like most people.. I will not be buying your expansions just for a reason to grind more dungeons for more useless gear that will be replaced again and so forth.

http://ca.ign.com/videos/2012/11/08/the-elder-scrolls-online-gameplay-video

Natural.7013:

Please give us more progression and continue tiers. We also need more competitive pvp.

lol you want competitive PvP but more differentiation between players based on statted gear. True competive PvP would be as statless and gear progression-less as possible.

5k comments. how many do we need to leave before a GW2 dev comments?

Is advertising a non loot treadmill then putting one in considered false advertising? and if so what can be done.

fathamburger.8453:

Unfortunately I had to write what was probably the first piece of bad press that GW2 has ever gotten because of this. I did not enjoy it.

http://www.examiner.com/article/guild-wars-2-may-take-it-s-first-critical-mis-step-upcoming-lost-shores-exp

Nice article /impressed.

promurphy.2761:

5k comments. how many do we need to leave before a GW2 dev comments?

To infinity and beyond!

Ironangel.1548:

Is advertising a non loot treadmill then putting one in considered false advertising? and if so what can be done.

As I mentioned earlier get a charge back on your credit card for your purchase of the game. This will be followed by a perma-ban, but if you don’t care then w/e.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Or you could just wait and see what the content really looks like?

Honestly, people…chill the hell out. You have no idea what is going to happen.

Dude, everyone should freak out. This is obviously the beginning of an endless gear treadmill. ArenaNet has gone back on their word. I’m going to show my dissatisfaction with this game by canceling my – oh, wait.

This is what people are doing:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

Using the logic people are using here.

All the dungeons were optional, you could just craft and explore and do easy dungeons with level 80 greens. No treadmill at all, just like GW2. Ascended gear and the new dungeon are completely optional.

Also the small amount of stats between the different tier pvp gear was marginal and good players could still do well in pvp without it.

/sarcasm

Nephaerius.9103:

Natural.7013:

Please give us more progression and continue tiers. We also need more competitive pvp.

lol you want competitive PvP but more differentiation between players based on statted gear. True competive PvP would be as statless and gear progression-less as possible.

+1 a real competitive PVP, can be obtained only when all player can wear with the same stats at easy.

Zenith.6403:

castlemanic.3198:

ArenaNet, these are quotes from YOUR manifesto. And now, you’ve gone completely against them by adding in a new tier that has increased stats and affects all of the game.

- What new tier of items?

ArenaNet released an article this morning about how they’re adding a new tier of gear called “ascended”, which is set to be better than exotics. There will also be a new ‘infused’ slot instead of traditional runes slots which mitigate a new monster only condition called ‘agony’, which will only appear in a new dungeon called ‘fractal of the mists’, ultimately setting the stage for more gear progression to occur, which ultimately leads to gear grind.

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

Anyone know where players stand legally regarding refunds of the game fee and more importantly gems?

This relates to how the product was sold and then changed, maybe its covered in some type of consumer trading act’s etc…

In Europe, you can still demand a refund legally for more than two months, or the company risks harsh fines.

Likely, if you ask for one, you will get one: MMO companies usually only deny them right before they explode. Go for it, if you want one.

I personally will just quit and not ask for them since I did get my money’s worth, but it’s definitely within your legal rights to ask for one if you are European like myself.

God you people will complain about anything. So they’re adding a new “slightly” better tier of equipment after 3 months. Did you REALLY expect them to not add any additional sets/armors/weapons/etc. to the game EVER? It’s not like this armor is even going to be that much better than what you already have. Chill the kitten out and enjoy the game.

Just wanted to express my sincere hope that this is the last gear tier. That said I’m very disappointed Anet decided to go the gear treadmill route.

Every time someone says “its optional” I want to punch them in the face. Technically the whole game is optional, what on earth is the point in saying that?

Sprawl.3891:

Using the logic people are using here.

All the dungeons were optional, you could just craft and explore and do easy dungeons with level 80 greens. No treadmill at all.

Except in WoW, all endgame content was raids. there was nothing else. All endgame content was geared only towards raids from the very beginning.

The thing is, I’m entirely used to a developer not doing everything they promise.
But when a developer turns one of their LARGEST selling points to a game, then throws it out the window? kitten that.

castlemanic.3198:

Sprawl.3891:

Using the logic people are using here.

All the dungeons were optional, you could just craft and explore and do easy dungeons with level 80 greens. No treadmill at all.

Except in WoW, all endgame content was raids. there was nothing else. All endgame content was geared only towards raids from the very beginning.

you could roll alts, and do 5 mans and pvp. All optional of course

and what else is there in GW2? Roll alt, do dungeons and WvW.

bcbully.7289:

Creslin.1758:

munkiman.3068:

Creslin.1758:

The only thing that makes it mandatory is that (from what we have heard) the new gear type will ONLY be available via the dungeon, and that gear type is STATISTICALLY SUPERIOR to exotics.

Therefore, if you want to have the best gear for WvW…you gotta run the fractals.

Baseless assumption is baseless. You have no idea if this is even the case or not. Ascended gear, for all you know, might be a random WvW drop. Or otherwise attainable in WvW for badges…

This is a direct quote from their blog post…

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and Ascended items worn on the back can be acquired through special Mystic Forge recipes.

I feel sorry for people like munkiman. These were the people that had the rug pulled from under them. Still they try though.

The sad thing is, is that NCsoft knew these people would do exactly what they are doing now.

Ha, don’t feel sorry for me, i’m sure i’ll be logged in enjoying the new content. I’m not raging.

ANet adds a tier so that people can attain stats closer to that of a legendary.

THEREFORE; GW2 is a gear grind/gear treadmill/WoW clone.

Slippery Slope Argument:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

Tyr.1965:

Mif.3471:

5000 posts and no reply from ArenaNet makes me sad.

They’re probably having a pow-wow with their spin doctors to see what bull crap they can feed us to make us feel ok with them selling their souls.

My thoughts exactly. If the gear treadmill was just a bad rumor they would come on and squash that buy saying the rumors are wrong to help ease the player base. I think we all know what silence means.

Loosifah.4739:

God you people will complain about anything. So they’re adding a new “slightly” better tier of equipment after 3 months. Did you REALLY expect them to not add any additional sets/armors/weapons/etc. to the game EVER? It’s not like this armor is even going to be that much better than what you already have. Chill the kitten out and enjoy the game.

It’s not about adding variety, it’s about adding objectively better gear when they stated for years that it would not be done.

And yes, GW1 stuck to that for many years and still does. So many of us did expect that to be how GW2 would be driven.

I’ll avoid typing the essay that wants to come out since everything I could say has already been said in this thread.

+1 disappointment from a formerly loyal fan ANet. Nice work. Here’s to hoping that someone with some say has the ethical fortitude to make this right.

I won’t be holding my breath…

@ ArcTheFallen.7682

Your right, we need to calm down.

However I have made mistakes in a professional capacity before and held my hands up to it early. I laid my cards down and explained the situation as well as offering apologies and a clear path for those impacted to regain any lost assets.

If this line of action was taken days ago I would be much more amicable. The company have decided to hunker down and let the frustration ebb around them.

Not 1 post to acknowledge that people are upset and they are listening after around 5000 comments here. A signature of a direct quote around there own standards is a balanced response.

it is even optional to start your computer, eh, so no hard feelings.

There was even map completion. Optional, of course.

I am sure a lot of people will quit over this myself included, If I want gear progression I play wow because it’s better.

Any game that tries to compete directly with wow in terms of gear progression get’s deleted, rift, swtor, etc etc.

fathamburger.8453:

ESO aka Elder Scrolls Online is coming next year… yes I’ll be in for future free updates but you might as well save your money since like most people.. I will not be buying your expansions just for a reason to grind more dungeons for more useless gear that will be replaced again and so forth.

http://ca.ign.com/videos/2012/11/08/the-elder-scrolls-online-gameplay-video

Yes, because that is exactly what ArenaNet said is going to happen.

Sigh.

ArenaNet stated they were going to release new infusions and types of ascended gear (all obviously the same tier). Honestly… why are you people acting so silly? The idiocracy burns so much I feel like you all must be trolling.

Crackbone.5710:

Farming Plinx ad infinitum isn’t what I would call fun , and based on “Player Feedback” I imagine that ANet came to the same conclusion.

Lastly, as I’ve said previously, internally there must have been a reason for this change. Likely their internal projections affirmed that they will not be successful long term with ONLY cosmetic carrots.

yet guild wars was succesful enough for keep going for 7 years and fund the development of this game so clearly long term success with only cosmetic carrots is possible

in regards to plinx it was farmed for karma and items to sell for gold as it was fairly efficient, you can get the same amount of karma for doing your daily now as you would for 10+ lvl 80 events so that is somewhat mitigated and there are other ways to farm gold

imo they shouldn’t be listening to anyone this far into release, just stick with the vision they sold us when they released the game. thats what we all bought into

the fact that some players demolish content faster than expected is no surprise, they exist in every game, you can try to constantly keep them busy with gated content and artificial barriers in an attempt to retain them or accept it and let them move on for a time and create content for the rest of the player base to complete at their own pace.

imo the main thing needed to be successful is consistency as this thread has shown there is a lot of backlash when you say X is our design philosophy and our plans for the future follow this, and then go in the other direction with little to no explanation

I’m going to take a daring step and say…Good job Anet, thanks for giving us great content!

Nephaerius.9103:

Corvindi.5734:

Doesn’t look like the Ascended gear announcement is doing NCSoft’s stock any favors today:

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

Q3 finanicals came out on Nov 7th and they were 15-24% underperforming compared to Q2. That’s hilarious considering that you’d think GW2 would actually increase their performance and profitability.

I read that last night and it made me wonder what is going on behind the scenes. Is it other games hurting NCSoft? A lawsuit maybe, or some kind of internal leadership shuffling we don’t know about?

If not, then it looks as though GW2 has been greeted by the market as a failure right out the gate. I don’t see how that can be. It does make me wonder how much the development cost.

Arenanet is a private company it seems, so scarce data there. I also wonder how the relationship between NCSoft and Anet works. Did Anet basically turn all control over to their publisher at launch?

Loosifah.4739:

Did you REALLY expect them to not add any additional sets/armors/weapons/etc. to the game EVER?

No. We expected them to never add better sets/armour/weapon/etc to the game, EVER.

Turtlemilk.1064:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Or you could just wait and see what the content really looks like?

Honestly, people…chill the hell out. You have no idea what is going to happen.

Dude, everyone should freak out. This is obviously the beginning of an endless gear treadmill. ArenaNet has gone back on their word. I’m going to show my dissatisfaction with this game by canceling my – oh, wait.

This is what people are doing:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

It is a very real concern, with a very logical base. People bought this game under the assumption and hype that skill would be rewarded, not skill to get gear to go deeper in a dungeon to get more gear to go deeper in a dungeon to get more gear to go.. etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Reading forum threads is optional as well, I honestly don’t know what these optional-bandits are trying to achieve. I mean why get worked up about what people say in the forum? The forum is optional.