Guild Wars 2

Thank god they are implementing a little bit of progression. Is everyone really afraid that they will turn this into WoW? Are you really afraid of that? I for one just want something to do on my 80 as a semi-hardcore player. For the love of god please give me something to do on my 80 that gives me a sense of progression that IS NOT just cosmetic. How boring that ended up being!

Not really excited. The ascended rarity should be either EXTREMELY hard to obtain or give a cosmetic buff.

I’ll have to see how everything is implemented, but I’m pretty concerned about this infusion / ascended stuff being tied with the mystic forge.

I instantly think, gambling.

To be honest, if this content is based on throw some items in and hope for something good to come out – no thanks.

I’m really concerned for the future of GW2 as well. I thought this game was going to be based off of universal tokens to replace the constant repetitive grind of hoping for items to drop off raid bosses.

However, it seems with this mystic forge they’ve created an entirely worse system in comparison. Now instead of soulbound equipment drops we have to deal with throwing endless amounts of items in hopes of something of use to come out.

Like I said, no thanks

I am with Major. I am still playing and will play however.

I will not spend a dime on the game or expansions until this is removed. I will also let my “friends” invites sit and rot because the people that had a SLIGHT interest in GW2 was because it didnt have gear treadmill. Those I would have invited will not buy the game anyway because of this change.

Sorry this is simply a bad decision. I will probably play Planetside 2 more and more and Anet can only count on me coming in for the holiday events if this continues.

jaikrsna.1079:

Thank god they are implementing a little bit of progression. Is everyone really afraid that they will turn this into WoW? Are you really afraid of that? I for one just want something to do on my 80 as a semi-hardcore player. For the love of god please give me something to do on my 80 that gives me a sense of progression that IS NOT just cosmetic. How boring that ended up being!

Why did you purchase this game? Did you not read or understand their philosophy regarding cosmetic upgrades, or did you happen to hope that they’d turn against their core beliefs?

Sums up how people feel

alanis.6094:

jaikrsna.1079:

Thank god they are implementing a little bit of progression. Is everyone really afraid that they will turn this into WoW? Are you really afraid of that? I for one just want something to do on my 80 as a semi-hardcore player. For the love of god please give me something to do on my 80 that gives me a sense of progression that IS NOT just cosmetic. How boring that ended up being!

Why did you purchase this game? Did you not read or understand their philosophy regarding cosmetic upgrades, or did you happen to hope that they’d turn against their core beliefs?

Probably was like ooooohhh shiny must have. Like a real life gear treadmill sense.

Ostra.3927:

I will also let my “friends” invites sit and rot because the people that had a SLIGHT interest in GW2 was because it didnt have gear treadmill. Those I would have invited will not buy the game anyway because of this change.

I did this aswell, i had 3 people i was going to invite (3 potental customers) and didn’t bother due to this change – why should i drum up more customers for Anet when they treat the currrent ones like this.

So i’ve already done a small part to show my disapproval of this change, i’ve lost Anet 3 potental customers – it’s not much and i bet Anet will never notice, but it’s something.

I would have been totally fine with the Ascended armor if it was just as good as exotic gear, but the infuse slot would be something for cosmetic stuff instead.

The infuse slot could just be for really, really, really awesome cosmetic animations that would appear on your character, or whatever.

Put whatever thing you will in your infuse slot and make wings appear on your character, a glowing aura which can be dyed, butterflies, bananas, carrots, bees, winds with leafs or whatever you like.

That alone is something I would have accepted, and something I would aim for.

But a gear grind for better stats? No.

After reading the article, I was happy and sad for two different things. One thing that greatly disappointed me was the obviously broken promises of “no gear treadmill” which was promised in this game. I fear that one day, when player progression goes too fast, there will be yet another tier between ascended and legendaries. If this game does go down this road, that’s sad.

A good thing is, these new ascended seem to be only marginally better than exotics. The difference in the traveler rings is only a mere +5 stats, you would need your accessories slot to be fully ascended to get a +25 boost to power and precision, which is very negligible.

This may change with armors though. If ascended armor sets give a flat out 25% extra defense/stats over exotics, that would be nuts.

I can see the rationale for having ascended armor for the dungeon, as the agony mechanic will force players to change armors, and if “infusions” worked like normal runes, players would have to either choose between their normal armor, and run the dungeon at a disadvantage, or run around the world with infusion armor which gives no benefits outside the dungeon, also at a disadvantage.

I disagree with putting a whole new armor set into the game for the sake of a dungeon, but when it is released, my opinion may change.

If anyone thinks is was a decision made over people claiming they were bored or needed more to do is utterly naive.

This dungeon and these decisions have been on thier roadmap for quite some time

Farzo.8410:

I think it’s too late for ArenaNet to remove this feature. It’s not many days left left for the patch and this is probably one of the major ‘’selling points’’ of this patch, I would guess.

If they remove it now, the dungeon will be totally useless, and they would probably have to remove it too.

I would be glad if they scrapped this feature, it wouldn’t bother me if the dungeon would be useless for this time being, because I don’t like at all where this is heading.

And who knows? If they remove this system now with ascended gear, how many patches in the future they got now will be totally useless because it’s all built around this one thing.

At this point they should just scrap the whole patch except for the bug fixes and revise the content entirely. If this goes through it will cause unmitigated damage to the product and they might never recover. It’s already being ridiculed on just about every single major gaming site out there.

They need to take a stand here.

Like so many others, I’m disappointed that perceived concerns about giving players more to do were addressed by abandoning the core principles of the game. I am genuinely disappointed because it didn’t have to go this way. It’s sad, really. I hope it can be salvaged, but it’s hard to have faith when the logic on the surface seems so utterly flawed.

Kid Taylor.5479:

After reading the article, I was happy and sad for two different things. One thing that greatly disappointed me was the obviously broken promises of “no gear treadmill” which was promised in this game. I fear that one day, when player progression goes too fast, there will be yet another tier between ascended and legendaries. If this game does go down this road, that’s sad.

A good thing is, these new ascended seem to be only marginally better than exotics. The difference in the traveler rings is only a mere +5 stats, you would need your accessories slot to be fully ascended to get a +25 boost to power and precision, which is very negligible.

This may change with armors though. If ascended armor sets give a flat out 25% extra defense/stats over exotics, that would be nuts.

I can see the rationale for having ascended armor for the dungeon, as the agony mechanic will force players to change armors, and if “infusions” worked like normal runes, players would have to either choose between their normal armor, and run the dungeon at a disadvantage, or run around the world with infusion armor which gives no benefits outside the dungeon, also at a disadvantage.

I disagree with putting a whole new armor set into the game for the sake of a dungeon, but when it is released, my opinion may change.

It doesn’t matter how much better they are. The fact is, the new stuff is better than the old, in a game where we were explicitly told we wouldn’t need to constantly be upgrading our gear. “Only once” is still one time too many.

To me, this whole thing reeks of a thinly-veiled ploy to sell more fine transmutation stones.

Siphaed.9235:

Now that’s stretching it by a mile at the very least. Going from “taking everything we love about Guild Wars and putting into Guild Wars 2” and turning it into “there won’t be any ‘stat progression’ at all”. Would you like a slice of lemon with that major twist of words?

Not at all. No gear grind was one of the major selling points of both GW1 and GW2. It was not explicitly included in the manifesto, but there were more than enough blog posts and interviews that made us believe or even told us that there won’t be any gear progression once you hit lvl 80 exotics.

And, if you’re furious about stat progression @ 80, shouldn’t you already be upset that there’s level 80 whites, blues, greens, rares, and Exotics? I mean, if you really wanted absolutely NO stat increases at 80, then there should only be Exotics; right?

Only exotics would have been the best way to handle it. Currently we have greens, rares and exotics, whites and blues don’t really count (almost) nobody wears lvl 80 blues.

Also, I don’t see this as the same thing. Tiers are flat-stat across the board when it comes to comparing it to other Tiers. All 80 rares are in the same tier and would have the same attributes; same with 80 exotics; and now same with 80 Ascended items. This is different than other MMORPG’s that may have 50 different level 80 “rare” purple items, each having a different stat configuration and one being more powerful than the rest and so on.

Actually now ascended items are more powerful then the rest. It doesn’t matter if you call it t1, t2 and so on or ascended, basically it’s the same thing.

The item tier set up in Guild Wars 2 is still uniquely different than that of other MMORPG’s and still is NOT a grind fest that people think of. When players run a dungeon: EVERYONE GETS REWARDED! Everyone gets the tokens when the final boss dies. Everyone gets to open the chest and loot stuff from The Claw of Jormag, rather than just 2 people for two random items out of 40 participants.

You think this is grind? You really think that GW2 is grind? YOU KNOW NOTHING OF GRIND!

Compared to GuildWars GW2 is grindy as hell.

I like the idea. I play this game to have fun, period. No philosophical reasons. No trying to stick it to the game that shall not be named. No breath of fresh air. It’s a game. Of course, my reasons for playing this game may be different than yours.

And, BTW, the amount of replies to this topic – even if they were all unique and all were in favor / disapprove of this topic – it’s still a fanstastically small percentage of the player base.

jaikrsna.1079:

All I see is a lot of casuals that are scared that they are going to be alienated by a game that cares just as much about YOU as they do about anyone coming from another mindset. A lot of half-baked opinions and conclusions coming from half-baked gamers. -_-

All i see are the usual wow kiddies crowing because they threw a hissy fit and got another game to fit into their small minded world view.

Daisai.5879:

Funny how people seem to complain about a small stat increase on a armor slot.
Considering this game has no damage meter or anything to really see the difference in the different stats.

Strawman argument.

If what you say is true, that the lack of damage meters means we shouldn’t be against the stat increase, then it also follows that nobody should be for it. Yet here we are.

this is PERFECT. gear progression introduced in stages, and already existed BIS are protected.

As many as there are QQing about gear progression, there are a lot of us had seen this coming from the get go and had been waiting for it. Skin grind just isn’t enough.

Next up hostile players and duels. Then the game would be perfecto.

Darx.9842:

What it does do is assure progression through a set of dungeons. You’ll have to get gear from the first to be able to do the next. Which I don’t mind.

It’s great for the people that love PvE and enjoy progression.

As for your suggestions: You haven’t played the content yet, don’t be so quick to critique.

Requiring you to do one dungeon before you do another serves what purpose? Why can’t we participate in all dungeons without grinding them in order?

Now if every dungeon had story and explorable modes PLUS “agony modes” which were for the “hardcore” then I would be fine.

Some of us want to just experience the content once and move on. I run every dungeon mode once and never again. I would be very very surprised if I could get all the ascended gear I need from just one run.

As for the stat itself…it is almost identical to radiance and dread in lotro….and that did not turn out well.

….uh, hi.

Big fan of you guys, ANet. Have been ever since I bought GW1 years ago. I’ve been in and out of many MMOs during that time and I wanted something that would stick. I found that in GW1: a game which allows me massive flexibility in my builds, and lets me basically “doll myself up” however I like, with item skins being the big thing.

When GW2 was announced, I was one of the biggest fans of the idea. I was so eager to get my hands on the game that I pre-purchased, happily throwing down 60 bucks for a game I knew I’d love. And I have….but recently, like a mesmer’s illusions, reality seems to be shattering the world I’d built all around me and is forcing me to confront the possibility that this game might become the sort of game I can’t bring myself to keep playing.

I was already discontented enough with legendaries, an item which demands an immensely impractical amount of my free time to obtain. But I’d shrugged it off and was looking forward to more updates until….this ascended business, and the “agony” talks.

Now, as one of your long-time defenders and biggest fans, I must ask this. And keep in mind I don’t mean to offend. But….are you out of your minds?

Let’s review in case you don’t understand what I mean: you just proposed a brand new system of gear that will be essentially REQUIRED in order to run your new dungeon efficiently, due to this “Agony” condition. This is the antithesis of GW1, and while I know “new game, new rules”, you promised us a game that would be new while staying true to the principles of GW1. This is standard MMO design, and it’s clear from this thread that very few people want this. You’ve become exactly what you were building this game to fight AGAINST.

I can’t help but feel a bit betrayed by this. We don’t NEED more “gear progression”. We need bug fixes, and more unique skills/traits, and other things that will increase variety in the game. A gear treadmill is not what we need. And if, as you say, this is “just the start” then I worry that one day I won’t be able to convince myself to defend you.

I can honestly say I won’t participate in the new dungeon if it’s going to boil down to this “Agony” business. And I probably won’t encourage other people to buy this game any more if this policy continues, either.

Siphaed.9235:

I’ve watched this “manifesto” video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

WHERE in it do they say that item progression is bad and should be/will be avoided? In fact, most of that Manifesto is about Dynamic Events and the game’s world and art style. Very little of it is (if any @ all) is about dungeons or progression on that weight.

People who are saying “you’re going back on your Manifesto” are lying…. they are either fooling themselves or are trying to deceive the community into turning against Arena.Net.

In fact, the ONLY thing I can think about that might be incorrect in that Manifesto is the part about Grind; but that’s only in relation to Legendary weapons. Then again, it’s not really grind if you rotate it casually with normal play, WvW, guild and friend events. It just scuttles into the background of fun.

It may not be on the Manifesto (I dont wanna check the video right now), but it is on the article by Colin Johanson about “How ArenaNet Measures Success”, as some people already posted here:

“Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

fractal.7039:

If anyone thinks is was a decision made over people claiming they were bored or needed more to do is utterly naive.

This dungeon and these decisions have been on thier roadmap for quite some time

Well, that’s what Arenanet stated, so if you are right, that’s another lie from them.

ANet historically makes its share of mistakes (ya, they aren’t perfect) and then they fix them. No complaints.

I just wish they’d learn from their own kitten mistakes the first time and not repeat them. Let’s just skip to the inevitable fix.

Flashback 7 years to Guild Wars:

Prior to the June 8, 2005 update, it took five runs to infuse a set of armor, since Seers would infuse only one piece of armor at a time. This annoyance is noted by Jorith during the The Battle for Lion’s Arch.

The Fix:

Armor which has been infused will be marked as Infused in the same way that weapons show customization; this property does not take up a rune or insignia slot.

Armor infusion is the only reliable protection against Spectral Agony, the monster skill used by the Mursaat and their Jade constructs. To infuse your armor, your party must kill an Eidolon or an Ice Beast, then bring its Spectral Essence to one of the ancient Seers, who will infuse the armor pieces equipped by the player character at the time. Each piece of armor can only be infused once, and the Seer will only infuse your armor once per essence.

boobzooka.3521:

this is PERFECT. gear progression introduced in stages, and already existed BIS are protected.

As many as there are QQing about gear progression, there are a lot of us had seen this coming from the get go and had been waiting for it. Skin grind just isn’t enough.

Next up hostile players and duels. Then the game would be perfecto.

Well i know a game for you… WOW its already established and carrys this model… GO PLAY IT!!!

This ascendend gears are the most dumb upgrade that Anet is adding to the game. You are evolving this game in another WoW or else. This game should be a pleasure, diversified, and not stupid " single dungeon" grinding… Sorry but you lied to us and to yourself.

I am severely upset with the direction the development team has decided to go with in terms of Ascended gear. I would consider myself a hardcore player, and have played through numerous MMO’s and was quite excited about GW2 especially in their adherance to a system outside the normal gear grind. As much as it is professed that this will not be a gear grind, I’m not blind and I can see the direction this is headed. This is a slippery slope, and as long as end game content will be nerfed in order to make high tier dungeon gear accessible to casual players while attempting to give hardcore players a leg up by increasing the reward temporarily of new content, a gear grind and WoW-like “Gear Treadmill” will be inevitable.

I would have hoped that the hardcore community would have continued to be rewarded to more aesthetically pleasing gear, achieved by more skill required dungeons or events, without actually necessitating a stat increase on said gear. This was the case in Guild Wars 1, it enabled content to be skill driven rather than gear driven as all players were put on a level playing field. This was the only reason I stood by Anet for so many years in the face of many other games that were on the market, a MMO where skill was the determinate factor in end game content not gear.

This is but one update, and Ascended gear is but a first step, eventually we will again come to the same cross roads and it will be all to easy to continue down this path. If that is the case I’m afraid myself and many of my hardcore friends who have cleared all the dungeon content before and after “buffs” throughout this game will leave with saddened hearts as to the direction that the development team has taken with this game. We are the community that shells out real money for continued investment into this game because we respect Anet and what they had tried to accomplish, not simply because we want a temporary leg up from the Gem Store.

I do hope it does not come to that, as I’ve already spent a deal of money on this game and for it to be ruined so quickly by becoming like every other MMO out there would be severly dissapointing. I had more faith and support in Anet before this.

I like the new feature, adds a sense of progression for us PvErs. And why are people complaining about grind in a MMORPG? Doesn’t make sense at all.

After reading the new blog, and holding my tongue on the subject until it was released, I have come a conclusion; I’m okay with this. There is one very important reason why; no upgrade slots.

You’re basically trading versatility for protection from a dungeon specific mechanic and a slight boost in base power. If you can’t add jewels to these things, or I’m assuming runes and sigils once they add armor and weapons, then the slightly higher base stats are justified. Think about that; you can’t put runes in your armor. If that was the case you’d want those base stats to be a little bit higher, so this is a pretty logical step. It also means that you won’t see a very high demand for ascended items outside of that dungeon. After all would you rather have armor with three percent higher stats or a full set of runes suited to your playstyle?

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

has arena net even comented on this topic yet please post me something if so ?

Lazarus Cain.5890:

I am severely upset with the direction the development team has decided to go with in terms of Ascended gear. I would consider myself a hardcore player, and have played through numerous MMO’s and was quite excited about GW2 especially in their adherance to a system outside the normal gear grind. As much as it is professed that this will not be a gear grind, I’m not blind and I can see the direction this is headed. This is a slippery slope, and as long as end game content will be nerfed in order to make high tier dungeon gear accessible to casual players while attempting to give hardcore players a leg up by increasing the reward temporarily of new content, a gear grind and WoW-like “Gear Treadmill” will be inevitable.

I would have hoped that the hardcore community would have continued to be rewarded to more aesthetically pleasing gear, achieved by more skill required dungeons or events, without actually necessitating a stat increase on said gear. This was the case in Guild Wars 1, it enabled content to be skill driven rather than gear driven as all players were put on a level playing field. This was the only reason I stood by Anet for so many years in the face of many other games that were on the market, a MMO where skill was the determinate factor in end game content not gear.

This is but one update, and Ascended gear is but a first step, eventually we will again come to the same cross roads and it will be all to easy to continue down this path. If that is the case I’m afraid myself and many of my hardcore friends who have cleared all the dungeon content before and after “buffs” throughout this game will leave with saddened hearts as to the direction that the development team has taken with this game. We are the community that shells out real money for continued investment into this game because we respect Anet and what they had tried to accomplish, not simply because we want a temporary leg up from the Gem Store.

I do hope it does not come to that, as I’ve already spent a deal of money on this game and for it to be ruined so quickly by becoming like every other MMO out there would be severly dissapointing. I had more faith and support in Anet before this.

Reading this, make me cry ç_ç
and im not trolling you, i really hate the direction we are facing.

lots of buggy and worthless traits, plenty of ways to add new things, new traits and new ways to get things.. GEAR IS THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO ADD…

Marketing Guy #1: The players all love the different gear skins!

Marketing Guy #2: Hey, I got a great idea. You know how all the dungeon/crafted/wvw sets are identical?

Marketing Guy #1: Yeah, so?

Marketing Guy #2: So what if we made all the players get NEW stuff with BETTER stats…

Marketing Guy #1: And?

Marketing Guy #2: …And then transmute the looks they like onto it!

Marketing Guy #1: Why would we do that? Can’t they just use transmutation stones?

Marketing Guy #2: At level 80, they have to use FINE stones. Which means they need…

Marketing Guy #1: …to either buy them from the gem store or get lucky with keys!

Marketing Guy #2: And what’s the main source of keys?

Marketing Guy #1: The gem store, of course!

Marketing Guy #2: We’re so getting bonuses for this.

Did this conversation ever happen? Probably not. But the fact is, with this update, it may as well have. We don’t care how finely tuned or balanced it all is on paper, because as customers, this smells ROTTEN. Like a humid day in Malchor’s Leap. And the only thing we hate more than feeling disappointed is feeling CHEATED.

Arkham Creed.7358:

After reading the new blog, and holding my tongue on the subject until it was released, I have come a conclusion; I’m okay with this. There is one very important reason why; no upgrade slots.

You’re basically trading versatility for protection from a dungeon specific mechanic and a slight boost in base power. If you can’t add jewels to these things, or I’m assuming runes and sigils once they add armor and weapons, then the slightly higher base stats are justified. Think about that; you can’t put runes in your armor. If that was the case you’d want those base stats to be a little bit higher, so this is a pretty logical step. It also means that you won’t see a very high demand for ascended items outside of that dungeon. After all would you rather have armor with three percent higher stats or a full set of runes suited to your playstyle?

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

People will end up ignoring the rationale behind this post.

I fully agree with what you said, people will opt for the versatility of Exotic gear over Ascended gear solely because it will allow for custom tailored stats. If people want to talk precedents, which seems to be the most common argument here. Then they just set a precedent for Ascended armour and weapons to not have upgrade slots either aside from an infusion slot. This will in turn mean that weapons with the upgrade slots will still be preferred by alot of players solely due to the ability to customize their playstyle. Besides, Having Runed gear will completely offset any slight stat benefit Ascended gear even offers.

From speaking the former WoW-style MMO players I know they are happy and excited for this, though I was the one introducing the info to them. One reaction was, “Good! Now it’ll have an actual end game!”

For me, I’m not calling end of the world yet but I am not thrilled with the announcement. The major reason I’ve never been able to stick with any MMO game since FFXI was because they were all designed around raiding and vertical progression. One of the major selling points for me was that this would not be the case in Guild Wars 2.

Ascended gear falls squarely into that slippery slope area. The announcement reeks of “We want the WoW audience!” I’m hoping I’m wrong and this was in the plan all along. Practically every other major MMO on the market today follows the model established by WoW. I really wish the people who want that kind of game would stay in those games rather than coming and ruining this one.

If this is opening the door to needing the newest gear tier to do the new content then I’m out. I’ve played MMO’s for 16 years now. I wanted something different, not yet another WoW-style MMO with a different coat of paint and gimmick.

Can this armor also be purchased via wvw tokens for those of us who couldn’t give a monkey’s about your carebear side of what has been sold to us as a wvw/pvp game?

Well looking at it from Anet’s stance now they have to options:

Let the content go live and loose a shed tone of players and mabey keep the people that want some progess but they will go in a couple of weeks anyway once they have completed the content.

Or

Pull the content and mabey start to recover the damage already caused. However no one trusts the company now so this will be harder.. ohh yes and they have their self pride to worry about…

Hmm… well i think the odds are on the patch going live.. they cant let their self pride down……

Was looking really forward to this update. Now, I don’t even feel like logging in for the Lost Shores event. One of the main reasons I bought this game was because they said it won’t have a stat progression. I’m burned out by this type of gear grinds and I won’t do it even if someone would pay me.

Good job ArenaNet, I guess there weren’t enough games out there that already had this “feature”.

Arkham Creed.7358:

After reading the new blog, and holding my tongue on the subject until it was released, I have come a conclusion; I’m okay with this. There is one very important reason why; no upgrade slots.

You’re basically trading versatility for protection from a dungeon specific mechanic and a slight boost in base power. If you can’t add jewels to these things, or I’m assuming runes and sigils once they add armor and weapons, then the slightly higher base stats are justified. Think about that; you can’t put runes in your armor. If that was the case you’d want those base stats to be a little bit higher, so this is a pretty logical step. It also means that you won’t see a very high demand for ascended items outside of that dungeon. After all would you rather have armor with three percent higher stats or a full set of runes suited to your playstyle?

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

Most of what you just said is just speculation, we have not seen or heard anything about ascended armor, I could just asume that it will be like an exotic with better stats plus infusions plus the ability to put runes, speculation, we don’t know. What we do know is that ascendant rings have better stats than an exotic with a gem and changing gems on accessories is not that a big deal, if you want different stats just get different accessories.

Arkham Creed.7358:

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

In this theoretical world, then the only items you’d have to ‘grind’ would be the amulet/rings/accessories, which are already better than exotics even without the infusion slot.

i.e. Still a required gear grind.

Zaber.5609:

I like the new feature, adds a sense of progression for us PvErs. And why are people complaining about grind in a MMORPG? Doesn’t make sense at all.

Why does it make no sense? Just because past MMOs are very Grundy doesn’t mean all future MMOs have to be.

Some of us play MMOs for the constantly evolving game world, the social aspect, the evolving story. I shouldn’t need to grind Dungeon A for gear before I can progress to Dungeon B, where I gain gear in preparation for Dungeon C.

I want to play each once, experience their story, and move forward.

im guessing at this point ascended gear is dungeon specific and can only be used in new content.

This is mental, all of it. All the commotion created from this UPDATE is just silly. When they make an update obviously they don’t want to lose people. So in their minds they are trying to make things BETTER for us…otherwise, why bother.

So either you(hypothetical you) play the game however you like and for whatever reasons you like, or you simply just stop.

I’m not a so called “fanboy” ANet makes mistakes, and some stuff is just not what I want it to be, but let’s just focus on whichever aspects of the GAME we like.

This is a terrible change and it will negatively impact my enjoyment of the game.

I don’t want to be forced to run these dungeons to get gear upgrades. I put my time in getting the gear I have now, and I’m happy with that gear. I don’t want to repeat the process. Furthermore, I won’t bother running the current content with this new mandatory gear type available, because the current gear becomes trash the moment that mandatory gear gets patched to the servers.

Don’t do this, Anet. It’s not too late to change your mind. Get rid of the entire Agony mechanic and turn the gear into what it should have been in the first place: different skins only.

I’d write something longer, but at 116 pages in I think just adding my voice to those against this change is enough. Don’t patch this garbage to the live servers, and fire whoever thought this was a good idea. Try importing your GW1 staff to take their places.

Zaber.5609:

I like the new feature, adds a sense of progression for us PvErs. And why are people complaining about grind in a MMORPG? Doesn’t make sense at all.

Did you read my post, or even the opening sentence?

I’m not asking about progression, grind, gating, etc.

Outside of all of that, can anyone defending the new system present a good argument that it adds some new interesting challenge to the game. By which I mean, how does it challenge a player’s skill? Not gear acquisition, not time spent, not any of that.

What does it add in terms of player skill? As far as I can see, nothing. But I would love to be proved wrong.

boobzooka.3521:

this is PERFECT. gear progression introduced in stages, and already existed BIS are protected.

As many as there are QQing about gear progression, there are a lot of us had seen this coming from the get go and had been waiting for it. Skin grind just isn’t enough.

Next up hostile players and duels. Then the game would be perfecto.

You saw them going completely against every advertisement, every interview, every promise and every bit of marketing they released for this game?

What are tomorrow’s lotto numbers? Please tell me, oh great oracle!

You’ve got your cause and effect backwards. This wasn’t something that you could see coming. This was caused by the fact that a lot of players showed up looking for something that this game wasn’t because they didn’t follow the development and only cared about “Oh, cool! New game!”.

When I first read about the new Ascended gear I was indifferent, until they mentioned that you needed the Infusions from it in order to do the new dungeons. At that point, I was mad. Then I thought about it some more and no longer am.

1. Excluding Legendary, there are already 5 different Tiers of gear in the game.

2. At level 80, all 5 Tiers are available to be bought from other players on the Auction House.

3. Upon reaching 80, you can buy up what is essentially the best gear to do any and all content with, “Exotics”.
Exotics are comparable to other MMOs’ " Top Tier/End Game Bind on Pickup" gear which you can *only obtain either after a set amount of RL days has passed (Token/Badge system) or through a random drop from a raid boss
*The difference however, is that in GW2 you can just buy it on the Auction House

4. The new 6th Tier, Ascended, is not merely “just another Tier”. It seems to be an absolute requirement to do the new dungeons because of the Infusions.

5. You can just buy the new Ascended gear, along with Infusions off the Auction House
^Speculation, but considering the fact that the final form of a Legendary Weapon can be sold on there too, do you really think Ascended will be any different?

So I guess the question is…..at level 80, does the majority of players really only buy Basic Tier (Whites) on the Auction House to wear for most of the content they do?

MikeTsa.7396:

Arkham Creed.7358:

After reading the new blog, and holding my tongue on the subject until it was released, I have come a conclusion; I’m okay with this. There is one very important reason why; no upgrade slots.

You’re basically trading versatility for protection from a dungeon specific mechanic and a slight boost in base power. If you can’t add jewels to these things, or I’m assuming runes and sigils once they add armor and weapons, then the slightly higher base stats are justified. Think about that; you can’t put runes in your armor. If that was the case you’d want those base stats to be a little bit higher, so this is a pretty logical step. It also means that you won’t see a very high demand for ascended items outside of that dungeon. After all would you rather have armor with three percent higher stats or a full set of runes suited to your playstyle?

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

Most of what you just said is just speculation, we have not seen or heard anything about ascended armor, I could just asume that it will be like an exotic with better stats plus infusions plus the ability to put runes, speculation, we don’t know. What we do know is that ascendant rings have better stats than an exotic with a gem and changing gems on accessories is not that a big deal, if you want different stats just get different accessories.

And so is the idea that they will start adding more tiers in the future and that all future content will be gated.

Nar.8327:

Marketing Guy #1: The players all love the different gear skins!

Marketing Guy #2: Hey, I got a great idea. why don’t we add a new set with a slot for a resistance crystal

Marketing Guy #1: Yeah, so?

Marketing Guy #2: Well we add agony to the new dungeon and the only way to get resistance against it is by getting the crystal through the mystic forge.

Marketing Guy #1: And?

Marketing Guy #2: …we make one of the ingredients really hard to find.

Marketing Guy #1: Why would we do that?

Marketing Guy #2: .. we sell the ingredient on the online store too…..

Marketing Guy #1: …so they either buy it from the store or get really lucky with drops!

Marketing Guy #2: We’re so getting bonuses for this.

just edited it for you a bit

Arkham Creed.7358:

That’s the real comparison we need to make here; is ascended gear without upgrades better than exotic gear WITH full upgrades? Because that ascended gear isn’t going to have upgrade slots.

So? Are still better on stats, some rune upgrades are lame if compared with a stats boost. and an 8% boost, its a really good boost! and now we are talking about only the stats boost, but if they release ascended armors and weapons, i exepct that the new pieces have an armor boost, and a damage boost too.