Guild Wars 2

What is really concerning me now is that when people do get their Ascended-Gear, and want to attempt harder content and in need of resistance.

They hit this brick wall " Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge. "

So is this going to be another lottery where we are faced with a grind and a chance to get the Infusion we need? when and only when i can actually get the list of mats i need.

Because so far my experience with the Mystic Forge has been a cross between gambling and massive grind.

I fail to see the challenge involved here.

tkalamba.2541:

+5 to power and precision, an increase which is so small it wont have any real effect to anyones ability to play.

So why than increase the stats at all? It’s not a huge boost, but it’s there and I see absolutely no reason why it has to be there. Higher stats are not necessary for new or even harder content, they just add more grind to the game.

Ascended should be a prefix on gear that can be applied to any item and simply adds an infusion slot.

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. -_-

I am impressed. This one post displays that you are one of the most clueless people in the entire thread.

I am not a casual. I want real challenge. I don’t care how arbitrarily big my numbers are, nor how arbitrarily big your numbers are, or NPC’s numbers. The reason why we all call this a “treadmill” is because there is absolutely no actual progression, for all your work all you get rewarded with is not having your arbitrary numbers becoming obsolete.

I want challenging dungeons that test my skill, my coordination with partymembers. In pvp I want to defeat, or be defeated by people that have the same level of gear as myself, because then I really know that it is my own skill progressing, not one of us had an advantage because one of us had arbitrarily higher stats.

Are you really that bad at the game that you need a handicap of having higher skills? And you call that hardcore?? Laughable.

kistell.5684:

So is this going to be another lottery where we are faced with a grind and a chance to get the Infusion we need? when and only when i can actually get the list of mats i need.

Because so far my experience with the Mystic Forge has been a cross between gambling and massive grind.

They seem to be wising up to the fact that people hate the lottery, but they show no signs of giving up on the grind.

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

Since you didnt even try to think a single second, and didnt even read somes post to have the answer about the problem about the “new gear”

i will just do a copy and paste.

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success#more-8572

“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.”
– Colin Johanson

So far, getting exotic gear is not really a option. It change quiet a lot the possible damage. Like in WvW if you want do something else than just follow a bus, you have to get the lastest exotic gear.

And the Ascended gear is mandatory to be able to do their new dungeon with their stupid agony stuff.

hmmm Is there someplace that actually lists any of the Ascended stuff? or did I miss a dev post on it? Or are people just speculating?

tkalamba.2541:

Omega.1473:

Yahti.9321:

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.

I think a lot of people are missing this…

THERE’S NOTHING TO MISS!!!

We don’t know how Infusions will work. The Infusions slots could very well include their own set of upgrades as well. We even know that there are categories : Offensive, Defensive and Omni which have their own tiering as per Murdock’s statement that Omni infusions will be tiered as “fine” quality.

How will those not make up for the lack of Runes? If Exotic = Ascendent without any slotting, then what happens when you slot Infusions? Unless these Infusions literally do nothing against non-Fractal enemies, then the gear is objectively better than Exotics. End of story.

They said Infusions only add resistance to Agony…..

""They""’ are lying

In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.

soo much for
"""The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items""""

Gear based game progression.

That’s all there is to this.

Nothing to get tripped up about; let’s just call a spade a spade.

A is A

tkalamba.2541:

Omega.1473:

Yahti.9321:

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.

I think a lot of people are missing this…

THERE’S NOTHING TO MISS!!!

We don’t know how Infusions will work. The Infusions slots could very well include their own set of upgrades as well. We even know that there are categories : Offensive, Defensive and Omni which have their own tiering as per Murdock’s statement that Omni infusions will be tiered as “fine” quality.

How will those not make up for the lack of Runes? If Exotic = Ascendent without any slotting, then what happens when you slot Infusions? Unless these Infusions literally do nothing against non-Fractal enemies, then the gear is objectively better than Exotics. End of story.

They said Infusions only add resistance to Agony…..

No, they did not. Go re-read the post. Please, for your sake, for our sake and for the sake of everyone reading this thread, go re-read the Murdock’s post.

I was so sad to hear about ascended gear. Guild Wars has NEVER been about a stat grind on gear.

It’s a real shame to hear about that.

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

My response to this is something I’ve already posted

Shockwave.1230:

I’m disappointed. I only get to play less than 10 hours a week and now there is gear progression. I’m sol in my guild, because I’ll be gim-ped for newer content for a long time. Also people will want to do the newest most “challenging” content, and all my guildies gear will make current dungeons easier.

I wish ANet would spend their time catering to their aging fanbase, by simply making new challenges and new content as opposed to creating a carrot on a stick gear progression… I feel like I have better things to do with my time than run another gear treadmill, id play diablo 3 if I wanted that.

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

Maybe it’s because Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different from the norm. Did you ever consider that? I don’t want an MMO. I want Guild Wars 2 and this just isn’t what we were promised. In fact, it goes completely against ArenaNet’s own vision.

We are manning up by fighting for the sake of this game’s future, to prevent it from becoming another withered husk in the shadow of World of Warcraft.

Greep.6394:

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

What the heck do skins have to do with gear treadmills? Another troll. kitten is this topic just trolls trolling other trolls now?

Its not about the skins, its about having to get new gear. Im saying it how it is.. People here seem scared that if you don’t want to get the new gear than your somehow behind. Thats the bottom line.. No troll in my posts Im calling it like it is.

If infusions only give you resistance to Agony, why would there be three types – offensive, defensive, and omni? Why not just defensive?

sonicwylde.2906:

hmmm Is there someplace that actually lists any of the Ascended stuff? or did I miss a dev post on it? Or are people just speculating?

There’s a blog post somewhere. Long story short, it’s basically an 8% increase in stats it seems, although they’ve used magic find in the stats to deliberately confuse people who are poor at math into think it’s only 1%

Smartbean.5960:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Xeres.3724:

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.

And yet the official blog by Linsey Murdock says that they did this in response to player feedback after the game went live. So that means they have betrayed their core philosophy based on a fantastically small percentage of the player base. The only way to get a good sampling of what the player base really wants (or doesn’t want) is to do a log-in poll. There has been no such poll, so based on what “player feedback” are they supposedly making this fundamental shift in game policy?

So now we have over a hundred pages and over 5k responses of “player feedback” that dwarfs any pro-progression posts on these forums; if GW2 is so responsive to “player feedback”, where are they? IF this was truly a “player feedback”-driven addition, then the current overwhelming player pushback should have them take the Agony/Ascended “end game” mechanism out of the content update, now that they realize that no, we really do not want this.

Comparing apples to apples – player feedback to player feedback, each as a “miniscule” portion of the player base, those against the Ascended mechanic win. If ANET is really responding to player feedback, they’ll take it out of the update.

Unfortunately, this “item progression initiative” has been in the works for much longer than the game has been live, and they’re only trying to spin it as the developers being responsive to community concerns.

/Signed

+1

it’s scary..

I am sorely… no, bitterly disappointed in the move towards gear grinding for stats.

nemo.1572:

Currently a lv 80 rare item is about 15 Silver. A exotic is about 1.5 Gold.
Assumption: The new gear will be about 15 Gold per piece.

I think it’s more likely that the price of exotics will come crashing down. If people put them up for 15 gold, they will be unable to sell as there may be no one to buy.

Guess I’ll be joining my friends in Halo rather than trying to drag them here this weekend…

There are almost an infinite number of ways they could have increased the sense of progression without introducing a new gear tiers. Why not rely more on player skill in dungeons and not allow revives? Dungeons are instanced; they should be able to do much more with the enemies combat mechanics than they do.

Twoflower.7031:

tjockis.3798:

ohhh myyy gooood! time to get over this crying, allready? This is starting to get ridiculous. Grow up, to start with! You all whiners sound like cry-babies. Wisiting these forums makes me feel ashamed over the so called community. Be happy they add something at all – for free. Seriously you kittens.

(on a more personally opinion i look forward to this since i find it cool with new things and im not so uptight and a demanding prick)

sry if i might have some strong words, but come on… dont worry, be happy, for kitten sake!

So your argument is “I like this change, therefore anyone who disagrees is just whining and has invalid opinions!”

No.. i didnt say i liked this change… i said i liked that they add NEW things… read? learn it!

I left WoW/Rift to get away from stat dependancy to make up for peoples lack of knowledge of their class. I was under the impression GW2 will bring to light the players that do know their class, & can preform even more adequately just from themselves alone.

If this patch is the 1st step to the “Gear-Treadmill”, it will only reduce the quality of the community as stats grow with time. People will rely on gear stat’s more then a person’s ability/know-how of their class. People will spam for players to link gear with “requirements” decided by the poor community at that time to run any dungeon. Letting their gear stat’s carry them through all content that is put out. I definatly do not feel this is a step in the right direction for Anet that had a much different philosiphy before this announced patch.

Having said all that, I will continue to play & see where this game leads. I love where the game is currently, playing for fun. Please dont start making me play “Catch-up” to current content.
Thank you Anet for a great game so far!!

Fungalfoot.7213:

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

Maybe it’s because Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be different from the norm. Did you ever consider that? I don’t want an MMO. I want Guild Wars 2 and this just isn’t what we were promised. In fact, it goes completely against ArenaNet’s own vision.

We are manning up by fighting for the sake of this game’s future, to prevent it from becoming another withered husk in the shadow of World of Warcraft.

The game has no future if you don’t have something to look forward to and the progression stops.. C’mon how do you not see it? Guildwars 1 and WOW came out around the same time. Where is guildwars 1 today and why does the other game have millions of people 8 years later.. How do you explain that? Anet is doing the right thing here. And by the way I bought the game because it didnt have set roles.. I hate the whole tank, healer, dps thing. Thats what made me buy GW2

I just want to say one thing to all rage quitter: see you in the Fractals of the Mists!

camoflaugz.5031:

Greep.6394:

camoflaugz.5031:

This whole QQ thing is the most funniest thing Ive seen in any MMO to date and Ive played or atleast tried them all. I can’t believe how people are crying about getting new gear.
Never have I witnessed people so scared of other people wanting to progress and having different gear. Its almost like.. OMG he grinded so hard for a legendary hes an elitist! the game is broken now! c’mon people Man up, this is an MMO.

What the heck do skins have to do with gear treadmills? Another troll. kitten is this topic just trolls trolling other trolls now?

Its not about the skins, its about having to get new gear. Im saying it how it is.. People here seem scared that if you don’t want to get the new gear than your somehow behind. Thats the bottom line.. No troll in my posts Im calling it like it is.

Then you are calling it wrong. Most of the people complaining including me will get the ascended items if they put them in game. Ascended items will probably not be that hard to get to begin with so most casuals will probably get them too. The problem is about principle, the problem is that anet is straying from what they promised the problem is that if this becomes like any other MMO why should I play this and not WoW for example that I have invested way more time in. I came here to find something different not just some other MMO

I don’t really understand how Anet came up with this strategy from a past like the one that GW ever had, all this is leading to the WoW-Genre.
I have the constant fear that you’re modifying the game to take back all the unsatisfied players that are turning again on WoW, uniforming to these standards WON’T give you back all the players that returned to WoW, because GW2 will NEVER be like it, unless you undo it and recreate it from the beginning to match the gameplay style of Warcraft. But be sure that you’ll lose all the fans and supporters that loved GW for WHAT IT WAS and what can still be if you change the stats on this gear (i know that the stats won’t change so much, but it’s a symptom of a bigger problem that WILL escalate, because the ascended gear will be expanded).
Those who play GW2 want to play it for the sporting spirit that YOU promised us (promise that was mantained until this expansion), we don’t care to farm only in one boring place because we HAVE to be stronger, strenght comes from player’s ability and creativity in creating a new spec, not because i have a stronger equip than yours.
If we would have preferred that kind of gaming philosophy we would never have bought this game so, please, think to the ones that really love this game, and develop it for them, and NOT for all those whiners who can’t appreciate the game for all that stands for. You can’t abandon your uniqueness to try (and fail) to take back some worthless players who would have abandoned the game anyway.

SAVE THE CRAFT PLEASE, and thank you for your attention.

Malevil.2104:

Now all this game needs is trinity and raiding. Would be perfect.

/sarcasm off

If the timing of this patch is any indication, we should see the update to add the holy trinity and raiding in 2-3 months.

by far the worst idea, I’m out. ArenaNet check my account, you’ll notice that I have deleted all my characters, bye.

I’m going to be more OP then most of you, with my 5 extra power!

Tega.6813:

I’m going to be more OP then most of you, with my 5 extra power!

And your incredible ability to understand math, too.

So… after 118 pages this thread is not so much a Q&A or discussion with developers on the philosophical shift in design, but rather just a dumping ground for all comments on this subject?

That’s almost as disappointing as the change itself. I was hoping to see some feedback coming from the other direction by now.

Wolfend.5287:

by far the worst idea, I’m out. ArenaNet check my account, you’ll notice that I have deleted all my characters, bye.

lol… you havnt.. you will continue play as usual while your rage has calm down..

Tega.6813:

I’m going to be more OP then most of you, with my 5 extra power!

Be careful you could hurt peoples feelings:) you cant be more powerful!

Guys this is all very simple. They figure if they add a gear treadill they’ll piss off 80% of the population to retain the 20% that are going to leave if they don’t add it, and they figure only a small a very small percentage of the 80% will actually get pissed off enough to leave, so they make the most money this way . Sad thing is it’ll prolly work, even though people bought the game solely because it had no gear treadmill they’ll probably keep playing. I sure as heck am not, though.

Because most people support a communist idealogy in this thread.

ChairGraveyard.2967:

Malevil.2104:

Now all this game needs is trinity and raiding. Would be perfect.

/sarcasm off

If the timing of this patch is any indication, we should see the update to add the holy trinity and raiding in 2-3 months.

The holy trinity would actually do more to bring in the grind crowd than this feeble grasp at tiered progression.

The GW2 exists because of the people who played GW1 and enjoyed lack of gear-progression and having only twenty levels. Is that really the message A-Net wants to send to us, that players like us do not matter?

As for the people who say that we jump to conclusions, if we were mistaken, I think the the developers would already clarify the issue. Their silence is not reassuring.
And i repeat again, ignoring the fanbase won’t make the problem go away, it will just anger people more. Like over 100 pages of this topic alone(after moderation).

Not even a little interested in the new gear/direction here either. It reeks of War’s ward system or Lotro’s radiance. Never, ever tie progression to gear. Pretty sure this is some sort of mmo golden rule.

What concerns me more is this new Agony condition. So it constantly ticks away percentages of your health depending on how much of this gear you have? Sorry, but this is just boring and unimaginative encounter design. If this new dungeon is anything at all like the current ones, I am fully expecting the absolute worst time to be had yet. Dungeons are already plagued with condition spamming mobs with hard-CC spam and powerful attacks. I already die from chain-knockdown spamming trash that inflict poison/bleed/snares as well as deal obscene amounts of damage. Now you want me to put up with a constant percentage of my health being drained away?

No.

So basically you have to grind to go deeper in the dungeon.
You don’t go deeper because you are more skilled then others, you go deeper becouse you have better infusion.
And with better infusion come better rewards and better drops.
And with that will come a huge gap between casual and hardcore players, from who play 10h per day more and who play 2h a week.
And when they will add more ascending gear and more infusion slota/tipes the gap will become bigger.
No guys, this is wrong.
This is not the game they promised to us.
This is different.
There are many way to achieve “progression” without touching the gear and the power level of a character.

The core is the same: they have trashed the GW2 Manifesto again. This is a turning point: with this feature we will see the rise of someting like “LF2M FotM, minimum rare onmi infusion”… and is… is… i don’t even have the words to explain that.

They should focus on more UNIQUE contents: is this a endless dungeon with a rising difficulty?
Then make a ladder (daily/weekly/montly/annual and lifetaime one) and give rewards to best team, even a very unique/limided edition skins so people will have a goal related to the dungeon, without ruining the gear balance

tjockis.3798:

Wolfend.5287:

by far the worst idea, I’m out. ArenaNet check my account, you’ll notice that I have deleted all my characters, bye.

lol… you havnt.. you will continue play as usual while your rage has calm down..

now deleted. eight characters in all,

good luck.

game uninstalled.

Tega.6813:

Because most people support a communist idealogy in this thread.

More like most people support not having psychologically damaging levels of OCD required to enjoy running a dungeon way beyond you’re done having fun with it to play more content, for no reason I might add. That’s what a gear treadmill is.

We don’t want no ascended items if this becomes a gear grind I’m done with this game. I came here to have fun and play the game not to gear grind i just got all my exotics and now a new tier?

Edge.4180:

That’s almost as disappointing as the change itself. I was hoping to see some feedback coming from the other direction by now.

They don’t have anything to say. What would their defense be?

“Sorry, we panicked since the WoW fanboys began leaving the game – like they have left every single big MMO released the last few years – and so we decided to alienate our loyal fanbase in an attempt to make the WoW fanboys stick around, despite how they will leave regardless.”

Tega.6813:

Because most people support a communist idealogy in this thread.

Nice to see how your great math abilities are paired with great geopolitical knowledge.

Greep.6394:

More like most people support not having psychologically damaging levels of OCD required to enjoy running a dungeon way beyond you’re done having fun with it to play more content, for no reason I might add. That’s what a gear treadmill is.

Barbie land doesnt require OCD, go try it out mate!

camoflaugz.5031:

The game has no future if you don’t have something to look forward to and the progression stops.. C’mon how do you not see it? Guildwars 1 and WOW came out around the same time. Where is guildwars 1 today and why does the other game have millions of people 8 years later.. How do you explain that? Anet is doing the right thing here. And by the way I bought the game because it didnt have set roles.. I hate the whole tank, healer, dps thing. Thats what made me buy GW2

Because it’s not like you can look forward to content if it doesn’t give you a arbitrary stat inflation at the end. That’s crazy talk.

And Guild Wars is still around to this date. That’s a lot more than what can be said for many of the WoW clones. I mean, what exactly do you think enabled Guild Wars 2’s creation if not the resounding success of its predecessor? That success was primarily achieved because ArenaNet didn’t try to imitate Blizzard. After all, who wants a cheap imitation?

I’ll keep playing until the gear treadmill progresses a bit farther. But once the game gets to the point that I have to constantly grind to keep up with the current gear so that I can be viable in WvW is the day I’ll move on. I’ve already got classical themepark MMOs that I enjoy. GW2 was supposed to be different, that was it’s appeal.

Looks like it wasn’t happy being different. Welcome to the EQ/WoW club!

And, for that cherry on top, let’s add a resilience rating to WvW!

[quote Linsey Murdock]
I hope you are all as excited about these new items as I am!
[/quote]

No, not at all.
Gear grind, coupled with gear-gating. I’ll be off then, bye.

I really dont understand why create these new type of gear, instead of new skills… the higher skill costumization was the Anet success, and its last for about 7 years… even without new expasions.. so why revert this wonderful filosophy!!!

Greep.6394:

Guys this is all very simple. They figure if they add a gear treadill they’ll piss off 80% of the population to retain the 20% that are going to leave if they don’t add it, and they figure only a small a very small percentage of the 80% will actually get pissed off enough to leave, so they make the most money this way . Sad thing is it’ll prolly work, even though people bought the game solely because it had no gear treadmill they’ll probably keep playing. I sure as heck am not, though.

Why would you leave? aren’t you wearing exotics? I know you didn’t get that on accident. Also I thought the new content was designed to be for both casual and hardcore.

Edge.4180:

So… after 118 pages this thread is not so much a Q&A or discussion with developers on the philosophical shift in design, but rather just a dumping ground for all comments on this subject?

That’s almost as disappointing as the change itself. I was hoping to see some feedback coming from the other direction by now.

Easier to sweep the massive outcry against this under the rug than actually address it and admit they caved to the WoW fanboys, who just want to see the game die so they can be justified in going “Harp darp, going back to WoW”.