Guild Wars 2

Tega.6813:

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!

You nailed it on the head. Barbie land > this crap now.

ShadowBorn.6984:

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.

How is this better? How is lying to your playerbase better? How is loosing your credibility kittening better?
How the kitten is this a mistake? A mistake that all the leads at ANET suddenly made?

This is a kittenstorm of epic proportions and it will not end until we get a definitive answer from ANET.

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

GW1 is now GW2 because of this. Because we stuck with ANET and supported them GW2 was made. It was to follow the same principles and be better. Without all of that you d still be playing WoW. Oh snap!

But no. Now we are here with the masses of ex-wow players whining they want progression so they can feel progression to progress for the sake of progression.
With power creep you are not progressing anywhere. You stay in the wheel right in the same spot you were.

I really don’t see the mechanic as being innovative, or any less annoying/gimmicky than Blizzard requiring players in WoW to bring elemental resistance gear to fights that make heavy use of elemental damage – a practice ANet made a point of saying early on they were going to gladly steer clear of.

Pendragon.8735:

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.

True. It’d also do a lot more to kill the game for the people that actually like it, and that WoW grinder crowd doesn’t stick with games anyway (they’d probably claim “It’s just a bad imitation of WoW, going back to WoW”).

How could you Anet? How? You not only have broken your own manifesto, but my heart also…

Wolfend.5287:

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.

I sure hope your not as impulsive in real life and think twice before doing things. Can be dangerous… Just a heads up….

SonicTHI.3217:

ShadowBorn.6984:

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.

How is this better? How is lying to your playerbase better? How is loosing your credibility kittening better?
How the kitten is this a mistake? A mistake that all the leads at ANET suddenly made?

This is a kittenstorm of epic proportions and it will not end until we get a definitive answer from ANET.

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

GW1 is now GW2 because of this. Because we stuck with ANET and supported them GW2 was made. It was to follow the same principles and be better. Without all of that you d still be playing WoW. Oh snap!

But no. Now we are here with the masses of ex-wow players whining they want progression so they can feel progression to progress for the sake of progression.
With power creep you are not progressing anywhere. You stay in the wheel right in the same spot you were.

GW1 and GW2 feel nothing alike.. atleast to me.

Erasculio.2914:

Regardless of what they have done, ArenaNet has lost their credibility under my eyes. The only thing that would make me believe in them again would be a complete reversal on the Ascended gear, together with firing Linsey Murdock.

Please don’t talk about credibility when you actually, unironically and openly advocate firing someone for no reason but to satisfy your sense of indignation. If you actually want Ms. Murdock to lose her job for nothing more than the fact that she delivered a blog post that you hate, you need to calm down and step away from the monitor.

I’m upset about the changes too, but there are about a thousand constructive ways to cope with being upset. This isn’t one of them.

I think Aion did the whole “We need another level of gear to satisfy the gear collectors!” by adding in a line that requires the player to keep a certain level of abyss points.

I really hope this isn’t setting a precedent for adding more gear with special stats that are required for completing future dungeons. I’d hate to see that happen. Why not add in a slot to the exotics that allow for adding infusions?

Here’s what’s going to happen.

The WoW progression crowd will cheer, log in, plow through the content and go back to Mists of Pandaria once their characters are fully decked out.

Meanwhile the scorned GW crowd will grow increasingly bitter with some outright quitting and others just sucking it down until they can no longer stomach it.

Now that’s how you build a healthy community.

The best part of GW2 was never the dungeons. The dev team does not have as much experience or creativeness of other MMO’s that were designed and focused on dungeons and raiding from the beginning. It’s strengths were in the new gen ideas it pushed. About freedom of playing how you wish, anti-grind, multiple avenues to the plateau, lively combat, not restricted by rote raiding schemes, etc.

So simply throwing some higher number rewards into dungeons, and worse, forcing it to matter to all parts of the game, funneling players there whether they want to do it or not, is not any kind of answer or solution to dwindling player numbers, if that is what this is about.

In fact, to the extent that is happening, I would say its because dungeons were already too much of the focus of end game (for all the best looking skins) and they were dreadfully boring to run over and over, and most players simply are not doing them. So why make them even more required? And compound the problem by putting a gear treadmill on top?

Why not more longer outside dynamic event chains with cosmetic rewards at the end? Judging by how many people still do the same couple Orr events over and over, it wouldn’t take that much improvement and variety to get a lot of people out into new zones with new and better events. Why not more unique and challenging crafting reward? Why not more than one or two skin choices for WvW rewards, despite that so many already enjoy that mode even without virtually any rewards. Don’t force them into stale dungeon grinding, reward them for playing the part of the game they like.

camoflaugz.5031:

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.

Because if they add a gear grind to keep people occupied just 2 friggin months into the game, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to wonder what happens when the next 2 months are over with. I got exotics because I thought that was the end of it and then I could actually have some friggin’ fun for the rest of GW2, just like GW1 with it’s lack of gear treadmill was like.

Enikuo.9205:

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

from the names of the infusions: offensive would add damage against a new mob, defensive add defense against the new condition and omni would do both this things.
this is all specific to the dungeon/new zone and wont work elsewhere.

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.

Dear ragequitter please restore your char and send me your gear and all of your gold if you don’t need them. Thanks.

Tega.6813:

If you are quitting my inbox is open to all donations!
Much appreciated.

You can have my immense disappointment. Would you like me to gift-wrap it?

Eveningstar.6940:

Erasculio.2914:

Regardless of what they have done, ArenaNet has lost their credibility under my eyes. The only thing that would make me believe in them again would be a complete reversal on the Ascended gear, together with firing Linsey Murdock.

Please don’t talk about credibility when you actually, unironically and openly advocate firing someone for no reason but to satisfy your sense of indignation. If you actually want Ms. Murdock to lose her job for nothing more than the fact that she delivered a blog post that you hate, you need to calm down and step away from the monitor.

I’m upset about the changes too, but there are about a thousand constructive ways to cope with being upset. This isn’t one of them.

Well said. I don’t agree with everything Murdock says or does, but we live in a world where not every idea is going to be golden. If anyone’s job is on the line, it should be the QA team for giving it the ok and thinking this would sit well with the player base.

Mm. In addendum to my earlier post, I have to say this:

If this isn’t seemly a side-grade kind of tier, or if there is indeed intentions to advance gear gating in future.. don’t.

Seriously, don’t let that fickle crowd of hardcore mmo players whine you out of your principles, Arenanet. They won’t stay any way you go. I will, if you guys stick to the principles you sold me on.

While I’m excited for new content and new gear skins, I am rather unhappy with the stat increase and gating mechanic.

It seems to fly in the face of Colin’s blog post shortly before launch:
http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

His ‘Fun impacts loot’ paragraph speaks to avoiding doing this very thing:

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.

I can’t recall, but did anyone beat GW1 without getting infused armor? That was a pretty big chunk of the story, dealing with the Mursaat. So really, what we have here is do the dungeon for slightly better gear, or don’t and enjoy the current game with hardly any loss on your end….as opposed to not finishing a game.

Honestly people, queue the outrage when we actually have concrete facts on the overall stats and how they affect us. I highly doubt the difference between all exotics and ascended (in normal PvE) is going to be as large as all exotics versus all rares.

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

Someone must be paying attention, because my posts keep disappearing. I guess that’s good news, right?

Letifer.4360:

Enikuo.9205:

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

from the names of the infusions: offensive would add damage against a new mob, defensive add defense against the new condition and omni would do both this things.
this is all specific to the dungeon/new zone and wont work elsewhere.

You’re basing this on nothing.

Murdock stated in the blog post that this gear is an upgrade over Exotic, giving players an advantage in the endgame (her exact words). I’m prone to believer her statement more than the optimisitic outlook that this new slot will be useless outside of the Fractals dungeon.

tetsuo.7318:

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

You could try reading some of the thousands of posts in this thread. That might help.

I play GW2 because it’s not just another MMO, but the blog post confirms that they are well on their way to becoming just another MMO.

Extremely disappointing that they are going this route.

Letifer.4360:

Enikuo.9205:

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

from the names of the infusions: offensive would add damage against a new mob, defensive add defense against the new condition and omni would do both this things.
this is all specific to the dungeon/new zone and wont work elsewhere.

I’m hoping this is the case. Your infusement would then be your ticket to tiers/level/difficulties of dungeon content (their version of progressive raiding, and irrelevant everywhere else) while your gear is just your gear. Still could have been done through a bunch of much better methods.

tetsuo.7318:

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

Yes, because gear progression constitutes what rpg is…

Character progression could be done in so many better ways, but no, they just had to do it in this lazy manner and in so doing cotradict their design philosophies.

tetsuo.7318:

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

Maybe because they specifically said there would not add ite progression and because their past actions generally supported this would hold for GW2 before a bunch of kitten decided they wanted to deliberately join a game they don’t like, whine about it, and force the devs to react to people they never made the game for? Most of the people pissed off at this DON"T play other MMOs PRECISELY for the reason you stated. Sorry for being pissed off, this is just venting at this point.

Tega.6813:

Because most people support a communist idealogy in this thread.

Incorrect. Most people in this thread want individual skill to outweigh time sinks. You have it completely backwards.

Erasculio.2914:

For some time now, the MMO genre has seen the rise of a new phenomenon: the MMO locusts. Everyone know them – the players that jump from the next big MMO to the next big MMO, always complaining, always claiming that the next big thing will be the real deal. Why has this phenomenon been born, though?

This cloud of bugs is made mostly by WoW players (since WoW is the game that introduced most players to the MMO genre) who, whether they are smart enough to realize it or not, are actually seeking a new WoW. They jump to whatever new MMO has just been released, complain about how said MMO lacks features that they had seen before in WoW, and then leave the game, making it suffer a huge drop in players. There are many examples of such behavior, but the really interesting thing is that the locust cloud will leave a game even if it is mostly a WoW clone, as many examples show. In reality, they are looking for something that does not exist – a game that is more WoW than, well, WoW – so it’s little surprise that they continue to hop from MMO to MMO, endlessly and futilely.

What has happened in Guild Wars 2? The game released, the MMO locusts swarmed the game, and as expected, they began to leave. It’s not hard to guess that the number of Guild Wars 2 players has been falling. Again as expected, though, the cloud of bugs is not going away quietly – they were, and are, complaining in the forum about how Guild Wars 2 lacks what they see as MMO-defining features, which actually are features they saw in WoW (and since those players are basically looking for a new WoW, they want those features back).

Now it’s clear that, seeing how players were leaving the game, ArenaNet panicked; and as such, they tried reading the forum to decide why were so many people leaving. Anyone who has seen any MMO launch in the last few years would know the reason, but ArenaNet decided, anyway, to listen to the whining of the locust players, and so they began implementing WoW features in GW2. The first, although probably not the last, is the Ascended gear.

Lessons to be learned here:

1) Whining in the forum works, that’s how the WoW lovers convinced ArenaNet to add Ascended gear. Some of them are now saying that those against a gear treadmill are whining, which is just hypocrisy – that’s what they did, and that’s what we know works, so…

2) ArenaNet clearly has no idea of what its playerbase thinks. It’s bad enough that they actually decided to implement the Ascended items, but it’s even worse that they are paralyzed in surprise by the community outcry against those items. I’m sure they are still wondering what did they do wrong.

3) ArenaNet still has not learned that they currently have two opposite groups of players:

• WoW fanboys, who cannot conceive a MMO without grind-based vertical progression, in which the point of a MMO is to grind as much as possible for as long as possible, and to whom how good a piece of content is can be defined by how time consuming it is and how exclusive it is.

• Players who are interested in having fun instead of in grinding, who want horizontal-based content, more areas to explore, more interesting dungeons, and overall a better game.

ArenaNet cannot please both sides – they are antagonic to each other. If ArenaNet thinks the first group will be happy with whatever it is they do, they are wrong – those players will leave GW2, just as they have left every other WoW clone, while seeking a new, “perfect” WoW. Adding gear grind or raids or mounts or whatever won’t change that. What all those things would do, though, is alienate the latter group – those who are playing GW2 exactly because it is not WoW, and who make the playerbase that will remain in the game once the locusts leave. If those players are not enough to keep Guild Wars 2 around… I’m sorry, ArenaNet, your game has failed. Driving them away from the game by adding content diametrically opposed to what they want, under the illusion that it’s possible to catch the locusts, is only going to speed the demise of the game.

Regardless of what they have done, ArenaNet has lost their credibility under my eyes. The only thing that would make me believe in them again would be a complete reversal on the Ascended gear, together with firing Linsey Murdock.

This

Greep.6394:

Most of the people pissed off at this DON"T play other MMOs PRECISELY for the reason you stated.

This.

If I wanted a gear treadmill, I’d go back to Aion.

Pendragon.8735:

The best part of GW2 was never the dungeons. The dev team does not have as much experience or creativeness of other MMO’s that were designed and focused on dungeons and raiding from the beginning. It’s strengths were in the new gen ideas it pushed. About freedom of playing how you wish, anti-grind, multiple avenues to the plateau, lively combat, not restricted by rote raiding schemes, etc.

So simply throwing some higher number rewards into dungeons, and worse, forcing it to matter to all parts of the game, funneling players there whether they want to do it or not, is not any kind of answer or solution to dwindling player numbers, if that is what this is about.

In fact, to the extent that is happening, I would say its because dungeons were already too much of the focus of end game (for all the best looking skins) and they were dreadfully boring to run over and over, and most players simply are not doing them. So why make them even more required? And compound the problem by putting a gear treadmill on top?

Why not more longer outside dynamic event chains with cosmetic rewards at the end? Judging by how many people still do the same couple Orr events over and over, it wouldn’t take that much improvement and variety to get a lot of people out into new zones with new and better events. Why not more unique and challenging crafting reward? Why not more than one or two skin choices for WvW rewards, despite that so many already enjoy that mode even without virtually any rewards. Don’t force them into stale dungeon grinding, reward them for playing the part of the game they like.

I want to quote this because I feel like this is one of those interesting and nuanced posts that’s going to get lost in a lot of ad hominem and arguing.

You raise a really interesting point, and one I’ve been mulling about over a while. I do think there’s an overemphasis on dungeons, but in the sense that the PVE system needs to be more robust.

The premise of the game is a robust, flexible, tactical PVE system that depends on various builds and specs rather than a rigid definition of role. And the game isn’t there yet. We haven’t reached the point where PVE is actually interesting. Most PVE is still a matter of three things: Get out of red circles; dodge telegraphed attacks; keep hitting the boss.

And no amount of theorycraft and no configuration of traits fundamentally changes the way you approach most encounters. Most encounters will play out the same way regardless of your spec.

In other words we have a PVE situation in which you can spec/trait however you want, not because every build is viable, but because every build is tactically inconsequential. Unlike GW1, we don’t have the depth or the flexibility to build for an encounter, and swap our traits and spec to do something very specific.

So I think you’re very right. It seems counterintuitive to overemphasize dungeons when the PVE model still needs work, when Dynamic Events still need to be developed. When all the core features of the game still require attention and cultivation, it’s odd that they’d define “dungeons” as the thing to do at 80.

tetsuo.7318:

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

RPG = Role Playing Game, where do you see gear progression there ? I bet you actualy never roleplayed …

Lifelike.5862:

About time. New gear and something new to work towards.

Suck it up, casuals.

I am not a casual, and I don’t like that the gear is required to do the new dungeons. New gear? Great, but it should stick to the promises they made.

Draeka.5941:

I can’t recall, but did anyone beat GW1 without getting infused armor? That was a pretty big chunk of the story, dealing with the Mursaat. So really, what we have here is do the dungeon for slightly better gear, or don’t and enjoy the current game with hardly any loss on your end….as opposed to not finishing a game.

It’s a big chunk of the story, but what isn’t a big chunk is dealing with Spectral Agony. You bring a thing to a Seer once and it’s done for your whole gear. It’s a mere sidequest if anything, no grind at all, and you only have to come back if you made a new armor set. I believe it used to require five runs, one per piece of armor, but they realized that was stupid and reworked it to one run per armor set.

Hawken.7932:

I think this news is awesome! Really looking forward to the new content and gear.

Nice try, Colin.

I just realized that in addition to the effects on PvE there will be WvW impacts as well, but WvW was never supposed to be balanced so it’s okay…

Imagine, how dumb so many people must feel about spending their time on exotics, especially those that spent badges of honor. I know I feel dumb for it… fortunately I didn’t get a complete set of exotics, but I still feel like my time spent was a waste because it was.

I’ll try sticking with masterwork pieces, because those seem to have the most bang for my time… I’d hate to go after exotic and higher tiers only to have ANet release yet another tier of gear. And that’s the worst part isn’t it? We all believed ANet wouldn’t do gear progression, but they are, and who’s to say they’ll ever stop? I’m not putting time into that, I want to put time into new stories and new content, but I have to jump over these power barriers to do it?

I get more and more disappointed when I think about it…

Erasculio.2914:

For some time now, the MMO genre has seen the rise of a new phenomenon: the MMO locusts. Everyone know them – the players that jump from the next big MMO to the next big MMO, always complaining, always claiming that the next big thing will be the real deal. Why has this phenomenon been born, though?

This cloud of bugs is made mostly by WoW players (since WoW is the game that introduced most players to the MMO genre) who, whether they are smart enough to realize it or not, are actually seeking a new WoW. They jump to whatever new MMO has just been released, complain about how said MMO lacks features that they had seen before in WoW, and then leave the game, making it suffer a huge drop in players. There are many examples of such behavior, but the really interesting thing is that the locust cloud will leave a game even if it is mostly a WoW clone, as many examples show. In reality, they are looking for something that does not exist – a game that is more WoW than, well, WoW – so it’s little surprise that they continue to hop from MMO to MMO, endlessly and futilely.

What has happened in Guild Wars 2? The game released, the MMO locusts swarmed the game, and as expected, they began to leave. It’s not hard to guess that the number of Guild Wars 2 players has been falling. Again as expected, though, the cloud of bugs is not going away quietly – they were, and are, complaining in the forum about how Guild Wars 2 lacks what they see as MMO-defining features, which actually are features they saw in WoW (and since those players are basically looking for a new WoW, they want those features back).

Now it’s clear that, seeing how players were leaving the game, ArenaNet panicked; and as such, they tried reading the forum to decide why were so many people leaving. Anyone who has seen any MMO launch in the last few years would know the reason, but ArenaNet decided, anyway, to listen to the whining of the locust players, and so they began implementing WoW features in GW2. The first, although probably not the last, is the Ascended gear.

Lessons to be learned here:

1) Whining in the forum works, that’s how the WoW lovers convinced ArenaNet to add Ascended gear. Some of them are now saying that those against a gear treadmill are whining, which is just hypocrisy – that’s what they did, and that’s what we know works, so…

2) ArenaNet clearly has no idea of what its playerbase thinks. It’s bad enough that they actually decided to implement the Ascended items, but it’s even worse that they are paralyzed in surprise by the community outcry against those items. I’m sure they are still wondering what did they do wrong.

3) ArenaNet still has not learned that they currently have two opposite groups of players:

• WoW fanboys, who cannot conceive a MMO without grind-based vertical progression, in which the point of a MMO is to grind as much as possible for as long as possible, and to whom how good a piece of content is can be defined by how time consuming it is and how exclusive it is.

• Players who are interested in having fun instead of in grinding, who want horizontal-based content, more areas to explore, more interesting dungeons, and overall a better game.

ArenaNet cannot please both sides – they are antagonic to each other. If ArenaNet thinks the first group will be happy with whatever it is they do, they are wrong – those players will leave GW2, just as they have left every other WoW clone, while seeking a new, “perfect” WoW. Adding gear grind or raids or mounts or whatever won’t change that. What all those things would do, though, is alienate the latter group – those who are playing GW2 exactly because it is not WoW, and who make the playerbase that will remain in the game once the locusts leave. If those players are not enough to keep Guild Wars 2 around… I’m sorry, ArenaNet, your game has failed. Driving them away from the game by adding content diametrically opposed to what they want, under the illusion that it’s possible to catch the locusts, is only going to speed the demise of the game.

Regardless of what they have done, ArenaNet has lost their credibility under my eyes. The only thing that would make me believe in them again would be a complete reversal on the Ascended gear, together with firing Linsey Murdock.

And/or anyone else who is responsible for this nonsense.

Well written Erasculio, that’s what I’ve seen over and over again now.
I was hopping from MMO to MMO once as well, but I was looking for a game that was more similar to Star Wars Galaxies in its pre-CU (or at least pre-NGE) state and more importantly I left quietly as I realised that I’m not happy with the game.

Please don’t add new armor with better stats, you may not think it’s a huge thing but it is. People will feel required to get it and it makes the game no fun. If you want to make the end game better give us new armor skins and sets. New maps, new wvw maps anything but this.

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.

Well you should have stayed with them and left this single one for the rest of us. Oh right – Thats not the way gamehoppers work.

Loved the “Man up” remark though – I guess MMO’s are about 90% “manly” :-)

tjockis.3798:

Wolfend.5287:

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.

I sure hope your not as impulsive in real life and think twice before doing things. Can be dangerous… Just a heads up….

I stand by my word in life, always have always will. I expect as much from others. ArenaNet has broken their promise to many GW1 fans, in fact it was the biggest promise made, “no grind”.

There is no integrity at ArenaNet, sorry but when Phinney and Strain left ArenaNet, it was obviously for good reason, men of principle don’t fair well when fundamental promises are broken.

…just the way I live my life, you break a fundamental promise, your integrity is compromised. No point to continuing such a relationship. ArenaNet just went from favorite game company to worst.

I have better things to do in life than grind for numbers. A delusional pastime to say the least.

So its Spectral Agony from the Mursaat in GW1. Big deal. Why is this a problem?

Malevil.2104:

tetsuo.7318:

I still fail to see whats wrong with having RPG mechanics like item progression (which the game allready has by the way) in an RPG if you guys dont like RPGs why not play MOBAs or FPS or almost any other genre which diesnt have RPG mechanics?

RPG = Role Playing Game, where do you see gear progression there ? I bet you actualy never roleplayed …

I played most major PnP RPGs since the early 80s and everyone of them has item and character advancement in some way pls prove me otherwise.

Nar.8327:

Greep.6394:

Most of the people pissed off at this DON"T play other MMOs PRECISELY for the reason you stated.

This.

If I wanted a gear treadmill, I’d go back to Aion.

And it might actualy even be better choice, at least when i finaly got my miragent it lasted more than gw2 exotics …

Draeka.5941:

I can’t recall, but did anyone beat GW1 without getting infused armor? That was a pretty big chunk of the story, dealing with the Mursaat. So really, what we have here is do the dungeon for slightly better gear, or don’t and enjoy the current game with hardly any loss on your end….as opposed to not finishing a game.

Honestly people, queue the outrage when we actually have concrete facts on the overall stats and how they affect us. I highly doubt the difference between all exotics and ascended (in normal PvE) is going to be as large as all exotics versus all rares.

That one was designed to be party of the story, this is affecting a game mechanics.
And 8% more stats is a HUGE difference (as they stated they will add more ascending gear in the near future, and that mean more and more difference).

I’ll add a reply here to also express my discontent with the Ascended gear changes.

To start off, my full-time job leaves me with only a max of 3 hours playtime per weekday, and 6-10 hours per day on weekends. I’m also a longtime GW1 fan, with hundreds of hours spent in the various PvP aspects of that game, precisely because I could still compete with people that have more time to play.

Secondly, I had put aside a minimum budget of $50 per month to spend on the GW2 cash shop. I wanted to to support the game company that I trust and whose product I value. Over the past 3 months, my spending has actually been over $150 each month. I also pre-ordered a deluxe version.

Currently I have two level 80s in full exotics, and 6 other characters at various levels of progression (all over lvl 30). The plan was to level them all the 80, and ‘finish’ them by obtaining a good set of exotics for the build i like playing best for each profession. Being forced to grind the same dungeon for each of them to get the required gear is not an attractive prospect at all.

Finally, I’m heavily WvW focused. I only obtain full exotics, via dungeon runs (specific stats) or from Trading post in order to compete on a level playing field in WvW. I don’t have time to farm or study market trends in order to play the market. I also don’t want to do these things, as I don’t enjoy them. Being able to use real money to avoid farming/trading was another reason that I bought the game as advertised.

Now, in a forum post (unplanned in my opinion) two days before launching the functionality, Anet announces the very gear grind that has me not playing any other MMO.

I bought and invested in this game believing Mike O’Brian:
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

After reading this announcement yesterday, it was the first night that I did not log in because I did not want to play Guild Wars 2.

I’m no longer going to support the Cash shop as planned, wasting money on a gear treadmill was never my intention.

I love this game, and I’ll stick around and see how it plays out. I sincerely hope Anet can find a way to stay true to their beliefs.

Malevil.2104:

Nar.8327:

Greep.6394:

Most of the people pissed off at this DON"T play other MMOs PRECISELY for the reason you stated.

This.

If I wanted a gear treadmill, I’d go back to Aion.

And it might actualy even be better choice, at least when i finaly got my miragent it lasted more than gw2 exotics …

You actually make a fair point, there. It depends how this plays out.

Bhelliom.5324:

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……

Or third option, ignore everything you say since you obviously don’t know how marketing practices work, this is content that is tied to an EVENT, it cannot be altered, changed or in someway delayed no matter how much QQing people do, god I wish people would realize this, This is a chain of events, they cannot just flip a magic switch to undo over weeks maybe even months of planned strategy and MONEY that went towards this content. Just be lucky we are even getting content to an already amazing game, if you don’t like the asscended armor tiers than thats fine. Don’t try and lump the entire community in with your own ideals. No one person speaks for everyone. When this topic hits 1000 pages then you can say a good chunk of players are against this.

I’m an old MMO player and a not too old (!) person. This topic made me post for the first time on the boards as I have usually little interest to argue about things game related.

I’m 100% against any stat increase from the current tier of exotic gear. I could understand a legendary weapon with a minuscule bonus (even if I think the way to get it is quite debatable), but more powerful gear?
What’s the point? I hardly know what stats my armor gives me, only their combination is interesting to enhance a certain aspect of my character.
Every other game has the gear treadmill and every other game had me playing it only until I was max level and then quit.
I refuse to partecipate. I won’t do anything dramatic like deleting my characters or crap like that, you’ll just stop getting some money from me every month (and I even said I wouldn’t spend any in this game, boy I was funny!). I’ll always support a game I approve, but I’ll stop right away to send my hard earned cash in your direction if this comes to life.

GW2 is an amazing game, it has its issues, it needs more polishing/balancing, but kitten it looks good, it’s very playable, enjoyable, has a bit of a skill curve and has fun PvE that keeps me on my toes instead of making me fall asleep. You got it right in terms of combat and pretty much everything else (except I don’t like Sylvari too much, but I can live with that :P).
Don’t ruin it. I ask you kindly to reconsider your course of action.
Whatever you do, you’ll never retain the MMO locusts, as another poster so eloquently stated.

Hopefully waiting for a statement in this direction.

The game has item progression which plateaus at Lvl 80. For years it was promised to us that this was how it was going to work. Once we got to 80 and picked up our Exotics we’d be done with gathering gear because we’d have the best and any other gear “upgrades” would be purely cosmetic. This was part of their core design philosophy to help them stand out from the vast majority of MMORPG’s. With the inclusion of Ascended items at least in the Rings and Back Items so far we are seeing that philosophy thrown out along with the addition of Gear Checks on High End content.

This shows us that Anet is losing focus on their design philosophy or that they simply lied to us in the past. Many of us left games like WoW, SWTOR, Rift, EQ2, etc to get away from the basic Carrot on a Stick treadmills because GW2 promised us something different and to this point in time they have done so quite well in my opinion. This patch however has the potential to completely unravel every good deed they have done since it looks to be pushing the game in the direction of a simple copy pasta. We didn’t need this stuff in GW1 and we don’t need it in GW2.

replicant.3620:

We didn’t need this stuff in GW1 and we don’t need it in GW2.

It completely baffles me that no one seems to have raised this point internally before announcing the changes to the world.