Guild Wars 2

Draeka.5941:

Why is everyone up in arms when y’all cried out for more normal endgame, and when they give you new armor, recipes and dungeons….you complain?

These two groups of people are mutually exclusive.

monepipi.5160:

Why not a dungeon that gets progressively harder as you go further, but anyone can attempt with any gear?

Initially when I heard about this new dungeon, that’s what I mistakenly thought it was going to be… a dungeon that gets increasingly difficult as you progress through it. I was pretty excited at this prospect… when I learned that it was simply going to be gated content and a gear treadmill I didn’t believe it, it sounded too crazy to be true.

Most people here aren’t here because we want to be handed bigger numbers based on how much we grind, to give us a handicap for the “challanging content” (that is nothing more than same old same old with bigger numbers)… most of us are here because we want individual skill to matter… and we want to grind so that our characters can look great, whether we die or succeed due to our own skill.

kitten the MMO locusts! Long live the MMO Manifesto!

Arkham Creed.7358:

And did you miss the fact that said ascended gear doesn’t have an upgrade slot? I talked about that in my last post. Assuming these “infusions” are not standard stat upgrades and instead deal only with the Agony condition then it makes sense for their slightly higher base stats to be better. Overall you’re actually getting LOWER stats from ascended gear. That’s the theory anyway, and given the amount of information we have it’s just as valid as yours.

Cant believe some people still haven’t actually looked carefully enough to see this. In the image, on the blog, of the ascended item, it has more, more, MORE stats than the exotic Including the slotted upgrade. The stats for the upgrade are built into the item then ALL the stats are increased slightly. How can you look at that picture and see ascended items with lower stats? Not to mention the blog flat out stats that the upgrade stats are just added onto the new item.

So no, overall you are not getting lower stats from ascended gear, many people in many threads including this one many times have done the maths and pointed out its about an 8% increase, comparable to the difference between rare and exotic.

What are the meanings of Ascended Gear to the players? For now, I can only think few points out of it.

Markets Time
Rare gear current is around 15 S, Exotic is 1.5 G, Therefore the price line for Ascended gear is 15 G. Thinking that’s too much, wrong, consider the price tag for a legendary precursor. Havent count the Ascended Gear with infusion slot or Berserker’s build price. Offensive, deffensive, Omni infusions etc.

Players View
Only a small 8 percent or 5 damage increase wont hurt anything. Indeed, just a tiny magic find jewel picture shows nothing. If we consider Ruby or Beryl for an item with 42% increased rate. Critical Damage will be + 2%. Just a small 2 precent for some player’s opinion. Jewel wont be one, there will be 5. In other word is 10% increased.

So, 10% can do any differences? 5000 before damage, now is 5500 damage. Thanks to this Ascended jewel for 10K + 1K damage, even without the 6 Ascended armors. Time to kill some players in WvW. Furthermore, ArenaNet will release Ascended armors and weapons. Assume each armor is + 2% crit. Skip the Ascended weapons. If a player with all Ascended Gear set with 12K damage spike time. We will see more videos with 1~3 sec kill a nxxb or someone complain some classes are OP, QQing etc.

Oh yes, we will have new stuffs to farm. Farm a dungeon to own some newbies or dungeons. WoW time for GW2. This is not a 5 single player dungeon game. Ask you must have Ascended armors to join the party. Trading post will still with bots, as long as they make gold fast. This Ascended armors wont change bot, farm or end game. Same old story.

History Lesson
Our GW2 community already gave lots of MMO examples or GW patch stories. Thus, the example will be Superior Rune of Divinity in GW2. The interesting story here was +3 % Critical Damage in Beta Weekend Events. Due to a small overall 6 % Crit to own some players in PvP. Then it changed to + 2%. Just remind 8% or 5 damage are huge numbers. This Lost Shores patch can be a test or trial for ArenaNet.

Danicco.3568:

Firing Linsey Murdock isn’t the solution, we don’t even know who idea was the one of adding gear trendmill in the game. We only know he’s the responsible for designing the new items, but not that it was his idea to ADD said new items.

Either way, whatever path ANet chooses to go on, they’ll have their playerbase divided by those who wants gear trendmill, and those who don’t.
Eventually, those who dislike it will leave, and only time will tell if they were right or wrong from a business perspective.

If they want money (everyone does), they’ll have to figure which playerbase they should cater to, one thing is for certain, they can’t please both.
(Actually they can, but I’m not going to argue on this)

good point, but remember that was the old GW fanbase to permitt the development of Gw2!
betray old and good customers to keep occasional players that can return in no time to WOW (or any other mmorpg like this) its not a smart choice if you plan to live longer with this project ^^

Despite this game being free, I have been paying USD10 to the gems store on monthly basis, if this is the sign (the ascended item) that they are changing the game towards the absolutely different direction, I will just stop the support.

I will continue to play to have fun but I will not treat it as "I want to support this dev" until next good MMORPG comes out I will leave without any sympathy (like what I did in WoW)

And yes this is my first post, I don’t crawl forum so much when I am enjoying the game itself.

ArenaNet implements ascended items (ai)
Players with exotics start to collect ai
Players with ai feel that the dungeon/any other content are not that challenging
Players with ai expresses their opinion in the forum
ArenaNet increases the dungeon difficulty based on ascended item
Players with ai demands better loots
ArenaNet implements ascended-part-2 items
Rinse and repeat

2 years later, the game is a WoW clone.

I haven’t read through all 120 pages.

I do not want gear progression. I do not want people to be more powerful in WvW just because they have better gear (yes, I know that this is occurring now). I love the idea that the end game grind is for cosmetic items.

Please, do not add a ‘better stat’ tier of gear. You want Ascended to be cosmetically better? Great. Do that. You want it to be better stats? No. Do not do that.

Except in the blog post they’ve said it will be the norm:

“This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

“The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative.”

camoflaugz.5031:

Lots of people were complaining before that there wasn’t much end game and they left. Im on jade quarry which is usually a full server but I dont know how accurate that is. I sometimes play with an alt and its pretty painful not seeing anybody in the lower level zones. Its not even about Wow, people keep saying wow this wow that.. Its just the MMO genre itself, there is already a standard in what people expect in MMO’s and the truth is at this point the game feels handicapped in a way that you cant go any further in it. Handicapping in an MMO is pretty fail in todays standards imo. You can get away with that in a single player rgp but not an MMO. This is 2012 now MMO’s should be getting bigger and bigger. Handicapping players is not the solution. jmo

That’s funny. I can’t seem to recall any thread complaining about the lack of stat progression reaching over six thousand posts. Could it be confirmation bias?

As for handicapping players, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing by shoehorning new tiers into the game making casual players incapable of competing? Yes, I believe it is. Instead of hiding behind superior statistics try to hone your skills.

Andaras.9317:

Holy crap it scares me that people are freaked out.

People are freaking out over words chosen by a marketing team. Think about it, if you add a defensive ascension slot that allows you to say best this type of monster or reduce such and such status effect, is that not growing more powerful?

People say there will be a gear treadmill. Please, show me one of the ascension stats that will be in the game.

Since you can’t, isn’t it a little too early to worry?

I’m going to go ahead and stop reading your post right here to provide you with:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

This isn’t about the infusion/agony mechanic. (Well, there is some complaint about that mechanic as well, but that’s not where the main focus of the complaint is.)

The problem is that the new item has objectively higher stats than the level 80 exotic item.

so at lvl 80 you already had: Basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare and Exotic, they are all upgrades from each other no one cried about that, now they introduce Ascended which supposedly will be the last tier of gear in the game (they will just change the infusions in future content that’s it) and people freak out… makes sense.

camoflaugz.5031:

Fungalfoot.7213:

camoflaugz.5031:

Because those players left the game… you don’t notice the difference between launch date and now?

No, Tarnished Coast is constantly full. I’ve had a friend trying to get in for weeks with no luck.

Is this where we’re supposed to pretend that the game was dying because it didn’t have WoW progression?

Lots of people were complaining before that there wasn’t much end game and they left. Im on jade quarry which is usually a full server but I dont know how accurate that is. I sometimes play with an alt and its pretty painful not seeing anybody in the lower level zones. Its not even about Wow, people keep saying wow this wow that.. Its just the MMO genre itself, there is already a standard in what people expect in MMO’s and the truth is at this point the game feels handicapped in a way that you cant go any further in it. Handicapping in an MMO is pretty fail in todays standards imo. You can get away with that in a single player rgp but not an MMO. This is 2012 now MMO’s should be getting bigger and bigger. Handicapping players is not the solution. jmo

I’m on JQ too and I run into people all the time while leveling alts. Some zones will always be less popular though. Even during the initial leveling rush there were certain zones, like Sparkfly Fen, which were less popular than others.

In order to deal with zone population, Anet needs to simply add incentives for max level characters to revisit lower level zones. As it is right now, the best drops and rewards are in Orr and that’s where most 80s play. Adding similar rewards to other zones will spread out the population. Personally I’m sick of Orr but I have to go there to farm gold and karma.

Lifelike.5862:

The way things are looking, it just seems like a lot of players are needlessly intimidated by the thought that their ‘hard earned’ exotics will become obsolete with this new tier of gear, and that they’ll have to put in a little more work to keep up.

We hoped we could focus on getting new and awesome skins for our gear, getting new gear sets for other playstyles we might enjoy, maybe do alts and gear them up, you know, horizontal progression…

What we didn´t expect was that we would be slapped in the face with +1 gear we would have to obtain just to stay where we already got.

Einhanjar.3687:

Aaron.4807:

Lifelike.5862:

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

Suck it up, casuals.

Since casuals make up the majority of the population of this game, good luck playing a surely dying game. Can’t find a party? Suck it up hard cores, this is what you wanted.

game is dying? look at the server status its all about full and medium, I bet if you casual quits wont make difference LOL

I am not really casual. ButI don’t know if you know this, this game gained it’s popularity based on it’s predecessor. GW1 had a very loyal following and gave GW2 a very strong core fan base and promises were made. Now it seems they are turning their back on us for people like you, who most likely never supported Anet in the past and probably heaped scorn on them for making a kitteny game like GW1.

I wouldn’t underestimate just what this sudden shift and abandonment of promises is going to do to that population when they realize what is going on. It probably won’t be too pretty. I know a few that I have talked to in my guild have expressed the same concern. I myself am out. I will look in on the game from time to time through the forums to see if they have fixed this massive kitten up of monumental proportions but until they do, they get no more money from me and I will not log in.

They can add all the stats they want as long as we’re scaled down to exotics outside the dungeon

They are adding 1 new tier to the game and gating the release of that tier over several dungeons. People probably won’t have full sets for another 6 months. They’re not going to add ascended+1, +2, etc level gear. It’s not a treadmill similar to WoW where there’s a new tier of gear almost every other month.

Where the treadmill will be is with the infusion upgrades. The first dungeon will use fine quality infusions and the blog post even states it’s just the first level. You can only assume the second dungeon will use masterwork and so on. Infusion upgrades are for the dungeon and only the dungeon, coming in offense, defense or both. They won’t be more stats but rather damage increase/mitigation against that dungeon.

Ascended gear won’t even be the best gear in some cases. The gear is unique, so if you wanted to min/max yourself, you wouldn’t be able to do so with the accessories if for example, you were going for a crit damage build. Furthermore, if you rely on rune bonuses, ascended gear won’t have them. Since the stats on ascended gear are fixed, everyone is also assuming that the stats you want will be available, when some very specific combinations probably won’t be.

For those that thought they were fully geared and done forever, you do know they most likely will increase the level cap with expansions right? It’s something they want to do and have all but straight out confirmed it.

Out of all the complaints, which are mostly based on assumptions of the worst case scenario, I’m surprised that no one is complaining about the fact the new dungeon is nothing more than 1 big repetitve grind with the bosses set inbetween.

Greep.6394:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Lord Moose.8234:

Arkham Creed.7358:

I think people, especially those arguing with me, are overlooking one detail; the whole point of infusion slots is to overcome the new Agony stat. Back in GW1 we had a similar system where in infused armor granted resistance to the Spectral Agony skill, so I fell confident in speculating that this will work in a similar fashion. A big point being brought up is the offensive and defensive infusion slots, as if this means they must be stat based. I say they don’t, and I’ll give some examples off the top of my head.

Defensive: Reduce agony duration by X, reduce agony damage by X, gain regeneration when under the effects of agony, ect.

Offensive: Deal X greater damage while under the effects of Agony, gain X crit chance while under the effects of Agony, gain might when under the effects of Agony, ect.

I’m going to go out on a limb and bet that the effects from infused gear will be conditional, dependent on being effected by the new Agony stat or at least fighting creature types that use said skill. If this is indeed the case than pretty much every argument about infusion slots equaling rune or sigil slots evaporates. Frankly it wouldn’t matter at all if every single upgrade in the game as an infusion equivalent if I’m right and those upgrades are themselves dependent on the Agony condition to trigger. And I remind you this condition is ONLY found in the new dungeon. In fact I’d say this is little different than the gear separation we already have; now we have PvE gear, sPvP gear, and endless dungeon gear.

I understand your concern but at this point we don’t have enough information to go on, so you shouldn’t just assume the worse. This community has embarrassed itself before doing that.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/?utm_source=client

The screenshot of ascended gear compared with an exotic clearly shows better stats on the ascended item even without the infusion slot being filled.

And did you miss the fact that said ascended gear doesn’t have an upgrade slot? I talked about that in my last post. Assuming these “infusions” are not standard stat upgrades and instead deal only with the Agony condition then it makes sense for their slightly higher base stats to be better. Overall you’re actually getting LOWER stats from ascended gear. That’s the theory anyway, and given the amount of information we have it’s just as valid as yours.

You’re going to have to show the math you’re using, so we can show the faults in it. Because quite literally anyone who’s run the numbers on this who can explain it is getting ~+8% regardless of the slot, same with me. This shouldn’t even be up for debate.

Again; it is also an issue of versatility. You can’t decide what stats you want on your ascended gear. You’re stuck with whatever it gives you. Yeah you may get a little more power, but you’re also pigeonholed into a particular build because of it. Further, assuming armor is the same way, would you rather have ascended armor with 8% higher base stats, or exotic armor and some special ability from your rune set like health regen, reduced condition duration, or summoning a pet? Would you rather have a weapon with 8% higher power, or a weapon that causes bleed on crits, or makes you completely ’effing invincible every now and again?

My whole argument hinges on the theory that infusions won’t be as desirable as runes and sigils, and if that is indeed the case then few people will ever bother with ascended gear outside of this new dungeon. And if it is not the case and infusions are just as good it still won’t matter if they are tied to the agony condition. After all would you rather play in any other dungeon with six runes of [whatever] or six infusions of [whatever] that are the exact same except they only apply the bonus when you’re effected by agony?

I have no doubt that ascended gear will be flat out better in this one dungeon, but right now we have no reason to believe this will be true of all content and in fact it was implied in the blog that ascended gear will only be desirable for said dungeon.

Letifer.4360:

so at lvl 80 you already had: Basic, Fine, Masterwork, Rare and Exotic, they are all upgrades from each other no one cried about that, now they introduce Ascended which supposedly will be the last tier of gear in the game (they will just change the infusions in future content that’s it) and people freak out… makes sense.

Just like exotics were supposedly the last tier of equipment?

Einhanjar.3687:

you guys cry too much, be thankful its being updated with good ideas. Lets not forget the fact that gw2 is free, you can log out for a month and not worry about subscription. having new armors and new things are all ok as it gives players something to worry and grind on. there should be endless progression in a game if not players will be bored, if you are not happy then you are free to keep what you have and stay what you have.

“Good ideas”?? Make a game the same s**t of all the others it’s just the best way to make a game the best one, isn’t it? I really don’t like the idea to spend 10 hours per day grinding dungeons or something. So what? I just play with my lvl 80 character that will be useless without a grindinded gear?
This is the same situation I lived with World of Warcraft and this is the reason why I froze my Blizzard account 1 month after Cataclysm.

If I can reach the end game only grinding maps or dungeon I am NOT free to keep what I have because I will not able to play following contents without a gear that can allow me to play.
The solution is close my GW2 account, thank you so much, but I would continue playing with my characters…

exeon.7430:

Some of the replies in this thread is so much full fail, how can human beings be so simple; even if they’d be 11 yrs old…

I am GLAD about the changes. I fully support them. They add to the dimension of the game. The game’s point is moving forward. There’s so much one can do after getting bored. Arenanet is bringing content to us and you guys are whining about it. You are like beggars who put conditions…What is wrong with you.

I applaude Linsey Murdock and the Dev team for this audacious content patch. Keep bringing it! The majority loves it!

Right.. that is why this is the biggest thread to date (not even mentioning all the other threads that haven’t been merged yet)

Right.. that is why this is the biggest thread to date (not even mentioning all the other threads that haven’t been merged yet)If you are glad for the changes, good for you.. But the vast majority of us in this thread are strongly against it! as it goes directly against what was promised by developers and their published philosophy for GW2.

Right.. that is why this is the biggest thread to date (not even mentioning all the other threads that haven’t been merged yet)If you are glad for the changes, good for you.. But the vast majority of us in this thread are strongly against it! as it goes directly against what was promised by developers and their published philosophy for GW2.This advertised update is a blatant sell-out.

Right.. that is why this is the biggest thread to date (not even mentioning all the other threads that haven’t been merged yet)If you are glad for the changes, good for you.. But the vast majority of us in this thread are strongly against it! as it goes directly against what was promised by developers and their published philosophy for GW2.This advertised update is a blatant sell-out.Please, no no no..

Well, it’s now been confirmed that Ascended is a pure upgrade there to fill the gap between exotic and legendary. So you can all lay that discussion to rest and focus on what actually matters.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Thanks for the response Chris,

I’m happy to hear you guys are gonna push through the content and look forward to seeing what changes are made in the nov updates….hopefully some class fixes squeezed in there.

Not to induce flame, only to talk about my outlook on the new gear.
I feel as though too many of us feel we know the statistics on GW2’s player base. (myself included, it’s weird how I feel like I can guess numbers and figures on the playerbase :P) I’ve seen way to many people calling out Anet on pandering to the “minority” or “1%” or what have you. The fact is, Anet knows WAY more about how people are spending their time in GW2.
Let’s not forget that their teams have built this entire game, and give credit where credit is due. These are gamers just like us who are trying to make the game as amazing as possible. They wouldn’t go “oh, there is 20% of our player base getting their end-gear and then not logging on as much, let’s cater to them”. They are doing what they can provide the MAJORITY of players with solid content to enjoy. They would never actively or obviously solicit to the minority and ignore the majority of players.
Now to the gear: it appears to only be jewelry in this latest patch, but the jewelry indicated shows a 4% increase. (I will say I see full ascended gear in the future, but rolling it out slowly like this seems like a nice way to ease us into the new system, and give us time to get use to it.) There is a bump in stats, no doubt, but let’s not be doomsayers. This does not mean we will have ascended 2 gear, or ascended 3 gear. All they have said is one more tier is being added. The best part I see, is that the most significant boost it provides is in the form of infusions or buffs. Doing it this way means that the most significant addition to gear is scenario based, not general world improvement. Could they have kept exotic level and just added infusion? Yes I’m sure they could. And I’m even more sure that’s exactly one of things they talked about in their meetings about adding something new to the gear in this game. Your voices in game and on the forums are not only heard, but advocated inside Anet offices. Why am I confident of that? Because they have proven with the game they created that they are gamers too, and want what’s best for our community!
And in my opinion, this idea is ingenious. Gear that is there for the “hardcore” players to grind for in the fractals dungeon, but not required. (Some worry this gear will be required in the future. Let’s keep in mind that the future is uncertain, and to the me the worse case scenerio is “lfg fractals, must be lvl 80 with asc/agony”.) This gear doesn’t seem to be necessary by any means for the other dungeons. I’ve run plenty of explorable dungeons in rare/exotic gear and done quite well with good clearing time. I don’t see 4% being the type of increase that the community will require of others to perform well in a dungeon. And more importantly, WE ARE THE COMMUNITY, and we decide whether we will end up shutting out lower geared players. (BTW, this is already possible, since there is already tier’s of gear, and some players demand lvl 80’s in exotic gear for dungeons already on occasion)
TL:DR
These changes are happening. Let’s not worry ourselves, and make the best out of this situation. Many people, such as myself, will enjoy this new gear. Of course, others will loath it. But let’s be a better community than MMO’s have seen in the past, and trust that Anet is doing what they think is best, and let’s choose to have a positive perception on this situation, rather than negative. No more doomsayers!

Fungalfoot.7213:

Well, it’s now been confirmed that Ascended is a pure upgrade there to fill the gap between exotic and legendary. So you can all lay that discussion to rest and focus on what actually matters.

wich gap, now there is no gap between exotics and legendary, they have THE SAME STATS!

when they will release the ascended items, legendary will be upgraded to ascended quality… This is not a gap closing…its a stats ugrade!

Didn’t the Guild wars team say that they were making the game for both hardcore and casual players?

If so, then why are the casuals complaining so much when the hardcore players FINALLY get some meaningful content? In case you haven’t noticed, every single design decision in this game so far has been centered around making sure the casual players feel comfortable and pampered.

Fungalfoot.7213:

Well, it’s now been confirmed that Ascended is a pure upgrade there to fill the gap between exotic and legendary. So you can all lay that discussion to rest and focus on what actually matters.

There is no gap between legendarys and exotics. The stats are the same. This is bogus.

so i read that the new bosses will inflict agony and the only way to fight it is to have infusion gear with infused slots … gg anet you have turned into wow i think its time to get off the gear grind treadmill before i fall off …

Dinks.2478:

There is no gap between legendarys and exotics. The stats are the same. This is bogus.

It’s obviously damage control but there it is. They obviously have no intention of holding this back so I can only wish them luck from here on out. They’ll need it.

I just hope they understand what the problem is once the numbers starts dropping.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

snip

I appreciate a response and I’m happy that you guys are committed to bringing us more content but can you please explain the reasoning behind the introduction of a new item tier so soon, while a lot of people are still gearing up with exotics?

Also, why do you guys think that this infusion agony resist will work in GW2 when similar mechanics were not very popular with players in other games, like WoW and LoTRO?

Fungalfoot.7213:

Dinks.2478:

There is no gap between legendarys and exotics. The stats are the same. This is bogus.

It’s obviously damage control but there it is. They obviously have no intention of holding this back so I can only wish them luck from here on out. They’ll need it.

I just hope they understand what the problem is once the numbers starts dropping.

They could have easily added exotics with infusion slots without adding a whole new level of gear and avoided this whole issue.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Truly appreciate your response!

However, “Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill.” unless the Ascended gear can be as easily obtained through similar ways as Exotic (crafts,BLT,etc..), this is an extreme fail..
I still fear this update will provide gating and bottlenecks.

A new tier of gear was so not needed.. not unwelcome, but not needed.
What is unwelcome, is restrictions and stat-barring = “the gear grind”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Thank you for the post, Mr. Whiteside.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people here are thrilled to get new content in the game, with new challenges and new equipment skins.

But if your goal is not to create a gear treadmill, why up the stat cap for level 80 items? You say that you want to have proper progression between exotic and legendary, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable considering the different in level of effort between exotic and legendary gear. But there is (currently) no stat difference between the exotic and legendary. These new ascension stats are not bridging any gap, they are creating a new gap.

What purpose is the increase in stats supposed to serve?

You suggest that you won’t be adding new tiers of gear every 3 months, but frankly what assurances do we have of that? You (ArenaNet, not you personally) have said before that there won’t be an increase in gear stats in this manner. If you go through with the stat increase from exotics to ascended items, why should we believe that you won’t do this again in the next content release?

Lifelike.5862:

Didn’t the Guild wars team say that they were making the game for both hardcore and casual players?

If so, then why are the casuals complaining so much when the hardcore players FINALLY get some meaningful content? In case you haven’t noticed, every single design decision in this game so far has been centered around making sure the casual players feel comfortable and pampered.

This game was designed for PvPers and vanity hunters.

They can create hardcore PvP or vanity content all they want.

Lifelike.5862:

Didn’t the Guild wars team say that they were making the game for both hardcore and casual players?

If so, then why are the casuals complaining so much when the hardcore players FINALLY get some meaningful content? In case you haven’t noticed, every single design decision in this game so far has been centered around making sure the casual players feel comfortable and pampered.

i was thinking that an HC player was someone with time and skills to overcome a really really hard gameplay… and not only a gear farmer O.o

im missing something?

So they’re adding a new tier, while saying that they’re not going to add new tiers. Huh?

They’re going against everything they’ve been saying for the past five years to try to get a player base that’s already gone back to wow instead of sticking to their design philosophies, which is why everyone I know bought gw2 in the first place.

NO! You (ANet) are going back on your word! SHAME ON YOU!

I’m not going to grind out for better gear and transmute my armor again for a 2 point stat carrot and a coutnermeasure to some newly contrived game mechanic. Skill should more than make up the difference anyway, unless this gimmicky mechanic cannot be avoided by skill and now we are required to upgrade. What is more, your PAX panels and blog posts told us we wouldn’t have to do things like this. Yet here we are.

I’m sure I’m not the only person here who feels duped and betrayed.

I just hope you will all listen when we, your dedicated fans, passionately explain our push against this type of change, because:

1) It’s the first step in a gear-centric grind culture. Please don’t take any more! Just stop here, and don’t do it again.

2) This whole concept has ALREADY been done in GW1 with infusion. It was a PITA and got in the way of natural progression more than enhanced the depth of the game. WHY bring this back?

3) You do NOT need to create a whole new gear tier to combat the new ‘Agony’ mechanic. A new upgrade item that offers 2 of the normal stats + Agony resistance would work just fine.

4) We don’t need another gear carrot. What we need are more bugfixes, balance tweaks, and more permanently dead bots. Please, continue to focus your efforts on perfecting and cleaning up the existing game first. Then move on to adding more to it.

5) If you really want to add more creative gear and features, some better alternatives could be:
– More cool armor and weapon skins, maybe even in the gem store? I know I’d buy em!
– New places to explore, hidden vistas to find, jumping puzzles, events and short stories to experience
– A way to gift gems or gem purchases to friends
– A way to play more than just dungeons with friends on another server
– Now that our preferred servers are not all FULL, how about a way to move an entire guild without losing all influence/upgrades?

Now, I realize this is your IP and you can do whatever you want. But I hope you understand that if I didn’t care about the quality of your game or the credibility of your collective reputation I wouldn’t be writing any of this.

We love GW2 for the beauty and quality of the world, enjoyable gameplay, challenge, skill and the unique features you have chosen to implement. That is why we are freaking out over this concept of a new gear tier. It’s ANTI-GW2.

Dinks.2478:

They could have easily added exotics with infusion slots without adding a whole new level of gear and avoided this whole issue.

Yes, but that wouldn’t come with the desired results. They want a gear treadmill since it’s an easy way of keeping players hooked without any real effort required on their part. I just wish they’d be honest about it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

So how about a straight up answer? Will you ever add gear with stats higher than Ascended gear? Yes or No

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

You’re addressing the gap that didn’t exist until you introduced it. What the… this is a pure tautology.

What gap is there between Exotics and Legendaries right now? The time it takes to acquire them. Do you want to make a fancy, time intensive middle-ground armor? Go for it, I’m all for it, but why are you adding a stat gap that never existed in the first place?

After reading the official announcement, these are disappointing news for me.

So now exotics will become a sort of pseudo-limbo set of gear that is not as good as the real “endgame” though close, BUT since it lacks Agony defence it will be useless for the new dungeon and (according to the announcement) upcoming future dungeons….hmmm I wonder why one has to bother to get Exotics at all anymore then??

Though from the announcement it seems we are only getting jewelry with the new stat at the moment hopefully that is all we will ever get…or at the very least allow exotic armor to be upgraded with an infusion slot somehow to keep it relevant.

Make it like it was in GW1, I go talk to a creepy looking guy who treats my armor, and I’m good to go explore this new dungeon.

I really don’t want to carry around X pieces of equipment for one spot of the game.

“Microtransactions are for cosmetic stuff only and will never affect gameplay.”
http://mmofallout.com/2012/02/15/guild-wars-2-opens-door-for-non-cosmetic-cash-shop/

“Dyes will be account-bound, not character-bound.”
http://www.arena.net/blog/live-and-let-dye-kristen-perry-on-the-gw2-dye-system

“There will never be a gear grind.”
No specific link, more than enough of it already in this thread.

What’s next?

After thinking about it, I decided to give Anet the benefit of the doubt. I believe they will make ascended gear just as accessible as exotic gear is now. Which means you can get it as dungeon rewards/crafted items/karma/WvW tokens/ maybe even something new.

I believe they added it as a way of placating the gear-treadmill crowd, but without wanting to alienate the regular crowd. If they just made it same stats as exotics, these treadmill fans would complain. But if they did it subtly, like increase the stats for now, and THEN make it as easily available from other sources as exotics in the future, they would have squeezed a few more months out of the treadmill crowd, while slowly weaning the anti treadmill crowd into Ascended.

That’s my optimistic view.

Primal Zed.9714:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Thank you for the post, Mr. Whiteside.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that most people here are thrilled to get new content in the game, with new challenges and new equipment skins.

But if your goal is not to create a gear treadmill, why up the stat cap for level 80 items? You say that you want to have proper progression between exotic and legendary, and I think that’s perfectly reasonable considering the different in level of effort between exotic and legendary gear. But there is (currently) no stat difference between the exotic and legendary. These new ascension stats are not bridging any gap, they are creating a new gap.

What purpose is the increase in stats supposed to serve?

You suggest that you won’t be adding new tiers of gear every 3 months, but frankly what assurances do we have of that? You (ArenaNet, not you personally) have said before that there won’t be an increase in gear stats in this manner. If you go through with the stat increase from exotics to ascended items, why should we believe that you won’t do this again in the next content release?

Hrm really? They specifically said there will NEVER be any increase in gear stats? Like you heard one of them say those exact words? Cause if they only mentioned something that sounded similar its not the same, as before the manifest is NOT a contract. They are free to change and add whatever content they want to the game. I mean they created Guildwars 2 they didn’t have us harping on them and look how great it turned out.

Why does the gap have to be a tier higher of gear and not more cosmetics? Why not “ascended” cosmetics? It makes absolutely no sense that there needs to be a tier higher of gear. Frankly I’m disappointed in the response.

I mean it could be precursor (exotic) —> ascended weapon —>Legendary weapon. Leave it with the same stats but an evolving skin if you will. I feel like we’re not getting the full picture of why you’re doing this.

I find it very hard to believe that any new content you create requires a boost in stats.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

I’m sorry but the fact remains that I have already got my end game gears and now I have to do it all over again, thanks to this new tier. And what is this “massive jump in rewards” you talked about between exotic and legendary, the last I checked they offered the exact same stats.

mcarswell.3768:

They did the arbitrary debuff/required dungeon gear thing in LotRo and it was horrible. They eventually removed it due to player outrage.
It’s not a new mechanic. It’s just lazy and annoying.

They did the arbitrary debuff thing in Guild Wars: Prophecies too… The origin of “infused” armor and ascension and such.

It was a lousy mechanic then too, that was never used except with Mursaat enemies in Prophecies (and the GW Beyond content located in the same region).

It required you to run to a Seer to infuse your armor to be viable against Mursaat.

Nightfall had a somewhat similar mechanic with the Lightbringer title track for Abbadon’s forces, but it wasn’t tied to specific gear. Just to the character’s title progress.

I’m very disappointed this is their idea of “fixing” GW2. They should have focused on making it more fun to play (no one really seems to enjoy doing dungeons).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

The problem with this is that we were led to believe and explicitly told that once we reached exotic gear there won’t be any more stat progression. This now has turned out to be either misinformation or a lie. Ascended gear seems to be the first step of the gear treadmill. All of us that spent gold or karma to get more than just one set of exotics have now wasted a lot of time because we trusted in your statements. So unless you tell us that there will be a way to upgrade all our current items to ascended items we have the right to feel betrayed. How should we trust you from now on?

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content.

Which is good, but doesn’t change the fact that exotics become obsolete once ascendeds are available. That’s the real problem here you have to deal with.

PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward.

Thanks for that.

We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Honestly, this scares me more than just a little. I, and probably a lot of other players too, don’t want any progression besides visual progression. You can add different skins or animations, but everything that increases the power of your character is bad. Stay as far away from increasing stats or adding more power as you can.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

I’m looking forward to see the new content besides the ascended gear and infusion bullkitten that comes with it. I’m not against Infusions if they were handled like in GW1 where they are just a rather easy obtainable upgrade for the gear you are wearing.

Fungalfoot.7213:

camoflaugz.5031:

Lots of people were complaining before that there wasn’t much end game and they left. Im on jade quarry which is usually a full server but I dont know how accurate that is. I sometimes play with an alt and its pretty painful not seeing anybody in the lower level zones. Its not even about Wow, people keep saying wow this wow that.. Its just the MMO genre itself, there is already a standard in what people expect in MMO’s and the truth is at this point the game feels handicapped in a way that you cant go any further in it. Handicapping in an MMO is pretty fail in todays standards imo. You can get away with that in a single player rgp but not an MMO. This is 2012 now MMO’s should be getting bigger and bigger. Handicapping players is not the solution. jmo

That’s funny. I can’t seem to recall any thread complaining about the lack of stat progression reaching over six thousand posts. Could it be confirmation bias?

As for handicapping players, isn’t that exactly what you’re doing by shoehorning new tiers into the game making casual players incapable of competing? Yes, I believe it is. Instead of hiding behind superior statistics try to hone your skills.

There hasn’t been any thread to my knowledge asking for new stats. There were lots about not having anything to do for endgame though. I honestly don’t mind having to get new gear as long as its not super hard to get.

I dont think its handicapping players by shoehorning new tiers. See this is what I’m trying to say, this is an MMO. people play mmo’s and worry about their own character not everybody elses. If you put in the time to get were your at then you deserve it. I for one am probably never going to be able to get a nice legendary but you know what, the people that have it deserve it no matter if they cheated coverting gems to gold or whatever, its their business not mine, im not controlling their character. If somebody has a new tier or whatever Im not gonna be mad because were not equal in power, Id say good job man you worked and put in the time for that. you deserve it.