Guild Wars 2

Daecollo.9578:

I would rather have more traits, more fixes, runes to add to your character to make you stronger, ANYTHING but gear.

Sure, anything goes. If they gave us stronger runes or something..anything to have a little bit of character progression. Cause I just got the best gear plus my first legendary for my third character and except for this new patch I really don’t know what else to do..other than more characters. I don’t like all the dungeon armors and I sure don’t want to grind for cosmetics during all my GW experience.
They could have added a new type of upgrade that could be applied to the existing gear. First you create a new slot, then you put the upgrade in, or something along these lines.
But if this is the way they decided to go for it..It’s not that big of a deal. A backpack and a ring… We didn’t have many backpacks anyway, was about time for a good one.

As for the future, they said they will add the rest of the ascended gear and all.. They could give players the opportunity of upgrading their existing gear up to that level by putting it in the forge with 3 other items obtainable by playing the content, even casually. So yes, I want gear progression, I would rather not lose my existing items, and to tend to the casual majority, not have it as a month grind.

But, as opposed to other games, the greens that drop in the new expansion don’t crap all over you high end gear you farmed a few months for. And, you can still enjoy all the game (except for the new dungeon) without ascended/infused or even exotic gear.

Well at least there’s a response. I’m still polite enough to acknowledge it, and I even appreciate the fact that, judging from the regularity of your blog posts, for you guys, one day is a pretty quick turnaround, so I mean no sarcasm when I say kudos for getting somebody out front.

That said, I feel like we’re having a FFXIV moment here when it comes to your responses. People are talking across the table, but even though you’re reading what we say, you’re not really understanding why this is a big deal, and more importantly, you’re not owning what’s becoming clearer and clearer that you’ve decided was a mistake.

You can say oops, you know. It’s alright; those of us who are angry can’t really do any more than zip our money bags at the moment, and we’d respect you if you showed a little contrition. Frankly, that would hold a lot more weight with those of us who are furious right now than saying what your goals are or aren’t now that we can actually compare your words to your product. Just come out and say “Look, we screwed up. We made exotics way too easy to get, and it turns out that that means people don’t stick around and put money in the bags like we need them to. We’ve got to backpedal here and fix it in order to keep things in the black. We can’t really take everybody’s exotics away or beef up the crafting recipes, so instead we’re throwing in an extra tier and making it a lot harder to finish so people will keep playing the game and spending cash. It’s the ceiling for this level cap, and we promise we won’t change it again until we do an expansion because it’s designed to take you until expansion time to complete.”

I have a strong suspicion that that’s exactly what’s going on here, and dressing up an abandonment or principle doesn’t make it something other than an abandonment of principle. If you’ve made a business decision that the principle wasn’t profitable, you can just say so. I promise a lot of us are actually intelligent enough to understand how business works, and I’m a lot more amenable to having a conversation about what’s in the company’s financial interest than to being told that new content somehow merits a change that has nothing whatever to do with the game on a mechanical level (i.e., if you can balance content for Ascended+Infused, you can balance it for Exotic).

Most importantly, being honest and open about this kind of stuff would get me to actually consider investing more money into this game. At the moment, frankly, that option remains off the table for me as it does for many others among us. Aside from that, being forthcoming about this kind of stuff is good for the industry as a whole, not to mention good for your company and your parent company in the long run. I assure you you don’t want this to be the last word for a lot of players about ANet or NCsoft. There are players out there who don’t do business with SOE at all today because of things that company’s agents did and said ten years ago in an MMO.

(continued in an additional post further down)

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

Fine.

Broke their promise.

kitten.

And which promise was that? With quotes please.

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

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

Already linked by someone else on the previous page.

(continued from prior post)

If, on the other hand, I’m way off here, and dead wrong about your reasoning, well hey, you know, you can say that too. I’m not a game designer, but I’m educated enough to understand an explanation about design decisions if I’m given one. Hell, that’s what you guys did through your entire pre-release development, iteration after iteration, and it bought you a fantastic community with all the adoration a well-oiled hype train can deliver.

Mr. Whiteside’s response, though, to say nothing of Ms. Murdock’s (how’d she draw the short straw on that one? You guys knew full well what the reaction would be; seems like you could have prepared), doesn’t answer the fundamental why question. In fact we have no idea what your expansion philosophy is. Not every three months: well, fine, but why not every three months? If an expansion’s worth of progression increases means this, to say nothing of the balance consequences for non-expansion content, then why couldn’t you keep up the same development pace? —and if this nets you a positive financial outcome, why wouldn’t you? If an expansion means more challenging content, and more challenging content means better gear, then doesn’t that mean you have to treadmill if you’re going to release expansions? It seems like that’s the only logical outcome.

I don’t ask all this to attempt to corner you guys, and as I said, this is not an industry that I work in, so I don’t presume to have any inside insight on what makes good, bad, balanced, unbalanced, challenging, or progressive content. But the answers to these questions are all implicit assumptions in the way you’ve handled this release so far—and they’re all bad. You could do some damage control if you’re willing, and if somebody higher up has a thumb on the mic, well I strongly encourage you to bang on some doors and get the lines opened up, because this thread is only getting fatter.

I’m not interested in being lied to. I’m not so cynical as to think that this has been the plan from the start, but neither am I so naive as to buy what you’re selling about your goals and your vision at the moment. It’s not that the principles are going out the window so much as that you’re not acknowledging the fact and giving us direct, honest answers about why. If you can’t, you can’t, but that’s not much consolation as far as my pocket book is concerned.

pregnable.1954:

Fail.

If you are going to do this, WvW should use pvp gear.

Actually, hey, here’s an idea:

Why not give players a toggle when they’re in PvE or WvW, where if they turn it on, they have access to PvP gear (set to whatever the maximum equipment, level, traits, infusion, etc are for that content) and won’t ever have to take part in the treadmill.

If they turn it off, then they’re free to level up, grind gear, get infused, and have all the treadmill and vertical progression they want – completely self-imposed – while everybody who bought this game to get away from that stuff can continue playing unmolested by power creep.

Well, I always look forward to new content! I like the idea of the new gear level between exotic and legendary, because it doesn’t feel like I’ll be getting my bifrost anytime soon!

Erebus Delirium.4892:

I’ve never seen so much crying over something that is going to be GOOD for Guild Wars 2 in the long-run. Many of you are like children who don’t want to take your medicine because you think it will taste icky. It makes the game healthier. You might even like it.

But if you HATE it so much with all your blind passion, then go play another game.

Huge props to the development team who know how to keep things interesting.

If many people do exactly what you have dared them to do, then you may end up having problems finding groups to do your new content with as time goes by. Personally, I could care less about a pve dungeon, I wvw. If it effects wvw in a negative way, then I will leave. That includes the population drying up, because population impacts WvW harder than other aspects of the game.

Ryth.6518:

You don’t pay for the game. You bought it. If you don’t like the direction don’t play it.

This is not a gear grind like WoW had. This is not something where you have to grind grind grind the dungeon and hope your gear drops.

And all the people complaining, you GRINDED YOUR LEGENDARIES…so please stop whining about a gear grind when that is exactly what you did.

People sitting here thinking they wouldn’t add new gear and new stats..are you serious? So you get some stuff in month 1 and expect your character to stay the exact same over the life of the MMO?

You get the new upgrades by doing the new content.

Don’t know wtf people are complaining about. This isn’t a gear grind like WoW has.

We do pay. In gems.

It is.

Only a very few people grinded legendaries by now. Most people won’t bother, ever.

Yes, because that’s exactly what they said for years and years in plain english. Why would we expect them to be lying?

And only that. You have to farm 9 rooms over and over for gear tiers for now. Sounds like anti-fun.

About a poorly thought out gear grind being forced on us after years of explaining why gear grinds do nothing but ruin fun from the devs themselves. Thing is, I agree that it’s not like WoW’s because WoW’s gear grind is well thought out and implemented. Gear grinds themselves aren’t the problem…. but when you build a game to not have one, then shoehorn in a poorly laid out one 2 months after release to quiet a handful of whiny kids who grind all day every day then it becomes a problem.

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

THANKYOU for the communication

Primal Zed.9714:

noir.6392:

Who in their right minds doesn’t want their character to get more powerful? So what, you have to farm a little for better gear, big whoop. It’s not like you have a lot to do after finishing most of the content. And the gear upgrade comes naturally by exploring the new content. As long as it’s not a few months grind like in other popular titles, I don’t see the problem.
A few days of playing for better gear and stronger character triggers 124 pages of complains? You people are sad. Especially given that the ring will drop/be obtainable by simply exploring the new dungeon..I’m missing the logic in all the arguments.
I have followed everything that ANet said about the game prior to it’s release and I don’t remember ever seeing anything about there not being any kind of character progression in the following years.
If that is the case and my characters stay the same for the entire life of the game, with all my love for GW I will drop it in a couple of months. I truly hope there will be more of a gear progression than this, , given that exotic gear is a joke to get.
Stop patting just the casuals on the head, give something for the more hardcore players too.
And can you actually say that you even need exotic gear to enjoy the content of the game? Hell, you can do all the dungeons and PVE in green gear just fine.
I don’t know when people have turn into big whiners.
It bothers me too that they promised that there will be no grinding and most of the game is grinding. But it doesn’t bother me because of the grind itself. I had the pleasure to grind for a legendary and I can say it was 99% a huge grind. No, it bothers me that they lied about it, that they didn’t live up to their promises.

But better gear? Hell yea.

People who want to have the freedom to pick up the game and play it after a break don’t want their character to become “more powerful.”

The entire concept that your character becomes more powerful with higher stat gear is an illusion anyway. The content is still going to be designed around the stat cap, no matter how high the stat cap is. The only thing it does is make older content a little easier.

No, older content becoming easier is not something to be desired. That’s why ArenaNet designed their content scaling, after all.

If you do want to be chasing after new gear for the higher stats every few months, then that’s fine. You can do that in games that are designed that way. This game was specifically marketed as not following that model, though.

Well said, Zed. When I saw Chris Whiteside had posted, I had a flash of hope, but on actually reading his response I see we have gone from being sold a bill of goods to being “handled”. More creative marketing, I guess.

Crater.1625:

noir.6392:

Who in their right minds doesn’t want their character to get more powerful?

Your character doesn’t get more powerful. Your numbers go up, and the enemy’s numbers go up just as much. Without adding Ascended equipment, new content would be designed and balanced based on the maximum player power level – a level 80 character in full Exotic gear. With Ascended equipment, the exact same new content will be designed and balanced based on the maximum player power level – a level 80 character in gear comprised of Exotics and as many Ascended pieces as there are available, until it’s entirely Ascended gear.

Your character doesn’t get more powerful. Your character is made weaker, and you have to grind for new equipment to make yourself as powerful as you were to start with.

I know that. But the new content is just a minimal part of the game. While your level is still 80, and the mobs in the new area/dungeon might be adjusted to your boost, the ones in all the other areas of the game that are lvl 80 or not, will remain the same. That’s what I meant by more powerful.

Dinks.2478:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

They used it correctly. Arenanet told us blatant lies. And now they are going back on their word. This is the definition of a lie.

Right then, so you have evidence to demonstrate when they initially made their statement it was intended to deceive readers into believing a design philosophy with the intent at the time to not follow through with it?

Because if you can’t, you’re actually committing libel. And by the very nature of lacking that evidence, Arenanet would win in court hands down.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

[…] 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. […]

1) The fact you have to phrase this as “allow people time to acquire them” is a direct indicator that you intend this to be a grind to get max stat armor. This is already in direct tension with not only your stated goals as designers, but also with many of your customer’s understanding of what the game was going to be, as well as your customer’s desire for that game.

2) This seems to imply you believe it will be mandatory at some point for all players to be decked out in nothing but legendaries, and that legendaries will have a higher statistical advantage over exotics and even possibly ascendant armor itself. Do you then want all players to feel a need to grind to Ascendent level armor? Legendary armor, eventually? What about new players who join the game after all these months of grinding to get these items? How are they supposed to play catch up to all of this? Why are you ruining your own game by placing such an inordinate focus on grinding equipment numbers? Are you also telling us our current exotic armor, gotten from dungeon runs, will eventually be worthless if we pick the game back up in several months?

My suggestion to you is to reevaluate your practices and come to a better understanding of what players want from Guild Wars. You aren’t making Guild of Warcraft 2. Please stop tainting this franchise with the stink of this tired old MMO convention. You promised to destroy the Sithconventions, not join them. If you can’t think of ways to expand your endgame without resorting to these tired exercises, whereas GW1 never had this problem, please remove yourselves from the development of this game and put more capable employees in your place, as it is apparent you are not equipped to give many of us the game that we were promised.

The community overwhelmingly rejects this “gated progression” idea. Why not just simplify it by making infusions a crafted (not rng forge) gear taught by each trade it would therefore hold true to the anti-gear grind game pre-release publicity.

Thanks for the reply, Chris Whiteside.

In the end, you’re doing exactly what the player base was expecting.
You can say it’s not a gear treadmill, but why should we believe you? We believed at first when we saw all those pre-launch interviews about how players wouldn’t farm content, they’d enjoy the content the game offered, and this is what happens 3 months after launch?

After this Ascended gear I will expect to see Ascended 2.0, Ascended 3.0, maybe even Ascended 4.0 gear in the future.

Let’s straight things out, ok? You said it yourself, it’s a proper progression from exotic up to legendary.
But what is this progression you speak of, seeing Legendaries have the exact same stats to Exotic weapons?
I didn’t bothered farming Legendaries because I never felt weaker or sub-performing during events, dungeoning, or WvWing.
You’re just adding something that will, and I will feel the need of getting those for the same reason I don’t walk around in Masterwork gear.
Adding a new tier will also affect people who achieved their Exotics status so far, and this can’t be seen as a good thing. I’m bothered by the fact I spent time, even the little time it was compared to other games, just to have this Ascended gear make them all become a waste of bank slot.

You won’t be releasing a new tier of gear every 3 months, but what about a year? Will you “reset” all players gear by adding new levels, and making new gear that makes the old ones useless and not even worth a bank trash slot?

So, in the end, you’ll just have a WoW clone with a slower pace. What’s the point of it?
If you want to be a WoW clone, do it right, or the people who wants it to be WoW will just leave it anyway.

Don’t mince words, say it straight out: You’re adding a new tier of gear because you want people to farm something, and have something to do in the game.

http://www.talesoftyria.com/tales-of-tyria/2011/10/28/deconstructing-the-never-ending-mmorpg.html

I sent this link to a bunch of friends before they play (they haven’t begun yet, they’re “waiting” to see how GW2 will become since they don’t want another WoW), and I can’t say how amazed I was when I read that article and how ArenaNet earned my respect, and how I became a loyal fanboy.

So, now you guys are “cheating” as well.

Thank you for your clarifying reply. You killed the little faith I had in ArenaNet of doing the right thing by standing by it’s principles of having a game made for the player’s fun.

Though I must admit I lied. I won’t be expecting Ascended gear 2.0 or 3.0.

Will there be tiers of gear after Ascended if this one doesn’t “bridge the gap” the way you like? Will the level cap rise beyond 80 at any point in the game’s forseeable future? Do you intend to have dungeons that require a certain amount of infusion to complete the basic content?

These are the questions that need answer. Because answering yes to any of those means we are, in fact, getting a gear treadmill. Just quibbling over the details of its implementation.

Alice.8694:

Dinks.2478:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

They used it correctly. Arenanet told us blatant lies. And now they are going back on their word. This is the definition of a lie.

Right then, so you have evidence to demonstrate when they initially made their statement it was intended to deceive readers into believing a design philosophy with the intent at the time to not follow through with it?

Because if you can’t, you’re actually committing libel. And by the very nature of lacking that evidence, Arenanet would win in court hands down.

Countless blog posts with quotes on arena.net and guildwars2.com and tons of videos on twitch.tv and youtube.com with the developers discussing that the game will not have gear treadmills, kind of makes it not libel. Since as it stands they are not keeping any of their promises.

Fayte.1803:

Primal Zed.9714:

Fayte.1803:

The increase in stats is simple, players wanted more end game content, or thats what was said, honestly though I could care less, I’m just glad they give a kitten to even give us more content, and yes another player can be just as powerful without ascended gear, keep in mind our individual builds are stat driven, you might have a few additional stat perks but in the long run it won’t decide the outcome of a skill driven battle.

Higher stats does not equal more end game content, nor are higher stats necessary for more end game content.

No one is upset about the addition of new content here – in fact, as I said to Mr. Whiteside, I’m sure most if not all people here are very pleased to be getting new content this month.

A player with exotic gear cannot be just as powerful as a player with ascended gear. It is mathematically impossible. As demonstrated in their example of an ascended item alongside a level 80 exotic item, ascended items have a higher stat cap.

If the difference in stats is truly insignificant, why did they add it at all? (Yes, I did ask this question already, and you did already answer, but as I address in my first paragraph here your answer is nonsensical.)

Just what is your point here?

Your arguing and using ascended stats as an example even thought the actual content has yet to be released? Everything is only based on assumptions given by the little bit of info that was fed to us, so which statement is nonsensical again? And in a skillbased game power isn’t everything, just cause someone is decked out in better gear doesn’t mean they will have some advantage over another player, your basically just throwing around numbers, it will be the same when the ascended gear is released.

Yes, I am using the facts ArenaNet has provided about what they intend to add in to the game this week. What am I assuming, exactly?

Your statement that the higher stats is for new content is nonsensical. Higher stats on gear is not new content (dungeons, zones, enemies, events), nor is it required for new content.

It will not be the same after the release. I’m not just throwing around random numbers, I am referencing the numbers they give us in which the ascended item has a higher stat allocation than the exotic item. 50 is greater than 48. 18 is greater than 15. Saying they are the same is fundamentally incorrect. Saying it is not an advantage to have greater stats is fundamentally incorrect.

If the difference in numbers is so insignificant as to have no practical impact, then why are they changing the stat cap on gear to begin with? Why can’t they leave the existing stat cap?

noir.6392:

I know that. But the new content is just a minimal part of the game. While your level is still 80, and the mobs in the new area/dungeon might be adjusted to your boost, the ones in all the other areas of the game that are lvl 80 or not, will remain the same. That’s what I meant by more powerful.

In other words, the only thing that’s designed to be appropriate and fun for my character is now “Whatever the newest dungeon/zone is”? And all of the previous content – all eight dungeons worth, along with the handful of overworld zones that actually ‘work’ for a level 80 character in Exotics – is made even easier and more trivialized than it already is?

Why on earth would you want them to effectively remove 90% of the level-appropriate content?

i like the idea of the new dungeon and i don’t mind new mechanics, such as “agony”, however i don’t like the route they’re taking with “resistance gear”. i’d rather the mechanic be countered by player skill/cleverness. this is nothing more than a gear treadmill to satisfy the crowd that demands such things and totally compromises ANet’s integrity on its core values concerning GW2’s game development.

to the devs, this is a serious misstep! please PLEASE reconsider this. please find other ways to satisfy player need for character progression. it doesn’t have to be vertical. add new weapons, styles, utilities, elites that can be unlocked via questing in pve and pvp environments.

Any new gear it should be for skin only.

First you ahve a massive Karma grind for exotic armor, then you add DR. Finally you correct that with jugs of liquid karma. Then you go and do this?

I don’t want to re grind stat gear again. I could live with that if it were skin only gear. Its almost like Anet will not be happy until they piss off every last player and make them leave. What, theservers aren’t empty enough?

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

Fine.

Broke their promise.

kitten.

And which promise was that? With quotes please.

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

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

Already linked by someone else on the previous page.

Firstly, this isn’t a promise… It’s a design philosophy. By the very nature of reiterative design, designs change constantly. This is a guideline to how they intend on focusing that process.
Secondly, the content added can be read in a manner that fits this philosophy fine.

Again, people need to learn the difference between a gear treadmill and progression.

Currently GW2 as no real endgame progression aside from your legendary. Regardless of what you guys say or think a game that adds content that can be completed in a week will get stale.

Anet is a company first and foremost. When a title gets stale money is lost. They have to have some sort of progression to keep peoples interest. Their intended progression is nothing like a gear treadmill from say wow…

The entire 125 pages of this post is completely useless because 99% of the people in it have no idea what they are talking about.

They throw around words like “Gear Treadmill” and “Just like WoW” yet they have no actual concept of what these things mean or how they relate to the topic at hand.

Please go educate yourselves. Stop throwing a tantrum. Thank you Chris for posting that clarification. It is pretty much exactly what I have been saying would be the case for the last 50 pages but it is unfortunately falling on deaf ears.

The Mob somehow got hooked onto these buzz words that have no meaning to the discussion at hand and they continually shout them at you no matter what you try to say.

First things first…I hate this idea that Arenanet lied. They gave a manifesto that has adjusted slightly based on their iteration process. I hate the player base keeps shouting, like an anthem, “LIES!” at the developers. This is the very reason developers don’t give us as much information as we like; it’s the reason they aren’t as transparent as we would like. As soon as they make any adjustment of their vision (however slight) the playerbase overreacts. They aren’t allowed to make hard statements on anything because all the player base seems to do is throw it in their faces at a later date when they feel adjustments need to be made for unforseen circumstances (such as a need for progression that didn’t require the huge step between exotics and legendaries, which for the record, wasn’t a gap of stats, but a gap of player grinding between the two that many players felt was too wide…I can see this and understand it). Now I can understand being frustrated about it, and about asking them to reconsider the idea.

But throwing accusations at them…when this, in many ways, does make a kind of logical sense even if you don’t like it.

This is what turns development processes into an us vs. them mentality that isn’t good for any game.

Sigh….just my two cents. Sorry if I offended anyone.

SHM.7628:

Any new gear it should be for skin only.

First you ahve a massive Karma grind for exotic armor, then you add DR. Finally you correct that with jugs of liquid karma. Then you go and do this?

I don’t want to re grind stat gear again. I could live with that if it were skin only gear. Its almost like Anet will not be happy until they piss off every last player and make them leave. What, theservers aren’t empty enough?

I had 800k karma by the time I hit 60 from wvw when the game first launched…. you cant tell me karma is a massive grind I got it while leveling and had more then enough by the time I hit 80….

You guys made a real good point. There was no gap, and if they felt there was a grind gap why wasn’t that gap bridge with cosmetics?

Just wait till they show you how the cash shop works with all of this.

Danicco.3568:

Thanks for the reply, Chris Whiteside.
So, in the end, you’ll just have a WoW clone with a slower pace. What’s the point of it?
If you want to be a WoW clone, do it right, or the people who wants it to be WoW will just leave it anyway.

Don’t mince words, say it straight out: You’re adding a new tier of gear because you want people to farm something, and have something to do in the game.

Even if you can do it “right”, there is no way you can win WoW by “out-wowing” them. WoW has been doing it for freaking 9 years already. Look at SWTOR. The WoW crowd would just burn though all the content and leave again for their main game. Selling out your own principles to try to retain a fickle group? never a good decision.

bcbully.7289:

You guys made a real good point. There was no gap, and if they felt there was a grind gap why wasn’t that gap bridge with cosmetics?

Just wait till they show you how the cash shop works with all of this.

This is a little tangential, but one good thing for me that has come out of this thread is that someone else pointed out that there actually is an intermediary between typical exotic items and the legendary:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

These items each have a unique skin, are more difficult to acquire than a level 80 exotic of equal stats, but easier to acquire than a legendary weapon of equal stats. (They also don’t require mystic forge gambling, yay!)

noir.6392:

Crater.1625:

noir.6392:

Who in their right minds doesn’t want their character to get more powerful?

Your character doesn’t get more powerful. Your numbers go up, and the enemy’s numbers go up just as much. Without adding Ascended equipment, new content would be designed and balanced based on the maximum player power level – a level 80 character in full Exotic gear. With Ascended equipment, the exact same new content will be designed and balanced based on the maximum player power level – a level 80 character in gear comprised of Exotics and as many Ascended pieces as there are available, until it’s entirely Ascended gear.

Your character doesn’t get more powerful. Your character is made weaker, and you have to grind for new equipment to make yourself as powerful as you were to start with.

I know that. But the new content is just a minimal part of the game. While your level is still 80, and the mobs in the new area/dungeon might be adjusted to your boost, the ones in all the other areas of the game that are lvl 80 or not, will remain the same. That’s what I meant by more powerful.

You know that getting more powerful is just an illusion, and it really is just making old content easier and irrelevant, yet stil think it is a good idea? To semi-quote you: Who in their right minds does want existing content to become trivial and boring?

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

Fine.

Broke their promise.

kitten.

And which promise was that? With quotes please.

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

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

Already linked by someone else on the previous page.

Firstly, this isn’t a promise… It’s a design philosophy. By the very nature of reiterative design, designs change constantly. This is a guideline to how they intend on focusing that philosophy.
Secondly, the content added can be read in a manner that fits this philosophy fine.

Meh…

Seems like design philosophy changed as soon as they realised people were going through content faster than they wished they did.
If it’s a philosophy you’ll tout as a dev, then why not stick to it? Just makes you look dodgy. Especially since there’s not going to be a real explanation of WHY they decided to revert back against their philosophy.

Sure…design changes. Wasn’t that what the point of “no treadmill” was? A progression from the norm?

To go back on it is not a change. Is a regression.

E Tan.7385:

noir.6392:

A backpack and a ring… We didn’t have many backpacks anyway, was about time for a good one.

As for the future, they said they will add the rest of the ascended gear and all.. They could give players the opportunity of upgrading their existing gear up to that level by putting it in the forge with 3 other items obtainable by playing the content, even casually. So yes, I want gear progression, I would rather not lose my existing items, and to tend to the casual majority, not have it as a month grind.

= gear treadmill, and GW2 was supposed to NOT be a gear treadmill.

GW1 NEVER made a single gear treadmill, and you never get bored because of the deep gamplay offering.

Actualy, GW2 have a poor gamaply offering ( low skill number, impossibilitie to really build your own skill build, poor stat / trait management )
So yeah once lvl 80, and all skill unlocked, no rare skin like in GW1 to farm, not a single skill build exeperimentation to do.. yeah, nothing else to do.

What Anet offer ? lazy gear treadmill way instead of really improove the class gameplay.

That’s really desapointing. ( see what Anet are doing, and see player like you without any imagination who only except a gear treadmill as “progression” )

Now this is true.

However i still disagree with the gear treadmill label.

Simply put many are getting bored with gw2 because at end game it really doesn’t offer you much in the way of having something to keep you occupied.

I find it hilarious people are too busy defining “lie” “treadmill” and “progression” and ignoring the plain and simple fact that Guild Wars 2 is proposing a balk on a core philosophy that was a sell point for many supporters.

Can we all agree this proposed addition is not in tune with what Guild Wars 2 has been about at this point or what it was proposed to be about?

Left 2 days to the update

Will arena.net listen the feedback of the comunity and have the guts to delay the update to delete the ascend items ?

Will arena.net go for all , launch the update, betray the community, lost the trust of their consumer with lies only for dont stop a update ?

I dont care wait 2-3 weeks if they launch the update with exotic rewards and improve the reward of the old dungeons, and what i say reward i dont say new tier items, i say no more “3 blues” in chests etc…

Arena.net after read this entiere post this update could have 2 ends, kill the game to the core community and say goodbye to GW saga and the trust of your community, or stop this now, rethink what are you doing, make your ideas clear and tell all details to the comunity before to launch such major change to the game.

My bet, arena.net dont care for the core community, continue the update, bye bye GW2 and is sad after almost 8 years playing GW1 and 5 years waiting the game, kill the game betraying your own philosophy.

Im still waiting for some answer of Linsey Murdock to explain where she gatherer the feedback to made this, and Colin Johanson and Mike O´brian to apalogoize for all lies.

This is not gonna happen, they will let this post die these days they launch the update and ingore their community.

This week is a sad week to all GW core fans.

Many people arn’t logging on because of things like makeover kits.

Alright guys, so this new crap of a strategy to force us into wasting more gold unless we want to be sub optimal in the new content is not only going to affect the major community so far that has been focused on getting max stats and by no means will ever be in a positive way, but also will make other ppl realise that the free grind game just got grindier, what exactly will happen to all of us who have wasted all this money on max stats?
What will happen to my 5 exotic sets? my exotic weapons mains, secondaries, underwater main, underwater secondaries, my 5 exotic jewelry sets?
Is this supposed to be a joke? will players who already have bought exotic for this inflated price get free upgrades to turn them all into ascended stats as we bought the armor before ascended was even announced?
What about person who wasted real life money to turn it into gold and then buy exotics?
Have u A-net even tought about this? ofc u have but have u tought that there are ppl who are against this crap and ppl who have more than 1 char? what do we do now? flush all this time wasted down the toilet to replace for ur brilliant decision of new armor stats and waste months again to get it all back? u cant be freaking serious.

Mr. Whiteside confirmed that the manifesto is out the door. The design philosophy has changed. Rare gear is no longer about a sense of achievement, but rather must now feed a sense of progression. Linsey directly implicated that the_ “whole game is the end game” philosophy is dead, as they are concentrating on creating “end game content” and new “end game mechanics” for “high-end players” to serve a sense of progression that is, in her mind, a “basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level.”.

Before, aesthetic variances were offered to serve a sense of accomplishment, not a sense of progression. Gear progression was explicitly capped.

The game vision that sold many of us on GW2 is lost. Mr. Whiteside and Ms. Murdock do not share the original vision of the game as an explicit alternative to that kind of game structure; they embrace it and have been doing so since before launch, because you don’t whip up the kind of expansion-level content Mr. Whiteside spoke about in a month, after – and because – some live players complained about how hard it is to get legendary skins.

Shahiel.8342:

“The ultimate goal of marketing is to generate an intense bond between the consumer and the brand, and the main ingredient of this bond is trust,” Oxford University Press’ report, Emotion and Brands.

“We respect you—as a player, as a human being. This game we’re making may end up competing with your real life. It might fight for your free time alongside your friends, your family, your work, and whatever else you might be doing. Because of that, we want to give you a meaningful experience, not one that is a vapid waste of your time. Whatever your reasons for spending time in Tyria, we don’t want to waste it by doing stuff that isn’t fun.
[…]
Purpose: To keep us honest.”

Ben Miller, The Golden Rules of Guild Wars 2
http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

MrDmajor.7084:

I find it hilarious people are too busy defining “lie” “treadmill” and “progression” and ignoring the plain and simple fact that Guild Wars 2 is proposing a balk on a core philosophy that was a sell point for many supporters.

Can we all agree this proposed addition is not in tune with what Guild Wars 2 has been about at this point or what it was proposed to be about?

Core philosophy was that you wouldn’t have to need a trinity, nor would you have to re-run a dungeon hoping your gear would drop. Beat the content, you get your gear. Simple as that. No need to re-run it unless you wanted to do explorer mode.

They never said they weren’t going to add gear or progression.

Still boggles my mind that they say this is not a gear treadmill when it really is!

Seriously, stop fibbing. Thank you.

Since I haven’t read every single post in this thread, I don’t know if anyone has said it yet.

I noticed as soon as someone abbreviated the new dungeon that it is FotM…Flavor of the Month anyone?

Alice.8694:

Dinks.2478:

Alice.8694:

Velron.3729:

You lied to us, plain and simple.

Lied

“To lie is to deliver a false statement to another person which the speaking person knows is not the whole truth, intentionally.”

You are not using this word correctly.

They used it correctly. Arenanet told us blatant lies. And now they are going back on their word. This is the definition of a lie.

Right then, so you have evidence to demonstrate when they initially made their statement it was intended to deceive readers into believing a design philosophy with the intent at the time to not follow through with it?

Because if you can’t, you’re actually committing libel. And by the very nature of lacking that evidence, Arenanet would win in court hands down.

Having trouble reading or do factual statements prior to release not compute in your undeveloped juvenile brain? Want to talk legal scenario’s here’s one “Bait and Switch” and don’t throw out the EULA/TOS argument about content may change at anytime their statement preceded the TOS/EULA notification.

Namu.5712:

Currently GW2 as no real endgame progression aside from your legendary. Regardless of what you guys say or think a game that adds content that can be completed in a week will get stale.

Ok, let’s fix this for you then:
Fractals rounds 1-30 (or whatever) drop Fractal bits, which buy some pretty cool-looking exotics. Maybe four times the investment of a dungeon set, offset by the fact that Fractals has more variety than most dungeons.

For round 30+ you get Fractal coins, which buy halfway-to-legendary skins with legendary (=exotic) stats. By that point, though, the dungeon is so hard that no one can even figure out how to reliably do it on day one and only a few groups figure out the coordination necessary to start farming by the end of week 1. By week 4, most people understand how to do it, but it’s still a lot of hard work and plenty of people are distracted by the December event.

After I have given this some more thought, I’m really not sure I’m in favor of this change. Don’t get me wrong… I love GW2 and am amazed that we’re getting such awesome new content in November (and right off the heals of an awesome Halloween Event too!). I’m thankful that we are geting new content and new rewards to pursue! However, my favorite thing about GW2 is how accessible it is and easy it is to play with my friends, and I feel like this change is going to impact that element of the game for me.

Currently, most of my friends that started playing GW2 are taking a break from it while they play other games. I imagine that they will want to come back, but when they do, will I still be able to play with them? It now looks like I’ll have to help them clear older content in order to gear them up for us to have fun together again.

The other thing that concerns me is how much anger this is generating on the forums. I never expect to see rosy discussions happening on official game forums, but this is the first time I have seen such anger from the GW2 community. People were annoyed about the drop rate of skins in Halloween chests too, but even that frustration seems to pale in comparison to this. If this decision causes people to leave and the servers of my favorite game to become empty, it’s a loss for me even if I end up enjoying the new system personally.

With this kind of backlash after GW2 received mostly praise during the entirety of its development, I think it would be wise for the developers to reverse course on this one until an agreeable solution is met. The alternative is to simply say “well, no decision pleases anyone” and gamble that this decision causes more players to join the game than it will cause people to leave. Because the people who would leave are the ones who had the most “ownership” of GW2’s core vision, I don’t think that alienating the game’s top fans is a wise decision.

Honestly, I have enough respect for ANet that if they say this new system is fun, then I am willing to take their word on it until proven otherwise. However, even if this turns out to be true, I have to wonder if implementing a fun system that flies in the face of the game’s core values is really a worthwhile choice. To me, there is such a thing as “the right system for the wrong game.”

“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.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

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

So much nonsense, they are adding a tier that to be completed requeres MORE grind than exotics but LESS grind the legendarys, sry but i dont sea a treadmill here.

The issue seem to have made the news on a website:
http://www.examiner.com/article/near-gear-tier-upgrades-coming-to-guild-wars-2

Like the last line:
“In a game where endgame was supposed to extend “beyond the traditional model,” it seems the power creep, the gear grind, and single track PvE experience persist."

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Mr. Whiteside confirmed that the manifesto is out the door. The design philosophy has changed. Rare gear is no longer about a sense of achievement, but rather must now feed a sense of progression. Linsey directly implicated that the_ “whole game is the end game” philosophy is dead, as they are concentrating on creating “end game content” and new “end game mechanics” for “high-end players” to serve a sense of progression that is, in her mind, a “basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level.”.

This is one thing that confuses me. Down-leveling, loot scaling, and travel costs all work against that idea of the “whole game is the end game” – it funnels everyone into the Orr “endgame.” Did they intend the game to be so linear?

Primal Zed.9714:

bcbully.7289:

You guys made a real good point. There was no gap, and if they felt there was a grind gap why wasn’t that gap bridge with cosmetics?

Just wait till they show you how the cash shop works with all of this.

This is a little tangential, but one good thing for me that has come out of this thread is that someone else pointed out that there actually is an intermediary between typical exotic items and the legendary:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items

These items each have a unique skin, are more difficult to acquire than a level 80 exotic of equal stats, but easier to acquire than a legendary weapon of equal stats. (They also don’t require mystic forge gambling, yay!)

The presence of these items and the fact that the devs have said that they will make other Ascended content available through PvE and PvP means that I’m waiting to see if they don’t buff these items to be Ascended (or perhaps even Legendary) themselves. Look at the Triforge Amulet, for example. It costs a CRAZY amount of materials to get, and provides bonuses that are far in excess of what a standard level 80 Exotic crafted amulet could give, yet it itself is only an Exotic.

I’m betting that the Nov 15 update will also upgrade many of these “semi-Legendary” items to be Ascended items. Who knows? Maybe the level 80 Exotic dungeon armor/weapons will ALSO be buffed to Ascended status, or new recipes will be introduced that allow crafters to craft Ascended-level gear themselves.

I’ve been with A-net since April of 2005. I’ve given more of my money over the years to A-net than anyone else. I believed in the company started by former Blizzard employees who were all pretty well known for their work. Throughout the entirety of Guild Wars, over seven-and-a-half years, I’ve been a fan.

In all those years, A-net has never failed to deliver games that I could enjoy playing. I can only think of three times before now that I was ever disappointed by them.

To me, the very core of the ideal of GW2 is the first sentence from Mike O’Brien, in the Manifesto:
"We founded ArenaNet to innovate, so Guild Wars 2 is our opportunity to question everything, to make a game that defies existing conventions."

When almost nothing in the manifesto proved to be little more than lies, I could fall back on this, and remember that it is true. A-net does have a chance, an opportunity, to do something different. So, I’ll endure this mistake, as I did the other three, and keep my hopes up that in the future, they will do better.