Guild Wars 2

GonzoNeo.4965:

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.

Its not just a sad week for GW core fans but others who believed in their philosophy at the development stage and long waiting for the game.
Still couldnt believe they give up so quickly. How could they not know the core value of their own product and what market population they are aiming for. Understand what are the consumer needs! People bought this game because they believe you guys, have faith in Anet that will give them a game that is promised to be like what the Devs said in the interviews. So disappointing on hearing this patch.

And now they are dumping their best aspect and their distinctive advantage as an MMO. YOUR GAME IS GOOD, the classes has their interesting way of playing, WvW is fun altho its never balanced by population. When you start having something that increase stat cap on a tier of content, thats mean you have to spend time to gear up to pve/WvW, especially for wvw. This way you decrease the amount of time players could spent on other characters and other aspect of the game and making old stuff obsolete.

History tells you the result, we do not need to see it implemented in order to judge the outcome. Whats the fun of it? playing a same char? progression? come on, don’t treat players dumb. Especially those who have been playing MMOs since using dial-up modems.

PROGRESSION does not make the game itself fun. If you want your game to be fun and attractive, its not to make the new content “stat wise” but “act wise”, change the AI, who like pveing content that do the same shxt all the time but numbers.

I have no clue who actually authorized this no-brainer move, but this move has hurt so many people’s feeling by just reading the “new idea” that is different from what Anet promised. My guild was cursing all over the mumble right after knowing this.
Think of those who had faith in you guys, what market segment your product is aiming and whats the core they want. Simple marketing sense, but i doubt this exists in devs mind when they decided this.

This move screwed your own credit rating, and the lost trust is hard to regain. Will wait to see how this goes on. I sincerely hope someone will notice their wrong doing and admit it instead of going on.

I am buying Product A, not anything else. GG salesman
Don’t give me Coke when I am buying a bottle of water.

A game like this is bound to evolve, there are a number of things that have changed with the game over its development. It’s not like Anet is sitting around writhing their hands and lying about everything, they are adapting to what the player base is asking for. I find all the accusations of the company having some evil plan quite humorous considering the quality of the game and what we paid for it. They are about to release a free expansion to a game with no sub, are we really crying bloody murder because of ring and back slot upgrades?? I have been using the same gear on my character since launch, replacing a couple rings is not the end of the world.

To all the people with 300, 500, even 1000+ hours in this game threatening to uninstall, congratulations those hours of entertainment only cost you 60$.

AlteregoA.9635:

I am new to MMOs….i have loved this game so far. Why is the new gear such a bad thing? Is it because everyone worked so hard to get exotics and now its obsolete? I just dont understand why having more armor options is a bad thing. Please don’t respond with an attitude….just asking an honest question.

People are afraid of something they call gear treadmill.
It’s basically you reaching the highest level, getting the highest gear, and then they add a new tier of gear just to make yours, which you’ve spent gold/time to get, obsolete. You’d need to farm/grind the new gear in order to stay competitive either in PvE or WvW.

ArenaNet also stated they wouldn’t do this sort of thing in their game, and they’re suddenly starting this with this new Ascended gear, which is better than the highest gear currently in the game.

A Mr. Game Designer stated they were just adding a new “rarity” type of gear, so we’d have another one, but that’s just mincing words, because this gear is also a requirement to play in their latest dungeon, called Fractals of the Mist, and if you limit it by gear, it creates the elitism people see in other MMOs and no one really likes about it.

Imagine if you’ve read in the MapChat: “We’re looking for 1 more for Fractals Dungeon, you need to be in full Ascended gear or you’re not joining”.

That’s the sort of elitism some other games have, they “measure” your gear to see if you’re good enough to group with them. Currently, GW2 doesn’t seem to suffer this, because dungeons are easy enough are made in a way that gear isn’t everything, but skill contributes the most of a group’s success in a dungeon.
Adding a new gear will make people value you by your gear, not your skill.

Mr. Game Designer said it’d be because there’s a huge gap between the latest gear rarity, Exotics (sorta easy to get), and Legendaries (really grindy to get), and this new rarity will be in between.
But we, the community, are calling BS on that because Exotics have the same attributes as Legendaries (they’re exactly the same), except for the looks, which Legendaries are awesomely cool.
So the addition of this new type of item is just an excuse to increase the overall stats for level 80 characters, and to give them something to chase for some time. They also said they’ll be releasing them little by little, so you’d have to keep coming back every now and then just to get them as they are released to be on par with everyone else.

When I say on par, I don’t mean everyone will be farming these new items, but say, if you’re in WvW where gear does make a difference, you’d like to play on a leveled ground right?
Exotics aren’t exactly hard to obtain right now, you can get them with a little dedication, much less time compared to other games where you have to spend weeks or months to get the latest gear.
By being easy to get, you can expect people to take their little time and get full Exotics and play each other in WvW. Now you add this Ascended gear, and you’d be playing at a disadvantage if you fight a player who does.

Some more serious guilds might even ask players to get them so they’re always on their highest power available, since they’re playing competitively.

There’s a few more issues but these are the most discussed in this thread.

“If this goes through, I’ve had it. I was betrayed by Blizzard the same way when Crapaclysm came out. Not doing it again.”

I’ve had it with MMO’s introducing gear grinds, “new mechanics” that shame the way I played…if it were just a matter of adaption in my skills, I wouldn’t have a problem. This is adapting to a new level of grinding and making an entire tier obsolete (who’s going to mystic forge an exotic now?)

Since this appears the thread to vent so I’m here to express my disappointment in what have we heard about ascended gear so far. Not that I’m going to quit playing because of this but I still feel like this goes against what has been promised in manifesto and all the “only cosmetic rewards” philosophy they had going on. Anet made such a big deal about not letting us know what’s in the works a lot of the times because they didn’t want to go back on anything they say. So much for that.

The addition of higher + stat gear(even if its only 8% better stats for a set) is EXACTLY what they said GW2 wouldnt do. I play this game because this wasnt supposed to be the case.

The post by Shaenari in this thread put it quite well I thought:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/133sxu/linsey_murdock_unveils_new_high_end_ascended_gear/

I am against asending gear.

Enikuo.9205:

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?

Absolutely agree.

Had I taken a break in playing GW2 prior to this news? Yes.
Was it because of a perceived ‘lack of progression’? No.

My main is at level 80 and using the cash collected completing the Orr zones I purchased the Vigil armor, some rare weapons and the sigils I like. With the jewels I stuck with my greens.

This is a character ripe to enter the ‘end-game’ to be finishing up my stat itemisation. So, I get 400 on both my crafts – problem is due to oversupply I can’t make any money, and the gear is about the cost of the component parts so I might just as well buy it.

So, I’m 80, I’m ‘free to play how I like’. However, to gear up in my travels I need to make enough gold to purchase a full suite of exotics in a realistic time frame. And here’s the problem. Given the problems listed above and the miniscule difference in loot tables between landscape trash and anything else there’s only two ways to make anything more than a few silver in an evening’s play session:

1. AoE tap mobs in the Orr DE zerg to sell the loot to make gold.
2. Trade on the TP.

In short, I’m being pushed down to the least challenging, least satisfying, grindiest content in the game to finish my current gear progression. And excuse me for not wanting to play a Wall Street simulator.

There’s a hundred different ways this could be solved, to bring back the excitement of just enjoying GW2’s excellent environments and combat. None, none, none of this is solved by another gear tier, some of it will be exacerbated as I can imagine groups running the dungeon will require full exotics just to step on this sudden, unwanted treadmill. Terrible, terrible choice.

Oh, and the agony mechanic – those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Radiance in LotRO – gone, but not forgotten…

I think a lot of you need to define what you consider grinding. In the dev post the man clearly states that pieces of the full Ascended set will be slowly integrated with the new content that is released each month in the same way that they only have three pieces coming out right now. Just playing the new content the way that anyone would when a patch hits should in theory be enough to get the Ascended pieces that are released in that content patch. This patch it’s two rings and a back – next month it might be gloves and boots. You have the entire month (or rather, according to his post at least three months) to gain the two or three items as you naturally play the content that they release over time. From what I can gather (and according to how they say they want this Ascended gear to be a middle ground between exotics and legendaries) this will be the only new tier to be inserted above exotics and will be rolled piece by piece as new content is released so that every time you need to go and get some new Ascended pieces you have entirely new content to do it in.

Example: I’m play the Lost Shore update and I get all the Ascended pieces for this content update (the room for this turning bad is how hard it is to get these pieces in the patches themselves). Sweet. Three months pass and Content Patch B hits and they release two more Ascended pieces with it. Now I go to the new zones/dungeons of Content Patch B and get two more pieces of my Ascended set. Continue this cycle until poof you’re in a full Ascended set of armor.

If there was a way to keep attaining these rewards fresh and exciting ever single time this certainly is the closest I’ve seen. You get a new kittening content patch every time there’s another few pieces of Ascended gear to get – how much more fresh can you get? They’re literally giving you new content with every few pieces of Ascended gear so that attaining these pieces of gear is the farthest thing from a grind.

I admit though that the hole in this system is how hard it will be for someone to get their Ascended pieces within these new patches, but it’d have to be pretty kitten difficult to get these pieces to outweigh the freshness of the new content.

Strang.8170:

Think it this way.

Did they really need to add more stats to the new rarity class?

If what you say is true and they don´t add more tiers with better stats, what was the point of adding better stats to this tier?

They said it in the blog: to lessen the huge gap between obtaining exotics and legendaries, exactly what the community, as a whole, has been asking for the past month and a half or so.

Did they need to do this? no. But they did exactly what the community was asking, and now they’re getting a huge amount of drama from everyone and their grandmas. It’s not rational, and it’s not fair.

Synitare.3176:

Probably because that “free” content is showing every sign of forcing players to grind new gear repeatedly, which the developers explicitly said would never happen. Just because it annoys you doesn’t make it any less valid.

Care to point out what “signs” are leading you to conclude this will be a grind? Max stat exotics can hardly be considered a grind, and now you’re saying the next step up, with absolutely no indication of how you even acquire them, will be a grind? Rubbish. We don’t know anything about them. Just saying what you feel doesn’t make it valid.

gadenp.7586:

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."

Sounds like we’re winning to me
ANet is only doing this ascended stuff because they think it’s what we want. When people besides just forum nobodies start telling them they’re wrong, they’ll listen.

If they really wanted to “bridge the gap” between exotics and legendaries they would provide more defined means to obtain the precursors rather than a need to rely almost purely on RNG.

Provide actual challenges in the game that reward players for great feats of skill, rather than obtaining the kitten things through what essentially boils down to pure gold farming. Give players something they can trade in for unique mats to get their precursors or something by; going after boss bounties, opening chests, etc.

The problem with legendaries is the road to them is so kitten boring… it should have been better designed and involved players doing more than grinding two spots 24/7.

I personally could care less for the legendaries as they aren’t really all that legendary at all other than the gold grind to obtain one.

We don’t need more gear, what we need are other things to spend our karma, gold, etc. on in PvE. Give us consumable rewards; PvE siege weapons (that can be unpacked and packed like 3 times or something before they are used up), special effects runes/sigils that add a special effect to certain actions (temporary ones and then maybe some permanent ones; i.e. legendary runes/sigils that do nothing more than add cool effects.) without taking up a normal rune/sigil slot.

Primal Zed.9714:

BatteryBiscuits.1573:

You know guys, Have you ever considered that theses ‘’infusion slots’’ could just be perhaps % bonuses against certain enemy types along with agony resistance?
Like defensive infusion could be -3% dmg received from inquest and offensive could be +4% dmg against krait for example.
Of course it’s just a guess but it’s another way to look at something we don’t have the full details for yet.

It doesn’t matter what goes in the infusion slots. The fact is that even notwithstanding the infusion/agony mechanic, the ascended gear has higher stat allocation than level 80 exotic gear. That is the information we have.

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

But we still don’t know if we can put runes or sigils along with infused slots on ascended gear.
If they didn’t and that infused slots aren’t that worthwhile, you’d only get a moderatly slight increase in stats while missing out on runes.

But in the end, I’ll wait for more info on the actual ascended gear that isn’t jewerly.

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

There is no gap stat wise between exotic and legendary… so this is confusing… you are creating a gear treadmill.

And if you plan to have ascended gear available in these other places. Why not delay this part of the update and actually introduce it all at once, so that we are not treadmilling through to get the pieces one at a time, and can acquire them through regular playing without being forced to dungeon.

I have done 4 dungeons… I don’t like them. Its just not how I play, I never liked raiding in other games either. Guild Wars 2 is relaxing, less stressful, enjoyable. I have fun everytime I log in… now what I decide to do when I log in is going to be decided for me, because if I don’t do X I can’t do Y…

The scares me… upsets me… So much so I can’t even login today I… just feel heart torn.

If your up-set about these so called “Hardcore” players not coming into GW2 because they are bored, because there is no progression. There are other ways to create progression without a treadmill and even without cosmetic reward.

Just create a progressive dungeon for those that like to dungeon, complete level A and unlock the waypoint at level B, complete level B and unlock the waypoint at level C. Make it a few levels long, with its own story… give it monsters… that are not just hard to fight but require solving a puzzle and thinking to do it right and some figuring out.

Introduce housing or a Hall much like Guild Wars 1 hall of monuments… and reward every player who completes levels A and B and C and other hard monsters in the game with a Trophy. When I complete Level A then in my hall I can add the Head of the Dragon, and I can bring my friends to my hall and say, Look what I killed today… Look what my character has accomplished.

Trophies and memories from your adventures are much more progressive than any gear.

Why is Anet not thinking outside the box… Instead we see what has been done, failed, trialed and messed with in other games since Neverwinter Nights AOL. Is Anet changing the structure and shaping the future? Or are they following the path that is all to familiar?

Synitare.3176:

Probably because that “free” content is showing every sign of forcing players to grind new gear repeatedly, which the developers explicitly said would never happen. Just because it annoys you doesn’t make it any less valid.

I find it hard to believe that this Ascended gear could be seriously that difficult to get to make an entirely fresh content patch the size of the Lost Shores go stale before you get the armor. You’re argument is based upon the presumption that this gear is somehow going to destroy the novelty of the new content by how hard it is to get. How can you say that you are being forced to “grind” this new content when – for all you know – the amount of time you would have naturally spent playing the new content for the sake of just seeing the new content is the same amount of time needed to get Ascended gear. They’ve inherently made the system anti-grind by releasing entirely new content with Ascended gear.

How can you say that you’re going to be sick of the Lost Shores before you get your Ascended gear (especially with a content patch this large in such a short period of time)?

Ace.5196:

Tbh, I’m not against this per se. Because I was starting to get a little tired of the game. New fresh content is always nice.

However, as I see it A LOT of people are against it, some even going as far as uninstalling the game. I made the mistake to use ferguson’s crossing as my server and for several personal reasons I can’t switch server. This means that there will be even less people on the servers.
People have really valid points and if you don’t start listen to things that really matter I can’t see guild wars lasting long unfortunately, it’ll be one of those deserted mmo’s where you’ll be lucky to see another player (not bot. Player) outside of a city.

I don’t really see how that differs from right now. This is exactly how it already is outside of Orr and Lion’s Arch. There is a reason behind this. Game is already what you are describing, and has been since the buzz wore off of Halloween.

Sytherek.7689:

Dungin.2983:

Sytherek.7689:

Mr. Whiteside…

Your message does little to allay my concerns about upcoming changes in GW2.

As the game stands now, I have no interest in grinding for a legendary. I dislike most of the skins pertinent to my character, and given my commitments in Real Life, I see no point in the grind. And that’s a GOOD THING — other people can grind, if it makes them happy. But their desire to grind in NOW WAY makes their character “better” than mine, as it stands now.

You’ve wrecked that with the new gear.

My main character has a set of equipment she likes; I play the game for pure enjoyment at this point, and am pleased that I don’t need to grind gear as I did in WoW. I like my Mystic Longbow.

You have just undone my happiness. Now, if I want to do the latest content, I must get a legendary (the bows are just plain ugly or stupid, BTW), because you’ll be making legendaries/ascendeds BETTER than exotics. I’ll need to replace my current weapons and armor with new ones if I expect anyone to bring me along on new content.

Even worse, you’ve gated access to ascended items via multiplayer content. I play at odd hours and when I have a few minutes, or with family. I’m not anti-social, but I don’t like having my character’s viability locked to multiplayer content. It’s no different than forcing PvP players to do PvE for something necessary in WvW — a terrible idea that ruins one of the foundations of GW2, in that I should be able to play how I want.

I do nor want gear progression. You have JUST added gear progression. Why should I trust you to not inflate stats further in future content, and REQUIRE those stats to play new content?

The problem is:

Many people that play the game 3-5 times per week for more than a few hours of time are ready for something new (hence why I’m not in the game and find the forums more entertaining.)

My translation of this post is as follows:

I would like the gear that I have to be the best of the best 1 year from now, so I can log on 3-5 hours per week and run the latest content. I’d like to take breaks for months at a time in a ‘persistent and changing world’ and be able to be on equal ground with all when I return on my whim.

While this is a nice idea it sounds a lot like a single player game. The people that are here the most will dictate the content. I am not saying I am an elite gamer by any stretch, the legendaries are way out of my league. You can’t develop content for people that pop in in a fairweather fashion to play.

As it was all this game had was an altoholic appeal (aka SW:TOR — we know how that worked out..) I hate alts. I don’t want to level my character to 80 to start another. In fact, I did start another, and didn’t even make it to level 10. Why?! Because zones are dead there is nothing to do at endgame except for jumping puzzles with greens that await and pats on the back in the form of achievements.

This isn’t Guild wars 1, in fact, Guild wars 1 was a glorified lobby game (aka single player — yes a game where you could form your own entire groups and never interact with a soul.) So sure, in GW1 you could come back months later and it would be like nothing changed. I bet I could log in now and fire up a group and my armor wouldn’t matter. I also would be playing completely alone. This is not to say GW1 wasn’t an amazing game, but it was not an MMO …BY definition.

I fire up an alt in GW2 and I am playing absolutely alone.

This patch doesn’t fix that, but it gets people playing together again, and in a new shiny area.

You’re quite wrong in your “interpretations.”

To begin with, I’m quite social in-game. Chatting in Guild Chat, helping people with various things; often, I play with family.

Nor am I super-casual. My “/age” is 411 hours on my main, 466 hours total across all characters. That much time should not be considered trivial or super-casual.

As you can see from those numbers, I, too, am a one-character kinda guy. Alts don’t interest me (much).

I was promised no gear progression after 80; many people have quoted ANet’s people saying exactly that. Many people have also done the math, and show that the ascended gear is definitely “better” (stat-wise) than current exotics. Thus gear progression has been added.

Now, if ANet were to commit, promise, that Ascendeds are the final tier of gear, and if they make Ascendeds available thru normal PvE and crafting and WvW, then I’ll have less to complain about.

I can agree with your last paragraph, and I respect your playstyle but I think they handled Halloween well and will respond well here. The live team is all that really gives me hope for this game — I feel the initial concept failed.

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 your for replying.

I’m still not okay with this. I play Guild Wars 2 because it’s what I want in an MMO. I’m not stuck on a gear treadmill, trying to get into gated content, or dealing with any of the design gimmicks that other franchises have become notorious for.

Having read ArenaNet’s design philosophy before buying the game, I was very excited. But now a new tier of gear is being added for gear progression, and gated content is being added.

For a lot of people, the reward was getting to the level cap, getting the gear they wanted, and then experiencing the content that’s there. Now, those rewards have lost their value.

I, and many others, feel lied to. We purchased the game under the premise that success was measured by skill, rather than gear checks.

Gated gear in a PvP game.

Joy, can’t wait.

Tempest.1254:

Thank your for replying.

I’m still not okay with this. I play Guild Wars 2 because it’s what I want in an MMO. I’m not stuck on a gear treadmill, trying to get into gated content, or dealing with any of the design gimmicks that other franchises have become notorious for.

Having read ArenaNet’s design philosophy before buying the game, I was very excited. But now a new tier of gear is being added for gear progression, and gated content is being added.

For a lot of people, the reward was getting to the level cap, getting the gear they wanted, and then experiencing the content that’s there. Now, those rewards have lost their value.

I, and many others, feel lied to. We purchased the game under the premise that success was measured by skill, rather than gear checks.

You assume that this content is gated by Ascended armor which really may or may not be true, but likely isn’t. I find it hard to believe that you will not be able to progress at all through the Fractals dungeon without first having Ascended gear. Keep in mind that Fractal runs are done in sets of three random Fractals of the total 9 mini-dungeons there are available. Imagine – without a single Ascended piece of gear – you enter the dungeon. You are able to complete 3 runs of the 9 fractals and are assured to see all 9 Fractals of the dungeon at least once. Now on the 4th run through things start to get hairy and you can’t progress through the dungeon. OMGWTFGATING.

No.

You’ve seen the 9 Fractals. There is nothing new waiting for you that the content patch hasn’t already allowed you to see (assuming that Ascended gear has a chance of being attained through the first three runs at the same chances as any run after those first three). You’ve gotten your shot at all the Fractals, and now you’re repeating the same content and NOW is when things start to become a problem without Ascended gear. Now Ascended gear isn’t preventing you from seeing content, its preventing you from repeating content in one single run. If you want to be able to get through more runs through the dungeon you’ll have to start accruing Ascended gear.

In this situation, you’re not gated from content at all, you’re merely forced to reset the dungeon to its original state so that you can start again from the beginning to keep trying to get Ascended gear and gain the ability to do more than 3 runs through the dungeon at once.

I haven’t played the content obviously, but then again neither have you – I’m merely making a counter-point within the framework of the information that they have given us to show that these assumptions could easily be overturned by the intricacies that have yet to be seen.

It looks from the outside like a gear treadmill. Say what you will about exciting new rewards, that’s what it looks like, and the only reassurance that’s been given is that you don’t plan on adding another layer after this.

Trouble is, Anet already said that about exotics, and here we are; stat boosts. Who’s to say we won’t get another announcement like this in three months, hoping that if you say it the right way no one will notice what it really is?

And the worst part is that it’s a resistance gear grind. Even WoW doesn’t do that anymore.

Yakkington’s Ring without Infusion stats >>>> Opal Orichalum Ring of the Explorer stats

… definitely makes exotic obsolete, especially for trinkets and jewelry where mats are scarce.

And why use exotic gears in the first place when it is not feasible for certain dungeons? (gating issue).

Different implementation tends to shake the balance abit:

1st problem – Creating specialised dungeon armours to deal with unique dungeon environment, kinda like WoW’s resist equipments. Multiple PvE armours just increase gear grind or break up casual dungeon contacts, more grind so that players can enjoy more “end game” content. >>> actually more casual players will just quit because they are prevented from enjoying the content.

2nd problem – Creating a more powerful tier = more “end game” content. >>> Makes previous tier obsolete. Game design will start to revolve around the most powerful tier, the cycle continues with more “end game” creation. You will never truely satisfy the power gamers, and will alienate much of the casual community.

3rd problem – More gates to content. Halloween’s event had one issue where some players have troubles getting to higher leveled areas to get the complete Mad Memoirs. That is a level issue, but content should be designed around availability and opportunity, not “end game” or hardcore gamers.

4th problem – Infusion is the “new stats”, new items will never come fast enough. So eventually we will start to see more people with same skins in WvW/PvE whatever unless they use transmutation stones >>> a repeat of current situ, not new content which encourages customisation.

ill say this, dogma and personal philosihpy doesnt need to impeede progress, if the model they started out with wasnt getting them far as they had hoped then its only human of us to want to change our beilifes to “try” to ensure greater sucess.

Loki.8793:

Strang.8170:

Think it this way.

Did they really need to add more stats to the new rarity class?

If what you say is true and they don´t add more tiers with better stats, what was the point of adding better stats to this tier?

They said it in the blog: to lessen the huge gap between obtaining exotics and legendaries, exactly what the community, as a whole, has been asking for the past month and a half or so.

Did they need to do this? no. But they did exactly what the community was asking, and now they’re getting a huge amount of drama from everyone and their grandmas. It’s not rational, and it’s not fair.

I was trying to drive the point that the better stats part of it was not needed.
Legendaries were cosmetic upgrade, and there was huge gap in effort and time investment between them and exoctics. player base wanted something inbetween.

They could´ve gone with cosmetic upgrades between legendaries and much of this kittentorm would´ve been avoided.
Instead they decided to go with +stats, and pumped legendaries while doing it. This was unnecessary.

I´m saying that i´m not against new levels of gear. However i am against new levels of gear with better stats…that just leads to more levels with even better stats and so forth.

I’m mainly concerned over a few things:

Grind and “old Dungeons”.

Anet seems set on pushing grind/farming for everything. Nothing is a reward. Everything is a purchase. Want anything of value in the game, grind it out. With that mind set in place, I see anything new they add as something more to grind for.
If the new stuff is a reward, that will be awesome. If it yet another grind for tokens or RNG kitten-fest… bleh.

As for “old Dungeons”; I’m already having a hard time getting into dungeon groups as it is. I don’t know if it’s my timing or what; but I can not find groups for the dungeons I want/need already. If the gear in them is going to eventually be null and void stat wise; how will we get the skins we want from those?

So best case scenario for people who think the progression is good is that the items are “easy” enough to get that there isn’t a grind to get them. If that is the case, then the progression is so quickly achieved that there is no point in doing it.

But the real problem is not the grind or ease of obtaining the new tier. It is that the existing content is now obsolete. Raise your hand if you are going to grind the dungeon coins for sub-optimal armor. It is already bad enough that most of the world is sub-80 content and as such is not worth going back into because there are no decent incentives to do it. This stat cap increase now makes everything currently in the game sub-80.5, so there is little reason to go anywhere but the new zone. What a waste of a beautiful world.

I wish they would put their development time into fixing the sub-80 zones to have a purpose beyond a place to pass through once. Resource nodes that scale (material would be based on the tool used + player level). Mobs would not blow up for higher level players but would always be a challenge when scaled down. And drops would scale correctly to your current level (it wouldn’t be easier to get better gear by going down to lower level zones because they fixed the scaling). Seriously, raise your hand if you go back to lower level zones unless you happen to need some lower tier material.

ANet- please make the end game the whole world like you originally intended. Don’t go making even less of the map useful end game content.

Deth.4109:

ill say this, dogma and personal philosihpy doesnt need to impeede progress, if the model they started out with wasnt getting them far as they had hoped then its only human of us to want to change our beilifes to “try” to ensure greater sucess.

If you honestly think this is going to ensure success, I don’t know what to tell you. The feedback so far has been nothing short of overwhelmingly negative. If AN do not refuse to see sense on this issue, they risk losing more players then they could ever hope of retaining.

Long story short, customers really HATE being lied to.

Elesare.5604:

The post by Shaenari in this thread put it quite well I thought:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/133sxu/linsey_murdock_unveils_new_high_end_ascended_gear/

I strongly urge ANet to read the linked article above. Excellent analysis therein.

Well, let’s see what’s the impact of the new of “infusion and agony” system on live going to be. It’s definitely going to segregate the community. I don’t think we are going to see a lot of happy people then.

Amulrei.4973:

Deth.4109:

ill say this, dogma and personal philosihpy doesnt need to impeede progress, if the model they started out with wasnt getting them far as they had hoped then its only human of us to want to change our beilifes to “try” to ensure greater sucess.

If you honestly think this is going to ensure success, I don’t know what to tell you. The feedback so far has been nothing short of overwhelmingly negative. If AN do not refuse to see sense on this issue, they risk losing more players then they could ever hope of retaining.

Long story short, customers really HATE being lied to.

I came to this game expecting to escape from the gear treadmill that wow offers. Expecting to keep my exotics and not have to upgrade them until an expansion came out, I lovingly poured hour upon hour into gearing up and transmuting two of my 80s. My main has every single piece of visible gear besides 1 weapon and the shoulderpads transmuted, and a lot of my alts gear is as well.

I will not do this again, one of the big issues I had with wow was if I took any kind of break from the grind I found myself outdated and struggling to catch back up. That is one of the reasons I will leave if this hits live. Three of my friends irl who play this game are either quitting or have left because of this. I truly hope arenanet doesnt go through with this so I can try to convince them to play again.

Not even mentioning how bad resistance/artificial gating mechanisms were in other mmos I played. Having to deal with resistance gear in vanilla wow was one of the worst experiences I have ever had in the years I have played mmos. Another reason I am on the verge of being one of the ones driven away by this, I have experienced what this entails before and do not wish to feel it again.

Rangle.2539:

Well, let’s see what’s the impact of the new of “infusion and agony” system on live going to be. It’s definitely going to segregate the community. I don’t think we are going to see a lot of happy people then.

Some things can never be undone.

I don’t support a “let’s wait and see what happens” approach to decisions like this one.

I agree this is the wrong direction for Anet. I am not into the grind factor but believed in the original manifesto. I smell sell out.

Here’s my opinion.
I’d say about 5% of you have actually looked at what’s happening before posting.
Obviously when I heard about it I was upset too.

The problem isn’t the quality, they aren’t introducing a treadmill with this, no matter how many people use hyperbole to suggest so.
It’s what exotic should have been, SHOULD HAVE.
The problem is, now there’s two tiers for level 80, and there should be one.
It makes older content obsolete.
It’s easy to fix this, really simple.

Make karma and dungeon gear give ascended, let them sell it. Don’t make it super expensive, but make the dungeon and karma vendors sell it.

Also, people should research before they post, if you needed ascended to do the dungeon, it’d be impossible because we aren’t getting the full set right away. The way the dungeon works is every time you complete it you get a stack. You can still do the content.
If they had never released this quality it’d be the same, just for exotics.

Untouch.2541:

Here’s my opinion.
I’d say about 5% of you have actually looked at what’s happening before posting.
Obviously when I heard about it I was upset too.

The problem isn’t the quality, they aren’t introducing a treadmill with this, no matter how many people use hyperbole to suggest so.
It’s what exotic should have been, SHOULD HAVE.
The problem is, now there’s two tiers for level 80, and there should be one.
It makes older content obsolete.
It’s easy to fix this, really simple.

Make karma and dungeon gear give ascended, let them sell it. Don’t make it super expensive, but make the dungeon and karma vendors sell it.

Also, people should research before they post, if you needed ascended to do the dungeon, it’d be impossible because we aren’t getting the full set right away. The way the dungeon works is every time you complete it you get a stack. You can still do the content.
If they had never released this quality it’d be the same, just for exotics.

same impression i got that it what exotics shoudl have been.

Hmm part of the reason why i got this game was that there was no end game gear creep stat treadmill like other mmos. Now i ask myself how is this game different in terms of gear tiers when compared to other mmos like swtor or wow where they have their own stat creep gear treadmill?

If they decided to introduce ascendant gear that is required to do the new dungeon after three months from launch, what is to stop them from introducing another tier above ascendant and below legendary (insert new category name) for the next new content dungeon? Answer nothing. As previous posters have quoting devs saying this wasn’t going to happen then it does, i guess history will repeat itself in the future.

I get it, Anet can make it however they want to want. But had i known if this was going happen, i doubt i would of gotten this game to begin with because i didn’t want another endgame gear grind mmo. Nor would i of spent like $100 on gems from the cash shop buying bank slots and stuff.

All i can say is welcome to the endgame creep stat gear grind mmo fold. GW2 you were different for 3 months but i guess you had to copy the other mmos in terms of gear grind. Too much peer pressure i guess.

Kozmec.1280:

This will be my first and only post on these forums.

This is not what I signed up for, and I will not continue to play with this addition.
Thank you for the 2.5 months of fun, totally worth the $130 spent, but I am not interested in re-gearing 4 80s after 10 weeks of play. The moment I read the first inkling of this new gear, I simply lost all desire to continue playing your game. At 550 hours, though, I still got nearly 5 hours per dollar spent, and for that THANKS!

Good bye and good luck, I hope this ends up working out for you in the end.

You know you can still do the content?
If you NEEDED ascended to even try, it’d be impossible because we don’t get a full set right away, and you get rings in the dungeon.

bcbully.7289:

If I was a NCsoft exec. I’d probably be kicked back with my feet on the desk thinking

“Ha they’re not going anywhere they’re still posting! hah”

edit- well I wouldn’t, but I think they are…

I have all the time in the world to post. I can’t invest another moment or penny in a game that will involve chasing gear. In fact, if an expansion involves a level cap increase I may not buy it. It isn’t necessary and I thought ArenaNet understood that.

So, I am not playing my favorite game. Not to make a point, but because it makes me feel sick and betrayed. I thought we had an understanding, AN and I. I thought I found a company that shared my vision for gaming. I feel like I’ve been cheated on.

Deth.4109:

Angrec.6970:

Amulrei.4973:

Deth.4109:

ill say this, dogma and personal philosihpy doesnt need to impeede progress, if the model they started out with wasnt getting them far as they had hoped then its only human of us to want to change our beilifes to “try” to ensure greater sucess.

If you honestly think this is going to ensure success, I don’t know what to tell you. The feedback so far has been nothing short of overwhelmingly negative. If AN do not refuse to see sense on this issue, they risk losing more players then they could ever hope of retaining.

Long story short, customers really HATE being lied to.

I came to this game expecting to escape from the gear treadmill that wow offers. Expecting to keep my exotics and not have to upgrade them until an expansion came out, I lovingly poured hour upon hour into gearing up and transmuting two of my 80s. My main has every single piece of visible gear besides 1 weapon and the shoulderpads transmuted, and a lot of my alts gear is as well.

I will not do this again, one of the big issues I had with wow was if I took any kind of break from the grind I found myself outdated and struggling to catch back up. That is one of the reasons I will leave if this hits live. Three of my friends irl who play this game are either quitting or have left because of this. I truly hope arenanet doesnt go through with this so I can try to convince them to play again.

Not even mentioning how bad resistance/artificial gating mechanisms were in other mmos I played. Having to deal with resistance gear in vanilla wow was one of the worst experiences I have ever had in the years I have played mmos. Another reason I am on the verge of being one of the ones driven away by this, I have experienced what this entails before and do not wish to feel it again.

i liked resistance gear in wow, i feel like a games less of an RPG with out it. some of my favorite games have a resistance mechanic<like skyrim which is clearly not an mmo but still i prefer it.

Did you ever do Princess Huhu, whatever that slime boss in aq40 was called, rags when you acctually had to use resistance gear, or saphiron in vanilla wow? Those mechanics were terrible and utterly painful.

I spent hour upon hour upon hour grinding marudon to grab enough resistances (only place for nr leather) just so I wouldnt be one shot by Huhu. Nothing skill based to do to mitigate it but to farm horrible gear that had nr on it. Its a bad mechanic because its a really cop out way to slow players and make them have to grab gear just to beat a boss that they cant outskill.

In games like skyrim there are no gear checks where you have to have x% of resistance type or you will instantly die. Thats the issue, and whats going to most likely be here. Fits along with them doing a slow trickle of ascended gear, making it so you cant progress to far in the dungeon till they want you to.

Deth.4109:

same impression i got that it what exotics shoudl have been.

They are exotics with +8% stats and infusion slots….

They didn´t need to add that 8% there, would´ve been fine with just infusion slots.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

Why don’t you wait until Lost Shores is actually released and you’ve had a chance to experience what it’s about before you complain?

I personally don’t belong to either group. I’m a middle of the road kind of person. So far this game is still what I purchased and I’m perfectly happy with it.

I’m sorry you are upset. But I would say if you actually do enjoy this game as much as you say you do, you should give the new content a shot. You might find yourself enjoying it.

I’m excited about Lost Shores.

There is no point in waiting. They said exactly what is going to happen and its contradictory to what was promised to us over and over.
This thread has nothing to do with actual lost shores content but the gear and gear mechanics it introduces. Numerical gear values are NOT content to me. They are a progression mechanic to keep grinders happy running in their wheels.

Untouch.2541:

If you NEEDED ascended to even try, it’d be impossible because we don’t get a full set right away, and you get rings in the dungeon.

Sure. But let’s say RL forces a break from the game and you come back six months later to the next patch with the next dungeon, that does require the gear. Now to get back on the treadmill you’ve got to run the previous dungeon no one wants to run anymore because it won’t drop anything they want.

Welcome to gear treadmill hell, GW2 was meant to be free of this nonsense.

I am in total disagreement with ascended gear, but will I be quitting because of it? No. To be honest, I’ll probably be getting the gear like most to enjoy new content.
I don’t like the idea of making ascended armor required for Agony.
I don’t like the idea of being locked out of content because I don’t have said gear

I hate it when I have to look for a group, let alone whisper someone for am invitation because I have anxiety with those stuff.
Again, I don’t like it, but I’ll be getting it(although I’ll be late because of said anxiety with )

They already explained the extra bonus to stats was because of the fact there are no Runes for the gear since the infusion slots to mitigate Agony take up the upgrade slot instead.

Adding Shaenari’s post since it sums up everything nicely. It’s in 2 parts, to this is part 1.
_

I don’t understand what the fuss is about? Arenanet never said they wouldn’t add more powerful gear?

Actually they did, in fact they highlighted it in one of their blog posts. http://www.arena.net...easures-success
Colin Johanson wrote:
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.

Ok, but there is no gear check gate I need TO have is there?
In all the other areas of the game, then no. However it’s irrefutable that teams and players will soon start insisting on it, thus creating a clear division between the have gear and have nots(or hardcore and casual). Effectively if you wish to keep being competitive you will need to keep playing..
For example, You can access all of open world WoW without a gear check, but for raids and dungeons it is certainly there. The same is now true of GW2

So how does this gear check work?
The further you go into the new content the more you will encounter the new Agony condition. Without the special gear you will not be able to proceed.
“_Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge._”
For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended."
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Like many others, the introduction of the gear treadmill has blunted my enthusiasm for this game. I think that if they had restricted the bonuses to PVE content, I would have cared much less. But, as noted by many people, this will effect WvWvW as well.

Will I keep playing the game? Sure. I’ll play it casually with friends to run an occasional dungeon. It’s pretty clear now, though, that I won’t be able to summit the gear mountain then just enjoy the view and appreciate everything else the game has to offer. For my set of attitudes/style of play, there’s just no need for me to play it with the same enthusiasm I have to date.

Truthfully, ANet was never going to make a ton of money off a player like me anyway, so I wish them well with this business decision. I was hoping this game would be the MMO version of TF2 — skill-based, store sells mostly flavor/cosmetic items, gear has a negligible impact on power, great replay value — I’m just sorry that it isn’t!

Part 2/2

Ah but the article said it was in GW1, so what’s the problem?
Actually it wasn’t. There are two possible references in GW1 that this could mean. Neither equate to a gear check and a requirement to obtain new items.

• Infusion. This was a mechanic that greatly reduced the amount of damage you would incur against a single monster type. You got it automatically when you were doing the story line missions. It was free, did not give ANY improvement on stats and could be applied to your existing armor. You could even achieve all your objectives and content without it.
• PvE skills based on reputation points. The more you grinded reputation points, the more powerful the skill got. However, you could still achieve all the high end content in the game without it, or with zero reputation points
  Neither of these were in anyway shape or form a gate or gear check
  The article shows an item, it has a tiny increase. Surely this is a storm over nothing.
  On first glance yes the stats do seem only marginally higher. Ignoring the fact that min-maxers will demand people take it. However, If you do the math, on the item showed the stats actually give a not insignificant 7.9% increase. If you do any PvE, or WvW to a hardcore level, that number matters.. A lot.
  • Compared to its Exotic counterpart, new Ascended-rarity “Explorer” ring has: +5 Power • +5 Precision • +3% Magic Find • +infusion slot.
  While the percentages in themselves may be small, the actual increase in the stats behind them are significant, especially magic find which imho is already questionable as a game mechanic
  Ask a PvP or hardcore PvE player if they care about even a 1% difference. The fact there is one at all will shape player behavior

Hmm Ok, but it’s just a ring and back item so what’s the big deal?
It is right now. BUT the article clearly states:
“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.”
So it’s not just a ring and a back item. It’s going to be a whole new tier of weapons and armor. The real worry is, is that is the just the start of a slippery slope of gear checking and treadmills

So what?
• It puts GW2 in the ‘me-too’ category of gear checking, gear treadmill games. Not only does it undermine Arenanets reputation, but it also undermines a key differentiator of the game. One in which seems to be a key factor in many people’s choice to play the game.
• For WvW players, it a problem because your best-in-slot gear may now be exclusively found in dungeons.
• For casual PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be behind the gear curve, and more hardcore players will start to exclude you because of it. This means you’ll have to keep playing just to keep up.
• For die-hard PvEers, it’s a problem because you’ll be pressured to do the latest dungeon (the one with the best stats and neccessary infusions) to the exclusion of all else. Otherwise you too will drop off the gear treadmill just as you do in WoW.

Thanks for reading. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how you will react to such news. But I think it’s clear to say this is the most controversial change to the GW franchise in the 7 years since its release.

Can you fearmongerors please stop using the term “gear treadmill”, adding Ascended gear is in no way the beginning off a gear treadmill. By logic and definition this is NOT a gear treadmill!

The fearmongering and the lies in this thread are deeply disturbing, there is NO evidence suggesting that they will introduce a gear treadmill, NONE! They have said multiple times that they hate gear treadmills!

If your going to post in this thread stop using words like “gear treadmill” and “slap in the face” and “betrayed”, as those words only make you look like a fool.

The amount of rage in this thread is the most childish i have ever seen in the history of my gaming life. Some of you need to stop and take a god hard look at how your acting.

Adding Ascended gear is a perfectly logically step. I congratulate Arenanet in listening to the large majority of there players asking for new things to do at 80.

I hope Arenanet that you wont cave to the bully tactics of the people in this thread, keep up the great work!

I think it is inevitable that content has to be gated.
I’m fine if it’s through Attunement quest pre-requisites, perhaps like Molten Core’s, or for protection against the Mursaat’s Spectral Agony etc.

Though I am not fine with the situation with LOTRO’s Radiance gear, where you had to report your numbers tally to party members.

I do miss the Mursaat : )

Untouch.2541:

Faze.6948:

Untouch.2541:

If you NEEDED ascended to even try, it’d be impossible because we don’t get a full set right away, and you get rings in the dungeon.

Sure. But let’s say RL forces a break from the game and you come back six months later to the next patch with the next dungeon, that does require the gear. Now to get back on the treadmill you’ve got to run the previous dungeon no one wants to run anymore because it won’t drop anything they want.

Welcome to gear treadmill hell, GW2 was meant to be free of this nonsense.

Stop using slippery slope arguments.
They’ve said they aren’t going to add more tiers.

Did they say that? Cool. Where is it? All I saw was that they said they wouldn’t release new tiers every 3 months. Which of course, is a completely different thing.