Guild Wars 2

Nar.8327:

…

Now, I propose two possible courses of action.

1) Pull the plug on the initial concept, and adjust ascended stats to match exotic stats. Doing this shows the player base that you have listened to our concerns and that there is still some shred of faith in the original design philosophy, while remaining very simple to accomplish. Literally just a few numbers need to be tweaked.

2) Make sure that ALL ascended items introduced include the magic find stat. That way, they will be better than exotic magic find sets (so still allowing characters to progress) but will not be better than more combat-oriented gear. Many of us already carry a magic find set. In short, keep exotics at the top of the power ladder, and just give everyone a new PvE-focused set to work on. Doing this also makes lodestones more likely to drop, further bridging the investment gap between exotics and legendaries.

I really like the idea of adding magic find to those ascended stuff, keeping the stats on exotic level. As it:
– gives PvE progression
– doesn’t affect wvw
– and “fills the gab to Legendaries”
– as you can farm faster and run MF in dungeons/wvw
without loosing performance
– therefore accelerates building up mats or at least will make up
for the investment put in to acquiring the ascended gear

still don’t like the content gating mechanic, but don’t bother too much …
stat increase I really dislike

Booning.5476:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gwawer.9805:

To the people who are saying “I didn’t buy this game to grind dungeons I just wanted to stroll about in the world and do my thing and enjoy dynamic events la la la”…

Are you actually doing that? Are you actually going back to zones and re-experiencing the events and the world? Or is this just an ideal that you wish you could do, but never actually could get yourself to do?

Maybe this is why Anet is being flexible now with their original philosophy, because they see that despite their own ideals of having players go out into the world and just “having fun” people simply don’t do that anymore.

People never Did. i mean hell look at the RPG’s of yeaster year they were FAR more “grindy” than this game.

even game’s like mario yes you never had gear you needed to progress but you still needed to gather your little extra live’s and beet each level one by one and if you died OMG you had to start all the way over from the begaining.

most gamer’s look for some form of progression in there game’s whether it be level to level ((to see the end)). Gear/stat upgrade’s.

I have no problem with Gear progression as long as it never becomes as steep as what we see in WOW

I just potter about having fun with the content. Never set foot in a dungeon ( instance with single group of players is not epic to me – it just feels small)

Looks like my money is no longer required by anet. No worries – will find something else to spend my spare cash on… Gin maybe?

When you don´t run dungeons, why would you want that kind of gear? oO It´s not required to play as usual.

People do realise that in this patch it will only be backpacks and rings, i.e 3 of the slots. It will not make an difference for the old content. The infusion is made so you can do this new content better, and isn’t really necesarry if you aren’t intrested in that. When the next 3 slots get ascended armor you don’t know what else have changed, and even so you will have had time to get your first ascended parts. You don’t even know if they will be hard to get or not. If I can get a full exo in less than a week I probably can get one acsended piece faster than that.

Urxx.6840:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

who say’s your going to be locked out of content do to this???

if players lock you out thats because there Dicks thats not the game’s falt player’s are Kittens.

You are going to be locked out of content where the condition “agony” is inflicted, since the only counter to agony are infusions, and you don’t have an infusion slot on gear that is below ascended level of rarity.

Nobody wants someone who’s constantly dead in their party, especially if the content is getting harder as you progress.

well considering the only content that use’s that is some endless dungeon with the entire point to grinde out said gear to make it further into said endless dungeon i don’t really consider that being locked out.

more like Working as intended. Now if that Dungeon had some meaningful story ark and an end than i would have a problem with it.

who is to say that the next set of story/explorable ark Dungeons will need infusions in order to smash your way through them?

they probably wont

Celle.2716:

Booning.5476:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gwawer.9805:

To the people who are saying “I didn’t buy this game to grind dungeons I just wanted to stroll about in the world and do my thing and enjoy dynamic events la la la”…

Are you actually doing that? Are you actually going back to zones and re-experiencing the events and the world? Or is this just an ideal that you wish you could do, but never actually could get yourself to do?

Maybe this is why Anet is being flexible now with their original philosophy, because they see that despite their own ideals of having players go out into the world and just “having fun” people simply don’t do that anymore.

People never Did. i mean hell look at the RPG’s of yeaster year they were FAR more “grindy” than this game.

even game’s like mario yes you never had gear you needed to progress but you still needed to gather your little extra live’s and beet each level one by one and if you died OMG you had to start all the way over from the begaining.

most gamer’s look for some form of progression in there game’s whether it be level to level ((to see the end)). Gear/stat upgrade’s.

I have no problem with Gear progression as long as it never becomes as steep as what we see in WOW

I just potter about having fun with the content. Never set foot in a dungeon ( instance with single group of players is not epic to me – it just feels small)

Looks like my money is no longer required by anet. No worries – will find something else to spend my spare cash on… Gin maybe?

When you don´t run dungeons, why would you want that kind of gear? oO It´s not required to play as usual.

Who do you care what some one else wants in their game and on their char?
Trolling is an art you fail at on so many lvls

What most ppl don’t see, is that we are getting 2 new tiers of gear in the future:

“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.”

So legendary gear will be better than the new ascended gear which is just the first step into the grind for the best gear. Otherwise this sentence wouldn’t make any sense.

Do not want…

the sad thing is this is not even a discussion:

It hve been empirically proved that this is not what players wanted…on the opposite its cheating them after the purchase…..

yet no official answer…

I don t really accept they could fool themself into thinking we are overreacting…
I ’d rather think they simply don t care and have a plan…..

Maybe they simply want to lower servers costs with an easy cut in population….or who knows….

Got to chime in as well because i’m really upset about this terrible idea:

ANet is introducing a gear grind – aka gating/flagging/keying – it doesn’t matter what you call it.

It is a fact: There is no other tier stat-wise above ‘exotics’ as the current ‘legendary’ weapons have exactly the same stats. The developer ‘clarification’ post/announcement in the news section makes no sense regarding this issue. Do we have to assume legendaries will get buffed, or a new tier of ‘legendary’ armour will be introduced. Where is that gap please tell us?

Some posters here have played other MMORPGs before and do precisely know how adversely this will affect the game. No spin by ANet can hide this.

The comparison has been drawn before, here and on other boards as well, so let me explain why i know this is a deal breaker:

Lord of the Rings Online introduced the same game mechanic years ago. It failed badly and drove a lot of people of:
With the introduction of ‘Radiance’ a new tier of gear was created (there was also a level cap increase). In order to fight the new bosses you had to have a certain amount of radiance, or you could not beat them – ever. The bosses had an aura that dealt massive damage over time and only radiance gear countered it.
With new content LotRO simply increased the amount of radiance required to fight the next new bosses (this time there was no level cap increase). You had to get the new gear in order to play the new content. The classical ‘gating’ of content – it didn’t matter if you had to backtrack and do old content to acquire the gear AND then upgrade it, or if there was a side-way progression like farming tokens to get the latest radiance gear.

Either way it was a gear grind and excluded everyone from enjoying new content that didn’t keep ‘up to date’ as in play the game all the time. This is exactly what drove people off because your friends that did not play for some time (for whatever reason) had to get ‘geared up’ before they could rejoin the fun, doing new content. Why this is so bad should be a no brainer!

ANet – I, as many others, fully understand what you’re doing with the ascended gear. I refuse to support this game in the future if this goes through as planed!

Amulrei.4973:

MOVINGSHADOW.4632:

Arena Net are starting to wake up! Ascended Gear, well it’s a start I suppose.

Now give the addition of raids, progression and you will keep a large bored slice of your player base and bring those that have left, returning.

This game could be so much more! if you only cater for the more hardcore game types, I wanted GW2 to be my MMO of choice but due to lack of raids this game lacks.

Now before the torrent of casual tears starts, I ask you why are you so bothered? just don’t join in simple!!! Hey your casual, stats on gear, progression should not bother you in the slightest, not like you have the time or want to make the effort is it?

Fuller servers, more players and most importantly sales would increase as you open up to an alienated raid player base.

Yes because lying to players and forcing on them the very elements they left other games to escape sounds like a wonderful way to secure more players and revenue….

…Oh wait.

So you were forced into a certain play style in other MMO’s?.

When A-Net introduce what us raiders ask for, players like yourself will have a choice to participate or carry on with your casual play style.

kistell.5684:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

veritech.1048:

MrLee.6892:

shynu.7081:

MOVINGSHADOW.4632:

Arena Net are starting to wake up! Ascended Gear, well it’s a start I suppose.

Now give the addition of raids, progression and you will keep a large bored slice of your player base and bring those that have left, returning.

This game could be so much more! if you only cater for the more hardcore game types, I wanted GW2 to be my MMO of choice but due to lack of raids this game lacks.

Now before the torrent of casual tears starts, I ask you why are you so bothered? just don’t join in simple!!! Hey your casual, stats on gear, progression should not bother you in the slightest, not like you have the time or want to make the effort is it?

Fuller servers, more players and most importantly sales would increase as you open up to an alienated raid player base.

Go back to WoW.

Go back to Guild Wars 1

Many of us bought into this game on a design promise to not include gated gear progression, or gear grinds.

Now we’re being told that the entire time this was a lie.

Your immaturity aside, this is not the way to run a company. It’s very obvious that Nexon already has their greedy hands around NCSoft and Arenanet. This whole debacle is a slippery slope for loyal customers.

who say’s your going to be locked out of content do to this???

if players lock you out thats because there Dicks thats not the game’s falt player’s are Kittens.

You obviously don’t understand what is happening very well do you.

To play the new dungeons at higher lvls, it has been hinted at that new content to be released later will be included in this. The bosses will come with new mechanics the first being “agony”.

The only way you can survive the step up in " agony " damage is resistance via infusion crystals.

To use infusion crystals you need to get Ascended Gear , BUT in order to get resistances are Infusion crystals.
Gained by FARMING x amount of mats and using the Mystic forge.

AKA you are locked out of Higher tier dungeons until you grind better gear upgrades.

Now what we don’t know is how random will the mystic toilet be and will they sell some mats needed on the cash shop , also just how much grinding do they expect us to do before we can even attempt to do high lvl content.

Making this no different than other grind for your gear MMO`s

were dose it hint that we will need infusions in order to do anything other than this new endless dungeon stuff??

Just wanted to add my opinion on the matter, as is seems here is the place to do so.

I’m disappointed with the new tier of items. No gear threadmill, no matter how small it is, was one of the reasons I chose to play the game.

Thanks for your attention

I think devs has lot something on the road, and they dont notice that a lot of gamers here dot need better stats.

Until now, our goal was: reach the maximun level stats in a shot amount of time, and then start the real play, go on dungeon for skins, go WvW, or try to achieve personals goals, like defeat an orr champion alone… This are the things that the team must ADD… PERSONALS GOALS…

Not keep me busy with stronger items to collect

I just wish Anet would give us a bit more clarification, the blog post just made it worse.

Will content be gated by this new system?

I know it’s only a few days to wait but it would be nice to know before hand.

Caran.3217:

Got to chime in as well because i’m really upset about this terrible idea:

ANet is introducing a gear grind – aka gating/flagging/keying – it doesn’t matter what you call it.

It is a fact: There is no other tier stat-wise above ‘exotics’ as the current ‘legendary’ weapons have exactly the same stats. The developer ‘clarification’ post/announcement in the news section makes no sense regarding this issue. Do we have to assume legendaries will get buffed, or a new tier of ‘legendary’ armour will be introduced. Where is that gap please tell us?

Some posters here have played other MMORPGs before and do precisely know how adversely this will affect the game. No spin by ANet can hide this.

The comparison has been drawn before, here and on other boards as well, so let me explain why i know this is a deal breaker:

Lord of the Rings Online introduced the same game mechanic years ago. It failed badly and drove a lot of people of:
With the introduction of ‘Radiance’ a new tier of gear was created (there was also a level cap increase). In order to fight the new bosses you had to have a certain amount of radiance, or you could not beat them – ever. The bosses had an aura that dealt massive damage over time and only radiance gear countered it.
With new content LotRO simply increased the amount of radiance required to fight the next new bosses (this time there was no level cap increase). You had to get the new gear in order to play the new content. The classical ‘gating’ of content – it didn’t matter if you had to backtrack and do old content to acquire the gear AND then upgrade it, or if there was a side-way progression like farming tokens to get the latest radiance gear.

Either way it was a gear grind and excluded everyone from enjoying new content that didn’t keep ‘up to date’ as in play the game all the time. This is exactly what drove people off because your friends that did not play for some time (for whatever reason) had to get ‘geared up’ before they could rejoin the fun, doing new content. Why this is so bad should be a no brainer!

ANet – I, as many others, fully understand what you’re doing with the ascended gear. I refuse to support this game in the future if this goes through as planed!

Agreed, Even WoW do away with resists after BC, makes the game much more fun but still its the gear grind that kills it. Since your gear is constantly changing which means lots of grinding.

Errant Venture.9371:

Sounds like Ascended gear is armor-only for now. Legendary/exotic wapons will probably still be best-of-the-best.

Also I don’t see Ascended gear being SIGNIFICANTLY better than exotics, and if they are they won’t be absurdly difficult to get. Arenanet has never been about gear gating: any incredibly difficult to get equipment will offer a very small benefit over very easily-obtainable gear.

Ascended gear is a rank between exotic and legendearys.

I’ve never posted before but i felt like i should as a GW1 vet with 50/50 HoM. This is my 2cents.

I know AN won’t change anything absed on this outcry and it is their game to do with as they want. However since i read the blog I have stop playing, mainly due to feeling disheartened that they have gone back on what they said in their manifesto.

The way i see it if i wanted gear progression i would play one of the dozens of other gear progression mmos. One of the main draws of gw2 for me was the fact that it didn’t require you to run dungeons dozens of times to have the best gear but now you do, huge issue for me.

I’m sure many will love it but not i.

Celle.2716:

When you don´t run dungeons, why would you want that kind of gear? oO It´s not required to play as usual.

Why should he use gear that makes him 5% weaker than everbody around him?

I like how they not only added raw power gear grind, but also removed the normal upgrade slot from the items that allowed you to customize your gear.

So not only is it power creeping everything, but it’s eliminating the little diversity we already had.

Seriously, what happened here A.Net? Did all your good designers leave for Undead Labs and you decided to take a pickup down to Home Depot to replace them?

BadHealer.3608:

Celle.2716:

When you don´t run dungeons, why would you want that kind of gear? oO It´s not required to play as usual.

Why should he use gear that makes him 5% weaker than everbody around him?

why should it matter if he’s still an effective player without it?

LordByron.8369:

I don t really accept they could fool themself into thinking we are overreacting…
I ’d rather think they simply don t care and have a plan…..

The update is coming out on Friday. Maybe they are revising it now.

LordByron.8369:

Maybe they simply want to lower servers costs with an easy cut in population….or who knows….

That’s easy. Just say that there will never be any mounts, ever.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

well considering the only content that use’s that is some endless dungeon with the entire point to grinde out said gear to make it further into said endless dungeon i don’t really consider that being locked out.

more like Working as intended. Now if that Dungeon had some meaningful story ark and an end than i would have a problem with it.

who is to say that the next set of story/explorable ark Dungeons will need infusions in order to smash your way through them?

they probably wont

For now it’s just that dungeon, but it’s likely a lot of future content will involve agony. I don’t see them developing a whole new system and then using it just in one place.

And, anyway: they said exotics would always be max level gear, and even legendaries were just prettier than exotics, not stronger.

Because of that philosophy, people invested time and money in exotics, knowing that their toon(s) would have been geared up for any kind of content from then on.

Now all of a sudden exotic gear cuts you off from one dungeon and who knows after more expansions go online.

Sorry, but I feel betrayed. Everyone will take the impact of ascended armor differently, but they still said one thing and did another. That for me creates a problem of trust towards them.

I cant understand the need for a new tire of gear, a type of gear that will nullify the need for exotic armor, this is not progression this is a gear treadmill where the player will have to obtain the new gear in order to survive in the new dungeon. GW2 dungeon have a lot of problems why not fix them. With this new armor tire arah runs are obsolete, what is the incentive to run it if another dungeon can give better loot?
This update can be compared to WoW a new update will make the older content obsolete.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

What most ppl don’t see, is that we are getting 2 new tiers of gear in the future:

“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.”

So legendary gear will be better than the new ascended gear which is just the first step into the grind for the best gear. Otherwise this sentence wouldn’t make any sense.

Do not want…

Wrong

" Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items."

Don’t make baseless assumptions before reading the actual articles your discussing.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

kistell.5684:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

veritech.1048:

MrLee.6892:

shynu.7081:

MOVINGSHADOW.4632:

Arena Net are starting to wake up! Ascended Gear, well it’s a start I suppose.

Now give the addition of raids, progression and you will keep a large bored slice of your player base and bring those that have left, returning.

This game could be so much more! if you only cater for the more hardcore game types, I wanted GW2 to be my MMO of choice but due to lack of raids this game lacks.

Now before the torrent of casual tears starts, I ask you why are you so bothered? just don’t join in simple!!! Hey your casual, stats on gear, progression should not bother you in the slightest, not like you have the time or want to make the effort is it?

Fuller servers, more players and most importantly sales would increase as you open up to an alienated raid player base.

Go back to WoW.

Go back to Guild Wars 1

Many of us bought into this game on a design promise to not include gated gear progression, or gear grinds.

Now we’re being told that the entire time this was a lie.

Your immaturity aside, this is not the way to run a company. It’s very obvious that Nexon already has their greedy hands around NCSoft and Arenanet. This whole debacle is a slippery slope for loyal customers.

who say’s your going to be locked out of content do to this???

if players lock you out thats because there Dicks thats not the game’s falt player’s are Kittens.

You obviously don’t understand what is happening very well do you.

To play the new dungeons at higher lvls, it has been hinted at that new content to be released later will be included in this. The bosses will come with new mechanics the first being “agony”.

The only way you can survive the step up in " agony " damage is resistance via infusion crystals.

To use infusion crystals you need to get Ascended Gear , BUT in order to get resistances are Infusion crystals.
Gained by FARMING x amount of mats and using the Mystic forge.

AKA you are locked out of Higher tier dungeons until you grind better gear upgrades.

Now what we don’t know is how random will the mystic toilet be and will they sell some mats needed on the cash shop , also just how much grinding do they expect us to do before we can even attempt to do high lvl content.

Making this no different than other grind for your gear MMO`s

were dose it hint that we will need infusions in order to do anything other than this new endless dungeon stuff??

“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.

high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content"

CorpusRye.2968:

I really don’t understand the reasoning for adding a gap closer with higher stats when Legendary’s didn’t have higher stats before the expansion, the gap that had to be closed was simple: time and effort to get a weapon with same stats but a ‘legendary’ skin. In my opinion the gap that had to be closed was: introduction of legendary armor (with no stat increase), since there is, to my knowledge, no legendary armor in game. Even worse, the stats of Legendary’s will probably be increased to the new ascended standard. Which means they do not fill a gap between excotic and legendary, they actually create an additional gap between excotic and legendary.

I also don’t understand the reasoning that if you add more content, the armor you should have should be better (ref: GW1 -> 3 campaigns + 1 expansion -> no increase in stats on gear nor on weapons).

I don’t know yet if I think it is a bad thing (I am probably going to try and get it anyway), but i’m very dissappointed in the reasoning as it is clearly flawed.

The reasoning isn’t flawed. Linsey explained it all in her blog post. They are doing this to appease treadmill-progression gear-grinders, and logically must have been planning to do so since before launch (contrary to Linsey’s obvious prevarication on this part).

The original game philosophy is out. This is the beginning of new philosophy, where new gear/items is supposed to satisfy a “basic need” for character progression, as Linsey stated in her GW2 blog post. The old philosophy was about providing a sense of accomplishment, which could be achieved via cosmetics. In the old philosophy, progression was capped at exotic/legendary stats. In the old philosophy, “the whole game is the end game”.

Read Linsey’s blog post. The old philosophy has clearly and unequivocally been purposefully abandoned. This is not a hasty “mistake” on their part where we can show them the error and they fix it. This has been planned for many months and is an integral part of how GW2 is going to be expanding in the future.

ANET has adopted a never-ending progression-grind model for GW2. Part of a good con job is keep the mark hopeful and/or confused to the point that they go along with the con because they can’t believe people would so blatantly lie and mislead, and try to interpret what is begin said/done in a way where they (the marks) don’t feel foolish and stupid for having fallen for the con job.

They conned us. It’s really that simple. Fortunately, I got my money’s worth of entertainment, even though I dislike the fact that once again I’ve provided funding to con men. But, what the heck, con men gotta make a living too. It’s not the first time I’ve been conned out of money by an MMO developer (SOE!!!), and it may not be the last. At least for 3 months I had the game of my dreams

Ganzo.5079:

Until now, our goal was: reach the maximun level stats in a shot amount of time, and then start the real play, go on dungeon for skins, go WvW, or try to achieve personals goals, like defeat an orr champion alone… This are the things that the team must ADD… PERSONALS GOALS…

I appreciate what you’re getting after, but you’ve got it a little wrong. The idea that devs need to provide us with things is the mentality that gets desires for gear treadmills started. Devs can’t provide anyone with personal goals, they can only put pieces into the world. We have to put on our big boy pants at some point and realize that numbers /= goals, and we need to set those for ourselves.

Xzio.3208:

I’ve never posted before but i felt like i should as a GW1 vet with 50/50 HoM. This is my 2cents.

I know AN won’t change anything absed on this outcry and it is their game to do with as they want. However since i read the blog I have stop playing, mainly due to feeling disheartened that they have gone back on what they said in their manifesto.

The way i see it if i wanted gear progression i would play one of the dozens of other gear progression mmos. One of the main draws of gw2 for me was the fact that it didn’t require you to run dungeons dozens of times to have the best gear but now you do, huge issue for me.

I’m sure many will love it but not i.

Monday night before most of the guild had heard of this we had 14 online at 8PM, last night after we’d all spoken about it on our forums we had 2 people at 8PM

Can’t say this is the cause but I also felt less motivation…until I got in game and heard the music.

Pants.8315:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

What most ppl don’t see, is that we are getting 2 new tiers of gear in the future:

“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.”

So legendary gear will be better than the new ascended gear which is just the first step into the grind for the best gear. Otherwise this sentence wouldn’t make any sense.

Do not want…

Wrong

" Legendary items were always intended to be on par with other “best-in-slot” items. So fear not, all existing Legendary weapons, which are currently on par with Exotics, will be upgraded to be on par with Ascended weapons at the same time that we add Ascended weapons to the game. Thus Legendaries will remain “best-in-slot” items."

Don’t make baseless assumptions before reading the actual articles your discussing.

So what is the massive jump in reward between exotic and legendary than, that has to be smoothed by proper progression? The extra skin?

Instead of adding “agony” or whatever stats, Anet should just focus making the boss and mobs AI to be the best in any MMO or SPRG.
They could make this type of boss in an open world or dungeons.
Shadow of the Colossus HD – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW7AzOcoEno
Dark Souls – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0mWUJXtqb8&feature=fvwrel
Demon’s Soul’s – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOa9_jNnEw

Zabrios.6079:

Banewrath.5107:

You had to see this coming eventually. I think it`s a step in the right direction though. How long can really play a game that offers no rewards when getting exotic equipment was as easy as spending a few gold on the tp? Did you really think that for the lifespan of this game you were going to be using the same stuff you aquired within the first few months of release? The quest for power and the treasure hunt are what keeps people playing.

No it’s not. Guild Wars 1 had 7 years of lifespan WITHOUT this STUPID GEAR TREADMILL. You only had to buy the armor you desired without worrying about getting better stats. Sorry about your statement but I think that it is so wrong

Nobody is telling you that you need to have these new armors in order to be able even survive the new content. You think a little bit of extra ac and stats are going to keep people from still getting rolled by mobs and bosses? A good player could probably do the new content in exotics and succeed, a bad player wouldn`t be able to and blame his gear for his failure. The new gear is just something that people can work towards if they choose to.

I think adding gear progression would be a step in the right direction for Guild Wars 2.
I also hope we eventually get raids and flesh out the endgame.

kistell.5684:

Celle.2716:

Booning.5476:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gwawer.9805:

To the people who are saying “I didn’t buy this game to grind dungeons I just wanted to stroll about in the world and do my thing and enjoy dynamic events la la la”…

Are you actually doing that? Are you actually going back to zones and re-experiencing the events and the world? Or is this just an ideal that you wish you could do, but never actually could get yourself to do?

Maybe this is why Anet is being flexible now with their original philosophy, because they see that despite their own ideals of having players go out into the world and just “having fun” people simply don’t do that anymore.

People never Did. i mean hell look at the RPG’s of yeaster year they were FAR more “grindy” than this game.

even game’s like mario yes you never had gear you needed to progress but you still needed to gather your little extra live’s and beet each level one by one and if you died OMG you had to start all the way over from the begaining.

most gamer’s look for some form of progression in there game’s whether it be level to level ((to see the end)). Gear/stat upgrade’s.

I have no problem with Gear progression as long as it never becomes as steep as what we see in WOW

I just potter about having fun with the content. Never set foot in a dungeon ( instance with single group of players is not epic to me – it just feels small)

Looks like my money is no longer required by anet. No worries – will find something else to spend my spare cash on… Gin maybe?

When you don´t run dungeons, why would you want that kind of gear? oO It´s not required to play as usual.

Who do you care what some one else wants in their game and on their char?
Trolling is an art you fail at on so many lvls

People throw around the word ‘troll’ now as a general insult to people who don’t agree with them, it’s silly. He’s not being a troll, he’s not saying the person can’t play the game whatever way they want.

What he’s saying is that the -only- content where you’ll need this gear is the new dungeon, which is likely to be the same place where you actually -get- the gear. If you don’t do dungeons, you wont be doing this and so you won’t need Ascended gear. Exotics, Rares, heck, even Fine gear is enough to clear pretty much all other content.

And before someone brings up WvW, exotics are almost on par with Ascended, the numbers on them are so similar that skill is what will determine who’s better there.

Ravbek.7938:

Monday night before most of the guild had heard of this we had 14 online at 8PM, last night after we’d all spoken about it on our forums we had 2 people at 8PM

Can’t say this is the cause but I also felt less motivation…until I got in game and heard the music.

I’ve been online nearly every day since release (even if only for an hour or so), i haven’t logged in at all since reading the new info.

It’s strange, new features/updates are supposed to get you exited and make you want to keep playing, instead this has had to opposite effect for me and made me stop playing (and even refuse to invite people using the new invites).

Anyways, i really hope people keep it up with all the posts after this comes out, don’t just cave in and accept it if you don’t like it – if they do it once they may do it again if people don’t keep their voices heard after the change has been made.

szthesquid.9576:

If you take a look at Massively’s preview of the Lost Shores content here: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/11/12/guild-wars-2s-lost-shores-content-primer/ specifically the segment on the new dungeon, you’ll see that ArenaNet is introducing something called ascended armour which is “slightly more powerful than exotics” and holds an “infusion slot” which will allow you to “increase your character’s power”.

Did anyone else read this and think “oh no”?

I can’t help but worry that the slippery slope has begun and we’ll start to see a gear treadmill after all. For all the talk of only having cosmetic progression, we see more powerful gear introduced in the very first major content update?

If ascended armour turns out to be simply the armour equivalent of legendary weapons, well, that’s OK. But ArenaNet, if you’re reading this, please, please, PLEASE don’t take this any further.

Correction the infusion slot doesn’t increase your characters power it mitigates the agony the creatures do to you. Without it you are as good as dead. This is similar to the Spectral Agony the Mursaat’s did which forces your character to infuse their armor with spectral essence so you could withstand fighting them.

Banewrath.5107:

Nobody is telling you that you need to have these new armors in order to be able even survive the new content. You think a little bit of extra ac and stats are going to keep people from still getting rolled by mobs and bosses? A good player could probably do the new content in exotics and succeed, a bad player wouldn`t be able to and blame his gear for his failure. The new gear is just something that people can work towards if they choose to.

I can tell from your post you never played GW1 Prophecies.

There you had a race called Mursaat which inflicted a condition called agony. If you didn’t infuse your armor, you would die quickly. For an infused player, Mursaat were just another MOB and agony just another condition.

What makes ascended armor needed in the new dungeon (and likely future content) is not the extra 5% in the stats, it’s the unique possibility to have infusions. All other rarity levels below ascended don’t have infusion slots.

TL;DR Agony will kill you in the new dungeon, not MOBs.

Is there a chance that this new gear only will come as “Explorer”? Cus that would solve everything.. MF is great for farm, but in WvW the toughness is a way better third item stat anyways. Then the Pve farmers can bot their kitten of farming (thats what effecient farming resembles now) and rest of us hoping the design philosophy sticks, can still feel good letting all our karma/badges/cash go into different exotic sets.

(And also: add like 2000 badges of honor to the commander title, so PvE farmcommanders dont outnumber the WvW experienced ones)

This is not a simple case of “if you don’t like infusion don’t play the dungeon.” Many of us have been waiting for the return of challenging elite areas like we had in GW with elite rewards. What we get is mini-WoW complete with a fresh gear grind every time new raid content is released. If we wanted that, we’d be playing that. If you wanted that, why did you come to a game that had all of its pre-release marketing saying it wouldn’t be that and was the successor to a game that didn’t increase its gear stats for 7+ years?

Banewrath.5107:

Zabrios.6079:

Banewrath.5107:

You had to see this coming eventually. I think it`s a step in the right direction though. How long can really play a game that offers no rewards when getting exotic equipment was as easy as spending a few gold on the tp? Did you really think that for the lifespan of this game you were going to be using the same stuff you aquired within the first few months of release? The quest for power and the treasure hunt are what keeps people playing.

No it’s not. Guild Wars 1 had 7 years of lifespan WITHOUT this STUPID GEAR TREADMILL. You only had to buy the armor you desired without worrying about getting better stats. Sorry about your statement but I think that it is so wrong

Nobody is telling you that you need to have these new armors in order to be able even survive the new content. You think a little bit of extra ac and stats are going to keep people from still getting rolled by mobs and bosses? A good player could probably do the new content in exotics and succeed, a bad player wouldn`t be able to and blame his gear for his failure. The new gear is just something that people can work towards if they choose to.

Its not needed? yes it is! the spirit of GW was: first gear up yourself, and then go to farm for a better skin, why this CHANGE NOW?

If this new gear its optional, its optional to play this game too a think.

And now, all talk like the infusion work only for the new content, but the wiki open a new road, because the agony resistence bonus is INNATE to the infusion infusion upgrade… so we dont know if the new upgrade work for all the aspects of the game, and then add agony resistance when you go to the fractals!

vox.5019:

This is not a simple case of “if you don’t like infusion don’t play the dungeon.” Many of us have been waiting for the return of challenging elite areas like we had in GW with elite rewards. What we get is mini-WoW complete with a fresh gear grind every time new raid content is released. If we wanted that, we’d be playing that. If you wanted that, why did you come to a game that had all of its pre-release marketing saying it wouldn’t be that and was the successor to a game that didn’t increase its gear stats for 7+ years?

Where exactly did it say they’d be adding more sets after Ascended? Most of this backlash is all assumption.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

CorpusRye.2968:

I really don’t understand the reasoning for adding a gap closer with higher stats when Legendary’s didn’t have higher stats before the expansion, the gap that had to be closed was simple: time and effort to get a weapon with same stats but a ‘legendary’ skin. In my opinion the gap that had to be closed was: introduction of legendary armor (with no stat increase), since there is, to my knowledge, no legendary armor in game. Even worse, the stats of Legendary’s will probably be increased to the new ascended standard. Which means they do not fill a gap between excotic and legendary, they actually create an additional gap between excotic and legendary.

I also don’t understand the reasoning that if you add more content, the armor you should have should be better (ref: GW1 -> 3 campaigns + 1 expansion -> no increase in stats on gear nor on weapons).

I don’t know yet if I think it is a bad thing (I am probably going to try and get it anyway), but i’m very dissappointed in the reasoning as it is clearly flawed.

The reasoning isn’t flawed. Linsey explained it all in her blog post. They are doing this to appease treadmill-progression gear-grinders, and have been planning to do so since before launch. The original game philosophy is out. This is the beginning of new philosophy, where new gear/items is supposed to satisfy a “basic need” for character progression, as Linsey stated in her GW2 blog post. The old philosophy was about providing a sense of accomplishment, which could be achieved via cosmetics. In the old philosophy, progression was capped at exotic/legendary stats. In the old philosophy, “the whole game is the end game”.

Read Linsey’s blog post. The old philosophy has clearly and unequivocally been purposefully abandoned. This is not a hasty “mistake” on their part where we can show them the error and they fix it. This has been planned for many months and is an integral part of how GW2 is going to be expanding in the future.

ANET has adopted a never-ending progression-grind model for GW2. Part of a good con job is keep the mark hopeful and/or confused to the point that they go along with the con because they can’t believe people would so blatantly lie and mislead, and try to interpret what is begin said/done in a way where they (the marks) don’t feel foolish and stupid for having fallen for the con job.

They conned us. It’s really that simple. Fortunately, I got my money’s worth of entertainment, even though I dislike the fact that once again I’ve provided funding to con me. But, what the heck, con men gotta make a living too.

You based that all on a ring with a couple of extra stats, without seeing the patch in the open, the 200 extra crafting recipes, the “we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards.”

The fact is we’ve been given very little information, but most of it is contrary to what you’ve just said.

MrLee.6892:

Conner.4702:

FACT: It’s a gear treadmill as it requires new gear with new upgrades
FACT: They stated they will add new infusions, which will require a new grind
FACT: Gear treadmill = Gear treadmill. Doesn’t matter if it is vertical or horizontal.
FACT: They said they would not put in a gear treadmill
FACT: They stated they wanted everyone to be able to do all content, which is impossible when you add gated content

FACT: If you don’t like it you can go play Guild Wars 1

How about..
FACT: If you don’t like games without vertical gear progression, you shouldn’t have bought game clearly advertised as not having one and yourself go play something else?
You’d have much more to choose from anyway, since every MMO out there has it.

Instead, everyone who dislikes gear treadmill now ends up in a game with one anyway.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

Quote:
Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:
“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
/End of Quote

What do you think after reading this?

I think they’re not touching the subject of the increased stats at all and also how it will effect WvWvW.
It would have been nice to hear their thoughts on this. But it’s probably a clever move to stay silent – if they haven’t given it much thought at all “hey, our players need a carrot to chase”.

Sam.4728:

Has anyone considered how best to stage a protest? We can’t picket their offices like with politics, since we’re a global group. They are pretty much ignoring player feedback on the forums (the PR-spin answers that try to dodge the issue do not count as honest consideration). So what to do?

I have a proposal: during the release of the new content, we all go back to playing GW1.

Just leaving the game is a statistic they can’t distinguish from the locusts moving on.
Playing GW1 makes it clear that their core player base isn’t happy with the new GW2 direction and wants the GW1 system back.

Probably it would be too hard to organize enough people to do this, though.

You all are bunch of ingrates.. You scream for challenging content then you complain about it.. Nope I will no be going back to gw1. I like the new content. If you don’t then you go back to gw1. There is nothing wrong where this game is going. Who are you to say you have a say so where it goes in the first place. You aren’t entitled to do that. You know they could be just like any other gaming company and not give you any new content at all except when they make new expansion packs.. Stop your freakin complaining… cry babies…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Some-questions-concerning-the-future-of-GW2/first#post725944

That’s what I think. The statement just brought up more questions and ensured that I won’t spend any money on GW2 unless I have them all answered to my liking.s

Ascended items are just extra power making the whole game easier for one one dungeon that makes all other dungeons pointless. This hurts the idea that all things are still challenging after you hit the level cap, an idea that I bought the game for.

Urxx.6840:

Banewrath.5107:

Nobody is telling you that you need to have these new armors in order to be able even survive the new content. You think a little bit of extra ac and stats are going to keep people from still getting rolled by mobs and bosses? A good player could probably do the new content in exotics and succeed, a bad player wouldn`t be able to and blame his gear for his failure. The new gear is just something that people can work towards if they choose to.

I can tell from your post you never played GW1 Prophecies.

There you had a race called Mursaat which inflicted a condition called agony. If you didn’t infuse your armor, you would die quickly. For an infused player, Mursaat were just another MOB and agony just another condition.

What makes ascended armor needed in the new dungeon (and likely future content) is not the extra 5% in the stats, it’s the unique possibility to have infusion. All other rarity levels below ascended don’t have infusions slot.

TL;DR Agony will kill you in the new dungeon, not MOBs.

I own the original game and have played it since 05 and have all the expansions for it . If they are adding an agonizing touch type damage to where you needed the armor upgrade,then I don`t know what to tell you. I didn`t see anything in the post mentioed about they were adding new effects that only this armor could counter.

Urxx.6840:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

well considering the only content that use’s that is some endless dungeon with the entire point to grinde out said gear to make it further into said endless dungeon i don’t really consider that being locked out.

more like Working as intended. Now if that Dungeon had some meaningful story ark and an end than i would have a problem with it.

who is to say that the next set of story/explorable ark Dungeons will need infusions in order to smash your way through them?

they probably wont

For now it’s just that dungeon, but it’s likely a lot of future content will involve agony. I don’t see them developing a whole new system and then using it just in one place.

And, anyway: they said exotics would always be max level gear, and even legendaries were just prettier than exotics, not stronger.

Because of that philosophy, people invested time and money in exotics, knowing that their toon(s) would have been geared up for any kind of content from then on.

Now all of a sudden exotic gear cuts you off from one dungeon and who knows after more expansions go online.

Sorry, but I feel betrayed. Everyone will take the impact of ascended armor differently, but they still said one thing and did another. That for me creates a problem of trust towards them.

yeah it probably will be in more content. probably more endless dungeons that get harder as you progress and have no to vary little attached to the story and other content, seeing that infusions look like there built to not effect anything outside of the endless dungeons..

as for how exotics and legendaries were built that was pretty dumb from the start ((hell i think some exotics look better then the lagendaries…. so why would i go after a lagendary?))

man that hole “I Feel betrayed” bit is such crap you should have known all this was subject to change ((says it on the box))… unless you don’t play vary many video game’s …. … …

they tried somthing _ it didn’t work.

Im not a big fan of gear treadmills ether my friend but i also to consider what there doing a treadmill, not yet anyway it really depends on the gears importents in upcoming content, and if even if i am slightly weaker i can still be competitive in WvW ((as WvW was never about a single players Gear Score))

as i have said for me ((and i think most players)) its more about Paceing than it is anything ells. dose it feel rushed or forced, dose it lock me out of content.

as of right now the only thing that locks you out of content is your level, ((and that never feels like much of a problem)) and it better stay that way, if not than I will jump to your side

They can add infinite tiers of gear in between exotic and legendary if they choose, and just continue to raise the stats on legendary. His explanation proves nothing, and he doesn’t say that they will not continue to raise the stats on gear. If they had only wanted to create something to work for in between exotics and legendary, they could have done it without increasing stats. If it looks like a gear treadmill, and sounds like a gear treadmill, it’s a gear treadmill…pretending it’s not or claiming that it’s part of a “pseudo-expansion” doesn’t change the nature of the system.

It sounds like they plan to lead us by the nose through future content, doling it out in small chunks, each with its own small power creep. So we just follow them from one little piece to the next, get each cookie as they set it out, and eventually we’ll have a full expansion’s worth of content and rewards. I’m not sure how I feel about it…my first reaction isn’t good but I need to think some more.

I have no doubt there will be endless increases in stats, and that makes me quite sad. Even if it is slow and fairly reasonable to obtain, it still means all the negative aspects of power creep and mudflation… the separation of players and trivializing of content, the imbalance and need to “keep up”… will all be coming to this game.

Lothair.8942:

Namu.5712:

Lothair.8942:

Namu.5712:

Lequin.1806:

Untouch.2541:

I can’t see where they said they’ll have better stats.

They said they’ll add more update related items, that’s it.

Do the halloween exotics have better stats? Nope.

@above
At launch we will only have ring and back items, they’re going to add the rest of the slots as they go.

are you serious? did you not even read what Ascended items are? go read the release adn then come back. turn the lights on, and maybe have your browser turned to font 40. it’s in plain as day english, ascended stats are better than Exotic. no if, ands, or buts. They’ve even stated that it’s a new tier, and will make existing content easier for you! (meaning it’ll be a big increase on your character’s performance). Not to mention, it has alot of +magic find, which is the highest rated stat.

It’s the start of the never ending god kitten treadmill. they want to be like WoW for whatever reason despite having success with their original design.

And legendary stats are better then ascended which is also better then exotics? What is your point? Your already grinding for legendary… they are just adding a inbetween gear…. it won’t be the best in the game. Therefore the whole argument about a gear treadmill is totally debunked.

Legendary right now is on-par with Exotic. They are going to increase the stats of Legendary to match ascended based on these changes (when the Ascended items get patched in – not necessarily this patch).

So basically they are adding a new tier of gear after Exotic – there is no “in-between” exotic and legendary as currently exotic = legendary (in stats) and after the patch (which adds ascended weapons) ascended = legendary.

BTW, it’s complete BS, especially for the WvW community. It was said earlier – just make everyone in WvW EQUAL – same as in sPVP and they can do whatever the kittening kitten they want with PvE.

Well thats fine, I have no problem with wvwvw being like spvp…. but again what is the reward?

But pve wise, I don’t know anyone that doesn’t want to see their character grow…. no matter how small the amount is. New skins are cool but really its just more of the same after a few expansions. Same skills, same everything. Not sure how people cant consider that anymore or less boring.

Nor do I understand the argument about a gear grind….. when HELLO your doing the same thing if it were just a skin…. I mean comon folks pull your heads out!

The reward WAS playing the game and knowing you were fighting against people that were on-par with you gear wise and what it came down to was build & skill. Not ONE PVPer I’ve met WANTS to PVE to compete in PVP. It’s like the biggest outcry I always here in these games.

To Namu. The character is growing. With skins (in GW1 there were Skills, too, that’s sadly gone). Itemprogression DON’T progress you character. It’s only getting something new and throwing it into a bin for getting the next new. The things you get feeling pointless because of the knowledge that they won’t be worth it in the future. That isn’t build up your character and see him growing. I don’t even understand how poeple can set Itemprogression and Characterprogression on par.

Eladriel.7295:

You all are bunch of ingrates.. You scream for challenging content then you complain about it.. Nope I will no be going back to gw1. I like the new content. If you don’t then you go back to gw1. There is nothing wrong where this game is going. Who are you to say you have a say so where it goes in the first place. You aren’t entitled to do that. You know they could be just like any other gaming company and not give you any new content at all except when they make new expansion packs.. Stop your freakin complaining… cry babies…

You can add new content without breaking what you promised: that exotics would be the most powerful gear in the game and there would be better looking items (legendaries) but not stronger items.

Why do you imply that adding new content requires necessarily to go against your own stated philosophy that attracted lots of customers?

If someone says one thing to me and then does another, you can bet I’ll make myself heard. If that makes me a crybaby, then I’m one and proud to be.