Guild Wars 2

Sure. It will go on and on and on…Unfortunately! Choosing the wrong path after 3 months… bye guild wars 2

Arenanet, please think carefully about what you are about to do.

Let me tell you what happened to an MMO that i once played:
The mechanics and items were all rather balanced, until the day they introduced 2 new equipment slots and 2 new items to go into them:
1. Devil Weapon(DW)
2. Celestial Shield(CS)
Any tier in DW would deal 1% damage to opponent’s hp(at 100 tier in DW, you guaranteed 1 hitting someone). Any tier in CS would count against -1% damage to your hp(it would counter DW 1 for 1)
Those 2 items alone made any other gear 100% irrelevant to the game anymore. Anybody with better CS than your DW would take 1damage and be invincible, anybody with better DW than your CS would kill you.

Needless to say, people were disgusted and left immediately. 2 months later, they removed that implement and made them just like another piece of regular equipment instead. However, one thing you should know, the people who left disgusted NEVER came back. In addition, the people who invested in DW and CS as gear were pissed that the broken mechanic was changed and left disgusted too. AND THIS IS HOW YOU KILL AN MMO.
Granted you are not doing something as radical as the example i gave above, but people here are TELLING YOU: We are disgusted by Ascended Gear, this was not what was promised. If we leave disgusted, no matter what expansion/new content you add, we WILL NOT BE THERE TO EXPERIENCE IT. We will not come back, and neither will our wallets.
Once you realize your mistake and remove it, people who acquired it will get pissed and leave too. Again, they will not come back either. Do you know why i did not go back to that game even after they removed the stupid mechanic? Because i was not even reading the news for the game anymore to know they removed it(i quit).

You are about to kill this extraordinary MMO that you took 5 years to create. We are about to leave this extraordinary MMO that you took 5 years to create…and never come back or hear from you again.

Signed: Player who has played GW1 for 5 years and has been to all your open betas, all stress tests and headstart for GW2. You were a part of my life for the past 5 years, it pains my heart to tell you goodbye.

Of course it’s the last tier. It’s been very clearly stated that gear will cap out at the Exotic Ascended tier of power, and nothing else will be added.

Edit: I love how I respond to an OP, and then it gets merged and the context changed, so that the post doesn’t make sense anymore.

Urxx.6840:

What irritates me the most is that I feel insulted because they treated us like we were dumb.

You can’t introduce a new tier of gear which cuts out whoever doesn’t own it from certain content, and then insult my intelligence trying to convince me it doesn’t go against 7 years of design phylosophy of GW1 and what you previously stated about GW2 itself.

“It’s just a way to fill a gap between exotics and legendaries”.

No, it’s not.
That would be something prettier than an exotic but less exclusive and hard to acquire thana a legendary. But with the same stats and slots.

We aren’t a bunch of idiots, you know.

I have come to the very sad conclusion by looking at how most game companies/developers treated the ones that feed them for the past 10 years that they do think the majority of their players base is somewhat dumb. It’s a sad world.

Progression is necessary. If I ever feel that I’ve beaten this game then I will stop playing it.
Adding more rewards and goals for players is a great idea, and is expected from an mmo.

Plus… ITS FREE! Arena is giving us new content for no extra cost…

I see no reason to listen to the QQ from people who cry about getting free stuff. They should have just paid me the $60 and I would have handed them a crossword puzzle.

Lothair.8942:

chronus.1326:

This is getting funnier and funnier.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Nexon-NCSoft-what-we-should-ve-seen-coming/first#post727449

Interesting how this post was deleted. Classic.

Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t buy a plane ticket to China.
What gives ArenaNet?

No, there’s another blog post somewhere about it but I’m too busy to find it at the moment.

Ignore (and report) people like Sdric, they’re purposefully spreading misinformation.

Recklessone.7142:

Plus… ITS FREE! Arena is giving us new content for no extra cost…

I’ve got a free kick in the balls for you. Not refundable, not optional. Here take.

So are pets going to get infusion? Or will rangers become even more useless?

I feel deceived and betrayed. I quit WoW about a year ago because I got totally sick of having to ‘work’ for the latest and greatest gear. I already work 8 – 10 hours a day, and I want to play for fun. After watching the Manifesto I thought I found the game for a working guy like myself, and went on to spend my gaming time in GW1, where I relearned how to play for fun and not for keeping up with max gear. I expected GW2 to be the same way. After reading and re-reading the official posts on this new gear, I was unable to enjoy the game last night and ended up back in GW1, where I will probably be playing until an MMO without increased stat progression comes out.

I got my $180 worth out of this game (ECE and $100 in gems for about 60 hours in the betas and 365 hours since headstart), so I will not be asking for a refund, but I expected to be here a lot longer.

A broken hearted ex-fan.

Lothair.8942:

GADefence.5634:

“The vast majority of the ones agreeing are not posting, they just had a smile after reading the news and are playing.”

You got 3 types of people, those that read it and like/hate it and posted here, those that didn’t read up on it, those that don’t care enough about it either way.

Type 1 posted here and the response is overwhelmingly negative.

Type 2 knows from the intro and went “Oh new content.”

Type 3 went “Oh new content.”

Type 4: Those that have no idea what the hell is going on and don’t read the forums at all.

Type 5: Those that disprove greatly, but don’t use the forums. There are plenty of these in my guild.

Bak.9843:

So are pets going to get infusion? Or will rangers become even more useless?

You just need to tame the new ascended pets.

BadHealer.3608:

Matty.7395:

I don’t usually post or even look in any gaming forum, It’s always a cry topic over another cry topic, made from a very small amount of people thinking they are all the community.

I just want to say that I like the new ascended gear, exotics are so much common and unbalance right now, an armageddon set it’s the same as a crafted one, but it’s 100 times hareder to get, I think this game need a higher tier of set (ascended are +2 in stats anyway, not a big deal), harder and longer to get than exotics to balance things out. (GW1 got obsidian armor, kurcickz ecc)

from what source do you know that you have to grind months excatly?

Sorry, but these armors where not better than the one that everybody can get in an hour.

Now you will soon have armor for that you need to grind for months to progress. That is not the game I want to play.

“Will there be another new tier after Ascended”

They broke a promise to not do this in the first place……and only 3 months into the game.

I’m going to say yes

they will probably add more tiers. Reason i think this, i have seen other player quote a dev manifesto where they weren’t planning to do this, and then did a backflip on gear grind.

So the question becomes if something is said and they don’t stick to their word, do you have any reason to believe anything that is said after the trust is broken?

I have no reason to believe that they won’t add anymore. I don’t trust the PR speak saying this isn’t gear grind but progression and that they were only going to add more ascendant slot gear later in future. There will be more, this is just the beginning to get us used to the idea of it.

tkalamba.2541:

Nothing i’ve seen says they werent planning anything new. All I’ve seen specifically stated that Legendary will always be = to the most powerful. That hasn’t changed. Just Exotic is no longer the best.

Ascended gear doesn’t even offer the same proportional increase that Rare – Exotic does. You can’t upgrade it aside from an infusion which adds no stat increase. It’s not even that useful to alot of custom tailored builds.

In GW1, 7 years after launch you still don’t have tiers. Any max lvl armor could be infused to withstand agony.

They have stated many times that they would do the same in GW2 and not have tiers. To prove that, they said “look, even legendaries, which are the most exclusive items in the game, stat wise are equivalent to exotics. So much so that they are even crafted from an exotic of which they retain the stats”.

You can play the semantics game as much as you want, but this is clearly a change in their design phylosophy. The community wouldn’t react like this if it was clear from the beginning that the introduction of new tiers was to be expected.

When they introduced greens (unique items) in GW1, with the furnace of sorrow patch, nobody complained.

Because they weren’t any more powerful than top gold items.

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

i was too naive to believe in anet.

Instead of working on sPVP and WvWvW – they said they need time for this its fine, but now we get first pumpkins, now ascended gear for grinders.

Wake up – we don’t want dungeons ascended gear and pumpkins and new classes and races before we get working competitive PvP with ladders and WvWvW where we actually can see the 30 enemies that are around us.

Farewell to the no-grind game PvP game, hello grindfest.

I will buy no expansion at this point you convinced me Anet thank you.

I’ve calmed down a bit since spending all day monitoring this thread yesterday, having been vehemently against this new tier. Mr. Whiteside’s post has a self-contradicting tone at first glance, but I’m beginning to understand where they are coming from with this decision.

ArenaNet made a mistake in balancing the tiers that are already in the game. They made exotics far too easy to obtain in relation to legendary weapons. Both items are equal in power but nowhere near equal in time, effort, and resources to acquire. There is virtually no prestige at all to exotic armor yet a ton of prestige in legendary weapons. When they eventually release legendary armor, it would have been the same case. There is a very extreme gap right now.

What they want to do, is make Ascendant gear be what Exotic gear was supposed to be. Ascended will take longer to acquire than Exotic, the way that Exotic was supposed to take longer to acquire than Rare gear. However, it still won’t take as long to acquire as legendary armor and weapons, which will be eventually scaled up to Ascended level once Ascended weapons are introduced.

Of course, Ascended has to be better than Exotic because Exotic is better than Rare and Rare is better than Masterwork, and so on. We have to think of Ascended as being the new Exotic because ArenaNet simply failed to make Exotic gear live up to its name.

Many players want to work towards something but don’t necessarily want to take the big plunge from Exotic to Legendary status. This new tier will give us all something to work towards over time. When all the Ascended gear is finally in the game, we’ll look back and feel a sense of accomplishment that many of us didnt feel with Exotics and perhaps then, more of us will start working towards Legendary gear.

I know it’s all scarey and it really wants to feel like ArenaNet is turning their backs on us, but take an objective step back and breathe. All they’re trying to do is fix their initial mistake and make the last tier of gear before Legendary take a bit more time to obtain. It wouldn’t seem nearly as scarey if all this were in place at launch.

I won’t get into the Agony mechanic and the resistance gear they’re adding. I personally think that is a stupid, boring, lazy, outdated, and historically unsuccessful mechanic. It is far from eloquent and I hope they reconsider. But in regards to the new tier, I see it as a necessary fix to a system they didnt quite get right from launch.

I think now I can relax and log back into the game and give them a chance. I’m definitely going to be extremely hesitant to spend another dime in the gem store in the immediate future because ANet has handled this entire debacle very, very poorly. Sometimes the community just needs straight-forward explanations instead of convoluted public relations spins and we didn’t get that here, which only added fuel to the fire. But I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing; I just wish they got it right from the start and didn’t have to do this. Let’s hope the road forward is less rocky than it is today.

Recklessone.7142:

Progression is necessary. If I ever feel that I’ve beaten this game then I will stop playing it.
Adding more rewards and goals for players is a great idea, and is expected from an mmo.

Plus… ITS FREE! Arena is giving us new content for no extra cost…

I see no reason to listen to the QQ from people who cry about getting free stuff. They should have just paid me the $60 and I would have handed them a crossword puzzle.

Are you stupid or what? Ok nxt week, when you’ve completed the new content stop playing it.

xtorma.1283:

Caran.3217:

I’m ending it here, but if you have the time just read through the last 5-10 pages of this thread and there’s plenty of evidence and good arguments that we’re facing a gear-treadmill (you can call it ‘little by little progression’ if you like ok).

Like being a little pregnant.

You win!

Actually ArenaNet could introduce as many steps he wants between Exotic and Legendary… just as different levels of élite skins.
That was one of the pillars of the game.

My biggest concerns are how this will affect “older” content, specifically lower level zones and the current eight dungeons. Exotics already make playing in most lower level zones way too easy.

With ascended gear (when full sets are in the game), Im concerned there will be even less incentive for people to revisit older areas because all challenge will be gone (similar to what we see in other gear progression games).

The problem is more pronounced for the current dungeons. Not only will the gear make them easier, it may eliminate alot of people’s incentive for even attempting them.

One of the biggest selling points for me when buying this game was that the entire world would be a viable and challenging place to play at level 80 (entire game is endgame). Level and gear progression in other games ensures that dated content eventually becomes obsolete. It really looked like that wouldnt be the case in GW2. I was looking forward to fighting champions in Harathi Hinterlands, or running Honor of the Waves, five years from now and having pretty much the same epic and fun experience I have today.

Like many, I would much rather see you simply add infusion slotted gear and forget about the idea of increasing stats. Its seems better for the future of the game.

Just wanted to say that on my server (Vizunah Square) you do not hear many whining about the Ascended gear in game, except for those who do nothing but WVW.

Also yeah, i hope the dev do not forget that those who are happy with the new content unfortunately do not post often (like me) we prefer to play which is i think one way to testify our love to your game so keep up the good work.

alanis.6094:

Lothair.8942:

GADefence.5634:

“The vast majority of the ones agreeing are not posting, they just had a smile after reading the news and are playing.”

You got 3 types of people, those that read it and like/hate it and posted here, those that didn’t read up on it, those that don’t care enough about it either way.

Type 1 posted here and the response is overwhelmingly negative.

Type 2 knows from the intro and went “Oh new content.”

Type 3 went “Oh new content.”

Type 4: Those that have no idea what the hell is going on and don’t read the forums at all.

Type 5: Those that disprove greatly, but don’t use the forums. There are plenty of these in my guild.

There are plenty in my guild who aren’t even 80 yet – and those that are 80 don’t even have exotics. Needless to say, my guild will be shrinking.

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill”

If ascended gear has higher stats than exotic and is more difficult to get, that’s a gear treadmill. I’m going to wait and see what actually gets released in this November update, but don’t go there Arenanet!!!

I love the idea of acended gear. Hip hip horray Anet!

Turtle Dragon.9241:

We are about to leave this extraordinary MMO that you took 5 years to create…and never come back or hear from you again.

Last night I went through this thread and just picked out a few posts (5) of people saying they felt betrayed, quit, and were never coming back. I added them to my friends list.

By 12am EST four out of those five had signed in and were wandering around in various areas I can only assume having a grand old time.

The thing about people that are fed up and leave is that most of them just do it. There is no compulsion to post some raging fit on the forums and then give your account away. Any emotional investment is gone and with it the urge to let everyone know their feelings are hurt.

Anyway, if you ever wonder why the droves of players declaring “I quit” on forums never causes a dev to shake in their boots…it’s because it’s a largely empty threat.

So rather than cry wolf in a thread hoping that it will change something, why not just play and enjoy the game and see how the content launch goes? In the end you look less silly because you never know how many people out of curiosity will want to call you on your BS and see if you stick to your convictions or were just blowing smoke.

Blaeys.3102:

My biggest concerns are how this will affect “older” content, specifically lower level zones and the current eight dungeons. Exotics already make playing in most lower level zones way too easy.

With ascended gear (when full sets are in the game), Im concerned there will be even less incentive for people to revisit older areas because all challenge will be gone (similar to what we see in other gear progression games).

The problem is more pronounced for the current dungeons. Not only will the gear make them easier, it may eliminate alot of people’s incentive for even attempting them.

One of the biggest selling points for me when buying this game was that the entire world would be a viable and challenging place to play. Level and gear progression in other games ensures that dated content eventually becomes obsolete. It really looked like that wouldnt be the case in GW2. I was looking forward to fighting champions in Harathi Hinterlands, or running Honor of the Waves, five years from now and having pretty much the same epic and fun experience I have today.

Like many, I would much rather see you simply add infusion slotted gear and forget about the idea of increasing stats. Its seems better for the future of the game.

If you read the press release you would see that they plan on incorporating the new gear into older content as well.

Lutharr.1035:

I love the idea of acended gear. Hip hip horray Anet!

i’m sure everyone is fine with the idea of the ascended gear … if it would be the same stats as exotic.

Masaki.2153:

“Will there be another new tier after Ascended”

They broke a promise to not do this in the first place……and only 3 months into the game.

I’m going to say yes

The Future of Items Progression: This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.
I am reading that as “yes, there will be more tiers with time”.
That’s also how I read Studio Director’s post.
In either case, it’s not a “definite no”, which shatters my hoper really.

Recklessone.7142:

Progression is necessary. If I ever feel that I’ve beaten this game then I will stop playing it.
Adding more rewards and goals for players is a great idea, and is expected from an mmo.

Plus… ITS FREE! Arena is giving us new content for no extra cost…

I see no reason to listen to the QQ from people who cry about getting free stuff. They should have just paid me the $60 and I would have handed them a crossword puzzle.

Why do you guys keep confusing progression with tiers? Has WoW and its many clones washed your brain so much that you can’t coinceive progression which doesn’t come in the shape of tiers of gear?

You add the infusion mechanic to the game and an infusion slot to all existing lvl 80 exotics and you have progression. But nobody complains about it because you don’t have to trash the hard work and money you put into your exotics.

Working hard to acquire something that becomes even only partially unusable is what makes WoW alienating.

And it’s one of the main reasons a lot of people is here playing GW2 instead of WoW and its several clones.

Mike o’Brien has told us that ArenaNet was founded to innovate, and now they are sneaking one of the most horrid WoW mechanics in GW2 trying to convince us that is not really a new tier of gear, just a way to fill a gap between exotics and legendaries.

Please.

I’m sorry but the latest update is bull crap. Ascended gear cannot possibly be the intermediary step between Exotic and Legendary when both Exotic and Legendary currently have the exact same stats and factually Ascended gear has better stats than both. This makes it a new and better tier above and beyond Legendary/Exotic. The only way the press release/blog rings true is if they then buff all the stats on Legendary items to above Ascended thus creating an even bigger amount of power creep and more of what goes against what they promised to deliver with this game. I will then “Have” to have Legendary items to compete. sigh I really had high hopes with this game and ANet has flushed them all (not solely with this decision).

Also you cannot say “we’re not building a gear treadmill” and “The Future of Items Progression: This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.” So you’re building a gear treadmill that’s not a gear treadmill? You’re building a gear elliptical machine perhaps?

They said in the press release:
“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.”

Also “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.”

I am excited about the new crafting materials and new mystic forge recipes.

I just wanted to add my voice to the opposition and say, as a former GW1 player i am certainly against this change and i am really disappointed that Anet has gone back on their design philosophy in just about 3 months.

I guess it was just hype machine and marketing to make manifest videos with bold words. The walk hasn’t been able to be walked and the trust is gone. Bravo Anet, you gave in to the weeping minority that didn’t really understand your game in 3 months. Such a shame.

“ArenaNet made a mistake in balancing the tiers that are already in the game. They made exotics far too easy to obtain in relation to legendary weapons. Both items are equal in power but nowhere near equal in time, effort, and resources to acquire. There is virtually no prestige at all to exotic armor yet a ton of prestige in legendary weapons. When they eventually release legendary armor, it would have been the same case. There is a very extreme gap right now.”

I would absolutely agree with you if that were at all how prestige worked in Guild Wars. In GW1, prestige wasn’t about stats, it was about cosmetics. You could spend hundreds of hours grinding to get armor from the Fissure of Woe because it was the coolest and most expensive armor and everyone would look up to you, but it wasn’t a single point more powerful than the armor you could buy for 5k and some mats from a vendor. The legendaries in this game, while not something I’m interested in, are a perfect example of ANet doing ANet’s thing. Gear that is ridiculously hard to get but not any better statwise is exactly what we need. We don’t need new gear that’s both harder to get and better than what we already have.

If they had said two months ago, “hey, we’re not done with the tiers yet, we’re adding better armor later” I wouldn’t have put so much effort into getting full exotics. I feel like I’ve wasted a ton of time, not just on gearing up my character but also waiting for a game to come out that decided three months after launch to do a 180 on its core philosophy. I’ve been playing Guild Wars since Nightfall came out. I like ANet’s gaming manifesto. I don’t know why it has to change

Nyspar.6103:

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

Lothair.8942:

I wish someone would go through 140 pages of this and add up the number of unique responders not agreeing with the change compared to those agreeing. Too bad I have a full time job!

The vast majority of the ones agreeing are not posting, they just had a smile after reading the news and are playing.

I’m one of those people who welcomes to ascended gear. The reason is simple, it gives me a new goal to work toward.

I’ve reached the end’est (yes I made up a word) game you can possible be at.
-I’ve done sPvP to rank 28
-I’ve got 2 lvl 80 Characters
-I’ve got the commander tag
-I’ve got full exotics for both my characters
-I’ve got a legendary weapon

For me the only things to do now are: sPvP or WvW.

This ascended gear patch will give me a reason to do more PVE and also gives me a new goal to work towards

Once you get full set of asc gears …..

well, I can foresee the Tier 2 ascended gears are waiting for you ….

I know others have said similar things already but I just wanted to throw my voice in to the mix too.

I enjoy this game immensely, and the things I enjoy doing have nothing to do with getting gear. I love doing events and helping players with Personal Story quests, I loved doing my own PS quests, I love taking part in WvW, I love doing a lot of fun things in this game. What I didn’t enjoy doing was grinding for the best gear. That is not fun to me, but it is necessary. So I bought all mine from the TP. Now, two of my lvl 80 characters are sitting pretty with what I thought was max gear, and I was content with this. I no longer had to worry about working to get or using all my gold to buy any more gear, I could just get on with having fun in the parts of the game I enjoyed the most.

I didn’t spend my time grinding to get legendary gear, because it was purely cosmetic. I have a look I’m happy with and I have max stats. Now I simply have fun. It’s what games are for right? But now things might change for the worst for me. If I want to remain competative (for dungeons, wvw, or whatever) I will need to spend a massive amount of time to get these now almost compulsory legendaries. I do not see why I should have to stay at lower stats because I don’t want to grind for the gear I need. That is not fun for me. It’s not that I’m lazy or incapable of getting them, it’s that I just don’t enjoy grinding the same content over and over again, just to get the materials needed to get max gear. Exotics are affordable for those that just want to enjoy the game. Legendaries are not. They are expensive. Very expensive. And that is just for ONE legendary. Imagine trying to equip 2 or 3 characters in full legendary gear. And I imagine Ascended gear, if it can be bought, will also be very expensive. I will have no time to do the things I enjoy, because all I’ll be doing is grinding for years to come.

I know I could probably do ok with lower stat gear, but why should I have to put up with that? What about players who cannot invest as much time as others? Are they relegated to lower quality gear? That is not the philosophy that created this game. It’s not the attitude that brought a lot of players to Tyria. I love the Guild Wars games presicely because they are not like this. Is this about to change?

Why couldn’t they have just added an extra infusion slot to ALL gear rather than creating new armour that we have to get. It could still be a progression mechanic, if that’s what they need, as you would still need to grind to get better and better infusions. You could simply replace an older infusion with a new one, eliminating the need to get new armour. I’m all for some sort of progression mechanic, but am really against ‘better then exotic’ stats. Exotics should stay the max and they should just add different upgrades or infusions to all gear.

They say it’s not going to be a gear treadmill, but then say that they want to add content to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries. Well, I’m not sure if I’m missing something here, but legendary gear is IDENTICAL, stat wise, to exotics. So what gap is being bridged here? The grind? The cost? I thought that was the whole point of cosmetic prestige items. To give those that want to progress further something extra to do. Why add more stats? They could just add more skins that require a great deal of effort to get. And as I said before, if they want a progression mechainc, then surely infusions would suffice?

I really hope that Anet get this right, I still have faith in them, but this sounds like a very dangerous addition to me and I am worried they will lose a lot of players over it.

Roll on this weekend. My fingers are crossed.

Norida.8692:

Just wanted to say that on my server (Vizunah Square) you do not hear many whining about the Ascended gear in game, except for those who do nothing but WVW.

Also yeah, i hope the dev do not forget that those who are happy with the new content unfortunately do not post often (like me) we prefer to play which is i think one way to testify our love to your game so keep up the good work.

You don’t hear any in mine…

…until you mention it.

Then they start whispering you, asking what’s this new thing, and then some go search in google and the official site news about it, and then the “what the hell? Are they serious?” discussions start, with the must-have trolling lines here and there of those that will say “Oh! Great!” just to piss off everyone else (You will ALWAYS have those “Do not affect me/I don’t care, so make it worse” trolls, after any controversial or unfair change).

Turns out, most people have no idea about the issue, so of course they won’t complain about it.
Out of sight, out of mind.

AcidicVision.5498:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

We are about to leave this extraordinary MMO that you took 5 years to create…and never come back or hear from you again.

Last night I went through this thread and just picked out a few posts (5) of people saying they felt betrayed, quit, and were never coming back. I added them to my friends list.

By 12am EST four out of those five had signed in and were wandering around in various areas I can only assume having a grand old time.

The thing about people that are fed up and leave is that most of them just do it. There is no compulsion to post some raging fit on the forums and then give your account away. Any emotional investment is gone and with it the urge to let everyone know their feelings are hurt.

Anyway, if you ever wonder why the droves of players declaring “I quit” on forums never causes a dev to shake in their boots…it’s because it’s a largely empty threat.

So rather than cry wolf in a thread hoping that it will change something, why not just play and enjoy the game and see how the content launch goes? In the end you look less silly because you never know how many people out of curiosity will want to call you on your BS and see if you stick to your convictions or were just blowing smoke.

2 possible reasons

1) They’re enjoying their last moments of GW2. You certainly aren’t locked out of the current content with ascended are you? But they will not be buying gems or getting expansions, or getting this ascended junk. If they have a free game, there’s no reason not to enjoy the free stuff they currently have. Personally, I do not fit here, since this whole thing disgusts me to the point of not even wanting to play.

2) Giving away items to guildees. This would be my reason. I’ve got a load of junk to give away now, and some of it’s tied up in large buy orders coming in from the tp, so it’ll take a while to fully get rid of.

Gear progression i love you!
More and more progression plz!
Give me reasons to play!

Arenas and pvp gear progression is what i´m missing!

Rin.1046:

They say it’s not going to be a gear treadmill, but then say that they want to add content to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries. Well, I’m not sure if I’m missing something here, but legendary gear is IDENTICAL, stat wise, to exotics. So what gap is being bridged here? The grind? The cost? I thought that was the whole point of cosmetic prestige items. To give those that want to progress further something extra to do. Why add more stats? They could just add more skins that require a great deal of effort to get. And as I said before, if they want a progression mechainc, then surely infusions would suffice?

The gap has nothing to do with stats, but the time investment from getting a exotic vs a Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic armour in about 3 days after hitting level 80. Likely sooner if you knew what you were doing, solely through regular play. Legendaries on the other hand require a rather large time/resource investment. There is such a large gap inbetween. They are giving players something to work towards in the end game. I had all my exotic (minus jewellery, never bothered) before I even finished my personal story.

I’m on the same line of all the guys that posted here as regular workers and casual gamers and I too felt somewhat betrayed with the choice of progressing that Anet is taking. I left WOW for the same reason (and i’m still paying for the annual pass ‘til Jan, fool me!!) and I don’t want to leave GW2: I hate grinding for hours and hours for:
1) Most of the game days I don’t have time for grindingd: I want to enjoy the game doing some daily achievement, leveling my char
2) It’s not the best activity to do in a game: I don’t want to do repetitive tasks and dungeons just to have a stupid new piece of armor/weapon that gives me my +2 crit chance…that’s hell for me!!

For these reasons I will play GW2 for a non determined time, but as soon as I recognize wow-like stuff I’m off, period.

Baron Von Graymouse.7801:

The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future. As we introduce the new high-level content, we’ll also roll out complimentary Ascended and Legendary items (to say nothing of the other rewards you can earn by playing the content).

Yes I did notice the statement “complimentary Ascended and Legendary items” but its really puzzling to me. I mean It is entirely possible they forsaw the WvW issue and planned to give a basic Ascended set to everyone (though then why legendary items?)

I really would love a clarification on this. unfortuntely with this level of panic I am afraid we’ll have to wait a bit before we hear statements on this

Ascended gear really disappoints me too.

I was happy when i completed my exotic set since i was finally able to do what i feel
like doing at maximal efficiency.

Help someone with a story mode or some exploration path i don’t need anymore?
No problem.

But now i will have to log in and do that new dungeon in order to not fall behind.
That directly affects how often i have to log in and how i have to spent my time
ingame.

While writing this, i realized i now feel forced to do certain things. That in return really
dampens my excitement for the game.

Norida.8692:

Just wanted to say that on my server (Vizunah Square) you do not hear many whining about the Ascended gear in game, except for those who do nothing but WVW.

Also yeah, i hope the dev do not forget that those who are happy with the new content unfortunately do not post often (like me) we prefer to play which is i think one way to testify our love to your game so keep up the good work.

Yeah those who are always in-game and not in the forums probably don’t even know the details about the new ascended gear and don’t yet understand how they will be increasly cut out of new content if they don’t acquire it.

But sooner or later the consequences of this new wrong direction will hit them.

You know a lot of that kind of players quit a game wihtout ever wrinting a single word about it.

ANet will see they are gone when they start getting less and less money from the Gem Store.

If that will happen, and I really hope they understand that danger and do something about it now, the descending spiral will already be in place and it will be a lot more difficult to act.

A treadmill implies it’ll keep going. If you read the blog post, they say that they intended to add one set. Ascended gear. One set = a step, not a treadmill.

They also stated that the harder to obtain “rarer” ascended items will have added +Agony residence. So apart from the original items (which have also been stated to be attainable outside of the dungeon in the future), there is no need to keep repeating the content to get better ascended items unless you want to.

Completely optional; once the full compliment of Ascended items have been added to the game, PvE and WvWvW, then unless you want extra +agony resistance, which is only useful in that one dungeon, you never have to set foot in dungeons.

It’s one extra set, that contains a slot that has the potential to add repeatable dungeon content for those that want to improve their +agony resistance and infusions, whilst not alienating those that don’t want anything more than a basic set of ascended gear but have no intention of running a dungeon, because if your not running the dungeon then the gated agony additions are entirely irrelevant.

They clearly stated that their goal is to create an extra level of progression between Exotics and Legendary items. Not keep creating better and better tiers. The ascended items contain a slot that is only useful in a repeatable scaling dungeon, giving repeatable content for those that enjoy that. The post said it will be obtainable in other ways, meaning you never have to set foot in that dungeon once extra avenues are introduced to get the gear.

It is purely horizontal and actually quiet clever. Introducing a set of gear with a slot that allows entirely optional extra content if people want it.

Having said all of that. I still cannot work out why it has a stat increase

I find it quite hilarious that people thought the exotic armor that’s so easy to get would be the final tier of equipment and that they’d never have any new better equipment to get that might actually take some effort other than “I made moneyz”. The game’s been out for all of 3 months and you thought you’d never have to do any more work for future content?

I personally welcome the new content. Especially since they’ve defined that the gear progression WILL end as Rare → Exotic → Ascended → Legendary.

Also the fact that Ascended has fixed stats no capable of normal upgrades balances it out so that it’s pretty steady with exotic anyways.

tkalamba.2541:

The gap has nothing to do with stats, but the time investment from getting a exotic vs a Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic armour in about 3 days after hitting level 80. Likely sooner if you knew what you were doing, solely through regular play. Legendaries on the other hand require a rather large time/resource investment. There is such a large gap inbetween. They are giving players something to work towards in the end game. I had all my exotic (minus jewellery, never bothered) before I even finished my personal story.

There is plenty of exotics in the game that cost a LOT to make and are a LOT better looking than any other existing exotic though. Why couldn’t they advertise those more or create new ones?

143 pages…

All I can say is, people have been clamoring for meaningful end level progression since release. And now here it is. If you dislike it, then be careful what you wish for, I guess…