Guild Wars 2

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

There are no stats, only protection for Agony, making Ascended gear pigeonholed into a certain stat set.

We don’t know if there will be different stats combination available for ascended gear like it is already for dungeon sets. That’s entirely possible.

What we DO know, however, is that no other rarity tier, except for legendary armors when they will be introduced, will allow to counter agony.

That is the problem. Not the 8% difference in stats, that a good player could somehow address, but the total impossibility to get rid of a condition, agony, than can’t be removed and eats away large chunks of your health with every tick.

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

that Ascended Ring may have 50+ power

but that Exotic with the use of that ruine has +63 power all together

Wrong the ascended one has 68. The jewel is basically already in.

Would be awesome if they would limit the gear to be usable in the dungeon – having no effect on WvW.

stof.9341:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

that Ascended Ring may have 50+ power

but that Exotic with the use of that ruine has +63 power all together

The Ascended Ring has 68 power.

oh hay look at that O_O my bad

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

There are no stats, only protection for Agony, making Ascended gear pigeonholed into a certain stat set.

We don’t know if there will be different stats combination available for ascended gear like it is already for dungeon sets. That’s entirely possible.

What we DO know, however, is that no other rarity tier, except for legendary armors when they will be introduced, will allow to counter agony.

That is the problem. Not the 8% difference in stats, that a good player could somehow address, but the total impossibility to get rid of a condition, agony, than can’t be removed and eats away large chunks of your health with every tick.

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

but what we know is that Agony resistance its ONLY A SIDEEFFECT OF INFUSION, we still DONT KNOW what are the real infusion effects! and where they work!
Agony its not the problem, but infusion and ascended items!

Healix.5819:

evasionmoon.1345:

Im not playing Guild Wars 2 for gear grinding tier1 tier2 tier3 tier4 ext.

Since they’re gating the release of the gear, the “tiers” will actually all be of the same ascended tier.

Since the first dungeon will be rings + back, one could assume the next dungeon would be 3 other items, such as earrings + necklace and so on for each new dungeon.

Once they get through all the gear, then it’s masterwork infusion upgrades. After that, rare, exotic and ascended.

They have a lot of room to work with before reaching the next level. Assuming a 2-3 month delay inbetween updates, the level cap will probably increase before reaching the end (full ascended with ascended infusions), where it then starts all over again.

DO NOT WANT LEVEL CAP INCREASE!

Some people are playing the wrong game and now they change the game to be like the other games. Why had it to go this way? Who made the call? Why now and not back then?

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

Since when is grinding a dungeon a measure of performance… You do realise that in order to get the ascended gear you have to do the dungeon in exotics first.

So, the only way to beat this gear treadmill is to get a legendary weapon? Or, will we see super-legendaries in 3 months?

Let’s not even consider armors for now.

What an epic fail, ANET. Linsey, you could do better.

Ganzo.5079:

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

There are no stats, only protection for Agony, making Ascended gear pigeonholed into a certain stat set.

We don’t know if there will be different stats combination available for ascended gear like it is already for dungeon sets. That’s entirely possible.

What we DO know, however, is that no other rarity tier, except for legendary armors when they will be introduced, will allow to counter agony.

That is the problem. Not the 8% difference in stats, that a good player could somehow address, but the total impossibility to get rid of a condition, agony, than can’t be removed and eats away large chunks of your health with every tick.

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

but what we know is that Agony resistance its ONLY A SIDEEFFECT OF INFUSION, we still DONT KNOW what are the real infusion effects!
Agony its not the problem, but infusion and ascended items!

And the problem infusion is not accessible to current amors sets, no matter how powerful.

oh lol, because it doesnt still happen in the game? how many time i got kicked by grups just cause i didnt wear exotic gear or i wasnt level 80? a lot of times.

Its actually not ANet’s fault. It’s all you players out there complaining about how there’s no progression. Skins weren’t enough, no you needed gear to shoot for. You wanted it, you got it. But its another example of how the community has destroyed a game, not the developer. The developers are trying to please their customers. Unfortunately they listened to the vocal minority and changed fundamental mechanics to appease them. This is another reason why SWOTR collapsed. They listened to the wrong bunch.

Its not just about the ascended gear. Its about how legendaries will be just that much better than exotics now, the gap increased that much more, when it didn’t matter before.

I don’t understand why we can’t jump into a game and all be at the same skill level, instead of having our gear determine how we win.

Devs, stay away from the forums. Send out polls for specific things to your playerbase. Try another means to get a representative sample of what the players want to see added, removed, or changed. The forums are a cesspool, and now what was once a unique game system has plunged into the hellish hamster wheel that spins all its players into the same progression system until their eyes bleed. Only one game does it the best, and now you’ve lost to them.

You, the players, have only yourselves to thank for this.

since this is the hot and poppin’ thread…

Swagger.1459:

considering the new gear circumstances, i personally feel it would be decent of arenanet/ncsoft to reimburse players their gem, gold and/or karma expenditures or provide free ascended equipment upgrades for those who purchased any exotic gear.

i have enjoyed many aspects of the game, spent a considerable amount of $ to support it and i’m not opposed to gear progression (except when the words “mystic forge” are used), but i never would have invested in 2nd tier gear, skins, runes, order gear, transmutaions and so on, had i know about ascended gear.

i know that i’m not in this boat alone, so hopefully the devs make the right decisions while going foward with ascended gear for their customers.

thanks for reading

edit- not attemting to start a riot with this post, just trying to present a fair compromise.

I think perception is everything. I was at first disappointed with the announcement of the Ascended gear because I too was hoping to avoid the gear treadmill. After reading Linsey’s post several times and and now the director’s response, I feel differently about it.

Anet is not looking to add a gear treadmill…maybe only a gear stairmaster. I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’ve recognized a game is missing that last piece of progression in the game before the cap. Right now exotics are very easy to obtain. There are many avenues to obtain and in most cases, will not provide any sense of achievement. There has been no indication that they will create any tiers above Ascended. All of the negative comments in this thread are assuming that this is the start of an infinite cycle. These assumptions have snowballed into a mob mentality where one person says this is a treadmill and the end of the game, and people follow.

The communication could have been managed better I think, at least let the players know directly from the source before 3rd party companies create mass confusion and panic. I think transparency here would have snuffed out much of the fears (and transparency now would still help).

So let’s recap the facts from the update:
- Ascended gear (better than exotic) will be slowly added to the game over several months
- Legendary gear will be scaled to be equal to Ascended
- The grind for legendaries will be adjusted so that precursors can be obtained from “scavenger hunts”
- Future content will bring more Ascended (same tier being introduced now) and Legendary gear
- Exotics will not be obsolete on 11/15 because only rings and back pieces are being introduced at this time. More Ascended gear will be slowly rolled out over time.
- Complimentary Ascended and Legendaries will be rolled out as new high level content is introduced

If you have loved this game so far, it doesn’t hurt to see what Anet has to offer here before making uneducated assumptions. If Ascended gear is the cap and there is not a gear treadmill moving forward, I personally am ok with that.

To the players trying to communicate their feelings on these changes for the benefit of the game, keep this in mind. Many of the negative posts in these forums are doing far more damage to the community in this game, than the comments Anet has made on Ascended gear. No one outside of their organization really knows what they have planned and negative reactive outbursts/threats based on unconfirmed assumptions.

They have read the public opinion here, they know everyone’s concerns. The development schedule is in place, they will not stop it. Try to see it as the introduction of the final tier, something that they recognize was missing from the original release. They have put together a great product so far, let’s trust they know what they’re doing. See what they bring to the table with the new update, then make your judgements and decisions. We are all passionate about the game, so let’s keep this thread positive, expressing our concerns, but trusting Anet will continue to provide quality content that does not stray too far from their original model.

Cappy.2786:

There isn’t any gear progression.The casual players got full exotic gear while only hardest of the hardcore got a legendary so they created something in the middle that would act as a threshold.Do research before you listen to rumors and complainers.
-Thread closed

Step 1: Check current exotic weapons, check current legendary weapons
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit

Don’t tell ppl to do research and call “Thread closed”, if you have absolutely no clue about itemization in this game.

When the difference between A and B is nothing, it is fairly difficult to put something in the middle to close the gap.

The gap was made up for the statement and is right now nonexistant. It is in fact pure fiction of possible future legendary loot, that might be whatever. This would add still another new tier, anyone sees a pattern?

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

But then why oppose the fact exotic gear receives an infusion slot and you trash the whole ascended concept?

You still have your options and they keep their word about the fact exotics are and remain the most powerful items.

Why make the hard work of a lot of people that have geared up several toons obsolete? That’s the base of the threadmill system which most despise and is going to put ArenNet against Wow, which does these thing a lot better because they had 8 years to perfect their threadmill system.

Swagger.1459:

since this is the hot and poppin’ thread…

Swagger.1459:

considering the new gear circumstances, i personally feel it would be decent of arenanet/ncsoft to reimburse players their gem, gold and/or karma expenditures or provide free ascended equipment upgrades for those who purchased any exotic gear.

i have enjoyed many aspects of the game, spent a considerable amount of $ to support it and i’m not opposed to gear progression (except when the words “mystic forge” are used), but i never would have invested in 2nd tier gear, skins, runes, order gear, transmutaions and so on, had i know about ascended gear.

i know that i’m not in this boat alone, so hopefully the devs make the right decisions while going foward with ascended gear for their customers.

thanks for reading

edit- not attemting to start a riot with this post, just trying to present a fair compromise.

Wrong solution, not gonna happen. There are way better suggestions in the last 10 pages.

Edit: Just like the one posted above

Caran.3217:

Edit: Just like the one posted above

I like my suggestion more : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-Ascended-implementation-that-pleases-everone/first

:D

I would be more upset if Ascended didnt pigon hole you so bad?

It will be hard to use my healing build if all ascended look like this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

Swagger.1459:

since this is the hot and poppin’ thread…

Swagger.1459:

considering the new gear circumstances, i personally feel it would be decent of arenanet/ncsoft to reimburse players their gem, gold and/or karma expenditures or provide free ascended equipment upgrades for those who purchased any exotic gear.

i have enjoyed many aspects of the game, spent a considerable amount of $ to support it and i’m not opposed to gear progression (except when the words “mystic forge” are used), but i never would have invested in 2nd tier gear, skins, runes, order gear, transmutaions and so on, had i know about ascended gear.

i know that i’m not in this boat alone, so hopefully the devs make the right decisions while going foward with ascended gear for their customers.

thanks for reading

edit- not attemting to start a riot with this post, just trying to present a fair compromise.

I agree. I didn’t spend any money on Masterwork gear and now that Exotics are essentially in the same class, I feel I have wasted a lot of gold. Not completely of course, because I still have the skins, but I did spend a lot of gold purely for the stats I wanted. The blog did mention complimentary Ascended and Legendaries, so here’s hoping we get compensated a little.

McWaffle.1927:

Its not elitist to want to play with other adventurers that possess as many hardcores as you, its normal.

Considering the difficulty of the content we’ve seen so far, yes you are being unecissarily exclusive by doing that.

McWaffle.1927:

Oh you dont like that there is a way to measure ones ability and capacity to perform? Thats normal too and there is a solution.

Because we’ve never seen bads with good gear in any mmo…

McWaffle.1927:

Make your own Exotic friendly group, let the hardcores enjoy the game their way. More often then not that means not carrying people.

Refer to my last reply. This same thing applies to “80’s only” people. Its just as possible that someone looking for “80’s only” or “link your gear” is a bad looking to be carried. If you think your gear could ever actually carry someone in this game then you are a bad I’d never want to play with even if I did measure up to your requirements.

This is my idea for a solution: First, revert the ascended items to exotic stat levels. Instead of making infusion slots built-in to items, make an infusion slot consumable that places an infusion slot on x gear type (rings and back for this patch). In order to make this infusion slot consumable you need a specific mat that drops in the new dungeon. This accomplishes the same objectives without increasing the gear stats and making current gear obsolete in the future.

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

But then why oppose the fact exotic gear receives an infusion slot and you trash the whole ascended concept?

You still have your options and they keep their word about the fact exotics are and remain the most powerful items.

Why make the hard work of a lot of people that have geared up several toons obsolete? That’s the base of the threadmill system which most despise and is going to put ArenNet against Wow, which does these thing a lot better because they had 8 years to perfect their threadmill system.

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

Koega.8653:

To the players trying to communicate their feelings on these changes for the benefit of the game, keep this in mind. Many of the negative posts in these forums are doing far more damage to the community in this game, than the comments Anet has made on Ascended gear. No one outside of their organization really knows what they have planned and negative reactive outbursts/threats based on unconfirmed assumptions.

Sorry Anet has done all this damage to the community by themselves. They are the ones not communicating. No the Blog and that one post is not what I consider communicating. It’s PR crap, which is the same as lying in my eyes.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

the Real question is Is Ascended gear really the most optimal option for all content

in WvW and explorable’s am i still better off useing Exotic because I can slot ruins
were i can only slot infusion in Ascended

and what are the stats on Infusion exactly ((this we realy need to know))

This is something i still need to see once the full set of Ascended gear is released and compared stat wise.

I think it “was” generally acknowledged that the optimal stat gear at lvl 80 “was” Exotic quality and Legendary was for looks. Karma npc’s and dungeons token rewards pointed to the same conclusion.
People knew this and started gearing up through either buying, farming, crafting, running dungeons and regardless of the time spent gearing up they knew they were getting the optimal gear and could relax now.

If Ascended gear ends up being the new optimal stat gear (regardless of dungeon advantages), this will make people a bit unhappy since they will have to go through the process of gearing up optimally again, spending time and resources while having a feeling of being “scammed”.
This kind of change should have been in the game before it was launched so people could plan ahead instead of looking back and thinking it was all a waste of time.

Still, if this is the last Tier of gear added to the game and no more stat gear chasing required…
… better sooner than later.

But, i remember seeing some hints during development that lvl cap increase in the future could be a possibility and wonder how gearing up would work if that happens.

tkalamba.2541:

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

I find exotic already too hard to farm by itself, especially if you want a variety of stats to try a variety of builds.

Any resource (time, money, mats) you put into an Ascended item is resource you didn’t put into a Legendary, thus delaying the acquisition of the later even more. I don’t see how it helps.

Make…

The game….

Guild Wars.

There is nothing else to do.

It is not hard.

Kick the kitten of whoever is telling you otherwise.

The end.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

I would be more upset if Ascended didnt pigon hole you so bad?

It will be hard to use my healing build if all ascended look like this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

The only part of ascended gear which is more pidgeon-holed than exotics is runes which are built-in. Other stats were already fixed. What I expect is that you will still have carrion, knight etc, or however they will call them for ascended, and they will have five stats instead of three.

I doubt you will have just a stat combination for all ascended gear.

So the fact they are pidgeon-holed still needs to be proven. The versatility of ascended gear lies in the infusion they can carry instead of the rune. I don’t see that being vastly inferior to exotics, actually the contrary.

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

But then why oppose the fact exotic gear receives an infusion slot and you trash the whole ascended concept?

You still have your options and they keep their word about the fact exotics are and remain the most powerful items.

Why make the hard work of a lot of people that have geared up several toons obsolete? That’s the base of the threadmill system which most despise and is going to put ArenNet against Wow, which does these thing a lot better because they had 8 years to perfect their threadmill system.

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

This would be correct if they would add ascendend weapons.
They don’t do so now, they just implement a new tier of jewelery and armor.

What’s your point again?

I’m hopeful at Chris’s latest post – I mean, the whole move is still slightly disconcerting.. but.

We do have the assurance that they do not intend to keep increasing stats.

So, basically, this is a one-time move intended to give players a bit more ‘meat’ in the gear-up process when they hit 80. Now, bear with me – Arenanet never said getting gear at 80 would be absolutely effortless. They said you’d do it with a little dedicated effort, get your max stats, and then be done. Hopefully that vision is still intact.

As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/leah-rivera-on-the-new-fractals-of-the-mist-dungeon/

about the new dungeon

Conner.4702:

Koega.8653:

To the players trying to communicate their feelings on these changes for the benefit of the game, keep this in mind. Many of the negative posts in these forums are doing far more damage to the community in this game, than the comments Anet has made on Ascended gear. No one outside of their organization really knows what they have planned and negative reactive outbursts/threats based on unconfirmed assumptions.

Sorry Anet has done all this damage to the community by themselves. They are the ones not communicating. No the Blog and that one post is not what I consider communicating. It’s PR crap, which is the same as lying in my eyes.

I actually commented that they needed to be more transparent and communicate better. Please read the whole post instead of picking out a small piece before making an assumption on my opinion.

I include my original comment right here from the same post:

“The communication could have been managed better I think, at least let the players know directly from the source before 3rd party companies create mass confusion and panic. I think transparency here would have snuffed out much of the fears (and transparency now would still help).”

Caran.3217:

Swagger.1459:

since this is the hot and poppin’ thread…

Swagger.1459:

considering the new gear circumstances, i personally feel it would be decent of arenanet/ncsoft to reimburse players their gem, gold and/or karma expenditures or provide free ascended equipment upgrades for those who purchased any exotic gear.

i have enjoyed many aspects of the game, spent a considerable amount of $ to support it and i’m not opposed to gear progression (except when the words “mystic forge” are used), but i never would have invested in 2nd tier gear, skins, runes, order gear, transmutaions and so on, had i know about ascended gear.

i know that i’m not in this boat alone, so hopefully the devs make the right decisions while going foward with ascended gear for their customers.

thanks for reading

edit- not attemting to start a riot with this post, just trying to present a fair compromise.

Wrong solution, not gonna happen. There are way better suggestions in the last 10 pages.

Edit: Just like the one posted above

i understand there may be some different suggestions but arenanet will go foward with ascended gear so that leaves very few options for those who have invested a lot time, $ and game currency.

tkalamba.2541:

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

You would still have to acquire infusions for your exotics. So that would close the acquisition gap between the current exotics and legendaries. The main difference, thought., is that the hard work you have done so far wouldn’t be useless.

You would just have to decide if you want to obtain infusions because you are interested in the new content that requires them or not. Eeverybody would be happy that way.

Why should a company choose an alternative that upsets a part of their community over another thak makes everyone happy?

Urxx.6840:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

I would be more upset if Ascended didnt pigon hole you so bad?

It will be hard to use my healing build if all ascended look like this http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/2/22/Ascended_example.png

The only part of ascended gear which is more pidgeon-holed than exotics is runes which are built-in. Other stats were already fixed. What I expect is that you will still have carrion, knight etc, or however they will call them for ascended, and they will have five stats instead of three.

I doubt you will have just a stat combination for all ascended gear.

So the fact they are pidgeon-holed still needs to be proven. The versatility of ascended gear lies in the infusion they can carry instead of the rune. I don’t see that being vastly inferior to exotics, actually the contrary.

But all infusions do is negate agony

Lheimroo.2946:

I’m hopeful at Chris’s latest post – I mean, the whole move is still slightly disconcerting.. but.

We do have the assurance that they do not intend to keep increasing stats.

So, basically, this is a one-time move intended to give players a bit more ‘meat’ in the gear-up process when they hit 80. Now, bear with me – Arenanet never said getting gear at 80 would be absolutely effortless. They said you’d do it with a little dedicated effort, get your max stats, and then be done. Hopefully that vision is still intact.

As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.

i’m glad he posted that. it’s not looking so bad now. if i can get the ascended gear over time without having to do the dungeon with the stupid agony crap, that’s great. i’m in.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

But all infusions do is negate agony

That is not true at all. There are 3 infusion slots: defensive, offensive and omni.

The blog post only used agony defense as an example of how infusions work. There are still offensive slots and omni slots and more than likely other uses for defensive slots.

“As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.”

I played GW1 from BWE 4 or 5.

Mursaat “Spectral Agony” works like this. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Spectral_Agony

To put it into pespective for this, picture taking around 2-3K damage a second with 800 / tick degen with 15 second with chill and crippled (if they stacked) put on you at once, while getting beat on by the general mobs from a dungeon. This is something you can’t take off.

You got infused (currently, 1 infusion does 5 pieces of armour, back then, 1 infusion did 1 piece of armour). Infusion reduced the damage from spectral agony by a lot, close to 20% per infusion. In the end, it would hit about the same to 50 damage per second and 25 tick degen and about 2-5%~ speed slow.

It worked well since there was no new tier. We’re concerned because this is step 1 in new tiers.

His latest post doesn’t explain why they introduce gear with better stats.
People weren’t hunting for legendaries in order to get better stats since those were just like exotics stat-wise. So the argument to have some meat before legendary doesn’t hold much to me.

Why aren’t ascended items just like exotics in stats?

I would really like to know the reason for this.

Lheimroo.2946:

I’m hopeful at Chris’s latest post – I mean, the whole move is still slightly disconcerting.. but.

We do have the assurance that they do not intend to keep increasing stats.

So, basically, this is a one-time move intended to give players a bit more ‘meat’ in the gear-up process when they hit 80. Now, bear with me – Arenanet never said getting gear at 80 would be absolutely effortless. They said you’d do it with a little dedicated effort, get your max stats, and then be done. Hopefully that vision is still intact.

As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.

He gave no such assurance. He’s completely ambivalent about future gear increases. All he says is it won’t be on a 3 month bases.

Infusion from GW1 is completely different in how it is achieved. You do not need a new armor set just for infusion. Hell I have a starter set that is infused just because I could. It also was part of the storyline. Not a separate entity like this new dungeon.

Gated content is gated content no matter how they try and spin it.

mcarswell.3768:

Lheimroo.2946:

I’m hopeful at Chris’s latest post – I mean, the whole move is still slightly disconcerting.. but.

We do have the assurance that they do not intend to keep increasing stats.

So, basically, this is a one-time move intended to give players a bit more ‘meat’ in the gear-up process when they hit 80. Now, bear with me – Arenanet never said getting gear at 80 would be absolutely effortless. They said you’d do it with a little dedicated effort, get your max stats, and then be done. Hopefully that vision is still intact.

As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.

i’m glad he posted that. it’s not looking so bad now. if i can get the ascended gear over time without having to do the dungeon with the stupid agony crap, that’s great. i’m in.

if they feel like they need that after 2.5 months, what do you think they’ll do after 1 year ? 2 years ?
thats the gear grind thread mill. it never stops. doing it this once means they’ll be doing it again.

DONT DO IT ! leave the stats the same !

GW was for me since beginning about that shiny (read cool looking) armor that i wanted next. Not because it gave better stats, but because it looked cooler, it was a lot more expensive for no real reason.
What was important is that i could get it with regular gear (i managed to get fow armor 1 year after i started saving for it), i didn’t need “exotic” to get ascended and well treadmill goes on and on and on and on….(i managed to get fow armor 1 year after i started saving for it)
If someone like that kind of game (getting more and more powerful by wearing “always new” gear) go play different game, cause frankly GW is not that kind of game. At least i thought it wasn’t, now i just don’t know ;(

Lheimroo.2946:

I’m hopeful at Chris’s latest post – I mean, the whole move is still slightly disconcerting.. but.

We do have the assurance that they do not intend to keep increasing stats.

So, basically, this is a one-time move intended to give players a bit more ‘meat’ in the gear-up process when they hit 80. Now, bear with me – Arenanet never said getting gear at 80 would be absolutely effortless. They said you’d do it with a little dedicated effort, get your max stats, and then be done. Hopefully that vision is still intact.

As for the whole agony mechanic.. well, heck. I’m going to trust the GW1 vets who said this ‘Mursaat’ mechanic was no big deal way back when. I’ll take a wait-and-see attitude.

I hope you’re right, Lheimroo. I am willing to see how it goes and I still have faith in Anet to get things right.

Just to clarify the GW1 infusion thing a little though. It could be applied to ANY armour, not just a specific rarity like it will be in GW2.

I played Guild Wars for thousands of hours. More than any other game I have ever played. Why? Because the max level gear/stats was easy to acquire, HOWEVER to look awesome/epic/exotic/kitten it took time and effort. It was a brilliant design, a design that kept GW1 going for so long, through THREE full length expansions, and WE LOVED it. We could load that brand new Factions box and download the updates and play worry free, because we had access to all the content in the new game.

We were excited for all the new Skills, Skins, and Classes the new expansion offered, and we would work hard to get that incredible LOOKING gear. It felt good to work hard for gear that defined your character from the only vantage other players really saw, HOW YOU LOOK IN GAME. You take one look at someone with Obsidian in GW1, and you thought, ‘wow, that guy worked hard to look that awesome.’ It WAS NOT, ‘wow…that guy has Acended gear…I wish i could the dungeons he can do…’

ANET, this design, as minute a stat increase it is, betrays your design of GW2. No one wants to be shut out of doing a dungeon you added to continue the epic story of Guild Wars by stats and infusions. Except maybe the minority of people who came from treadmill based games, who post on these forums, you can clearly see from this thread that the MAJORITY does not want the stain that is treadmill on this game’s record.

If you want something like infusions in the game, make it like the campaign with the Seer in GW1. Have us do a difficult dungeon to get our armor infused, in order to complete the the next dungeon. Don’t add a stat/gear treadmill.

From someone who truly does enjoy GW2, and wants it to continue healthy and firm in its design and philosophy.

Swagger.1459:

Caran.3217:

Swagger.1459:

since this is the hot and poppin’ thread…

Swagger.1459:

considering the new gear circumstances, i personally feel it would be decent of arenanet/ncsoft to reimburse players their gem, gold and/or karma expenditures or provide free ascended equipment upgrades for those who purchased any exotic gear.

i have enjoyed many aspects of the game, spent a considerable amount of $ to support it and i’m not opposed to gear progression (except when the words “mystic forge” are used), but i never would have invested in 2nd tier gear, skins, runes, order gear, transmutaions and so on, had i know about ascended gear.

i know that i’m not in this boat alone, so hopefully the devs make the right decisions while going foward with ascended gear for their customers.

thanks for reading

edit- not attemting to start a riot with this post, just trying to present a fair compromise.

Wrong solution, not gonna happen. There are way better suggestions in the last 10 pages.

Edit: Just like the one posted above

i understand there may be some different suggestions but arenanet will go foward with ascended gear so that leaves very few options for those who have invested a lot time, $ and game currency.

If they do go forward with that crap idea introducing gear grind, making my time and money investment so far obsolete, by breaking their promise what sold me on the game in the first place – i have only one option left. No more of my money for that company.

I enjoyed the game a lot so far and that last option would make me sad, but i will not keep supporting a scam.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

But all infusions do is negate agony

No I think that’s the effect all the types of infusions have, but they have other effects as well. If all they did was to negate or mitigate agony, what would the point be in having different types (offensive, defensive, omni)?

Lindsay Murdock:

Infusions are a special new type of Upgrade Component that can only be slotted into special Infusion slots on gear.
There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.
For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.

A guy said this on another forum

A few quotes from 3 months back about gearing:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

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

slazzy.7309:

Its actually not ANet’s fault. It’s all you players out there complaining about how there’s no progression. Skins weren’t enough, no you needed gear to shoot for. You wanted it, you got it. But its another example of how the community has destroyed a game, not the developer. The developers are trying to please their customers. Unfortunately they listened to the vocal minority and changed fundamental mechanics to appease them. This is another reason why SWOTR collapsed. They listened to the wrong bunch.

Its not just about the ascended gear. Its about how legendaries will be just that much better than exotics now, the gap increased that much more, when it didn’t matter before.

I don’t understand why we can’t jump into a game and all be at the same skill level, instead of having our gear determine how we win.

Devs, stay away from the forums. Send out polls for specific things to your playerbase. Try another means to get a representative sample of what the players want to see added, removed, or changed. The forums are a cesspool, and now what was once a unique game system has plunged into the hellish hamster wheel that spins all its players into the same progression system until their eyes bleed. Only one game does it the best, and now you’ve lost to them.

You, the players, have only yourselves to thank for this.

I don’t think that player input had anything to do with this. A survey of the evidence at hand, IMO, indicates this was just a top down decision made by a few who simply believe that stat progression (power creep) is a fundamental MMOG requirement.

I don’t know if they came into power at ANET recently or if the whole “manifesto” thing was a con job from day one, but there’s really no way that live-game forum caterwauling by a few unsatisfied gear-treadmillers generated content that obviously has been in the works since before launch.

Urxx.6840:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

But all infusions do is negate agony

No I think that’s the effect all the types of infusions have, but they have other effects as well. If all they did was to negate or mitigate agony, what would the point be in having different types (offensive, defensive, omni)?

Lindsay Murdock:

Infusions are a special new type of Upgrade Component that can only be slotted into special Infusion slots on gear.
There are multiple types of Infusions and Infusion slots. In November, we’ll introduce Offensive, Defensive, and Omni Infusions of Fine rarity from new Mystic Forge recipes. Infusion upgrade types must be paired with their like slot, with the exception of the rare and versatile Omni Infusions which can be slotted into any type of Infusion slot.
For now, Infusions slots can only be found in gear of a new rarity type: Ascended.

They are only releasing the defensive Infusions this expansion, other Infusions will be available at future releases, and one would assume Offensive allows you to damage a mob and Omni would provide both mitigation from Agony, and the ability to hurt the mob.