Guild Wars 2

Nerth.3940:

mantrunks.4810:

A question for everyone. How does a company make a dynamic game with a statically requested system?

If a new PVE map/dungeon was released with having no real change to gameplay was released, who would play it? It would be visited for a 1 time run through on most cases, and its the truth. If it has nothing new to offer, why bother? Who would use it?

According to your logic, nobody is playing League of Legends or any other game that is based on player skills.

Change for the sake of change is a bad thing and it usually bites you in the rear. I mean no disrespect but I guess you are a member of younger generation. Let me tell you something, some of us played games on 8 bit machines for years because the gameplay was fun and engaging. Do you really have to have a carrot on a stick to play the game? Wouldn’t it be nice to play a game because it is fun to play?

I know, Utopian concept.

Yes, i remember playing Katakis on C64, trying to do all 12 levels without loosing a life. Well, I do not mind a gear progression in general (or at least I could accept it and indeed have accepted it in the past for example playing hardcore raids in WoW), but I feel betrayed by the devs because of the difference in advertisement. I really wanted to play this game because of the fact it does not have gear-progression and left both SWTOR and Secret World because I thought this game would it be. Well… times are changing.

Caran.3217:

xtorma.1283:

Doesn’t really matter. You will either stop playing or keep playing. They have already made the decision that it will not impact them negatively finacially. Thier hope is that it will bring in more people, keep some people who would have left from leaving, and that will offset those that leave.

I am sure they knew that there would be a level of dissent. I am sure they surmised that they would lose players. I am sure they took all this into account and decided that the ones they throw under the bus would not impact thier bottomline as much as sticking to thier original plan.

If you are disappointed and quit, they don’t really care, you have already been factored in and accounted for.

Hahaha, yes sure thing because they’re so wise and can’t make massive mistakes. Flip back a page or two and find the post with the link to the LotRO Devs admitting total failure with a new game concept/mechanic, after they lost a lot of their playerbase and had to go F2P. So much for ‘accounting for’ lmao.

I simply believe this is thier reasoning, I never said it wouldn’t backfire. That remains to be seen. Communities can make a difference , look at mass effect 3 and it’s ending.

Make Ascended armour MF only. This gives everyone what they want : MF is an annoying stat people want out of the main part of the game (eg. dungeons) and people do not want better gear to be Ascended.

If you WvW with MF gear you’re weird.
If you dungeon with MF gear you’re not doing well.
If you farm with MF gear you’re doing ok – and fractals was added specifically for farming.

The problem is that vertical progression adds nothing to this model.

This is not a sub game. Keeping people grinding away for months will in no way move the game’s bottom line forward. In order to continue to add content, money has to keep coming in.

Since there’s no sub for this game – making people grind and grind and stay “subbed” to the game won’t help the game at all.

Horizontal progression “isn’t working” because they haven’t ADDED any. There’s the Legendary grind – which frankly a very small percentage of the game has engaged in at this point. Most of the players of GW2 don’t want to “gear up.” They want to hit 80, buy their Exotics or Rares, and then enjoy the rest of the game.

However, for a game that runs on a gem store? The gem store is pathetic. I was shocked how skimpy the offerings were when I started playing – 3 armor skins, one for each weight, 2 townclothes sets, and some hats. The upgrades for space aren’t going to keep people coming back – and the boosters and consumables have limited value. The only thing that’s a solid seller is the “lottery” systems – dye packs, mini packs (of which there is only one!) and the Black Lion Keys. Apparently Anet thinks that people will dump hundreds of dollars a month in lottery keys for the event skins they keep stuffing into chests… and I really think that’ll only work once or twice.

Why are they wasting development time on a system that adds nothing to the game model AND pisses off their hardcore fans, breaking very specifically against the design philosophy they espoused for years – and only three months after release? Why are they not stuffing the store with shinies?

The stats on what sells in an MMO cash shop are out there to see. Take a look at LOTRO – millions of cloaks, dresses and horses. WoW’s full of mounts and minis. Costume sets flew off the shelves for COH. People want to LOOK COOL. And for a game that specifically promised that LOOKING COOL was the endgame… they’ve offered us precious little in that regard to actually spend money on.

Why isn’t there a housing grind? (they said they were working on it and it got pushed back from release.) MMO players LOVE housing – then they could pack the store with housing items. Why aren’t they offering emotes in the store? The emotes right now are painfully skimpy. Why haven’t they added new skins every month – most of the NPC outfits aren’t available to us through any means, and they’re already existing sets on racial models, so why not take those pre-made art assets and stuff them into the store? Why not add more non-Event based minis – quaggans, leaf hounds, wolves, the cubs from all over Norn lands, all of them have been passed over for minis so far, but the people I know desperately want them.

All they are doing at this point is adding something that isn’t needed, won’t move their “brand” forward, and is garnering a hellacious amount of negative press. On top of that, lots of folks who’ve been huge and vocal supporters of the game are not vowing to vote with their wallets and STOP buying gems and recommending the game to others. This is the OPPOSITE of what Anets needs to have happening three months after release.

Not to mention.. it’s the kittening RADIANCE SYSTEM! Which was kitten when LOTRO introduced it, resulted in a massive hemorrhage of players, and was removed. How stupid do you have to be in order to deliberately choose to put it into your game?

Personally, all this announcement does for me is make me take a serious step back in my emotional investment in this game. I already had a problem with “trusting” another NCSoft game after what happened with COH, and now the devs are displaying a really troubling level of idiocy that makes me want to back slowly away.

Strang.8170:

Untouch.2541:

Every increasing tier has better stats than the other (except legendary).
They probably thought to keep up the tradition.

Which is exactly the thing we protest against.

If they keep on introducing new tiers with better stats, we´re in the treadmill.

If they stop with this tier, then what was the point of increasing stats from exotics in the first place?

To provide something between Exotics and Legendary gear to strive for that’s more powerful than Exotics and less grindy than legendary.

The appeal of this game was the suprisingly liberating dual idea of no sub and fixed ceiling gear. That is(was) a very refreshing feeling coming from a host of former MMOs played from past 10yrs or so.

I like the freedom to make new builds with gear knowing it not a waste of resouces and time. As the gear is of the ‘final’ quality and has permenant utility. Now it isn’t, now it is a steady convoluted gear race like other MMOS. To be on skill par in pvp, you require equal gear plateau. It was my understanding this is what GW2 intended. This has been overturned really very quickly in a like of an MMO.

It much like a political party you voted for reversing it core principles 3 months in office, very dishonest and underhand.

xtorma.1283:

Snerf.1650:

Polluxor.5970:

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

I would really like to know the reason for this.

This is the real question that most people are missing. Everything is superfluous except this question.

All they need to do to fix this kerfuffle is change the plan and make ascended and legendary items exactly the same stat-wise as exotics.

Stick infusions on ascended items and keep legendaries just for looks.

Boom. Problem solved!

This is assuming that they believe they have a problem. I don’t think they believe this will impact them in a meaningful way.

And I think that ignoring an enormous player outcry and going back on years of design principal is a pretty big deal. Many other players do to.

It’s a very big deal to go back on 7 years of ArenaNet design principles a scant few months into the release of this game.

Guild Wars games have never been and were advertised as being not about gear or levels, but player skill and builds.

Moving in this direction is a huge change of course and betrays the very aspects of design that led many of us to the company and the game.

Honestly didn’t read even 10% of this thread, but I for one am glad they’re adding new armor and a new/harder dungeon. I’m maxed out in PvE and haven’t had much to do except build up gold(yes, I have EVERY dungeon skin.) It’d be nice to having something to strive for again. This new dungeon scaling in difficulty may be the best thing they’ve added. The current dungeons are too easy with a good group. Most paths you can clear within 30 minutes without even trying. You can clear the CoF paths in 9-15 minutes each. I say, “Bring on progression and harder content!”

Rainshine.5493:

Yams.3859:

For those who are not happy with the stat increase, why don’t we decide on a day where no one logs into the game for a day?

A day? I’m just not logging in. Period. If this change goes through, I’m never logging in again.

Well, I think the game has been great until we were blindsided. I would still be very satisfied if ANet gets the message and scales back the stats on Ascended gear to make them on par with Exotics or left the Ascended items as two rings and a back item.

The punishment should fit the crime.

On a personal note, I’m just sad that the Orr temple armour I spent two months and 252,000 karma in obtaining (and I like the stats too! Melandru light armour) has been given an expiration date so quickly.

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

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

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Yep…a forum equivalent of a full-blown torches and pitchforks mob here at this point, and reason has gone out the window for most people.

But for anyone who is still thinking…

Please just give the patch a chance. It may turn out that Ascended gear is not that much of a pain to get, and thus no promises were broken, and everything is fine. On the other hand, it main turn out that Ascended gear requires a massive grind to get, and at that point, I will join you with your pitchforks.

But let’s at least give ANet the benefit of the doubt for now. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

it seems if you dont like the idea of item progession at all you need to get yourself a lagandary as " 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"

Happy that they are going to allow progression of these in WvWvW. I don’t want to be forced to run dungeons, I hate them. They should enable WvWvW rewards for these right now.

“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

Lies, lies and more lies.

“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

Lying about lies, that must be a sad joke.

I’m disgusted.

Arena Net made a statements with their manifesto, with their declarations and years of development, and after just 3 months they turn that table around completely.
Liars!

Curtis.1562:

I say, “Bring on progression and harder content!”

They can do that WITHOUT adding a gear-tier system.

They could simply add hardcore modes to the existing dungeon. They could design proper bosses with better fight mechanics and phases, instead of “beat on this bag of way too many hit points for the next 20 minutes.”

Liars, liars, liars.

Curtis.1562:

Honestly didn’t read even 10% of this thread, but I for one am glad they’re adding new armor and a new/harder dungeon. I’m maxed out in PvE and haven’t had much to do except build up gold(yes, I have EVERY dungeon skin.) It’d be nice to having something to strive for again. This new dungeon scaling in difficulty may be the best thing they’ve added. The current dungeons are too easy with a good group. Most paths you can clear within 30 minutes without even trying. You can clear the CoF paths in 9-15 minutes each. I say, “Bring on progression and harder content!”

But wouldn’t you agree that there is no reason for this to impact WVW? It’s great that your gameplay is being enhanced, but these changes hurt my gameplay.

As someone that plays 8 chars and wants to WVW in all of them, these changes make it that much more grindy to enjoy my play. I simply want to cap my stats with exotics and forget about gear entirely.

The compromise is to give people like you who enjoy pve dungeons and character gear progression something while not impacting players that only pve for WVW. These changes don’t do this.

Yams.3859:

I haven’t read all 147 pages of posts, so apologies if this has already been suggested before:

ANet is a company. Numbers talk to them. At this point, we can reasonably expect Ascended items to make their way into the update this weekend and we may better illustrate our disapproval through actions.

For those who are not happy with the stat increase, why don’t we decide on a day where no one logs into the game for a day? A weekend day (say Saturday Nov 24, one week after the content update, starting GMT 0:00 for 24 hours) would have the largest impact as player logins are highest. The benefits are two-fold:
1) For those claiming that this direction alienates a majority of the playerbase, ANet will have some concrete numbers to work with. It could be the case that much of what we see here is grandstanding and we are all happily chasing giant crabs to care, or ANet might see a 50% drop in playerbase for that period.
2) Talk is cheap. If we all feel as strongly about this as the forum posts suggest, we need to do more than complain.

This is only a suggestion and we should decide on its merits or lack-thereof after this weekend once we have a better idea of how frequently Ascended loop drops and what the Infusions are.

Just some thoughts.

I wholeheartedly agree, if people really feel strongly about this issue then we need to show them in a tangible way. Saying you’re not going to spend money on on the cash shop is not going to be immediately evident to Arenanet since chances are most people aren’t constantly purchasing gems anyway.

I won’t be logging into the game until this mess is cleared up.

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

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

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

Ok I have to agree with you on this point, Creslin. It makes sense to be acquiring rare loot over time as it is not an unreasonable amount of time, with the understanding that there are multiple ways of collecting them, as we have seen said about getting them through dungeons, drops, and WvW collectively. It’s not going back on their words, per-say, until you get to the point where you realize that that “old normal” doesn’t match the “new normal”, and that the “old” parts of the game are going to be increasingly easy and un-challenging compared to the “new” parts. This isn’t a proper remedy to the boringness of the game, but quite on the contrary it is creating a smaller portion of the game that is actually fun (read: challenging)

If it had just been a content update, with new harder gameplay, that would have been extremely fun. People rise to the challenge.

The problem lies in the fact that there’s any item progression at all, which is the opposite of what they did right with GW1. Highest-end items in GW1 have the same EXACT base stat as the most common of common items, and the same exact bonus stats as some of the much more commonly dropped Rare-quality items.

The fact is, GW1 players wanted to play GW1 because of that basic difference, and they weren’t inclined to go play some other MMO where gear progression was already available. GW1 died out because it was OLD, not because it didn’t work right.

DrCereal.1765:

1) Make Ascended gear provide a stat/combat benefit over Exotic gear ONLY in the Fractal Dungeon
.

This. I dont care about PvE content in this game because it doesnt appeal to me (easy, pretty random, no interesting mechanics, small scale only). But this is a different thing.

Talking about gear and this ‘ascended’ stuff:
What i dont get is, why is WvW considered PvE? It seems more like PvE to me compared to sPvP, where it really does not matter what gear you’re wearing. Am I the only one bothered by this?

Do i have to PvE (dungeons) now to have the best available gear in WvW? Why is it different than sPvP?

In case someone is using a text parser to total the sentiment in this thread, I want to add that..

I AM COMPLETELY FOR THE ADDED GEAR TIER.

It will give me something else to work for. If the game’s difficulty and rewards don’t increase over time what point is there to continuing to play?

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

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

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Well, you are wrong. That happens if someone is just reading one quote instead some more:

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

(…)When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc. (…)

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun! (…)

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.

The idea behind it is crystal clear. Play semantics as long as you will, but they have broken their own design and at least my faith in this studio.

Snerf.1650:

Curtis.1562:

Honestly didn’t read even 10% of this thread, but I for one am glad they’re adding new armor and a new/harder dungeon. I’m maxed out in PvE and haven’t had much to do except build up gold(yes, I have EVERY dungeon skin.) It’d be nice to having something to strive for again. This new dungeon scaling in difficulty may be the best thing they’ve added. The current dungeons are too easy with a good group. Most paths you can clear within 30 minutes without even trying. You can clear the CoF paths in 9-15 minutes each. I say, “Bring on progression and harder content!”

But wouldn’t you agree that there is no reason for this to impact WVW? It’s great that your gameplay is being enhanced, but these changes hurt my gameplay.

As someone that plays 8 chars and wants to WVW in all of them, these changes make it that much more grindy to enjoy my play. I simply want to cap my stats with exotics and forget about gear entirely.

The compromise is to give people like you who enjoy pve dungeons and character gear progression something while not impacting players that only pve for WVW. These changes don’t do this.

right but thats never what WvW was sapost to be, WVW was always ment to be a place were PVE and gear have an afect and as you grow in PVE you grow in WVW and vise versa

Skamlic.8041:

People complained they didn’t have end game. Now they get it (very good version, because new gear isn’t that superior to exotic) and now they complain again.

ANet said that only Ascended gear is going to be with better stats then exotic. Right now you can get from 0 to hero (from green to exotic when lvl 80) in 1 day! 1 DAY! If you craft of course, but look at (current) dungeon gear more like for SKIN then stats. If you don’t feel like using your time to do dungeon then simply don’t.

That doesn’t say much.
Probably the people complaining about nothing to do already left, taking a break, waiting for updates and whatnot – same happened with GW1 and even myself did it while still enjoying what it offered.
Many people are happy with the game and still play.

In GW1 you could max lvl in half a day or less and gear up to max stat from npc.

Many people run dungeons not only for skins but for stats too – i know i did.

rob.7645:

DrCereal.1765:

1) Make Ascended gear provide a stat/combat benefit over Exotic gear ONLY in the Fractal Dungeon
.

This. I dont care about PvE content in this game because it doesnt appeal to me (easy, pretty random, no interesting mechanics, small scale only). But this is a different thing.

Talking about gear and this ‘ascended’ stuff:
What i dont get is, why is WvW considered PvE? It seems more like PvE to me compared to sPvP, where it really does not matter what gear you’re wearing. Am I the only one bothered by this?

Do i have to PvE (dungeons) now to have the best available gear in WvW? Why is it different than sPvP?

No you will be able to get this gear in WVW ((as is the rings and back slot items there adding realy are not that big a deal for WVW as there so pigonholed. as you can costomize there stats)) evantualy

Caran.3217:

Magiofdeath.2745:

The QQ in this thread, from both sides, is legendary. There should be a new legendary weapon based on this thread and it should be called “QQ’ers Lament”.

I’m neither for or against this. I’m ok with this because they already have a massive grind to get legendarys, so don’t see the harm in adding a gear progression grind (hint: the grind, no matter what it is, is strong in this game). I have my doubts about this because we don’t have enough inventory/bank space for all this crap – I had 4 armor sets in GW1 for my ranger, which was no problem, because EVERY SINGLE material had a collection for it – we are missing our collection for rare mats. GW1 also didn’t have mystic forge consumables, WvW blueprints, the amount of runes GW2 has, sigils, etc. I also had more than enough bank space at the end of GW1 – I’m not saying we won’t be giving increased inventory/bank space as this game continues on, but currently (without buying an additional finite number of bank slots) we simply do not have enough room for multiple sets of armor/weapons let alone 4 sets of armor. I am not going to worry about the ascended gear making current gear obsolete just yet – I would like to see how it goes when the update goes live. The inventory space as the game grows is a huge concern for me though. While GW1 didn’t have it, I would fully support a armor/weapon skin locker like we have in PvP. They could just make it so that when you earn the armor/weapon, you unlock the skin as a transmute similar to that of the HoM skins.

Comedy material, so there’s more stuff to grind for in GW2 now and you’re fine with adding more like a gear-grind?

And stop QQing about bank space please, you know… buy a few gems and unlock more bank slots – that’s how this game is supposed to be funded long term (you played GW1 – really?)

I reason I said I was “ok” with the new grind is because they already have one, so why all the QQ over another grind? I assume those QQ’ing do not care to do the legendary grind either.

Yes, I did play GW1 and I didn’t buy one extra bank slot. I bought the cosmetic things though. Did you play GW1? You would know they gave plenty of extra bank slots for free. There were 7 total and a material storage in GW1. I didn’t buy any extra slots and still had free space 7 years later. Can’t say that much for GW2 currently. I have a feeling that even after buying the FINITE number of extra slots, I would still run out of room.

Starfleck.8392:

Creslin.1758:

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

Ok I have to agree with you on this point, Creslin. It makes sense to be acquiring rare loot over time as it is not an unreasonable amount of time, with the understanding that there are multiple ways of collecting them, as we have seen said about getting them through dungeons, drops, and WvW collectively. It’s not going back on their words, per-say, until you get to the point where you realize that that “old normal” doesn’t match the “new normal”, and that the “old” parts of the game are going to be increasingly easy and un-challenging compared to the “new” parts. This isn’t a proper remedy to the boringness of the game, but quite on the contrary it is creating a smaller portion of the game that is actually fun (read: challenging)

If it had just been a content update, with new harder gameplay, that would have been extremely fun. People rise to the challenge.

The problem lies in the fact that there’s any item progression at all, which is the opposite of what they did right with GW1. Highest-end items in GW1 have the same EXACT base stat as the most common of common items, and just the “bonus” stats change, enough so that it’s worth it, but still, to a smaller degree.

The fact is, GW1 players wanted to play GW1 because of that basic difference, and they weren’t inclined to go play some other MMO where gear progression was already available. GW1 died out because it was OLD, not because it didn’t work right.

Well on the idea of content being easier…let’s see how it works out first.

Right now, I am playing an Engy alt that is level 79, has blue level 60 gear, and 3 pieces of it are broken because I don’t want to pay repair or get new gear until he is 80. Yet despite my crappy gear situation, I am still doing alright in PvE and can take like 3 mobs at once without a problem.

If my engy, in his broken down, under-level gear can take on multiple mobs…I don’t really see how a fairly minor stat increase from exotic -> Ascended is all of a sudden going to make the game easy mode. The spinny dude and the big gravelings in AC will probably still kill you in one spin.

My point is that it isn’t going to be like Diablo where you go from getting one-shotted by a trash mob, to one shotting 20 at a time. Right now, we don’t see an absolutely massive power increase from rare -> exotic, so I don’t see why we would see one from exotic -> Ascended.

So long as they don’t keep adding more tiers with better stats…all should be well.

bluejay.6739:

In case someone is using a text parser to total the sentiment in this thread, I want to add that..

I AM COMPLETELY FOR THE ADDED GEAR TIER.

It will give me something else to work for. If the game’s difficulty and rewards don’t increase over time what point is there to continuing to play?

I understand you probably mean this to be rhetorical, but the answer is fun.

You play because the gameplay experiences are fun, not for what shiny rewards they bring. That is highlighted in Anet manifesto and other interviews for years now. It’s been a really awesome thing to see from the company that makes many of us think very highly of them.

WVW is fun, it doesn’t really give any rewards, but the experience is fun. The same goes for all other aspects. PVP, PVE, crafting, exploring, roleplaying, etc.

Vorch.2985:

Strang.8170:

Untouch.2541:

Every increasing tier has better stats than the other (except legendary).
They probably thought to keep up the tradition.

Which is exactly the thing we protest against.

If they keep on introducing new tiers with better stats, we´re in the treadmill.

If they stop with this tier, then what was the point of increasing stats from exotics in the first place?

To provide something between Exotics and Legendary gear to strive for that’s more powerful than Exotics and less grindy than legendary.

That statement does nothing to explain the stat upgrade for Ascended. It was stated time and again that Legendaries will be cosmetic only. People still strove for legendaries, based solely on pretty pixels. I question how a gear grind equates to higher profits, since the BLTP doesn’t contain Legendary or Ascended armor skins. If Anet wants to make money then they need to offer unique, valuable cosmetic items on the BLTP. Other games offer unique mounts, mobile banks, vendors etc. on their cash shops, Anet has yet to offer any “must have” items.

I still no find a reason why is needed a new gear tier for filling the gap from exotic and legendary if they have same stats as we all know…
So i don’t want legendary cause it’s so grindy and don’t like skins but now I must grind for a new tier even if I don’t want legendary cause they create and fill the gap in one patch…
This is madness, place explain this…

I’m adding my voice to those who’ve already expressed their displeasure, their disapproval, and indignation at the introduction of the gear treadmill.

I would also like to express my displeasure with agony as a “difficulty” mechanic. Resistance gear is a poor way of challenging players.

Caran.3217:

xtorma.1283:

Doesn’t really matter. You will either stop playing or keep playing. They have already made the decision that it will not impact them negatively finacially. Thier hope is that it will bring in more people, keep some people who would have left from leaving, and that will offset those that leave.

I am sure they knew that there would be a level of dissent. I am sure they surmised that they would lose players. I am sure they took all this into account and decided that the ones they throw under the bus would not impact thier bottomline as much as sticking to thier original plan.

If you are disappointed and quit, they don’t really care, you have already been factored in and accounted for.

Hahaha, yes sure thing because they’re so wise and can’t make massive mistakes. Flip back a page or two and find the post with the link to the LotRO Devs admitting total failure with a new game concept/mechanic, after they lost a lot of their playerbase and had to go F2P. So much for ‘accounting for’ lmao.

Except this game is already F2P?

bluejay.6739:

In case someone is using a text parser to total the sentiment in this thread, I want to add that..

I AM COMPLETELY FOR THE ADDED GEAR TIER.

It will give me something else to work for. If the game’s difficulty and rewards don’t increase over time what point is there to continuing to play?

You know… errr… FUN?! Ok, that depends on the game mechanic, but it works. Their are many games using that method. Shocking, I know…

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

Curtis.1562:

Honestly didn’t read even 10% of this thread, but I for one am glad they’re adding new armor and a new/harder dungeon. I’m maxed out in PvE and haven’t had much to do except build up gold(yes, I have EVERY dungeon skin.) It’d be nice to having something to strive for again. This new dungeon scaling in difficulty may be the best thing they’ve added. The current dungeons are too easy with a good group. Most paths you can clear within 30 minutes without even trying. You can clear the CoF paths in 9-15 minutes each. I say, “Bring on progression and harder content!”

But wouldn’t you agree that there is no reason for this to impact WVW? It’s great that your gameplay is being enhanced, but these changes hurt my gameplay.

As someone that plays 8 chars and wants to WVW in all of them, these changes make it that much more grindy to enjoy my play. I simply want to cap my stats with exotics and forget about gear entirely.

The compromise is to give people like you who enjoy pve dungeons and character gear progression something while not impacting players that only pve for WVW. These changes don’t do this.

right but thats never what WvW was sapost to be, WVW was always ment to be a place were PVE and gear have an afect and as you grow in PVE you grow in WVW and vise versa

It’s also the spiritual successor of games like daoc and the only way to replicate that “open world, roaming around 8 man/gank squad experience”. It’s an unfortunate side effect that it requires pve. If there were persistent, instanced pvp areas for large scale conflicts using the pvp gear, I’d be all for that.

Since there isn’t, many of us WVWers just do a minimum of pve to get maxed stat gear and don’t look back. Adding another tier of stat gear just makes this a more time consuming process to “get to the fun part”.

Kriton.5402:

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Well, you are wrong. That happens if someone is just reading one quote instead some more:

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

(…)When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc. (…)

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun! (…)

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.

The idea behind it is crystal clear. Play semantics as long as you will, but they have broken their own design and at least my faith in this studio.

Still not seeing it.

If gear progression is the antithesis of GW2, then answer me…why does exotic gear exist? Why does rare gear exist? Gear progression is ALREADY IN GW2. There is really no disputing this.

All their statements mean is that gear that takes an extremely long amount of time to acquire (Legendaries) should not offer a statistical advantage, and that people should play the game for fun and not to chase carrot after carrot…and I agree with them completely. Nowhere in their statements do they say that gear progression will not be part of GW2. And I mean, this should be obvious considering that it IS a part of GW2 already.

Finally, for argument’s sake, I would like to ask…would you have a problem with Ascended items if they are only marginally more difficult to acquire than exotics? And if so, then why don’t you have a problem with exotics, or even rares?

Snerf.1650:

xtorma.1283:

Snerf.1650:

Polluxor.5970:

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

I would really like to know the reason for this.

This is the real question that most people are missing. Everything is superfluous except this question.

All they need to do to fix this kerfuffle is change the plan and make ascended and legendary items exactly the same stat-wise as exotics.

Stick infusions on ascended items and keep legendaries just for looks.

Boom. Problem solved!

This is assuming that they believe they have a problem. I don’t think they believe this will impact them in a meaningful way.

And I think that ignoring an enormous player outcry and going back on years of design principal is a pretty big deal. Many other players do to.

It’s a very big deal to go back on 7 years of ArenaNet design principles a scant few months into the release of this game.

Guild Wars games have never been and were advertised as being not about gear or levels, but player skill and builds.

Moving in this direction is a huge change of course and betrays the very aspects of design that led many of us to the company and the game.

I think he has a point. They don’t believe they have a problem. I expect they are very angry at us for not appreciating the cleverness and beauty of their solution.

There is no real way they are going to see the problem until it is way way too late. They could ring the bioware devs and ask how the “our customers are whiny idiots” attitude worked out for them though – well the ones still with jobs anyway.

Well, it seems like haters gonna hate, one more time.

Seriously guys, what are we going to have friday?

-new pvp map
-new pve map
-new dungeon
-new stuff (seems like this is the problem isn’t it?)

Well 2 points seems to be a problem :

1) that new stuff that you have to have to do that new dungeon
2) Anet dared to make something we weren’t expecting.

Let’s begin with 1 )
Only rings and back item are coming now. So basically, i still have a masterpiece rarity back item, so i’m glad i’ll be able to have a better one. Concerning rings….come on, it’s really so terrible to have to change 2 rings now?

Then, you need this stuff to do the dungeon? Ok let’s look at it.
That dungeon is 3x 3 “smaller dungeon”. Ok, so basically, the first 3 will be done without the stuff, since you need to drop it.
The 3 next may certainly be the same.
Come the 3 last where you may need these infusions. Come on, if 3 items with infusion are enough ( that means 8 items without it) to do this last part, then my finger tell me it’s not gonna be that hard right now.
Where is the problem?

Grind? come one, how many thread could we see until 1 week ago saying " omg i can just grind, that’s so boring, i hate risen i want a new map, i find that armors are ugly i want some new ones …). Wait, grind? omg i will have to get 3 new items ! (1 even will be crafted with the mystic forge….).

But that’s only 3 kittening items ! the rest will progressively come with other updateS.

Running after some new stuff? come on you blind bots, that’s a new rarity king. Does it look like wow? do you have to grind that new item to be able to do another dungeon to get an even better event to make another….. ?
No you just have to get 3 items so please, don’t come crying about that, it’s not even near to what wow or other clones are like.

Concerning 2)….

Well, once my mother told me we would go to new york for summer hollidays. Then, they said : sorry, we can’t do that in fact, we’ll go somewhere else.

What did i answer?

Kitten you ! you kittening kitten i wanna go in NewYork you kitten ! ?

No.

Did i say : kitten you ! i can’t trust you anymore, you’re a kittening kitten liar I hate you i won’t speak to you anymore!

No.

I said Ok, i’m sad but i can understand.

You guys are crying river over something like that? they add another rarity and so it’s going to be hell in tyria?

Come one, if you’re that stupid, just live, i’ll be happy like loads of others.

Don’t just say that same as others, try to understand.

TL DR :

skritts are smarter the more numerous they are, gw2 players aren’t skritts, obviously.

Creslin.1758:

Still not seeing it.

If gear progression is the antithesis of GW2, then answer me…why does exotic gear exist? Why does rare gear exist? Gear progression is ALREADY IN GW2. There is really no disputing this.

White gear is for level 1-5. Blue for 5-30, green for 30-65, rare for 65-79 and exotics for 80. Playing with rares at level 80 is like playing with lower level gear you still didn’t replace.

Spending my money/karma to buy a rare set at level 79 is myself doing some informed (but probably foolish) decision about spending my money in something I know I’ll have to replace soon. Buy a brand new exotic set using gold and karma to have a secondary build last week is myself getting punished for trusting that ArenaNet wouldn’t just obsolete all my gear with a stupid gear treadmill.

This will be treated like any other negative feedback before it:
They will ignore it until people stop caring or quit in frustration.
In any case, it won’t change anymore – that much is for certain. They are far too stubborn to go back on an idea like this (Or they are unable to because they are being pressured in some way).

Creslin.1758:

Finally, for argument’s sake, I would like to ask…would you have a problem with Ascended items if they are only marginally more difficult to acquire than exotics? And if so, then why don’t you have a problem with exotics, or even rares?

I do not mind the difficulty. I do have a problem that they have told us, that there would be a plateau of gear. Adding another tier points to a treadmill (regardless how easy to obtain). I thought I would get a game I could play for fun (mechanics) not gear.

Chris Whiteside’s post on ascended gear is somewhat reassuring, but I don’t trust that Anet will deliver on their promise until after they’ve added all these ascended pieces.

I’m probably going to skip acquiring any ascended armor for as long as I am able too, though with PUG’s that’ll probably be difficult.

I’m not interested in this new dungeon, since there isn’t much lore available except that it takes place in the Mists.

Also: The people who want yet another armor tier are just going to start whining again once they’ve gotten this one. I wish Anet would stick to their promise of more horizontal progression and less junk we need to collect in order to be viable.

The few people I know who quit were all WOW junkies and were looking for a WOW-replacement. This is Guild Wars. It should stay that way. GW2 may be a different game but it’s no kittening, blasted World of Warcraft. It used to be a better game, hopefully it will continue to have it’s own unique identity and not just because of aesthetics. They should be working on more areas to explore and more complex and diverse Dynamic Events. This gear is just a small fix to silence the few complainers that love gaining an edge over people and don’t really enjoy Guild Wars (2) as it should be.

Creslin.1758:

Kriton.5402:

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Well, you are wrong. That happens if someone is just reading one quote instead some more:

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

(…)When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc. (…)

If we chose fun as our main metric for tracking success, can we flip the core paradigm and make design decisions based on what we’d like to play as game players? Can we focus our time on making meaningful and impactful content, rather than filler content meant to draw out the experience? Can we make something so much fun you might want to play it multiple times because it’s fun, rather than making you do it because the game says you have to? It’s how we played games while growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I played Quest for Glory; the game didn’t give me 25 daily quests I needed to log in and do—I played it multiple times because it was fun! (…)

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.

The idea behind it is crystal clear. Play semantics as long as you will, but they have broken their own design and at least my faith in this studio.

Still not seeing it.

If gear progression is the antithesis of GW2, then answer me…why does exotic gear exist? Why does rare gear exist? Gear progression is ALREADY IN GW2. There is really no disputing this.

All their statements mean is that gear that takes an extremely long amount of time to acquire (Legendaries) should not offer a statistical advantage, and that people should play the game for fun and not to chase carrot after carrot…and I agree with them completely. Nowhere in their statements do they say that gear progression will not be part of GW2. And I mean, this should be obvious considering that it IS a part of GW2 already.

Finally, for argument’s sake, I would like to ask…would you have a problem with Ascended items if they are only marginally more difficult to acquire than exotics? And if so, then why don’t you have a problem with exotics, or even rares?

The idea was that while gear and level progression exists during the 1-79 process, once you hit max level it was by design to be easy to acquire max gear.

At that point, you switch over from vertical progression to horizontal progression.

That means changing rewards from stat increases to, build variety, titles, vanity, etc.

The draw of the Guild Wars system since GW1 was that once you max out stats, that’s it. You no longer have to worry about it, even if you come back months or years later. You can spend time and energy getting rare looking items or other neat things, but that stats would not be a barrier to gameplay.

Creslin.1758:

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

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

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Yep…a forum equivalent of a full-blown torches and pitchforks mob here at this point, and reason has gone out the window for most people.

But for anyone who is still thinking…

Please just give the patch a chance. It may turn out that Ascended gear is not that much of a pain to get, and thus no promises were broken, and everything is fine. On the other hand, it main turn out that Ascended gear requires a massive grind to get, and at that point, I will join you with your pitchforks.

But let’s at least give ANet the benefit of the doubt for now. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

It’s not about this patch, it’s about the change in game design philosophy. Who can guarantee us this is the last stat gear upgrade before the expansion/level cap increase? Do you believe someone who fooled you once? You might but I don’t.

I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time now and heard so many promises from the developers I’d be a millionaire if someone gave me 1$ for each and every one of them.

Did they not also say that Legendary Gear will always be the highest statted equipment in the game and that in the future, all legendary gear, including the weapons now that are still the same stats as exotics will get a boost as the final stats available on any given equipment?

If that is the case, i would imagine that maybe they will upscale all current exotic gear to match the stats of ascended gear once it is implemented.

stof.9341:

Creslin.1758:

Still not seeing it.

If gear progression is the antithesis of GW2, then answer me…why does exotic gear exist? Why does rare gear exist? Gear progression is ALREADY IN GW2. There is really no disputing this.

White gear is for level 1-5. Blue for 5-30, green for 30-65, rare for 65-79 and exotics for 80. Playing with rares at level 80 is like playing with lower level gear you still didn’t replace.

Spending my money/karma to buy a rare set at level 79 is myself doing some informed decision about spending my money in something I know I’ll have to replace soon. Buy a brand new exotic set using gold and karma to have a secondary build last week is myself getting punished for trusting that ArenaNet wouldn’t just obsolete all my gear with a stupid gear treadmill.

Actually all those gear tiers exist for level 80, and it’s not too uncommon to deck yourself out in greens (or even blues) right when you hit 80 if you are strapped for cash. Even full rares can cost you a few gold (especially the jewelry). And full exotics can take more casual or WvW oriented players over a month to achieve…even if hardcores can get them much faster.

You may choose not to see it, but there IS gear progression at 80. If there wasn’t, then there would just be one gear quality, and that’s it. So long as Ascended gear does not take a ridiculous amount of time to achieve, then I see no real problem.

PeerlessArch.6547:

Did they not also say that Legendary Gear will always be the highest statted equipment in the game and that in the future, all legendary gear, including the weapons now that are still the same stats as exotics will get a boost as the final stats available on any given equipment?

If that is the case, i would imagine that maybe they will upscale all current exotic gear to match the stats of ascended gear once it is implemented.

They are up-scaling Legendary to match Ascended, but leaving Exotic as it is.

Nerth.3940:

Creslin.1758:

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

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

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Yep…a forum equivalent of a full-blown torches and pitchforks mob here at this point, and reason has gone out the window for most people.

But for anyone who is still thinking…

Please just give the patch a chance. It may turn out that Ascended gear is not that much of a pain to get, and thus no promises were broken, and everything is fine. On the other hand, it main turn out that Ascended gear requires a massive grind to get, and at that point, I will join you with your pitchforks.

But let’s at least give ANet the benefit of the doubt for now. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

It’s not about this patch, it’s about the change in game design philosophy. Who can guarantee us this is the last stat gear upgrade before the expansion/level cap increase? Do you believe someone who fooled you once? You might but I don’t.

I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time now and heard so many promises from the developers I’d be a millionaire if someone gave me 1$ for each and every one of them.

Can you point me towards a quote where ANet promised to never add a new gear tier to the game?

My latest goal in game has been to upgrade my accessories to exotic.
So far I had only managed to get my rings and backpack to top of the line levels.
Figures that this is exactly the gear that the new patch will be replacing. FML :/

Why did I even bother spending 5g on a guild backpack? Why did I waste my ectos on crafting exotic rings and jewels? Its all obsolete now and I am feeling very discouraged.

Creslin.1758:

You may choose not to see it, but there IS gear progression at 80. If there wasn’t, then there would just be one gear quality, and that’s it. So long as Ascended gear does not take a ridiculous amount of time to achieve, then I see no real problem.

What part of the “informed decision” did you fail to read? Anybody that spends money at level 80 for some green was doing it knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t the best. Also, buying non exotic level 80 gear should probably be considered stupid because it’s far more expensive to reskin :p

So long as the existence of Ascended gear means I dropped 250k karma and 15g down the drain into planed obsolescence exotics without any warning, I’ll be complaining.

Kriton.5402:

Creslin.1758:

Finally, for argument’s sake, I would like to ask…would you have a problem with Ascended items if they are only marginally more difficult to acquire than exotics? And if so, then why don’t you have a problem with exotics, or even rares?

I do not mind the difficulty. I do have a problem that they have told us, that there would be a plateau of gear. Adding another tier points to a treadmill (regardless how easy to obtain). I thought I would get a game I could play for fun (mechanics) not gear.

They actually never said this. People are just misinterpreting what Colin said. He said that gear that takes an unreasonable amount of time to achieve should not offer statistical advantage.

Creslin.1758:

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

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.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

Fair enough. Though, the way they had it set up, with exotics at the top on release and legendaries matching those stats, in addition to not announcing “there will be one more tier” until 2 months after the game came out is still, at the very least, misleading. If I had known there was going to be another higher tier that would be attainable without exotics just a few weeks away in the future, I would not have spent all that time getting exotics.

Personally, I don’t even understand why they need to introduce another tier at 80. Just make a new dungeon that give new skins, have the current legendaries as hard to obtain as they are now, and make new “legendaries” with other skins that are easier to obtain as well. So the current legendaries would be the FOW armor equivalent, and the new stuff is like Vabbi, etc. Why do they feel the need to increase the stats, even if they’re negligible? Let us infuse our current exotic armor to add the ascended protection mechanic, and just leave the numbers alone.

Why do they need to increase the numbers? If this is the final tier, like they say, it won’t appease the gear progression crowd. It just serves to piss off those of us who were led to believe we were going to keep the current tier of exotics until the next expansion, at least.