Guild Wars 2

Malevil.2104:

Shilian.5873:

Guys you forgot something essential:

The gap between exo/ascen is MINIMAL, so not a MUST for WvW or anything, just for the new dungeon, and guess what? you will get the gear while progressing trough it.

Too much fap guys, no reason to go mad.

I dont consider 8% difference minimal , its quite enough to be difference in small scale fight in WsW.

yes , it IS minimal , even if YOU dont consider it minimal , but the fact remains that hitting for 30 extra per swing and having 110 more hp isnt going to make one dam bit of difference im sorry , still, i think its a good idea to just add infusion slots , or let crafters add them to the rest of the lvl 80 exotics that way , people DONT HAVE to grind the ascended gear and could just slot/infuse their existing exotics to their liking,

that way we all get content and no one has a bigger stat weiner than the next guy and its still just about look

but alas, i think people are way way waaaaay overreacting over something that is so minor , that it can be offset with foodbuffs

Creslin.1758:

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

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

Of course you have to have the will to read what was meant (reading a little bit between the lines) and taking care of the many things they have told us in the past years during development.

stof.9341:

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.

Yeah I can see being annoyed that we wasted money and resources on exotics. My hope is that they somehow include exotics in either the path to get Ascended gear, or allow you to refund your exotics somehow. Because like you, I would not have wasted money on exotics if I knew I would just have to waste more on Ascended later.

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.

I do agree you shouldn’t have to do PvE if you’re only interested in WvWvW. I believe they’ll add an ascended gear tier to WvW rewards. If they changed WvWvW so you started with max gear/max traits/max stats, they would have to remove the PvE reward element from it(karma, EXP, gold, drops) which would make other players mad. I don’t think ascended gear will be extremely difficult to obtain either way, it just may take a week or two to get a full set(once they implement it all.) Right now, it seems most people pretty much ding into a full set of exotics once they hit 80. If I really wanted to just do WvWvW and have max stat gear, I’d start saving tokens now to buy items the moment they’re released.

Creslin.1758:

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.

This is the reasoning people took :
- gear that takes an unreasonable amount of time to achieve (Legendaries) should not offer statistical advantages
- legendary stats = exotic stats
- legendaries are the BiS possible items

Ergo, exotics are the BiS possible items. That reasoning isn’t difficult to understand. In fact, they have to upgrade the legendary stats to make their treadmill plan work.

Creslin.1758:

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.

Read the blogpost I have quoted. It is much more clear than the quote of Colin.

Dutch Master.7208:

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.

I plan on doing the same thing and here’s why – I don’t plan on getting ascended gear right away if at all because I don’t run dungeons due to lack of activity in my guild. Yeah, I may be weaker in WvW (even though Chris said they will be adding ascended gear in WvW at some point), but honestly for WvW, at least in my case, I’ve gotten stomped when I was not with a zerg and got ganked by a mob from the opposing team while wondering around alone for map completion. I can still do non dungeon PvE things fine with my exotics. I also try not to go to the TP for my crafted exotics, so I can save gold.

Creslin.1758:

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?

You’re missing the point.

The fact is that this is a departure from the Anet design philosophy.

They stated that gear and stats weren’t going to be the focus and 3 months into the game are adding a new tier above the previous max that will require us to completely re-gear every character we play. They flat out just stated that “This is only the beginning” of a new gear progression model.

The design of Guild wars games over the last 7 or so years has been one that openly shuns gear progression. You can log in GW1 today and use the same max stat gear that you got when the game was released years and years ago. That’s the design principle that we are upset that they are departing from.

If they are changing course, that’s their prerogative. I understand that. If that is the case though, I wish they would just say that. And if it isn’t their intention, all they have to do is change this update to reduce ascended gear to exotic stats, while leaving legendary also the same stat-wise as exotic.

Lothair.8942:

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

What a crock of kitten. Way to mislead your player base with rhetoric and now back peddling in the latest statements. If I had known this 5 months ago, I wouldn’t have bought this game in the first place. I was lied to and gaining the trust back of your customer base is one of the hardest things to do.

Having the expectation of no vertical gear based progression just like in the original Guild Wars was cemented in my mind by reading the manifesto prior to buying this game. I’m furious that they are doing a bait-and-switch on me. The lack of what they are introducing was the selling point for me.

Had I know that what is about to happen with this patch prior to purchase I would not have bought this game and all those gems, spent countless hours playing, or recommended this game to my friends.

I would have been happy to have stayed in TSW but for the genre. How much further along would I have been if I had spent my gaming hours and dollars there instead of here. It looks more and more like I’ll only be happy in GW1 or TSW, but I’m so infuriated at being lied to I may just stick with non-ANet product.

I’m not spending one more dime here if this vertical gear progression goes live!

Good article on tentonhammer: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/honest-discussion-about-ascended-gear

“But, I think what we as a community of outraged players want to hear from them say something along these lines:

“Ascended Gear will be best in slot for the lifecycle of the game. We needed to fill a gap we left in our original design while introducing the infusion mechanic we used in GW1. Ascended gear allows us to do that, and hopefully solve many problems for a slight pain to current players.”

If I had that once piece of confirmation, I would be set."

If it was true and came from Anet, I agree this would assuage most of the population.

wintermute.4096:

so the real question is: do we want numerical progression at all? Why introduce it now? After reading his reply, the original question is left unanswered.

^This.

I’m yet to see a proper answer to: why do we need ascended gear to have better stats than exotics / legendaries have nowadays?

There’s a few ways they could address that stat gap to keep Exotic viable.

a.) L80 Runes/Sigils/Jewels that Ascended Quality items cannot equip. Thus ensuring that Ascended gear has a smaller statistical advantage but trades off the utility and customization of runes/sigils much like the medallions that drop now do.

b.) Make Ascended Gear accessible by all forms of gameplay – Crafting, WvW, and PvE. So that the investment made to get the gear is proportional from the stat gain. For example if it’s 10% better, it takes 10% more badges in WvW or 10% increase in time/cost to gather mats in crafting.

c.) A fairly accessible manner in which exotic gear can become ‘upgraded’ to Ascended. For example this would actually be sensible use of the forge. Put in exotic item, ascended upgrade item, skill point item, wine would return the same item back just increased to Ascended value.

Luigio.3265:

yes , it IS minimal , even if YOU dont consider it minimal

No, it is NOT minimal, even if YOU consider it minimal. See? Can do that, too.
Take a look at the percentages, ask a raider if it is minimal or not, come back…

I really dont understand why the devs are doing this step, they really can do a lot of thing with the fractal dungeon, infusion and agony, without force us to collect a new tier of items with different stats, make gear and runes useless, broke the manifesto and lose their credibility.

This ascent gear is not necessary! the new stats arent necessary too ! they can simply let us infuse our actual gears! and instead of a new tier, they can let the mob drops the exotics set that we miss on vendors with different skins too, and create different recipes to create not only infusion upgrade, but infusion slot too!

so we dont miss our actual items, we dont miss our runes,we can continue to play as always, but we can enjoy as well the new type of gameplay.

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.

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?

A couple of things.

They are adding this because they say some people hit a wall in character progression.
Q: How is adding a new gear tier will stop them from hitting the “new wall”?
Q: After people hitting a new wall and become bored how are they going to solve the boredom those players feel from having no character progression?
Q: If the above question has an answer other than adding higher stats gear, why not applying it now?

Yes, some people had problems with master work, rares, exotic business.
They ignored it because getting the exotics proved to be not very hard and obtainable by several methods.
Still Anet already increased dungeon rewards and Karma gains via Jugs of Liquid Karma.
Now Anet is adding a new tier that will be harder to obtain – their words.
In fact, they will spread the release of the full item tier to give time for people to obtain them.

The sad part is the players that don’t care about higher stats will be the ones playing GW2, the ones that care about the stats don’t care so much about the stats but the exclusiveness of those items.

Maybe that will be the next change in GW2.

Snerf.1650:

You’re missing the point.

The fact is that this is a departure from the Anet design philosophy.

They stated that gear and stats weren’t going to be the focus and 3 months into the game are adding a new tier above the previous max that will require us to completely re-gear every character we play. They flat out just stated that “This is only the beginning” of a new gear progression model.

The design of Guild wars games over the last 7 or so years has been one that openly shuns gear progression. You can log in GW1 today and use the same max stat gear that you got when the game was released years and years ago. That’s the design principle that we are upset that they are departing from.

If they are changing course, that’s their prerogative. I understand that. If that is the case though, I wish they would just say that. And if it isn’t their intention, all they have to do is change this update to reduce ascended gear to exotic stats, while leaving legendary also the same stat-wise as exotic.

Thank you – I could not have explained it any better. I wholeheartly agree with you.

I lost a lot of interest in the game by reading about the introduction of stats inflation, raising the power-cap (for no good reason, just to have higher numbers because apparently people can only ‘feel’ progression if they did 100k damage).

Not to mention I lost respect and trust for the game designers.

I can’t tell them how to make their game, but they have to make a decision and stick to it. A few years from now, is the game going to be based on horizontal progression or is it going to be a vertical progression?

There is camp for both sides and I understand both arguments, but you can’t have both in the same game.

I personally will not have part in a vertical item progression with stats inflation. It’s not what I play a game for. If this is the path of GW2 I will simply uninstall and move on. There doesn’t have to be any drama. I just need some transparency from the game developers.

I thought the manifesto and pre-release statements were very clear they will stick to horizontal progression like they did in GW1. But they changed their tune now.

So what will it be Anet?
Say it straight up and I will understand and respect your decision. But please don’t lie again.

EDIT: just to be clear, my gripe is only with the increase in item stats. I don’t care about infusion or other mechanics they add (i.e., similar to lightbringer in GW1)

Anishor.6921:

There’s a few ways they could address that stat gap to keep Exotic viable.

a.) L80 Runes/Sigils/Jewels that Ascended Quality items cannot equip. Thus ensuring that Ascended gear has a smaller statistical advantage but trades off the utility and customization of runes/sigils much like the medallions that drop now do.

I think only infusion upgrades can go into a infusion slot. I want a full set of superior runes of the ranger on my damage set of exotic armor – I don’t think Ascended gear would give me this, since from what I understand, we cannot put runes in ascended gear, only infusions. That’s not to say there won’t be “Infusion(s) of the ranger” or something. There isn’t enough information to clarify that.

Shooting from the hip, I must say I’m VERY disappointed that a new gear tier is being added.

I don’t have any quotes saying they would never add a new gear tier, so maybe I let myself be deceived. It just seemed to me, that through the manifesto, through the creed that was continually pushed by all ANET videos and blogs that this is the type of thing that GW2 would avoid. One of the things that would make it unique in the MMO space.

The lack of power creep (until now presumably) has got to be one of my favorite aspects of GW2. As a casual player with a family and full time job it gives me the freedom to try new builds and new stat allocations in practice, (not just on a target dummy) knowing that I won’t have an insane grind to get the exotics I want. It allows me to create new characters and not dread the fact that I’ll have to grind up through several levels of gear once I hit max level.

However, I’m willing to give it a shot because I love so many core concepts of GW2. I have no idea how long it will take to get the Ascended gear either, so I’m going to give this a fair shake.

Silver Chopper.4506:

I lost a lot of interest in the game by reading about the introduction of stats inflation, raising the power-cap (for no good reason, just to have higher numbers because apparently people can only ‘feel’ progression if they did 100k damage).

Not to mention I lost respect and trust for the game designers.

I can’t tell them how to make their game, but they have to make a decision and stick to it. A few years from now, is the game going to be based on horizontal progression or is it going to be a vertical progression?

There is camp for both sides and I understand both arguments, but you can’t have both in the same game.

I personally will not have part in a vertical item progression with stats inflation. It’s not what I play a game for. If this is the path of GW2 I will simply uninstall and move on. There doesn’t have to be any drama. I just need some transparency from the game developers.

I thought the manifesto and pre-release statements were very clear they will stick to horizontal progression like they did in GW1. But they changed their tune now.

So what will it be Anet?
Say it straight up and I will understand and respect your decision. But please don’t lie again.

Obviously they don’t have to stick to any statement they make.

Like politics.

they say no new taxes to get elected , and when in office raise taxes. When people scream that they broke thier promise they say…well we said no new taxes, this was an old tax that was discontinued, and now we have just reinstated it.

And people are like…oh well thats ok then….

Kriton.5402:

Creslin.1758:

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

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

Of course you have to have the will to read what was meant (reading a little bit between the lines) and taking care of the many things they have told us in the past years during development.

Read between the lines = Consider my subjective interpretation to be the author’s literal fact.

That’s what I’m saying, people are misinterpreting what he said. He just said that hardcore grinders that are willing to spend days upon days of grinding to get an uber item should not have a statistical advantage over more casual players.

He never said that gear progression is not part of the game, or that there would never be any more tiers of gear introduced.

Now for the record, I am still not too happy that my exotics will be basically second-rate after this patch…THAT sucks. And I’m sure it sucks more many other people. But as long as this is a one time thing, or at least a “less than once a year” thing…I don’t really mind that much.

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Magiofdeath.2745:

Anishor.6921:

There’s a few ways they could address that stat gap to keep Exotic viable.

a.) L80 Runes/Sigils/Jewels that Ascended Quality items cannot equip. Thus ensuring that Ascended gear has a smaller statistical advantage but trades off the utility and customization of runes/sigils much like the medallions that drop now do.

I think only infusion upgrades can go into a infusion slot. I want a full set of superior runes of the ranger on my damage set of exotic armor – I don’t think Ascended gear would give me this, since from what I understand, we cannot put runes in ascended gear, only infusions. That’s not to say there won’t be “Infusion(s) of the ranger” or something. There isn’t enough information to clarify that.

Yep, and if they added a new lvl of runes that could only go into non-ascended gear that had higher stats than they do now it would lower the gap and provide a trade off and keep the horizontal progression IMO. Of course these runes would need to be easily accessible to all playstyles.

Creslin.1758:

Kriton.5402:

Creslin.1758:

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

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

Of course you have to have the will to read what was meant (reading a little bit between the lines) and taking care of the many things they have told us in the past years during development.

Read between the lines = Consider my subjective interpretation too be the author’s literal fact.

That’s what I’m saying, people are misinterpreting what he said. He just said that hardcore grinders that are willing to spend days upon days of grinding to get an uber item should not have a statistical advantage over more casual players.

He never said that gear progression is not part of the game, or that there would never be any more tiers of gear introduced.

Now for the record, I am still not too happy that my exotics will be basically second-rate after this patch…THAT sucks. And I’m sure it sucks more many other people. But as long as this is a one time thing, or at least a “less than once a year” thing…I don’t really mind that much.

as i have said many time’s your exotics will still be more costamiable to fit your build

as Ascended can not be changed with ruins or gems or what ever go’s in there slot

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

If ascended gear was only better in the fractal dungeon, you would be correct.

However, as stated, the ascended gear is better than exotics in all forms of pve and most importantly, WVW.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

in any case,even if the new set work only for fractal runs, it forced you to make 2 sets… one for world content and one for fractals… its kinda stupid imho.
its a bad design, when the solution to keep the horizontal progression they claimend, and the new infusion mechaninc, is kinda easy.

“And legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons.”

“These legendaries weapons are really cool looking, and like we said, you won’t get a gameplay advantage out of these things, you’re just going to look really cool.”

From July 12th 2012.

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

Swoo.5079:

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.

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?

A couple of things.

They are adding this because they say some people hit a wall in character progression.
Q: How is adding a new gear tier will stop them from hitting the “new wall”?
Q: After people hitting a new wall and become bored how are they going to solve the boredom those players feel from having no character progression?
Q: If the above question has an answer other than adding higher stats gear, why not applying it now?

Yes, some people had problems with master work, rares, exotic business.
They ignored it because getting the exotics proved to be not very hard and obtainable by several methods.
Still Anet already increased dungeon rewards and Karma gains via Jugs of Liquid Karma.
Now Anet is adding a new tier that will be harder to obtain – their words.
In fact, they will spread the release of the full item tier to give time for people to obtain them.

The sad part is the players that don’t care about higher stats will be the ones playing GW2, the ones that care about the stats don’t care so much about the stats but the exclusiveness of those items.

Maybe that will be the next change in GW2.

All those questions are speculative and basically a “slippery slope” argument…we’ll just have to see what happens int he future.

Also, I am actually not happy about this change, despite the fact that my more recent posts have been defending it. But I’m not happy about it mainly because it means my exotics are second-rate, which sucks. I’m just arguing against people that are saying that ANet lied or broke their promise, or broke their heart or whatever, because all that melodramatic crap is based on a misinterpretation of Colin’s article.

So while I’m not happy about this change…I don’t think it’s a “betrayal” as some folks are trying to make it out to be.

Shayde.2564:

Godd article on tentonhammer: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/honest-discussion-about-ascended-gear

“But, I think what we as a community of outraged players want to hear from them say something along these lines:

“Ascended Gear will be best in slot for the lifecycle of the game. We needed to fill a gap we left in our original design while introducing the infusion mechanic we used in GW1. Ascended gear allows us to do that, and hopefully solve many problems for a slight pain to current players.”

If I had that once piece of confirmation, I would be set."

If it was true and came from Anet, I agree this would assuage most of the population.

Very good artical, thanks for posting it.

Unfortunalty as with most decent stuff/ideas regarding Ascended gear it will get lost and Anet will never see it.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

But you can’t just think about yourself when discussing overall design.

It does impact many other people and especially people trying to mix/max in WVW.

Shahiel.8342:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“And legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons.”

“These legendaries weapons are really cool looking, and like we said, you won’t get a gameplay advantage out of these things, you’re just going to look really cool.”

From July 12th 2012.

now there not more powerful than ascended

Creslin.1758:

Read between the lines = Consider my subjective interpretation to be the author’s literal fact.

That’s what I’m saying, people are misinterpreting what he said. He just said that hardcore grinders that are willing to spend days upon days of grinding to get an uber item should not have a statistical advantage over more casual players.

I am sorry your answer feels (no pun intended) as if you still did not read the blog but just refer to the other quote mentioned mostly in this thread before.

griffdog.3927:

I have no idea how long it will take to get the Ascended gear either, so I’m going to give this a fair shake.

Well I hope it will take an insane amount of money and time to get the ascended gear with all infusions so that progression junkies can have their field day grinding for their shinnies for a long long time. And then stats inflation will hopefully stay at bay for that time. And I also hope that infusion upgrades are based on very low chance RNG in the mystic forge so that the wow-kids can grind their life away to max out their gear (since that is the only purpose they see in the game).
Fingers crossed.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

But you can’t just think about yourself when discussing overall design.

It does impact many other people and especially people trying to mix/max in WVW.

yeah WvW isn’t about individual skill never was never will be
and as anet them self have said WvW is not ment to be 100% balanced

its a fight between severs not indaviduals If your severs have more players that go for max stat gear your sever is “better”

that said i kill people All the freaking time inWVW that have better gear than me

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Shahiel.8342:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“And legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons.”

“These legendaries weapons are really cool looking, and like we said, you won’t get a gameplay advantage out of these things, you’re just going to look really cool.”

From July 12th 2012.

now there not more powerful than ascended

Which is besides the point. Ascended are better and more difficult to get than exotics, which have been the benchmark thus far.

They added a new tier that makes the previous best in slot gear obsolete. That is antithesis to types of design decisions that they have been building for years.

Wow its funny to see a lot of people that simply ask to see what happen before comment… So following you arguments, stop a bomb that is near to explode is useless, because it may not explode at all…

good example of coherence… go go panda lovers!

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Shahiel.8342:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“And legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons.”

“These legendaries weapons are really cool looking, and like we said, you won’t get a gameplay advantage out of these things, you’re just going to look really cool.”

From July 12th 2012.

now there not more powerful than ascended

Top level exotics? Now Top level ascended? I do see a difference. That was a lie. And as many have mentioned: That is a treadmill.

vox.5019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

You can do all 9 portions of the dungeon without encountering Agony, so no it does not lock you out of content. If you wish to proceed into the higher difficulty runs, which are still the same 9 sections, then Agony will play a role, but you can still do the 9 sections.

vox.5019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

OH kitten@@@$)#$Q(Y *headdesk working as intended

the fractals are a gontlet like progression bassed new game type in the mist that you can do at any level. It dosnt lock you out. you can go in fight your hart out untell you cant fight any more Get new gear and do it all over again getting more and more gear each time

THUS being able to fight longer and longer each time. you are not locked out of jack

Im taking a break from GW2 starting tonight. The past two days have been frustrating and I have not found the desire to log in and farm anything because I know at some point in the future I will overwrite it with new gear. That in addition to feeling lied to with a bait and switch…and brushed off with the lack of attention/response our reaction has received. The only immediate attention we have received are deleted threads/posts, moved threads/posts, and unwarranted infractions.

I am frustrated with you Arenanet.

Im just taking a break for now. Against my better judgement I purchased MoP and resubbed to wow last night. I’ll play that for the next two weeks or so…I want to wait and see how this ascended nonsense shakes out. I want to see if people look for Ascended requirements for a group.

Maybe I’ll be back in a few weeks when things settle down. Maybe all of the endgame stuff that WoW now has will keep me playing and I wont feel cheated because I am expecting a treadmill there.

Kriton.5402:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Shahiel.8342:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjxvj2I_CCA

“And legendary weapons, of course, are not any more powerful than the top level exotic weapons.”

“These legendaries weapons are really cool looking, and like we said, you won’t get a gameplay advantage out of these things, you’re just going to look really cool.”

From July 12th 2012.

now there not more powerful than ascended

Top level exotics? Now Top level ascended? I do see a difference. That was a lie. And as many have mentioned: That is a treadmill.

NOT A TREADMILL

It in no way locks you out of content. GET IT RIGHT

tkalamba.2541:

You can do all 9 portions of the dungeon without encountering Agony, so no it does not lock you out of content. If you wish to proceed into the higher difficulty runs, which are still the same 9 sections, then Agony will play a role, but you can still do the 9 sections.

Tell me, from a designer point of view, why do you need better gear to get a higher difficulty? I am lost.

Shayde.2564:

Godd article on tentonhammer: http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/honest-discussion-about-ascended-gear

“But, I think what we as a community of outraged players want to hear from them say something along these lines:

“Ascended Gear will be best in slot for the lifecycle of the game. We needed to fill a gap we left in our original design while introducing the infusion mechanic we used in GW1. Ascended gear allows us to do that, and hopefully solve many problems for a slight pain to current players.”

If I had that once piece of confirmation, I would be set."

If it was true and came from Anet, I agree this would assuage most of the population.

Unfortunately I don’t think this is going to happen or else they would have said something already.. However I completely agree and am still hoping we get this confirmation.

tkalamba.2541:

vox.5019:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

It locks you out of the deeper levels of fractals and their higher rewards. Is fractals suddenly not content?

You can do all 9 portions of the dungeon without encountering Agony, so no it does not lock you out of content. If you wish to proceed into the higher difficulty runs, which are still the same 9 sections, then Agony will play a role, but you can still do the 9 sections.

Your point being? If I want to challenge the higher difficulty levels to get the best loot, I have to play the gated tiered gear WoW clone. I am locked from the groups doing those higher levels until I have grinded out the same amount of Infusion as they have.

And then when we get new content like this the mechanics change and we have to grind for new infusions all over again. It doesn’t matter if this is the last gear base stat tier, we are still running the treadmill.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

But you can’t just think about yourself when discussing overall design.

It does impact many other people and especially people trying to mix/max in WVW.

yeah WvW isn’t about individual skill never was never will be
and as anet them self have said WvW is not ment to be 100% balanced

its a fight between severs not indaviduals If your severs have more players that go for max stat gear your sever is “better”

that said i kill people All the freaking time inWVW that have better gear than me

But again, you are missing the point.

Simply put, this design decision goes counter to all previous directions of Anet Guild Wars design decisions.

Whereas previously the designers opted for almost entirely horizontal progression at max level, they are now going vertical. That’s a huge fundamental difference.

Arguing about the extent of the impact is irrelevant. We are arguing about a fundamental design shift that is a huge shift in the design direction of the game.

Whether it makes 1% or 100% of a difference, it still makes a difference and signifies a departure from the unique aspects that led many of us to make GW2 our mmo homes.

wejustlogin4skin – because we are the 99%

Creslin.1758:

Swoo.5079:

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.

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?

A couple of things.

They are adding this because they say some people hit a wall in character progression.
Q: How is adding a new gear tier will stop them from hitting the “new wall”?
Q: After people hitting a new wall and become bored how are they going to solve the boredom those players feel from having no character progression?
Q: If the above question has an answer other than adding higher stats gear, why not applying it now?

Yes, some people had problems with master work, rares, exotic business.
They ignored it because getting the exotics proved to be not very hard and obtainable by several methods.
Still Anet already increased dungeon rewards and Karma gains via Jugs of Liquid Karma.
Now Anet is adding a new tier that will be harder to obtain – their words.
In fact, they will spread the release of the full item tier to give time for people to obtain them.

The sad part is the players that don’t care about higher stats will be the ones playing GW2, the ones that care about the stats don’t care so much about the stats but the exclusiveness of those items.

Maybe that will be the next change in GW2.

All those questions are speculative and basically a “slippery slope” argument…we’ll just have to see what happens int he future.

Also, I am actually not happy about this change, despite the fact that my more recent posts have been defending it. But I’m not happy about it mainly because it means my exotics are second-rate, which sucks. I’m just arguing against people that are saying that ANet lied or broke their promise, or broke their heart or whatever, because all that melodramatic crap is based on a misinterpretation of Colin’s article.

So while I’m not happy about this change…I don’t think it’s a “betrayal” as some folks are trying to make it out to be.

I’m not being emotive though (some are).
I don’t like this direction and what they wrote points to something worse (speculation or not) – I’m not even bashing Agony and Infusion (they could do Agony and Infusion without touching gear tiers, though).

I expect MTG/LoL/DOTA evolution not Power Creep.

Creslin.1758:

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.

You are right, and I am one of those players.

I don’t play casually, I have hundreds of hours logged across multiple characters.

I play WvW and sPvP primarily. I loathe PvE. I stomached this “gear progression” BECAUSE it had an end. I still don’t have full exotics on my first level 80, and I never really cared to chase it down.

Gear progression before 11/15/12 was a finite endeavor. It existed, in the same way that level progression (read: gated content) existed… unpleasant, but at least with a well defined and promised end. Until this patch, I knew that there would come a day when I could just forget about gear and never be sub-par to anyone – anywhere – no matter how they liked to play their game. I knew I could take a break… because I have a family and a career that demand and deserve my full attention at times.

But now, that has changed. They have raised the bar (before I even got there, I might add) and they have said they plan to continue raising the bar while introducing new content that will require and reward new gear to “mitigate”.

And, as it so happens, I am no longer interested. I played WoW for a very long time, and I don’t want too anymore. WoW is an amazing game, thriving and growing, backed by a ridiculously wealthy company with throngs of die hard supporters. Alas, WoW is a game that is both designed around “gear progression”, and has perfected that model.

I don’t want to play a game with vertical progression. I don’t want gear inflation, or level cap inflation, or any of that.

I want to play a game with horizontal progression.

You can NOT choose both strategies for the same content. They promised us one, and are now changing to the other.

sPvP has horizontal progression. They’ve said they won’t change that with this new tier of gear that nobody expected. I wonder why.

They might ignore us and push it through. That’s fine, it’s their game. After that point I won’t be posting here or complaining. I won’t go badmouth them to the internet. I won’t try to hire a lawyer or get a refund.

I will just go away, and never return. I will note all company and developer names involved, and I will make sure I never involve myself in another thing they are associated with in any way whatsoever.

As it stands, I have not played the game since I found out about this. I have zero desire to do so. If this stands, I can’t imagine a reason to log in again other than perhaps say goodbye to people or let my 6 year old run around looking for flowers to pick.