Guild Wars 2

Some people were saying ArenaNet has gone full Blizzard. I find that statement to be a little wrong.

ArenaNet has gone full on Bioware, cooking up crazy ideas to kill their own game.

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

Does it really matter though?

If they are open to the idea of raising the gear ceiling once, what honestly stands in the way of them doing it again down the road with expansions?

Once you open the flood gate and state that it is not against your design principle to do it once, it becomes an easy and likely option down the road.

As mentioned many times above, new tiers of gear doesn’t even satisfy the people you think you’re pandering to. The no-sleep/employment grinding machines will polish off your new gear upgrades within 2 weeks and be back at the forums crying for more gear upgrades to gorge on.

You’ve just created a beast withan insatiable appetite that will never be happy.

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

This will work IF:

When removing the stat increase, they also remove the inherent upgrade bonus that the items use to compensate for have infusion slots instead of upgrade slots. That way, ascended items will only be relevant to dungeons that require infusions and exotic items will be the king outside of dungeons

Irrodesia.3907:

Let’s just hold ArenaNet to their word that they won’t be adding any more tiers in. That it will simply stay:

Basic>Fine>Masterwork>Rare>Exotic>Ascended>Legendary.

And let’s make sure that later on they don’t keep adding bonus stats to Ascended items.

Ascended and Legendary are going to be on the same playing field. Just like Legendary was on the same playing field as Exotics.

Does it make what they are doing right? No. I for one am still hurt about it, but they plan to go forward with this patch it seems.

The only thing I can suggest to make sure things like this don’t happen again:

• Be vocal on the forums (everyday if you want)
• Check things on Guru/Reddit
• Ask questions and try to get some communication

Let’s make sure from here on out the ONLY way we are progressing, is through content and not in gear stats.

Speaking for myself, and my family (who all play).

I will forgive them this one single additional tier, which is contradictory to their promised system, if they explain that this will in fact be a one time change.

I’ve read everything they have said multiple times. This appears to be, based on all sources, the beginning of a long “gear progression” initiative that will simply not affect sPvP.

It’s not okay. I won’t do business with a company who thinks they can deliver a Honda when I purchased a BMW, as long as they say “hey we aren’t planning on doing this every 3 months”.

Kudos to Lothair.8942. Nail, on, the, head.

Just FYI, the total viewcount of just this thread is rapidly approaching the total playerbase of MMOs like Tera, TSW etc….

Snerf.1650:

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

You are absolutely correct.

And it’s a solution many of us have suggested. It’s so simple that it can’t be a case of them not thinking about it. Which means that it was likely a very deliberate decision to include it.

Is it one that they are flexible with? I don’t know, I guess we will find out in the coming days.

This would not solve every issue people have with Ascended gear, though definitely quite a few.

People would still have to upgrade / change their gear because of the new mechanic, if the wanted to deal with Agony.
A lot of people are complaining because they invested time and effort in Exotic items being led to believe this is the top tier. I for one would not buy full Exotic set, including all weapons my character can use unless I actually use them regularly, and I would definitely not transmute everything with Fine Stones if I was lead to suspect in any way there would be a new gear tier.

I would much prefer them drop the idea completely, and if it;s too late for that: not adding any more gear type than the one planned for that update (so no Ascended gear apart from rings and back), preferably removing the stat difference as well.

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

NB: So poor show to see that the controversial news and response to hate posts are being made by anyone other than Mike. Its your baby so take responsibility.

Yep, I agree. If Ascended is the last gear tier…I can live with it. In fact, I an even understand it because Exotics were a bit too easy to get, and at least this will give ANet a lot of “reward fodder” to make their content more interesting.

But if this is just the start of a long-chain of gear tiers…I’m out. That is a treadmill…they said their wouldn’t be a treadmill so I’m going to just have to trust that for now…but we really need some reassurance here.

Nymia.3256:

I think Mike O’Brien himself needs to post on this subject.

Don’t continue throwing your subordinates under the bus, Mike.

If this decision is going to stand then you will absolutely bear the brunt of the praise/ridicule. You are the President of the company, you are the executive producer (meaning you make the final decisions) of Guild Wars 2.

“We have always taken our responsibility to players seriously with the original Guild Wars, and we will continue to do so with Guild Wars 2.” – Mike O’Brien

Here is the problem I see.

They could have stuck with their current gear progression, and just added the slots to infuse in our Exotic/Legendary gears/weapons.

Instead they treadmill it out, meaning “more grinding” even though they directly reference that is what they don’t want to do. (??)

Problem is, what is to stop them from doing it again? Nothing.

The way it’s being handled, it’s just a temporary bandaid on a wound that doesn’t heal. Hardcore players will get the new gear in a few weeks, while the rest of us have yet another tier to try for months to get, and they will need to introduce the next version of ‘Ascended gear’

It’s basically showing the exact opposite of what all of us have come to expect – that ANet is willing to instill the ‘gear treadmill’ mechanics, instead of doing something more intuitive. Thats what grinds my goat.

Honestly, the amount of difference in the stats has no bearing on the outcome. WoW has shown time and time again that 0.1% increase in stat renders all other gear ‘Moot’ in the eyes of the dungeon/raiding teams. And it just creates rifts in the community.

/sadpanda

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Conner.4702:

Xyre.5429:

Substance E.4852:

Xyre.5429:

Substance E.4852:

Xyre.5429:

Most players want some form of progression, what Anet has done is add in a specific type of high end gear built around allowing for horizontal progression. A player gets ascended gear and works on getting the infusions to be able to handle the new content. The infusions(that only ascended gear can use) allows players to deal with “Agony”, a new DoT that is specific for the new content(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infusion).

Hopefully 3 months from now we will have more new content and maybe a DoT called “Despair” where you will have to work on getting your ascended gear infused again to be able to delve deeper into the next new content….This is not hard logic to follow…and this system isnt a run of the mill system that anyone would expect for vertical progression…it is too unique, and it leans completely in the direction of what someone would expect out of a system built for horizontal progression.

Doomsayers can take their chances and assume that the A-net team is lying and that this system looks nothing like what would be expected out of a horizontal progression system…however, when what I have stated above ends up being the case, I hope you doomsayers ask yourselves if it was worth coming on the forums, making yourself look silly and being butthurt about an assumption?

no…no it wasnt..so please calm down…

You can hope all you want but you know as much as anyone else so please don’t act as though your completely baseless assumptions are any less likely than other peoples assumptions.

Like I said, be butthurt look silly, I actually sat down and said “Why would they make a system like this?…it is a weird way of getting to some form of vertical progression, but it actually makes sense for horizontal progression, and why would they blatantly lie about this being a form of new horizontal progression?”

The difference between you and I is I am erring on the side of logic and trusting their word, where you are assuming the worst and not even considering why this new system would be put in place.

No what you are is hoping that it won’t be as bad as all that. They haven’t given you a binding legal document vowing to not do vertical progression. You are just coming to that conclusion on your own and calling anyone who doesn’t agree with your “logic” butthurt apparently.

Gut instinct =/= logic. Logic is based on facts and established precedent. The precedent is that they are giving in to people who minmaxed and then complained about the lack of content and the fact is that they added in a whole new level of gear to combat the stagnation. If they truly cared about pure horizontal progression this could have easily been done by either creating an infusion system similar to GW1 as these sound so alike I can only assume that the Mursaat will be returning in some form. Or, they could have given us a new item slot that we could use to interchange an ever growing pool of infusions.

FACT: They have stated they are not going to do vertical progression
FACT: This new “need specific infusion to counter agony in new content” is a weird way to go about a form of vertical progression.
FACT: “Assuming” the worst in any situation and being butthurt over it is silly.
FACT: Get butthurt when you have the facts…

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

FACT: With out some form of Progression most People will stop playing faster.

Yeah! Just like GW1! Look how fast it died because of its lack of gear progression!

Oh wait.

Rhyaehar.9504:

Snerf.1650:

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

You are absolutely correct.

And it’s a solution many of us have suggested. It’s so simple that it can’t be a case of them not thinking about it. Which means that it was likely a very deliberate decision to include it.

Is it one that they are flexible with? I don’t know, I guess we will find out in the coming days.

This would not solve every issue people have with Ascended gear, though definitely quite a few.

People would still have to upgrade / change their gear because of the new mechanic, if the wanted to deal with Agony.
A lot of people are complaining because they invested time and effort in Exotic items being led to believe this is the top tier. I for one would not buy full Exotic set, including all weapons my character can use unless I actually use them regularly, and I would definitely not transmute everything with Fine Stones if I was lead to suspect in any way there would be a new gear tier.

I would much prefer them drop the idea completely, and if it;s too late for that: not adding any more gear type than the one planned for that update, preferably removing the stat difference as well.

Sorry, let me clarify that I agree with you. I was simply saying that taking this one simple step would diffuse a lot of the current uproar and buy them time to think about things more thoroughly.

I also saw the immediate resemblance to Radiance. My 1st thought was, “Why is ANet, a company that took great pride in being innovative and unique in the genre, suddenly going against their original designs? And why are they doing so by recycling a mechanic already used by other games which has already been showed to be a deplorable failure?”

I hate the entire idea of this ascended armor / infusion system. Maybe if they hadn’t raised the stat tier I could have accepted it (maybe, though I would still consider it a bad idea), but raising the stat tier was unnecessary and incomprehensible, especially as it goes against their own own decree.

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

Amen, my thoughts exactly, I’ll take the job as well.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Where was all this outcry of 150 pages when skill points, temple of balthazar, etc was practically continually bugged for over a month after release? I don’t get this community – there was game breaking bugs in the game for over a month after release and there wasn’t a single thread that was 150 pages worth of people complaining about that (I did complain about that because it was a problem) and now they add a new tier of gear and there’s a thread that has amassed 150 pages of outcry. This new tier seems infinitesimal to the game breaking bugs the game had for a month, and which are still present to some small degree with PS, etc. I just don’t get it – can someone please explain that to me?

Sure, most mature players expect some degree of bugs, crashes and server-related issues during the first month or two of a new release, especially one with the complexity of an mmo. These same players will be patient with a developer that is transparent, communicative and responsive to these issues. However, if said developer seemingly takes a 180 on their core design philosophy and offers little in the way of justification or explanation, players feel their good faith/trust betrayed. When players feel betrayed they get angry, form a virtual mob and spew their dissatisfaction for 150+ rage-filled pages.

At the very least, I’d like the cards laid on the table that show this is an appropriate decision. All I saw was WoW kids whining for a few weeks. Certainly not the fire and fury gathered here, and not in these numbers.

I likewise find it suspicious that this sweeping change materializes after three months. That seems sudden to abandon any hint of integrity.

chronus.1326:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

chronus.1326:

Erebus Delirium.4892:

This added layer of gear allows you to keep doing the things you have been doing and loved since launch.

Ellaborate. I don’t know how it has anything to do with things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5IUm-Dt60U
This is what we were doing in Guild Wars.

This is what you are doing in WoW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pceMK9Fxz3U

I don’t see the connection.
I think you were misinterpreting Guild Wars.
Guild Wars was a game about several different levels of fun. Not illusionarry carrot progress.

Your response to my post is nothing more than a few egregious red herrings. The only way this even relates to what I wrote is the fact that you quoted it.

But you did, however, ask me to elaborate on what fun things you have been doing in Guild Wars TWO since the beginning. You’ve been leveling up, gearing up, and exploring new content. This next patch adds more gear and more content. Sooner or later we’ll probably get more levels or pseudo-levels which constitute something of a soft-cap.

They never promised not to add new gear, and they most certainly never promised a complete lack of character progression post-80. If that was the case, I would have never bought this game. Who wants an MMO that’s all carrot and no stick? I was sold on the fact that it’s MORE carrot and LESS stick.

The funny thing is that you still don’t get it.

I don’t give a rat’s kitten about the gears. I was having the same gears through years in Guild Wars. I bought them once and kept them for years and only switched when I found a better-looking one. Gears are nothing but asthetics, parts of the “character” of your character.

Maybe you are clueless becaue you don’t know better. You don’t know anything but how to farm and grind and you have grown to like it already.

I think I can count on my ten fingers how many time I have farmed in Guild Wars. I didn1t need to. I was poor and I couldn’t afford Envoy weapons, but I never needed them and not having them didn’t make me worth any less than anyone, not even by 1%. I still did 35 out of my 50 point in HoM points, finished all four games, and completed my legendary skill hunter achivement, which was something that I was very proud of. And I have experienced and loved every… single…. aspect of the game.

So I’m sorry if your box-thinking can only allow you to see things in carrots and sticks, but the fact is that Guild Wars 2 was supposed to rescure you from that box instead of allowing you to compress it’s boundaries to the size of your box, if you get what I mean.

So I cannot blame you but I guess we can say that WoW forever doomed the mmo genre by simply existing.

I know it’s hard, but try to keep your ego out of this. You’ve now inferred that I am or ever was a WoW fan in both of your posts, then used that irrational springboard to make other (completely inaccurate) generalizations about the kind of player I am and how I lack the capacity to understand your “elevated thought processes.”

I go way, WAY back before WoW, I would dare infer my MMO roots are much deeper than yours.

Next, you’re talking about Guild Wars 1. In fact when you aren’t accusing me me of being a WoW fanatic, you’re telling me how GW2 should basically be a clone of GW1.

You really aren’t giving me an argument. You’re just trying to proclaim anyone who disagrees with you to be: 1) stupid or incapable of understanding you, 2) a WoW fan who doesn’t understand how MMOs can function differently, and 3) not up to your standards because they don’t want Guild Wars 2 to be Guild Wars 1.

Not only that, you didn’t address ANY of my points in my posts. You didn’t address my thoughts on progression post-80, how “looking cool” can be seen as insignificant, or how acquiring Ascended will somehow be so much more grindy than acquiring exotics.

Snerf.1650:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

Does it really matter though?

If they are open to the idea of raising the gear ceiling once, what honestly stands in the way of them doing it again down the road with expansions?

Once you open the flood gate and state that it is not against your design principle to do it once, it becomes an easy and likely option down the road.

I would hope that one bitten twice as shy would take hold.

Yes, your right that they should stand by the 4 years of sales cake/Manifesto/Pirates code – however if they walked too far down the road to turn back – I would take an apology and a commitment to not make the mistake again as a compromise.

Lothair.8942:

Nymia.3256:

I think Mike O’Brien himself needs to post on this subject.

Don’t continue throwing your subordinates under the bus, Mike.

If this decision is going to stand then you will absolutely bear the brunt of the praise/ridicule. You are the President of the company, you are the executive producer (meaning you make the final decisions) of Guild Wars 2.

“We have always taken our responsibility to players seriously with the original Guild Wars, and we will continue to do so with Guild Wars 2.” – Mike O’Brien

I feel they are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Something or someone is telling him that this is the right change to make – I mean, they are the professionals and they are giving him “concrete” evidence that this change is necessary for the ultimate life of the game.

This is what I want – I want them to hold off on this one change (adding infusion and new gear levels) – implement the patch, garner some good will with the customer. Take a week or so, gather feedback via different methods (e-mails, in-game pop-ups, forums), give people ALL the information and allow the majority to decide the path the future of this game goes. I know it’s asking a lot, but hell, we put a lot of faith in this company and this game. Ultimately, we the customer pay the bills – we should at least have a voice.

No, I disagree.

The “majority” shouldn’t even matter. They set out to design a product with a very specific and widely understood vision. They marketed that vision, they sold that vision, we all purchased that vision.

Changing the entire REASON for the game (because if it is a WoW clone, isn’t it just a money making ploy?) because of any “majority” opinion this early after release is a huge mistake, and implies that they never had any intention of maintaining a backbone and following through with this vision in the first place.

This isn’t a commodity item which needs to be tailored to suit the most people possible at the smallest cost.
This is an art item which needs to be held true to a vision and standard of quality.

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

Ebon.7641:

What I’m saying is that there may be ways to acquire it that won’t end up creating the same problems they did in LOTRO. I realize that they’re probably going to be drops but we know SO little about the dungeon and the new ascended system I don’t think you have the proper knowledge to assume anything about it with any degree of certainty.

Just because we don’t know for certain doesn’t mean would should just abandon all our reasoning abilities. We have this neocortex, it allows us to make associations, compare different events, find patterns in stuff. And we actually have a lot of information already given to us – as several posters above me have pointed out.

- we know Agony ticks of a percentage of your health
– the only mitigation is infusion, which can only be slotted in Ascended gear
– Ascended and infusion related items will come from the dungeon itself

Not to mention our general knowledge that making new content takes time and effort. There’s only so much Anet could have created since release (even if they started the plans for this earlier). Just look at the infusion slot itself. Its just the old upgrade slot that’s been repurposed, and the upgrades baked in. How big of a hack is that?

No, we don’t know for certain every last detail. But we know a lot – and we have reasonable bounds to know how much we can expect that is totally different than what’s come before. The probability these are just drops is very high, because our reason uncertainty about what to expect in MMOs is fairly low.

HiddenNick.7206:

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

I don’t think you would find nearly as much opposition to this idea if the impact of the gear is only felt in that dungeon. The problem is that as proposed, it would greatly impact every area of the game outside Spvp.

HiddenNick.7206:

One thing that a lot of people misunderstood – the highest gear tier is and its going to be legendary (not exotics as some of you states). Ascended gear will not change that… Or any other tier.

“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 are they planning to introduce? Gear with higher stats because the current best gear was too easy to get, meaning you’re gonna have work for it.

This is a terrible, terrible idea. I’m all for a new tier of cosmetic armor that, like Legendary, has the same stats as Exotic but looks cooler and is harder to get, but one of the biggest reasons I play Guild Wars is because there was SUPPOSED to be no stat creep. GW2 is already much worse than GW1, but at least there’s still a ceiling in sight. If I have to re-buy my armor before I’ve even managed to work out a full set of Exotics, I will be profoundly disappointed in the game.

Why couldn’t Ascended armor just be cosmetic and Infusion be something that could be done to any set of armor, like in Guild Wars 1? Infusion sucked there (whoever though it was a good idea to make us run through a mission 5 times in a row was sorely in error), but at least you didn’t have to go spend a boatload of extra time and money grinding to be able to access the next leg of the story.

ANet, please rethink this direction. Players will gladly grind for cosmetic improvements without anyone else being impacted. Stat creep just pisses everyone off.

@ phanmc.6759

I love your sig

“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

I may even change mine to be that instead

Nymia.3256:

Lothair.8942:

Nymia.3256:

I think Mike O’Brien himself needs to post on this subject.

Don’t continue throwing your subordinates under the bus, Mike.

If this decision is going to stand then you will absolutely bear the brunt of the praise/ridicule. You are the President of the company, you are the executive producer (meaning you make the final decisions) of Guild Wars 2.

“We have always taken our responsibility to players seriously with the original Guild Wars, and we will continue to do so with Guild Wars 2.” – Mike O’Brien

I feel they are stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. Something or someone is telling him that this is the right change to make – I mean, they are the professionals and they are giving him “concrete” evidence that this change is necessary for the ultimate life of the game.

This is what I want – I want them to hold off on this one change (adding infusion and new gear levels) – implement the patch, garner some good will with the customer. Take a week or so, gather feedback via different methods (e-mails, in-game pop-ups, forums), give people ALL the information and allow the majority to decide the path the future of this game goes. I know it’s asking a lot, but hell, we put a lot of faith in this company and this game. Ultimately, we the customer pay the bills – we should at least have a voice.

No, I disagree.

The “majority” shouldn’t even matter. They set out to design a product with a very specific and widely understood vision. They marketed that vision, they sold that vision, we all purchased that vision.

Changing the entire REASON for the game (because if it is a WoW clone, isn’t it just a money making ploy?) because of any “majority” opinion this early after release is a huge mistake, and implies that they never had any intention of maintaining a backbone and following through with this vision in the first place.

This isn’t a commodity item which needs to be tailored to suit the most people possible at the smallest cost.
This is an art item which needs to be held true to a vision and standard of quality.

Nymia, while ultimately I agree with you, these changes are probably going live one way or another. I would prefer having the voice of the community heard, at least we may have a chance at changing their decision – because to me, this is final.

If indeed ANET does go astray from their initial manifesto, I will take my business elsewhere. What I won’t do is sit back quietly and let this go live without letting my voice be heard one way or another.

Mian.1945:

As mentioned many times above, new tiers of gear doesn’t even satisfy the people you think you’re pandering to. The no-sleep/employment grinding machines will polish off your new gear upgrades within 2 weeks and be back at the forums crying for more gear upgrades to gorge on.

You’ve just created a beast withan insatiable appetite that will never be happy.

Not sure if this hasn’t already been posted on the forum and too drunk to check (spent this months gem money on Gin) but did they fail to see this?

http://morgaren.hubpages.com/hub/Content-Locust-How-They-Change-The-MMO-Landscape

Irrodesia.3907:

Let’s just hold ArenaNet to their word that they won’t be adding any more tiers in. That it will simply stay:

Basic>Fine>Masterwork>Rare>Exotic>Ascended>Legendary.

And let’s make sure that later on they don’t keep adding bonus stats to Ascended items.

Ascended and Legendary are going to be on the same playing field. Just like Legendary was on the same playing field as Exotics.

Does it make what they are doing right? No. I for one am still hurt about it, but they plan to go forward with this patch it seems.

The only thing I can suggest to make sure things like this don’t happen again:

• Be vocal on the forums (everyday if you want)
• Check things on Guru/Reddit
• Ask questions and try to get some communication

Let’s make sure from here on out the ONLY way we are progressing, is through content and not in gear stats.

i 100000000% agree with this.

if they’re saying that you need this new gear type in order to run the new dungeon then they’ve created their own tautological problem.

it isn’t necessary. all they have to do is create some mechanism within the dungeon that enables players to figure out how to temporarily deal with the new condition mechanic. i find this route more clever and more fun than grinding resistance gear.

there are two possible explanations as to why they would want to artificially introduce power creep into their game:

1) they feel the game is failing to retain/grow customers and that it is due to a lack of perceived character progression that can only be achieved via vertical progression schemes

2) they feel they need a new revenue-generating source because they can’t remain profitable with the current direction of the game. this means that we can expect some tie-in to the cash shop in order to acquire this gear in the future and brings up the ugly specter of “buy2win”.

whatever the reason, i wish they’d be more transparent for the reasoning behind this fundamental shift in game development philosophy.

I understand why some folks are excited about the new gear. That’s the only way they view progression, and so it’s valid for them. And I understand why they would want it in this game, as there is no subscription. So they had nothing to lose and everything to gain by asking for it. If they get it, then they don’t have to pay monthly to some other game.

What I don’t understand is why ANet gave in to them. Why not just give Exotics the slots they need for the Agony buff? Or even give a new set for the dungeon with the same Exotic stats with the Agony buff? It is seems they are trying to make the gear driven players happy. But that’s unfair to everyone who alreay had Exotics and thought they were maxed gear. That’s what we were led to believe until now.

And I was hoping that this would not flow over into PvE or WvW, but it seems that Mr. Whiteside’s post is saying that the gear will be there too. So that just makes it worse, not better, imo. It affects everyone, not just the persons doing the new dungeon. Sigh.

Why didn’t they just add new slots on our character page solely for Infusions, which only influence the new content? Hell give me a “belt” slot or something, where Infusion items go, with NO STATS, so they don’t add stat creep and call it a day. People that want to engage in the agony mechanic and infusions can … the rest of the population isn’t suddenly forced to dispose of their exotics.

Sure, gating sucks horrible, but at least it wouldn’t mean jamming another tier in and potentially winding up the treadmill. I remember this stuff from Everquest … horrible and I hated it. New expansion? Everything has bigger and better stats so you must farm it to get through the gated material. Oh … done with all that? Guess what?! New expansion with a steeper treadmill .. yaaaaay!

First time posting on the forums but I feel like I need to pitch in on this so I can be counted with the players who are unhappy about the new gear.

I, like many of you here, played the original Guild Wars from shortly after it launched and was a massive fan of the skill > gear system. It was one of my favourite aspects of the game, the special skins were more than enough to keep me coming back for more and I spent a good amount of time collecting a full set of Obsidian armour for my monk main, along with a tonne of other weapon and armour skins for all my other characters.

The fact that GW2 was going to be continuing this tradition was awesome to me, since I quickly burn out on other games that have a stat based gear progression system, I always feel like my hard work counted for nothing when a new tier is released and my old gear becomes obsolete.

It took a while to get my head around the GW2 system but once I realised that exotic was the GW2 version of ‘max armour’ I was more than happy to start working towards a full set so I could then start collecting rarer skins and then hopefully a legendary weapon or two.

The recent announcement of Ascended gear has just left me disappointed, I’d be perfectly happy with this new dungeon offering infusions which could be applied to existing exotic armour similar to how it was with the Mursaat in GW1. I’d also be happy with them just adding an extra slot to existing armour and allowing us to collect infusion ‘runes’ or something similar to slot into them.

I just don’t understand the need for gear with higher stats, the original Guild Wars managed to add 3 expansions worth of challenging content without ever raising the gear level or even the player level, is it not possible to do that again?

The thing that bugs me most is the reason for adding it.

“One of the primary design purposes for the Ascended item tier is to bridge the gap between Exotic gear (which fairly casual players can have a reasonable certainty of acquiring without too much angst) and Legendaries (which are for the hardest of hardcores). " – Linsey Murdock

“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.” – Chris Whiteside

If I understand correctly, the only ‘gap’ between exotic and legendary currently is the amount of time required to get them and the unique visuals of the legendary weapons, but the stats are exactly the same.

Why then do we need to ‘bridge the gap’ between them by boosting stats? There was never a gap there to begin with. What’s wrong with putting new and unique unique armour and weapon skins in the new dungeon with the same stats as exotics? Having this armour still shows people that you completed the dungeon, it still gives you the bragging rights, just without trivializing the effort everyone has put into getting their exotic sets.

I understand that Chris is saying this is it, this will be the max tier, and that it’s only ‘slightly better’ than exotics, but that just leaves me wondering, what’s the point?

I love you ArenaNet, I love the Guild Wars franchise and everything it stands for, I watched your manifesto a hundred times and showed it to all my friends saying ‘THIS is how you should run a games company’. This is genuinely the first time I’ve been disappointed.

I just feel like you’re listening to the wrong crowd here. I get that it’s a business and you’re in it to make money, but the people complaining about the ‘lack of progression’ are clearly in the wrong game, if I stormed into a Pizza restaurant and said ‘but I don’t like Pizza, I want Fish, what do you think they’d say to me?

Come on guys let’s stick to the original vision

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

NB: So poor show to see that the controversial news and response to hate posts are being made by anyone other than Mike. Its your baby so take responsibility.

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

Sorry, but I’m not buying it.
With the first major content update they have added higher stats to gear (and quite unnecessary too – that’s what worries me most)
AND
they will do it again. Period.
Not only is this the beginning of gear grind
but it also introduces content gating, which will quickly result in a gap in the community – there are enough examples to serve as evidence (e.g. LotRO radiance content gating)

Instead of adding all these artificial systems, they should have introduced challenge modes and rankings and nice shiny trophies (cups, ribbons, standards, statues, mini pets, whatever…) to carry around so hardcore players can show the world that they are the best.
Problem solved.

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

You’ve got the job, you’re welcome.

Have you ever read the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? It’s a kids’ book, cutesy. The basic premise is: if you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk. If you give him a glass of milk, he’ll want to take a bath. If you let him take a bath, he’ll want to take a nap… Etc. There’s the gear grinder, and the danger of giving into them. Adding something for them to grind is just going to result in them wanting more grinding. The slippery slope is usually a fallacy, but in this case to deny it is to deny the basic psychology of acquisition.

They will never be happy. There will never be enough content. That type of player’s raison d’etre is to grind through content as fast as possible and they will always need more. I’d accept ascended gear and infusions if it was “here, and no farther,” but progression and the progression-minded demand the opposite.

I do wonder if is this is less a problem with Arena Net and more to do with pressure forced onto the company by investors? I’d like to think a lot of Arena Net employees truly care about their fans and game, as displayed with the original Guild Wars.

nerdy.1962:

Come on guys let’s stick to the original vision

That vision i think is covered by pandas.

nerdy.1962:

First time posting on the forums but I feel like I need to pitch in on this so I can be counted with the players who are unhappy about the new gear.

I, like many of you here, played the original Guild Wars from shortly after it launched and was a massive fan of the skill > gear system. It was one of my favourite aspects of the game, the special skins were more than enough to keep me coming back for more and I spent a good amount of time collecting a full set of Obsidian armour for my monk main, along with a tonne of other weapon and armour skins for all my other characters.

The fact that GW2 was going to be continuing this tradition was awesome to me, since I quickly burn out on other games that have a stat based gear progression system, I always feel like my hard work counted for nothing when a new tier is released and my old gear becomes obsolete.

It took a while to get my head around the GW2 system but once I realised that exotic was the GW2 version of ‘max armour’ I was more than happy to start working towards a full set so I could then start collecting rarer skins and then hopefully a legendary weapon or two.

The recent announcement of Ascended gear has just left me disappointed, I’d be perfectly happy with this new dungeon offering infusions which could be applied to existing exotic armour similar to how it was with the Mursaat in GW1. I’d also be happy with them just adding an extra slot to existing armour and allowing us to collect infusion ‘runes’ or something similar to slot into them.

I just don’t understand the need for gear with higher stats, the original Guild Wars managed to add 3 expansions worth of challenging content without ever raising the gear level or even the player level, is it not possible to do that again?

The thing that bugs me most is the reason for adding it.

“One of the primary design purposes for the Ascended item tier is to bridge the gap between Exotic gear (which fairly casual players can have a reasonable certainty of acquiring without too much angst) and Legendaries (which are for the hardest of hardcores). " – Linsey Murdock

“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.” – Chris Whiteside

If I understand correctly, the only ‘gap’ between exotic and legendary currently is the amount of time required to get them and the unique visuals of the legendary weapons, but the stats are exactly the same.

Why then do we need to ‘bridge the gap’ between them by boosting stats? There was never a gap there to begin with. What’s wrong with putting new and unique unique armour and weapon skins in the new dungeon with the same stats as exotics? Having this armour still shows people that you completed the dungeon, it still gives you the bragging rights, just without trivializing the effort everyone has put into getting their exotic sets.

I understand that Chris is saying this is it, this will be the max tier, and that it’s only ‘slightly better’ than exotics, but that just leaves me wondering, what’s the point?

I love you ArenaNet, I love the Guild Wars franchise and everything it stands for, I watched your manifesto a hundred times and showed it to all my friends saying ‘THIS is how you should run a games company’. This is genuinely the first time I’ve been disappointed.

I just feel like you’re listening to the wrong crowd here. I get that it’s a business and you’re in it to make money, but the people complaining about the ‘lack of progression’ are clearly in the wrong game, if I stormed into a Pizza restaurant and said ‘but I don’t like Pizza, I want Fish, what do you think they’d say to me?

Come on guys let’s stick to the original vision

This was a great post, I really appreciate you sharing this and agree with just about everything you said. Thank you.

In a near future on your LA chat:

[18:53:21] [M] Wowcrybaby: LFM FotM path 3 / Must have infuse level (ilvl) 50+ (pls link gear in whisper)

When I bought this game I was told this is a skill based game in PVP aswell as PVE and that you could easily obtain the best gear in the game in order to tackle all the game has to offer. Guess I was told a lie.

Well I decided to post a complaint to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) given the contradiction between these sources:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success/

and

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear

Key differences that I could see:

June 2012: The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game… those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.

and

November 2012: Ascended gear has Infusion slots, and rarer versions of the items also come with additional Agony Resistance built into them.

June 2012: We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills

and

November 2012: The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.

I bought this game under the distinct impression that I could get to max level/equipment, then play how I wanted to (which may itself include periods of not playing – I work full time and have other games to play). I have only 1 level 80 character, approximately 70% exotics and was working on the rest (with the rest currently including jewellery so at the moment I’m not strictly speaking affected, but the effect of this update is to make me very angry at the future prospects). I had also decided to perhaps start levelling some alternate characters, and when those character slots are all full to perhaps have bought more over the coming years, along with expansion packs etc.

Depending on the outcome I’m not sure I will bother, after all, I still have many games in my library that I haven’t even touched yet. I can just as easily abandon this game as ANet has abandoned their principles.

It bears repeating, even though I and many others have said it already:

This is the first content update.

Jestunhi.7429:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

NB: So poor show to see that the controversial news and response to hate posts are being made by anyone other than Mike. Its your baby so take responsibility.

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

how do you know theres a “NEW” target for the game????. what if ascendeds are there way of setting up for a more logically sustainable method of fufilling the original models purpose?

Nexrex.8273:

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

Amen, my thoughts exactly, I’ll take the job as well.

And i wouldn’t pay either of you for that fail job! Exotic gear is still made obsolete, wasted utterly. Hint: Other posters are more qualified for the ‘job’ – they would simply add a new slot to existing exotic gear.

what happened to my title, it has nothing to do with not liking running dungeons.

it was about Putting Ascended gear on the Gem store.

It looks like they’ll be basing ascended gear on raid gear in other MMOs. Instead of having tiers of ascended gear, they’ll slowly release different pieces for each new dungeon as well as infusion upgrades.

Like WoW, when the current tier becomes obsolete because of a new raid, they will make the gear easier to obtain. I’ll assume this is when they’ll allow it to be crafted or purchased. Basically, every 2 months, the guy who farms the dungeon will be marginally better compared to the guy who doesn’t. Unlike true raid gear however, this increase is very minor and won’t even matter except in the most extreme occassions. Why have increased stats at all though? For one, the stat distribution is fixed, so you’ll never get a perfect set and second, they probably realized that having a carrot, albeit a very small one, is better than not.

For the dungeon, there’s a boss after every 6 paths. Each time 3 are completed, the difficulty increases. Since ascended gear is “rare” I’ll assume the bosses have a chance to drop it and maybe even trash has a little chance. The higher the difficulty, the higher the drop chance, which is a little odd, since to reach the higher difficulties, you need the gear. Also remember that they are changing loot drops to make them better. The exotics of tomorrow will probably be the rares of today.

ArenaNet probably chose this path because they noticed that the number of people that want a carrot greatly outweighs that of the number of people that will do something just to be doing it. Their design philosophies will change over time. This is their first MMO after all, they have to test the waters and try new things.

For those complaining that this will ruin WvW, note that ArenaNet’s response will be “war isn’t fair” once again. Plus, I’m pretty sure anyone not currently in full exotics has a much bigger disadvantage compared to someone in full exotics, compared to full exotics + 3 ascended. Even then, it only matters when you’re attempting to solo in an environment designed for large battles.

For those thinking ascended gear will be required to get in a group, it will be. Any group that wants to farm the dungeon will want to reach a higher difficulty for better drops. To reach those difficulties, you’ll need the gear. I would expect groups wanting to reach a high difficulty to not be PuGs however. For groups just wanting to run the dungeon, the gear won’t matter. It will all depend on drop chance increase with difficulty and how agony actually works and if it’s possible to outskill it.

Xenesis.6389:

+1 because I feel the same way, bought this game mainly for wvw, and we’re not exactly getting updates for wvw anytime soon.
3200 for the whole set? no thank you. Was going to buy a character slot this month and decided not to.

yeah maybe that is a bit much, i think i would spend 20 bucks on a full suit of gear.

Jestunhi.7429:

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

My guess is they will introduce an official expansion next year where they will increase the level cap, and gear level cap to match (so technically they won’t be releasing new tiers, just higher levels within the tiers). So they’re hoping that the hunt for ascended and legendary items will hold off the gear grinders until then, when the circle of life will repeated ad nauseum.