Guild Wars 2

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

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.

I don’t expect that the impact could be even perceptible… WvW is combined effort and so is PvE (I play with blue equipment and I still have fun in spite of everything that you say).

And a question for you: can you actually say whose wearing what tier based only on their performance in PvE etc.? I can’t… So I don’t really care what they are wearing.

1% difference is still a difference. To serious pvpers/WVWers any advantage is mandatory. I primarily play GW2 for WVW, and I prefer small group/skirmish action in WVW where even small stat differences absolutely come into play.

lol…

WvW is just for fun… Becouse all those serious WvWers can be equipped fully exotic/ascended/whatever and have 200 sidekicked level ones as teammates… Your just being silly now.

No I’m being totally serious. This game was mentioned many times as the spiritual successor to daoc because of WVW being the new RVR.

It is the area of the game I am by far the most serious and competitive at. I don’t see why that is hard to believe.

I’m glad your having fun with it… But you will not get any adventage in WvW with equipment. I’ve already explained why.

Booning.5476:

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

um hmmm. Exactly!

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

Deth.4109:

Caran.3217:

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

Deth.4109:

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.

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?

Clearly this new change is not aimed at the audience which all their previous statements, press releases, interviews, etc were aimed at, because they are now saying the exact opposite of what they were saying before.

thats some what true, assuming ascendeds arent intended to become the new permanent level cap standard. i mean if they are then it pleases both types of players, example: all level 80s will in the future wear ascended armor, but by adding new infusions<possibly aquired through various means but for the purpose of my example ones specific to duneons> then hard core gear grinder pvers will have to constantly chase new infusios by doing this dungeon and thefore also be appeased.

Sorry to say but there is no logic whatsoever in your post.

People that have spent time, effort and possibly real money to get exotic gear are cheated and have to repeat the process of gearing up all over.

People that love a gear treadmill because they for whatever reason think this is needed to keep them playing will always demand more, the next tier.

Two fundamentally exclusive ‘ways to play’ – ANet sold a game on advertising A) and now they want to sell those people. This can not work ever.

thats the point of me saying its a more sustainable method, the market of gamers especially the ones who like mmos dont care for a system like what was in place with max level exotics. to most its literally “playing dress up” by adding more infusions for gear treadmill players they give them more ways to increase there effectiveness and create a flat levle “next tier”. not that those items would be any more powerful so much so as they simply increase the effectivness of that player in a particular setting. and because they can create gear upgrades via infusions rather than new armor tiers it creates the item level cap we were pormised with the original model.

Read up on ‘LotRO’ and ‘Radiance’, people being picking this up for the last dozens of pages and saw a valid comparison to what ANet is doing now.

It is gated content, you do exclude people that don’t have specific gear form doing new content. It failed in LotRO, hard – they finally removed it all together, and admitted it was bad design that segregated the players.

History repeats itself, a new WoW clone is in the coming. There is no way you can refute this.

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

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.

I don’t expect that the impact could be even perceptible… WvW is combined effort and so is PvE (I play with blue equipment and I still have fun in spite of everything that you say).

And a question for you: can you actually say whose wearing what tier based only on their performance in PvE etc.? I can’t… So I don’t really care what they are wearing.

1% difference is still a difference. To serious pvpers/WVWers any advantage is mandatory. I primarily play GW2 for WVW, and I prefer small group/skirmish action in WVW where even small stat differences absolutely come into play.

lol…

WvW is just for fun… Becouse all those serious WvWers can be equipped fully exotic/ascended/whatever and have 200 sidekicked level ones as teammates… Your just being silly now.

No I’m being totally serious. This game was mentioned many times as the spiritual successor to daoc because of WVW being the new RVR.

It is the area of the game I am by far the most serious and competitive at. I don’t see why that is hard to believe.

I’m glad your having fun with it… But you will not get any adventage in WvW with equipment. I’ve already explained why.

Because you are under the delusion that increased stats are not an advantage?

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

The problem with content locust is far reaching. At the very top of the list, they blow through a game developers took years to make in a matter of weeks. Then this very vocal part of the community then generally go on the forums and say two things,

That this game has nothing to do at the end game.

It is too easy, and there is no challenge.

This affects the game in one major way, for casuals to hardcore gamers when choosing a new game to purchase or resubscribe to, a common first step is to check out the forums and see what is being said. Since content locust are so vocal about their triumphs and how easy it was, it turns a lot of new players off to the idea of the game, and that cost the game company revenue.

It also is demoralizing to the community in general. Casual and dedicated gamers by far make up the majority of almost any games population. I would say easily 90% but I really don’t have any research to prove this other than more than a decade of personal observation. But when these elite gamer snobs (another term for content locust) go on and on about how simple and easy something a large portion of the community is struggling with, or possibly doing, but it is far from simple to them, it makes them not want to try, and certainly not want to do anything more difficult.

Over time difficulty changes as well. When the vocal feedback constantly says “this was too easy” and casuals and dedicated gamers don’t voice out enough and say “It was just right” or “It was too hard” a game company is eventually going to make a correction in the difficulty, which will ultimately not make the content locust happy, because once they have mastered the new content, they will be discontented again, and it will lock a large portion of the player base out of content they used to see, but now is too difficult.

This will make them quit, the company looses money, which makes development more difficult. While they had the resources to recoup, the change in World of Warcraft from Wrath of the Lich King, to Cataclysm is a very good example of this.

This is so spot on it’s obviousness hurts. I agree with every single statement made in that article and for me, this is exactly what happened here in GW2.
Why did a company like ANet, with so many years of experience and Blizzard experience to build on fell for that? :/

I bought the game right at the moment pre-purchased opened. I bought a laptop before the headstart so that I can play GW2 while still working (i have a business 120km away from my home). I cant play often, and Im pretty sure MUCH of the population cant as well. I havent gotten all my needed exotics yet. And I am not rushing, I play the game on my pace knowing that it follows the same non-geargrind-based gameplay as GW1. But then this comes out, what for?

DId you, Anet, even bothered to check your database for number of people with Legendaries against people with exotics. Then compare those numbers again with people that are still using rares and masterworks despite being lv80. I am pretty much sure, majority of the playerbase doesnt have full exotics gear yet. And then you plan to introduce a higher tier.. If that will be the case, then what is stopping you now from doing this every update? You listened to those people who rushed the game to get their “best in slot” gears and cry out to you for lack of content. These are the same people that mob every new major MMO that comes out, repeating the same viral pattern. And you gave in to them. Tsk.

Snow.5269:

Extra Credits – Power Creed

A-NET you may want to watch this video before going down this road. A great detailed delivery of consequences of a gear treadmill/power creep.

I watched that back when it was made (and every Extra Credits episode before and since – great stuff), it’s a very good explination on why Anet should not do this stats change and what can happen if they go ahead with it.

Sadly i bet they will never watch it, which is a shame as they really should (and i suggest everyone watch all the EC episodes and not just this one!).

Creslin.1758:

stof.9341:

Creslin.1758:

They really aren’t that hard to get…it costs like probably less than 2g per piece of exotic gear if you can craft…and it’s megaeasy to max out a crafting skill.

You can just buy items at a low buy price and then sell them at a higher sell price to get the money, then you’re done. I have nearly full exotic, and I think I’ve done maybe a total of 5 or 6 dungeon runs…rest almost all WvW…no farming at all.

2g per piece is around 2h of grind per piece. 2 weapons, 6 armors and 5 jewelry we are at 22g (more than that actually,most exotics cost more than 2g). Then add in the superior runes which for some cost a LOT.

And then, after all that time you decide that this full berzerk set is kinda squishy for dungeons and you need something else XD

Hey, I’m not saying that you can get them in a day, but compared to most MMORPG top-level gear…exotics are mad easy to get. And my proof of that is that I actually have them, but have never got top level gear in any other MMORPG lol.

Yes, compared to other MMO’s…
… but if you compare it to GW1, it was even easier to get “top-level” gear there.

And i think this was one of the major features of the game.

This is also my first time posting in the forum, except for a suggestion or two while beta was going on. I guess that’s part of the problem… if I’d been going on the boards to post about how happy I’ve been with the game they might have known not to change it. But I was too busy enjoying playing the game to take a break and do that…

Thanks for posting the link about “content locusts;” I had been looking for a way to describe this problem and this article sums it up beautifully: http://morgaren.hubpages.com/hub/Content-Locust-How-They-Change-The-MMO-Landscape

While I am not one to worry about having the most effective stats, the Ascended gear makes me uneasy because it does seem to be in violation of the “no gear grind” section of the Manifesto, and once you have violated your rules once, it’s so easy to say, “Oh, just ONE more time, and then we’ll never do it again.” It does increase the power of the Legendaries over the power of the Exotics, which we were told wasn’t going to happen because that would cause people to need to grind.

It’s the Agony thing that concerns me most, however. I played LotRO for a few years, and then Radiance came along and my kinship left, dooming me to play alone. I found a new kinship, but it wasn’t the same and I eventually lost interest because none of my best buddies would play along with me anymore, and gating the content that way (getting Radiance gear was necessary to complete a step along the Epic storyline, so you literally could not continue to follow the main plot beyond a certain point unless you buckled down and did it) was what killed it for them. I only held in there and tried for a while because of my deep love of the world and stories (hence my username).

Even if this is easier to get, more akin to the Mursaat “Infusion” process, enemy-only powers that are THAT devastating almost always result in a bunch of my friends crying “this is bullkitten!” (you get the idea) and storming off. I would much rather there was some way we could avoid the Agony through some test of skill rather than just having the right gear. Having the right gear is, in my opinion, boring and more a measure of how much time you spend than how skillful you are at playing, and I thought part of the Manifesto was that ANet wanted to reward people for learning to play their characters skillfully rather than playing clumsily all night and day.

As to posts about “relax, it’ll only be this one dungeon,” people don’t seem to be sure about that, and one of the Dev posts seems to imply that it will spread. In addition, I think the Fractals concept sounds really neat and I’d like to try it, but quite frankly gearing up is my least favorite part of any game – I still had some pieces of 47 gear when I hit 80 – and if I have to play the gear-up game in order to try the new content it’s going to make me sad.

Don’t give up on your dreams of creating a new kind of MMO, ArenaNet! Don’t give in to the content locusts – wait for them to move on and then develop for the people that want to be here and enjoy the game you made for them, instead of the game the content locusts insist on playing everywhere.

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

We are not angry because new content is being released.

We are angry because we were lied to.
We are angry because higher gear numbers are not content. They are also not challenging or interesting.
WoW made people believe this and this stupid belief spread trough the entire MMO genre. GW2 was supposed to stop this crap once and for all.

Also this is not a subscription game. People leaving and coming back is perfectly natural.

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

Again, we are against this because we don’t find enjoyment in constantly chasing mmo gear carrots. We enjoy playing the game, not constantly striving for the shiny that makes the biggest numbers.

MMOs don’t need to be about this, in fact the best ones weren’t. And that includes GW1.

Games where you “need to keep up with the rest of the players” aren’t fun. Anet has for years agreed with this design philosophy.

We prefer to get max gear once and not have to worry about it again.

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

Many (seemingly less MMORPG experienced players) have argued like you before in this thread. Many have refuted the false assumption you are repeating:

Stat Increase DOES NOT EQUAL Increase in difficulty of content!

A gear treadmill will in no way keep the game ‘interesting’, that is a massive misconception. It will only keep a certain demographic of players playing for a little more time, till the next tier grind is released.

Deth.4109:

if they changed design then maybe it wasnt a good idea like they thought it was going in, no one is above trial and error.

If they decided to change their core philosophy then I would appreciate it if they would address their player base and let them know about the change in direction. I would still not play the revised game but I could at least respect them for trying and being honest about the change.

If things stay as is with them providing contradictory information and the changes ends up being what I suspect, I will not only quit the game but will also blacklist ArenaNet and not touch any of their future games as well.

“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.”

I was a little more relieved after reading Chris’ post about how this gear is going to be made available. Unfortunately a lot of that post is ‘dev’ speak and doesn’t mean much other than giving huge generalities. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.”

First off, making this type of gear available to those of us who enjoy PvP and play the game for that ‘in time’ probably means they realize now that some of us don’t have any desire to dungeon grind for gear. Okay, well what does ‘in time’ mean? Because to me that says when you get around to adding it in as a reward for badges or whatever. The real sticking point for me is going to be 1. How long it takes them to get Ascended gear (or similar items) into the gear progression for WvW and other PvP formats and 2. How much they cost.

I can see this taking a good long time because of how poorly they have supported this game post launch. They haven’t fixed much of anything in this game for weeks, especially when it comes to class bugs. What I see potentially happening is when these items are available for pvpers they end up costing thousands of badges per item and will require months and months of time and effort per piece. We’ll see if Grind Wars is what this game becomes. /shrug

Caran.3217:

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

Many (seemingly less MMORPG experienced players) have argued like you before in this thread. Many have refuted the false assumption you are repeating:

Stat Increase DOES NOT EQUAL Increase in difficulty of content!

A gear treadmill will in no way keep the game ‘interesting’, that is a massive misconception. It will only keep a certain demographic of players playing for a little more time, till the next tier grind is release.

It’s actually funny really, since stat increase can only possibly make things easier. People using the " you just want things easy" argument in favor of gear treadill really should be using the “you just want things to be too hard for me” argument

That Content Locusts artical is great – thanks for linking it, it was a very good read indeed.

These are the people your listening/catering to Anet? (that’s what it seems like), please don’t..

Starhawk.2958:

“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.”

I was a little more relieved after reading Chris’ post about how this gear is going to be made available. Unfortunately a lot of that post is ‘dev’ speak and doesn’t mean much other than giving huge generalities. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.”

First off, making this type of gear available to those of us who enjoy PvP and play the game for that ‘in time’ probably means they realize now that some of us don’t have any desire to dungeon grind for gear. Okay, well what does ‘in time’ mean? Because to me that says when you get around to adding it in as a reward for badges or whatever. The real sticking point for me is going to be 1. How long it takes them to get Ascended gear (or similar items) into the gear progression for WvW and other PvP formats and 2. How much they cost.

I can see this taking a good long time because of how poorly they have supported this game post launch. They haven’t fixed much of anything in this game for weeks, especially when it comes to class bugs. What I see potentially happening is when these items are available for pvpers they end up costing thousands of badges per item and will require months and months of time and effort per piece. We’ll see if Grind Wars is what this game becomes. /shrug

You make good points, but my question is this, why does it matter how easy it is to get?

Either it takes a long time and is a huge obstacle or it is easy to get an is a minor annoyance.

Either way, it doesn’t actually add any fun to equation. In your scenario, even at best it’s just a useless.

There’s this huge logical fallacy being commonly expressed: that if the game is still playable with just exotics, it’s no burden on people without exotics just because there’s better gear.

Yes, Ascended gear won’t be “mandatory” for most of the game, but it will be mandatory to succeed at the hardest challenges in the game. Beating the hardest stuff in a game is fun for me, and the games I like best don’t put barriers in my way before I can attempt that.

Sure, Asc gear won’t make a difference in most WvW matchups, but it will in the hardest ones, where you’ve got just a slim chance of winning if you play your best. Sure, you can do some levels of Fractals without Ascended gear, but not the hardest ones.

Skill may always matter more, but so what? Lets assume I play my best—should my outcome ever depend on having ground out some stupid ring?

Arenanet should not be catering to the kind of players that want this. There is, literally, no way to ever please them. They don’t want the carrot, they want the chase. They will quickly grind out all the available ascended gear, get bored, demand more “progression”, and then move on. That’s what they do. What happens after people max out their Ascended gear/infusions? It’ll happen, and almost always faster than developers think. What then? Just add more? How are we not heading for a treadmill?

You can either try frantically to give them more carrots to chase after (treadmill) and betray your original fan-base in the process, or you can actually stick to your vision and the millions who supported you without the traditional endgame will still be around.

Joiry.2504:

Hint – the items will be drops. Either the item itself, or a crafting material for the infusions and backpack in the mystic forge. Do I know this for certain. No. Do I know if the sun will explode tomorrow, no, but it probably won’t. But its an MMO, given the unoriginality of this system, do you really think there’s some clever method of acquisition that Anet is keeping secret?

Of course they’ll be drops. Where the hell else do items come from? Why do you think this should be comforting?

shambo.3842:

Focksbot.6798:

shambo.3842:

why are all u crybaby’s getting so upset with a new tier of gear that is in between exotic and legendary? im lmao at all the im quitting post here and all the crying about a gear treadmill before the patch is even out please read this post.

Yes, well, if this is the calibre of player that is staying on for the treadmill, ANet is welcome to them.

why did you not quote the first part of my post? anyway the reason im lol at all the post is most of them will not quit and there is no gear treadmill please read this post

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

or if your to lazy here’s a quote from the post

By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach.

Great you’ve only read that single paragraph of the blog post, don’t you?

“*This is just the beginning*. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.

…

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

The three ascended gear pieces are just the start of a long term item progression, these items will give you an advantage in the new high-end content (primarily because of the infusions, but the stat increase is an advantage as well, isn’t it?).
You have to have a full set of ascended armor (as soon as all slots are introduced) to be on par with other players.
Ascended gear is just the start of their “item progression initiative”.

I don’t really care for infusions right now as you can play the dungeons without them as well, you’ll just hit a wall eventually. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a fan of this mechanic at all, content gates suck.
What bugs me more is that with increased stats on ascended gear they’ll render every content currently in the game obsolete. Crafting is useless, all the mystic forge recipies for unique exotic skins (which require a lot of effort as well) are useless as well as pretty much everything else that’s not ascended or whatever they might add during their “item progression initiative”.

Gingelyr.3648:

There’s this huge logical fallacy being commonly expressed: that if the game is still playable with just exotics, it’s no burden on people without exotics just because there’s better gear.

Yes, Ascended gear won’t be “mandatory” for most of the game, but it will be mandatory to succeed at the hardest challenges in the game. Beating the hardest stuff in a game is fun for me, and the games I like best don’t put barriers in my way before I can attempt that.

Sure, Asc gear won’t make a difference in most WvW matchups, but it will in the hardest ones, where you’ve got just a slim chance of winning if you play your best. Sure, you can do some levels of Fractals without Ascended gear, but not the hardest ones.

Skill may always matter more, but so what? Lets assume I play my best—should my outcome ever depend on having ground out some stupid ring?

Well the truth is that it always has. Even in sPvP, a better build can win the day. And in WvW…gear/level superiority has always existed…and it seems like most people actually prefer that from the amount of WvW’ers compared to sPvPer’s.

Now that said, I think it becomes a problem when players can grind forever and then WvW with insanely superior gear that only uber-grinders can get. That sucks. But the exotics…I don’t mind them, they aren’t that difficult to get, and they give you a nice feeling of progression.

In the end though, I’m not that happy about the Ascended change because I’m basically butthurt that I got all my exotics and now they are second rate. IMO, this is the core of most of the complaints. If Ascended gear had been in the game from day 1…I bet no one would have cared. It would have been just another tier on the road to a maxed out character…I mean, there were already four.

But introducing Ascended gear now kind of blows. A lot of folks have chars with full exotics that they blew real money on trans stones to get the look they wanted, and now they have to do it all over again. I’m butthurt about it, and I can see why others are too.

I too think this is kind of steering towards new “benchmarking” down the road with future updated content. So here’s my take at a compromise:

Ascended gear is infused from the get go and better than Exotics by some set points amount.

Why not make it so you can infuse existing exotic gear, if the player so chooses, and it applies buffs to their armor set that puts it on par with ascended gear? Make infusion require some additional mini-dungeon run, kind of like the “back door” from GW1 where you could stumble upon a Seer while exploring and get infused outside of the story mission.

We don’t want to add a gear treadmill, so we’re adding a gear treadmill and calling it “item progression.”

“We founded ArenaNet to innovate” by trying to copy the worst part of every other MMO?

It doesn’t matter how slow or how fast you release it…its a treadmill…
It doesn’t matter if it is a minor increase…..its an increase…
Since when is there a gap between exotics and legendaries….The colors are different….so you address this by MAKING a gap?
We know you wont be adding a new tier every 3 months…because instead you just add new pieces every 3 months…
“It’s item progression”……no its not…
“So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.”….There were 4 add-ons/expansions to GW1..you never pulled this garbage..

Keep trying to dress this idea up…you’ve got a long way to go to sell it to us smart folk.

Jairyn.6913:

We don’t want to add a gear treadmill, so we’re adding a gear treadmill and calling it “item progression.”

“We founded ArenaNet to innovate” by trying to copy the worst part of every other MMO?

…and also invent new terms to describe the same old thing and try to mask it as something else, new and innovative.

It would be quite funny actually if I wasn’t involved*.

*haven’t spent money, time and effort on this game

Jestunhi.7429:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

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.

I don’t expect that the impact could be even perceptible… WvW is combined effort and so is PvE (I play with blue equipment and I still have fun in spite of everything that you say).

And a question for you: can you actually say whose wearing what tier based only on their performance in PvE etc.? I can’t… So I don’t really care what they are wearing.

1% difference is still a difference. To serious pvpers/WVWers any advantage is mandatory. I primarily play GW2 for WVW, and I prefer small group/skirmish action in WVW where even small stat differences absolutely come into play.

lol…

WvW is just for fun… Becouse all those serious WvWers can be equipped fully exotic/ascended/whatever and have 200 sidekicked level ones as teammates… Your just being silly now.

No I’m being totally serious. This game was mentioned many times as the spiritual successor to daoc because of WVW being the new RVR.

It is the area of the game I am by far the most serious and competitive at. I don’t see why that is hard to believe.

I’m glad your having fun with it… But you will not get any adventage in WvW with equipment. I’ve already explained why.

Because you are under the delusion that increased stats are not an advantage?

Dude… If you think that any difference in equipment is giving someone advantage and that’s unacceptable for you then you shouldn’t be playing WvW!

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

No one here complains about new content, unless content is equal to gear for you. And even then we’re not complaining about new gear in general, just about how they implement the ascended armor and mechanics associated with them (content gates, and possible gear grind/item treadmill in the future, rendering current content worthless).
Why are we complaining about that? Because that not what they’ve advertised for GW2 when we bought that game and for a lot of us that was the reason we started playing GW2.

Godorn.2931:

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

Dalris Thane.6314:

The problem with me being a niche person when it comes to entertainment is that the few things that are actually niche often becomes cancelled or mainstreamed.

This is why I’m worried about the future of GW2. I’m worried that future development time will go in large part to new tiers of gear. Here is my recent gaming history.

City of Heroes = Few raids. All small groups. Top end drops from trash mobs. Wow. That’s gotta be niche. Awesome. Wait? What? The new focus is on Incarnate content i.e. raids? You mean, like every other mainstream MMO? Darn. CoH is no longer niche. /quit.

Star Wars, The Old Republic = Story based MMO. Wow. Tons of cutscenes in an MMO? That’s gotta be niche. I love that. Awesome. Wait? What? The new focus is on group content, minimal cutscenes and gear grind. You mean, like every other mainstream MMO? Darn. SWTOR is no longer niche. /quit.

Now, I’m in Guild Wars 2. = No Grind MMO. Level playing field? What? That’s gotta be niche.

Now I’m HOPING history doesn’t repeat itself. Maybe I just have bad luck. But it feels (you know… emotions, those things some of you logical facts only people may have forgotten… hehe) like it’s happening again. So, right or wrong, I’m scared and getting upset. You know, emotional. You guys are logical. I’m sure you can look it up…

And don’t get me started on TV / Movie niche vs mainstream, hehe…

I had a really similar MMO history. I quit five games in less than two years because of that “endgame” thing that left me with nothing to do as soon as my characters reached max level (I don’t raid).

The irony is that I don’t think people like us are actually a niche audience. We’re only treated that way by MMO devs who seem to be prone to listen to the loudest voice – which tends to be the hardcore crowd. I think the strategy used by the industry was something like “Let’s appease the 10% hardcore players. The casuals are a majority, but they never seem to complain anyway despite no MMO has ever catered to them.” Or so. Thankfully I noticed a change as in 2012 the ‘casuals’ seem to be more vocal, too. Which is why we ended up with 145+ pages of feedback opposing the hostile takeover of this game by a certain segment of the hardcore players who can’t seem to accept even ONE MMO being made for people like us.

Sam.4728:

Godorn.2931:

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

That actually is sad

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.

For some reason my face just hit my palm, really hard.

Up front: I have read maybe five posts in this thread. It’s entirely likely parts of this have already been said. Here are my thoughts concerning ascended gear and infusion:

- The stat bonuses invalidate the exotic tier. This is an RPG, and I think that most of us here are aware that, generally, people who play RPGs are going to be unsatisfied with sub-optimal stats. Raising the ceiling creates a culture of unhappiness for players who either had already reached the previous maximum or were about to. Not just for the money they’ve invested in achieving the previous tier, but for the time spent. My playtime up to this point has primarily been spent meandering around zones in the pursuit of 100% world completion, so I haven’t yet been in areas where exotic drops are most frequent. Imagine the pleasant surprise I felt upon receiving top-tier shoes for my efforts (and it was an effort) after completing the Halloween jumping puzzle. Those shoes are now transient, a mere stepping-stone worth only the ectos I’ll end up salvaging them for rather than the reward they were.

- If ascended gear is going to come sans stat moddability, then this is a great time to give us either a) a much greater assortment of pre-packaged stat collections, or b) some way to cherry-pick which three stats we want on our gear. Increasing stat diversity increases build diversity, which in turn extends the end-game for those interested in exploring their options.

- Infusion in PvE could, I believe, be a fantastic idea. Maybe it’s the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia having their effect, but I can appreciate the effort ArenaNet is making in calling back the Guild Wars 1 mechanic. One of my most powerful memories from the early days of that game was encountering the mursaat for the first time, and how utterly disoriented – and to be honest, intimidated – my 13-year-old self was by how quickly they blew me away upon first engagement. To this day, I remember having to dodge around mursaat/jade patrols like a fugitive while I was exploring the Southern Shiverpeaks and how powerful I felt once the seer had worked his mojo. It’s one of the few mechanics in gaming that I recall as being effective as both a story-telling and gameplay device. If GW2 infusion can similarly integrate itself in an interesting way functionally (i.e. not just +20% crit chance vs. marmosets) and lore-wise (i.e. not “you need to be infused because marmosets are pretty strong”), then I see myself loving it all over again.

- Infusion in WvW, on the other hand, seems totally ill-advised. Yes, the mode works in large part because the opposing forces are never entirely evenly-matched, and that produces certain dynamics that can appeal to players inexperienced in PvP. There is still, however, something to be said for one or two scouts encountering their counterparts in an open field – on completely even footing in terms of trait, sigil, and rune availability – and duking it out with skill as the deciding factor. If one of those players has the advantage of some mechanic attached to much-harder-to-obtain armor, that fight would instantly become less interesting.

Sam.4728:

Godorn.2931:

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

You don’t make any sense. There is no subscription. There is nothing added in these mechanics that would make anyone purchase gems either.

There is no reason for Ascended items besides the fact they think Exotic level power is too easy to obtain and Legendary is too hard, thus they decided, or maybe it was even in their original plans, to put something in-between.

Sam.4728:

Godorn.2931:

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

Until they come up with a better ideas and decide to build an even superior sequel to their original plan, for which they’ll need better funding, so they’ll sell their… oh wait, deja vu.

I was thinking exactly the same thing and to be honest, it gets even more depressing.
But this all is speculation that will never be confirmed. I myself have started noticing some substantial, worrying changes to what I believed to be GW2 design principles around June 2012, but well, speculation as well.

I can only really talk about what I do see:
other changes were small. This is a 180 on the fundamentals and in the end, as a player and customer, I don’t care why, I care about the outcome.

There is no reason for Ascended items besides the fact they think Exotic level power is too easy to obtain and Legendary is too hard, thus they decided, or maybe it was even in their original plans, to put something in-between.

The level power is the same. Legendaries just look cooler

SORRY you don’t have good enough gear for our group now good bye.
Kicked from group*

" After a certain point, our new Ascended items and Infusions become crucial tools for survival. "

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

Sam.4728:

Godorn.2931:

Umm ok. So let me translate. Hi, we think your stupid. Never mind that we lied.

Depressing isn’t it?

This worst part of this story, though, isn’t how this affects the players. We only lost a few times $60 and some cash on gems. There will be other games. Some might even do what Arenanet promised to do.

The real tragedy is for the developers. I guarantee that the core developers behind the GW2 concept hate this change as much as we do. They spent years and years of their lives building an epic game in line with their philosophy. Why the sudden change? Do you really think the hard working, forward-looking developers made this change? No. It was the business side of the game. Those developers are probably even more depressed than the player base.

I expect droves of developers will be leaving Arenanet soon, due to management forcing them to destroy the game they love. There was probably a dramatic behind the scenes fight, but in the end, you can’t fight the people who pay for your house and your family. Pay attention to where the original GW2 developer teams goes. Perhaps they will find a home with a business partner that doesn’t screw them.

For what it’s worth, I really do believe that. This is Nexon and NCSoft, screwing this game over to try and make a ‘quick buck’. The only thing they’ve succeeded in doing is alienating their most zealous supporters. 150+ pages, predominantly filled with dislike or outright hate towards the changes, proves this.

The fans of the WoW-style of MMO will love this change but we all know how fickle they are. They will move on to a new game or go back to WoW soon enough, and then where will GW2 be? Ask SWTOR how following in Blizzard’s footsteps worked out for them.

JackLafayette.9360:

/snip because it’s a really long post.

You got the comparison: ‘GW2 Ascended gear = GW1 Infusion’ all wrong.

It’s not a singular process to infuse existing gear but an entirely new tier with better stats than ANY existing gear right now, and it is an ongoing treadmill as you will need more and more Ascended stuff to face new ‘challenges’ in the future.

Read some more of the last dozen pages here, some good stuff.

To give Arenanet its dues, their posts about ascended gear so far is PR speak at its very finest (all the sentences are just so rich in placating, fluffy, feel good but ultimately meaningless words).

I’ve read legal suits written by lawyers that couldn’t even dream of reaching the amount of meaningless blather that Arenanet has managed to spout with just two posts. So hats off to you Arenanet, you must employ some first rate spin doctors.

However, how about giving those spin doctors a break and just come out with all the details of the new gear system so people can make an informed decision about what they should do with your game?

hoeppy.4567:

What bugs me more is that with increased stats on ascended gear they’ll render every content currently in the game obsolete. Crafting is useless, all the mystic forge recipies for unique exotic skins (which require a lot of effort as well) are useless as well as pretty much everything else that’s not ascended or whatever they might add during their “item progression initiative”.

Um what? So let me get this straight. Before Ascended gear existed, all the special Mystic forge weapon recipes were useful for what exactly? Didn’t they have the EXACT same stats as your run of the mill crafted exotic that cost 1/100th or less the cost? Why would I bother making Volcanus then? Oh wait, IT WAS FOR THE SKIN. How, exactly, is something that was PURELY CRAFTED FOR THE SKIN now useless? Answer: IT’S NOT

Skins are fun…but having the ONLY way to progress your character is by playing dress up with a new outfit, it makes the game BORING. This is why it worked in the single/multi-player RPG GW1 but it does NOT work in an MMO-RPG – people need things to do AND things to work towards – I’m not saying that they HAVE to add gear power creep, but they sure as hell needed to add something.

Honestly, I could care less about Ascended gear as I only do dungeons every so often (GW2 dungeons are just average…and are pretty kitten buggy still at that). What interests me more are the changes to rewards and a new zone that I might actually want to spend more than a half hour or so gathering in and getting my daily finished (Orr sucks, badly). Now if only they could come up with more useful uses for Karma besides poorly itemized exotic gear or sub-par legendaries that are no where near worth the time and cost, I’d be all set.

I would like to express my disappointment in the direction this game is going. I guess it’s worthless now to continue to work on acquiring my exotics? That’s what it feels like to me. Please reconsider this move.

For all the people who are complaining “GW2 is going against their word! NO! YOU CANT DO THIS??!! You are creating the gear grind you promised wouldn’t happennnn!!!!” Please think before you speak. It isn’t hard to obtain any gear including Exotics (apart from Legendaries which are only better cosmetically). It isn’t a gear grind. It’s just a twist to the game to make dungeons more exciting and add difficulty due to the “scaling to how you play” not the gear. The game STILL isn’t gear based, just skill based. . .

Caran.3217:

Creslin.1758:

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.

Why are you fooling yourself?

Who says exotics were a bit to easy to get? The powergrinders running non-stop 24h karma trains through lost shore? The ones that exploited the dungeons early on taking short cuts to bosses to farm the hell out of them amassing marks in little time that is not possible any more? People running glass cannon AoE dps builds in WvWvW depending on their mates to get carried so they can actually collect the bags with marks, ending up with a lot more than others that screwed over by this stupid contribution system?

What exactly is your benchmark of ‘easy to get’? Did you think of people that can not play 8 hours a day? Or are you just repeating the pathetic spin, that poor excuse by which this new gear grind is being sold?

I didn’t grind anything, I just played to 80, raised my crafts to max and sold a few pieces. A few hours later I was in full Exotic.

There is no difficulty in acquiring exotic level stats. It’s a fixed amount of time you need to spend gathering the resources needed.

Ascended is added between Exotic and Legendary to fix difficulty and time gap that are between the two.

Megaera.5923:

To give Arenanet its dues, their posts about ascended gear so far is PR speak at its very finest. So hats off to you Arenanet, you must employ some first rate spin doctors.

Yeah. The corporate double-talk was par excellence. I’m not surprised a lot of people think things will be alright after reading it. More surprising to me is that there are so many players who were NOT fooled. From the posts I’ve seen, there definitely does seem to be a correlation between general literacy (going by their posts) and position on this patch.

I’ve pretty much lost hope that this will work out. It’s too late for them to patch things and I’m pretty sure the developers already gave up the fight to management.

Megaera.5923:

To give Arenanet its dues, their posts about ascended gear so far is PR speak at its very finest (all the sentences are just so rich in placating, fluffy, feel good but ultimately meaningless words).

I’ve read legal suits written by lawyers that couldn’t even dream of reaching the amount of meaningless blather that Arenanet has managed to spout with just two posts. So hats off to you Arenanet, you must employ some first rate spin doctors.

However, how about giving those spin doctors a break and just come out with all the details of the new gear system so people can make an informed decision about what they should do with your game?

That would be common sense but we know it doesn’t work like that. One phrase comes to mind though “We’ll fix it in post.” A bad movie is a bad movie and no matter how hard you try you can’t fix it in post.

PR is spectacular, I’ll give them that.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1043-update-2-radiance-removal-developer-diary

Lotro already tried this route and it didn’t work
Lotro dev blog on Removal of Radiance (similar to Agony)

“As you can see, our intentions were good. We wanted to do something new for the game and not create a new grind mechanic that ultimately resulted in running the same content over and over to acquire a “key”.

Somehow, this is exactly what we ended up making. None of us were pleased.

How could something like this happen? If intentions were so noble and the idea was so sound, how on Earth did we end up with a “key quest” instead of a system?
……
We knew that the system had potential and we clung to that belief. We could make it work. Quietly though we began to realize that the horse we rode into town on was not really a horse. It was more of a cardboard cutout of a horse, poorly painted with watercolor paints – and it was raining.

We simply pushed too hard to change the fundamental pieces of our raiding game too quickly and without enough communication across teams. We cut corners to get the system to resemble the desired implementation and found ourselves struggling to justify our decisions.

Clearly, continuing on with Radiance was not our best decision."

My question is, if (1) the devs don’t like end game tread mills or gating, (2) the players clearly don’t like either, and (3) its been tried and failed by others, when wtf is going on?!

This points to the need for a test server. Test servers don’t only allow you to find bugs, they also offer a controlled environment in which to test new ideas. If we had a test server, they could have seen the reaction to ascended gear and scrapped/changed the idea before kittens hit the fan.

As it stands, its too late to change course in the short term. I doubt that they could adjust ascended gear in the next 45 hours, so this is going forward like it or not. In the long run they should simply state that the two accessories will remain as is, but announce that ascended gear is scrapped and that existing armor/weapons can be infused (like gw1).

Whatever they do, if this game is to remain successful they need to open up communications, keep their word, and get out in front of issues rather than throwing things out last minute.

JK Arrow.7102:

I’m going to post this assuming it will be lost amidst the other 7500+ posts if for no other reason that I felt the need to voice my opinion.

There is no reason to add another layer of gear to the game. We understood the idea that exotics are the highest tier and legendaries are a special skin version of them. This ideal alone means most other tiers of items are basically worthless. With the addition of ascended gear it just makes the previous top tier of exotic equally as worthless. Masterwork gear is sold for between merch value and something below crafting value. Rares are sold for a value that varies with the cost of ectos. Exotics will most likely now follow suite.

I don’t even have an exotic set for any of my characters so it doesn’t affect me directly. But it does change the way the community views gear and therefore indirectly affects me. Sure the stats may be only slightly better, but in games like this there is the best gear and there is everything else. If you don’t think it will matter, look back to prior games and see how many times more items with max stats sell for than items with max -1 stats.

I’m growing increasingly frustrated playing this game. I’ve put about 350 playing hours in thus far which is a far cry from the 5000 or so I put in to GW1. Rather than enjoying the playing experience, I find myself upset about numerous things: the terrible camera bounce and zoom, appearance of unequal collision boxes, the leashing and invulnerable enemies, the chain knockdowns, nonstop spawning adds, in and out of combat movement differences, loneliness of the zones, bugging dungeons and DE’s, underwater combat, the inaccuracy that all zones are end game, and I could go on but nobody really cares.

In the end I’m hoping that I once again find the joy in playing the game like I did in the first Guild Wars. In that I know I’m not alone. But from the sounds of all the complaints so far, Anet has more immediate issues by opening this can of worms and having to deal with this kitten storm.

You voice some valid concerns, mate.

Certain death mitigated the presence or lack of an item is something I’ve always considered difficult and exciting. Clicking those loot and equip buttons is thirsty work.