Guild Wars 2

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

Sure, and that’s why to even stand a chance against the deeper levels of the new dungeon, you need the new, improved, Ascended gear with the new Infusion! More to come!

In case you didn’t gather my sarcasm: what you said is completely not true any more.

Kimyrielle.3826:

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.

You might be right. I just don’t have the figures to prove or disprove it. And, gaming companies are unlikely to release their figures. If a company blatantly said “OUR game is for casual/hardcore/[insert type here] players”, that means that anyone that isn’t the target market won’t buy it, and that’s one less sale. It’s in their best interest to keep things vague, and everyone buying.

I will admit, that gear treadmills are likely easy to make, dev cost wise, which is why it’s done so often. Add stats to weapon. Add stats to mob. Put on new skins. Add a new map. Voila. New tier.

Niche content, as I call it, whether Story (like SWTOR), or pick your game, costs a lot of time and money. More than gear treadmills. And money is where the buck stops. I need to find a small company, with NO parent company, fully / majority owned by ONE CEO-vision maker…making a niche game… Not likely, heh…

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

That is the point, Ascended Gear will only make such a great effect the further you go into the fractals dungeons, increasing the difficult. Casuals shouldn’t REALLY be bothered by this, I just can’t get what is going in.

In the 10 years of me playing MMOs this will be my first and last post. I can honestly say I have never been this upset over a game. It makes me both angry and sad at the way this game is heading. I will quit the game if Anet does put this ascended armor in the game with the stat increase. Something they promised to me that they will never do.

So are we fairly confident on this narrative of the developers versus the management? Should we be sending Arenanet condolence cards?

Because I know how I’d feel if I genuinely believed what they were saying during development and then had to face what was happening now. :-(

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

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

To make Fractals of the Mist even more challenging, every time you re-visit the hub, the dungeon scales up in difficulty. That’s right, a scaling dungeon! The dungeon will remember your progress, and will poll the party’s levels when you enter, scaling the dungeon to the highest common attained level. It’s a true challenge, but as you hit higher and higher scales, the dungeon will get more and more rewarding. You’ll have to have some serious skills and solid tactics to make it through these Fractals. After a certain point, our new Ascended items and Infusions become crucial tools for survival.

When a piece of gear, become mandatory to overcome even a tiny part of the game, you can say that the game is becoming gear based.

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever

Fraggle.1236:

The Spectral Agony/Infusion mechanic was one of the more annoying aspects of GW1. It was alright the first time because it was story related, but everytime you got a new armour set you had to do a particular mission again to get re-infused. Got old rather quickly.

I have to say I’m not sure it matters if Ascended armour has higher stats or not. Even if they were the same, you would still need it for the infusion slots (I can’t see ANet going through all the trouble to create a new tier without them ultimately becoming a necessary part of normal play). It would make more sense to make the infusion slots separate from existing equipment, but that’s just me.

You did know you didn’t have to do Iron Mines of Moladune to get your armor infused everytime, didn’t you? There is a seer in Mineral Springs that will also infuse your armor. She is located in a cave.

i dont like this idea, what about crafting ??
Soon u need grind u new eq, if this game will be going in this direaction im out !!!

Okay, so I should basically just hold on to all my gear, resources and gold because ascended gear (as it gets released in stages according to ANET) will surpass exotics so why waste resources on those now?

Bad design is bad. You are essentially telling your playerbase to NOT craft, NOT use the Mystic Forge and hoard their crap until later patches.

Let me guess, this wasn’t designed by the original designers? Because you are telling me basically grind my kitten off and hoard my stuff right now.

This addition of stat grind is good for no one. There were complaints about this game not having endgame content, not having no “high end” gear to repetitively grind for. There are already the legendaries for kitten strokers. As Colin said in the manifesto from a time that seems long ago and forgotten now, no one enjoys or wants grind.

Now why would they add something like this:

The end result they hope to achieve is to get more people to play and for longer.

This helps business by maintaining a more populated world that will persuade new players and generate more box sales. It also maintains interest in those who have already made the initial purchase to buy gems/expansions.

Well guess what Anet, I would have gladly paid real money to get this new lost shores content, if it is truly as fun and expansive as its being made out to be.

With that revenue, you could have hired more content designers to make more truly engaging, varied, and above all fun content at a greater frequency to keep us satisfied (hint: it doesn’t include arbitrary difficulty, content gating mechanisms).

We now go down the road of geargrind instead of content of a higher quality and quantity. They both achieve (or hope to achieve) the same goal in the end: to keep people playing. But one route is obviously better for us players and most likely less work/easier for Anet.

As someone who got GWAMM in GW1, I’m certainly not opposed to grind. But the grind in GW1 never had any impact on stats and my effectiveness in combat (for the most part in pve) and was entirely optional. Worse yet with this new statgrind in GW2 will be the possible impact it will have on WvW, which last time I checked is still pvp and hence skill>time played, no matter what arguments you make about it being imbalanced.

In GW1 things like hardmode, title grind, and later Zaishen dailies and Nick weeklies were added to the game when new and varying content could no longer be added, whether through more campaigns or free updates. These things kept me playing since I liked to grind titles and weapon skins. But the bottomline was that these things were purely optional and the ability to play the way I wanted was maintained.

Don’t like to grind the same dungeon over and over again (or w/e other fashion of grind they might add to get ascended in the future)? Don’t have 10+ hours to play per week? Too bad, you’ll forever be of a lesser breed than the statgrinders and may soon be locked out of new content entirely.

The geargrind being introduced now goes against this basic principle of allowing us to play the way we want for something called “fun” (remember, ANet?).

TL,DR: Statgrind is good for no one as it is meant as a substitute for more content and content of higher quality to keep us playing. Statgrind will segregate players and restrict people from playing the way they want for something called “fun”.

Yunni.8296:

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.

Good point!
Gear progression always adds this awful period of time before every new content update where you see no point in continuing to play because everything will be worthless anyway after the update.

Also, gear treadmill leads to burnout – I’m pretty sure about that.

Once you realize that your actions are pointless, you become frustrated and after a while you quit.

The carrot might work for donkeys (really mean the animals, no insult intended!), it doesn’t work for me – I actually take this system as an insult to my intellect. Do they really think I can be manipulated that easily – conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs?

They added Agony, then added a new tier of items to counter Agony — this is gear check, effectively making the new content gear-based. The lack of communication and reassurance is very disappointing. Serves me right for putting faith in ANet.

RamzaBehoulve.5640:

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.

So what is your point? Is everyone in a hurry to get a legendary weapon, that as of now doesn’t have better stats but is purely cosmetic, just a nice to have thing IF you like the looks? Why is a gap filler needed?

Oh wait, is it to appease brainless hamsters that got bored already? Wouldn’t simply adding new content be enough?

New content takes time to design: Implementing a basic gear grind as an supposedly easy low cost fix, which only keeps a ‘hardcore player’ minority busy, and this only for a set amount of time.

There seems to be a fundamental lack of comprehension that there is another demographic of MMORPG players that does NOT need a gear grind to keep them playing. They could care less about min/maxing stats, they just want to PLAY and enjoy a game for it’s content.

Have to echo most of the posters in this thread.

Usually i read the forums and say very little, in this case i feel i should leave a quick post with my opinions.

I’ve played the carrot games, the power creep games and sure at the time I enjoyed them. I came to GW2 after reading that there would be none of this in the game. As an older and more casual player now the lack or power creep appealed to me. I could log in, run some dungeons or WvWvW with friends and not worry that in my absence I had fallen behind. The fact that I could choose to do things at my own pace and set goals that i actually wanted to do, as opposed to felt i had to do in order to maintain a given gear score was the major selling point of this game for me.

So I’ve gotten 3 characters to 80, the wife who plays with me has 2 more. We’ve spent a few bucks here and there getting extra bank slots, bag slots and trans stones etc. We got the gear we liked and then worked on the cosmetic aspect. About done on my Guardian and Ranger, got them looking nice and geared out to do whatever I pleased. As crafters we made most of our gear and transmuted it for the looks we wanted. A few pieces here and there for some stat combos from dungeons or whatever and life was good.

Now come to find there is a new tier coming. TBH i’ve not logged in since i read the initial article on MMORPG.com. Colour me dissapointed.

The new tier is a smack in the face when i’ve used cash to convert my existing gear to models i like only to find that if i was to continue playing then i’d have to grind out new sets of gear and then hand over more cash to get the looks i want back.

For shame Anet.

I’ll still be around for the launch of the patch, but if things goes as i expect from the Dev posts i wont be here long. There are other games out there that do the carrot / power creep thing better than GW2 so why would i hang around? Dont even mention the lack of a $15 a mo sub since i can tell you honestly i’ve spent way more than $15 a mo on GW2 anyway … other power creep games would actually SAVE me money with thier sub fees and do it better (IMO)

This is not a threat, i’m still here and will still play abit after the patch to feel the waters, but if Anet continues down the path of a game design that others do better, my major reason for playing thier game as opposed to another will be gone. I’ll just reevaluate if this really is the game i want to play over them ….

I would just like to add my voice to those protesting the new tier of gear.
Infusion slots could be added to new exotics without upsetting people. The progression for Fractals would still be there. Everything else would be unharmed.

Please. This is not going to end well.

azurrei.5691:

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

You’re right I exaggerated on that part quite a bit, but compared to their effort I would expect them to be possible BiS and usable without needing to transmute them first. If it’s only one tier of ascended gear it might be unimportant, but after they’ve catered to the stat progression crowd once they’ll do it again and then you’re forced to buy transmutation stones in the long run.

azurrei.5691:

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.

You think playing dress up is boring and on the other hand you don’t think they had to add power creep, what’s your solution then?

Adding stats isn’t real progression as well, for each stat gain you have your enemies will get stronger as well. They’ll still design encounters with the same average encounter length as they do it now and adjust the numbers accordingly.
Tank&Spank with 50k NPC hp and 250 player DPS is the same as a Tank&Spank fight with 500k NPC hp and 2.5k player DPS.
The only thing you achieve with a item treadmill or vertical progression is that “old” content will get obsolete since you don’t have any incentive to do them at all.

azurrei.5691:

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.

If ascended gear would just introduce infusion slots which are required to grind your brain away in new dungeons I wouldn’t have any problem with them, too, but that unnecessary increase in stats…
If they do it once they’ll do it again and in the long run it’s nothing optional it’s a requirement that forces you to do things you don’t want to do.

Everybody in my guild is quite upset about the ascended gear and the whole concept around it. After less then a 3 months of GW2, when we got our gears farmed from dungeons, crafted or bought, these gears are already OBSOLETE, because players will be forced to GRIND for the new gear with higher stats. GIND IS NOT FUN. You are insulting and disrespecting your players. Legendaries were supposed to have the same stats as the other exotic but the skin makes all the difference. I mean….what is the matter with you guys? Where did you get all this concept? This is NOT FUN. You want to make another WOW? Make legendary gear that costs 1000 gold and keep making new weapons with awesome skins, people will be happy to have new, long term goals, is fine, but also increase legendary precursor drop rate, because the way prices are going is ridiculous. You said is no shortage, but low supply+high demands IS a shortage. You said after you banned all these bots, now economy is back where it have should been. I have read on the internet about hackers who run around with 600% magic find account and get nice loot, who do you think controls the economy?
Anyway, about the planned ascended gear, dont do it. Just dont, it is NOT OK. Dont ruin this awesome game.

Wheel on the buss goes round and round, round and round, round and round.
Wheel on the buss goes…

And so it starts. At the end of the day this always points to something that worked back in 2004 but is not applicable to today. There is absolutly no reason to not publish a evenironmentally friendly game whereas content changes yet stats don’t.

Absolutly no reason for this. Worlds can change, creatures evolve, and new challenges created yet done with the basic gear that was deployed upon retail launch.

Any VC holders here reading the forum or playing the games? Give me 25 million and I’ll do just that and more. No reason why our ROI can’t be 250% if not more. The MMO space is dead and needs change.

Gliss.9713:

I would just like to add my voice to those protesting the new tier of gear.
Infusion slots could be added to new exotics without upsetting people. The progression for Fractals would still be there. Everything else would be unharmed.

Please. This is not going to end well.

Not even a fan of the Fractal slots, unless they were done in a way that your fractal upgrade automatically adjusted it’s power based on the difficulty people were at, because then there wouldn’t be power progression and I’m all about minimal power progression.

Ascended Gear flies in the face of the principles laid down for Guild Wars 2 over the past 5 years!

Don’t have Ascended Gear at this particular ‘gearscore’ level? Then you can forget about doing that dungeon with that group! Don’t have any level of Ascended Gear? Then you can forget about doing that dungeon at that level , ever!

Horrible, horrible decision on ArenaNet’s part. Whoever green-lighted this should be moved out of decision making immediately!

This is NOT what GW2 is supposed to be about; divisive game mechanics that drive players apart.

This design shift reminds me of the one that Mythic did in Dark Age of Camelot with the Trials of Atlantis expansion. ToA introduced endless gear grinding to that game, and flat killed the game.

Now, in GW2, we will have to grind specific gear in order to play? Well, the sociopaths are going to love it. The folks that have been making GW2 a home because GW2 was not like WoW are going to hate it!

Fair Warning Given

Gear grinds started already, was hoping anet would stick to there guns about gear progression.Guess this game will just end up another wow or rift before long.Time to move on.

If the update goes live whit Ascended Gear i left to play this game after 6 years of Gw1 and 5 years of waiting, 50/50 and Gwamm.I come back to Gw1 for exp my mesmer and dresses it whit some armor whit no GRIND.

Other people have summed up the issues better then I can, so if a dev somewhere is reading this thread, I’m just adding my voice:

New Tiers of Gear are not what I want. I could play every other MMO if I wanted the gear grind.

azurrei.5691:

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.

I don’t follow. If anything, outfits have more value in a “massively multiplayer” game since you actually get to show them off to other people.

In every online game I’ve played, including MMORPGs, most of my satisfaction has come from the gameplay, not the loot. At the moment, my enjoyment of GW2 is based on learning and becoming a better player. I’d be quite content to never think about upgrading my gear again.

Map completion, dungeons, jumping puzzles, and legendaries/quasi-legendaries are all tangible tasks for players to pursue. I think a better achievement/title interface might actually go a long way towards making people feel like they have more stuff to do. The achievement screen is just a bit too cryptic — and titles a bit too minor — to appreciate.

Yunni.8296:

I guess it’s worthless now to continue to work on acquiring my exotics?

Based on Anet’s current info, the “ascended” roll-out is going to be quite slow. You’re going to get months of use out of those exotics — and, for all we know, they might just stop at jewelry and never get around to armor. So, worst case, just don’t buy any guild backpacks and save exotic rings for last.

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

They stated a reason for the additional tier is because it was too easy to get the exotics, so chances are it’s going to be a little harder to get all of the ascended gear.

A year from now, they’ll add more levels and then gear to go with those levels. Then they’ll add “endgame” dungeons with complimentary ascended gear tuned for those dungeons. Then a new max level character won’t be able try those dungeons unless he spends the time to obtain those ascended gear.

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, game designer

Thomas.3890:

Hi everyone,

this is my first post on these forums. I usually just play the game, this time however I can’t just stay quiet.

I bought all the original titles, charater slots, costumes and finaly the collectors edition of this game with the idea that at least one company understood what I was searching for. Arenanet seemed to be the real deal. I was fully willing to support them with future purchases and good word of mouth.

However the manifesto and all they stood for has just been proven to be nothing more then a big dissapointment in the light of the recent announcements.
That’s what I feel right now, not anger, just dissapointment.

As a company they have lost my faith as a customer and as a loyal fan of their franchise.

Thanks for the good times and good luck to those who still play,
Thomas

Thank you, Thomas

What you said is just about the way I feel…

I recently also posted for the first time in the forum, just a few moments ago. And now, a few moments later, there are already some more pages of posts of disapproving and disappointment, and some support for the stats striving goals that seems to be the new deal.

That said, I should have been better at telling when things are going great, and not wait until it seems that what I care for is going down the drain.

My first encounter with (MMO)CO-RPG was Guild Wars 1 and after some years of basically no gaming at all, it was really all I wanted and was looking for from a game. So I was loyal and bought all the campaigns, character slots to try all classes, and things that I really didn’t need. (Among other things I wanted to have my best smoking on when attending to Gwen’s wedding of course. She finally got her Lieutenant! And Primeval Armor was not the best suit for the occasion – NO MATTER STATS. Stats in a broader sense aren’t all there is to life, but maybe it takes a Heart of the North to appreciate that).

Anyhow, I was hoping that ArenaNet could continue their great vision, and develop it and improve it even further. So much for good intentions and building loyalty.

No matter what’s going on behind the curtains, I don’t know… Games have become million billion dollar industry, and money don’t necessarily bring out what just some people were hoping for. ArenaNet cancelled an expansion they wanted to call Utopia. I guess the lesson learned is that money comes before ideals, and I will have to look and wait for others to stand by their visions and good intentions. People like that don’t come around easy.

And for the players who want to have something to do after they reach level 80..

I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be a role playing game? I thought some of the fun was trying out different roles and classes. When you promote a game as RPG shouldn’t it basically be about trying out and develop characters, epic stories and game skills, rather than just the one character that you for some reason wants to apply more and more and more power to. And make it more and more impossible to catch up on with other toons. I just don’t get it.

But for the Love of God, and for the Love of a so far Beautiful Game, I pretty, pretty please hope that ArenaNet won’t abandon this glimpse of Utopia as nothing more than a lonesome Travelers Reverie

You are messing up my playground

I ve never before felt the need to post on forum cause ive loved the game
and i was always disgusted by all the QQers so i feel kinda bad that i have to be one of them.

Let me just say that there were 2 things why i was so excited about the game and why i loved it so far:
1.no pay to win items
2.no gear grind.
That is what was promised to me and because that is what was delivered i was always nothing but praising the game to everyone.Now that one of those main philosophies will clearly be changed i cant help myself to fear that pay to win cash shop is not far from being introduced.
I always thought that gw2 will be a home for us casual players that have job/school girlfriend real life friends and dont have time to play videogames 16 hours a day.I thought this was going to be a mmorpg for us to have fun,choose to do what you like in mmorpg and not be bothered how someone has better gear than you,where i wont have to worry that if i dont play for a while and come back everyone has better gear than me.
I like pvp and i do not want to be forced to do dungeons to have the best gear for it and i dont want to be forced to obtain new better gear to be equal to other players every 2 months.I was promised this wont happen so why is it happening?
Only this video can describe how i felt when i read this will happen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiZNSzWIaLo

There’s a bazillion MMOs around. Most of them revolve around more or less the same thing (even if you include old MUDs and stuff). Level up, get loot, do harder stuff to get more loot to do harder stuff.

There’s a few exceptions, most of them very niche/unknown. GW1 was an exception to that. GW2 was adding to that concept.

I was disappointed with the rare/exotics and the 80 levels. In GW1, leveling was basically just the tutorial and was very short, and you would just go up to the shop and could almost immediately get top gear in most of the slots. In GW2, you needed a little more time for exotics, but it was still quick. Not perfect, but it still fit in the niche.

Now, GW2 is the same thing as every other MMOs, except with a bigger bot problems (compared to other “current” MMOs. Older ones had bigger bot problems), and more bugs. What made it unique, the part where it was very very quick to max out a character and then you just did whatever, is going away….

If its no longer unique, I’ll play something else

Anet I am disappoint.

“We don’t make grindy games” – Mike O’Brien

You do now…

Demarc.4906:

Have to echo most of the posters in this thread.

Usually i read the forums and say very little, in this case i feel i should leave a quick post with my opinions.

I’ve played the carrot games, the power creep games and sure at the time I enjoyed them. I came to GW2 after reading that there would be none of this in the game. As an older and more casual player now the lack or power creep appealed to me. I could log in, run some dungeons or WvWvW with friends and not worry that in my absence I had fallen behind. The fact that I could choose to do things at my own pace and set goals that i actually wanted to do, as opposed to felt i had to do in order to maintain a given gear score was the major selling point of this game for me.

So I’ve gotten 3 characters to 80, the wife who plays with me has 2 more. We’ve spent a few bucks here and there getting extra bank slots, bag slots and trans stones etc. We got the gear we liked and then worked on the cosmetic aspect. About done on my Guardian and Ranger, got them looking nice and geared out to do whatever I pleased. As crafters we made most of our gear and transmuted it for the looks we wanted. A few pieces here and there for some stat combos from dungeons or whatever and life was good.

Now come to find there is a new tier coming. TBH i’ve not logged in since i read the initial article on MMORPG.com. Colour me dissapointed.

The new tier is a smack in the face when i’ve used cash to convert my existing gear to models i like only to find that if i was to continue playing then i’d have to grind out new sets of gear and then hand over more cash to get the looks i want back.

For shame Anet.

I’ll still be around for the launch of the patch, but if things goes as i expect from the Dev posts i wont be here long. There are other games out there that do the carrot / power creep thing better than GW2 so why would i hang around? Dont even mention the lack of a $15 a mo sub since i can tell you honestly i’ve spent way more than $15 a mo on GW2 anyway … other power creep games would actually SAVE me money with thier sub fees and do it better (IMO)

This is not a threat, i’m still here and will still play abit after the patch to feel the waters, but if Anet continues down the path of a game design that others do better, my major reason for playing thier game as opposed to another will be gone. I’ll just reevaluate if this really is the game i want to play over them ….

Exactly how I feel!

Even though I have logged in during the last 2 days, I haven’t moved my char at all, no DE, no jumping puzzle, no pistol shot fired, didn’t even look at WvW standings – apathy, total lack of motivation.

I just came on to tell my RL friends and guild mates about the upcoming design changes…
to say the least, they weren’t amused either.

And I feel really bad because I talked them into buying GW2, persuaded them to give MMOs one more chance. I’ve spent countless hours praising and advertising this game.

GW2 was a dream come true………….

lmfo. All this thread does is show that people dont’, can’t read.

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

We don’t need to use the new gear to run the dungeon. If we run it over and over and over, it will get harder. After some point, it gets so hard that you need the new gear to offset how hard it gets. By that time, people would have gotton the drops they needed. When a group runs it, it will never run harder than that highest difficulty level of a player has successfullly attained.

This only affects people who grind. Everyone else can do all the same content many many times at increasing difficulty. I don’t see the problem.

Ditton.3149:

I think they should just scrap the entire thing, this whole thread is nothing but depressing and vitriolic.

Pulling the patch for now would be THE best solution at this time, but this would require ANet admitting that they majorly messed this up. Publically admitting to have been wrong takes a lot of guts and is something the vast majority of all humans seems to be unable to do, so I am not holding my breath.

But yes – delay the patch, remove Ascended gear from it entirely (and bury the idea forever!), work out new rewards for the new dungeon and then release when it’s ready. That would be the best. Right now we’re facing the danger of them releasing the patch with a system even ANet seems to have realized is a bad idea, only to have it somehow remedied later (making Ascended gear available outsides hardcore content, as their latest posting seems to indicate they would do) with a flawed result that would make nobody at all happy (hardcore players wouldn’t get their beloved gear treadmill and casual players would still have to deal with Exotics being rendered obsolete with all negative consequences thereof).

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.

Painfully true.

I lied when I said I’d only post once on the forums (not that anyone will see it outside of a quote, thank you infraction system). So I will voice myself once more without embellishment. I DO NOT like this additional gear tier. I strongly oppose the Agony concept. I welcome the new content, even though I do not at this time think I will be experiencing it, ever.

Eladriel.7295:

Jairyn.6913:

I can understand ArenaNet maybe rankling as the WoW kids ran rampant on these forums and elsewhere, jeering about “no endgame.” I just think the proper response would be to present a unique, kick-kitten endgame rather than a pale imitation of a failed concept from every other MMO – which is exactly what Agony is: a lame copy of LOTRO’s Radiance, famed for almost killing that game.

We’ve barely scratched the surface of DEs and boss scripting, and NPC AI, but forget it, let’s add in a stat for them to grind.

They aren’t going to move product by offering the same (less! older! proven to fail!) thing as everyone else. Chris and Linsey’s little letters read like something out of last decade.

Again for the blind impaired.. Agony is the same ability as Spectral Agony that was used by the Mursaats. It is part of GW1 lore and now the history of GW2. So whatever is in GW2 history is fair game to be returned. And FYI Spectral Agony was in the game long before Lord of the Rings online was even thought of. So get over it.

Agony was not in GW1. They’re just calling that so stupid people can make the argument you are stupidly making, to try to deflect the obvious fact that this is a broken mechanic. There was a monster skill called Spectral Agony in GW1 that kept players from entering very high level zones before they’d actually done the rest of the story. Playing through the story turned it off, as it was just a gating mechanic to help new players learn the game.

Valento.9852:

Urmomzbf.2640:

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. . .

That is the point, Ascended Gear will only make such a great effect the further you go into the fractals dungeons, increasing the difficult. Casuals shouldn’t REALLY be bothered by this, I just can’t get what is going in.

If you think this gear is the end of the line of progression, you are naive. This is just the start of it and only 3 slots to ‘ease’ us into the transition. Kind of like the old story about how if you put a frog in a pot of water and gradually turn up the heat, it will cook to death but if you toss the frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump out. Well, newsflash, this is 2012 and these frogs have seen more than their share of pots over the years and as evidenced by this thread, they are avoiding all pots of water now.

Baladir.2736:

lmfo. All this thread does is show that people dont’, can’t read.

After some point, it gets so hard that you need the new gear to offset how hard it gets. By that time, people would have gotton the drops they needed.

Pass me my glasses then , where does it state that " By that time, people would have gotton the drops they needed.", and we wont have to grind for precursors / mats to get infusion gems and even infusion recipes?

To make it absolutely clear:
I wouldn’t care if this was any other game but it really hurts because GW2 is such a great game, has so many ingenious design ideas – I really love it. Couldn’t say that about any of the other 12+ MMORPGs I’ve played since DAoC ( I didn’t play GW1).

That’s why it’s so painful to see it take a u-turn.

Thanks though to all the devs who voiced their concerns about this change. I know you are out there.

Greep.6394:

Baladir.2736:

lmfo. All this thread does is show that people dont’, can’t read.

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

We don’t need to use the new gear to run the dungeon. If we run it over and over and over, it will get harder. After some point, it gets so hard that you need the new gear to offset how hard it gets. By that time, people would have gotton the drops they needed. When a group runs it, it will never run harder than that highest difficulty level of a player has successfullly attained.

This only affects people who grind. Everyone else can do all the same content many many times at increasing difficulty. I don’t see the problem.

I can read fine, but you can’t. You do know they said they’re bringing ascended to WvW right? That’s my and many other’s reasons for quitting now.

The stats are virtually the same as any other exotic. There is no measureable difference to be seen in game, maybe a few percent. So someones crit will hit for 1030 instead of 1000 for a player with exotics. Whoopee! lol.

Eladriel.7295:

Again for the blind impaired.. Agony is the same ability as Spectral Agony that was used by the Mursaats. It is part of GW1 lore and now the history of GW2. So whatever is in GW2 history is fair game to be returned. And FYI Spectral Agony was in the game long before Lord of the Rings online was even thought of. So get over it.

So I guess they should do it like in GW1 where you simply had to get your existing armor infused rather than being forced to get new gear.

[quote=733732;Derk.3189:

Its also what Arenanet claims to make the game more challenging, which, while it is true, is simply lazy design. Artificial increase of stats does not make gameplay more involving, it simply just gates the content.

.[/quote]

I aint sure which of you wrote this as it gave me all three quotes but whoever did I say Bravo!

Lothair.8942:

sireuh.3870:

A guy said this on another forum

A few quotes from 3 months back about gearing:

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

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

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

I agree with you whole heartedly. If I knew Anet was going to do this in June, or if this bull kitten was always a part of the design, I NEVER would have bought Guild Wars 2 as gear treadmills are a totally kitteny and arbitrary way of creating non-content.

I would never have bought this game and I regret the purchase now.

Arreyanne.2683:

I aint sure which of you wrote this as it gave me all three quotes but whoever did I say Bravo!

[/quote]

I said that, but I’m clearly not the first to say it either. Many others before me share this view.

Anet, please don’t do this please…

It took me a lot of time to get my Karma armour and dye it Abyss and get runes on it plus my jewellery, I’m very fond of my armour don’t make me grind again for another set in a couple of weeks\months down the road, the legendary grind itself is destroying your game and yet you add another layer of grind please…. for all that is good don’t do it, People will leave you game be certain of it.

ANET PLEASE, your WORD is your BOND, break it and you’ll never get it back.

Ainianu.5693:

158 pages of people crying over stuff that is not even in the game to see how it effects…

Sorry, but that’s poor logic… Next time I cook I’ll just grab add some ingredients I know I can’t stand in my food and see how it tastes. After all, that’s the only way I’ll be able to know if the dish is unpleasant? Right?

Here’s what i’m wondering, when was this decided?, see the update comes out around 3 months after release BUT surely the ideas for the items got decided much sooner – So was this decided before release or very shortly after release?.

I see a lot of posts saying “this was put in after only 3 months”, BUT it’s more of a case of “did they plan this before release?” or “how soon after release did they come up with this?”.

I’d love to know, if it was before release then considering the info we got given in blogs/videos it’s even worse than chaging it now (as we got fed false info from the get go), and if it was shortly after release then it’s almost as bad as that as they decided to not tell any of us and let us waste time/effort/gold/real money on things that we had no idea would become outdated in such a short period of time.
-
Ask yourself this, if you had known a month ago (or at release) that a new higher level back item was on the way so soon, would you have bought the 5 gold back item or waited for the new one? (or any similar item that will be Ascended) – i know for a fact i would have waited as i only got my back item a few days ago.

Eladriel.7295:

Again for the blind impaired.. Agony is the same ability as Spectral Agony that was used by the Mursaats. It is part of GW1 lore and now the history of GW2. So whatever is in GW2 history is fair game to be returned. And FYI Spectral Agony was in the game long before Lord of the Rings online was even thought of. So get over it.

The only thing that Agony has in common with Spectral Agony is the name, and the idea that having “Infused” armour protects you from it. Beyond that, they couldn’t possibly be any more different than they are now.

Baladir.2736:

Greep.6394:

Baladir.2736:

lmfo. All this thread does is show that people dont’, can’t read.

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

We don’t need to use the new gear to run the dungeon. If we run it over and over and over, it will get harder. After some point, it gets so hard that you need the new gear to offset how hard it gets. By that time, people would have gotton the drops they needed. When a group runs it, it will never run harder than that highest difficulty level of a player has successfullly attained.

This only affects people who grind. Everyone else can do all the same content many many times at increasing difficulty. I don’t see the problem.

I can read fine, but you can’t. You do know they said they’re bringing ascended to WvW right? That’s my and many other’s reasons for quitting now.

The stats are virtually the same as any other exotic. There is no measureable difference to be seen in game, maybe a few percent. So someones crit will hit for 1030 instead of 1000 for a player with exotics. Whoopee! lol.

10 people critting for 300 more damage, 100 people critting for 3000 more damage. Whoopee indeed right?

I am out if this isn’t the last time they are going to add a new tier, or you need to spend a huge amount of time to grind for Ascended gears.

I hate the idea of grinding for stats or grinding for survivability.

Innocente.4271:

Ascended Gear flies in the face of the principles laid down for Guild Wars 2 over the past 5 years!

Don’t have Ascended Gear at this particular ‘gearscore’ level? Then you can forget about doing that dungeon with that group! Don’t have any level of Ascended Gear? Then you can forget about doing that dungeon at that level , ever!

Horrible, horrible decision on ArenaNet’s part. Whoever green-lighted this should be moved out of decision making immediately!

This is NOT what GW2 is supposed to be about; divisive game mechanics that drive players apart.

This design shift reminds me of the one that Mythic did in Dark Age of Camelot with the Trials of Atlantis expansion. ToA introduced endless gear grinding to that game, and flat killed the game.

Now, in GW2, we will have to grind specific gear in order to play? Well, the sociopaths are going to love it. The folks that have been making GW2 a home because GW2 was not like WoW are going to hate it!

Fair Warning Given

You’ve summed up my concerns nicely! I quit WoW (and other MMo’s) because of the gear grind – I have responsibilities that won’t allow me log onto play for hours on end. But when I have the time to play, I found that I could not join my friends or others in raids, events, and dungeons because I was not able to dedicate enough time get the “requisite” gear to be able to participate in those events.

I came to GW2 under the promise that I wouldn’t need to every worry about what gear my character had in order to enjoy full content of the game. Yet, if I read the latest announcement concerning this “ascended” gear tier correctly; I would be severely limited, even precluded, from participating in the new “Fractured” dungeon if my character did not have “ascended” gear equipped? To me, that sounds exactly like the “You don’t have X gear, then you are not allowed to participate with us in X event,” situation I faced in WoW.

For the fear that this trend will become the norm for all future expansions of GW2, I must join with the many others here in expressing my displeasure about the addition of this soon to be introduce required gear tier.