Guild Wars 2

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content?

Around the same motivation that I have doing dungeons where I don’t want the gear at the end : they are fun to do.

Urxx.6840:

They had led us to believe exotics would never be surpassed in power. Why do you trust them this time?

It’s been known for over a year that there was a good chance that exotics would be surpassed by level 81 gear. They did after all say that they “absolutely would increase the level cap, probably with expansions.”

Pants.8315:

Xpiher.5209:

Pants.8315:

cherrie.8907:

xelynruk.6983:

The last paragraph is relevant to the “problem” in that this game is new and the direction in which is headed isn’t set in stone. No one really wants to chase after stats every three months. Anet has stated that a treadmill is not their intention. We won’t know the difference until they actually do.

While it’s fine to protest the periodic addition of gear tiers to the game, it’s not acceptable to refuse an update that may or may not set a precedent for future updates. We simply do not have enough information to judge Anet one way or another at this point, and proof by intimidation is not proof at all.

They were advertising a cherry flavoured bar with no peanut content.
But after we ordered our cherry bars, what we end up getting are peanut bars. Some people really can’t take peanuts, you know. And in some countries / areas what they’ve done is not only of doubtful moral quality, it’s illegal.

Yes they said the treadmill is not their intention, at the same time saying they will, with time, introduce more powerful items, just not every three months. Maybe every four or six. So yeah, they’ve already set a precedence for future gear updates.
They might want to name it whatever they want but it doesn’t change a single thing.

No they haven’t.

not ever three months…

How long has Guild Wars 2 been out…3 months!

Now look back at the sentence. They are saying, yes the game has been out 3 months and we are adding a new tier of gear to bridge a gap we left in original release, that doesn’t mean in another 3 months or more we aren’t going to be adding new tiers of gear.

They are effectively acknowledging that the game’s been out three months, but they aren’t setting a precedent by adding this set now. It’s a one time only deal.

It doesn’t say that. It leaves them room to change their mind either way. Ascended gear or requiring Ascended with the upgrades for new content is gear treadmill.

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

Actually, that’s not quite true. Here’s what Chris Whiteside actually said;

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on”

So you see they are not saying ‘never’ they are just saying not ‘every 3 months’. Their words have obviously been chosen carefully.

toomuchtatose.6874:

Pants.8315:

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

To repeat what others have been saying, please quote where did ANet says no more new tiers?

Until then, we can only stay pessimistic since the balls are in their court, not ours.

The one who posted that, got twice his post DELETED, and now, if you want to see that post, there is a like to another web with a copy paste post just go and read “im leaving this game” the post that is closed so it can die because noone can bump it up

Webba.3071:

They are effectively acknowledging that the game’s been out three months, but they aren’t setting a precedent by adding this set now. It’s a one time only deal.

Ok, so if someone can reply us before this patch go on live, maybe the players wont leave… we need to farm a new high end gear and its ok if its ONLY FOR THIS TIME.
But if they keep to go with:

ascendend tier 1
ascended tier 2 : 8% better
ascended tier 3: 8% better than tier 2

infusion white:
infusion blue: better then white

their silence, its only making this situation worse and worse.

if we are misunderstanding their plan…why dont clear this thing now!
The blogs from lindsay mordock, leah rivera, and forum reply from chris whiteside, dont clear this, and instead of calm down the community, they only aggravated this sense of oppression because they let WIDE OPEN the door of the gear grind.

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

The point is not how smart it is to base progression on looks. The point is that that was a selling point for GW2. GW2 was advertised to have horizontal progression and no gear threadmill.

The fact some like cosmetic progression as the only way to progress and other dislike it is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that they led people to buy their product based on a feature that they subsequently removed.

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Someone from Marketing once preached If you want to serve all, you might as well serve none.

I do agree that it is hard to satisfy all stats nerd, power-gamers, casual gamers etc. But it is much easier to retain existing customers.

ANet now need to choose whether to retain its fiercely ‘conservative’ player base or ‘forward-looking’ ones. I doubt GW2 has what it takes to compete with other MMOs though…

stof.9341:

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content?

Around the same motivation that I have doing dungeons where I don’t want the gear at the end : they are fun to do.

Ok but you can do that in both scenarios. In first scenario you do the dungeons because you find it fun and get the skins as bonus if you like them. In the second scenario you do the dungeons because you find it fun and you get better gear as a bonus. Even better if you also like the skin of it. I dont see the reason to whine so much about this.

Healix.5819:

It’s been known for over a year that there was a good chance that exotics would be surpassed by level 81 gear. They did after all say that they “absolutely would increase the level cap, probably with expansions.”

Quote or it never happened.
Mike O’Brien and Colin Johanson have been quoted several times in this thread saying the opposite.

its simple. there is no single reason to make ascended gear having better stats then exotic EXCEPT THE TREADMILL for non-pve players. infusions, agony.. all nicely thought through and perfectly reasonable, but the stats increase is

1. a blatant lie by anet considering earlier statements
2. totally unasked for by the community
3. completely unnecessary for anything ingame, fractals included.

just why the kitten did you do it?

Pants.8315:

xelynruk.6983:

There is no gap.

Exotics and Legendary’s have the exact same stat values, the only difference is a visual one, Legendary’s have extra fancy skins that is all and it was great like that.

The gap in the investment required to acquire said items, time, resources etc. Currently Exotic items require a fairly small investment, where as Legendary items require a monumental investment.

Ascended items are presumably intended to fill the investment gap between the two. i.e. they take a while longer to get than exotics, but not as long as Legendary items.

The money sink of gearing up on several tiers between exotic and legendary will only increase that gap. Which is the exact purpose of the new tier.

The only thing that Legendaries require is a high ammount of gems bought from real money, converted into gold. That is why several people already have theirs. Looking at the mystic forge and patch notes, the infusions costs are also celestial.

toomuchtatose.6874:

Pants.8315:

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

To repeat what others have been saying, please quote where did ANet says no more new tiers?

Until then, we can only stay pessimistic since the balls are in their court, not ours.

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”

He is simply acknowledging that the games been out 3 months and they’ve added a new set to give people something extra to work towards.

He is also explicitly saying that they won’t continue to add sets.

You can read into the sentence at discover any hidden meanings you like, but taken at face value, it simply says they don’t intend to continue adding more tiers.

Maybe I’m just optimistic, who knows, time will tell, and your more than welcome to keep my posts in reserve and say “I told you so” if in 4 months they add another tier.

Until that point I won’t be reading between the lines to uncover apparent hidden truths behind a message.

cherrie.8907:

Pants.8315:

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

Haven’t they? I believe they have:

The Future of Items Progression: 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.

Infusions are part of the gear…. meaning you don’t really know either way.

They could mean they are going to add infusions for existing ascended/legendary gear.

It doesn’t exactly mean that they are adding a new set each time that has increased stat’s.

And even if it does, its because they have data showing that players have nothing to do and are completing new content in rate that is leaving the game stale for many months. In which case there needs to be some kind of progression. This also has nothing to do with pvp.

Competitive pvp will remain such… thats what they made spvp for. WvW was never meant to be an even playing field. Or your level 2 character in WvW would have level 80 traits and hp/defense…. but they don’t and thats because its not meant to be like that. So really the only thing this affects is pve.

And from the sound of it you get the gear in the new dungeon anyways…. to continue the dungeon its not like you have to farm something then go run your content….

Chrissle.8690:

Cactus Brawler.7415:

They had the perfect end game, get your exotics of the right stats and then farm for looks, either through pvp, karma or dungeon runs. then if you ever changed your mind about your stats and roll, or just wanted a change in looks, do it again.

All they needed to do was keep releasing new skins with each content pass to give people something to run for, but no instead they are apparently buffing legendary’s to make them better than exotics, and adding a new set of better than exotic gear.

Perfect end game becomes yet another gear treadmill, well done.

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Perhaps they won’t run new dungeon A because they don’t like the look of the gear, but they might want to run it for the runes, for the drops (How many people run TA to look like the nightmare court, and how many run it for the Onyx drops?) or just for something to do.

Then new dungeon B comes out and the 50% that didn’t like dungeon A, like that, while the 50% who liked dungeon A don’t like B. Both are still going to be run, because after all you’re not going to want to be a glass cannon all the time.

How many games have based their end games on WoW style gear treadmills? (Have to gear up from content A to do content B, that gears you for content C.) How many of them have actually succeeded? The treadmill junkies will just return to WoW anyway, Anet should stick to their pre-release manifesto and stop trying to ape the MMO gorilla.

toomuchtatose.6874:

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Someone from Marketing once preached If you want to serve all, you might as well serve none.

I do agree that it is hard to satisfy all stats nerd, power-gamers, casual gamers etc. But it is much easier to retain existing customers.

ANet now need to choose whether to retain its fiercely ‘conservative’ player base or ‘forward-looking’ ones. I doubt GW2 has what it takes to compete with other MMOs though…

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority. I dont say you can cater to all players but it´s better to cater to as many players as possible. Who knows, maybe they are trying this out to see how many of the players likes it and how many dislikes it. If the majority dislikes it, they might change it again. It is ni their power to do so. But if it turns out the majority likes it then the people hating it is just going to have to suck it up or move on. That´s how it works. As you said a game cant cater to everyone.

Chrissle.8690:

Cactus Brawler.7415:

They had the perfect end game, get your exotics of the right stats and then farm for looks, either through pvp, karma or dungeon runs. then if you ever changed your mind about your stats and roll, or just wanted a change in looks, do it again.

All they needed to do was keep releasing new skins with each content pass to give people something to run for, but no instead they are apparently buffing legendary’s to make them better than exotics, and adding a new set of better than exotic gear.

Perfect end game becomes yet another gear treadmill, well done.

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

They can do this by using the new Agony system without adding more tiers or requiring past Agony buffs to do new future content. The problem is, ANET hasn’t stated if thats the case or not. They left room open to continue content gating and adding gear treadmills. It doesn’t matter how much time is between new gear and old gear, the fact that I need old gear to do new content that will be outdated in a new patch is why people are saying they are going to quit.

I want an answer to this. Just state there will be new tiers of gear added, or not. State if each new content will utilize its own “progression system” or not. Sectioning off progression to new content is the best of both worlds IMO. It means I don’t have to do the new content to get the best gear if I don’t like it, and if I like it will get easier for me the more I do it.

8170 replies pretty much overwhelmingly on the negative side. To go with the marketing anecdotes, another well known one is.

“For every one customer who complains, ten walk away silently.”

Even if we chop out the positive and the multiposters, that’s still going to be a massive amount of lost customers.

Pants.8315:

toomuchtatose.6874:

Pants.8315:

It’s a gear step. A treadmill implies it’s continuous. No where have they stated they will be adding anything beyond Ascended gear. In fact they explicitly said they were not intending to keep adding better tiers of gear.

To repeat what others have been saying, please quote where did ANet says no more new tiers?

Until then, we can only stay pessimistic since the balls are in their court, not ours.

“We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.”

He is simply acknowledging that the games been out 3 months and they’ve added a new set to give people something extra to work towards.

He is also explicitly saying that they won’t continue to add sets.

You can read into the sentence at discover any hidden meanings you like, but taken at face value, it simply says they don’t intend to continue adding more tiers.

Maybe I’m just optimistic, who knows, time will tell, and your more than welcome to keep my posts in reserve and say “I told you so” if in 4 months they add another tier.

Until that point I won’t be reading between the lines to uncover apparent hidden truths behind a message.

His posts states that they will not be adding new tiers EVERY THREE MONTHS. That is ALL it says. Nowhere does it say that they will NEVER introduce another tier set.

He explicitly did NOT say that no more sets will be added, ever.

Chrissle.8690:

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority. I dont say you can cater to all players but it´s better to cater to as many players as possible. Who knows, maybe they are trying this out to see how many of the players likes it and how many dislikes it. If the majority dislikes it, they might change it again. It is ni their power to do so. But if it turns out the majority likes it then the people hating it is just going to have to suck it up or move on. That´s how it works. As you said a game cant cater to everyone.

Majority or minority is not all. Casuals, who are the ones most likely to be hurt and disappointed by this patch, are likely the ones who spend more money on the gem store.

On the other hand hardcore gamers, who are the ones this patch it’s most aimed towards, are the ones who don’t need to spend much money in the gem store because they have plenty of gold.

The problem with pleasing the hardcore gamers is that it’s an impossible task. They consume content much quicker than ANet can create it.

So what they are doing is to alienate those who spend more money in the gem store to keep hardcore gamers fed for another week.

Sorry but the more I think about all this mess and the darker the future I see for GW2.

Chrissle.8690:

toomuchtatose.6874:

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Someone from Marketing once preached If you want to serve all, you might as well serve none.

I do agree that it is hard to satisfy all stats nerd, power-gamers, casual gamers etc. But it is much easier to retain existing customers.

ANet now need to choose whether to retain its fiercely ‘conservative’ player base or ‘forward-looking’ ones. I doubt GW2 has what it takes to compete with other MMOs though…

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority.

im not so sure of this, statistics…are statistics…
because if the majority of players now are “locusts” they have to keep in mind that that type of gamers are ready to leave when a new shiny bouble is coming… no matter how many gear set you do. But in the meanwhile you have destroyed the faith of a playerbase that followed your project for years.

Chrissle.8690:

toomuchtatose.6874:

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Someone from Marketing once preached If you want to serve all, you might as well serve none.

I do agree that it is hard to satisfy all stats nerd, power-gamers, casual gamers etc. But it is much easier to retain existing customers.

ANet now need to choose whether to retain its fiercely ‘conservative’ player base or ‘forward-looking’ ones. I doubt GW2 has what it takes to compete with other MMOs though…

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority. I dont say you can cater to all players but it´s better to cater to as many players as possible. Who knows, maybe they are trying this out to see how many of the players likes it and how many dislikes it. If the majority dislikes it, they might change it again. It is ni their power to do so. But if it turns out the majority likes it then the people hating it is just going to have to suck it up or move on. That´s how it works. As you said a game cant cater to everyone.

Pretty much this… no one here can claim who the majority or minority is. The majority is not even on these forums having a heart attack over the upcoming change. They are in game playing, or in a different game playing if they got bored here.

What I see in this thread is probably a 50/50 split of people fighting about who is the majority or who isn’t and how they were or weren’t lied to…..

Honestly your just wasting your breath. They stated in their announcement that players reached the end and compeleted things much faster then they thought they would hence they are trying to add some kind of progression in…. and it wasn’t just a few players that did this and have nothing to do…. it wouldn’t be logical to make a big change if a very small number of people were at the end and not playing any more due to nothing to do.

Fact is everyone here bought this game. Everyone has a right to play. Clearly AN has info showing they need to try something else because the current model isn’t going to cut it.

You don’t know their plan, and you don’t know what this change means. So sitting in the forums throwing a fit about it is a exercise in futility.

Ganzo.5079:

Chrissle.8690:

toomuchtatose.6874:

Chrissle.8690:

There´s one flaw in your philosphy about only farming for looks though. Imagine a new dungeon coming out. Only new looks on the dungeon sets, not better stats. 50% of the player base likes the looks, 50% hate them. What incentive do the 50% that hate the looks of the new armor have to do the content? What ANet is trying to do is cater to all kinds of gamers, not just one kind. I´m not saying either way is better than the other but most of the posts I see in this thread is like this “waaah waaah mommy they are not doing what I want. How can they be so mean to me. I´m gonna quit this game and tell all my friends that they shouldnt play it anymore. Am I doing good mommy? waah waaah”. Kinda like that. Not all of you are like that but majority that I have read in this thread. =)

Someone from Marketing once preached If you want to serve all, you might as well serve none.

I do agree that it is hard to satisfy all stats nerd, power-gamers, casual gamers etc. But it is much easier to retain existing customers.

ANet now need to choose whether to retain its fiercely ‘conservative’ player base or ‘forward-looking’ ones. I doubt GW2 has what it takes to compete with other MMOs though…

But only ANet knows which part is the majority and which part is the minority.

im not so sure of this, statistics…are statistics…
because if the majority of players now are “locusts” they have to keep in mind that that type of gamers are ready to leave when a new shiny bouble is coming… no matter how many gear set you do. But in the meanwhile you have destroyed the faith of a playerbase that followed you project for years.

I know many players that helped test GW2 before it was even beta, from my guild who was very dedicated to GW2 and WvW. They have officially let GW2 go meaning we play it but very casually.

And the number one reason was there is NO PROGRESSION of any kind. We are heavy on WvW… but there are no player rankings…. nothing to work towards…. Many have gone back to previous games like league of legends for example.

AN sees this and they are attempting to fill the gap. Business models can change rapidly depending on the player base…

Healix.5819:

Urxx.6840:

They had led us to believe exotics would never be surpassed in power. Why do you trust them this time?

It’s been known for over a year that there was a good chance that exotics would be surpassed by level 81 gear. They did after all say that they “absolutely would increase the level cap, probably with expansions.”

Can’t find that, can you share source please?

http://www.mmorpgate.com/2009/08/mmorpgs-that-failed-and-why.html

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

- George Santayana

Euthil.5209:

Now, this so called “fashion treadmill” is only a treadmill if you make it out to be, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes. Exactly. Same for “gear treadmill” is only a treadmill if you make it out to be.
Imo, ascended is not a form of treadmill, but a progression.

Game with Treadmill : Carrot on the stick while the carrot is the content/goal. This means no matter how much you grind, you can never reach the content and goal.

Game with Progression : There’s a line of carrots by the road. Once you ate the carrot, there is another. You walk to each one at a time. You progresses.

Game without Progression : All the carrots are given to you. Once you ate all the carrots, you feel full. There’s no more carrots there. You decided to move on to another place (game) to find another batch of carrots. – All console games are like this.
—-—————
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is exactly the reason why skin progression isn’t effective in end-game. Once players are satisfied with their armor looks, they have no more reasons to play even when there’s more skins content unlock. Players can wear only one set of looks anyway. They can still play the game, but with no goals left.

I don’t know about other players but personally, I find it extremely demotivating to play a game with no goals or rewards. When there’s no goals, I start to find it pointless and the content became tasteless. The game knows the best when there’s no more goals. We can see a drop of players in maps after they reached the wall. Players who used to play 5 hours per day only start to log in once every few days after they feel full satisfaction.

Urxx.6840:

Namu.5712:

So sitting in the forums throwing a fit about it is a exercise in futility.

So why are you here?

Taking the final paragraph from a post is a little biased imo, this could be taken out of context as you most obviously have.

Anyway on the op subject and the discussion that has evolved from it ill say this.

Can you blame anet for not wanting to make a remark like if they will or will not add progression etc etc etc" and all things of a similar beat, look at the reaction to one statement made during the press hype, which as many of you are fond of saying was just hype...

Namu.5712:

You don’t know their plan, and you don’t know what this change means. So sitting in the forums throwing a fit about it is a exercise in futility.

One of ANet’s strenghts up to this point has always been their ability to listen to feedback.
I firmly believe that whoever understands the danger and mechanics of downward spirals agrees that you have to discuss now the potentially devastating effects of this patch in the long run, because when you will see those effects it might be too late to counter them.

I’m here posting because I love this game and I don’t want to see it down the drain.

The fact you yourself are posting here means you feel the same.

So, no staying here is not an exercise in futility.

One way to counter gear progression while still offering progression is things like personal ELO, leaderboards, titles etc etc. I have no idea why these things aren’t already here really.

This gives people a sense of accomplishment, and competitive spirit without the need for a gear boost every few months with updates.

thanks urxx thats much better, I agree with you on your final 3 paragraphs and the first but not the second. I feel this will add a much needed stopgap between legendarys and exotics.

Sigh. You guys can comment, argue, protest and disagree till page 1000. Nothing will change.

Ascended Gears are coming and they are here to stay. And probably more tiers to come in the long run.

I will be going back to LOL while waiting for the next MMO.

Namu.5712:

One way to counter gear progression while still offering progression is things like personal ELO, leaderboards, titles etc etc. I have no idea why these things aren’t already here really.

This gives people a sense of accomplishment, and competitive spirit without the need for a gear boost every few months with updates.

On that I agree completely. There are many things ANet could have done to give a sense of progression without making previous progression (i.e. the acquisition of exotic gear) more and more maningless.

Namu.5712:

One way to counter gear progression while still offering progression is things like personal ELO, leaderboards, titles etc etc. I have no idea why these things aren’t already here really.

This gives people a sense of accomplishment, and competitive spirit without the need for a gear boost every few months with updates.

Exactly. There are plenty of ways to introduce progression. Unfortunately many of those ways are time consuming which also means more expensive.

Gear progression is the easiest and cheapest form of progression for developers. It’s why so many MMOs opt for this style when creating their game.

Mil.3562:

Sigh. You guys can comment, argue, protest and disagree till page 1000. Nothing will change.

Ascended Gears are coming and they are here to stay. And probably more tiers to come in the long run.

I will be going back to LOL while waiting for the next MMO.

Mil I genuinely hope you are wrong and ANet does what it did in the past: listen to community feedback and understand that they got a certain idea wrong and have the courage to do what it takes to make it right.

Why aNet?! Why would you introduce grinding in game that was promoted as NO GRINDING game. You promoted that if i don’t like dungeons, i wouldn’t have to play them. Now if i want to have top gear, i have to do them unconditionaly. Continuously. Hope that you would listen community and stop this madness before it ruins the game.

Urxx.6840:

Namu.5712:

You don’t know their plan, and you don’t know what this change means. So sitting in the forums throwing a fit about it is a exercise in futility.

One of ANet’s strenghts up to this point has always been their ability to listen to feedback.
I firmly believe that whoever understands the danger and mechanics of downward spirals agrees that you have to discuss now the potentially devastating effects of this patch in the long run, because when you will see those effects it might be too late to counter them.

I’m here posting because I love this game and I don’t want to see it down the drain.

The fact you yourself are posting here means you feel the same.

So, no staying here is not an exercise in futility.

I should have made myself a bit more clear… discussing it is fine. But making assumptions and freaking out over the unknown future of what this brings is a bit uncalled for.

Because we really don’t have an info on how the gear is obtained in the first place, do we get it as we progress in the new content? Is it a karma farm + some other currency? Special items to be used in the forge? I mean no one knows how it will be obtained. Its just instant omg the end of the world GW2 is a wow clone now!!! and that kind of thing is really…. well pointless. Its like the people in real life every few years freaking out about the end of the world… then comes the day the world is supposed to end and what do ya know it just keeps on rollin.

And yes I am concerned. My concern is how do they fix the broken end game without turning it into something that revolves around gear and stats. I have no problem with a little gear progression, its nice…. in small doses and when the content is complimented by it and your not running the content over and over again hoping for the gear.

Like I said above they need to introduce player competition. So that you do have a goal in game… but the goal isn’t exactly gear, its about being the best. And it being known that you are the best at whatever it is your doing. This could be done several ways.

But I digress, we still don’t know how this is going to pan out. It might not be bad. It might be horrible, in which case they will definitely hear about it.

At the moment I am more concerned about what they are doing to fix the ranger profession this patch more then the gear haha.

Pants.8315:

They are effectively acknowledging that the game’s been out three months, but they aren’t setting a precedent by adding this set now. It’s a one time only deal.

Maybe that’s true.

It’s still irrelevant. Once the full ascended gear is out (in small pieces coming out every 3 months, but that’s just pieces of an existing tier, not a new one evry v3 months) we’ll grind for rare infusions.

The next dungeon will have us grind for exotic infusions.

Then a new expansion raises the levelcap to 85. We grind for level 85 equipment.

I really am not sure why this is such a problem, for myself I also spent alot of cash/time on exotics and getting geared out. But I am very happy with the new ascended gear as I know it will add months and months of more enjoyment for me, this time however i wont have to do AC a load of times to get my exotics/cash/tokens I can do the fractal dungeon and get the peices from doing the bosses there.

Krone.4605:

Why aNet?! Why would you introduce grinding in game that was promoted as NO GRINDING game. You promoted that if i don’t like dungeons, i wouldn’t have to play them. Now if i want to have top gear, i have to do them unconditionaly. Continuously. Hope that you would listen community and stop this madness before it ruins the game.

They’ve already stated there will be other ways to gain the new gear (not necessarily immediately mind you, though the new back slots are crafted from the get go). You won’t have to set foot in a dungeon if you don’t want to.

Namu.5712:

I should have made myself a bit more clear… discussing it is fine. But making assumptions and freaking out over the unknown future of what this brings is a bit uncalled for.

Because we really don’t have an info on how the gear is obtained in the first place, do we get it as we progress in the new content? Is it a karma farm + some other currency? Special items to be used in the forge? I mean no one knows how it will be obtained. Its just instant omg the end of the world GW2 is a wow clone now!!! and that kind of thing is really…. well pointless. Its like the people in real life every few years freaking out about the end of the world… then comes the day the world is supposed to end and what do ya know it just keeps on rollin.

And yes I am concerned. My concern is how do they fix the broken end game without turning it into something that revolves around gear and stats. I have no problem with a little gear progression, its nice…. in small doses and when the content is complimented by it and your not running the content over and over again hoping for the gear.

Like I said above they need to introduce player competition. So that you do have a goal in game… but the goal isn’t exactly gear, its about being the best. And it being known that you are the best at whatever it is your doing. This could be done several ways.

But I digress, we still don’t know how this is going to pan out. It might not be bad. It might be horrible, in which case they will definitely hear about it.

See, but the fact they are introducing a new tier after they led everybody to invest in exotics and without any previous warning is damaging to most players and puts a shadow on their reputation, no matter how you acquire ascended gear.

Whether it will take time and/or money and/or karma is irrelevant from this point of view.

Last night I spent a couple of hours idling in Lion’s Arch. Tonight I didn’t bother logging in at all.

The great tragedy of the new gear tier is that it was introduced in the name of progression, but has in fact killed all sense of progress in the game. By announcing new rings and backpeices that are superior to anything in the game today, you’ve effectively said “don’t bother working towards any of the existing back pieces and rings because they’re going to be salvage fodder after this weekend” and by announcing that ascended pieces will be phased into all other slots over coming patches you’ve effectively said “oh and don’t bother with these either”. Instead of adding a sense of progression between exotics and legendaries, you’ve removed all incentive to progress towards anything but legendaries because they’re the only thing that won’t be superceded by your coming patches.

If this announcement hadn’t come out, I’d probably be out in WvW right now earning badges for my Soldier’s jewellery set to use in a linebacker build for my warrior or farming gold to get some rampages armour for my elementalist. Getting new gear for new builds and new classes, that was “progression”, instead I’m writing a forum post because there’s no point in working towards jewellery or armour that will be soon be worthless.

The thing with gear is that regardless of how many different colours that are on item descriptions, there are only 2 effective tiers:

• Tier 1: The optimal gear for a build that you want to play
• Tier 2: Gear you salvage/sell to get optimal gear for a build that you want to play.

In the 700 hrs since launch I’d collected over 50 exotics which I used to run 6 different builds across my 2 level 80 characters. Those exotics have now been relegated from tier 1 to tier 2 and there is no point grinding out sets for new builds if I’ll just have to do it again in a few days/weeks/months. A sadder story belongs to my sub-80 characters, with the new tier being only partially introduced they have no gear to even aim for if they hit the level cap, so they’ll likely never be played.

I’m not adverse to grind, someone does not play as many hours as I do without enjoying it. In fact, I’d shudder to think how many griffons and raptors met their end in my pursuit of loot, but there needs to be a purpose to it and that is where the introduction of new gear tiers hurts the game. If you don’t get to keep the rewards of your effort, then it negates the thrill of getting it in the first place.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars since 2005, have racked up over 8000 hours (including an average of 9.5h/day since the launch of gw2!) and have spent hundreds of dollars on storage, bag slots and character slots – suffice to say I’m about as personally invested in this game as its possible for a player to be. If it were a sport team, I’d be one of those guys in the stands wearing nothing but body paint. When I see you changing the defining quality of the game, I can’t help but be disappointed. I’ll still be logged in at 3am Saturday when the patch goes live, but I know the experience will one filled with melancholy rather than excitement.

I hope that you’ll reconsider the new direction and I’ll get to keep the game I love.

PS. http://imgur.com/KxffM This is the r9 15/-5 Fellblade that dropped for me in 2005 during the first week of Sorrow’s Furnace. It was with me every step for the next seven 7 years, together we saved 3 continents, killed a god, fought our way to hall of heroes and defended our guild against invaders and my new gw2 warrior still wields it today thanks to the hall of monuments. It is as much a part of my Guild Wars story as my warrior was. Having it in no way lessened the excitement when I finally obtained a 15/50 sephis sword, but do think that I as a player would have had the same level of investment in it if I had had to get a new, more powerful one for each of the original expansions?

Jezath.7395:

I really am not sure why this is such a problem, for myself I also spent alot of cash/time on exotics and getting geared out. But I am very happy with the new ascended gear as I know it will add months and months of more enjoyment for me, this time however i wont have to do AC a load of times to get my exotics/cash/tokens I can do the fractal dungeon and get the peices from doing the bosses there.

Some people call it months and months of enjoyment others call it months and months of grinding same dungeon. Guess it depends how you define the two.

Jezath.7395:

I really am not sure why this is such a problem, for myself I also spent alot of cash/time on exotics and getting geared out. But I am very happy with the new ascended gear as I know it will add months and months of more enjoyment for me, this time however i wont have to do AC a load of times to get my exotics/cash/tokens I can do the fractal dungeon and get the peices from doing the bosses there.

That’s a very good attitude. But if one has the benevolence and equanimity of the Dalai Lama and takes a wrong thing in a very good way, that doesn’t make the wrong thing right.

Naoko.7096:

I don’t know about other players but personally, I find it extremely demotivating to play a game with no goals or rewards. When there’s no goals, I start to find it pointless and the content became tasteless. The game knows the best when there’s no more goals. We can see a drop of players in maps after they reached the wall. Players who used to play 5 hours per day only start to log in once every few days after they feel full satisfaction.

And 2(!) pieces of gear will retain the attention span of these players for how long? Please explain me why kittening off a reasonable portion of the player-base in order to vaguely drag back the gear-crowd for a couple weeks before they get bored again is a good idea.

The problem with this isn’t the idea itself.

It’s that two unique visions for an MMO have been presented to us: the one advertised in their Manifesto and interviews, and the one being pushed on us now. It’s not hard for people to get angry when there are countless quotes from the team saying they wouldn’t add gear tiers (which led to people trusting in ANet and investing their karma in 42k-per-piece karma exotics among other things), how they didn’t intend to make a gear treadmill, how they didn’t want to force people to grind….and all of these promises stand to be broken with the introduction of the Ascended items. Items which are, in the team’s own words, practically required for future dungeons. Items which make an existing tier of gear (Exotics) almost entirely meaningless in the process, since no one is going to play the other dungeons to get exotic items if they can just grind future dungeons for even higher tiers of gear.

ANet needs to reconsider this idea before they make the mistake of other games and create an MMO that isn’t that unique at all. You don’t want to draw the scorn of those who supported you all these years just to cater to people who will move on as soon as the next MMO is announced.

Urxx.6840:

Namu.5712:

I should have made myself a bit more clear… discussing it is fine. But making assumptions and freaking out over the unknown future of what this brings is a bit uncalled for.

Because we really don’t have an info on how the gear is obtained in the first place, do we get it as we progress in the new content? Is it a karma farm + some other currency? Special items to be used in the forge? I mean no one knows how it will be obtained. Its just instant omg the end of the world GW2 is a wow clone now!!! and that kind of thing is really…. well pointless. Its like the people in real life every few years freaking out about the end of the world… then comes the day the world is supposed to end and what do ya know it just keeps on rollin.

And yes I am concerned. My concern is how do they fix the broken end game without turning it into something that revolves around gear and stats. I have no problem with a little gear progression, its nice…. in small doses and when the content is complimented by it and your not running the content over and over again hoping for the gear.

Like I said above they need to introduce player competition. So that you do have a goal in game… but the goal isn’t exactly gear, its about being the best. And it being known that you are the best at whatever it is your doing. This could be done several ways.

But I digress, we still don’t know how this is going to pan out. It might not be bad. It might be horrible, in which case they will definitely hear about it.

See, but the fact they are introducing a new tier after they led everybody to invest in exotics and without any previous warning is damaging to most players and puts a shadow on their reputation, no matter how you acquire ascended gear.

Whether it will take time and/or money and/or karma is irrelevant from this point of view.

I guess im indifferent about what was “promised” vs what is going to happen.

For me the game is fun. But is quickly getting…stale? maybe boring? I don’t know but somethings gotta give for me to want to log in. And this is after some months of hardcore WvW, perhaps its a bit of pvp burn out with no real progression competition wise… well server rankings but those mean nothing in the current state of WvW. Pve wise I like the mechanics but feels like there is something missing. And that’s not to imply that I think new gear is missing… just theres something that makes me say meh why bother.

johnnymanhands.7310:

Last night I spent a couple of hours idling in Lion’s Arch. Tonight I didn’t bother logging in at all.

I feel you. I don’t feel like logging in until the event.

Grinding is satisfying if you are certain about the end-point.

But if the end-point is always a moving target.. whats the point of grinding? It becomes a chore, you started to wonder if your ‘grind’ is well spent.

Namu.5712:

For me the game is fun. But is quickly getting…stale? maybe boring? I don’t know but somethings gotta give for me to want to log in. And this is after some months of hardcore WvW, perhaps its a bit of pvp burn out with no real progression competition wise… well server rankings but those mean nothing in the current state of WvW. Pve wise I like the mechanics but feels like there is something missing. And that’s not to imply that I think new gear is missing… just theres something that makes me say meh why bother.

It could be MMO burn out, pretty normal if you blow through content too quickly or intense. You will be burnt out by other game genre too.

Games getting stale are common, the magic is that the game (and its content) must be good enough for you to get back in after “periods of rest”.

Urxx.6840:

Jezath.7395:

I really am not sure why this is such a problem, for myself I also spent alot of cash/time on exotics and getting geared out. But I am very happy with the new ascended gear as I know it will add months and months of more enjoyment for me, this time however i wont have to do AC a load of times to get my exotics/cash/tokens I can do the fractal dungeon and get the peices from doing the bosses there.

That’s a very good attitude. But if one has the benevolence and equanimity of the Dalai Lama and takes a wrong thing in a very good way, that doesn’t make the wrong thing right.

haha nice analogy my friend This statement you make is very true, however I do not feel it is wrong what they have done.. I dont feel they have broken any promises… yet..

if they really go thrue with that kind og gameplay, ti’s just a matter of time before they introduce us with pay-to-win mechanics…

First of all, adding new tier doesn’t close the gap between Exotic and Legendary gear, because there wasn’t any gap in the first place. It introduces completely new tier of gear, which requires certain activities to get. And that is against what they said before launch of the game. So that the first lie.

Second Lie is that we will see only MINOR increase of statistics with the new tier. of course, theres only +5 power and +5 precision total, but in the case we have seen on the published picture that’s only secondary stats with MF being main one. And that is 7 versus 10, which doesn’t make that much difference per se, but let’s imagine whole set of ascended gear on that basis. It will be 11 (let’s exclude back slot) by 3 which is 33 Magic Find MORE than exotic gear. No one will tell me, that is irrelevant and only MINOR upgrade to my toon. Of course, there’s no need to have it, but that way there’s no need to have exotics nor even yellows or greens. There’s no need to get to 80 or play this game at all… But IF I want to stay COMPETITIVE i will need the whole set of the new introduced gear.
Now to the point – By now my idea of playing GW2 was to make 8 characters, get them all to 80, equip them in exotics and enjoy all of the side activities that game has to offer (exploring, puzzles, spvp, WvW, achievements, legendaries etc). And that was still within my time limit and I could take my time to do it all without a hassle.

And now, thank you Anet, you ruined it all for me. Now to have sense of accomplishment I would have to Run same dungeons 8 times in order to get your gear on all of my toons? And I can’t be sure whether that’s the end of my struggle or not?

I feel cheated and I lost a lot of trust and excitement that i had playing your game. And I’m wondering whether I should pay you any more (in form of buying gems) or not, since I came to this MMO for not having to deal with any gear grind treadmills anymore…

Naoko.7096:

Euthil.5209:

Now, this so called “fashion treadmill” is only a treadmill if you make it out to be, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Yes. Exactly. Same for “gear treadmill” is only a treadmill if you make it out to be.
Imo, ascended is not a form of treadmill, but a progression.

Game with Treadmill : Carrot on the stick while the carrot is the content/goal. This means no matter how much you grind, you can never reach the content and goal.

Game with Progression : There’s a line of carrots by the road. Once you ate the carrot, there is another. You walk to each one at a time. You progresses.

Game without Progression : All the carrots are given to you. Once you ate all the carrots, you feel full. There’s no more carrots there. You decided to move on to another place (game) to find another batch of carrots. – All console games are like this.
—-—————
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is exactly the reason why skin progression isn’t effective in end-game. Once players are satisfied with their armor looks, they have no more reasons to play even when there’s more skins content unlock. Players can wear only one set of looks anyway. They can still play the game, but with no goals left.

I don’t know about other players but personally, I find it extremely demotivating to play a game with no goals or rewards. When there’s no goals, I start to find it pointless and the content became tasteless. The game knows the best when there’s no more goals. We can see a drop of players in maps after they reached the wall. Players who used to play 5 hours per day only start to log in once every few days after they feel full satisfaction.

You are wrong, and very much so.

Empiric proof: GW1 was a success. The game hasn’t died even when no new content was added for 5+ years and only treadmill was the fashion one, and it was such a success that ANet decided to make another game like it, just better. People played for years with no stats progression whatsoever.

Gear treadmill is not “in the eye of the beholder”, as better gear is tangibly better: higher stats mean higher performance.

GW2 was indeed to be about progression, but not in stats or levels. it was to be a horizontal progression.
But simply saying “what we’re doing is not treadmill/vertical progression, it just character progression” does not change the facts.

This game has – and GW1 had – goals and rewards and plenty of them.
If you didn’t like their type, why did you buy this game or why didn’t you and players like you leave for games that offered what you wanted? As you can see in this thread (and by GW1 success) such design perfectly satisfied a lot of people.