Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Kudzu.7569:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

what did you guys do from 1 to 80? Sit on the same gear for 80 levels? Get used to it: GW and GW2 were always games where you got better gear while playing the content. Now that there is new content, there is new gear. It’s a reward mechanism; you get your shiny because you do well.

Except that in GW1, the new gear you got was for looks only. So no, there is no comparing the horizontal progression of the original GW to the stat-increasing vertical progression they’ve just added.

I would have been happy if they had added a form of grinding so long as it didn’t add any stats to armor. With stat increases at end-game you always risk creating gated content and requiring players to grind long hours (even if they don’t enjoy that playstyle at all) just to see the parts of the game they do enjoy.

Really? I thought I’ve seen some green items somewhere when sorrows furnace was released…

Green items in GW1 weren’t any better than blues as far as damage went. They just had a built-in insignia or whatever it was called on them.

What do we know of tiers in GW2 so far? Do we have to grind those new tier items for weeks like in other games? So far: No. Why should it be different now? They already said that Infusion is the thing you will have to grind, not ascended gear. Do we have to use a new tier in order to play new content in GW2? Absolutely No. The new dungeon (all 9 shards) are entirely open to everyone; even to everyone without ascended gear. You’ll only need this gear in order to unlock a new difficulty – for the same content. So you don’t need to grind for new content but for a new difficulty.

Someone posted here earlier that you get 5 tokens per fractal and the ascended items take like 250 tokens to get (may have been more.) That’s a ton of grinding in my book.

Omega.1473:

@ Osprey : You’re forgetting the easiest way to get Exotics through WvWvW – buy it off the TP with gold. I’ve made a profit on most nights in the Mists and was able to buy an Exalted medium helm to transmute with my earnings.

Can we do that with Ascended gear? Nope. Everything so far is account bound.

And even then, WHY should we have to rebuy gear? There was no such thing as a gap between exotics and legendaries. Why did they feel the need to make such a gap and force us to regear?

forrae.6708:

WvW is great. No need to visit the dungeon for best loot. Chris already stated that the new tier (ascended) will be available in WvW also.

note he didnt say when. if yet another tier of gear comes out after ascended, this could happen when ascended goes out of date. other games do this often, make the previous tier super easy to get when its outdated.

so this is what you experienced in GW2 so far?

The way it is now: Max tier for every content – WvW & PvE. Tell me: why should they change this?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I got needlessly frustrated over the last few days it seems.
I dont understand why they felt they had to slowly bring the players UP to full legendary stats.
I am glad to hear this stuff is available through many more methods than just the new fractal dungeon.
I am bummed that I have to regear my toons.

Ostra.3927:

To those that say it does not affect you so you have a wait and see. This is valid and if I had not seen this kind of thing happen in plenty of other MMOs I would be in your shoes.

Here is what will happen assuming they only add more tiers of items every say 6 months from here on out.

Week 1 ascended gear comes out. Exotics will drop in price slightly meaning it will be easier to gear up for those looking to start the treadmill.

week 2 The grinders are are getting close to finding the sweetspot for the dungeon runs. LFG for FoTM will start seeing “LFG for FoTM lvl 2 only send /w”

Week 4 “LFG for FoTM lvl 4 only +link ascended gear” Those without will begin waiting a longer and longer time to get a group together. Current dungeons will be nearly abondoned as PUGS except for COF and AC with the popular skins.

Week 6 Current dungeons nearly a ghost town except for guild invites only. Grinders have flooded the market with un-wanted exotics that no-one wants to buy anymore. Your exotics will be worth what lvl 80 greens are now. WvW will be ran by the richer guilds that have grinded out the new FoTM dungeon for their ascended gear.

Week 12 Anet announced a new infusion that gives better stats. IF you were lucky to get infused before to max level you will now be forced to do the grind again to stay up with your friends.

Week 16 Anet announces the old dungeons are getting a revamp, new upscaled rewards to make the grinders want it and harder enemies to match the ascended stats. Those new players or casual players that still have exotics or lower? They are not going to be able to play the dungeon until they grind out the 600k karma in Orr to get the exotics, to be able to begin running the lowest levels of the FoTM dungeon.

This is the structure of what is to come. The time frame may be less or more but this WILL be the future, as it has always been the future for a gear based treadmill.

I totally agree. But since I already paid for this game, and there is no subscription fee, what other choices do I have other than not play a game at all? Are there any other games out there that offer me the experience I get from GW2 (aside from dungeons, which I don’t do anyway)? I tried GW1, but didn’t care for it. Already burned out on two other games over five years.

I was hoping GW2 would be long term. I know now that it may not be. That’s sad. But seems all the games turn out catering to the ones that like to grind for better gear constantly. Frustrating actually.

Taerik.3405:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I got needlessly frustrated over the last few days it seems.
I dont understand why they felt they had to slowly bring the players UP to full legendary stats.
I am glad to hear this stuff is available through many more methods than just the new fractal dungeon.
I am bummed that I have to regear my toons.

But the question remains, why do we need this? Its a complete departure from what we expected, and the gap they keep talking about frankly doesnt exist.

Taerik.3405:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I got needlessly frustrated over the last few days it seems.
I dont understand why they felt they had to slowly bring the players UP to full legendary stats.
I am glad to hear this stuff is available through many more methods than just the new fractal dungeon.
I am bummed that I have to regear my toons.

First off, he made that post two days ago when this firestorm first hit the forums. It’s old news at this point. Secondly, he says it will be available through other means but doesn’t say when. You’ll note that it was not included in tonight’s patch. Finally, they also said GW2 wouldn’t have a gear treadmill and now we have one so their word means jack kitten to me. Bottomline is that if your first reaction to the news about ascended items was negative, there is nothing to find solace with in that post.

That is an insane amount of time to grind FotM for tokens. Not happening for me. But hey I heard that Star Wars mmo just went f2p…

Osprey.6587:

Taerik.3405:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I got needlessly frustrated over the last few days it seems.
I dont understand why they felt they had to slowly bring the players UP to full legendary stats.
I am glad to hear this stuff is available through many more methods than just the new fractal dungeon.
I am bummed that I have to regear my toons.

First off, he made that post two days ago when this firestorm first hit the forums. It’s old news at this point. Secondly, he says it will be available through other means but doesn’t say when. You’ll note that it was not included in tonight’s patch. Finally, they also said GW2 wouldn’t have a gear treadmill and now we have one so their word means jack kitten to me. Bottomline is that if your first reaction to the news about ascended items was negative, there is nothing to find solace with in that post.

I read the article and then didnt log in since, I just saw that post today, no reason for you to get all jumpy over it. Yes the VAST majority of community response is negative, but I would rather play this than wow or starwow

I frankly have no idea why ascended gear is something you need to grind for. Max-stats was obtainable relativly fast up to now. This is how it should be – Colin said it himself. I really don’t care for Infusion-grind though.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Omega.1473:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

what did you guys do from 1 to 80? Sit on the same gear for 80 levels?

No, I geared up and HATED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

Lol why do you still play a game you hate then? I don’t buy Need for Speed, realize that I hate it, play on and on and go to the forums and cry about it. If you hate the main content of GW2, then why bother playing it? Just to troll in the forums?

You completely missed the point. I hated gearing up. I loved the story, the setting, the art, the music, the events, the heart quests, the customization, the community in game, the jumping puzzles, the exploration and the dungeons.

Just because I hated the gear does not mean I hated the game. The gear was not the main content of the game. If that’s what you liked about it, then you’re the kind of dam*ed scumbag who ruined this game for the rest of us. By your tone and complete lack of intelligence, I’m going to lump you in with them regardless.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Omega.1473:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

what did you guys do from 1 to 80? Sit on the same gear for 80 levels?

No, I geared up and HATED EVERY SECOND OF IT.

Lol why do you still play a game you hate then? I don’t buy Need for Speed, realize that I hate it, play on and on and go to the forums and cry about it. If you hate the main content of GW2, then why bother playing it? Just to troll in the forums?

That’s exactly the point. I play Need for Speed to race. To drive fast against other cars. Not to upgrade my max turbo, change the tires, and adjust the suspension. Sure, a few car tweaks and collectible upgrades make the game fun.
But what is the purpose of the game? To enjoy the race? Or to collect better parts? Sure, you don’t have to keep on collecting parts. But then you can’t compete. You can drive fast, as fast as you like. Just not quite as fast as the other cars. If you corner better, time your acceleration, and drift, you can do better than those faster cars. But an equally skilled driver with a better car will do better than you.
And how can you enjoy driving fast, if you’re behind the other cars? Not because you’re worse than them, but because you haven’t gathered enough stat boosters from boring, inane tasks.
A bit of grind is fine. The 1-80 is alright. Almost all RPGs have grind; its very difficult to avoid. But what’s the focus of the game? Exploration and combat? Social interaction and PvP? Teamwork and huge events? Or gathering resources to maximize your spreadsheet? And which way does Ascended Armor push it?

Taerik.3405:

Osprey.6587:

Taerik.3405:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

I got needlessly frustrated over the last few days it seems.
I dont understand why they felt they had to slowly bring the players UP to full legendary stats.
I am glad to hear this stuff is available through many more methods than just the new fractal dungeon.
I am bummed that I have to regear my toons.

First off, he made that post two days ago when this firestorm first hit the forums. It’s old news at this point. Secondly, he says it will be available through other means but doesn’t say when. You’ll note that it was not included in tonight’s patch. Finally, they also said GW2 wouldn’t have a gear treadmill and now we have one so their word means jack kitten to me. Bottomline is that if your first reaction to the news about ascended items was negative, there is nothing to find solace with in that post.

I read the article and then didnt log in since, I just saw that post today, no reason for you to get all jumpy over it. Yes the VAST majority of community response is negative, but I would rather play this than wow or starwow

I wasn’t trying to jump on you about it. You said you were needlessly frustrated the last few days and I was just letting you know that your frustration was well founded and that damage control post doesn’t change anything. As for choosing this over wow or starwow, I will probably opt for option 3 which is to quit playing MMOs altogether. It’s becoming painfully obvious that nobody has the balls to make one without a gear grind and I hate gear grinds.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Come on, there is so much to do without the need to work on your character. I can’t see where I have to work on my character in GW2 when playing the game. It’s not like there is a gearcheck ANYWHERE. I was fully able to go to Orr with my lv.71+ gear and had no problems at all. Even dungeons are no problem if you are a good player. Skill > Gear in GW2 – proven true for me because I experienced it this way.

Please tell me where you had to grind in order to play the game. Maybe you’re doing it wrong.

Maximum equipment power is not required to “play” anywhere. It is required to play if you want to know that the only thing holding you back is your own player skill.

When I lose a fight, I want it to be because I wasn’t good enough to win – not because I was good enough, but my equipment wasn’t quite powerful to let me survive.
And when I win a fight, I don’t want to know that I could have finished the fight 30 seconds earlier if I had grinded out better equipment.

The game should be purely a matter of my own skill. That’s not possible if I don’t have the best possible equipment. Period. The fact that I can still win doesn’t affect that.

+ see: it has been made entirely possible to level your characters by crafting. This is intended, it caters to you. Where is your problem?

I could craft to 80 because I’d collected a surplus of gold that I could throw into buying crafting materials, which is hardly ideal, but is infinitely preferable to having to grind from 1-80 on every character I want to play.

With the current implementation of Ascended equipment, not only would it take me longer to get a full set of Ascended gear than it would take to grind a character from 1-80, but I cannot alleviate that grind by simply buying my way through the grind with gold.

And I have more than one character at 80 that I would like to be able to play at maximum power.

And there is more than one build that I would like to play at maximum power on those characters, that each require equipment with different stats.

These are things that I can do with the current Exotic maximum, and cannot do with Ascended equipment.

Eurosdown.6072:

That is an insane amount of time to grind FotM for tokens. Not happening for me. But hey I heard that Star Wars mmo just went f2p…

lol you dont like it that they will bring new items with better stats but refer to swtor?

ive played swtor for a while.. its quite the same as wow just with star wars skins
and its aaaall about stats…..

Angrec.6970:

Omega.1473:

@ Osprey : You’re forgetting the easiest way to get Exotics through WvWvW – buy it off the TP with gold. I’ve made a profit on most nights in the Mists and was able to buy an Exalted medium helm to transmute with my earnings.

Can we do that with Ascended gear? Nope. Everything so far is account bound.

And even then, WHY should we have to rebuy gear? There was no such thing as a gap between exotics and legendaries. Why did they feel the need to make such a gap and force us to regear?

Well, a lot of people couldn’t enjoy the game for what it was. They complained. ArenaNet sided with them over the loyal fans of the franchise and their own manifesto.

Crater.1625:

And there is more than one build that I would like to play at maximum power on those characters, that each require equipment with different stats.

These are things that I can do with the current Exotic maximum, and cannot do with Ascended equipment.

I fall into the same group, to a greater extent. I like to play differet builds on my characters…but I also like to do this on more than just one character.

This type of grind it takes to get this new gear doesn’t make it viable for the vast majority of us to do on more than a single character. This destroys one of the best things about this game (and one of the things I loved in GW1) and hated in almost every other MMO. I don’t want to go work on my alts when my main character is still SO far away from “max” gear that takes hundreds of hours to obtain.

There were even some pre-release blog posts and interviews with devs using the ease of making alt characters as one of the selling points/fundamental elements of GW2. Why go back on that now and send this huge “kitten you” to all of us alt-a-holics?

something happened otherwise they would not had to come up with new gear this soon

the most obvious is a significant decrease of players…

the devs acutally live from money and not from a dedicated fanbase

why do people always tend to shout out loud or repeat what other people are complaining about, bevor even start thinking about the why!?

just stop those suggestive threats
and please stop pretending like youre the most important person in the world
if you pay ANet enough money to live from then they may design the game as you want it to be…

till then its just all about to keep the numbers of players increasing
because that means money to keep this game/project alive

and no, they are not selling themselves, they just want to keep this game running and come up with new content and im sure that not all of them are happy with this decision

Llywellyn.4635:

something happened otherwise they would not had to come up with new gear this soon

the most obvious is a significant decrease of players…

the devs acutally live from money and not from a dedicated fanbase

why do people always tend to shout out loud or repeat what other people are complaining about, bevor even start thinking about the why!?

just stop those suggestive threats
and please stop pretending like youre the most important person in the world
if you pay ANet enough money to live from then they may design the game as you want it to be…

till then its just all about to keep the numbers of players increasing
because that means money to keep this game/project alive

and no, they are not selling themselves, they just want to keep this game running and come up with new content and im sure that not all of them are happy with this decision

One of major selling point about the game was the lack of emphasis of gear progression, it was mentioned multiple times and by no less than the president or ArenaNet. It was a major selling point for me and apparently many others as well.

By reneging on the core philosophy of the game, they have invalidated a major reason I play this game. In my eyes, their actions will slowly destroy what the game stood for and therefore no longer worth my time. I don’t pretend to be anymore important than anyone else, I simply speak for myself.

Yes, the game could have failed to be a success had they stuck with the original manifesto. But I would rather they and gave their all and stuck with the original plan (and show some integrity by not keeping critical information from their userbase or intentionally mislead them) than turn the game into a “me too” grind fest, none of which are able to compare to WoW because who wants to play a copy-cat game?

They caved in to the all the Q_Q from raiders , who had no business being here in the first place. The game WAS supposed to be about not grinding for gear.

W/e Anet can take their ascended gear and stick up their kitten, where the kitten don’t shine.

Osprey.6587:

Secondly, he says it will be available through other means but doesn’t say when.

If I may wager a guess, it’ll be available through other means such as karma or gold (crafted in TP) when the next tier is unveiled. As we know from other games, it’s important for gear treadmill games to make the currently second best gear easy to obtain while requiring dungeon runs / raids for currently best gear.

phooka.4295:

Osprey.6587:

Secondly, he says it will be available through other means but doesn’t say when.

If I may wager a guess, it’ll be available through other means such as karma or gold (crafted in TP) when the next tier is unveiled. As we know from other games, it’s important for gear treadmill games to make the currently second best gear easy to obtain while requiring dungeon runs / raids for currently best gear.

But they said they where not going to do that. So what we can’t take them for there word now?

And for what for the raiders to come back do everything in one week and leave again?

ya awesome.

I generally don’t post on gaming forums, and certainly have never posted on these gw2 forums, but i feel it necessary to break silence due to the overwhelming disappointment I feel right now.

My first and only MMORPG experience has been vanilla WoW. I refused to play any other MMO since then because I simple dont like to grind. I dont like the frequent release of content that made current gear obsolete and necessitated grinding for the next max iLvl loot just so I can be competitive in the new dungeon/raid/battelground. This issue was compounded because I dont have a lot of time to play games and thus could not keep up.

When I heard about GW2 and its design philosophy that there is no grind and that top tier loot can be acquired by all, I was interested. I played this game and loved it. There was no sense of ‘rushing’, no urgency to get to max level just so I can stay on par with other people. I could level leisureally, level alts, or even, gasp play other games every now and then. I seriously saw this game as a long term investment. Its the first game I was prepared to play multiple times with multiple characters in PVP, PVE, WvW. Do what I want, when I want.

That has all changed now. I dont know who the developers are trying to appease, but it certainly isnt players such as my self. If this was a subscription based MMO, I would have hit the unsubscribe button by now. Will I keep playing? Yes, since its F2P. Will I buy gems or expansions from now on. Unlikely.

@Juneau.6095:
/subscribe

If this update had come two weeks ago I would not have bought the game. If I want item grind, I can play any other MMO. I bought and installed GW2 as a non-grind based RPG. I wanted an alternative to all the other MMOs where you know there is item progression and you will have to grind like mad for top equip, just to grind even more after the next content update which brings even better whoppie-doo gear.
Actually, I do play such a grind based MMO – Age of Conan.
I bought GW2 as an alternative to AoC, where I can play a little, get max-gear within a rather short ammount of time, get a break whenever I want to and come back any time without losing anything and still being as “strong” as anybody else. I mean, hey – I got those epic items from a couple of months ago, and there is no “better” stuff and never will be. THIS is why I played GW1 for six years (and put a lot of money into that game, including 4 accounts, 26 character slots and all upgrades on the main account), including two longer breaks. But whenever I came back I was no weaker than all the people who had played 24/7 for the last months. They just had the rare skins while I was running around with collector and green stuff.

Now, as GW2 obviously stands for Grind Wars 2, I don’t see any reason why I should continue playing it. I don’t want another grind based title, that’s what I already got AoC for (and to be honest, as an MMO AoC beats GW2 by far). I wanted a game which I can play casually or intensive without having any disadvantages. GW2 no longer is this game.

How about NCSoft offering all those players who now feel cheated to refund the money we payed for the game when we trusted the “no item progression – no grinding” promise?

TimeBomb.3427:

Ryan.6951:

[&Ag-gkAAA]

http://imgur.com/N1PBX

It’s way beyond any slight bump. “if that’s a blue then even the best will only add 20 condition damage”

how wrong could you be. Go look. This is in game now.

You can’t get a % increase based on this ring’s stats because there is no other exotic ring that has all the same stat setup as this one. Let’s assume there was one, though. What stats would the exotic have? We can use some math to approximate this.

The ascended ring’s main stats are 31 points each, right? Six times. Well, the ascended ring w/ three stats has 72+51+51 points. Let’s average out the stats, 72, 51 and 51, and use that as a “weight” when we apply some math to exotic rings. That’s 58. 31 is 47% weaker than 58.

Now let’s look at an exotic ring and apply the same math. 67+48+48. As with the ascended ring, we’ll average these numbers out to get the “weight”. That’s about 53. 47% of 53 is about 28.

The difference? (28 * 6) vs (31 * 6). Thus this ascended ring you’re complaining about is roughly about 10.7% stronger than a potential exotic equivalent. Not including the gem or infusion gem, though. This number is very similar to my previous approximation (using real items) of 11%. Take a look at my previous posts for more info.

Cats out of the bag. We are looking at approximately a 11% increase in quality from exotic to ascended. This isn’t a minor increase, this is massive.

UBeMine.4267:

@Juneau.6095:
/subscribe

If this update had come two weeks ago I would not have bought the game. If I want item grind, I can play any other MMO. I bought and installed GW2 as a non-grind based RPG. I wanted an alternative to all the other MMOs where you know there is item progression and you will have to grind like mad for top equip, just to grind even more after the next content update which brings even better whoppie-doo gear.
Actually, I do play such a grind based MMO – Age of Conan.
I bought GW2 as an alternative to AoC where I can play a little, get max-gear within a rather short ammount of time, get a break whenever I want to and come back without losing anything. Because, hey – I got those epic items from a couple of months ago, and there is no “better” stuff and never will be. THIS is why I played GW1 for six years, including two longer breaks. But whenever I came back I was no weaker then all the people who had played 24/7 for the last months. They just had the rare skins while I was running around with collector and green stuff.

Now, that GW2 obviously stands for Grind Wars 2, I don’t see any reason why I should continue playing it. I don’t want another grind based title, that’s what I got AoC for (and to be honest, as an MMO AoC beats GW2 by far). I wanted a game which I can play casually or intensive without having any disadvantages. GW2 is no longer this game.

How about NCSoft offering all those players who now feel cheated to refund the money we payed for the game when we trusted the “no item progression – no grinding” promise?

I’d like to see not only the games purchase price refunded but also all monies spent in their cash shop as well! I bought all that while believing their promises in their promotion of this game were true. It was a fraud now all along it seems.

toomuchtatose.6874:

Can’t wait for Ascended version of Berserker ring xD

…with roughly +10% damage that you’ll use to fight other ascended-clad players so your +10% damage will be countered by their +10% HP / mitigation. Or you’ll use it in PvE to fight the +10% NPCs in the new content, the only relevant content.

Congratulations! You’re a happy person and that’s a good thing to be. You can even be pleased with, basically, nothing. You can be pleased with an update that allows you to kill players and NPCs with exactly the same effort as before but that forces you to work to regain the status quo.

It must be great to find enjoyment in such changes. I don’t, unfortunately.

Dmorilize.9401:

So… i hit 80 a while ago , and now have 2 alts also 80 ( and yes i am a casual player, just sooo easy to lvl and get geared atm ). If i was to take the same stance as al the other people with a complaint about new gear tiers …… what should i now do with my time ????

I’d say play the adventures you presumably wanted to see in the game in the first place? There are virtually countless things to be done in the game, but it comes down to doing the type of things you find adventurous and fun.

What do characters in good storytelling and fiction do? In the genre of heroic fiction and fantasy, they usually go out adventuring, confronting the dangers to their peoples or world. Sure King Arthur got Excalibur, but he didn’t say “Oh noooes, I’ve got it, now what shall I do?” and end his adventuring life. Rousing tales of adventures of his knights did not all revolve around them seeking a way to “get better stats” from gear. Expanding the genre, take Indiana Jones, he wasn’t after “a better whip” or “better stats” for his pistol.

The adventure’s the thing, certain gear-grindy games have worked at conditioning us to think “better stats on gear” is what adventure is all about, but it’s just stuff they threw at us in an attempt to force us to play the game just to “keep up” so we could continue to play with our friends; “I have to play this game (even though they’re not giving me good stories or adventures) because if I don’t I’ll fall behind, and can’t keep up with my friends.” It’s really a rediculous mechanism that gw1 and gw2 design concepts many of us were sold on were trying to get away from!

What adventures to do? WvW if you like that, help your server confront the foe! Dynamic Events if you like, help people win one after the other, retake bases in Orr, take down a dragon, fight off some centaurs, etc. Go through the dungeons, you don’t have to race past encounters to get to the end bosses just to get points toward some item, but explore along the way (if that’s your thing). If you feel everything’s been done in the game and you want the developers to give you more, you don’t need them to up the stats, they can build new dungeons, new events, new maps, all kinds of things to explore instead of hooking you with the old standby of +gear you must have to avoid letting your friends down and “falling behind” so that you cannot play the same game they do.

I want play “Guild War”,not fxxking “WOW”.

You can see what “Blizzard” done at “Diablo3” and what happened at “Diablo3” now.

They make “Diablo3” like “World Of Warcraft”…like a “TRASH”, no one want play and even someone ruined his “Diablo3 Collector’s Edition”, so what are BZ doing now?
They turn back to make Diablo3 like d2…
Anet can keep doing like this, that can make them more like “Blizzard”,make them more like a “FOOL”.

Can anyone link a statement where ANet promised that Exotic would be the max gear level? Without that…

IndigoSundown.5419:

Can anyone link a statement where ANet promised that Exotic would be the max gear level? Without that…

ANet didn’t promise Exotic will be max gear level, but they didn’t promise Ascend will be the last either.

toomuchtatose.6874:

I’m sarcastic. Its like moving from one slum to another slum, nothing changes xD

Sarcasm is hard to detect on a forum, I’m sorry for missing it. Unfortunately, there seem to be a number of players out there who can’t look past the higher numbers, who don’t understand that higher numbers change nothing in terms of gameplay because the game will get balanced around them and who tout their ignorance as enlighted wisdom on forums. With my sarcasm-detector broken, I had you mistaken for one of those, sorry for that. But after all, they sound just like what you’d written.

phanmc.6759:

One of major selling point about the game was the lack of emphasis of gear progression, it was mentioned multiple times and by no less than the president or ArenaNet. It was a major selling point for me and apparently many others as well.

I totaly agree but lets try some different theories
lets say the game sold 2.5mill times and now we have a playerbase of 750.000 people
thats a massive decrese in just a short time
I would say that too many players hit lvl 80 and did not know what to do other than getting better gear (im reffering to all the pandas out there)
and I also I do believe that way to many players did not know about the “lack of emphasis of gear progression”… I know, who wants them anyway? well.. looks like ANet does

phanmc.6759:

By reneging on the core philosophy of the game, they have invalidated a major reason I play this game. In my eyes, their actions will slowly destroy what the game stood for and therefore no longer worth my time. I don’t pretend to be anymore important than anyone else, I simply speak for myself.

again i agree whit you
but in the last 10 years, I dont remeber one game out there that did not got destroyed either by the fanbase (because the devs did what the “loudest” players wanted and not what they have thought would be the best for the game itself) or the publisher who tried to milk the kitten out of it

phanmc.6759:

Yes, the game could have failed to be a success had they stuck with the original manifesto. But I would rather they and gave their all and stuck with the original plan (and show some integrity by not keeping critical information from their userbase or intentionally mislead them) than turn the game into a “me too” grind fest, none of which are able to compare to WoW because who wants to play a copy-cat game?

as we dont have to pay fpr anything (just the game of course) they are related on a way higher number of players than games where you have to pay monthly
it makes a big difference if there are 750k or 1.5mill people playing
lets say that 1/4 of them use to buy gems worth 10€ thats 187.500 x10
and now do the same with 1.5mill….

in the end its just about the numbers
we could say that they do face the same problems as we do…. somehow… ^^

put yourself in their position… youre looking at the ANet bank account and see a fast decrease in payments… you are automatically looking for a solution to stop this fluctuation. to find a solution you only have to find out why all the people have left…
its kinda a cycle because from here we are going back to where this discussion has started from…

There is basically 0% chance that ANet didn’t realize ascended gear is a gear treadmill.

There is also 0% chance ANet didn’t anticipate the outrage felt by the player base.

There must be some irresistible force behind this change, be it financial stress or pressure from NCSoft etc. We players can only:

1. Ask for a refund.
2. Stop using real money in the gem store.
3. Wait and see whether the game thrives or wanes.

It’s a sad thing watching a piece of art degrade into something mundane, but it’s ANet’s game after all, they are free to do whatever they please.

I think it would be great if ArenaNet could take a moment to explain why they thought a stat increase was necessary. After all, the “gap” they reference has to do with ease of getting the gear, not with stats at all.

I understand their desire to have something between Exotics and Legendaries to reach for – if you put something too far out of reach then many people will decide not to try, and we all like to accomplish goals. Tiered goals make sense, just not the stat increase they chose to add with the new type of gear.

Since Legendaries are only weapons for the moment, and Ascended gear will be starting out as just accessories, I think the “filling a gap” explanation doesn’t make much sense.

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here, ArenaNet, but Chris Whiteside’s explanation did not clarify things much.

Still uneasy about the Agony thing, too. Are there tons of people out there that really liked being kitten-slapped by Mursaat before they could get Infused, and being kitten-slapped repeatedly even after getting themselves Infused because of the Henchmen not being Infusable and their own desire to not wait around LFGing to fill the right spots to run it with other players?

Maybe I’m one of the few that hated that…

Dmorilize.9401:

Relentliss.2170:

9300 posts and probably 9000 of them negative… kinda a bad ratio Anet… pull your head out

9000 negative out of how many copies sold ( 2.5 mil ? ) and how many peeps still playing ?? 700k ? Kinda a good ratio if you ask me…

So… i hit 80 a while ago , and now have 2 alts also 80 ( and yes i am a casual player, just sooo easy to lvl and get geared atm ). If i was to take the same stance as al the other people with a complaint about new gear tiers …… what should i now do with my time ????

Maybe sit round LA in my exotics looking pretty and spouting childish rubbish ?? Nice……. hardly worth logging in ….

I hope they bring out more tiers and give me something to work for… of course …. this is just my opinion…. and should be taken as such ( and will matter as little as the other 9000 complaints posted here )

This is the attitude I’m not getting with “regular” MMOs.

I hit lvl 80 a couple of weeks ago, got my exotic gear off the TP and off the Karmavendors in Orr over the course of about 2 days and was so happy that I would never have to bother with equipment again. Then I rejoined WvW, which I did mostly while levelling too (PVE is just getting old quickly in any game) and was happy that I was able to perform at an acceptable level and knew that I would be able to do so for years to come without ever needing to change my gear anymore. Now I must admit that I feel being lied to.

So, to me gear grind is not a good thing. I want to play the game without having to care about which gear I need to farm in order to perfom better whenever something new comes along.

I also understand that not everybody feels the same about this. Of course, most PVE raiders don’t. But almost every other MMO out there caters just to these types of players. This was the single one MMO that was supposed to cater to those who also dislike having to gear up regularly and just want a perfectly fun large scaled PVP game.

I mean, I understand that they want to retain the PVE-raider types players, to which the game admittedly didn’t cater enough.

But let me ask you a question: It was widely known that there was no gear progression beyond exotic before the game released. This was a major selling point for every player with my attitude to gaming. Why do the raiders, who obviously hadn’t informed themselves properly beforehand, feel to be in the right here and demand them to change one of the most important parts of this game’s philosophy, when there was just another WoW addon released where you could definitely gear-progress your kitten off?
So why, oh why, did you come here in the first place and then disappointedly whined for gear progression, when every single one of you should have known beforehand that this was not the game to look for this?
Now that you’ve (not you specifically, but the general pve raider) succeeded in your quest after yelling what to do at maxlvl for a couple of weeks to ruin this game for everybody who came here for the above stated reasons.
I don’t know yet what the ascended gear will be like and how it will be obtainable and how much it will influence my gameplay (WvW). If it will affect it in a way that at one point I won’t be able to compete properly in WvW then I’m out of here. And I most certainly won’t be the only one…

Rhyse.8176:

They took my favorite MMO ever, a bright spot of uniqueness and creativity in a sea of WoW clones, and they turned it into a WoW clone.

I wonder, does Anet seriously believe that pandas will abandon WoW just because GW2 now also has a gear treadmill? How deluded they must be…

Well, with any luck, this will be my last post for a while. I’ve just applied for a refund, based on the fact that the product I now have is not the product I paid for. I plan to use the money to re-up my EVE Online account for a couple months. My other thoughts have been documented here already; needless to say, I do not approve of Ascended gear.

However, for those who are as bothered by these changes as I am, here is a link to the refund page. https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053

So long and thanks for all the quaggans.

*-pre-emptive note to moderators: Announcing that I have requested a refund is valid feedback. It shows the extend to which I dissaprove of this.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Can anyone link a statement where ANet promised that Exotic would be the max gear level? Without that…

There isn’t. There’s like a few small quotes in 3-4 articles saying, we dont want you to grind, fun impacts loot drops, and that its key that people with the rarest item are not more powerful than the ones who don’t have that.

Though with exotic being the rarest and rare, masterwork and such not being equally powerful. I never heard anyone complain that much about being betrayed about that either.

In a way, its no difference than a slow released expansion where they upped the level cap. exotic gear would become devalued over time either way. Because increasing the level cap was advertised as well.

I think, this patch came alot earlier than people expected. Although, that many people were so focussed on getting exotic gear they thought that was the end and why they forced themselves through the process of getting it. (dumb, why force yourself to do something you don’t like)

Now they feel that effort was in vain. And that they need to get the new gear.

I myself was playing more with a borderlands, or diablo approach, where every loot piece you get is stronger than the next. So ill be happy when i get to items without going for them directly, and simply play for fun, regardless of my gear. I think i even still have a green earring while i have enough materials to make it exotic, but i cant be bothered that much tbh. I wont actively pursue the pink gear, while i might simply enjoy getting further into that dungeon.

But i know alot of people put getting and having the best gear above all else. And i hope that merely playing the game is good enough to get the pink gear. I think it will be fine once all of it is in place. exotic is the standard gear that you can get easilly enough, then after playing a while longer you should get pinks without much more than simply playing/crafting.

Thats what i hope anyway. I wouldn’t like if there was some way of blocking people out too much because of gear scores being to low for the content.

been silent for long. But reading and refreshing this thread. Was holding out opinion till the patch comes. Now, i can for sure say youre getting no money from me anymore.

Arenanet, there’s an old saying.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”

Llywellyn.4635:

Relentliss.2170:

9300 posts and probably 9000 of them negative… kinda a bad ratio Anet… pull your head out

postet from 100 people… how many are playing this game?

i can repeat myself over and over again just to fill this thread with comments… doesnt make it more decisive

just saying

Yet you won’t find another thread which grew this fast and has such negative feedback here.

ArenaNet is famous for listening to feedback. I think this thread shows a very clear reaction from the community. The fact this isn’t the whole community applies to any feedback, yet they listen to it carefully anyway.

Llywellyn.4635:

something happened otherwise they would not had to come up with new gear this soon

the most obvious is a significant decrease of players…

the devs acutally live from money and not from a dedicated fanbase

why do people always tend to shout out loud or repeat what other people are complaining about, bevor even start thinking about the why!?

just stop those suggestive threats
and please stop pretending like youre the most important person in the world
if you pay ANet enough money to live from then they may design the game as you want it to be…

till then its just all about to keep the numbers of players increasing
because that means money to keep this game/project alive

and no, they are not selling themselves, they just want to keep this game running and come up with new content and im sure that not all of them are happy with this decision

Nobody denies they acted on some kind of problem. We don’t have access to the logs, but I trust that if they say there was a problem that’s true.

My gripe with this whole thing is HOW they solved the problem. They could have been a lot more creative. There are many ways to offer people progression WITHOUT wasting previous progress and investments.

Chii.2814:

Arenanet, there’s an old saying.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”

A.net developers seriously need to repeat this quote a hundred times in their head. It seems like they don’t really know what they’re doing at the moment.

I still don’t understand the “Filling the gap” statement. Firstly, there was no stat gap between exotics and legendaries.
Secondly, if it was cosmetic gear, we had the unique Mystic Forge recipes to work towards as a stop-gap, like Mjolnir.
THERE WAS NO GAP TO FILL.

For normal players, those people who make up the vast, vast majority of the community, we didn’t get our legendaries in a couple of months. We still haven’t got anywhere near the materials required because the level of mindless grind and/or financial investment is beyond the desires / means of the average player, those who aren’t unemployed or students.

The majority of us haven’t done all of the dungeon explorable paths. Heck, we haven’t even done all of the dungeon story modes. Let alone which, we really don’t want to be doing the same content over and over; it gets boring incredibly quickly and isn’t what we’d consider unique content after the first run through.

And yet now we’re told that the gear we DO have is no longer optimal, and that if we want to get the upgraded gear, we have to play the same content over and over.

I like variety in my game. I rarely play the same content continuously. Dungeon gear acquisition is already more grindy than I’m comfortable with, and looking at the numbers required for the new gear, well, I have no interest in playing the same 9 fractals over and over, so I’m never going to see it. And I’ll no longer feel comfortable partaking in WvW as I’ll be aware I’ll be at a statistical disadvantage, no matter how skilled I am.

As someone else mentioned I played Age of Conan while waiting for GW2 to be released, and as far as traditional, grind MMOs go, it does the whole grind / trinity / raid thing better than GW2 is ever likely to, so if I’m going to end up playing that type of game in GW2 now, I may as well go back there, where it’s prettier and more established.

The thing is, I don’t really want that style of game.
I want easily attainable max level gear. I want a big world with a wide variety of activities to partake in.
I had that in Guild Wars 2 before this patch.

Euthil.5209:

Chii.2814:

Arenanet, there’s an old saying.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”

A.net developers seriously need to repeat this quote a hundred times in their head. It seems like they don’t really know what they’re doing at the moment.

They haven’t since they’ve released the game – they throw out random nerfs (alongside few that were warranted) while ignoring bugfixes. They introduce a gear treadmill and don’t address the issue in any serious manner. Awful, just awful what happened and is happening to such a promising game.

Dmorilize.9401:

Relentliss.2170:

9300 posts and probably 9000 of them negative… kinda a bad ratio Anet… pull your head out

9000 negative out of how many copies sold ( 2.5 mil ? ) and how many peeps still playing ?? 700k ? Kinda a good ratio if you ask me…

So… i hit 80 a while ago , and now have 2 alts also 80 ( and yes i am a casual player, just sooo easy to lvl and get geared atm ). If i was to take the same stance as al the other people with a complaint about new gear tiers …… what should i now do with my time ????

Maybe sit round LA in my exotics looking pretty and spouting childish rubbish ?? Nice……. hardly worth logging in ….

I hope they bring out more tiers and give me something to work for… of course …. this is just my opinion…. and should be taken as such ( and will matter as little as the other 9000 complaints posted here )

Maybe they should do what they did in GW1 to keep people playing:

Make the game fun.
Make new skills.
Make new classes.
Make new armor skins.
Make new PVP types.
Make new PVP maps.
Make new PVE maps.
Make new W3 maps.

Instead, they’ve taken the easy way out and made it a race for numbers.

I can’t say I didn’t see this coming, what with all the ‘MMO’ features this game launched with in the first place.

I have not been on for the past week and just came back to see this… I know this will be lost with all the other posts but I am so disappointed in Anet. I have said before that I trusted in these developers and trusted that they would only make the game better, I now regret saying that.

Other posters have summarized the problems better already but I wanted to add to the chorus of those who are mad about these changes.

Urxx.6840:

My gripe with this whole thing is HOW they solved the problem. They could have been a lot more creative. There are many ways to offer people progression WITHOUT wasting previous progress and investments.

Yeah I agree with that too. I mean I don’t care much for more power anyway, but even I feel like the exotic gear I have now (Hell I have two sets of exotic on one character) isn’t gonna be the most powerful and I might have made a few different decisions if I knew that.

However, I also felt the “endgame” wasn’t upto par. Every area I went (really my lvl 80 was in brisban empty wildlands last night) feels slightly pointless.

I envisioned them making more areas, that would not be dependant on any level. (Fractals of the mist dungeon is a very good step in my view on that matter) And that adding a new 40-50 zone would be in place at some point would be as viable as adding a level 80 area. In my view, I don’t see why the lower level areas are toned down in loot, and don’t scale you down fully (including gear rarity scores) in order to make all of the game endgame.. as they said. Because right now it’s NOT all endgame. Because gear makes you so much more powerful the previous areas become too easy for them to warrant good gear. Unless you have magic find like me :p Because no matter where I got I still get the same amount of rares, which always are up to my level. Which means ectos. :p

In a way Im more worried about the areas all needing to be level 80 in order to drop interesting crafting materials and to a lesser extend lot. Which makes people simply flock to said lvl 80 areas, after they are done with all their storyline and levelling up.
This is much more of a problem I see, than “upping” gear one tier more.

NaughtyProwler.8653:

The only thing that would turn this around for me is if they add a crafting system that would let people upgrade standard exotics into ascended with a small amount of effort.

Totally agree.
I don’t want to waste all the “in game money” i’ve spent.

Btw i’m a bit disappointed with ANet for a lot of reasons that other people have already explained better than i can ever do.

All i want right now is someone from Anet that can come here and say “ppl, we’re listening to you. All you’ve already done in this 3 month will not be wasted.”

I’m really sad cause for me, for many reasons i will not explain here, GW was more than a game.
Devs and all the ppl working in Anet were become someone who i can trust to make GW2 the heir-at-law of GW, they’ve stood up for it and now they and the good proclaims of 3 months ago have disappeared…

Eurosdown.6072:

That is an insane amount of time to grind FotM for tokens. Not happening for me. But hey I heard that Star Wars mmo just went f2p…

EA think ‘Free to Play’ means being bashed over the head constantly until you either spend a ton of money in their cash shop OR buy a subscription. It’s the worst F2P model I have ever seen. Despite what I think of these changes, it will not force me over to SWTOR.

I just want some more clarity on the situation here. Are there going to be more tiers after ascended or not? If no, I can live with it, I yes, then I will probably look at some other game.

It looks like my attached post might have been offensive somehow. I am just not sure. I have blurred out the only word in the post that could be considered offensive.