Guild Wars 2

I’ll throw in my own little bit here…

I’ve looked at a lot of the previews and spoilers for what we’re getting.
It looks pretty awesome. I like the fractal mini-dungeons idea. I like the changes to existing dungeon drops. I like the new Apothecary gear type. I’m ecstatic about having my personal story finally unbugged. I question some of the balance changes but, overall, they are a step in the right direction. And I’m sure the fancy weekend event will be fine.

Buuuut… ascended items. Just look at ‘em. A significant stat boost over exotic, even just from rings; and — and this is the stated goal of introducing these things, in order to give you more timesinks while you pursue the game’s ultimate timesink — you have to grind your butt off for them. 90 hours, 40 hours, even 20 hours just to get a single piece of max-gear jewelry is way too much. And then every few months, they promise to introduce a couple of new slots so we can grind for those, too. That’s absolutely killing my enthusiasm for the new stuff, and really the whole game.

I was more likely to actually pursue a legendary before I found out about ascended gear, because it was a thing you could do just for kicks. I was more likely to do Fractals repetitively before I found out about ascended gear, because I figured the gameplay would be fun in its own right. I was more likely to spend money in the cash shop and buy expansions before I found out about ascended gear, because I felt like I was free to do whatever I wanted in this game. Now, I really, really don’t.

I really don’t think I’m alone here. There are games that taught millions of players to expect and appreciate this freedom, to look upon it as the triumph of good design over “Skinner-box” mechanics. Guild Wars 1 was at the forefront of this. Anet guys totally went to conferences and threw down the gauntlet challenging other developers to follow suit. What happened? D:

“Ascended” gear, as implemented, is the last thing that the game needs. Instead of making the Fractals an interesting addition to a big varied set of activities, you’re driving everything else into obsolescence.

5000 DO NOT WANT cat macros.

First post to the forums, been reading maybe 100 pages of posts here so pretty much all what I would have said has been said already. I just want to add my voice to those who are not happy to see this change taking place. If I wanted to grind for better gear I would still be playing Rift.

Also, it is interesting to see that those who like introduction of new item tier have not said if they spend money on gem shop (at all). However, several who are against this have given some numbers — some rather big! — and also a prompt “not anymore”. I have been using gemshop as a kind of “monthly subscription” to Anet so I could show my gratitude for the wonderful game they had created. Like many others, I will not do that anymore.

Strifetoe.4502:

Oh for the love of God, please stop posting on this thread, they are releasing it and theres nothing anyone can do..quit if you dont like it…you bought the game they have your money already. The people who dont like gear progression will quit and the people who do will start playing.

And after 2 weeks the game is a ghost town as the grinders won’t have anything to play for anymore and also quit… Yes gross over exaggeration, but that’s where it is headed to.

Strifetoe.4502:

Oh for the love of God, please stop posting on this thread, they are releasing it and theres nothing anyone can do..quit if you dont like it…you bought the game they have your money already. The people who dont like gear progression will quit and the people who do will start playing.

“Some must fight, so that all may be free”

btw, they don’t “have” my money because at least in EU, they have to give me my money back, since they product they sold me is not as advertised.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

The problem is, this isn’t just a betrayal of trust and a black mark for Anet – it really poisons the well for any future developer trying to create an unconventional MMOG without vertical progression or a standard end-game.

I go into more depth here at my blog on MMORPG.com.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/112012/24212

I was focused on the damage to this game but you are correct, this sort of thing damages all future mmo development that tries to break away from the norm.

Very good blog.

Strifetoe.4502:

Oh for the love of God, please stop posting on this thread, they are releasing it and theres nothing anyone can do..quit if you dont like it…you bought the game they have your money already. The people who dont like gear progression will quit and the people who do will start playing.

Besides I post wherever I want, and besides you are posting here yourself, why don’t you just refrain from reading?

The purpose of this thread is to post feedback on the new gear. If you want to say you love gear threadmills fine, like any other opinion it deserves respect, otherwise go grind your 4th legendary and leave us alone.

alanis.6094:

Mike.9185:

if they didnt add gear than we would have had a thousand posts saying “whats the point of new content if the stats are the same QQ” theres new stuff to do that is more challenging thus requires better rewards.

why would you do an insanely hard dungeon (fractals of the mists) if you get the same awards grinding an easy 1

For fun, the challenge, cool skins, and a fancy title.

To illustrate:

I did The Deep like 100 times in GW1. Why? Because we had fun figuring out how to speed-clear a 12-man instance with 8 or 9 people. The only rewards were prestige skins and money.

The next year, I didn’t do Domain of Anguish, because the time commitments were a bit excessive and I didn’t really like it as much. But I kept playing the game and buying fancy kittens(*) from the cash shop, because nothing was forcing me to do DoA just to keep up, so not wanting to do DoA wasn’t an impediment to enjoying the rest of the game.

• - I actually just typed “kittens” there, because having the autofilter change my cusses to “kitten,” singular, would make the statement jarringly ungrammatical.

ASB.4295:

FaultWeeyam.4302:

Link or it didn’t happen, I’ve only seen the one PR announcement bs pretty much saying they’re going to ignore the negative comments and go through with it anyways. It would have been better if they’d said nothing at all instead of trying to forcefeed us their lies.

One of the FoV threads got merged into the patch feedback thread, but Colin J’s post is still there:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Patch-Feedback-merged-1/page/6

And Martin K’s reply on another thread with the same subject:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Oh-no-zooming-they-made-it-worse-for-me/first#post755059

Ah , I thought u were talking about anymore announcements about this topic, not in general, my mistake. I won’t deny that Anet has been interactive in the past, but that was something where the dev’s and players weren’t this divided. And i’ve had too much experience in the past with businesses to simply credit a company based on history alone. In this case, it devs vs players, which can only be concluded in 2 ways: The players stop paying, killing the game and forcing the devs to do something or the devs go through with it and player quietly accept it. From the number of posts here, there is absolutely no way this will be quiet.

The answer is simple do not buy anything from the Gemstore, do not buy a single thing, do not give Anet a single penny, dime or whatever of your money. Now you see they are banking on the extra money from locusts to give them a cash flow increase, but what they fail to realize is these guys and gals aren’t going to buy anything.

They won’t be buying Stones, since they don’t care for looks just stats, (BC outland clown suits anyone?), they won’t be buying exp boosters since alting isn’t their style of play, karma boosters they don’t need those for these dungeons, magic find boosters? Don’t need for this content. Dyes? Don’t need. Town clothes? Nope.

There is nothing these guys and girls need from the store to grind content.

Obviously some one at Anet, or more likely their Bosses at NCsoft and Nexon, have mistaken this for a Korean game.

Korean games having a different subscription method, where you don’t buy a monthly subscription you buy a card of X amount of hours. Hence why Korean games do well with cash shops in Korea, if you’ve only got five hours to play, you’ll load up on boosters for pretty much everything to get as much done as possible in your paid time.

But the grinders they are focusing on, the content locusts, they do not need anything from the shop, to devour this content and move on. So what we need to do is stop buying anything from the gem store, stop so that it becomes clear that this was a stupid move.

Hopefully hitting them in the wallet will remind them that they have a market waiting, one that kept their previous game alive for seven years.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

What?? I for one can’t believe this new innovative strategy of non-grindy fun based gameplay has tanked the NCSoft stock.

I mean.. what gives here guys? They finally added what all of the “most dedicated players” clearly had a “basic need” for… “proper gear progression”.

Shouldn’t that stock price be at an all time high!!!!?!?!11/!?!

Oh wait a minute… it’s at a 52 week LOW?!

Who could have ever seen that coming. I know I sure didn’t.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

The problem is, this isn’t just a betrayal of trust and a black mark for Anet – it really poisons the well for any future developer trying to create an unconventional MMOG without vertical progression or a standard end-game.

I go into more depth here at my blog on MMORPG.com.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/112012/24212

Very good post. I think it illustrates the feelings of most of us very well.

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

It’s the second one, ascended has nothing to do with legendaries other than being another block in the way. You don’t NEED ascended gear to get Legendary gear, acquisition is not in the equation at all.

Hi its me again.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

Stat-wise, though, there was no gap. Then they added one.

So you had this:
low-grind Exotic → optional super-high-grind Legendary, to be cool

And instead of this:
low-grind Exotic → optional grindy Ascended, to be cool → optional super-high-grind Legendary, to be cool

They gave us this:
low-grind Exotic → grindy Ascended, because you need max stats → optional super-high-grind Legendary

Slic.2406:

ASB.4295:

FaultWeeyam.4302:

Link or it didn’t happen, I’ve only seen the one PR announcement bs pretty much saying they’re going to ignore the negative comments and go through with it anyways. It would have been better if they’d said nothing at all instead of trying to forcefeed us their lies.

One of the FoV threads got merged into the patch feedback thread, but Colin J’s post is still there:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Patch-Feedback-merged-1/page/6

And Martin K’s reply on another thread with the same subject:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Oh-no-zooming-they-made-it-worse-for-me/first#post755059

They have time/money/resource to spend on such a detailed research about FOV, and cannot even once make a non-vague reply to the countless posts on gear treadmill?

Yeah, they’re avoiding the issue, they want to toss us out and hope that players who enjoy the grind will sustain their finances.

I hate to break it to them, but if they read this. The content locusts only really pay when you FORCE them to pay with something like a monthly sub. They would rather spend 100+hrs getting something than spend a dollar to get it in 10 seconds. That is what the content locusts are, and anet is making a huge mistake thinking they will provide more finance than those of us turned away.

The main difference between the FoV and the Ascended gear is that FoV is actually accessible at the moment.

Less you forget, FoV also kicked up a fuss on the forums not too long ago and incited developer response and dialog. It also got looked into and eventually addressed. In fact they originally said it was impossible without breaking the game. However, it underwent a beta period of testing on live servers and eventually got rolled into the game as default. (Looks so much better).

My contending point is that they are probably waiting for it to get into the wild before they address concerns in more depth. This initial uproar is about something that we haven’t even played yet and haven’t fully experimented with the impacts it has on the game when it is opened up over the weekend.

With this patch they have in fact only released 3 slots worth of items, and the potential impact is probably being closely monitored. The doom bringers in this thread will tell you this spells out that they intend to release more full tiers of gear in the future, despite them saying several times that isn’t their intent.

Going by the data mined legendary stats from before this patch went live, they did already have higher stats than the Exotic weapons, which could suggest that they fully intended this gear to be in the game at some point after launch, and thus it isn’t the start of some endless repeating process of adding higher tiers of gear, but a way of spreading out content prolonged throughout their continual development, (including the addition of the Ascended items within WvWvW and general PvE (be that crafting, karma or otherwise (insanely difficult jumping puzzle please <3).

There is quiet rightly a lot they haven’t said to the community, but as opposed to it being done in some negative ignoring way, they are in fact waiting until their content is actually in our hands and being played through, before responding to the largely negative responses to it’s announcement. After all, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

Whilst there has been a lot of negative comments about being ‘lied’ to about the concept of gear grinding, it’s apparent that we have yet to see the full spectrum of what A.Net plans in regards to progression and procurement of the Ascended gear in future content updates. A manifesto is by definition, a statement of intent, and a publicly delivered set of ideas and future visions.

It has been stated that they current intent is to give us an expansion packs worth of content through monthly (?) installments of content, an expansion should, if delivered correctly offer multiple paths towards obtaining what they set out as the ‘end-game’ of progression.

As we have only seen the very first part of this content, I am quiet happy to give them then benefit of the doubt until I have seen more of their intended additions to ‘progression’ in future updates, before I get all up in arms about having to run a dungeon as my only option at end game.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

You missed an important part of the Ascended gear.

Infusions – which include stat AND agony resistance upgrades. They are currently released at Fine quality (blue), which means after everyone has full Ascended gear they will be releasing increased infusion qualities. Furthermore, they have explicity stated that the “care about vertical progression” in the Kotaku interview.

See, those of us who are most pissed about this are the ones with all of the information. Most people don’t know it all yet… but they will eventually. By then, of course, it will be too late to save the game.

There is no hope for the MMO genre. That sucks too, because GW2 could have been a lot of fun.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

The fact that infusions have stats as well.. and that they only released the “fine” rarity infusions shows that this is mean to be a continuous “progression”

They’ll go through with releasing ascended trinkets and then armor as they have said they would. Then when that full set is complete, I would guess that masterwork rarity infusions will come out so that you can go try to get them for all of your gear. The masterwork will more than likely have better stats on it too.

Then they’ll release the rares so you have to replaces your masterwork infusions.. and this will more than likely continue until the run out of tiers. Who knows where it goes from there but having to continuously replace infusions sounds a lot like a treadmill.

Vorch.2985:

I’m ok with this new tier because they said it bridges the gap between acquiring an exotic and acquiring a legendary.

I will NOT be ok if they add another tier to bridge ascended and legendary. That means that they were just BSing me.

IMO, they are fixing a flaw which existed. It may not be the best way, but I’m willing to give it a go.

I see you are buying their PR.
But think a bit deeper.

Which kind of gap was there between exotics and legendaries? A gap in looks and a gap in acquisition time. Stats were identical.

So, something in between the two should have been better looking and harder to acquire than exotics and less than legendaries. But its stats should have been identical to both exotics and legendaries, since there wasn’t any gap to bridge there.

Instead they have introduced a new gap in power that wasn’t there before and wasn’t even necessary to give those who hit the “legendary wall” something to chase.

Nobody here is against new skins that are cooler than exotics and easier to obtain than legendarie. We just want that they don’t touch stats and don’t introduce gating mechanics like agony.

I’ve been playing online games for as long as I can remember. I’ve played WoW, EQ 1&2, AoC, LoTR, Aion, CoH/CoV, DAoC, DC Universe, Lineage 1&2, Warhammer, SWOTR, and the list goes on. Needless to say, I’m pretty fed up with the traditional MMO vertical progression ladder. I can’t remember how many hours I pumped into the Lineage 2 grind. My wife still gives me dirty looks every time I mention the “L” word. Good lord…

Anyway, I digress… I was truly at my end with MMOs until friends told me about GW2. GW2 seemed like a breath of fresh air comparatively. It seemed, at least in advertising, that it would defy everything we knew about MMOs. The “holy trinity” class structure gone. No gear grind elements. Interactive open world dynamic events. World vs.. World combat. Under water battles. What’s not to like?

So, I bought the game and so far I have been very impressed. As with any game, there are of course many things that still need to be fixed (*cough*engineer/ranger*cough*), but so far I’ve certainly gotten my money’s worth…

But the recent introduction of vertical progression for gear is not a good sign. And the reason behind the change makes it even worse. ANet has clearly stated that they have added another tier of gear to satisfy those players that have hit the proverbial “legendary wall”. So in other words, a component of ANet’s formula for keeping players interested in the game is introducing higher stat level gear. In this case, only 3 months after release. Another very bad sign.

The problem is that, with this philosophy of adding vertical stat progression for stale players, these players will have the same opinions after getting the new gear and will simply want more. So either you have to keeping adding tiers of even higher stat gear, or you have to make the tier achievable only after countless playtime. This is gear grind 101. Sorry ANet but it’s true.

Now some of you may say “But what was ANet supposed to do? There is no endgame and players were bored and had nothing better to do with no goal to strive towards? Also, this is an MMO. Continuously introducing new content is inherent in the genre.”

Well, those are valid points but here are a few more: 1) GW2 was advertised as a trend-breaking MMO without a gear grind element, 2) you can add new content (dungeons, dynamic events, new areas, new mobs w/new tactics, etc.) without increasing stats on gear (yes, it can be done), and 3) you can add new skins and perks to keep the game fresh and challenging, again, without increasing stats on gear.

Also, I think ANet’s priorities are a bit off track, especially if they only have 2 designers working on balance issues. First and foremost, they need to desperately fix some of the professions such as rangers, engineers, and elementalists (I’m sure all classes still have bugs or balance problems in some way). That should be the very first and highest priority. Not new content or gear tiers. The second priority should be to fixing the bugs for existing content. Only when a majority of these problems have been addressed should you even think about adding new content. Note that I said “majority” of these problems, as to fix “all” bugs before new content is released would be unrealistic.

Anyway, I’m not here to say the sky is falling and that I will quit and that you should too. Some of you will stay, others will go. I’m not sure which group I will fall into just yet, but I am certainly less interested in the game just based on these recent events. Also, I will certainly not spend any more money in the gem store so that potential revenue for ANet, at least from me, is gone. Hopefully the future will bring new changes that will once again peak my interest in GW2.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I am posting this other than to express my disappointment with the new direction and to share my frustration with many of you. The fact that so many are voicing their opinion goes to show how many of us love this game but not the recent direction change on gear. That should say something in and of itself. Regardless of whether you agree or not with anything I have said, you have to agree that ANet did develop a very promising game. Whether or not they delivered on that promise is subjective and only you can answer that.

Oh, and for those that will say “Oh my god, please shut up and quit the game already. I’m tired of hearing people whining about this. The changes are done and there’s nothing you can do. Stop posting.”, my reponse is that nobody is forcing you to read this thread. If you don’t want to hear what people have to say about the recent changes, then stop reading this thread. It’s that simple. People have every right to voice their opinion on the matter. This forum is not just for you. It’s for everyone.

And you guys buying this whole “gap closer” thing.

How does pursuing Ascended gear, which is now necessary, move you closer towards Legendary gear?

Does it do that? Just wondering, since that was the problem and all, right?

“Also, I think ANet’s priorities are a bit off track, especially if they only have 2 designers working on balance issues. "

Sorry to tell you you’re wrong there – they have Izzy and someone else working on the balance issues, meaning they have 1 person (maybe) trying to fix stuff while Izzy changes stats at random with no consideration for what it actually does.

Pants.8315:

Going by the data mined legendary stats from before this patch went live, they did already have higher stats than the Exotic weapons, which could suggest that they fully intended this gear to be in the game at some point after launch.

Even if we could be sure that Ascended gear is the last tier of gear they will ever add, there is whole other layer of gear grinding below it called Infusions. Higher rarity infusions are most likely going to differ in stats too, just like everything else that is part of the gear ladder(except legendaries).

If they scrapped Ascended and made Exotics infusable now, there would still be a gear treadmill to get the highest rarity infusion.

ASP.8093:

I’ll throw in my own little bit here…

I’ve looked at a lot of the previews and spoilers for what we’re getting.
It looks pretty awesome. I like the fractal mini-dungeons idea. I like the changes to existing dungeon drops. I like the new Apothecary gear type. I’m ecstatic about having my personal story finally unbugged. I question some of the balance changes but, overall, they are a step in the right direction. And I’m sure the fancy weekend event will be fine.
[…]
“Ascended” gear, as implemented, is the last thing that the game needs. Instead of making the Fractals an interesting addition to a big varied set of activities, you’re driving everything else into obsolescence.

5000 DO NOT WANT cat macros.

That’s the thing that really stings about this update. The new content? It looks really, really cool. Dungeons are my favourite part of the game, and Fractals of the Mist looks awesome - like it could be as much of a step up above the old dungeons as the old dungeons are above doing dynamic events on the overworld. The Karka look like really cool enemies, and the story behind everything seems pretty neat. The new item skins are adding customization to parts of the game that were sorely lacking in it; the Quiver looks great and is an awesome addition to any character that uses a bow, and I struggle to think of a better idea for a gag item than “Koss on Koss”. The hefty amount of additional areas to play in greatly expand the post-80 game, and the changes to the reward structure of existing enemies and dungeons are a great incentive to get out there and start playing again.

It’s a tremendous effort on the part of ArenaNet; it’s a huge, meaty update given entirely for free, and it’s yet another testament to the incredibly skilled designers and artists on the Guild Wars 2 team.

But none of it matters, even a little, because this stupid addition of a gear treadmill takes the whole game out back, cuts it off at the knees, and prison-shanks it in an alley. It should have been a rallying point for the entire player base; a show that ArenaNet was entirely willing and able to not just keep the game alive, but actually grow and expand it, while adhering to the principles that made it a great game. But it’s not. It’s the update that leaves me totally uninterested in logging on, even as the event goes live, just to see everything in action. I love 95% of what’s in this update, and yet the remaining 5% is enough to transform the entire game into one that I wouldn’t be caught dead playing.

I don’t really understand how or why it happened, and maybe more importantly, I don’t understand why the backlash has been ignored. I’ve been fairly close to the Guild Wars community since joining the GW1 closed test, way back in October/November 2004, months before the game launched. There have been a lot of times over the years where I’ve seen some segment of the player base or another get irked, frustrated, or just outright furious at ArenaNet for some reason or another. But the sheer scale of dissatisfaction with this Ascended equipment is totally and utterly unprecedented in the entire history of the Guild Wars franchise. And yet there’s been less communication between ArenaNet and their fans than I can ever really remember, and what little they have said on the issue has more or less amounted to “full steam ahead”.

It’s an incredibly confusing situation, and there’s really no reason that it ever should have turned out this way.

Nymia.3256:

And you guys buying this whole “gap closer” thing.

How does pursuing Ascended gear, which is now necessary, move you closer towards Legendary gear?

Does it do that? Just wondering, since that was the problem and all, right?

Exactly. Ascended gear introduces a problem which is wastly superior to the one it was supposed to solve.

That to me can mean just one thing: the gap filling bs is just a lame excuse. For what, I don’t know, but it does look shady.

So… Yeah. I remain highly displeased, now that the patch is out. I bought a copy of the game for myself, 2 character slots, and another copy for a friend, who herself bought at least two slots. That’s the last actual money I’m spending in the game, and I would be very unsurprised if it was the last money she spent as well, since she’s considerably more upset about this than I am.

I bought it, so I’m going to enjoy what I paid for, but if ANet’s continued support for the original game they envisioned is going to end, then so is my continued support for them. I already didn’t bother sending out an invite-a-friend to another friend of mine who was a huge GW1 fan and probably would have gotten the game if he’d gotten the chance to try it for free this weekend.

It’s an incredibly confusing situation, and there’s really no reason that it ever should have turned out this way.

LotRo, SW: Galaxies, Tabula Rasa, SWTOR… GW2

“All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.”

Nymia.3256:

How does pursuing Ascended gear, which is now necessary, move you closer towards Legendary gear?

Well, I could see this being true. Like this, for instance (hypothetical):
Ascended items cost tokens.
Legendaries require mats, karma, skill points, gold, and precursors.
When you do the dungeon, you get tokens and all that other stuff, and spend tokens on ascended gear while pouring your other resources into your legendary weapon.

The big problem is that you have to chase ascended gear for stats even if you don’t want to chase the legendary for skins.

I can understand Ascended armor being introduced with an infusion slot. It’s the stat increase that is really bugging me, now, especially since the game has been balanced for exotics.

With full ascended gear, my warrior main could tear through most classes with enough critical hits in less than 3 seconds. That’s a bit wrong.

Granted, I’ll wait to see how ANet plans on addressing these balance issues, but I think they created a problem.

Why not just have Ascended armor have exotic stats, except they also have a slot that Fractal protection can be slotted for?

Or better yet, just allow us to infuse exotic gear a la GW1 infusion, even if it’s only one piece per run.

I’m not against different tiers of armor. I’m against the imbalance that stat increases will impose.

Zyrhan.3180:

So… Yeah. I remain highly displeased, now that the patch is out. I bought a copy of the game for myself, 2 character slots, and another copy for a friend, who herself bought at least two slots. That’s the last actual money I’m spending in the game, and I would be very unsurprised if it was the last money she spent as well, since she’s considerably more upset about this than I am.

By the way, a lot of players don’t use forums at all, but they still are kept up-to-date by guildies that do.

In our guild it’s just two of us that lurk the forums (and now post because of this fiasco), and the others hear news from us.

I’m ready to bet that this isn’t uncomon at all and there are quite a bit of players who know about the situation, this thread, and are hugely disappointed by ANet’s (mis)behavior, even though they don’t post here.

Vorch.2985:

I can understand Ascended armor being introduced with an infusion slot. It’s the stat increase that is really bugging me, now, especially since the game has been balanced for exotics.

With full ascended gear, my warrior main could tear through most classes with enough critical hits in less than 3 seconds. That’s a bit wrong.

Granted, I’ll wait to see how ANet plans on addressing these balance issues, but I think they created a problem.

Why not just have Ascended armor have exotic stats, except they also have a slot that Fractal protection can be slotted for?

Or better yet, just allow us to infuse exotic gear a la GW1 infusion, even if it’s only one piece per run.

I’m not against different tiers of armor. I’m against the imbalance that stat increases will impose.

The answer ANet gave is:

because they want to address a “basic need” with “proper gear progression”

Vorch.2985:

I can understand Ascended armor being introduced with an infusion slot. It’s the stat increase that is really bugging me, now, especially since the game has been balanced for exotics.

With full ascended gear, my warrior main could tear through most classes with enough critical hits in less than 3 seconds. That’s a bit wrong.

Granted, I’ll wait to see how ANet plans on addressing these balance issues, but I think they created a problem.

Why not just have Ascended armor have exotic stats, except they also have a slot that Fractal protection can be slotted for?

Or better yet, just allow us to infuse exotic gear a la GW1 infusion, even if it’s only one piece per run.

I’m not against different tiers of armor. I’m against the imbalance that stat increases will impose.

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

Also agony alone is a gating mechanic, so I’d rather remove slots and infusions completely and make ascended gear just very cool looking, with particle effects and whatnot.

It should be a sort of mini-legendary, but in the way legendaries where before this ugly patch.

Item progression maybe good, for those who play PVE only, now they got a new goal, new motivation.

Item progression should have no impact for those who play PVP only, since it’s already a different set, and you got everything the moment you enter the mists.

But it’s more complicated when it comes to WvW, though it’s considered PVE, actually there are a lot of PVP battle happens all the time, which means gear/traits/level makes a lot of difference. and it’s not really PVP since there are a lot of mobs/npcs you can kill, for any reason.

So what i am thinking is:
are those ascended gear usable in WvW?

are we gonna be too weak to fight if we stay in exotic? from what i have seen in GW2DB it certainly is.

why is WvW armor/weapon merchant didn’t selling new tier gear, like they selling exotic before?

do we have another option to get new tier via WvW? or everyone just have to go back to dungeon keep farm and farm and farm? like we already did in many other OLD-MMOs?

i do hope this is a better game compare to Warhammer Online, and it was until now.

10 days off for thanksgiving, and I can’t look forward to logging on now. I am quite saddened by this. Why bother playing now? It seems pointless since I hate dungeons.

Urxx.6840:

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

They can keep them if they are only turned on when your infusion counters some Agony. Would be appropriate even.

Columba.9730:

10 days off for thanksgiving, and I can’t look forward to logging on now. I am quite saddened by this. Why bother playing now? It seems pointless since I hate dungeons.

I hear you.

Urxx.6840:

Vorch.2985:

I can understand Ascended armor being introduced with an infusion slot. It’s the stat increase that is really bugging me, now, especially since the game has been balanced for exotics.

With full ascended gear, my warrior main could tear through most classes with enough critical hits in less than 3 seconds. That’s a bit wrong.

Granted, I’ll wait to see how ANet plans on addressing these balance issues, but I think they created a problem.

Why not just have Ascended armor have exotic stats, except they also have a slot that Fractal protection can be slotted for?

Or better yet, just allow us to infuse exotic gear a la GW1 infusion, even if it’s only one piece per run.

I’m not against different tiers of armor. I’m against the imbalance that stat increases will impose.

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

Also agony alone is a gating mechanic, so I’d rather remove slots and infusions completely and make ascended gear just very cool looking, with particle effects and whatnot.

It should be a sort of mini-legendary, but in the way legendaries where before this ugly patch.

I don’t mind agony being present. Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

What I take issue with is the means by which one can defend against Agony, and that is to infuse. Infusion is only available on ascended armor. That means I must have ascended armor to progress. The dungeon itself may or may not be harder; it is simply impossible to do with out gear.

And I do agree: Ascended could just add an aura/be cool looking/add an emote/etc.

So I’m not 100% opposed to infusions; I just don’t like how they are being implemented. Again, I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve played through. Also, if they add another tier, I’m done. That would mean Ascended armors were not successful in bridging the gap and they are just pulling a fast one on me.

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened. My only solace is that I KNOW that they listen and that if there is enough of an outcry, they have a history of making things right. If they don’t…idk.

Vorch.2985:

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened.

They betrayed you and you don’t trust them anymore, that’s all. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

stof.9341:

Urxx.6840:

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

They can keep them if they are only turned on when your infusion counters some Agony. Would be appropriate even.

The problem I have with gating mechanics, is that if you accept them in a game, you don’t know where they will be applied in the future. Several sentences in Lindsay’s post point to the fact infusions will be needed more and more, maybe to counter other conditions or effects, as new patches go online.

If I need to have ascended gear to play an ever increasing portion of content, the one which is newer and thus more desirable, my exotics are still quite a bit pressured towards obsolescence.

This in itself is the negation of horizontal progression, which implies once you hit endgame further gear progression is just cosmetic and optional.

This was a strong selling point of the original GW2, and I can’t accept they change it now.

stof.9341:

Vorch.2985:

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened.

The betrayed you and you don’t trust them anymore, that’s all.

I still trust them; don’t put words in my mouth or count me among those whose first reflex is to declare that the sky is falling.

This is definitely not the first time they’ve made a huge mistake.

The difference is that they have a history of owning up to their mistakes and fixing them in a reasonable time (2-4 weeks).

First, I will play the content. If it really poses a problem, then I will await ANet’s action. If they see the problem and THEN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT, then they will lose my trust.

Nymia.3256:

And you guys buying this whole “gap closer” thing.

How does pursuing Ascended gear, which is now necessary, move you closer towards Legendary gear?

Sure, it’s very easy.

“We have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting the Legendary wall.”
Means: if you’re frustrated by smelting thousands of rares/exotics in the forge hoping for lottery win – a precursor for your legendary WEAPON, you can now also farm new tier of JEWELLERY. That solves the problem of Legendary wall, doesn’t it?

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill”
Means: So we add ONE new dungeon, that you need to run repeatevly for about 90 hours to farm one piece of new end-game gear.

Urxx.6840:

The problem I have with gating mechanics, is that if you accept them in a game, you don’t know where they will be applied in the future.

It can be a gating, or it can not be. Are we missing content without that stat? It’s perfectly possible for them to have that agony gating thing that doesn’t unlock anything meaningful at all while still providing incentives for people that like Progress Quest to get as much of that stat as possible and where we who don’t want that can dismiss the feature altogether without loss.

Of course, it’s probably too hard for ArenaNet to come up with something like that.

Vorch.2985:

I don’t mind agony being present. Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

What I take issue with is the means by which one can defend against Agony, and that is to infuse. Infusion is only available on ascended armor. That means I must have ascended armor to progress. The dungeon itself may or may not be harder; it is simply impossible to do with out gear.

And I do agree: Ascended could just add an aura/be cool looking/add an emote/etc.

So I’m not 100% opposed to infusions; I just don’t like how they are being implemented. Again, I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve played through. Also, if they add another tier, I’m done. That would mean Ascended armors were not successful in bridging the gap and they are just pulling a fast one on me.

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened. My only solace is that I KNOW that they listen and that if there is enough of an outcry, they have a history of making things right. If they don’t…idk.

Sure, if agony worked like spectral agony in GW1 and infusion was accessible to any armor via a mission or event, it wouldn’t be a gating mechanic anymore and in that case I wouldn’t take any issue with it.

The problem here is that, while in GW1 infusion was somehow part of the story, here it’s been introduced SPECIFICALLY to make ascended gear desirable. They didn’t want the new gear to be chased only for looks, because in that case there’s always personal taste involved, and some might not have liked it.

This way, you will be FORCED to acquire it if you want to be able to enjoy any content the way it is today with exotics.

Vorch.2985:

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened. My only solace is that I KNOW that they listen and that if there is enough of an outcry, they have a history of making things right. If they don’t…idk.

I think the lack of a real response on the forums and the way the Q&A was handled says it all pretty clearly.. They’re not ignoring us entirely, they’re just ignoring anyone who disagrees with the decisions they’ve made based on the feedback they assumed we would’ve given, had they asked.

Personally, I haven’t wanted to login since the announcement and that probably won’t change since no vertical progression was the main reason I got the game in the first place. I’m going to give it maybe another week before I file for a refund, just in case, but really I’ve already given up and I’m going back to FPS’s, BF3 and Halo 4 for me this weekend.

Vorch.2985:

If they do that, they also have to remove stats from infusions, otherwise ascended gear is still superior.

Also agony alone is a gating mechanic, so I’d rather remove slots and infusions completely and make ascended gear just very cool looking, with particle effects and whatnot.

It should be a sort of mini-legendary, but in the way legendaries where before this ugly patch.

I don’t mind agony being present. Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

What I take issue with is the means by which one can defend against Agony, and that is to infuse. Infusion is only available on ascended armor. That means I must have ascended armor to progress. The dungeon itself may or may not be harder; it is simply impossible to do with out gear.

And I do agree: Ascended could just add an aura/be cool looking/add an emote/etc.

So I’m not 100% opposed to infusions; I just don’t like how they are being implemented. Again, I’ll reserve my final judgement until I’ve played through. Also, if they add another tier, I’m done. That would mean Ascended armors were not successful in bridging the gap and they are just pulling a fast one on me.

Seriously, last week I held ANet on the same level as valve…idk wth happened. My only solace is that I KNOW that they listen and that if there is enough of an outcry, they have a history of making things right. If they don’t…idk.

Okay, stop me if I’m wrong here but exactly what is the problem with an increase in stats? How exactly is it any different from one person have level 80 rare tier equipment to someone have exotic level equipment? Doesn’t that also fall into your definition of ‘unbalanced’?

Truth be told, there is no difference. Someone in full rare equipment will naturally be less powerful than someone in full exotic equipment. Someone in full masterwork gear will be even less powerful still.

Now, the obvious argument here is that “Well, exotics are easier to come by”, except we don’t know for sure how easy the ascended gear will be to obtain, for a start, and second of all that exotics are still a current goal for the poorer players who can’t afford the 5+ gold each one is selling for. (Before anyone inserts some tripe about money being easy to come by, perhaps they should look more closely at players who don’t have complete mastery of the trading post).

For all the arguments against adding another equipment tier the only one I’ve heard which isn’t already present with the existing tiers is that Anet said they wouldn’t add a ‘gear grind’. Worse is there’s no evidence supporting that there even will be a gear grind, as absolutely everything is just conjecture. Every MMO in existence has had some logical form of equipment progression, so why are so many vocally opposed to Guild Wars doing likewise?

To address this post in particular, Ascended gear is meant to be inbetween exotics and legendary, thus if they’re going to add sparkly effects or special emotes and the like, it will likely be on legendary armor, as is the trend with the current legendary weapons.

My final thoughts on the matter are to give it time. Eventually the dust will settle, the sun will still be shining and your exotic armor isn’t any more ‘worthless’ than it was beforehand. Worst case scenario is you just have another goal to look forward to besides endlessly grinding karma, dungeons or farming.

I still have a little hope that we’ll be able to use that gift of ascension to turn any exotic into an ascended item sooner or later XD I just hope it won’t ask me for 250 ectos and 250 charged lodestones in the process.

Well, if nothing else, it’s somewhat comforting to know that there are so many other players that actually want the same kind of game I’ve been wanting and blogging about for years, which GW2 pretty much delivered for 10 weeks. Maybe some day.

It’s sad that ANet would decide to so deliberately and so directly betray the manifest through which they raised their player base. This does not bode well for the game’s future and removes a trait that distinguished the game from others in a stagnant market.

Now, maybe they will address the players’ concern and rectify the situation in some manner. I’m not counting on game developers to have some humility and actually pay attention to their audience however, though I have heard that ANet is rather good in this regard. For now, all I can do is monitor the situation and see what the future holds for this game. My motivation to play it has been shot, but we’ll see what happens. I’ll warn friends to whom I have recommended the game to hold off on buying it until we see a pattern emerge in the development of this game.

stof.9341:

I still have a little hope that we’ll be able to use that gift of ascension to turn any exotic into an ascended item sooner or later XD I just hope it won’t ask me for 250 ectos and 250 charged lodestones in the process.

If exotics were a required component of ascended the way precursors are a required component of legendaries, at least I wouldn’t feel like I’ve wasted my investment when I bought exotics.

Still, the fact they are FORCING me to upgrade my exotics, whereas chasing leggendaries was completely voluntary, is something I could happily do without.

Lemuria.3195:

Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

Except that:

*you could infuse any armor
*it was part of the story and pretty easy to get your set infused
*it only took one additional mission run to get another set of armor infused
*there was only one kind of infusion, which you never ever had to replace

No treadmill, no artificially forced progression that lasts for years, no real gating because infusion was easy to acquire and part of the leveling process/story.

edit: I forgot to add that in the beginning, you could only infuse one piece per mission run, so you had to run the thing 5 times for a full infused set. They changed that somewhat quickly, though. 10 days to be exact.

Quote by Arenanet from the patch that made infusion runs a lot easier:

We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game.