Guild Wars 2

I don’t, because there are at least 4 more infusion tiers that they are most likely adding in the future, rendering the ones you played for obsolete. The ascended gear is just the platform for the real grind, which are the infusions.

This thread should be merged with one of the others or moved to the suggestion forum.

Mhyrria.4160:

http://i50.tinypic.com/fxro5.png

A blue infusion, although only +5 vit, it is still a stat gain. And it’s only blue, they send they will be adding more with higher rarity. And this thread is not about the imbalance, it is about adding a vertical progression. 3% more or 10% or whatever, it is still vertical progression.

The infusions are worrying to the extreme. This is going to be a lot more than the 8% or so power creep people originally talked about. Its going to end up being a 20%+ power creep.

Not to mention, what if there ends up being an infusion that reduced damage in pvp ala Resilience?

I thought I was done with Gear based pvp when I bought GW2. That was their promise. Guess I was lied to.

vespers.1759:

Onshidesigns.1069:

mulch.2586:

Umm… then why would I grind fractals?

I kinda actually do want something to “work” toward.

I can see that ascended gear really isn’t going to matter much, but at least it’s something.

Work?
This is a game. Do you also want to work while playing your alts?

not sure if trolling or just clueless.

It’s called sarcasm. He’s alluding to the fact that the quoted poster wanted something to ‘work’ toward, in a videogame. The very notion that someone would want to actually WORK in a videogame, seems pretty ridiculous to those of us that have actual jobs where we’re expected to ACTUALLY work 40-60 hours per week. For US, working in a videogame basically defeats the purpose of why we PLAY in the first place. Make more sense now?

vespers.1759:

Onshidesigns.1069:

mulch.2586:

Umm… then why would I grind fractals?

I kinda actually do want something to “work” toward.

I can see that ascended gear really isn’t going to matter much, but at least it’s something.

Work?
This is a game. Do you also want to work while playing your alts?

not sure if trolling or just clueless.

So you too like to waist your time chasing the treadmill?

Now that the treadmill locusts got what they asked for, people are moving on to demand the holy trinity.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Against-De-promoting-Holy-Trinity

CJAncients.6907:

Now that the treadmill locusts got what they asked for, people are moving on to demand the holy trinity.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Against-De-promoting-Holy-Trinity

I called it in this thread yesterday. People are so predictable. If anyone knows about an MMO with vertical progression please PM me.

I’m looking for a new game to play.

Frankly they could just make ascended the same stats as exotic.

Keep infusion for JUST ascended. This places it as a dungeon armor for FoTM style dungeons for the future. This is a horizontal progression not a vericle yet still gives the people that want to have that “goal” something to shoot for before hitting legendary

This also easily stops the problem with WvW and DE inflation and invalidating the lower content as well as lower dungeons.

Its a simple and quick fix that solves 90% of the problems people have here.

Are they still marketing this game as a no-grind game ?

It is so strange. Last week, I did have fun playing this game…
But now, since the announcement of those pink items, everytime I log into the game, I only find myself to log out seconds later…
Now I wonder, is it the color or the disappointment, which keep my from playing the game I loved so much last week.

No, they’re marketing it as Guild Wars 2: NGE.

Ostra.3927:

Frankly they could just make ascended the same stats as exotic.

Keep infusion for JUST ascended. This places it as a dungeon armor for FoTM style dungeons for the future. This is a horizontal progression not a vericle yet still gives the people that want to have that “goal” something to shoot for before hitting legendary

This also easily stops the problem with WvW and DE inflation and invalidating the lower content as well as lower dungeons.

Its a simple and quick fix that solves 90% of the problems people have here.

That would be logical and I think most people would be fine with it. But WoW-crowd would scream “amagad!!!!!!!1111111oneeleven, no new gear to grind, I quit”.

vespers.1759:

Onshidesigns.1069:

mulch.2586:

Umm… then why would I grind fractals?

I kinda actually do want something to “work” toward.

I can see that ascended gear really isn’t going to matter much, but at least it’s something.

Work?
This is a game. Do you also want to work while playing your alts?

not sure if trolling or just clueless.

Irony, thy name is vespers.

With todays patch/event Anet has made GW2 feel like that girl you’ve always liked who is holding your hand as she sits in your lap french kissing your dad. It’s just all grades of wrong.

Think I’ll pack it in
and buy a pick-up
Take it down to L.A.
Find a place to call my own
and try to fix up.
Start a brand new day.

Neil Young – Out On the Weekend
…and I don’t think Neil Young is referring to Lions Arch.

I’m Out. This Weekend.

The only thread with more views than this one, as I far as I can tell, is “On Botting and What We’re Doing About It”. I don’t know much about botting, but it just makes me more frustrated to know that this new tier is not the only problem people have. Since there are over 100.000 views on that thread too, I guess some players have other issues on top of it all

The Manifesto sure had some good points,
but The Declaration of Independence has some as well…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

All men are created equal…. I like the idea. No gap that has to be closed there

But if the chase after a bigger gap makes you feel better in your pursuit of Happiness, is really not my concern. It would be far,far better to see it happen in the Real World

The Elder Dragons are awakening, I just hope that perhaps someday the social conscience are fully awakened too

Thank you so much guys, for the enlightenment in this thread, and the thread about the new stats on ascended items. You have helped me make up my mind, cause breakups are always hard to do.

But I guess I can go elsewhere, where I’m not supposed to chase the hidden pot of gold in the end of the rainbow. Maybe just linger in Prophecies for a while, if they haven’t introduced a new tier patch there as well. And if they did, there won’t be any tier high enough for the healing required

Just hope I can get a refund, since that seems to be the only language some people get

Because when I try log in to support:

Failure
An error occurred with your request.

I know that now. Big Error

With todays patch/event Anet has made GW2 feel like that girl you’ve always liked who is holding your hand as she sits in your lap french kissing your dad. It’s just all grades of wrong.

This is very sad.

I would never have bought this game if I thought they would start escalating stats on gear. They specifically told us they wouldn’t, something that appears to me significantly like false advertising.

A large part of why this bothers me is it puts a time limit on the usefulness of gear. This makes me feel obligated to the play the game in order to be able to play the newest content when it’s released and have the current best all the time. As it was there was little to no urgency to acquire anything and I could play whenever I wanted.

However when you start adding gear grinds like this by the time I have the appropriate items to do anything the entire thing will be trivialized by higher end items.

Additionally, it adds no incentive for any sort of creativity or difficulty escalation in fights a lot of what I saw in WoW when I played oh so long ago was new fights were old fights (don’t stand in the sauce) with bigger numbers and different colors. While not necessary it seems to end up that way.

Other than that, why would I have bought this game if I wanted to play every single other MMORPG? The combat sure, but that’s hardly enough.

I liked you Anet.

Nerth.3940:

CJAncients.6907:

Now that the treadmill locusts got what they asked for, people are moving on to demand the holy trinity.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Against-De-promoting-Holy-Trinity

I called it in this thread yesterday. People are so predictable. If anyone knows about an MMO with vertical progression please PM me.

I’m looking for a new game to play.

And Anet will prolly do it in next 3 months maybe. They need to, there is already a gear threadmill via Ascended and Infusions. They need to stick to ye old formula to cater to the “dedicated customers”. But they won’t explicitly bring back the holy trinity, they will prolly pull the same ninja backstab like this. And of course, the lovely PR campaign.

what’s hilarious is they haven’t said anything to us. they know the majority of the forum community is pissed about this, so why not alleviate our concern?

the reason is because we are likely correct in our fears, that this is the foundation for a ~korean~ style gear grind.

ncsoft definitely understands the western market.

Well, predictably the elitism starts:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lostshores/Fractals-dungeon-players-restricting-others

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

DootmasterX.3025:

Well, predictably the elitism starts:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lostshores/Fractals-dungeon-players-restricting-others

Is that even elitism, though? The level 1 Fractal rewards are pathetic relative to what you need to get any of the items, from what I understand the enemies at level 1 are barely tougher than enemies you fight on the overworld in dynamic events, and it’s still going to take at least 20-30 minutes to get through, as a very optimistic estimate.

This strikes me as pretty different from “I won’t take a non-80 character into Ascalonian Catacombs, because I want to shave 90 seconds off my completion time”. It’s more “This is going to take me dozens and dozens of hours before I see any real return, and playing level 1 is going to extend that time by 25% or more – plus I’m going to be kind of bored fighting super-easy versions of the enemies”.

@AzureNightmare if it is really a one time thing , then why does Anet doesnt say something like that? I think, with that they could stop the complaining.

Crater.1625:

DootmasterX.3025:

Well, predictably the elitism starts:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lostshores/Fractals-dungeon-players-restricting-others

Is that even elitism, though? The level 1 Fractal rewards are pathetic relative to what you need to get any of the items, from what I understand the enemies at level 1 are barely tougher than enemies you fight on the overworld in dynamic events, and it’s still going to take at least 20-30 minutes to get through, as a very optimistic estimate.

This strikes me as pretty different from “I won’t take a non-80 character into Ascalonian Catacombs, because I want to shave 90 seconds off my completion time”. It’s more “This is going to take me dozens and dozens of hours before I see any real return, and playing level 1 is going to extend that time by 25% or more – plus I’m going to be kind of bored fighting super-easy versions of the enemies”.

Elitism or not, it’s end-result of content gated systems. New players to the game will be left behind, people who don’t/can’t participate this weekend will even be left behind. The longer you wait to jump on this treadmill, the harder the progress will be.

It’s pretty funny that it’s happening already, hours after the patch.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

I’m actually 100% assuming there won’t be Ascended++ gear, only Ascended.

Despite that, though, Ascended gear is already a serious grindfest, and the plan to introduce all the Ascended stuff in waves of a couple of slots each is, in actuality, a gear treadmill.

I was thinking of entertaining myself by crafting one of those half-legendaries (like Infinite Light), but now instead of just stocking up on resources for cute skins I’m going to have to pour everything into keeping up my gear.

While I am not totally against the addition of ascended gear. I do not like gated content or long gear grinds. I am taking a wait and see approach for this. As far as progression is concerned I would much rather see things like:

New weapon/utility/elite skills added to the game. I would like to be able to upgrade/change my 1-5 skills for weapons. I think this would add a new layer to the game and allow us to tackle harder content by naturally upgrading our weapon skills. Make them cost skill points even…

Raise the level cap and add meaningful content accordingly, including crafting recipes etc. etc.

Achievements that give skill points and/or other things, more titles too.

There are many more ways they could add rewarding content for level 80s that doesn’t involve gating content. I hope that they tread very carefully with this because it is a slippery slope and once started it is hard to turn back.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

Even if they’d say that, I would never bet my money on it again. Could I really trust them not to pull this BS again? I don’t know, probably not.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

I don’t know what I’ll do in that case just as I don’t know what I’ll do if I win the Powerball this weekend. I don’t make plans for contingencies that have little to no chance of occurring.

Edit: I’m sure they won’t add another tier of gear after this just like Blizzard never adds another tier of gear to their game. They just make the existing best tier even more powerful and I’m sure that’s what they will do here in some manner (their method seems to be the infusions.)

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

I will urge them to remove that tier that in my opinion should have never been introduced. Also, new numbers/tiers is never new content.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

They never said they wont release another tier. I think it was posted on reddit or guru, i cant remember. But even if they did say they won’t, it would prolly fall on deaf ears thanks to this current fiasco.

And this is basically the thing here, our broken trust. How can we go back playing, even if this just a legitimately one-time tier upgrade, knowing that Anet had already pulled something like this? We can’t. Trust is earned, Anet earned in GW1 but now I don’t think they are gonna earn it back anytime soon.

Edit: With regards to Osprey’s post, whether it’s tiers on gears or through upgrades, they are still tiers. Making the “current tier” more powerful is no different than having newer more powerful tier. Blizzard simply sugar-coated and marketed it well.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

Ascended gear is just one aspect of the gear grind. Once all gear pieces are released, there are still infusion tiers you’d have to grind for. Why don’t they release everything at once? Because that would defeat the purpose of their gear progression. It’s a looming Damocles sword that at any moment in time for years, they could release an update that would devalue one of your gear parts or infusion upgrades.

Believe it or not, some people like being done with their progress. If you take this feeling away from them every couple of months, they loose their motivation.

My biggest complaint is that now I can’t really do any of the prestige stuff I was planning to do. I was gonna focus on WvW and, like, hunt up some cute skins, maybe start saving up to forge some weird semi-legendary, level some additional craft skills if I was bored. But all of that gets sidelined by this weird new ridiculous thing with higher stats that I need to pick up now.

Power-creep in gear stats is awful, because it actively distracts you from actually doing anything other than farming that kitten gear.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

If it’s a one-time addition to the game, then it makes the game into something wholly inferior to what it was to begin with:

1) The grind to outfit a character with top-level equipment is already considerable, unless you: a) refuse to play more than one character, and b) refuse to play more than one build on each character, and c) refuse to ever put your time and energy into any cosmetic upgrade, going for the cheapest and easiest Exotics to obtain, with no aspirations beyond that.

With exotics in the game, the grind becomes not just considerable, but functionally impossible for people who want to play more than one character, and/or enjoy playing multiple builds with multiple stat spreads on each character they have. It reduces the game not only to “I play a [Class X]”, but to “I play a [build] kind of [Class X]”.

2) Ascended equipment has far less mechanical depth and is far less interesting than Exotic equipment. Customizable upgrade slots, rather than baked-in jewels, allow for much more specific and customizable stat spreads (for builds that are supported by the versatility) than simply going all-in on the same stat spread. And more importantly, Runes and Sigils add novel effects that cannot be duplicated by stats alone. Infusions, on the other hand, have the same old boring +Stat effects that everything else has, but their ‘main’ purpose is to give +Agony resistance (or +Whatever if they change that from one dungeon to the next), which is a mechanic with absolutely zero depth or strategic variation.

And just to catch the counterpoint before anybody makes it: The novel effects of Runes and Sigils simply do not have the raw power to be competitive with Ascended equipment, even if they are more interesting, outside of maybe a handful of builds that are able to rely very heavily on a specific rune effect. The tradeoff between higher stats and novel effects was, in fact, already balanced and in play on Exotic equipment, where you could slot Jewels that gave straight stat bonuses that were higher than you would receive from Runes.

3) Every existing piece of content in the game is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. If the content is not readjusted and rebalanced to deal with Ascended equipment being the new maximum, then all of that content has just become further trivialized to any player wearing Ascended gear – meaning that for players who get Ascended equipment, the amount of content that is actually appropriate for their characters is limited only to the most recent one or two zones.
If the content is readjusted and rebalanced to deal with Ascended equipment, then every player who isn’t willing to participate in the grind and wants to soldier on with their existing Rare or Exotic equipment is going to find themselves functionally downgraded one equipment tier. “Grind harder, or become weaker than you were before” is a terrible philosophy to foist on your players.

It also even further exacerbates an issue that the game has been facing since launch: Downscaling is not harsh enough, and despite being downscaled, a level 80 character in Exotics is going to find almost all sub-70 content trivial. Ascended equipment will only drive the discrepancy further apart, undoing one of Guild Wars 2’s biggest strengths: That lower level content is not rendered completely obsolete, because you will be downscaled to be on par with it.

It’s not a good change, full stop. Doesn’t matter whether this is the only time it happens, or the first of a hundred “item progression initiatives”. Guild Wars 2 is a lesser game because of it. The only question is: Is Guild Wars 2 a worse game if Ascended gear is the last and final progression tier, ever, or is it a worse game if Ascended is to be followed in 6 months by Exalted, then 6 months later by Champion, etc.

Still in utter disbelief at zero communication from these Anet. Really someone needs to resign and do-over the entire community PR mandate and staff.

Spurious D.6173:

Elitism or not, it’s end-result of content gated systems. New players to the game will be left behind, people who don’t/can’t participate this weekend will even be left behind. The longer you wait to jump on this treadmill, the harder the progress will be.

It’s pretty funny that it’s happening already, hours after the patch.

That’s more or less what I was getting at, yeah. It’s not the players’ fault if they’re setting a minimum on Fractal level, because in many respects it’s a waste of time to be doing a Fractal level well below your capability.

It’s curious that they did it that way, though. It worked the other way around with the previous dungeons. You only needed one player who had completed Story Mode before you could bring the whole party into Explorable Mode, and you never had to do the dungeons in any particular order. Here, you only need one player who hasn’t completed a particular Fractal level before you can’t bring the whole party down into the deeper level.

Of course, if they removed that restriction, then players would still have to discriminate by Agony Resistance, enforcing a gear inspection on any new player trying to do the dungeon.

The solution to it all is pretty simple, but it’s doubtful whether they’ll ever remove Agony and let a player’s skill determine her or his success.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

I really hoped it is an one time only thing too. But if it is, why doesn’t somebody at ArenaNet come out and say that? All they have to do is say “this is only an one time thing.”

They also said to not be afraid to change everything. And hammered iteration upon iteration about 3 billion times more than the few quotes you feel the need to call them liars for.

You’re all a bunch of Shiros who go mad over “a change of plans”.

fled.4691:

Still in utter disbelief at zero communication from these Anet. Really someone needs to resign and do-over the entire community PR mandate and staff.

I’m a little confused by it. They were incredibly active during the marketing and beta phase.

top rated blog posts on MMORPG.com

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/072009/24187_Sadly-ANET-Blows-It

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/072009/24212_The-GW2-Debacle-More-Than-A-Matter-of-Lost-Trust

If this spreads any faster its not gonna be good for anyone, not the industry, the corporation or the consumers.

It’s been mentioned before, another company tried this with Lord Of The Rings Online, It failed horribly.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

top rated blog posts on MMORPG.com

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/072009/24187_Sadly-ANET-Blows-It

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/072009/24212_The-GW2-Debacle-More-Than-A-Matter-of-Lost-Trust

If this spreads any faster its not gonna be good for anyone, not the industry, the corporation or the consumers.

Now we just have to wait for the blogs to turn into true articles. That seemed to get their attention with the Gamespy article.

I think people need to listen to this to understand and get a visual/audio interpretation.

Also Arena Net needs to refresh their memories.

I always thought MMO devs were rabidly eager to have players socialize with each other, but this makes me wonder.

The friendly factor is going to flee this game quicker than players who only WvW with this new gear tier. New players and players behind the curve due to time constraints or a less focused play style are about to become outcasts.

They won’t be able to do dungeons because they won’t have the gear. They won’t be able to enjoy WvW because they won’t have the gear. They won’t be able to get into open world grind teams in Orr or wherever because teams will want the best possible geared players so they’ll get more loot.

Just here to add my voice.

Like many said before this game was advertised in a way and now we are getting the opposite. I was about to spend about 40$ in gems for this weekend but since the blog release by one of the devs I lost all the will to even play.

I’m shocked and sad about this situation. Like many I’ll let my wallet speak for me since it’s the only way I can punish arenanet.

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.

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?

“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.

This is incredibly well said. I agree on all of the above counts. Repeating a dungeon because I chose to, versus feeling like it’s necessary completely transforms the experience.

I played games with gear treadmills all my life. Sure, you say that I have a choice in pursuing maximum gear. But no one ever, ever wants to feel lesser, weaker, more inadequate. Almost all of us are driven to try to climb. We all want to be the best, and in some corner of our minds, there is a little voice urging us to keep running, running, running towards that height. In some senses, we’re more like those rats in the maze than we’d like to believe.

I didn’t want to be a rat anymore, and so I quit those games. Please don’t make me quit you, too, ArenaNet.

+ another 10,000 DO NOT WANT cat memes.

This has really upset my friends and I. We are a consistent dungeon group and we all have multiple sets of dungeon/karma/crafted armor and weapons. We will most likely have absolutely no trouble getting any of the new gear but even we are upset about this.

It’s a matter of principle. Anet said there would be no gear progression, and that’s exactly what Ascended gear is. If it was just for new difficult to attain skins, I would be all for it. But it’s introducing a whole new tier of better items that everyone feels pressured into getting, just to stay relevant.

I have 2 80’s and there are a lot of people with more than me. They are both decked out in full exos, and I really don’t want to spend the time/cash/“tokens” upgrading their gear once again.

“We respect you—as a player, as a human being. This game we’re making may end up competing with your real life. It might fight for your free time alongside your friends, your family, your work, and whatever else you might be doing. Because of that, we want to give you a meaningful experience, not one that is a vapid waste of your time. Whatever your reasons for spending time in Tyria, we don’t want to waste it by doing stuff that isn’t fun”.

Purpose: To keep us honest.

Ben Miller. Games Designer.

So What Happened?

I waited for this game for so very long and have loved it until yesterday, I was in shock and had the same feeling in my gut as I had when the NGE hit SWG. I won’t go through this again and I am now in search of a new pvp game.

Did Anet hire Smedly?

It’s not just gear now, tonight I went into the dungeon foyer (right there in the big portal) and there were rewards for 20 slot bags and some item that when used gives you an instant skillpoint.

It’s not just gear, it’s not just gear, it’s not just gear.
I’m going to be chanting that tonight.

This is the first friday night that at 9pm I turned off the game.

Pushing 200 pages of largely legitimate complaints about this decision, and not a word to address it. Fires spreading to fansites. During beta there were devs jumping all over the tiniest QQ about personal story dialog that didn’t jive right with a handful of players that saw/disliked it.

What. Thekitten. Happened. To Anet.

I’m seriously starting to wonder if every dev speaking in the MMOifesto has quit/been fired and NC$oft is running the show.

Here’s a thought. Decrease the stat increase slightly, simply adjust the % based stat to be equal (7% instead of 10) and remove stats from the infusions. 10% crit damage instead of 7% is a massive increase. You could even make it 8% for the hsmsters in all of us.

Now you have gear that is only slightly better. Depending on whether your build needs runes, Exotic armor is only slightly less and people will notice little difference. At the same time you have your little treadmill for the hamsters and kept your horizontal progression.