Guild Wars 2

Kelvingts.2035:

Skins alone cannot keep most of us playing the game for longer and longer.

You got the wrong game then. New skins, content, areas, dungeons, items, rares, prestige titles, competitive play, the inability to out gear content, etc, etc. Those are the things that kept the players in Guild Wars. The set of “players” your kind fall under have a billion other choices.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

For me, its still the same game for now. Im not that impressed with the new event, but there sure was a massive lag inducing turn out- so there is still a massive crowd that is interested in the game.

Sure there is, the content locusts can pretty much crash any server they care to visit, just like they can devour even the biggest crop fields. Because they have nothing better to do . But then two weeks later, having consumed every available resource, they will move on leaving nothing but a barren wasteland.

Here’s the problem. This game wasn’t conceived for them, until this patch at least. They’ll grind out what they want and, because they seek that feeling of superiority, ruin dungeons by forming an exclusive tier of players who will only play with others who have the limitless time to obtain the very best gear.

Why? Because they don’t have a purpose outside of the virtual world like a profession or family to provide for. So they need something that will make themselves feel better, so they can sneer about ‘casuals’ and those stupid reasons they won’t play 8 hours a day – you know like having a job, or even loving a good woman/man.

This game was meant to be conceived for us, the people with family, jobs, spouses, kids, houses and gardens to maintain. We were promised a MMO utopia. A social, co-op game that we could join in when we find the time and stand as equals in everything but cosmetics to the grindiest of grinders. Apart from pure ability, no mechanical reason to consider any player over another.

Like many other who bought into their bullkitten manifesto I’m a professional who handles tense, difficult and important situations every day – up until this patch I could bring those skills to the game as an equal. Tell me, are you a problem solver? calm under pressure? Ignore personal glory for the sake of the team? It. Doesn’t. Matter. Any. More. You come second to someone with +10 nolife on their new Best In Slot kittens – just 100 hours in the same dungeon – and that is all that matters now.

Soooooooooo, who wants to guess when the manifesto gets removed? My guess is around Christmas holidays.

Logun.2349:

I was really hoping to hear different although this is what I expected

I just ran the instance again with a 3rd group and on the 3rd fractal, one of the players had a problem with everyone else being “noobs” and left the group half way through the run.

Basically 3 groups, 6+ hours. Didn’t even go up a difficulty level because people keep quitting or going AFK.

Forget this BS. 6 hours and 25 relics and 1 rare ring later, I officially give up on this instance.

Day1, LF1M FoM Lvl.4
Sigh, i only ran once up till swamp area, Lvl.1
Not sure if those ppl made it all the way to 4 with some ascended gears or not yet.
Gear check won’t be the only problem, difficulty lvl also. It’s going to seggregate the community into hell, catering elitist.
This is seriously going to head south.
Asking ppl to free up their weekend for 3 days “once” only events, couldn’t even swiftly respond to multitude amount of bugs on those events.
I am in a small guild with ppl who migrated from Lotro, they all not logging in to check out this weekend stuff. Luv playing with them, hopefully they aren’t quitting. Sigh.
Disappointment is the only word to describe this.

I just realized in a sudden epiphany that, instead of playing, I’m here kittening around on the forum, which is a thing I never, ever felt the need to do in any game. I always thought I was a reasonable person, that doesn’t jump to conclusions before trying something, but… It seems my emotions have taken control over my wait-and-see-what-happens attitude: I’m enjoying the game less and less, playing less and less, since this huge cub and kitten storm came out.
I’m surprised. It never happened to me before. I’m also posting a lot to feel less lonely.
That never happened before neither. Medic! Need a medic over here!
My dearest friend Trahearne says this won’t end well.

krookie.6378:

Logun.2349:

I was really hoping to hear different although this is what I expected

I just ran the instance again with a 3rd group and on the 3rd fractal, one of the players had a problem with everyone else being “noobs” and left the group half way through the run.

Basically 3 groups, 6+ hours. Didn’t even go up a difficulty level because people keep quitting or going AFK.

Forget this BS. 6 hours and 25 relics and 1 rare ring later, I officially give up on this instance.

U see the problem? this game is supposed to be super casual, according to their manifesto. That FoM instance and ascended gears are not.
I went in once 1.5hours, 10relics, we stuck @ swamp, tried for about 10-20mins, then i had to go. Come back 6 hours later, ppl already LF1M Lvl4.
Can’t even keep up, being casual that is.

Hilko.1760:

Kelvingts.2035:

Skins alone cannot keep most of us playing the game for longer and longer.

You got the wrong game then. New skins, content, areas, dungeons, items, rares, prestige titles, competitive play, the inability to out gear content, etc, etc. Those are the things that kept the players in Guild Wars. The set of “players” your kind fall under have a billion other choices.

Amen!

Yamiino.1827:

Hilko.1760:

Kelvingts.2035:

Skins alone cannot keep most of us playing the game for longer and longer.

You got the wrong game then. New skins, content, areas, dungeons, items, rares, prestige titles, competitive play, the inability to out gear content, etc, etc. Those are the things that kept the players in Guild Wars. The set of “players” your kind fall under have a billion other choices.

Amen!

Amen, frater.

How you get to max power in WvW, before and after Ascended gear:

Pre-Ascended:
Buy Exotics for Karma.
Buy Exotics for Gold.
Earn Exotics through Dungeon tokens in any of 8 different dungeons.
Earn Exotics through WvW badges.
Craft Exotics through mob drops / mining.
Throw rares into Mystic Forge.

Post-Ascended
Grind fractals dungeon.

The game is going in the wrong direction. Guild Wars 1 was a beautiful and pure implementation of a revolutionary vision, while GW2 is becoming a mish-mash of rehashed and tired ideas.

Pino.5209:

U see the problem? this game is supposed to be super casual, according to their manifesto. That FoM instance and ascended gears are not.
I went in once 1.5hours, 10relics, we stuck @ swamp, tried for about 10-20mins, then i had to go. Come back 6 hours later, ppl already LF1M Lvl4.
Can’t even keep up, being casual that is.

Whatever this game is suppose to be, it’s obviously not for me anymore. The focus is switching to dungeon grinding and I cannot bring myself to do that anymore.

I’ll play out the weekend, check on the new zone tomorrow and whatnot. But I have a feeling that after being a huge GW1 and 2 fan, this one swift patch, completely ruined the game. More than likely, I’m going back to GW1.

Yamiino.1827:

Hilko.1760:

Kelvingts.2035:

Skins alone cannot keep most of us playing the game for longer and longer.

You got the wrong game then. New skins, content, areas, dungeons, items, rares, prestige titles, competitive play, the inability to out gear content, etc, etc. Those are the things that kept the players in Guild Wars. The set of “players” your kind fall under have a billion other choices.

Amen!

Unfortunately thats where the problem is, this content has nothing to do with the casual or ex GW1 player it seems solely aimed at the panda crowd.

The panda expansion seems to have burned, so whats the best way to get those players onboard?

It seems a pretty straight forward move to hastily add progressive content to capture them.

Maybe it would be a good idea to throw out an invite a friend pass or 3 around to net a few more.

This event wasn’t randomly timed imho.

Hilko.1760:

Kelvingts.2035:

Skins alone cannot keep most of us playing the game for longer and longer.

You got the wrong game then. New skins, content, areas, dungeons, items, rares, prestige titles, competitive play, the inability to out gear content, etc, etc. Those are the things that kept the players in Guild Wars. The set of “players” your kind fall under have a billion other choices.

tbh, I more and more get the impression that we have the wrong game. Clearly, ArenaNet originally intended to make a game without gear grind, where all the content in the game remained relevant, where people would have reasons to go back to older content and replay that, and where new content was focused around adding more variety to those zones to keep people entertained. A game where max level gear would remain max level gear, and the only thing that distinguished rare legendary gear from the standard exotic gear, was the skins. But many of the people coming to this game from other MMO’s are so used to gear progression and endgame, that they just didn’t get it. As that group of people grew ever unhappier with the game, ArenaNet decided to change their direction, add gear progression and endgame… the latest step of which is a new tier of gear and the introduction of a Diablo-style endgame dungeon that people can keep on repeating. As they now have most of their resources focused on that, there isn’t a whole lot of time left to give people goals and reasons to replay older content, to revisit existing zones, to improve those zones, and to improve replayability by fixing the ‘ever branching’ personal story. Most of the people who rushed to level 80, didn’t really seem to care about all that anyway. In other words: those zones are slowly dying. This game is becoming exactly what ArenaNet told us it would never be: a dash to max level, after which you change your playstyle around and start doing endgame content with gear progression.
If that’s the direction that this game is going in, if that is really where ArenaNet believe that they can find the majority of the players, then we are clearly in the wrong game. Time to find something new…

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

NCSoft always been in love with grinding mechanichs.
Was AN owned by NCSoft when they released GW1?
Is AN now owned by NCSoft?

You will never bind the rule of a private company – since they are there for the sole purpose of profit. If they are committed to go on with this gear grinding thing, that is most probably due to the fact that it fit their revenues scheme on an horrific and reliable ground noone can go against, not 1 not 10k not 100k.

The real vicitims here, if any of course, are those “persons” who gave their face and names in the process..

I am one of those silent players that usually doesn’t like posting on forums, only reading them.But i said this time i should at least say my opinion about this patch, and i don’t like this new ascended gear at all.Worse it seems that all my enthusiasm for this game has vanished.I enjoyed playing this game collecting skins for my characters knowing that i will not be left behind .I enjoyed the fact that i didn’t had to keep replacing my items to remain competitive.
For now i will just take a break from this game and watch what direction it goes, but if it keeps it this way i will not be coming back.

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Not a thing wrong with content. If you think that is what the big deal is about go join the other “players” in game. Leave the real players here to sulk on the forums.

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

Please tell us when this will be available in wvwvw? If I have to do another dungeon I will shoot myself, seriously.

Columba.9730:

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

You best get em now. In 4 months you’ll have to come back for your ascended britches.

I’m with you…screw this garbage..

If it was me, I would have just added a new gear tab to support this “infusion system” and left the rest alone. That way no one felt cheated out of obtaining thier exoctics and customizations, and people would have new shinies to grind for.

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

MistaMike.7356:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

No it’s not about progression. I got to 80, luv exploring and leveling, took me 3 weeks to get there. And then i had fun doing dungeons with my guildies. Hunting for skin. It’s not about progression, it was about “FUN”.
Come again.

MistaMike.7356:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

For the 992349 time no one is against new stuff. Yes ANET should have left it at that. Guild Wars 1 had no problem expanding and growing. But you wouldn’t know that. And don’t try to feed me your GW1 stories cause clearly you have none.

It’s a shame that ANET and the pandas have become friends.\

Hilko.1760:

Columba.9730:

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

You best get em now. In 4 months you’ll have to come back for your ascended britches.

I’m with you…screw this garbage..

I will uninstall before I put myself through that garbage again. Some of us dont find dungeon raids fun. Why isn’t this crap available in wvwvw?

Columba.9730:

Hilko.1760:

Columba.9730:

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

You best get em now. In 4 months you’ll have to come back for your ascended britches.

I’m with you…screw this garbage..

I will uninstall before I put myself through that garbage again. Some of us dont find dungeon raids fun. Why isn’t this crap available in wvwvw?

It will be..so they say….at an undisclosed time. Prolly the same time your britches become available for grind.

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

No it’s not about progression. I got to 80, luv exploring and leveling, took me 3 weeks to get there. And then i had fun doing dungeons with my guildies. Hunting for skin. It’s not about progression, it was about “FUN”.
Come again.

Some of us don’t consider this fun, yet we have to do it to be competitive.

Columba.9730:

I just did three of these dungeons. didn’t finish one. I hate this garbage. Hate it with a passion. I can’t believe I am being forced to do this stuff that I loathe just to be competitive in wvwvw.

Please tell us when this will be available in wvwvw? If I have to do another dungeon I will shoot myself, seriously.

Oh it’ll be available in WvWvW alright… only reachable in massively more time than it takes to get in PvE just like exotics are now (half an hour of Orr grind vs hundreds of badges for a single piece lmao). Otherwise the Content locusts will complain the pvpers have an advantage. So enjoy spending tens of thousands of badges for a full set

Cutterslaine.2689:

Unfortunately thats where the problem is, this content has nothing to do with the casual or ex GW1 player it seems solely aimed at the panda crowd.

The panda expansion seems to have burned, so whats the best way to get those players onboard?

It seems a pretty straight forward move to hastily add progressive content to capture them.

Maybe it would be a good idea to throw out an invite a friend pass or 3 around to net a few more.

This event wasn’t randomly timed imho.

On the other side of the coin we have LotRO. Now owned by WB you will find very few apologists for the way they drive their gear grind and store, myself included.

Yet, in Rohan (along with staying remarkably true to the book) they have made the latest top-tier armour sets available as a reward for grinding through a pool of random dailies that can be completed by any solo player in a few weeks with about a1/2 hour to spend most days. This is generally considered a great move, when the dungeons do come, there will be a larger pool of players with the gear to join in and try the harder, instanced content if they wish.

Meanwhile, for those who don’t like dungeon diving all seven (yes, 7) cosmetic outfit slots can be bound to a key, yet more slots can be bought for your (account-wide) wardrobe storage and you can spend a small fortune in the store dressing up your horse (while the stats remain bound to in-game achievements).

So, a notorious gear grinder/micro transaction driven game has come closer in spirit to the manifesto while ANet moves in the opposite direction.

My take is that WB has figured out who butters their bread – ppl with disposable income. Folks with a job don’t/can’t/won’t grind 4-8 hours a day, but still have the intellect and skill to learn game mechanics and make a valuable contribution in tough content. If that’s not their thing, then let them play with cosmetics, RP, play music and hang out with their friends as ‘end-game’.

It’s not rocket science when you think about it, up until this week I really thought GW2 had it right.

This whole gear system is a bad move.

As mentioned NUMEROUS TIMES before:

No one asked for this aside from those voracious MMO hoppers that would probably just get bored of this new gear tier in a few months, flock to the forums to complain, and then pseudo-quit the game until the cycle is repeated again and again. Is this the road you really want to go down? Is this how you want to cater to your GW1 player base that were perfectly fine with having the same armour tier and weapon damage for 7 years?

Also, this game is not subscription based game; you don’t gain vast amounts of money by forcing people to grind days and months on end, you gain money by making interesting and fair content that make people want to use the gem store. But who would spend money on gems when you just pissed off your entire loyal playerbase on purpose. And let’s be frank here, you can get a cheaper deal on cheap Chinese gold who would give you a direct amount rather than suffer the highly unamusing gem to gold conversion rate.

This whole gear concept, which I really cannot comprehended why it exists, would additionally create inequality between players and foster a toxic PvE environment.

I remember in the development stage of GW2, the developers promised us a discrimination-free game where you can join pugs easily as the holy trinity of tank, DPS and healer is abolished. With this new gear system you know what will happen? “LF level 80 with full ascended +50 agony gear and level 30 FoTM ONLY. Whisper me.” It’s actually starting to happen right now with people requesting level 80s with full exotics, and funnily enough, happening to players that were guested for the event who were supposed to be enticed to buy and play the game.

Sure, casual PvE players can play the easy mode of FoTM but it’s ultimately unfair to both casual and hardcore people who like WvW and want to stay competitive in that environment. The GW1 development team preached fairness and skill over gear play rather than grind over skill.

While I am fortunate enough to have the time to play and a highly competent guild to play with, this whole thing makes me really uncomfortable. I don’t want to discriminate against people who don’t have enough time to play as me nor do I want people to feel that their hard earned gear they obtained through playing at a slow pace become obsolete and have to grind till their eyes bleed.

I would like to point out that If you don’t think this new gear is grindy, you have got to be heavy denial. The ingredients needed to make one infusion which fits into an ascended item slot is:

1 Eldritch Scroll
20 Mystic Coin
250 Karka Shells
100 T6 material

This is for one ‘fine’ blue infusion which would only need to be replaced in a few months time as masterwork, rare, exotic, and ascended infusions would be released. The price of T6 mats is a hot mess and overall it would cost an obscene amount of both time and money.

Lastly I want to say that PvP was what kept GW1 afloat all these years. Unfortunately ArenaNet now treats sPvP and WvW like an unwanted step-childs that has to live in their PvE silbing’s shadow. How about throwing money at the PvP development team for one month instead of PvE content that caters to fickle MMO locusts?

Zinebot.4250:

This whole gear system is a bad move.

As mentioned NUMEROUS TIMES before:

No one asked for this aside from those voracious MMO hoppers that would probably just get bored of this new gear tier in a few months, flock to the forums to complain, and then pseudo-quit the game until the cycle is repeated again and again. Is this the road you really want to go down? Is this how you want to cater to your GW1 player base that were perfectly fine with having the same armour tier and weapon damage for 7 years?

Also, this game is not subscription based game; you don’t gain vast amounts of money by forcing people to grind days and months on end, you gain money by making interesting and fair content that make people want to use the gem store. But who would spend money on gems when you just pissed off your entire loyal playerbase on purpose. And let’s be frank here, you can get a cheaper deal on cheap Chinese gold who would give you a direct amount rather than suffer the highly unamusing gem to gold conversion rate.

This whole gear concept, which I really cannot comprehended why it exists, would additionally create inequality between players and foster a toxic PvE environment.

I remember in the development stage of GW2, the developers promised us a discrimination-free game where you can join pugs easily as the holy trinity of tank, DPS and healer is abolished. With this new gear system you know what will happen? “LF level 80 with full ascended +50 agony gear and level 30 FoTM ONLY. Whisper me.” It’s actually starting to happen right now with people requesting level 80s with full exotics, and funnily enough, happening to players that were guested for the event who were supposed to be enticed to buy and play the game.

Sure, casual PvE players can play the easy mode of FoTM but it’s ultimately unfair to both casual and hardcore people who like WvW and want to stay competitive in that environment. The GW1 development team preached fairness and skill over gear play rather than grind over skill.

While I am fortunate enough to have the time to play and a highly competent guild to play with, this whole thing makes me really uncomfortable. I don’t want to discriminate against people who don’t have enough time to play as me nor do I want people to feel that their hard earned gear they obtained through playing at a slow pace become obsolete and have to grind till their eyes bleed.

I would like to point out that If you don’t think this new gear is grindy, you have got to be heavy denial. The ingredients needed to make one infusion which fits into an ascended item slot is:

1 Eldritch Scroll
20 Mystic Coin
250 Karka Shells
100 T6 material

This is for one ‘fine’ blue infusion which would only need to be replaced in a few months time as masterwork, rare, exotic, and ascended infusions would be released. The price of T6 mats is a hot mess and overall it would cost an obscene amount of both time and money.

Lastly I want to say that PvP was what kept GW1 afloat all these years. Unfortunately ArenaNet now treats sPvP and WvW like an unwanted step-childs that has to live in their PvE silbing’s shadow. How about throwing money at the PvP development team for one month instead of PvE content that caters to fickle MMO locusts?

Indeed. You’ve hit the nail on the head. This post needs to be printed in a very large font and duct-taped to the desk of every manager responsible for GW2s sudden change of direction.

If I play anymore Guildwars, it’s only going to be Guildwars1 for the next month ~or ~however ~long it takes me to forget about this one that was going to be so darn good after the bugs all got fixed.

It’s not the flat out lie about end-game gear being easy to attain that’s chasing me off. It’s this whole Infusion system that is infact a Treadmill within a Treadmill that exists only to take the Emphasis of team coordination OFF of skilled play and right smack dab onto a Gear-Score. This is unforgivable and has the potential to ruin every other part of the game if it spreads like Chris Whitehead says it will over the coming months.

Enjoy your new customers Anet, I really hope you’re happy together. I’m sorry that all us loyal GW1 players weren’t enough for you.

It should be noted that Item Progression does not constitute real content. It is often a piggyback on content to force players to work at said delivered content longer; without giving the content reason to play it longer through other means. (Titles, fun little trinkets and gadgets, trophies for your player home)

For those thinking Item Progression is a step to satisfy the desire to feel more powerful. This is an illusion. How it is an illusion you might ask? New gear is put into place to make players more powerful to face opponents that have become more powerful… Said new more powerful opponents actually are already powerful and you are in fact just catching up to become once against a equally powerful as they are… Which you were.. before the additional tier was put into place. There is no actual power gain established here, you are merely having to fight back up to the top rung of the chain.

Progression shouldn’t have to be about Item progression. What about personal progression, something to push your since of superiority? How would you do this? The fractal dungeon already promotes this personal progression style; through the use of increasing difficulty. How far can you go? How long can you endure? Perhaps even providing recognition for you valorous deeds, letting the world of Tyria know its mightiest of heroes. However instead we are given a false sense of superiority through increased gear rather than reputation.

We need REAL personal progression something that we can do to display our valorous and glorious deeds. Not through stat increases but through visual markers and indicators. Titles, special effects, unique and exciting devices that make you the envy of everyone around you.

NaughtyProwler.8653:

Soooooooooo, who wants to guess when the manifesto gets removed? My guess is around Christmas holidays.

Let’s screenie the manifesto. I am pretty sure when the event is over, they will subtly changed it.

Columba.9730:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

No it’s not about progression. I got to 80, luv exploring and leveling, took me 3 weeks to get there. And then i had fun doing dungeons with my guildies. Hunting for skin. It’s not about progression, it was about “FUN”.
Come again.

Some of us don’t consider this fun, yet we have to do it to be competitive.

There was 0 grind needed to be competitive in GW1. ZERO. Just planning and practice.

Last night I already saw a guy post his first 100 Fractal-dungeon tokens in map-chat – hurry up or you will be left behind!

I feel bad for arena-net if ncsoft forced their hand, which is more than likely.

OK, this is my last post on the matter, because once the items are in the hands of players the new gear cannot realistically be ‘undone’. I looked forward to GW2 because we were promised an MMO free of a gear grind. I pre-ordered GW2 because I wanted a game free of a gear grind.

So, I was misled and wasted $60 of my own money. No big deal, caveat emptor and I enjoyed two months of very enthralling gaming, so I got enough value to not care too much.

However, I recommended GW2 to my friends, because I was excited about of the lack of the gear grind and other features, several of them bought it on my word. Just like me they were interested in a MMO with no grind that fits in with their life.

I wasted my friends money and time, that I feel really bad about. We’re all back on our previous MMO it’s no big deal fortunately. I guess I have better friends than I do ‘business sense’.

For their sake I’m disappointed that I actually believed the manifesto was more than a pipe dream.

MistaMike.7356:

Pino.5209:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

Have a look @ GW2 manifesto, the core principle of the game. We bought the game for what it was.
Aanet is putting in a content that is a complete 180 degree backflip from their original design of the game.
Free, yah. But it’s a whole different game now, ala World of Warcraft alike.
If u liked grinding ala WoW, why on earth were you playing GW2 (referring to prepatch)?

But the entire game is a progression of your character. You climb 80 levels then work on maxing slots and legendaries. Did you seriously think Anet was just gonna leave it at that and let the game end after that? What developer would put millions of dollars into building an MMO and then not expand it? What do you have against them adding new stuff anyway? Haven’t you seen all the old content yet?

GW1 was expanded – with new content, areas, skills.
You know what was great in GW1?
If my guild bet a dungeon you couldn’t pass the first group in, you could be sure that the only thing giving us advantage is our skill, knowledge of the game and experience. Not 100h of grind and that if you’re skilled enough, you can get as good. Who knows, maybe your skill can get better than ours and you can impress us with your gameplay, not your stats or lack of life. This system was infinetly more deep and rewarding.

Fractals and Infusion?
You won’t be able to go deeper without more stats and only Ascended gear plus higher tier Infusion. Its not a matter of skill anymore. It’s a matter of how much you’ve grinded to up your Infusion and stats, which is the definition of gear treadmill and… Well, look at my sig. That’s not the game thta was advertised.

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

First, check your attitude. It is wrong.

Second, check your world view, it isn’t based in reality.

Anet is not giving us anything for free. Nothing a business does is for free. This is a for profit organization, designed to make money. That is what they do, or aim to do…make money. Every bit of time they have, employee they hire, computer they buy, server they upgrade, line of code they program… was bought and paid for by the consumers of their product… us.

I also think you may just be one of the people that the treadmill appeals to…. one of the people that cannot see it for what it actually is…. someone who thinks the definition of “more content” is “more of the same with bigger numbers”.

i don’t think that is new content. I think it is recycled content, rehashed ad infinitum to appease the dull mindless addicted masses with subpar entertainment.

I’m incredibly upset that I was lied to and conned out of my money and time spent in the game thus far.

Its odd that they say this is due to player feedback yet from what i saw during and right after Halloween was that players did not like the RNG chests and would rather have bought the items they wanted outright from the store, now having presumably taken that feedback on board the only new item you can buy from the store is the chests, which contain all the other items, but whose loot table is skewed so that you’ll mostly get crafting materials you can gather in the world…

but I guess its more profitable and money > player happiness and retention

I am actually surprised that the new dungeon drops tokens, I was fully expecting it to only have drops from RNG to complete the Skinner box they seem to be going for.
Personally I’m happy to grind for things, but it has to be things I WANT to grind for not things I NEED to be on an equal playing field with others so that we are only differentiated by skill. if I lose to someone because of skill that is fine, if I lose to them cause they had the +100 mace of killing from a dungeon and I didn’t that’s not fine

Right now most people are about the same place in regards to infused gear, some people will be near getting their first piece in a few months that gap they wanted to fill that didn’t exist will exist, when they roll out new content that needs +100 agony resist players that haven’t been farming Fotm or wherever else they decide to eventually release it over time (because you have to give the dungeon grinders that period of exclusivity over everyone else.) players will not be able to do that content, to combat this they’ll have to do what games like wow do when they introduce a new raid and release a easy mode way for people to gear up while skipping the other content so that they too can do the new content otherwise the player base stratifies into players who are geared for the latest high end content and those that aren’t and cant do it.

I’m curious as to when spvp will be seeing ascended gear as well, given in this thread players have pointed out the higher stats = higher number of possible combinations ie you can cap vitality/ crit for your build then decide to put more stats into a range of areas, does spvp not also deserve progression?, this might trash your goals for Esport, but don’t spvp players need something to fill the gap between rabbit and dragon ranks, exotics are so easy to get in spvp shouldn’t it also have some sense of progression that’s not just skins just like pve or does the new progression initiative not include spvp?

guess this is as good a time as any to get back to working on gwamm and my obby set, at least that’s not going to get further away the closer i get to it

I honestly dont know if I enjoy GW2 anymore as I used to… I’m having a hard time having fun playing this game. I’m just not enjoying this..

I Love the new dungoen!! Love the contents!
I HATE the Gear-treadmill introduced with it.

Honestly, what they could of done instead is make ur skills have completely different animations for cosmatic looks. Stuff u would NEVER would be able to see.

Maybe skins for weapons/armor.
idk… I would of liked to see new skills or weapons with new skills added instead with multiple ways of getting them. The dungoen could have exclusive Skins and Animations rewards! A triple AAA looks and feel to it.

I dont want to be excluded from contents that are fun and enjoyable because I dont have a certain gear to be useful in.

Will GW2 return the way it was made to be? Can someone please tell me if this post would make any difference? Are we being heard?

Ravnodaus.5130:

MistaMike.7356:

I really don’t understand what the big deal is? They’re giving us more game to play, what’s wrong with that? If you hate progressing your character then why don’t you just sit at level 1?

You people complain about anything. If Anet bumped max level up to 85, you’d complain then too about “hey you said no grind!” Seriously they’re giving us new content, totally for free, and you complain? What the hell is wrong with you.

First, check your attitude. It is wrong.

Second, check your world view, it isn’t based in reality.

Anet is not giving us anything for free. Nothing a business does is for free. This is a for profit organization, designed to make money. That is what they do, or aim to do…make money. Every bit of time they have, employee they hire, computer they buy, server they upgrade, line of code they program… was bought and paid for by the consumers of their product… us.

I also think you may just be one of the people that the treadmill appeals to…. one of the people that cannot see it for what it actually is…. someone who thinks the definition of “more content” is “more of the same with bigger numbers”.

i don’t think that is new content. I think it is recycled content, rehashed ad infinitum to appease the dull mindless addicted masses with subpar entertainment.

Which video was it where they stated, “We don’t believe adding numbers to an experience bar is content.”?

Well, apparently ANet thinks that adding numbers to items IS content.

This is lazy and pathetic on the part of ANet.

I have logged to forum to say my will to play this game was broken after seeing addition of this Gear Grind.

I have seen this in WoW once. Back then, there was only T1, I told myself it is not big deal, it is only small increase in stats. Later T2 came out.

This is how it starts. If something can happen it will happen. Breaking promise once, means breaking it another time. What would stop them doing this Again?

One single voice maybe nothing but Ten thousand of them must be heard.

Person who cares.

It’s really good that we got a new dungeon and new content. The way they were introduced sucks.

If we suppose just for an argument’s sake that there really was a gap between exotic and legendary items, it would have been completely ok to introduce ascended items that did not affect stats. It would have been super easy too. Just make the ascended items really cool looking and have the innate stats of exotic+soccetables, then have the infused slot ONLY give agony resistance (not other stats). Why on earth did ANet think that giving ascended gear better stats was important? It only makes problems, not solve them.

Pwetty pwease, make the ascended items to be on par with exotics. There would still be a drive to get the new gear for the dungeon or cool looks. I really think that it would be pretty easy to fix right now in a way that wouldn’t hurt any of the playerbase. It would still gate the content deeper in the dungeon, but I for one wouldn’t mind that much, for I could just skip the dungeon anyways.

They won’t be rolling back the changes implemented. Some people already have ascended gears, and those are the people important to Anet.

As with so many others, the new content is beautiful and fun and would have had me playing for hours and hours just for the joy of it … and possibly grinding some cool skins.

But the the gear treadmill that alienated me from so many MMOs in the past is raising it’s ugly head in a game where I felt sure I would never see it.

I loved that getting top-tier gear was so easy in this game, it meant that I could level alts without feeling that I was missing out on any content with my “main” and that the GearScore horrors of “another game” were left far behind me.

However the game I loved hasn’t changed and I’ll keep playing it, but come paid expansion time if I’ve been left behind on the treadmill then I will have zero incentive to part with any more money.

The solution is simple, reduce Ascended stats to be completely level with Exotics or (and I think this is a better option) dump the notion of Ascended entirely and give us agony resist upgrade items (with no additional stats) to slot into our jewellery.

I’m surprised over this reaction I have to say, it’s not that big of a deal really.
This is not a “gear-treadmill” for the simple reason that there is NOTHING in this game you can’t do in lvl 80 blues, that is the main difference and it is still there.
Nobody can inspect you and check what gear you use other then what skins you have on-top. I don’t think that every single player in this game like the same look, so anyone trying to cut you out of group because of it will be the fool impersonated.
They don’t have that tool and it will never happen either.

A lot of people are fine with slowly getting their exotic tokens right now and they were never going for the legendaries in the first place for the simple reason: They enjoy the game-play and not the grind.
I don’t understand what some of you were expecting.
Did you expect there never to be hard-modes of any kind?
If there was hard-modes should these be completely without any extra reward what so ever?
How quickly did people get done with the old dungeons because there was nothing to get from there?
If you are stuck in the new dungeon (someone leaves) and need someone to help, why would they step in other then their love for you?
Give that some thought.

Just because there is new content out does not mean you have to bash your head against it days on end. I find the whole argument a little bit ironic that people don’t want any more progression when this is not even the top-notch stuff in the first place. Just another mid level that will be there going forward and it makes sense as there will be more harder dungeons in the future too.
“I can’t help myself but to grind days on end just because it happens to be there”
That must be a hard situation to be in, but in my book that is a matter of self punishment rather then enforcement. If you feel you can’t play because of it, then I’m sorry but I think you’ll be the one losing out on something you could get a lot of fun out of.
The new dungeon is not for everyone, I don’t think everyone will enjoy it. This was a good timing to implement this patch. The old dungeons-runs are now a lot easier as people know the hows and most have better gear. (I still invite lower levels into my groups mind you).
There will always be groups with interests going apart in an mmo, you will never get away from that. To toss out the argument that anyone not from your pool of players should go away and shut up is not vial. You can’t cater everyone as a developer all the time, it is simply impossible.
But people should at least try to approach this with some dignity rather then cry and quit. I have a feeling it’s all talk anyhow.

Ditrah.5128:

I’m surprised over this reaction I have to say, it’s not that big of a deal really.
This is not a “gear-treadmill” for the simple reason that there is NOTHING in this game you can’t do in lvl 80 blues, that is the main difference and it is still there.

It was possible to raid most of Icecrown Citadel in blues. That didn’t make WoW any less of a gear-treadmill.