Guild Wars 2

I’m disillusioned with the addition of Ascended gear. I no longer have the time necessary to devote to pursuing a gear grind like I might once have. In fact, that was one of the selling points of Guild Wars for my wife and I. Exotics are (relatively) easy to get, and were the very best equipment that money could buy or you could craft. Legendaries? Nope, not any better stat wise, but a cool visual thing to maybe, possibly, potentially work towards one day. But it wasn’t necessary, because they’re just exotics with fancy skins. My character was not any less powerful equipped with “only” exotics, and I liked that.

In comes Ascended gear. Yes, it is only one extra tier of equipment to climb. An extra tier that is just minutely better than Exotic gear. But you know what? I now have to get it if I want to be 100% effective like I was before. I have to grind a kittening dungeon, which I dislike mind you, just to be at the same level I was at (100%) pre-patch. But it truly isn’t the end of the world.

However, it sets a very poor precedent. ANet has now added a new set of items that are better than the previous that take (presumably) a hell of a long time to grind through to attain. What is to stop them from doing it again? Nothing. They promised not to do it in the first place, they promised no gear treadmill, but they’ve already kicked off the first step to making that happen. Six months from now, what if we’re at Ascended, Heavenly, Angelic, and Godlike item tiers? kitten that kitten.

I do not have the time to make that sort of commitment to getting my characters back up to the same effectiveness (100%) they were at pre-Ascended. My wife and I have enjoyed the game thus far. We definitely got more than our $60 (each) worth of fun and excitement. We’ve even contributed a rather tidy amount of gem purchases as well.

Not anymore. That’s the beauty of the free-to-play model to me. I have absolutely nothing holding me back from moving on to another game. ANet is making decisions that I don’t feel are in the game’s best interest, and directly contradict previous statements of theirs, so we’re moving on. Planetside 2 comes out next week, and that will graciously satisfy my WvWvW desires.

Here is my thought given that my thread about simply leaving the game was deleted:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053/kw/refund

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.

I agree that this is likely NCsoft’s doing, with pressure coming from the Nexon camp. I actually feel bad for the devs that we all see, because forces from higher are making them to be liars. I would like to think that the dev team feels the same way many of us do, but I know that they would never be allowed to show that without losing their jobs.

To any of the developers that do not like this change in direction,
Make your voice heard in the only way you can. There is a lot of talent among you, and I’m sure there are plenty of game studios that would love to have devs that are willing to go against the idea of just making more gindy MMO clones. Anet was that company for many years, but that is changing now.

I just really, really need to add my voice to the chorus of those opposing the new ascended gear. I’m sorry, but a game in which being max-stats is something that requires a long, tedious process is NOT what this was going to be, is NOT what arenanet announced this game would be at launch. Getting to exotics doesn’t take long – and hey, having a few rare pieces of jewelry doesn’t hurt you that much. Casual players are fine now.

After this they won’t be. After this there’s a split. Especially if Arenanet does what they announced they’d do; add more ascended items than just back slots and rings. Not looking forward to wvw situations being decided on gear rather than just on skill. Not looking forward to players who grinded a lot having an easier time in dungeons and difficult pve. What the hell happened to the easy-to-reach plateau? I know that the level 80 and exotics was a higher plateau than the even-level-20 gw1 approach, and that was fine. Hell, I’d even be fine with new “ascended” items if infusions were region-specific (help deal with certain mobs, like infusion in gw1), but otherwise ascended items are equal to exotics. But not this. This is everything gw2 wouldn’t be.

tl;dr: Please, please don’t do add this new tier. Please, please don’t keep adding a few ascended items with future items, requiring more and more grind to get your character up to max. Grind was always optional in this game. Keep it that way. PLEASE.

—

@mrstealth: Arenanet has usually been rather adamant about not being pressured by ncsoft and getting to employ their own vision. I seriously, seriously doubt we can write this off to ncsoft making arenanet change the game against their will.

Chasan.3521:

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

This is exactly how I feel… Kitten this

Cayafas.8290:

@mrstealth: Arenanet has usually been rather adamant about not being pressured by ncsoft and getting to employ their own vision. I seriously, seriously doubt we can write this off to ncsoft making arenanet change the game against their will.

You are absolutely right about that, in the past Anet has been pretty much left alone while NC seemed to focus on other projects (like AION). But NC’s focus seems to have shifted a bit onto Anet’s turf. And now we have Nexon owning nearly 15% of NCSoft, and a former Nexon producer having the “Monetization Producer” position within Anet. There is more of an outside force influencing decisions now than there was a year ago.

Dragula.9613:

Chasan.3521:

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

This is exactly how I feel… Kitten this

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

Whether you like it or not. No matter what kind of spin you put on it. The introduction of gear with better stats than exotics is a change in design philosophy. It undermines a core tenet of the Arenanet MMO Manifesto.

As Trahearne says, “This will not end well.”

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Dragula.9613:

Chasan.3521:

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

This is exactly how I feel… Kitten this

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

Who told you this is so small? where did u get this information from? i would honestly like to know.

Besides, small grind or not, i would like to see u not finding better alternatives.

My two cents on this whole matter:

I am not amused. Really. I mean, there was supposed to be none of that boring gear grind stuff. And, barely 3 months after release – bam, geat trademill in my face. Woho.

I know, developers still claim that this won’t be gear tredemill, just a “gap closer” between exotics and legendary items.

But, correct me if I’m wrong, legendaries and exotics have the same stats, just different looks. So, if someone didn’t want to grind for a legendary weapon, he/she lost nothing (just the looks, and perhaps awe of his friends, and yes, I know that the legendary items will be buffed to match new ascended gear).

And now? Ascended gear is supposed to be “slightly better” then exotics. Well, better is still better. And – since we are talking ’bout 12 item slots (5 armor, 1 weapon and 6 trinket pieces if I remember correctly) on each character – this “slightly better” will become “much better”, if we compare player in ascended and exotic gears. So, in the long run, new item tier will make older tiers absolete. Is it not the very definition of a gear trademill?

Another issue is that there is a high chance that it will make older content absolete. I mean, what will be the reason to run older dungeons or events, if this “ascended gap closer”, or whatever, will be only avaible in new exciting place. And all the concept of scaling player levels to content goes down the drain. Everyone will zip through lower level maps, go straight towards that last dungeon with new exciting items, and stay there. Until new exciting content arrives.

Stronger items will require stronger enemies, so in the end we will be forced to go for the new items. Especially with this new agony condition, that is supposed to be migrated by infusion, whatever it may turn out to be. No infusion = you die, because agony will get ya. Go grab some infusion, homie. And so it begins, endless spiral of gear progression that we all know and “love” from such succesfull titles like WoW. U no ascnd? KICK! You won’t last in there anyway. LFP ascended gear only! This is sadly another reason to render exotics absolete, since if I recall correctly, they will not have infusion capability.

But hey, wasn’t GW2 supposed to be, I don’t know – different? Weren’t we supposed to be able to enjoy whole game contetnt WITHOUT grinding for new items every now and then? Weren’t we supposed to be running dungeons to get better looking items, not better items altogether? What happened to that concept? Why do I get this creepy feeling that GW2 is going to turn into another WoW wannabe?

When I finally crafted full exotic set – and it costed me pretty penny ingame, since my character is constantly broke, heh heh – I was overjoyed. Here I was, able to create my own uber set of items, finally free to go and play as I wanted. If only I knew how wrong I were… it seems that all the effort and time that I invested in gearing my character, with a false hope that this is as far as gear stats go so I will not feel the presure to grind for better items anymore (except the looks), was for nothing. Here I go again… had I known it will come to this, I wouldn’t waste my effort in getting materials and gold required to craft exotic gear, I would have waited for new uber itamz to arrive to the scene.

Of course, had I known that there will be gear trademill in GW2, despite Anet claiming otherwise, I wouldn’t have bought this game at all.

Developers claim, that, I quote:

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

Ooookayy… but hey – is it not exactly what they did in this update? After 3 months – new tier of gear that everyone will chase after? That you absolutely have to get in order to progress in game? And, as time will go on, it will only get worse (" Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.").

Or is my english so bad, that I do not understend what they have in mind at all (and there is a high chance at that, since english is not my primary language, so I apologise for any grammar errors, typos and whatnot).

And now, as I wait for GW2 to update, and write this long and boring thing called forum post, I still hope against hope that all my fears that I stated above are unjustified. That I just rant, wasting my time, and time of people brave enough to read through it all. However, after reading all about this new item tier, I have a feeling that this is something called in my county “a severed head’s wish”.

Seriously, if I wanted to play gear trademill, i’d go play a game with gear trademill. Which was supposed to be absent from GW2.

But hey, I may be wrong. I want to be wrong on this one.

In the end, only time will tell if I was.

“gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.”

I love how you name is underdog when you obviously don’t want them.

Also, there is a reason a good percentage of us who play GW2 do not play other MMOs. It’s also why we would have stayed with GW2, while a hell of a lot of others will simply move on in (minimum time for ascended + 5 days) days.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

This might be worth requoting here:

That would be alright if they scrapped Ascended equipment and added the Infusion slots either to existing armour, or to new equipment slots that add no stats besides an Infusion slot.

Beyond every other problem with Ascended armour – the bad precedent they set, the gear treadmill of downgrading everybody’s existing equipment, the power creep, etc – the most important issue is that equipment with top stats shouldn’t be any harder to get than the cheapest Exotics already are.

Exotics are “easy” to get if you play one character, with one build, and you don’t care whether or not your character looks nice.
Call the amount of time needed to outfit a character in exotics ‘x’.
If you play more than one character, getting a full set of Exotics for each character multiplies the amount of time needed to max out by the number of characters (‘c’). You now need to spend ‘cx’ time to max out.
If you play more than one build on those characters, and need gear with different stats to make each build effective, you now need to multiply the amount of time spend grinding by the number of builds per character (‘b’). So now we’re up to bcx.
And when you factor in aesthetics, Exotics cover the range from low-end crafted equipment (~2g each, let’s say) to high-end, sub-legendary items like Mjolnir, Foefire’s Essence, etc (up to ~500g). So let’s say this is effectively a multiplier with a range from 1~250.

Let’s assume you don’t care about appearance, but you have three characters, and two builds to play on each. It’s now costing you 6x to outfit all your characters.
Or say you only have one character, but you have three builds you’d like to play, and you’re only moderately concerned with making that character look cool (give it a multiplier of just 4 or so). Now it’s taking you 12x to max out. Or, hell – say you just want to be able to play any of the game’s eight classes, even if you don’t have specialized builds for any of them and don’t care about looking cool. Still a cost of 8×.

So how much is ‘x’? Well, if we set the cost per piece of Exotic equipment at 2g, as we did earlier, then you’re going to need between 13 and 16 pieces of equipment, depending on how many weapons you use – let’s use 13, to be generous here (only Elementalists and Engineers can possibly get away with only having one weapon, but there also aren’t any Exotic back braces, so we’ll split the difference). That means that ‘x’ is 26g.
That’s ‘attainable’, not ‘trivial’, all by itself.

But in the first case, where we needed 6x to max out? Suddenly this is 156g.
The second case was 12x – that’s a whopping 312g!
The third case, 8x – so just the base cost of playing each class, without any specialization or particular attention paid to customization – still shakes out to 208g.

That’s a lot of kitten money. It’s not too likely that you’re going to see more than 2g or so per hour of playtime. I wouldn’t call a grind time of 75+ hours “too easy” to get, by any stretch of the imagination.

Now figure that, based on what we’ve seen so far (and this is roughly consistent with the jump in cost from Rare to Exotic), the overall cost to acquire an Ascended piece can be roughly on par with obtaining a full set of Exotic armour.
In other words, ‘x’ could easily be multiplied by 10-20, or more.

This is the biggest problem with Ascended equipment. It’s designed to give long-term goals to players who refuse to play more than one character, refuse to play more than one build per character, and who refuse to expend that extra time they have into improving their character aesthetically.
In the process, it constitutes a functional downgrade to every character in the game (Exotic is the new Rare, Rare is the new Masterwork, etc), and it renders it effectively impossible to play multiple characters, or even multiple builds, and even takes cosmetic advancement largely off the table, because the time that you would spend trying to get a really nice looking Exotic set now has to be dedicated toward getting your Ascended equipment, because otherwise you’re at a mechanical disadvantage.

So for a reasonable playstyle that includes more than one character and/or more than one build per character, Exotic equipment could easily extend the grind by a factor of 10, meaning 750-1000+ hours of pure grinding

“Good luck” indeed.

You can see the remarks in Lions Arch already.

“hey all, logged in for the first time in a month to get the new items”
“Cool I just want them to release the full set before the MoP 5.2 patch”
“Yeah same here”

Directly taken from Lions arch 5 minutes ago. This is the people they want rather then those of us that stick to their game only? (boggled)

Crater.1625:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

This might be worth requoting here:

That would be alright if they scrapped Ascended equipment and added the Infusion slots either to existing armour, or to new equipment slots that add no stats besides an Infusion slot.

Beyond every other problem with Ascended armour – the bad precedent they set, the gear treadmill of downgrading everybody’s existing equipment, the power creep, etc – the most important issue is that equipment with top stats shouldn’t be any harder to get than the cheapest Exotics already are.

Exotics are “easy” to get if you play one character, with one build, and you don’t care whether or not your character looks nice.
Call the amount of time needed to outfit a character in exotics ‘x’.
If you play more than one character, getting a full set of Exotics for each character multiplies the amount of time needed to max out by the number of characters (‘c’). You now need to spend ‘cx’ time to max out.
If you play more than one build on those characters, and need gear with different stats to make each build effective, you now need to multiply the amount of time spend grinding by the number of builds per character (‘b’). So now we’re up to bcx.
And when you factor in aesthetics, Exotics cover the range from low-end crafted equipment (~2g each, let’s say) to high-end, sub-legendary items like Mjolnir, Foefire’s Essence, etc (up to ~500g). So let’s say this is effectively a multiplier with a range from 1~250.

Let’s assume you don’t care about appearance, but you have three characters, and two builds to play on each. It’s now costing you 6x to outfit all your characters.
Or say you only have one character, but you have three builds you’d like to play, and you’re only moderately concerned with making that character look cool (give it a multiplier of just 4 or so). Now it’s taking you 12x to max out. Or, hell – say you just want to be able to play any of the game’s eight classes, even if you don’t have specialized builds for any of them and don’t care about looking cool. Still a cost of 8×.

So how much is ‘x’? Well, if we set the cost per piece of Exotic equipment at 2g, as we did earlier, then you’re going to need between 13 and 16 pieces of equipment, depending on how many weapons you use – let’s use 13, to be generous here (only Elementalists and Engineers can possibly get away with only having one weapon, but there also aren’t any Exotic back braces, so we’ll split the difference). That means that ‘x’ is 26g.
That’s ‘attainable’, not ‘trivial’, all by itself.

But in the first case, where we needed 6x to max out? Suddenly this is 156g.
The second case was 12x – that’s a whopping 312g!
The third case, 8x – so just the base cost of playing each class, without any specialization or particular attention paid to customization – still shakes out to 208g.

That’s a lot of kitten money. It’s not too likely that you’re going to see more than 2g or so per hour of playtime. I wouldn’t call a grind time of 75+ hours “too easy” to get, by any stretch of the imagination.

Now figure that, based on what we’ve seen so far (and this is roughly consistent with the jump in cost from Rare to Exotic), the overall cost to acquire an Ascended piece can be roughly on par with obtaining a full set of Exotic armour.
In other words, ‘x’ could easily be multiplied by 10-20, or more.

This is the biggest problem with Ascended equipment. It’s designed to give long-term goals to players who refuse to play more than one character, refuse to play more than one build per character, and who refuse to expend that extra time they have into improving their character aesthetically.
In the process, it constitutes a functional downgrade to every character in the game (Exotic is the new Rare, Rare is the new Masterwork, etc), and it renders it effectively impossible to play multiple characters, or even multiple builds, and even takes cosmetic advancement largely off the table, because the time that you would spend trying to get a really nice looking Exotic set now has to be dedicated toward getting your Ascended equipment, because otherwise you’re at a mechanical disadvantage.

So for a reasonable playstyle that includes more than one character and/or more than one build per character, Exotic equipment could easily extend the grind by a factor of 10, meaning 750-1000+ hours of pure grinding

“Good luck” indeed.

Or buy gems to exchange which is Anets real motivation.

At least for the “Fractal Capacitor” back brace Ascended item, the gem store won’t do jack all for you, since every item required to build it (or at least a good 20-90 hours worth of ingredients, depending on how token rewards scale) is Account Bound.

The last time i witnessed a kitten-up of this magnitude was in Star Wars Galaxies /w the NGE.
Congratulations on messing up the one game that had a chance to change the MMO genre for the better – please enjoy the slow end of GW2 from this point on; You deserve it for your constant lies.

Ostra.3927:

You can see the remarks in Lions Arch already.

“hey all, logged in for the first time in a month to get the new items”
“Cool I just want them to release the full set before the MoP 5.2 patch”
“Yeah same here”

Directly taken from Lions arch 5 minutes ago. This is the people they want rather then those of us that stick to their game only? (boggled)

Locusts!!!

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Dragula.9613:

Chasan.3521:

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

This is exactly how I feel… Kitten this

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

The MMO genre is a gong show. I have no problem dropping this game or any other that under delivers. There are loads of great single player and multiplayer games. I hadn’t played an MMO in 3 years before GW2 and I’m perfectly fine with not spending another dime after this debacle for another 3 years.

CharrGirl.7896:

So if most people are obviously against this, why do they still push it on us?

This doesn’t sound like the Anet we know.

It hasn’t been the ANet we know for a while now. I remember when they were active all over the place in community discussions back in GW1. Now aside from some basic technical matters and PR we never hear from them. They’ve turtled up just like most Korean F2P MMO developers that rely on hamster wheels and gambling addiction cash shops. Because they know if they stick their heads out to take a peek it’ll get chopped off by the hordes of customers they anger just to make a buck.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that their management and culture have changed to follow the style of some of the worst businesses the gaming industry has to offer. I just hope the artists and forward thinkers still left make it out to other companies more deserving of their talents.

I’ve decided to skip the weekend event. I don’t feel like logging in.

I’m not sure when I’ll feel like it again…but even when/if I do, I won’t be wasting another dime on this game. I bought gems the first two months because I wanted to show ArenaNet that I supported the game they made, and I wanted them to fix the bugs and add more of the same great content. Instead, they took my money and used it to turn the game into something I don’t find even remotely fun, and which has sucked out my motivation to log into a game that I really, really enjoyed.

In short, they used my money to screw me over. I won’t make the mistake of paying them anything again. I hope the event is fun for the folks who see it.

When there is obviously so much anger, disappointment, apprehension etc etc, over something you intend to implement, then why not let your customers decide?, with a vote, dont go down the SWG route etc, and kill the game dead.

i vote NO.

Jobe.6721:

Ostra.3927:

You can see the remarks in Lions Arch already.

“hey all, logged in for the first time in a month to get the new items”
“Cool I just want them to release the full set before the MoP 5.2 patch”
“Yeah same here”

Directly taken from Lions arch 5 minutes ago. This is the people they want rather then those of us that stick to their game only? (boggled)

Locusts!!!

We need more water in the game
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4686527.stm

jez.1208:

When there is obviously so much anger, disappointment, apprehension etc etc, over something you intend to implement, then why not let your customers decide?, with a vote, dont go down the SWG route etc, and kill the game dead.

i vote NO.

im voting with my wallet, if everybody does this, and if we are the majority, they will be forced to comply with their manifesto.

so, no more gems for me until they remove character progression (grind) and stick with player progression (skill)

Revrak.8594:

if everybody does this, and if we are the majority, they will be forced to comply with their manifesto.

I won’t be so sure. Right now it looks like they are trying to attract grinders while keeping up the illusion that there is no grind. If they can condition a large enough amount of people into believing that, and steal some part of the grinders away from other MMOs, they might even make more money than now.

It might work for them.

managed to miss the event – oh dear, how sad, never mind.

I can’t believe I am watching Ann Widdicome be dragged around a dance floor rather than playing the game.. are you happy Anet? Ann Widdicome!

UnderdogSMO.9428:

gear grind or not good luck finding an MMO that has one so small.

You can find them as long as you look outside of the Really Pathetic Grind sub-genre.

For example, this year we will have at least one action mmo that uses sidegrades ftw (which is really no different than collecting skills and extra weapon sets in GW1)

Edit: Edited to remove a game name because I figure it may count as advertising.

Just want to throw my support in for this thread – and I agree completely with Fozzik here. I also bought gems just to show support for a game that I thought was genre changing and very much up my alley gameplay wise. I quit wow specifically to avoid the gear grind, and was just working my way up to my first full exotic set on my wvw character (yes, I play multiple characters, multiple specs).

Ascended gear took the wind out of my sails – I can’t grind that gear for every character or likely even 1 character, and I won’t play a game that takes that option away from me. At best I’ll log in now and again for sPVP, but I’m not dropping another dime into their hat unless this gets hashed out.

Fozzik.1742:

I’ve decided to skip the weekend event. I don’t feel like logging in.

I’m not sure when I’ll feel like it again…but even when/if I do, I won’t be wasting another dime on this game. I bought gems the first two months because I wanted to show ArenaNet that I supported the game they made, and I wanted them to fix the bugs and add more of the same great content. Instead, they took my money and used it to turn the game into something I don’t find even remotely fun, and which has sucked out my motivation to log into a game that I really, really enjoyed.

In short, they used my money to screw me over. I won’t make the mistake of paying them anything again. I hope the event is fun for the folks who see it.

I also cashed in some and even sent support tickets TO SUPPORT THEM… this feels like a multiple slap-combo.

mantrunks.4810:

I have a feeling it’s the same people posting on this forum, for all I am reading is the same people quoting eachother, and just spitting out the words again in a different form. It almost looks like high school again.

Just get the new gear and call it a day or stop playing. I’m pretty sure that ANET has already read the posts, if not the main “theme” of this thread, and will figure something out. They can’t just pull the plug on the ascended gear as it has the infusion aspect which would just make new dungeon even harder. They can’t just pull the plug on the new dungeon they spent hours on developing, coding, testing etc. There is no magic switch in programming and business.

Well, they could just normalize Ascended gear stats down to normal Exotic levels, and leave the Agony resistance in place. Do the same for Infusions.

Now you have 1 tier of gear, split horizontally between “good for almost anything” and “specialized for grinding dungeons”, but there’s no difference in power between the two outside of those grindy dungeons like Fractals.

Won’t happen though! It’s too unlike the standard gear treadmill model.

warmonkey.8013:

mantrunks.4810:

I have a feeling it’s the same people posting on this forum, for all I am reading is the same people quoting eachother, and just spitting out the words again in a different form. It almost looks like high school again.

Just get the new gear and call it a day or stop playing. I’m pretty sure that ANET has already read the posts, if not the main “theme” of this thread, and will figure something out. They can’t just pull the plug on the ascended gear as it has the infusion aspect which would just make new dungeon even harder. They can’t just pull the plug on the new dungeon they spent hours on developing, coding, testing etc. There is no magic switch in programming and business.

Well, they could just normalize Ascended gear stats down to normal Exotic levels, and leave the Agony resistance in place. Do the same for Infusions.

Now you have 1 tier of gear, split horizontally between “good for almost anything” and “specialized for grinding dungeons”, but there’s no difference in power between the two outside of those grindy dungeons like Fractals.

Won’t happen though! It’s too unlike the standard gear treadmill model.

For the record: this would have been acceptable to me, too. I bet most people wouldn’t mind it at all… and if it presented major barriers to entry for newcomers later on, I am certain a creative solution could be found by talking with your customer base.

They would have to remove the stats from all infusions as well, any created now or in the future.

The stats bonus for Acsended items have to go. Simple as that.

Don’t often post on these forums but thought I would add my voice to this thread. WvW was the main draw for me in this game and I loved the relatively low barrier of entry gear wise to compete on a level gear footing. I have one level 80 fully geared out in 3 sets of exotics depending on the build I choose to run each week which can vary. I was slowly levelling up some different classes and also slowly progressing towards a legendary but in no rush. I had 100% completion on my main. I really loved the lack of gear grind and there was plenty of content to keep me happy even though I had already visited every zone at least once. Playing with friends in WvW and some pve and dungeons on the side was fine. I could take a few days break for work or real life stuff and know I would not have fallen behind. Felt I would be playing this game for a good while.

I was a bit concerned about the new gear but convinced myself it was only going to be pve. Now that I have seen the extent of the new stat increases and its clear it applies to WvW I am seriously re-considering my GW2 future. Plenty of other games just around the corner for me. PS2, DF2 (probably another traincrash but I already have the previous game so its just a 1 month sub to try and the FFA PVP full loot in that game was and will be awesome for awhile ) and other games.

Really Anet – you appear to have completely forgotten your previous statements about this game. Right now, this is looking just like SWG NGE or Swtor pvp changes in terms of gaming decisions. Why are you following the crowd here?

Booning.5476:

managed to miss the event – oh dear, how sad, never mind.

don’t worry you didn’t miss anything good, it seems to have been in line with their new progression initiative:

progress till your almost finished the event, then the client crashes and you rejoin into a new overflow with 0 progress , get near the end again and you crash to rejoin on another fresh overflow, almost complete it and nope, and now your back in your realms normal shard where the event is over

this is besides your exciting rewards that consist of mostly trophies that the npcs dont even need due to the event being over and a hefty repair bill due to the constant knock-down and lag + a few blue /green items and karka shells you also get close to 200 kills for the monthly

Polluxor.5970:

The stats bonus for Acsended items have to go. Simple as that.

Actually Ascended items should go and just add infusions to all current armors in the game.

They can do a quest type like GW1 to go get infusions and also in the Mystic crapper to get better infusions for example.

oh and Skill points to make infusions? Are they serious?

In 3 months, I paid around $340 between getting the CE and gems and Halloween items only to be rewarded with this.

Nadeen.6371:

In 3 months, I paid over $270 between getting the CE and gems and Halloween items only to be rewarded with this.

Sounds like you just weren’t among their “most dedicated” customers.

I was of the “wait and see” faction before this patch. Now I have waited and seen. And what I saw is horrible. I could live with the slightly higher stats on the items themselves (they have no runes, so there is a bit of compensation there). But now I know that infusions themselves give stats, too.

That means getting ascended when fitted out with exotic is like getting exotic when fitted out with rares. You CAN play most, if not all the content with rare gear, but you really, really want exotic gear because it makes life a lot easier.

That is not a treadmill yet because a treadmill does not end – but it is a very bad game design decision. I won’t quit because of that but it is a bit like the infraction points ArenaNet awards if someone breaks the TOS. ArenaNet got some points now from me. I will suspend gem purchasing, play less and wait until I know how they go from here.

It took a lot out of my excitement over a grind-free game…

So I just uninstalled the game.

I was probably gonna do it sooner or later anyway since I feel mmorpg is a waste of life. But I guess it became sooner than later with this patch. This whole treadmill thingy was what made me decide to do it now and be done with it.

I will never ever play another mmorpg since a company who base their game on no grind, treadmill etc even starts with it. So no way I am ever gonna find one. Feels good though. I am not angry or anything. I feel relieved.

Before I uninstalled I went to Queensdale with my 20 gold and played Hide and Seek. Whoever found me got the gold. Some kind of newbie who seemed very mature and nice got it. So that was fun.

Have not finished Assassins Creed 3 yet, and also have a ton of movies and other activites to do. Now I have the time and focus to do it all! I’m outa here!

alanis.6094:

Sounds like you just weren’t among their “most dedicated” customers.

The whole reason this thread is 10000 posts long is very likely because whoever was pulling the strings didn’t care about their most dedicated customers. They thought they already had them in their pocket, so why cater to them. Better to cater to the “swing” players that weren’t decided.

Perhaps someone should have explained that that strategy only works if there only are two games to choose from, and one has to get chosen.

We have to go on strike. The We-just-log-in-for-Skin-Strike. No playing, no trading, no gem buying, nothing. We only log into the Forums to declare our displeasure until Anet rows back. This might take a few weeks, but it is necessary. This is the only way to get what we want. Less logged-in players results in less countable data and is unfortunately the only statistics Anet and NCSoft will react to. Forums are designed to give enough time and space for sstorms, but this is serious. We go on strike. And it’s done, when it’s done (:p at all developers out there).

I haven’t logged in to the game since Monday when the news about the patch arised – and many players participated – and do so till now. Because we are the community and we are the customers and we decide about rise and fall.

If you like to join us, stay out of the game but stay logged in to the forums. And keep declaring your displeasure. We are the majority.

Claudius.5381:

I was of the “wait and see” faction before this patch. Now I have waited and seen. And what I saw is horrible. I could live with the slightly higher stats on the items themselves (they have no runes, so there is a bit of compensation there). But now I know that infusions themselves give stats, too.

That means getting ascended when fitted out with exotic is like getting exotic when fitted out with rares. You CAN play most, if not all the content with rare gear, but you really, really want exotic gear because it makes life a lot easier.

That is not a treadmill yet because a treadmill does not end – but it is a very bad game design decision. I won’t quit because of that but it is a bit like the infraction points ArenaNet awards if someone breaks the TOS. ArenaNet got some points now from me. I will suspend gem purchasing, play less and wait until I know how they go from here.

It took a lot out of my excitement over a grind-free game…

This is EXACTLY how I feel. I’m chatting with my brother over email (who plays GW2 with me) and we were echoing these exact statements.

I’m about to get my 5th character to 80. I was ready to throw ANet $30 this weekend for 3 more character slots. However, I will not be doing so until they remedy the situation, which is probably unlikely. Will ANet miss my $30? Of course not. But I know there are others who are taking the same stance as I am.

I’ll add my voice to this thread. I decided to play this game because I’m so very tierd of the endless un-fun grind of other games. GW2 sounded like the game for me.

My husband also bought it, he who had sworn against any more mmo’s because of the endless hamster wheel-ness /carrot on a stick-ness of them.

I’m so disgusted and disillusioned by game companies at this point that this move doesn’t surprise me but I wish it were otherwise.

Wildclaw.6073:

alanis.6094:

Sounds like you just weren’t among their “most dedicated” customers.

The whole reason this thread is 10000 posts long is very likely because whoever was pulling the strings didn’t care about their most dedicated customers. They thought they already had them in their pocket, so why cater to them. Better to cater to the “swing” players that weren’t decided.

Perhaps someone should have explained that that strategy only works if there only are two games to choose from, and one has to get chosen.

I was making a joke about how Linsey Murdoch characterized who their “dedicated” customers were…

“As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.”

I bought into the GW2 manifesto. It basically summed up how I was feeling about MMO’s.

Sadly, I see that Anet has lost their integrity and caved into WOW lovers.

This Ascended gear is The gear treadmill they said would never exist in their game. And very few players are happy about it.

The new manifesto quote.

“1. If you like MMOs, we will be just like the others.
2. If you hate MMOs, we will lie and say we are different but read number 1”

I’m already seeing groups looking for people with full exotics only. I have been playing since head start and I do not have full exotics. This really won’t effect me because I don’t like dungeons to begin with. Although, I had thought about doing dungeons when I ran out of the content I do like, but know it really is out of the question. I’m just disappointed in this. I would have been open to this if this tier was introduced in an expansion, but not this soon. I still haven’t finished saving up for a cultural T3 top.

Honestly though, even with as many post as we have, I think we really are in the minority. I haven’t seen anyone complain about this in the game. If anything people seem happy about it. I’m sad though.

To those saying they want to hit ANet in their wallets:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053/kw/refund

I have already filed my ticket.

Araushnee.1852:

I think we really are in the minority. I haven’t seen anyone complain about this in the game. If anything people seem happy about it. I’m sad though.

No, we are the majority. The reason you haven’t seen complains about it is because the majority is not in the game anymore.

LadenSwallow.1468:

To those saying they want to hit ANet in their wallets:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053/kw/refund

I have already filed my ticket.

I tried, but I was stupid enough to pre-order the game, so they told me I was out of the 6 month window for refunds.