Guild Wars 2

I don’t really agree with this either, but it’s not like they will take it into consideration. 3 months? I feel like that is way to soon, even WoW 6 months or so.. same with Diablo 3 took about 6 months after the release. 3 months? I feel that is so ridiculous, that they rushed to get something out.

“Oh we don’t want people to feel like it’s a grind-fest.” Yet let’s push out content faster then any other game to keep people interested. If you created a good game people will stick with it regardless.

“Oh people are getting legendaries to fast.” Really? I only see one of them once in a blue moon, you mean the people who wasted tons of in real life money, or farmed exploited events, or botters have their legendaries. The casual gamer though is not even that close to there legendaries so favor the people that have no life or cheated.

I’m not as mad as some people though I didn’t waste my gold, karma or anything soon as I saw something was going to be released. I posted because I just wanted them to know that this release was pretty early and I am curious what to expect, another release in 2 months? Like CALM DOWN. Maybe work on fixing bugs and glitches before working on new content.

Creslin.1758:

The only thing that makes it mandatory is that (from what we have heard) the new gear type will ONLY be available via the dungeon, and that gear type is STATISTICALLY SUPERIOR to exotics.

Therefore, if you want to have the best gear for WvW…you gotta run the fractals.

Baseless assumption is baseless. You have no idea if this is even the case or not. Ascended gear, for all you know, might be a random WvW drop. Or otherwise attainable in WvW for badges…

Feycat.4370:

This makes no sense. Seriously, it doesn’t.

Adding a gear grind to a game with NO SUB FEE. What’s the point? Whether I get my gear over the next 6 months, or whether I get it playing 24 hours a day the next week – Anet gets the same amount of money from me. Which is none, aside from what I buy in the gem store.

Where is the horizontal progress that should be paying the bills? Where’s the new gem store skins? Non-event minis? Weapon skins? New townclothes? New cosmetic slots? Housing? All stuff we would have to drop real money on for gems, and would do so gladly because LOOKING COOL was the real grind of the game?

And if we weren’t dropping real money – we’d be grinding gold in-game to buy gems, which has the EXACT same effect as adding a gear grind (making us spend more time in-game) but without the penalty of breaking the Manifesto and making their core subscribers feel betrayed.

This is illogical and crazy. Hardcore grinders are never going to be the target audience for this game because it has NO SUB FEE. Spending more time in-game without spending money does Anet no good. The people they NEED are the cosmetics-kittens who would be spending money like gangbusters for housing, townclothes and the like.

For a game with this business model, vertical progression makes absolutely no sense as a development direction.

Well stated, and a terrific post. I agree 100%.

Just adding my voice to the chorus of opinions that this update, and in particular this whole ‘agony’ thing, sounds like it’s just a nonsense mechanic to force people into a gear treadmill that will add zero actual value to the gameplay. Any new mechanics should add interesting new gameplay opportunities, not just be artificial barriers stopping people from accessing content until they grind through getting better kit…

Hyde.6189:

Yep, the whole nonsense ‘agony’ mechanic in particular sounds like it goes against everything that I thought ANet stood for.

There is nothing wrong with the agony mechanic.

they had spectral agony in GW1.

What IS wrong is that they’ve added a new tier of armour thats more powerful than exotics and on top of that has space for the infusion slots.

Just adding my voice that I am opposed to this idea. Ever since I read about it, I have desired less to play the game knowing that my characters will eventually reach a point where I have to consider this tiered item progression.

I’m another player who bought into this game, and convinced my girlfriend and several friends to play, because we were ready for a change to this exact mechanic. If this truly is the course for the game, we aren’t going to support it by spending any money in the item store and our playtime will continue to wane as it already has.

It’s a shame, too. I loved this game until I read this news. Literally fell completely in love with it. But with this news that feeling seems to have completely evaporated. I hope ArenaNet reconsiders based on this feedback, but since it is right on the horizon I have doubts that will happen.

/signed
(I’m against implementing a new tier of gear. Especially this early. Maybe ONE new tier of gear a YEAR would be OK.)

funforums.4850:

But wait a second.
I don’t like this change, but you won’t be using that gear in sPvP. You can use it in PvE and WvWvW.

Guys, my gf survived to an entire WvW session (lasted 1 evening) with a lvl2 warrior and equip, without dying… will some ascended armors/weapons make difference?
It’s a 300vs300 game mode.

The orbs didn’t make a difference in WvW either right? Give one team the new, permanent Ascended “buff” and the other team standard exotics. There will definitely be a difference in performance between the two teams.

tkalamba.2541:

Nephaerius.9103:

tkalamba.2541:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

The Manifesto was a lie.

The whole company should be ashamed.

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

It is mandatory. Hang onto your Exotics and don’t run dungeons you don’t care about to get Ascended gear. Get stomped in WvWvW and told to get good scrub by some kid who has some more stat points than you. So maybe for you it’s not mandatory, but for any competitive person it sure is.

WvW is all about the number of players. You’re individual stats don’t mean as much as you think they do. I am competitive in WvW. Have been from the get go, and levelled my characters in WvW. In the end, the +5 stats from a handful of items won’t equate to making you unstoppable. Even if you get Full Ascended gear, you still won’t benefit much. The increases in your overall pool of stats is pretty small. Even with +80 vit…. thats only 800 HP, most characters already do more than that in a single hit in WvW. Throw in conditions, crits, and the overall number of individual players, and that 800 HP means nothing at all.

That’s a straight up lie. Live and die with the zerg if you want. I engage in small skirmishes of less than 5 players all day every day. A ton of 1v1’s and 1v2’s in WvWvW. You’re right in a zerg scenario it makes no difference. Sorry you only run with the zerg. You can take a keep with only 5 people and some siege if you know what’s up.

Tyr.1965:

Crackbone.5710:

Tyr.1965:

Crackbone.5710:

However, I have to add if these vocal players in this thread that are upset about the changes are the only ones who are pissed off about this change, ANet has succeeded.

What I see are the same handful of posters continuing to rage about something that’s done and in the books as of Friday.

If youre posting on the forums at all, you are already part of a minority regardless of your opinion on this change. Most players do not post on the forums at all. So we have two minority camps here with extremely opposing opinions of this change. Which camp is bigger? The one that hates the gear treadmill. Why is ANet listening to the smaller camp? Is it just because they were the only ones kittening all this time? The rest of us didnt have anything to kitten about. Now we do and we’re coming out in droves.

Or, you are in fact in the minority, and they have the data to back it up.

And you’re just as quick to assume that their data supports your side. People bought this game knowing that it’s not WoW and are now complaining that it isnt. What about all the people that bought this game -because- its not WoW? Don’t they get a say in all this? Or will the 100 pages of this thread and counting just be ignored so ANet can get some of that fabled WoW money?

I don’t know why…why at all this new addition changes the fact that you had a great time with the game for 3 months now. Tell me any game other than “competitive” games than has kept your attention for this long…seriously, you bought the game and they gave you something that lasted 3 months. And now because of 1 addition that has barely any explanation on it, you negate the value of the game and call Anet liars? In fact, the day before it was announced, the game had value—and you know what? It still has value. Anet has taken nothing from you. The game still has everything they promised. Things have to change to keep people interested and make things more exciting. And by all means, the significance of this change is negligible. The fact that they didn’t introduce 10 tiers on top of this one along with new weapon tiers probably was based solely on people who are against any new gear progression.

Those of you who think it affects WvW, it does not. Those who like 1v1s are not playing it right or even in small groups aren’t playing it right if you are losing due to stat differences. As stated before many people can hold their ground with low-tier armor. This is a skill-based game and that’s why armor doesn’t matter in small fights.

Those of you who think it affects dungeons, it should not this only helps future dungeons which is okay because I wouldn’t like seeing level 35s in arah dungeon. And they cannot really add new dungeons with higher levels can they? No. But even then it may be too much of a grind for you? Seriously, extension is a great thing. The fun part of gw2 is everything. You can do any segment of this game without having to worry about a gear-grind because it doesn’t not matter but it does help where appropriate.

I can go to Orr with all white gear and make it through. Will it be hard? Probably. But I can still make it through. You do not need this new armor to do any part of the game that exists right now…Gawsh

Many of you people trying to defend this by saying it’s optional, just don’t get it.

It’s optional for casual players who aren’t 80 and don’t care to grind for exotics and legendaries. For the rest of the players they were told they would be able to get more or less the best stats with relative ease and then be able to go on and enjoy running dungeons for cosmetic skins or WvWing, without any gear being released with better stats. I don’t think I need to explain any more.

Whether it’s small amount of stats or not is not the point, it’s that they are releasing gear with better stats, when they said they wouldn’t. Period.

It’s like DaoC. DAoC you got your crafted/templated gear and then you were done, the rest of endgame is doing Darkness Falls runs and RvR. Then they added expansions with new gear, that wasn’t “required” but had better stats and you got it from PvEing. Guess what, game died soon after.

I just want to say I’m scared of this new incoming tier of gear. It reminds me of the days when the gear system in AOC was changed to make it more releavant than it was at release.

castlemanic.3198:

Hyde.6189:

Yep, the whole nonsense ‘agony’ mechanic in particular sounds like it goes against everything that I thought ANet stood for.

There is nothing wrong with the agony mechanic.

they had spectral agony in GW1.

What IS wrong is that they’ve added a new tier of armour thats more powerful than exotics and on top of that has space for the infusion slots.

I don’t particular care what they had in GW1. Just because something was in GW1 does not mean it must be completely flawless. This is not GW1, it is supposed to be the next generation of MMO that bucks the trend of this sort of cheap mechanic.

Gating content has been in MMOs since EQ’s Runes of Kunark (what 4 yrs before WoW), and WoW had it earlier with the keys required for UBRS.

Gating lets developers put brakes on how quickly content is consumed and is very effective in getting “haves” and “have-nots,” which some people don’t like, but other people do. C’mon, it’s the American way!!

It’s not always a good thing, nor is it always a bad thing.

I think looking with a realistic eye to how it’s played out in diff games, the worst thing you can do is completely change the direction of a game post-launch.

as already written by way to many people before me, i don’t like gear treadmills, u said in ur manifesto, that u won’t have one, now suddenly linsey murdock says there is one in the next update and it will go on, i think i’ll go back to gw1 and do some doa if this should happen

munkiman.3068:

Creslin.1758:

The only thing that makes it mandatory is that (from what we have heard) the new gear type will ONLY be available via the dungeon, and that gear type is STATISTICALLY SUPERIOR to exotics.

Therefore, if you want to have the best gear for WvW…you gotta run the fractals.

Baseless assumption is baseless. You have no idea if this is even the case or not. Ascended gear, for all you know, might be a random WvW drop. Or otherwise attainable in WvW for badges…

This is a direct quote from their blog post…

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and Ascended items worn on the back can be acquired through special Mystic Forge recipes.

5000 posts and no reply from ArenaNet makes me sad.

ya post 5000!

15-chars

Edit: dang I was 5002.
/shakes fist @Creslin

Lotro took out Radiance and put in Fitness………not as punishing as radiance but still…..

tkalamba.2541:

WvW is all about the number of players. You’re individual stats don’t mean as much as you think they do. I am competitive in WvW. Have been from the get go, and levelled my characters in WvW. In the end, the +5 stats from a handful of items won’t equate to making you unstoppable. Even if you get Full Ascended gear, you still won’t benefit much. The increases in your overall pool of stats is pretty small. Even with +80 vit…. thats only 800 HP, most characters already do more than that in a single hit in WvW. Throw in conditions, crits, and the overall number of individual players, and that 800 HP means nothing at all.

So you are a competitive WvW player but you run rares on your char, right? And you never quite made it with less than 800hp left? Oh wait, what do you mean by competitive WvW player, you do puzzles 1/day, yeah?

Memento Mori.5217:

tkalamba.2541:

melchiz.7182:

tkalamba.2541:

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

Nothing is “mandatory.” You can run around WvW in a set of blues. Have fun with that.

Considering WvW ends up devolving into a game of number of players fielded in an area, its not difficult to do at all….. I still don’t have any Exotic Accessories, and hold my own no problem. I’ve leveled two characters in WvW no problem….

WvW is not a 1v1 scenario, it’s no SPvP and was never balanced….. Ascended Gear will make no difference whatsoever to it.

Infact, you can’t even customize Ascended gear to your playstyle, where as you can with Exotics through upgrade slots…. That’s more valuable to a WvW player.

Additionally, WvW is an entirely different beast as it doesn’t fully rely on individual stats. In the end it always breaks down into mobs of players fighting.

Ascended gear will barely have any effect whatsoever in WvW. It never was equal, and never will be.

There are items already in game that are more useful anyways, and its not like every WvW player has them. Take a look at the Tri-Forge Pendant.

+40 Power
+40 Precision
+40 Toughness
+40 Vitality
+5% Critical Damage
+40 Healing Power
+40 Condition Damage
+ Upgrade slot

Doesn’t this item alone already effect game balance? It provides bonuses to all stats and has a slot for upgrades… where the complaints for it?

Cause this pendant isn’t really worth, you can’t max any build with that… Clearly you still don’t know how this game works. It’s like divinity runes, jack of all trade master of nothing, used only for take some belace but a lot build are based on max burst, bunker or condition where this thrinket is almost useless.

Most build focusing on only one stat like max damage tend to be flawed. WvW is all about outlasting another player, through use of skills, stats and traits. That Pendant sets a precedent that no item does, as it allows for a balanced boost in skills that can be used to supplement multiple builds. In the end, I’m not sacrificing much in the way of stats to use something like this item and can still last long in WvW. This isn’t a game like WoW where I have to min/max my build to be effective.

The main attraction of this game was precisely its non-warcraftlike lack of emphasis on gear progression. With this fundamental change to the game it will likely share the fate of every other warcraft wannabe predecessor: oblivion.

I am strongly against a move to gear progression and urge that it be aborted.

In Guild Wars 1, you had to ascend. In Guild Wars 1 you also were better off against Spectral Agony if your gear was “infused”. You could finish the game without infusion, but it hurt…. a lot.

I am going to guess that the “ascended” armor is akin to the infusion of our armors in the Iron Mines mission (or two other places, if you are nit picky about it). You can do without it…but boy it sure did help against Jade Armors. ow ow ow.

Mif.3471:

5000 posts and no reply from ArenaNet makes me sad.

They’re probably having a pow-wow with their spin doctors to see what bull crap they can feed us to make us feel ok with them selling their souls.

I would like to respectfully and politely add my voice to the growing pile of people concerned with these proposed changes.

The biggest draw for me as a player was the no gear-treadmill manifesto. This is directly contradictory to that.

This gear should have no impact on WVW greater than exotic unless they implement ways to earn the gear through WVW play.

I speak as someone that has supported Anet through gem purchases and as someone that will not continue to do if stats are added to ascended gear that go above exotic.

If you put in gear progression, instead of just gear for visual looks, I’m out.

tkalamba.2541:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

tkalamba.2541:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

The Manifesto was a lie.

The whole company should be ashamed.

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

Bubbles.2507:
From GW2 manifesto
“Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun;”

Adding new layers of gear with stats required to complete the hardest parts of new instances is not optional. The new gear and condition is the definition of a grinding treadmill.

Anet Manifesto = Lie’s

Is the Dungeon mandatory? Considering its randomized and never ends….. no its not. It’s 100% optional. You can’t even actually finish it… it doesn’t end…. at all… just keep going until its too hard and you give up.

The Agony only kicks in after you run the dungeon instances a few times. You can probably see all 9 areas without ever having to worry. I fail to see how you absolutely 100% have to do this content.

And their blogpost says they will build upon that system and add more content of that type. So your argument in 1 year will be that 50% of the content is only avaible with the new gear is ok because it’s optional. By that defintion there is not gear checks and gear trat mills in any game.

Anyone know where players stand legally regarding refunds of the game fee and more importantly gems?

This relates to how the product was sold and then changed, maybe its covered in some type of consumer trading act’s etc…

It seems with the new addition of gear treadmill, along with the quote from Anet themselves that this is just the beginning of their new gear treadmill initiative, that Guild Wars 2 has now become Just Another MMO, or JAMMO.

What is next? Mounts? 50 man raids? Will Black Lion start selling this new ascended gear soon? Will I have to grind trash mobs to level up in the expansion a la Perfect World?

You SOLD this game to people as the alternative, as something new, as something different. And now you went back on that. Not exactly false advertising but duplicitous nonetheless. If I could get a refund at this point I would, that is how mad I am.

I wonder how this decision came about and who exactly had their hands in it.

But for now I am left to ponder if I will play another MMO again after this. Probably not and I certainly won’t wait for Guild Wars 3 as long as I patiently waited for guild Wars 2, or any other Anet game they may make. I know it is Just A Game, but after playing GW1 for 7 years and following GW2 for 7… It is hard to express just how deep my disappointment with this game now goes and how much time I have wasted on it already.

Well, c’est la vie.

Zero Tolerance.1539:

tkalamba.2541:

WvW is all about the number of players. You’re individual stats don’t mean as much as you think they do. I am competitive in WvW. Have been from the get go, and levelled my characters in WvW. In the end, the +5 stats from a handful of items won’t equate to making you unstoppable. Even if you get Full Ascended gear, you still won’t benefit much. The increases in your overall pool of stats is pretty small. Even with +80 vit…. thats only 800 HP, most characters already do more than that in a single hit in WvW. Throw in conditions, crits, and the overall number of individual players, and that 800 HP means nothing at all.

So you are a competitive WvW player but you run rares on your char, right? And you never quite made it with less than 800hp left? Oh wait, what do you mean by competitive WvW player, you do puzzles 1/day, yeah?

the 800 HP value is based on the +80 vitality you’d get over an exotic set wearing Ascended Gear. My Accesories are Rare. I also don’t walk around alone in WvW, I run with my guild, we cap points, we remain competitive, and we tend to do pretty well. I rarely do the puzzles, and know how WvW actually works.

I imagine my thoughts have already been said, so feel free to skip over me.

Personally, I do feel that this choice for Ascended gear contradicts some of the core design choices. Literally just yesterday, I finally gathered most of my final armor. What was most exciting about it to me was that it would mean that I could then stop caring about armore, something I’ve been looking forward to (unless I change my playstyle and need to change stats). I did not like the article saying, “look, a new goal!”. I do not need that type of expansion of goals. Then again, I think why I’m able to enjoy this game more than some others is I know how to not rely on tangible goals (Minecraft was very educational in “setting your own goals”). “Endgame” doesn’t mean you achieve it then stop playing, so I don’t like the logic behind this.

That being said, while my initial reaction was “wtf, I just bought my final Exotics yesterday!”, since the difference doesn’t seem too great, my immediate goals are unaffected. I’ll finish up my current Exotic goals, and still move on to my next goals (probably not the new dungeon). I’ve been able to handle everything just fine regardless of my stats.

So basically the addition of Ascended gear itself doesn’t bother me, it’s the fact that Arenanet seems to have betrayed their core designs.

On a less related note, Legendaries need to be harder to get (not measured in gold), and Dynamic Events need to not be on completely short timers. Arenanet needs to keep close in mind what the core designs were that they said this game would be all about.

Xsorus.2507:

Torres.2890:

Yet another gear-grind MMO.

You have to grind for gear now..

Aye you do, but we all thought Exotic was it, after that it was all about looks. Yet just 2 months in we already getting a new “tier”

How long till people hit that “Wall” again.

I for one have been playing GW2 straight since release, have not gotten bored once. Seriously those who are bored probably the ones who rushed to 80, rushed to exotic rushed to Legendary. Probably didn’t take the time to sit back and relax.

I think I might know a way to make this whole ascended gear + agony type deal acceptable for the entire player base,
it’s quite simple really and I can only pray it’s what Anet had in mind all along, create a third type of “clothes set” like armor and town clothes,
only (auto)equipable in the fractal of the mists instance, makes sense u need to be ascended to go there and some defense against an effect like agony couldn’t hurt.
Keep the effect and said armor confined to the parts of the mists that are PvE related, from a lore PoV this would make some sense at least.
As for the legendary weapons they could get a different visual appearance in these PvE mists locations as well as the stat boost to ascended levels.
But for the love that some of us have for the original guild wars, keep ascended items and agony out of the rest of the world, which is in need of different things, like more lore, more content to go back too, maybe some climate changes (thinking of waves/storms/tornadoes that pick up dolyaks and throw them at players passing by) there’s tons of fun innovative stuff that can be done, please do so with this game

Sincerely,
A Guild Wars fan

So because they’re adding new better gear over time it’s a gear treadmill? Nobodies forcing anyone to get the SLIGHTLY better ascended gear(that you know…NOBODY knows a kitten thing about other than it’s got an infusion slot). Let the content actually come out before everyone starts whining “What about the stuff I spent last month getting!? WAH!!!”

Khalic.3561:

Worth noting that Infusions can be acquired through the Mystic Forge, rather than gating dungeons behind dungeons. It’s entirely possible that you could be able to bypass the gating mechanic before ever setting foot in the Fractals of the Mists.

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and Ascended items worn on the back can be acquired through special Mystic Forge recipes.

I take it the backpiece is the only item available through the forge and it is the first “key” on your journey through FotM (and may not be the best backpiece with infusion on it). Other keys will be acquired by doing the dungeon.

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

Anyone know where players stand legally regarding refunds of the game fee and more importantly gems?

This relates to how the product was sold and then changed, maybe its covered in some type of consumer trading act’s etc…

You might be able to get a charge back on your credit card. Depends on your card and how long ago you made the purchase. You can always tell them that you purchased a product promising to deliver one thing and they failed to fulfill on their end (this is a simplified version). Your card should reverse the charge and refund your account.

You can also expect a perma-ban from the game when you do that to. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing necessarily, but it’s probably the price you would pay.

tkalamba.2541:

Memento Mori.5217:

tkalamba.2541:

melchiz.7182:

tkalamba.2541:

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

Nothing is “mandatory.” You can run around WvW in a set of blues. Have fun with that.

Considering WvW ends up devolving into a game of number of players fielded in an area, its not difficult to do at all….. I still don’t have any Exotic Accessories, and hold my own no problem. I’ve leveled two characters in WvW no problem….

WvW is not a 1v1 scenario, it’s no SPvP and was never balanced….. Ascended Gear will make no difference whatsoever to it.

Infact, you can’t even customize Ascended gear to your playstyle, where as you can with Exotics through upgrade slots…. That’s more valuable to a WvW player.

Additionally, WvW is an entirely different beast as it doesn’t fully rely on individual stats. In the end it always breaks down into mobs of players fighting.

Ascended gear will barely have any effect whatsoever in WvW. It never was equal, and never will be.

There are items already in game that are more useful anyways, and its not like every WvW player has them. Take a look at the Tri-Forge Pendant.

+40 Power
+40 Precision
+40 Toughness
+40 Vitality
+5% Critical Damage
+40 Healing Power
+40 Condition Damage
+ Upgrade slot

Doesn’t this item alone already effect game balance? It provides bonuses to all stats and has a slot for upgrades… where the complaints for it?

Cause this pendant isn’t really worth, you can’t max any build with that… Clearly you still don’t know how this game works. It’s like divinity runes, jack of all trade master of nothing, used only for take some belace but a lot build are based on max burst, bunker or condition where this thrinket is almost useless.

Most build focusing on only one stat like max damage tend to be flawed. WvW is all about outlasting another player, through use of skills, stats and traits. That Pendant sets a precedent that no item does, as it allows for a balanced boost in skills that can be used to supplement multiple builds. In the end, I’m not sacrificing much in the way of stats to use something like this item and can still last long in WvW. This isn’t a game like WoW where I have to min/max my build to be effective.

Nobody cares about the pendant because it’s just one item. And taken by itself, it’s honestly not that big of a deal. People care about Ascended gear because it is an ENTIRE TIER of new gear, so that’s TWELVE items, not counting weapons.

Now, while that’s kind of bad it’s on own…it’s really only the tip of the icerberg. What is REALLY bad is that ANet has stated that this will just be the beginning of an item-based progression system. And we can expect even more item progression in the future.

So once you get that Ascended gear, you’ll probably be grinding for “Uber-Ascended” gear in a few months time…ad infinitum.

I hate this new idea grind equipment FOR STATS only from 1 dungeon.
I loved idea grind equipment for look where you want dungeons/crafting/carma with THE SAME STATS.
/sarcam Guild Wars 2 mainfesto

Creslin.1758:

munkiman.3068:

Creslin.1758:

The only thing that makes it mandatory is that (from what we have heard) the new gear type will ONLY be available via the dungeon, and that gear type is STATISTICALLY SUPERIOR to exotics.

Therefore, if you want to have the best gear for WvW…you gotta run the fractals.

Baseless assumption is baseless. You have no idea if this is even the case or not. Ascended gear, for all you know, might be a random WvW drop. Or otherwise attainable in WvW for badges…

This is a direct quote from their blog post…

Players will be able to acquire Ascended Rings in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and Ascended items worn on the back can be acquired through special Mystic Forge recipes.

I feel sorry for people like munkiman. These were the people that had the rug pulled from under them. Still they try though.

The sad thing is, is that NCsoft knew these people would do exactly what they are doing now.

Doesn’t look like the Ascended gear announcement is doing NCSoft’s stock any favors today:

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

Hyde.6189:

castlemanic.3198:

Hyde.6189:

Yep, the whole nonsense ‘agony’ mechanic in particular sounds like it goes against everything that I thought ANet stood for.

There is nothing wrong with the agony mechanic.

they had spectral agony in GW1.

What IS wrong is that they’ve added a new tier of armour thats more powerful than exotics and on top of that has space for the infusion slots.

I don’t particular care what they had in GW1. Just because something was in GW1 does not mean it must be completely flawless. This is not GW1, it is supposed to be the next generation of MMO that bucks the trend of this sort of cheap mechanic.

i never said it was flawless. I said that the infused and agony mechanics were previously designed well within reach of their manifesto for GW1. The infused mechanic only helped against the agony mechanic and it was particularly simple and easy to get with limited grind.

Having that happen in the same way in GW2 would have no impact on the rest of the game, as agony would have hopefully stayed in that dungeon and infused gear would have hopefully been just as easy to acquire.

tkalamba.2541:

Memento Mori.5217:

tkalamba.2541:

melchiz.7182:

tkalamba.2541:

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

Nothing is “mandatory.” You can run around WvW in a set of blues. Have fun with that.

Considering WvW ends up devolving into a game of number of players fielded in an area, its not difficult to do at all….. I still don’t have any Exotic Accessories, and hold my own no problem. I’ve leveled two characters in WvW no problem….

WvW is not a 1v1 scenario, it’s no SPvP and was never balanced….. Ascended Gear will make no difference whatsoever to it.

Infact, you can’t even customize Ascended gear to your playstyle, where as you can with Exotics through upgrade slots…. That’s more valuable to a WvW player.

Additionally, WvW is an entirely different beast as it doesn’t fully rely on individual stats. In the end it always breaks down into mobs of players fighting.

Ascended gear will barely have any effect whatsoever in WvW. It never was equal, and never will be.

There are items already in game that are more useful anyways, and its not like every WvW player has them. Take a look at the Tri-Forge Pendant.

+40 Power
+40 Precision
+40 Toughness
+40 Vitality
+5% Critical Damage
+40 Healing Power
+40 Condition Damage
+ Upgrade slot

Doesn’t this item alone already effect game balance? It provides bonuses to all stats and has a slot for upgrades… where the complaints for it?

Cause this pendant isn’t really worth, you can’t max any build with that… Clearly you still don’t know how this game works. It’s like divinity runes, jack of all trade master of nothing, used only for take some belace but a lot build are based on max burst, bunker or condition where this thrinket is almost useless.

Most build focusing on only one stat like max damage tend to be flawed. WvW is all about outlasting another player, through use of skills, stats and traits. That Pendant sets a precedent that no item does, as it allows for a balanced boost in skills that can be used to supplement multiple builds. In the end, I’m not sacrificing much in the way of stats to use something like this item and can still last long in WvW. This isn’t a game like WoW where I have to min/max my build to be effective.

that pendant is crap. Of course most builds dont focus on one stat, but show me a build that focuses on 7 stats lol.

All that needs to be done to make this acceptable to me is to allow for players to be able to obtain Ascended armor from Crafting, sPvP, and WvWvW (possibly other activities) instead of solely running dungeons. Being forced into running dungeons, terribly designed fail ones at that, in order to get gear is the biggest turn off to me.

The gear treadmill is also a huge turn off, but largely because I know I have to get the gear (that’s just the type of player I am, I’m competitive) and the only way to obtain it is through an activity I despise even more in this game (due to their poor design) than any other.

tkalamba.2541:

rikuharada.3152:

tkalamba.2541:

melchiz.7182:

tkalamba.2541:

Considering the entire Manifesto was about options, and the new gear is not mandatory, there was no lie.

Nothing is “mandatory.” You can run around WvW in a set of blues. Have fun with that.

Considering WvW ends up devolving into a game of number of players fielded in an area, its not difficult to do at all….. I still don’t have any Exotic Accessories, and hold my own no problem. I’ve leveled two characters in WvW no problem….

WvW is not a 1v1 scenario, it’s no SPvP and was never balanced….. Ascended Gear will make no difference whatsoever to it.

Infact, you can’t even customize Ascended gear to your playstyle, where as you can with Exotics through upgrade slots…. That’s more valuable to a WvW player.

Additionally, WvW is an entirely different beast as it doesn’t fully rely on individual stats. In the end it always breaks down into mobs of players fighting.

Ascended gear will barely have any effect whatsoever in WvW. It never was equal, and never will be.

There are items already in game that are more useful anyways, and its not like every WvW player has them. Take a look at the Tri-Forge Pendant.

+40 Power
+40 Precision
+40 Toughness
+40 Vitality
+5% Critical Damage
+40 Healing Power
+40 Condition Damage
+ Upgrade slot

Doesn’t this item alone already effect game balance? It provides bonuses to all stats and has a slot for upgrades… where the complaints for it?

That is just one pendant, we are talking about a whole separate tier on it own here, the different is huge.

This one item set its own precedent, and is no way equal to any other items in the game…. it already outweighs the benefits from the item in the new tier we’ve already seen…. and it can be upgraded…. This new tier cannot….

The thing with this pendant is, that it doesn´t give you more power anywhere specific.
Most builds that are worth anything focus on few key attributes and excel in that area. Those builds need points in those specific stats to get better, not stats sprinkled eveywhere, which that pendant does. It might be better for some few builds, but in most cases players would prefer to invest more heavily on one or 2 stats offered, not in everything. This means that the pendant is in most cases not strictly better than exotics, it´s just different.
The ascended gear seems to stick to same stat distribution as normal one, and it has the upgrades built in, it provides boost in the key stats builds are based on so it´s almost always strictly better than any of it´s exotic counterparts.

My thoughts exactly. When Defiance comes out in the beginning of next year, I probably will be leaving guild wars 2 behind. There is a very, very strong chance that I will never buy any expansions just because of the fact that ANet made it such a strong campaign that there would be no gear grind here, then they go and turn that into a blatant lie.

I almost wish this game was sub-based, just so I could pull my sub. It would speak more loudly than posting on this thread. Anyway, if they go ahead with this and turn GW2 into a treadmill then I will consign this game to my personal scrapheap of mediocrity.

What a shame.

This whole discussion is a lot of text for the Mods and devs to go through and i am really glad if they still take this serious enough to filter all the great ideas and suggestions out of these and other threads. I will try to keep my thoughts well organized

The announcement of ascended gear triggered this whole discussion, so i will start with this. I won’t judge this update until i know all the facts and until now ANET made great and reasonable decisions on how to build their game, so i trust them not to screw things up too badly
I like the idea of progression and new elements to the combat system, but i dislike the status upgrades and here is why:
- The current PvE content (and yes, that includes the explorable dungeons) are already too easy for players with full exotic gear and some experience. Better gear will make this even easier!
- The “endgame” in GW2 is supposed to be purely cosmetic, so players were trying to achieve their desired weaponskins and armorsets – possibly for multiple characters and are still doing so. The current upgrade involves Rings which don’t have skins, as well as backpacks which are not avaiable as exotic items yet, so this first upgrade with minor statusupgrades on trinkets is great in my oppinion. This will change however, as soon as new weapons and armorsets with improved stats appear. Those will “force” players to aquire these and then possibly transmute their skins already obtained/farmed skins on the new gear.

A possible solution to this would be to NOT improve the stats of ascended armor and weapons (and thus use trinkets for this “stat progression”), but instead only equip them with the infusion slot. In this case, i would love to see a possibility to upgrade exotics to ascended armor/weapons without changing the skin (effectively just adding an infusion slot). This makes infusions to an option to play throught new content, but still keeps the current skins “relevant” endgame content.

Then i would like to point out a rather easy way to create a ton of new endgame content:
In the development phase of GW2 it was said, that the downscaling process will keep all maps relevant at all points in time and for all levels. This is NOT true right now. The issues here are
- The downscaling system is working, but still “too weak” since the actual level 80 areas are still harder to play through than areas where a level 80 char gets downscaled.
- The rewards (money, exp, karma) for playing non-lvl 80 maps with a level 80 character are lower than the rewards in actual level 80 maps.

Possible solutions here are:
- obviously increasing the difficulty of the usual PvE experience by tweaking the “downscaling” system – keeping in mind that reaching level 80 in this game is really fast and easy.
- Scale the reward of Dynamic Events in the whole world depending only on the level of the character! If the rewards for events in orr are the same as in other areas, there is no reason (except for maybe faster eventchains in orr) for ALL the level 80 characters to hang around in the lvl 80 zones.
- Personally i would like it even more to give a different amount of exp/karma/gold for every single event – depending on complexity (time that the event is running on average, number of mobs to kill, scale of the event, etc.. This way a random escort quest in orr won’t give more karma than killing a dragon anymore ). This would include a lot of work and editing though.
- Edit the droptable in non-lvl 80 maps. This can either be done by increasing the lvl 76-80 weapon drops, or increase the gold drops from monsters and keep the level of dropped weapons low. The idea is just to even out the amount of money that you get by killing a certain amount of mobs) – no matter in which area you are.
Zone specific weapon skins that can only obtained by random drops (or the TP) would be an awesome addition as well – those don’t need to be rare or level 80 (they could even be skin-items like the skins in the halloween event). This would make different zones interesting because of the possibility to obtain these unique items.

Corvindi.5734:

Doesn’t look like the Ascended gear announcement is doing NCSoft’s stock any favors today:

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

Q3 finanicals came out on Nov 7th and they were 15-24% underperforming compared to Q2. That’s hilarious considering that you’d think GW2 would actually increase their performance and profitability.

Mif.3471:

5000 posts and no reply from ArenaNet makes me sad.

You know why? Cause you kittens and pugs, are pretty much forcing them to write the perfect blog ever to avoid this ragefest again. because once they say something you guys will die by it and they cannot take it back. Look, some even want to do some very rude thing in establishing t-shirts or whatnot or a sign with Colin’s pants on fire? or whatnot…seriously guys, calm the eff down. You bought the game, but Anet made the game. It’s their game. You can show displeasement about what it’s become but seriously calm down, say what you need to say, and get out if you don’t like it anymore. These threats and rage call-outs on one hypocritical statement is ridiculous. People make mistakes and say some things that they may have to take back later. A lot of people have shown their displeasement, but let’s leave it at that. Quit it with the hatred you immature crowd -_-.

I just realized the thing I hate the most is the “This is just the beginning” part. Does this mean the new dungeon coming in February will need double the Agony resistance, which can be obtained by getting a set out of Level 30 of november’s dungeon?
A completely new “horror” resistance we have to farm from the new dungeon? Oh man, this might go terribly, terribly wrong