Guild Wars 2

I’ll post a TL;DR after to give a quick rundown of the issue… Also this post isn’t to say “GIVE ME ASCENDED GEAR NOW!” it’s to say “Give me ways to gear my alts as well as my main.” I say this now because my mixture of ranting and pointing out the issues with the system sometimes get jumbled. Anyway onward with the post!

The ascended gear is supposed to have moderate time constraints to keep players from just dinging max level and gearing up so fast that they have nothing to do… But the current system is designed so you have to focus on 1 and only 1 character due to the time gates being larger and larger with each piece of ascended gear added…backs will not be covered because they can be crafted. Let me elaborate.

FOTM came to the game… Level 10+ you had a chance to get one of the rings per day…. The rng was a bit excessive so they added a +1 relic system where 10 relics = 1 ring…

Time gate for FOTM rings 1-10 days per 1 ring… This isn’t bad I can gear my main and my alts in a reasonable amount of time… The system honestly good and the difficulty wasn’t terrible. The laurl aspect was excessive though it should use a 10 laurl per ring since it’s the same as the relics.

Onward to amulets and daily laurls!! This one is where it started to get a bit excessive…. 1 amulet = 30 laurls or 20 laurls 250 badges of honor… 1 1/2 amulets per month tops…. Little alt unfriendly but not as excessive as this next one.

Now to the guild missions and accessories…. These ones are the worst for people in small guilds who would rather stick to playing with friends… Most missions require a minimum of 10 people to actually do properly… Anyway you have a chance to get a accessory from the chest after a guild mission or you can save tokens do all guild missions for 6 per week so 1-14 day thing granted you can make each guild mission PER accessory. On paper this looks fine but onward to the major issue!

Accessories to players unable to do guild missions or who prefer not to do them! A whopping 40 laurls + 50 ecto PER ACCESSORY so a total of 80 laurls 100 ecto…. Honestly I subbed feedback on this because honestly it’s like punishing the players who are unable to do guild missions or would rather do other content…… This not only takes MONTHS to get 2 for 1 set but it digs into the amulets and rings if you don’t do the fractals for rings

This is causing issues in wanting to really focus on alts… The sheer time gating to gear 1 character is getting excessive…. The bare minimum getting rings from fractals and then focusing on laurls for the rest is going to take 3 months for 1 character….. Imagine when they finish adding ascended gear armor and weapons…. This is going to go up by at least 50×....

This post is mainly to point out how un alt friendly the ascended gear is at the moment… As time goes on this is going to become worse…. Imagine when they are done adding the full set of armor/weapons/accessories it will take a minimum of 12 months to gear 1 character.

Anyways

TL;DR
Ascended gear is taking to long to get per character forcing you to focus on 1 character at a time over a long period of time discouraging alts.

I currently have 9 characters, one of which is still levelling. I have bought amulets for two, but nothing else. I would like to get characters to Fractals 10 to get the rings, but I am afraid of strangers on dungeons even though I have had some great experiences too. The Accesssory price is terrible in truth for someone in a four member guild (and no, I will not abandon my family for material gain).

Right now I have sentinels at the World events just in hopes of getting Ecto salvages. I need 900 and that is a lot to most people. I have 153 at the moment, it goes up a few each day.

I don’t mind working for it, but I do wish it was just a little bit less expensive. On the other hand, I have not found the Ascended gear necessary for any but the two characters that do Fractals. Everyone else is fine in their Exotics.

Yep it’s the problem with having 1 daily per account, not having karma currency transfers or accountwide karma, and other issues this game faces. They want us to enjoy the wide range of classes they offer yet hold back progression for these alts with machinations that aren’t there to harm bots but are there to harm players.

It depends on what you’re playing. Pve you can roll around in rares and be more than fine. Dungeons its recommended. WvW it’s absolute must have even if you stay with a zerg. My advice is 1 main 2 secondary and the rest just for random fun. I don’t see them changing the setup so limit who you gear.

tigirius.9014:

Yep it’s the problem with having 1 daily per account, not having karma currency transfers or accountwide karma, and other issues this game faces. They want us to enjoy the wide range of classes they offer yet hold back progression for these alts with machinations that aren’t there to harm bots but are there to harm players.

I don’t think they are aware they are harming the players…. Actually they are harming themselves as well if you think about it… The current system causes alts to look less desirable till you manage to gear 1 character….. meaning less alts…. Meaning less character slots are bought…. It goes on further but I’m sure you understand what I’m saying with that.

The only real way to fix the system in its current form would be to reduce costs of the gear across the board…. The other fix would be to simply allow players to craft the gear like the originally said they were going to do… Instead I sense more currencies being added to the game.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It depends on what you’re playing. Pve you can roll around in rares and be more than fine. Dungeons its recommended. WvW it’s absolute must have even if you stay with a zerg. My advice is 1 main 2 secondary and the rest just for random fun. I don’t see them changing the setup so limit who you gear.

This is what I’m trying to draw attention to… Some players don’t want to even have alts if they can’t manage to gear them in a timely manor. This cuts into both player fun and company profits. Over a very long time this system would work out but the time gating is just causing more frustration then not.

it also means you are pretty much locked to one build. getting several armor types for different builds for multiple characters is not feasable whatsoever

I am an altoholic with all the professions at 80. I had thought this was safe in GW2 as GW was not about grinding out higher power gear post max level gear at max level. Anyone going through the process of acquiring Ascended gear for multiple alts knows it’s crazy. Gearing characters really shouldn’t be measured in years—it’s just wrong.

The problem, of course, is vertical progression. At one point in WoW (Cataclysm) I had six characters at max level. When MoP shipped, I only leveled one of them. It is just too much work to maintain alts when the power level of the game is increasing. The same holds true when the power curve is low (I really don’t understand how they thought that would make any difference).

I honestly believe Anet didn’t think through all the issues that would arise out of VP. The alt issue is a relatively small (but real) problem among many.

I would love to see a devs response to this issue…. While it’s not affecting the entire community it is affecting a fairly large group of players in a very negative way.

I have the same approach as bloodletting. I gear out ascended gear on two of my toons and leave the rest in exotics.

Any form of account based time gating is bad for people with Alts. I also think it’s a little bad that they use the ascended gear to “encourage” us down particular paths. Rings and backpieces encourage / require Fractals, accessories encourage guild missions and joining a zerg-guild, amulets require dailies.

I would much prefer a system where each path was roughly equal instead of so heavily weighted. Of course this is because 1) I don’t like fractals and 2) I don’t do things I don’t like.

Well.. the thing is… Anet promotes a casual gaming experience… they don’t expect nor do they encourage people to have 8 level 80s at this point… they want people to take a more casual approach to the game as to extend the games life… So they want to make sure you have to put in ample time on an alt to make sure you keep logging in if you want each alt to be spec’d to the max… (right clicks tinfoil hat, clicks equip)

I don’t think that it’s tinfoil hat to think that Anet includes features in their game to encourage frequent logins (daily’s) and longevity (time gating).

In fact, I would go so far to say that there is nothing in the game that isn’t there for a reason. If it exists and it was intentionally put there, then, at some point, there has been a design decision to put it there.

RNG, black lion chests, soul bound gear and dyes, black lion trading company, the fountain in lion’s arch, etc… None of that is accidental.

On the other hand, I’m a big believer in unintended consequences. I don’t believe that any design team can look at any system as complex as guild wars and determine what’s going to happen when one million autonomous users start futzing with it.

So pointing out that a particular design decision (such as ascended gear) hurts people with alts, is fair game. (Not that I’m suggestion that they weren’t aware that it would take people with alts a really really long time to gear up – I think they knew.)

This is all based on the unfounded assumption that for some reason you need to have your alts fully equipped with ascended items.

Plunder.8195:

This is all based on the unfounded assumption that for some reason you need to have your alts fully equipped with ascended items.

The only assumption required is that you want to gear out your alts which is different than needing to.

Also, when you look at encouraging / discouraging incentives, I think its helpful to think about the boundary conditions. Can the action affect the behavior of someone who is otherwise on the cusp.? In this case, would someone who would otherwise create an alt not do so because of ascended gear (whether or not we think it’s an intelligent decision). In this case, I think yes. I can see how someone would be reluctant to create an alt because of the ascended gear slog….

This can be an issue if you are gearing up your main – only, and find that a balance patch or a trait rebalancing completely changes your build’s effectiveness.
I pretty much have decided the only way to combat this is to use celestial ascended items.
I too have a lot of alts and find that I enjoy playing some of them more than my main. Yet when it comes to gear, the main gets it first. It will take a very long time to gear the rest, if I even decide to do so. Sadly I wish I could say I only take the main to fractals, WvW or PvE. I take them all to all these things.

TooBz.3065:

Plunder.8195:

This is all based on the unfounded assumption that for some reason you need to have your alts fully equipped with ascended items.

The only assumption required is that you want to gear out your alts which is different than needing to.

Also, when you look at encouraging / discouraging incentives, I think its helpful to think about the boundary conditions. Can the action affect the behavior of someone who is otherwise on the cusp. In this case, would someone who would otherwise create an alt not do so because of ascended gear (whether or not we think it’s an intelligent decision). In this case, I think yes. I can see how someone would be reluctant to create an alt because of the ascended gear slog….

You could use the same argument that you want a legendary on each of your alts. The math of the OP shows clearly that what you want, is not reasonable.
So yes, if you set your boundary conditions unreasonable, you’ll get unreasonable outcomes.

What I want to say, is that it is not alt-unfriendy since you don’t need them. It is alt-unfriendly for people who set the unrealistic and unnecessary goal of getting a fully ascended outfit.

even for non althoholics this is terrible it locks players in specific builds since its so hard to obtain ascended gear they actually need/want now take this issue and multiply it by number of alts and now you can see how massive this issue is. basically it takes 4 months to get 2 accesories only 1 month for amulet rings take 10 days if you do daily fractal or 2 months if you go for laurels .

Plunder.8195:

TooBz.3065:

Plunder.8195:

This is all based on the unfounded assumption that for some reason you need to have your alts fully equipped with ascended items.

The only assumption required is that you want to gear out your alts which is different than needing to.

Also, when you look at encouraging / discouraging incentives, I think its helpful to think about the boundary conditions. Can the action affect the behavior of someone who is otherwise on the cusp. In this case, would someone who would otherwise create an alt not do so because of ascended gear (whether or not we think it’s an intelligent decision). In this case, I think yes. I can see how someone would be reluctant to create an alt because of the ascended gear slog….

You could use the same argument that you want a legendary on each of your alts. The math of the OP shows clearly that what you want, is not reasonable.
So yes, if you set your boundary conditions unreasonable, you’ll get unreasonable outcomes.

What I want to say, is that it is not alt-unfriendy since you don’t need them. It is alt-unfriendly for people who set the unrealistic and unnecessary goal of getting a fully ascended outfit.

go do lvl 40 fractals on a party without agony resistance then, i ll wait for your feedback.

Plunder.8195:

TooBz.3065:

Plunder.8195:

This is all based on the unfounded assumption that for some reason you need to have your alts fully equipped with ascended items.

The only assumption required is that you want to gear out your alts which is different than needing to.

Also, when you look at encouraging / discouraging incentives, I think its helpful to think about the boundary conditions. Can the action affect the behavior of someone who is otherwise on the cusp. In this case, would someone who would otherwise create an alt not do so because of ascended gear (whether or not we think it’s an intelligent decision). In this case, I think yes. I can see how someone would be reluctant to create an alt because of the ascended gear slog….

You could use the same argument that you want a legendary on each of your alts. The math of the OP shows clearly that what you want, is not reasonable.
So yes, if you set your boundary conditions unreasonable, you’ll get unreasonable outcomes.

What I want to say, is that it is not alt-unfriendy since you don’t need them. It is alt-unfriendly for people who set the unrealistic and unnecessary goal of getting a fully ascended outfit.

Fair point. Legendaries are alt-unfriendly also. I think that at some level, someone with a legendary would not create an alt because of the difficulty to get an alt on the second character. (You see this all the time with people asking for account bound legendaries).

Just because someone thing is alt-unfriendly doesn’t mean that it’s not good for the game as a whole.

Ascended gear is largely unnecessary, which is why many of us recommended choosing a couple of toons to gear up. I concede that AR resistance is a real thing if you want to run fractals with multiple toons.

but the point is, legendaires are equal to exotics stat wise. i dont need them for all characters to stay competetive i can do fine with exotics.
ascended however adds a significant amount of stat points which gets even more pronounced once armor and weapons are introduced as well. Assuming armor and weapons take a similar amount of time than the current ascended items to get it is pretty much over with alts and alternate gear sets.

This post has nothing to do with legendary weapons so please stay on the topic of the ascended items and the time gating being alt unfriendly.

Everybody constantly whines that things are forcing them to play ‘one character’ but I don’t think reality reinforces your conclusion… for a game this young it is alt-city out there. Clearly most players feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages (and we all know over time…alts become more popular in these games because people want variety of play).

when GW1 was a year old i had all my characters decked out with several sets of armor, so yes, i feel time gated already.
I don’t play to equip my characters and i certainly dont want it to take years to get there but right now it looks like it will especially when i mostly play in areas where laurels are the only way to go.
My main problem is the gigantic discrepancy between the time it takes to get a character equipped with exotics against ascended. I wouldnt mind a week longer or maybe even two but as it stands we are looking at months for one set of gear.

Heh I guess I am fairly casual despite the 9 lv80s(some in exotics, some in a mix of exotics + masterwork, others in rares + masterwork and of course one with some ascended because cat tonic was more important than gear). I wouldn’t mind being able to get ascended for all but hasn’t been any great need for them.

It isnt profitable for them to allow you to gear up all your alts quickly with the best gear. The more time you spend in the game the more sales they can dangle in front of you in the gem store. It’s exactly why DR are legendaries exist. They want/need to slow players down in terms of progress and time-gated unlocks, be it for guild missions or ascended gear, is the most cost-effective way to do that.

/thread.

Rhaps.8540:

It isnt profitable for them to allow you to gear up all your alts quickly with the best gear. The more time you spend in the game the more sales they can dangle in front of you in the gem store. It’s exactly why DR are legendaries exist. They want/need to slow players down in terms of progress and time-gated unlocks, be it for guild missions or ascended gear, is the most cost-effective way to do that.

/thread.

Gotta call horse kitten on this because in gw1 you would hit the gear cap in around 5 minutes…. Hell most players hit the gear cap before they even hit the max level cap…. They kept right on playing to get special skins for the weapons and armor they wanted and that was seriously all the game was…. The only reason they have such massive time gates on the ascended gear is because it wasn’t supposed to be in the game from the start….. They attempted to say it was planned from the start to be in game but that’s one of the most bold faced lies I’ve seen from any developers in quiet awhile…

The only thing the current time gates do is hurt sells not give more potential profit.

Dakiaris.2798:

tigirius.9014:

Yep it’s the problem with having 1 daily per account, not having karma currency transfers or accountwide karma, and other issues this game faces. They want us to enjoy the wide range of classes they offer yet hold back progression for these alts with machinations that aren’t there to harm bots but are there to harm players.

I don’t think they are aware they are harming the players…. Actually they are harming themselves as well if you think about it… The current system causes alts to look less desirable till you manage to gear 1 character….. meaning less alts…. Meaning less character slots are bought…. It goes on further but I’m sure you understand what I’m saying with that.

The only real way to fix the system in its current form would be to reduce costs of the gear across the board…. The other fix would be to simply allow players to craft the gear like the originally said they were going to do… Instead I sense more currencies being added to the game.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It depends on what you’re playing. Pve you can roll around in rares and be more than fine. Dungeons its recommended. WvW it’s absolute must have even if you stay with a zerg. My advice is 1 main 2 secondary and the rest just for random fun. I don’t see them changing the setup so limit who you gear.

This is what I’m trying to draw attention to… Some players don’t want to even have alts if they can’t manage to gear them in a timely manor. This cuts into both player fun and company profits. Over a very long time this system would work out but the time gating is just causing more frustration then not.

Actually they could merge the currencies across the board for one, make dailies a per character thing, retro our achievements to give us a buttload of laurels, change the world exploration achievement so it doesn’t force people into a PVP zone (because that worked so well for Aion you know), actually balance PVE for the three weakest classes in the game to bring them on par with the known favorite professions. Ton of options there to make improvements on so they can be alt friendly.

Most MMO’s do not allow this to happen…I don’t see why it is an issue. When raiding was the way to get BIS gear it took, what…12-18 weeks per character to get it?

Now without raids in GW2 it is pretty much the same or actually less of a burden…You have guild missions/Fractals/Laurels and now WvW for getting ascended gear. You should able to gear up one character every month/month and a half?

Whats the rush?

I currently have 8 alts with most having multiple sets of armor and weapons for various builds. If they ever introduce ascend weapons and armor that have significant stats advantage and take too much time to get, I will probably quit this game immediately.

The huge time sink required to gear up a char fully is limiting my ability to experiment with builds, which was what I enjoy most in gw1.

@Amun Ra
I think gw1 (and to a lesser extend gw2) have a vastly superior end game gear system than “Most MMO’s” and that a big part of the reason why I am not playing those MMOs.

Cymric.7368:

The huge time sink required to gear up a char fully is limiting my ability to experiment with builds, which was what I enjoy most in gw1.

Nothing keeping you from experimenting with greens/rares/karma exotics to see what builds work. Are you saying you can only experiment with Ascended gear?

Amun Ra.6435:

Most MMO’s do not allow this to happen…I don’t see why it is an issue. When raiding was the way to get BIS gear it took, what…12-18 weeks per character to get it?

Now without raids in GW2 it is pretty much the same or actually less of a burden…You have guild missions/Fractals/Laurels and now WvW for getting ascended gear. You should able to gear up one character every month/month and a half?

Whats the rush?

You’re missing the point again… Also to gear 1 character if you’re unable to do guild missions it’s going to be a bare minimum of 3 1/2 months and that’s if you’re able to do fractals… If you don’t do fractals add 2 months to that…. Then you have to remember they are still adding ascended items to the game the armor and weapons will come later and those will be on a very high time gate as well… By the time they are done adding ascended gear it’s going to take something like 1 year to gear 1 character…

That’s 1/2 the problem the other 1/2 is the fact that it punishes players who are unable to do things like guild missions by forcing them to wait longer and/or pay even more…. Compare the accessories…. 12 comendations + 5 gold = 1 vs 40 laurls +50 ecto…. that’s well over double the time to the player who doesn’t do guild missions and because it uses laurls it digs into the necklace/rings for that player as well.

The entire issue could be solved by doing what they said multiple times in the past they would do which is make ascended gear have better availability…. It could be easily done by making them craftable by professions and have them expensive…. It would allow players who are willing to put forth the effort to gear all characters they have.

I would still like to hear a dev respond to this issue…. At the moment it honestly feels as if they could care less and they are more focused on rng crates and other rng based activities.

the reason i kept playing gw1 for years was exactly that i did not have to chase gear all the time and optimize play toward that. Instead could do whatever i felt like

tigirius.9014:

Dakiaris.2798:

tigirius.9014:

Yep it’s the problem with having 1 daily per account, not having karma currency transfers or accountwide karma, and other issues this game faces. They want us to enjoy the wide range of classes they offer yet hold back progression for these alts with machinations that aren’t there to harm bots but are there to harm players.

I don’t think they are aware they are harming the players…. Actually they are harming themselves as well if you think about it… The current system causes alts to look less desirable till you manage to gear 1 character….. meaning less alts…. Meaning less character slots are bought…. It goes on further but I’m sure you understand what I’m saying with that.

The only real way to fix the system in its current form would be to reduce costs of the gear across the board…. The other fix would be to simply allow players to craft the gear like the originally said they were going to do… Instead I sense more currencies being added to the game.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

It depends on what you’re playing. Pve you can roll around in rares and be more than fine. Dungeons its recommended. WvW it’s absolute must have even if you stay with a zerg. My advice is 1 main 2 secondary and the rest just for random fun. I don’t see them changing the setup so limit who you gear.

This is what I’m trying to draw attention to… Some players don’t want to even have alts if they can’t manage to gear them in a timely manor. This cuts into both player fun and company profits. Over a very long time this system would work out but the time gating is just causing more frustration then not.

Actually they could merge the currencies across the board for one, make dailies a per character thing, retro our achievements to give us a buttload of laurels, change the world exploration achievement so it doesn’t force people into a PVP zone (because that worked so well for Aion you know), actually balance PVE for the three weakest classes in the game to bring them on par with the known favorite professions. Ton of options there to make improvements on so they can be alt friendly.

Anet has lost out on at least 2 character slots I would have bought let alone the extra bag space and whatnot. A currency exchange would be nice – I could do something with the 130+ jugs of karma sitting in my bank to help out my alts. The way it is now I can rarely play anything other than my main and 2 seconds.

Morgoth Bauglyr.9726:

the reason i kept playing gw1 for years was exactly that i did not have to chase gear all the time and optimize play toward that. Instead could do whatever i felt like

Most of the players who see nothing wrong with the current system never got a chance to experience the greatness known as guild wars 1… It saddens me.

Dakiaris.2798:

Rhaps.8540:

It isnt profitable for them to allow you to gear up all your alts quickly with the best gear. The more time you spend in the game the more sales they can dangle in front of you in the gem store. It’s exactly why DR are legendaries exist. They want/need to slow players down in terms of progress and time-gated unlocks, be it for guild missions or ascended gear, is the most cost-effective way to do that.

/thread.

Gotta call horse kitten on this because in gw1 you would hit the gear cap in around 5 minutes…. Hell most players hit the gear cap before they even hit the max level cap…. They kept right on playing to get special skins for the weapons and armor they wanted and that was seriously all the game was…. The only reason they have such massive time gates on the ascended gear is because it wasn’t supposed to be in the game from the start….. They attempted to say it was planned from the start to be in game but that’s one of the most bold faced lies I’ve seen from any developers in quiet awhile…

The only thing the current time gates do is hurt sells not give more potential profit.

Gw2 is a different game with different companies as stakeholders, Nexon being a big influence here. Gw1 wasn’t run the same way.

Whats really more likely? The devs are idiot liars, or that Anet and their stakeholder influences have a smarter approach to monetising the game? Idiot liars don’t really tend to make such acclaimed and successful games, shrewd businessmen however. . .

Edit: oh and here is an article I think you will find interesting if you want to know more. Whilst I don’t agree with some of the author’s assertions about pay-2-win etc., he does make some interesting points.

imagine when ascended armor and weapons arrive. the horror.

Rhaps.8540:

Dakiaris.2798:

Rhaps.8540:

It isnt profitable for them to allow you to gear up all your alts quickly with the best gear. The more time you spend in the game the more sales they can dangle in front of you in the gem store. It’s exactly why DR are legendaries exist. They want/need to slow players down in terms of progress and time-gated unlocks, be it for guild missions or ascended gear, is the most cost-effective way to do that.

/thread.

Gotta call horse kitten on this because in gw1 you would hit the gear cap in around 5 minutes…. Hell most players hit the gear cap before they even hit the max level cap…. They kept right on playing to get special skins for the weapons and armor they wanted and that was seriously all the game was…. The only reason they have such massive time gates on the ascended gear is because it wasn’t supposed to be in the game from the start….. They attempted to say it was planned from the start to be in game but that’s one of the most bold faced lies I’ve seen from any developers in quiet awhile…

The only thing the current time gates do is hurt sells not give more potential profit.

Gw2 is a different game with different companies as stakeholders, Nexon being a big influence here. Gw1 wasn’t run the same way.

Whats really more likely? The devs are idiot liars, or that Anet and their stakeholder influences have a smarter approach to monetising the game? Idiot liars don’t really tend to make such acclaimed and successful games, shrewd businessmen however. . .

Edit: oh and here is an article I think you will find interesting if you want to know more. Whilst I don’t agree with some of the author’s assertions about pay-2-win etc., he does make some interesting points.

Again I have to call horse kitten because the way the ways to attain ascended items don’t have anything to do with them making money….. It’s just a massive time gate that does nothing but hurt the potential profits they make due to discouraging creating alts… Thus less character slots are sold…. The current way it’s implemented isn’t to keep players playing it’s just to time gate attaining the gear that’s all… If anything this model hurts them because it takes so long to attain the gear that the player makes enough in game cash to buy what they want from the cash shop….. So instead of making money on gems they lose that as well…….

Take a look at the broad system not just short term.. The systems to attain ascended items do nothing but hurt them as a company and hurt us as players…… Money hungry share holders have nothing to do with it since there’s no real positive link to the cash shop only negative… Less players buy costumes due to less alts being made… Less players buying character slots due to less alts being made…. Less gems sold because less players buy gems to convert to gold to buy said materials/items for ascended gear….. There’s nothing but negatives here….

I would like to have a dev respond to this issue because seriously this isn’t a case of greedy stockholder syndrome it looks more like a very poorly thought out progression system that was released before they could realize the negatives for themselves and the players.

edit
Also I know all to well about the Nexon crap they own 15% of the company and the woman was in charge of getting our money through the cash shop is a ex nexon employee…. But seriously this system has nothing to do with either of them…. People need to stop trying to make it look like the stockholders fault when the system doesn’t even make sense from a money making standpoint due to discouraging so many things that it does nothing bur hurt projected profits.

Rezzet.3614:

even for non althoholics this is terrible it locks players in specific builds since its so hard to obtain ascended gear they actually need/want now take this issue and multiply it by number of alts and now you can see how massive this issue is. basically it takes 4 months to get 2 accesories only 1 month for amulet rings take 10 days if you do daily fractal or 2 months if you go for laurels .

These are slightly off. You can get them much quicker.

Rings: Well you can get 1 Pristines a day per character per 10 levels in fractals. I could at the moment if I could be bothered with my alts get 11 Pristine Relics in a day. So it would take 2 days. But even then most people that do lots of Fractals have so many spare rings. I have a set on every one of my 8 characters. 3 of my characters have 2 sets and I have about 20+ rings sitting in the bank (after selling duplicates). So no real issue getting rings for alts.

Necklace: Now you can get them for 20 Laurels and 250 BoH. So if you do some WvW (or even the Eternal Battleground Jumping Puzzle every so often) you can get 2 of them a month..

Backpack: Now these can be expensive. But I do now have them for all of my 8 characters, it’s just a case of grinding fractals or grinding money. There is no huge time gating on them.

Earrings: I’m now getting one every 2 weeks, so I can do a character every month. This is probably the slowest one at the moment. But you can always throw Laurels at it if you finish your Necklaces first.

So Anyway out of 8 toons.. All have Rings. All have Backpacks. 3 have Necklaces (and I have the Laurels/BoH for another 2). 2 have Earrings (but I have the tokens for another toon, once I decide which to give them too).

I wouldn’t say it’s that bad for alts.

Also note they have made it far easier since the introduction to get Exotic versions of these items. Before you could only get a rare backpack with 1 set of stats. Jewelery had to be crafted before, now you can spend Karma. SO even though they have made the BiS much harder to get, the next level down is much easier to get.

I have 11 alts, yes ascended is a nightmare, especially since i hate GW2 dungeons/FotM, but to me the main issue above all else is the gating builds, Ascended really forces one build mindset which in modern MMO’s is pretty dated and bad…

Ratty.5176:

Rezzet.3614:

even for non althoholics this is terrible it locks players in specific builds since its so hard to obtain ascended gear they actually need/want now take this issue and multiply it by number of alts and now you can see how massive this issue is. basically it takes 4 months to get 2 accesories only 1 month for amulet rings take 10 days if you do daily fractal or 2 months if you go for laurels .

These are slightly off. You can get them much quicker.

2 Rings, Well you can get 1 Pristines a day per character per 10 levels in fractals. I could at the moment if I could be bothered with my alts get 11 Pristine Relics in a day. So it would take 2 days. But even then most people that do lots of Fractals have so many spare rings. I have a set on every one of my 8 characters. 3 of my characters have 2 sets and I have about 20+ rings sitting in the bank (after selling duplicates). So no real issue getting rings for alts.

Necklace. Now you can get them for 20 Laurels and 250 BoH. So if you do some WvW (or even tkitten Jumping Puzzle every so often) you can get 2 of them a month..

Backpack. Now these can be expensive. But I do now have them for all of my 8 characters, it’s just a case of grinding fractals or grinding money. There is no huge time gating on them.

Earrings. I’m now getting one every 2 weeks, so I can do a character every month. This is probably the slowest one at the moment. But you can always throw Laurels at it if you finish your Necklaces first.

So Anyway out of 8 toons.. All have rings. All have Backpacks. 4 have Necklaces. 2 have Earrings (but I have the tokens for another toon, once I decide which to give them too).

I wouldn’t say it’s that bad for alts.

I would like to point out to you that I stated in the initial post this is mainly for those who are unable or wont do guild missions or fractals… I myself can do fractals but that’s it I can’t find a guild to do missions with so the necklace and accessories are going to dig into my necklace time and my pocket due to big ecto requirement. The system is just a massive time gated play this or you’re to be punished with a much more expensive version of this item kind of system. I explain that in the initial post to.

12 comindations + 5 gold and a chance to get them upon compleation VS 40 laurls +50 ecto with no alternative outside of guild missions ……

10 pristine fractal relics sand a chance to get them upon 10,20,30 complete VS 30 laurls

Necklace is 30 laurls or 20 laurls + 250 badges of honor

I’m factoring in the monthly.

3 1/3 months + 100 ecto vs 4-28 days +10 gold…. This is just doing daily/monthly vs doing the content they rope the content to. I did 30 day resets for the monthly and factored them in.. The difference between them is staggering it’s nearly a x3 factor for those who don’t do the content….. For them saying they want players to play how they want they sure punish them hardcore for avoiding content they don’t want to do. Most of the players I’m talking about don’t like wvw or fractals and are in smaller guilds who would rather keep to themselves….

Keep in mind though this is for current content and is not including the backpack I don’t include that because you can craft one yourself When they add armor and weapons this is going to be hyper extended if they keep going at this rate… Imagine 30 days per 1 piece of armor and then like 50-60 for the weapons…. It will go upwards of 1+ year to gear 1 character for players who only do daily/monthlies and if that person misses a few days or a monthly due to real life butting in that time goes up….

Dante.1508:

I have 11 alts, yes ascended is a nightmare, especially since i hate GW2 dungeons/FotM, but to me the main issue above all else is the gating builds, Ascended really forces one build mindset which in modern MMO’s is pretty dated and bad…

What this guy says this is the main issue that some keep overlooking…

TL;DR
The system is easy IF you take part in the content…. If you don’t like said content they punish you with a system that takes 3x-4x longer to progress the characters… It discourages gearing alts or even getting a 2nd set for your main character in reasonable time.

Once you realize that yellow gear is more than plenty, the entire issue falls apart.

Ascended is only really necessary in FotM, and I only do FotM with 2 characters.

marnick.4305:

Once you realize that yellow gear is more than plenty, the entire issue falls apart.

Ascended is only really necessary in FotM, and I only do FotM with 2 characters.

Another non constructive post that clearly didn’t read the full post to understand the issue…. Yellow gear is only ok if you’re doing open world only but what about dungeons ? What about wvw ? In wvw it’s required to actually do the best you can even if you’re in a zerg.

I’ll just say this devs… give us a way to turn in 100 dungeon tokens for 1 laurl… Problem solved.

Yes, grind sucks. If ArenaNet made their game harder and made better instruductions to builds and teamwork etc GW2 would be more successful and reduce the grind with this in mind.

I think Ascended Rings and Backpacks are fine TBH. This is because in both these cases, if you are really dedicated, you can earn these more or less as fast as you like (more characters = more possible fractal dailies, backpacks are easy, if expensive, to craft in the Mystic Forge, so can be done en masse if you wish).

However, it’s the Amulets and Earrings that are ridiculously time-gated and heavily discourage alts.

Now, the Amulets aren’t as bad as the earrings, especially now you can get them in WvW at reduced laurel cost with Badges of Honour – and Badges of Honour aren’t time gated. If this was the only time-gated piece of Ascended Gear, I could live with it, despite being an altaholic.

However, it’s the Earrings that really need to be rethought. Both methods are acquiring them are heavily time-gated. The Ectos may be fine if going the Laurel route, but the 40 laurel price is ridiculously immense for anyone that has multiple alts to gear (especially seems you are using those laurels on Amulets for the alts too).

The other option, the Guild Commendations, is also time-gated, with a limit of a single Commendation reward per type of Guild Mission a week (even if for some missions types that two, not one, commendation). It’s also very casual-unfriendly or unfriendly to those of us who have real-life responsibilites. I have a big Guild, but I often miss the Guild Missions (that we tend to run all twice+ weekly), simply because I’m in work, making the time it takes to acquire these for all my alts also incredibly immense…and basically puts all the other cool stuff you can get with Guild Commendations, more superficial things, sadly off the cards for the forseeable future and a year upwards, which is really disappointing to me. This is the one biggest part of ascended gear so far that they need to address. There needs to be a none time-gated system to acquire Ascended Earrings, to give those of us who like to play alts a chance to catch up if we really dedicate ourselves to it on our free days. Not asking for it to be easy, nor too cheap (something around the cost of Ascended Backpacks would seem fair), but it needs to be there.

TL;DR. Ascended Rings and Backpacks are fine as they are not time-gated and practical acquisition methods exist for altaholics. Ascended Amulets are questionable in acquisition methods, but managable for altaholics. Ascended Earrings have unreasonable acquisition methods and need a non-time-gated method of acquisition, similiar to Rings or Backpacks, as the current methods of acquisition really penalize altaholics. This is the biggest issue with Ascended Gear acquisition currently.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Well.. the thing is… Anet promotes a casual gaming experience…

Ascended grind is not a casual gaming experience.

KotCR.6024:

TL;DR. Ascended Rings and Backpacks are fine as they are not time-gated and practical acquisition methods exist for altaholics. Ascended Amulets are questionable in acquisition methods, but managable for altaholics. Ascended Earrings have unreasonable acquisition methods and need a non-time-gated method of acquisition, similiar to Rings or Backpacks, as the current methods of acquisition really penalize altaholics. This is the biggest issue with Ascended Gear acquisition currently.

I generally agree about backpacks and fractal rings (though i’d really like vials being buyable with relics or pristine relics, and i think that their relic/t6 cost is too great). Guild earrings are impossible to get unless you are in a zerg guild (hint: most people aren’t in one). Laurel rings, amulets and accesories might be okay individually, but become completely ridiculous when taken as a whole, due to using the same time-limited currency. One month for an item is okay, if that’s the only item you get. It’s not okay if it’s only one of many, and you cannot work on them in parallel.

KotCR.6024:

I think Ascended Rings and Backpacks are fine TBH. This is because in both these cases, if you are really dedicated, you can earn these more or less as fast as you like (more characters = more possible fractal dailies, backpacks are easy, if expensive, to craft in the Mystic Forge, so can be done en masse if you wish).

However, it’s the Amulets and Earrings that are ridiculously time-gated and heavily discourage alts.

Now, the Amulets aren’t as bad as the earrings, especially now you can get them in WvW at reduced laurel cost with Badges of Honour – and Badges of Honour aren’t time gated. If this was the only time-gated piece of Ascended Gear, I could live with it, despite being an altaholic.

However, it’s the Earrings that really need to be rethought. Both methods are acquiring them are heavily time-gated. The Ectos may be fine if going the Laurel route, but the 40 laurel price is ridiculously immense for anyone that has multiple alts to gear (especially seems you are using those laurels on Amulets for the alts too).

The other option, the Guild Commendations, is also time-gated, with a limit of a single Commendation reward per type of Guild Mission a week (even if for some missions types that two, not one, commendation). It’s also very casual-unfriendly or unfriendly to those of us who have real-life responsibilites. I have a big Guild, but I often miss the Guild Missions (that we tend to run all twice+ weekly), simply because I’m in work, making the time it takes to acquire these for all my alts also incredibly immense…and basically puts all the other cool stuff you can get with Guild Commendations, more superficial things, sadly off the cards for the forseeable future and a year upwards, which is really disappointing to me. This is the one biggest part of ascended gear so far that they need to address. There needs to be a none time-gated system to acquire Ascended Earrings, to give those of us who like to play alts a chance to catch up if we really dedicate ourselves to it on our free days. Not asking for it to be easy, nor too cheap (something around the cost of Ascended Backpacks would seem fair), but it needs to be there.

TL;DR. Ascended Rings and Backpacks are fine as they are not time-gated and practical acquisition methods exist for altaholics. Ascended Amulets are questionable in acquisition methods, but managable for altaholics. Ascended Earrings have unreasonable acquisition methods and need a non-time-gated method of acquisition, similiar to Rings or Backpacks, as the current methods of acquisition really penalize altaholics. This is the biggest issue with Ascended Gear acquisition currently.

Let me just say thank you… Your TL;DR is what I’m trying to say….. The other thing I was trying to say is the for the people who would avoid the content the time is to long but I honestly do some… Atm the earrings and neck are just excessive… I wvw/dungeons/fractals on a regular basis… I can’t do guild missions and I know multiple people who are in the same boat who all say the same thing.

Dakiaris.2798:

marnick.4305:

Once you realize that yellow gear is more than plenty, the entire issue falls apart.

Ascended is only really necessary in FotM, and I only do FotM with 2 characters.

Another non constructive post that clearly didn’t read the full post to understand the issue…. Yellow gear is only ok if you’re doing open world only but what about dungeons ? What about wvw ? In wvw it’s required to actually do the best you can even if you’re in a zerg.

Do you use all professions in FotM20+? Because that’s the only place where you really need ascended gear. By the time you get to FotM20 with an alt, you’ll have the tokens for a backpiece and a ring … there’s no problem here.
Regular dungeons are balanced around exotics and don’t require ascended gear.
As for WvW … do you actually use all professions in there? It would strongly surprise me but then again … the choices of other people never cease to amaze me. That’s a compliment btw.

I’ll just say this devs… give us a way to turn in 100 dungeon tokens for 1 laurl… Problem solved.

Not nearly enough. How about 180, the amount for doing all 3 explorables on a given day.

I use 4 classes in wvw yes.

editing to add more because I was busy when I made this post

I play 4 classes in wvw because I use them for a different type of play style… My necro is my main I use him for small groups assaulting camps and whatnot… My warrior I use for assaulting keeps and stuff mainly…. My engineer I use as a defender of keeps and camps and my ranger I play mainly as a scout.

Anyway what I’m trying to say in the post is what the guy I thanked pointed out… The rings / back are reasonable time wise to attain but the rest is just excessive…. I’m going on to point out at the rate they are time gating the ascended gear as they add the armor and weapons it’s going to get much worse and take much longer to obtain thus discouraging gearing more then 1 character… This discourages alts and gearing for more then 1 spec by nearly everyone…. The players who will be affected most are those unable to do specific content and new players.. That’s what I’m trying to draw attention to…. This also limits the builds you play per character because you are going to focus on gearing 1 build…

Oh and the dungeon token thing was a joke…. but it would work to fix the issue somewhat and give dungeon tokens some value.

Dakiaris.2798:

-snip-
Again I have to call horse kitten because the way the ways to attain ascended items don’t have anything to do with them making money….. It’s just a massive time gate that does nothing but hurt the potential profits they make due to discouraging creating alts… Thus less character slots are sold…. The current way it’s implemented isn’t to keep players playing it’s just to time gate attaining the gear that’s all… If anything this model hurts them because it takes so long to attain the gear that the player makes enough in game cash to buy what they want from the cash shop….. So instead of making money on gems they lose that as well…….

Take a look at the broad system not just short term.. The systems to attain ascended items do nothing but hurt them as a company and hurt us as players…… Money hungry share holders have nothing to do with it since there’s no real positive link to the cash shop only negative… Less players buy costumes due to less alts being made… Less players buying character slots due to less alts being made…. Less gems sold because less players buy gems to convert to gold to buy said materials/items for ascended gear….. There’s nothing but negatives here….

I would like to have a dev respond to this issue because seriously this isn’t a case of greedy stockholder syndrome it looks more like a very poorly thought out progression system that was released before they could realize the negatives for themselves and the players.

edit
Also I know all to well about the Nexon crap they own 15% of the company and the woman was in charge of getting our money through the cash shop is a ex nexon employee…. But seriously this system has nothing to do with either of them…. People need to stop trying to make it look like the stockholders fault when the system doesn’t even make sense from a money making standpoint due to discouraging so many things that it does nothing bur hurt projected profits.

Call horsekitten all you like but it doesn’t change the truth at the heart of the matter.

You say it is costing them money yet admit it’s a time gate. Time gates keep people in the game, FACT. That means they stay in the store. Seriously it’s not hard to comprehend. It hurts profits because it’s not alt friendly? lol give me a break. If they wanted to make money out of selling character slots they wouldn’t have given us 5 to begin with. No, a player grinding for many months to deck out 5 characters in ascended gear is going to be around for far more living story/seasonal events and the gemstore promotions that those entail than a player that can rapidly deck out 8+ toons then get bored and leave. They obviously make more money by time gating content even if this may result in a lower overall sale of character slots.

Look at the big picture, character slots are one item they sell, but they make much more money selling seasonal chests, gathering items, minis, skins etc. A percieved lack of alts emerging, and this is based on the totally rash assumption that people won’t make alts because they all care as much as you do about asceneded gear (fyi, they dont!), is total fallacy and stems from your own problems accepting the time gated system they have in place. They don’t want you to have everything quickly that would be the worst outcome for them. That’s why we have DR, legendaries, ascended gear etc. You may want to deck out your alts in time for the next fotm mmo to roll out but that’s gonna cost anet money if everyone is able to do that.

If you think ascended gear and the time-gate method of aquisition has nothing to do with the financial side of the game, then you are just being nieve. And note I never called the stockholders greedy or the devs foolish. I actually think they are both pretty kitten smart for establishing so much time gated content. It’s certainly keeping them in the green and means the game will be around and flourish for a lot longer.

Wait for a dev response if you like. You will be waiting a long time.

Short term yea it’s aimed hardcore at selling that stuff…. Long term all they are doing is hurting themselves…. You seem to think that the only way to get gems is using gold…. After farming exotic gear what do you have left to do ? 1. do a legendary not everyone will do this and 2. save gold and guy gems in mass during down times to use during events…….. Out of everyone I talk to the vast majority do no.2 because they already have exotics and they are playing every day to get ascended gear thus generating gold that gets turned into gems…..

I would like to point out I’ve been playing since launch…. bought 3 character slots, 4 bank tabs , all of the event items I could have wanted , 100 transmuat stones and everything else I cared to have…. I still have gold… I didn’t pay a dime…. It’s because I’ve been trying to get past the massive time gate for ascended gear with my 4 characters… Nearly everyone I know does this as well…. And even people I have known since launch…… Long term it’s a shot in the foot.

You sir are being nieve.. You’re unable to view all aspects of the game and realize all they are doing is hurting themselves with the current method of delivery…. And I know a dev will never respond because they have no clue how to handle the game they work on…. I’ve seen so many people complain about the direction of the game and they never address it instead they just ignore it and hope those players go away.

I would also like to say I’ve supported them since prophacies originally came out years ago… I bought every expansion and even a few costumes and things….. This company has done nothing but tumble down a hill since the release of guild wars 2… All of the things that they did right in guild wars 1 none of it carried over to 2 and I want to keep supporting them but the lack of communication and questionable mechanics they add into the game is making me loose hope…….

Dakiaris.2798:

Short term yea it’s aimed hardcore at selling that stuff…. Long term all they are doing is hurting themselves…. You seem to think that the only way to get gems is using gold…. After farming exotic gear what do you have left to do ? 1. do a legendary not everyone will do this and 2. save gold and guy gems in mass during down times to use during events…….. Out of everyone I talk to the vast majority do no.2 because they already have exotics and they are playing every day to get ascended gear thus generating gold that gets turned into gems…..

I would like to point out I’ve been playing since launch…. bought 3 character slots, 4 bank tabs , all of the event items I could have wanted , 100 transmuat stones and everything else I cared to have…. I still have gold… I didn’t pay a dime…. It’s because I’ve been trying to get past the massive time gate for ascended gear with my 4 characters… Nearly everyone I know does this as well…. And even people I have known since launch…… Long term it’s a shot in the foot.

You sir are being nieve.. You’re unable to view all aspects of the game and realize all they are doing is hurting themselves with the current method of delivery…. And I know a dev will never respond because they have no clue how to handle the game they work on…. I’ve seen so many people complain about the direction of the game and they never address it instead they just ignore it and hope those players go away.

I would also like to say I’ve supported them since prophacies originally came out years ago… I bought every expansion and even a few costumes and things….. This company has done nothing but tumble down a hill since the release of guild wars 2… All of the things that they did right in guild wars 1 none of it carried over to 2 and I want to keep supporting them but the lack of communication and questionable mechanics they add into the game is making me loose hope…….

For all the difference it doesn’t make I’ve been playing since launch as well and played gw1 (and all subsequent expansions) from launch too. I never once said the only way to get gems is via gold? I assume you mean the only way to get gems is via real money, either way. What the people you talk to do means diddly squat. Hey guess what? The people I speak to don’t stockpile gold for events and buy gems directly for cash and I know a fair few that have made legendaries, does that prove my point? No. The fact that Anet are still hiring and that Nexon is involved in influencing their financial model is far more pertinant to the issue than your own anecdotal experience.

Again, let me reiterate, the fact that you or your friends haven’t paid a dime is utterly meaningless.

I would venture as far to say that players with the time, in this casual focused mmo, to grind out the amount of gold you have for all the stuff you bought are a far greater minority. This is pretty much backed up by the fact that Anet are clearly making good money off the gem store and are in a healthy financial position right now. It’s working!

I am able to see all aspectsof the game and, unlike yourself, the financial reasoning behind it. After all I’m not the one lamenting and questioning the reasoning behind very clear proven monetisation models.

The hardcore gamer in me totally understands and empathises with the drag that is time gated acquisition of ascended gear, im in the same situation believe it or not. However the businessman in me accepts it for what it is.