Guild Wars 2

There’s many reasons that I won’t bother with Wildstar. Might try it when it goes FTP if I’m bored enough. It’s not the vertical progression that I dislike, it’s the grinding part. When a game forces me to kill the same thing over and over again it gets old fast. I don’t mind so much if it’s other players that I’m killing as other players are not as predictable.

Deadcell.9052:

I am ok with vertical progression as long as there is a reason for it and it is earned through meaningful, interesting, and skillful ways. Gw2 there is no reason for Ascended, none of the content warrants a higher statistical tier, even in Fractals they could of easily accomplished the necessary agony resist through sigils and runes. The game was not designed for V.I, and Ascended was implemented in the most boring non skillful way possible, they just added a heavy grind for the sake of grinding. Bottom line is if you want a game that offers V.I just about every other MMO on the market does it much better, Gw2 was supposed to break away from the traditional MMO design, its sad that the majority of MMO’ers these day only know the WoW model and are unable to adapt to something different, and unfortunately forced an unnecessary change to Gw2’s design.

I feel Gw2 would have been just fine if they just stuck to what they originally advertised and stayed the course, but we will never know now, they had to choose between a player base who accepted for what Gw2 was and a base that could not, they chose the ones who could not. Only time will tell if it was the right decision.

I hear you and feel exactly the same way. It’s not vertical progression I hate so much as grinding for it.

The way I see it, if you’re going to offer tiered gear, I would rather have progressive content to acquire it and to provide an environment where it’s useful. I would hardly consider fractals that environment. Demanding such resources for such marginal upgrades is insulting, and players that complete the grind or buyout deserve better than that. Ascended gear should have significantly higher drop rates in fractals, or raw ascended materials such as damask, deldrimor steel, and elonian leather should be available from fractals for pristine relics.

hellsmachine.4085:

I’m curious to know if you, the people that asked for vertical progression/gear grind/carrot on a stick, are happy with Ascended gear being added to the game. Is this what you were after? Are you now satisfied? Or are you disappointed? Are you now craving the next level of grind/progression/carrot chasing? Or have you already returned to whatever game it is you came from?

I’d really like to know if this was really worth damaging the game for me and many others.

Those that say Vertical Progression is necessary for a games longevity, then how do you explain successful games such as LoL, DOTA 2, GW1, DAY Z and TF2 (currently 10 x more popular than Planteside 2, even after over 6 years.) all thriving with little to no vertical progression?

This post is less of a n honest question and more of a veiled insult/whine, but I’ll bite:

Yes I’m happy with Ascended gear as it is. No I’m not craving another tier, ascended fills that niche just fine.

I did actually leave the game for months (Nov – Feb) but the reason for that had nothing to do with the addition or lack of ascended gear (if you want to know, I’ve come to dislike the LS implementation and was sick of it, so I took some time off and still think Anet is shooting themselves by not adding actual new areas).

FlamingFoxx.1305:

In what way was GW1 grindy?
The end game achievements like vanquishing and cartography sure. But the game itself was not grindy at all – it was entirely story based and armour was very very easy to get.

But isnt that the same here? I’ve done all that could be done until Nov just fine in exotics and they didnt really add anything besides the wurm event since then, which would classify as endgame (although I hate that term in an MMO and much prefer the journey).

The only complainers I would say have a point is WvW players, for everyone else ascended is as optional as any grind-title in GW1.

Ascended gear ruins WvW balance and you cannot argue against that, because you’re wrong.

ANet caved in to people who were never going to play GW2 for a long time, and now no longer play.

hellsmachine.4085:

If you want to be the best you can be in WvW it requires best gear and the best gear is Ascended.

If you want to be the best, you are prepared to do anything to be the best.

All the hardcore WvW people I know got their ascended sets very quickly and just moved on to play the game.

People, who complain about stuff being “too hard”, don’t care about being best, they don’t even try. They spend far more time on forums than actually playing.

So please, stop bringing up this argument. Ascended gear has no impact on core WvW playerbase.

Isslair.4908:

All the hardcore WvW people I know got their ascended sets very quickly and just moved on to play the game.

You’re obviously lying, or are confusing pve players with wvw players. The hard core wvw players I’m surrounded with do not have a full set of armour, or even close to a full set of armour.

Isslair.4908:

Ascended gear has no impact on core WvW playerbase.

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild. And that’s just one hypothetical. Thank you for understanding.

thaooo.5320:

Isslair.4908:

All the hardcore WvW people I know got their ascended sets very quickly and just moved on to play the game.

You’re obviously lying, or are confusing pve players with wvw players. The hard core wvw players I’m surrounded with do not have a full set of armour, or even close to a full set of armour.

Isslair.4908:

Ascended gear has no impact on core WvW playerbase.

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild. And that’s just one hypothetical. Thank you for understanding.

I doubt pver will ever understand what you are saying.

thaooo.5320:

You’re obviously lying, or are confusing pve players with wvw players. The hard core wvw players I’m surrounded with do not have a full set of armour, or even close to a full set of armour.

Because they are NOT hardcore players, obviously.

Just simple logic: hardcore pvp\wvw player strives to be the best -> he uses best gear, cheesiest builds, best food. We had plenty of time to prepare for ascended armour, everyone who cared about being “the best” got mats ready.

If someone is not prepared to do that, that means he is NOT hardcore. Hence, their opinion on the problem doesn’t matter. Because if you’re not the top tier, then there’s plenty of other reasons to lose in a fight than 5% stat difference.

thaooo.5320:

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild.

You’re either a serious full ascended guild for GvGs or just casual wannabe. Simple.

Open field has a lot of other factors to consider, before ascended gear becomes noticeable.

Whoa now, let’s not simply use the word “hardcore” as if it had only one singular meaning.

So let’s put many of these so-called “hardcores” in their proper category – they are hardcore “grinders”, not hardcore competitive players. A hardcore grinder is all about loot (gold), unique gear (posing) and having a stat advantage over others (an edge). While a hardcore competitive player is all about combat skill, efficiency (min-maxing), and despises stat advantages because he wants a level-playing field (or as close as you can get to it). The former type of “hardcore” is primarily only a measure of time spent in-game doing easy repetitive tasks (like farming the easiest path of the fastest dungeon or WvW 4 on 1 ganking), – while the latter purposefully seeks difficulty to test his skills.

Never confuse a hardcore grinder with a skilled competitive player – they are not one in the same.

The thing is when it come to pvp/wvw it should be decided by skill, build, and class knowledge only. It should never be due to gear. That’s why I hate traditional mmorpg and played GW2. I’m sure a lot of pvper played this game due to that fact. It was fine with exotic but now ascended ruined it. Luckily stat advantage is still low. If they add another tier, most wvwer will quit. Hope Camelot unchained come out by that time.

Isslair.4908:

snip

The people you know are pve players, and trading post flippers.

WvW players do not make money, and this is a proven fact.

Also, hardcore pve grinding is not equal to pvp skill level, just informing you of this well known and basic FACT.

Also, anyone that wants to consider themselves a hardcore pvp player cares about one thing and one thing only, skill level being the main factor, not gear-grind-2-win for cheap and pathetic advantages.

We all know exactly which category the players you mentioned are in.

kokiman.2364:

hellsmachine.4085:

I believe GW2 could have survived with horizontal progression added, similar to how it was in GW1. We will never know now, because it’s too late to take it away.

P l e a s e s t o p saying that GW1 had no vertical progression, it’s like you didn’t even play the game. Like I said in my earlier posts in many posts before that in other threads. There was a vertikal progression in the game, getting Best in Slot gear at release forced you to grind.
Getting max armor and max weapons was easy but putting those max upgrades and max runes on them was expensive as hell. I personally never bothered to buy a superior rune of health up until NF was released an all those prices went downhill really fast.
After the release of Factions they started to add factiontitles (kurzick, luxon, later with NF: lightbringer, sunspear and with g:wen: deldrimor, asura, ebonblade and slayer). Reaching the maximum title on any of those factions did involve lots of grinding and they did improve PvE skills (skills that were just usable in PvE and im comparision to the GW2 PvE exclusive heal skill, actually pretty strong) so you can’t say “they didn’t matter anyway”. GW1 was grindy, GW2 is grindy. Get used to it, any orpg involves some kind of grinding.

Those faction specific skills maxed out effectiveness about halfway to the max rank. Sure you could grind for the TITLE, but in order to have max effectiveness for, say Asura skills you could get max effectiveness by playing through the EotN quests ONCE and turning in the storybook. Maxing the lux/kurz skills required you to get only 12% of the faction for max rank. Lightbringer is the only one that kept scaling, but still ONE run through of missions and vanquishing would easily get you to lvl 7 out of 8.

The weapons and armor never got stronger or made your perfect weapons less-than-perfect . Period.
Many of us liked it that way.

hellsmachine.4085:

Galen Grey.4709:

Arenanet tried an interesting approach by creating a vertical progression that’s truly optional.

What surprises me is how many people claim to hate vertical progression but are just unable to walk away from it.

I dont mean this to antagonize anyone but if one doesnt like PvP generally they simply dont play PvP they dont feel betrayed by the developer because they introduce optional PvP why is Ascended gear any different ?

As long as no content released requires Ascended gear, as long as everyone gets the same stats in sPvP and as long as WvW never becomes about small group player on player engagements it will really not have harmed anyone.

Players say they dont want Vertical progression but seems to me in truth they want one just one that can be reached very quickly.

If Ascended gear was capped to exotic stats in WvW, then I would agree that Ascended is optional. but it still gives a player an advantage, how large the advantage is irrelevant. An advantage is an advantage. If you want to be the best you can be in WvW it requires best gear and the best gear is Ascended.

Not entirely disagreeing with you, I do agree it would have been wise of Arenanet to keep Ascended gear out of WvW but that being said I think its more that it gives the perception of an advantage rather then an actual advantage. It is just 1 variable out of many and for the purpose of WvW which is to capture and hold points its impact is negligible if there even is one. Problem seems to me is people consider WvW as some duel system were their target is to win singular fights rather then the bigger overall objective. WvW is a team effort. Granted that like any team effort individual contribution is important and granted that might very well mean you feel you need to give your everything for that but its also equally important to recognize that there will always be limits. Equiping yourself with the best gear is a good contribution but so is supplying your side with siege equipment. Do you feel you’re letting your team down because you dont buy siege blueprints to everyone? Do you feel you’re letting your team down because you dont buy everyone buffs be they food and the other consumables? It is simply impossible to give 100% In my opinion everyone should give their best but within reasonable limits. Those reasonable limits should also apply to your armor set. If crafting armor and weapons is too much then stick to the trinkets etc… forcing yourself to play content you dont enjoy to be the best is ultimately counterproductive. If you get bored and quite, will that increase or decrease the overall team efficiency? 1 person quitting is equivalent to 10 players going from exotic to full ascended after all.

I understand you may not subscribe to my way of thinking and thats fine but I hope it gives you something to think about at least.

hellsmachine.4085:

I believe there are many different ways to keep a player hooked, be it new skills, new maps, new PvP modes, new weapon types etc. These are just a few examples All it takes is some creativity and for some one to think outside of the box.

Progression doesn’t have to be vertical. And if you’re not interested in an MMORPG without it. That’s fine because I know that many people are.

Hopefully a developer somewhere is reading this right now and starts to make a new game all together as I believe it’s too late for GW2.

This I do agree with. They wanted to expand the game regularly after launch and the first two patches heralded such additions, but with the onset of the living story permanent additions became scarce. At the same time their heralded cosmetics focus was transfered into the gem store. Game over man.

fellyn.5083:

I’m confused how ascended gear has ruined the game for you.

Outside of extreme high level fractals there isn’t a single reason for why you’d need to have it.

Then you don’t understand what vertical progression is. When Anet added it they said it would be a low power curve. Do you know what a graphical ascending curve represents? It is a positive relationship between time and the power level of the game. That is, as time progresses the power level of the game rises.

In the first year we have seen about 10% increase in the power level. Let’s assume that number describes the slope of the curve. If I were to somehow cause your body weight to increase 10% per year, year over year, do you think it will have no impact on your physique? Might you at some point have to hop on the treadmill to recover your desired body weight. This is what VP does when it increases the power level of the game. If forces players onto a treadmill to keep up.

The people who are upset with VP understand this and don’t want to ride a treadmill that actually goes nowhere. Grinders here will support VP. Usually, those are the only sides in the debate. But, here, we have a third group that claim vertical progression is not actually vertical progression.

thaooo.5320:

Isslair.4908:

All the hardcore WvW people I know got their ascended sets very quickly and just moved on to play the game.

You’re obviously lying, or are confusing pve players with wvw players. The hard core wvw players I’m surrounded with do not have a full set of armour, or even close to a full set of armour.

Isslair.4908:

Ascended gear has no impact on core WvW playerbase.

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild. And that’s just one hypothetical. Thank you for understanding.

Problem here is the GvG or open field fight you’re refering to have no impact on WvW at best, a negative on at worst. Those people are not playing WvW they’re doing their own thing. How many points is your WvW going to gain if your guild wins a GvG battle? So yes ascended gear would definitely play a role in your scenario but your scenario is not WvW.

Mastruq.2463:

hellsmachine.4085:

I believe there are many different ways to keep a player hooked, be it new skills, new maps, new PvP modes, new weapon types etc. These are just a few examples All it takes is some creativity and for some one to think outside of the box.

Progression doesn’t have to be vertical. And if you’re not interested in an MMORPG without it. That’s fine because I know that many people are.

Hopefully a developer somewhere is reading this right now and starts to make a new game all together as I believe it’s too late for GW2.

This I do agree with. They wanted to expand the game regularly after launch and the first two patches heralded such additions, but with the onset of the living story permanent additions became scarce. At the same time their heralded cosmetics focus was transfered into the gem store. Game over man.

except for one or two instances at most every single release had permanent stuff with it.

Raine.1394:

fellyn.5083:

I’m confused how ascended gear has ruined the game for you.

Outside of extreme high level fractals there isn’t a single reason for why you’d need to have it.

Then you don’t understand what vertical progression is. When Anet added it they said it would be a low power curve. Do you know what a graphical ascending curve represents? It is a positive relationship between time and the power level of the game. That is, as time progresses the power level of the game rises.

In the first year we have seen about 10% increase in the power level. Let’s assume that number describes the slope of the curve. If I were to somehow cause your body weight to increase 10% per year, year over year, do you think it will have no impact on your physique? Might you at some point have to hop on the treadmill to recover your desired body weight. This is what VP does when it increases the power level of the game. If forces players onto a treadmill to keep up.

The people who are upset with VP understand this and don’t want to ride a treadmill that actually goes nowhere. Grinders here will support VP. Usually, those are the only sides in the debate. But, here, we have a third group that claim vertical progression is not actually vertical progression.

of course this is working on the premise that we’re going to get a new 10% tier every year which they said multiple times now is not going to happen.

Ascended should have been same as exotic stats but swappable stats.
That would have make them worth grinding, even multiple sets for skin addicts, without affecting the game at all.

I don’t mind VP to an extent. After all, all games do have it. It just depends on how steep and how grindy it is. I do; however, prefer having an ending point for VP. This way when I know that when I finally get there, it’s done and over with. I can be proud of getting to that peak, everything after is gravy.

I do not like having VP that locks content behind gear gates. I do not like VP that simply doesn’t stop. I also do not like VP that is so blatant in it’s different tiers that is the deciding factor in a pvp match up, over skill. (Yes, WoW, I am glaring in your general direction)

Skill > Time was once the GW motto, though sometimes it does not feel like it still is.

While I did not want another gear tier personally, I don’t hate it either. It’s just one more long term goal. It’s not locking me out of anything, so I can tolerate it.

yayuuu.9420:

If you want to know my opinion about ascended – I have left the game a month after release. I was able to get lvl 80 and full exotic armor in less than one month, then I did almost all of the dungeons and for another week I had no motication to do anything in the game. Now I came back partially with introduction of ascended weapon crafting and now I’m playing GW2 as my main MMORPG since they added asdended armor craft. Ascended brought me back to the game. I fully enjoy progression, it gives me a reason to play, to get my equipment maxed.

You have mentioned about games without vertical progression, like LOL, DOTA, TF2 – none of them is a MMORPG. It’s a completly different game, so comparing them to GW2 is not good.

On the other hand, GW1 was more like a singleplayer game for me. I have finished campaigns and left the game for few months, then I turned it on again, created a new character, finished campaigns and left it again, for good. There was no reason for me to do anything else in the game than story. It was a solid game, but I would compare it to games like Heretic 2, Drakan or Tomb Raider, just complete missions and game over.

The bolded part. This is how the game was marketed, and how it was supposed to be. The entire game is end-game.

Introducing gear grind – and yes, it’s grind, and obligatory if you want BiS gear, is what made me essentially stop playing.

Were I to re-download and log into GW today, my characters would all still have the BiS gear that I got on them back in 2006. For someone in GW2, if you’ve been away for a while, you’re going to find that your fully geared character is no longer fully geared – they’re not wearing BiS. Despite over five years of advertising that there would be no vertical progression for stats on gear.

So, I’m polar opposite from you – ascended is the nail that killed it for me.

Galen Grey.4709:

Raine.1394:

fellyn.5083:

I’m confused how ascended gear has ruined the game for you.

Outside of extreme high level fractals there isn’t a single reason for why you’d need to have it.

Then you don’t understand what vertical progression is. When Anet added it they said it would be a low power curve. Do you know what a graphical ascending curve represents? It is a positive relationship between time and the power level of the game. That is, as time progresses the power level of the game rises.

In the first year we have seen about 10% increase in the power level. Let’s assume that number describes the slope of the curve. If I were to somehow cause your body weight to increase 10% per year, year over year, do you think it will have no impact on your physique? Might you at some point have to hop on the treadmill to recover your desired body weight. This is what VP does when it increases the power level of the game. If forces players onto a treadmill to keep up.

The people who are upset with VP understand this and don’t want to ride a treadmill that actually goes nowhere. Grinders here will support VP. Usually, those are the only sides in the debate. But, here, we have a third group that claim vertical progression is not actually vertical progression.

of course this is working on the premise that we’re going to get a new 10% tier every year which they said multiple times now is not going to happen.

No, it is working on the premise that vertical progression is vertical progression, a fairly safe assumption. And, they said specifically that there would be VP with a low power curve going forward. The quote from Chris W: “we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.” Can you give me a quote where they say they have changed their mind on VP and are going to remove it?

Darnacus.5961:

Ascended should have been same as exotic stats but swappable stats.
That would have make them worth grinding, even multiple sets for skin addicts, without affecting the game at all.

No ascended should have been the same as exotics only with the infusion slot for agony added. Nothing more, nothing less. Same acquisition as exotics, slightly more pricey, the real grind should have been for the agony infusions to add to it.

thaooo.5320:

GvG/scrim/open field fight between a fully ascended guild, versus a fully exotic guild. And that’s just one hypothetical. Thank you for understanding.

Except that everyone has ascended trinkets since they’re time gated. So that comes down to armor/weapons. 8 pieces of gear at most, with less than 5% damage boost (someone can do the math for Soldiers/Clerics/Dire gear, pretty sure it’s like 2-3% difference). I’m sorry, but just… no. Tactics, composition and skill will prevail regardless of your gear in that situation.

Reverence.6915:

Tactics, composition and skill will prevail regardless of your gear in that situation.

There have been times (multiple) when I was roaming, and had people on an entirely empty bar of health, only to get one of their defensive skills off then manage to heal or stealth/run away. Had I had ANY amount of extra stats, or had he had a FEW less defensive stat bonuses from his gear (tough, vit, heal, armour), he would of been downed.

These kinds of games are all about numbers, claiming that having more numbers than another player has no bearing on the game is ignorant. Ascended super grind alt killing tier is a problem in the game.

Most have already went back to WoW or whatever game they came from before trying GW2. GW2 is now damaged beyond repair to please a crowd that already went back to their go-to MMO.

I’m so glad Anet decided to cave in and try to cater to these people who weren’t here to stay anyway. But hey, at least they left fans of GW1 out in the dust.

Was it worth it?

I pretty much quit the game since i spent all my currency buying ascended accessories for my ranger main (yes, i was that dumb), figured i would have to go through all that again to equip a new main and then i saw the requirements to create ONE ascended weapon for a ONE build, and i stopped playing completely.

I’m a casual player, since that’s all real life allows, i can’t spend the time to get on an even level with other people in WvW, and i absolutely will not be cannon fodder.

Now i only very occasionally log in to say hi to the people in the guild and gain a level on a low level char.

Ascended gear 100% ruined the game for me.

Aioros.4862:

I pretty much quit the game since i spent all my currency buying ascended accessories for my ranger main (yes, i was that dumb), figured i would have to go through all that again to equip a new main and then i saw the requirements to create ONE ascended weapon for a ONE build, and i stopped playing completely.

I’m a casual player, since that’s all real life allows, i can’t spend the time to get on an even level with other people in WvW, and i absolutely will not be cannon fodder.

Now i only very occasionally log in to say hi to the people in the guild and gain a level on a low level char.

Ascended gear 100% ruined the game for me.

Why aim for ascended at all then? You don’t need it to be competitive. I play WvW daily, either zerging or roaming, all in exotic armor and weapons with ascended trinkets being the only ascended gear I have (amulet + rings).

Reverence.6915:

Why aim for ascended at all then? You don’t need it to be competitive. I play WvW daily, either zerging or roaming, all in exotic armor and weapons with ascended trinkets being the only ascended gear I have (amulet + rings).

I feel the opposite, you absolutely do need it to be competitive (the weapon being the worst offender). How can a stat advantage not be needed? In any situation.

If people didn’t think the stat advantage would matter, they would not have begged and begged for it and would have settled for horizontal progression.

Aioros.4862:

Reverence.6915:

Why aim for ascended at all then? You don’t need it to be competitive. I play WvW daily, either zerging or roaming, all in exotic armor and weapons with ascended trinkets being the only ascended gear I have (amulet + rings).

I feel the opposite, you absolutely do need it to be competitive. How can a stat advantage not be needed? In any situation.

Because the stat advantage is absolutely miniscule in a zerg. It’s slightly more pronounced in a 1v1 situation where, as an above poster mentioned, someone can get away with barely any hp due to a slight stat difference. In a group however, that difference is masked by composition (just don’t bring a ranger to WvW) and commander skill.

Ascended gives single digit bonuses over exotic over each stat in each piece of gear. Realistically, there are 8 pieces of gear (armor + main hand + offhand weapon) that will make the difference. The statistical difference is less than the food buffs you use in WvW. If you feel like cannon fodder over that difference, I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s your player skill that is lacking, not your gear.

Edit for your edit: the way I see it, ascended isn’t vertical progression in the traditional sense. You keep looking at this situation from the perspective of traditional MMOs. Player skill matters so much more in GW2’s case.

I edited my post a lot above.

Plus, you should know that i’m a lot biased against ascended gear, you can say it’s 0.00001% difference, it’s not going to change my mind. Plus you forgot to mention infusion slots and how vertical progression will probably follow with better infusions.

I came to GW2 in beta knowing this would not happen, and 3 months later they take my candy away. Fiends! :’(

Edit for your edit: the way I see it, ascended isn’t vertical progression in the traditional sense. You keep looking at this situation from the perspective of traditional MMOs. Player skill matters so much more in GW2’s case.

I still don’t see it your way, if hypothetically you’re as good as the other guy/zerg, you will lose because of gear.

I’m not a good pvp player, never was. But even so, i’m ok by losing because i sucked compared to the other guy, but over a stat difference, no thanks, been there, done that (in Wow), this is not the game for me anymore (and even WoW made an effort to level the pvp playing field, and i believe the grind there, for pvp gear, is child’s play compared to this).

Aioros.4862:

I edited my post a lot above.

Plus, you should know that i’m a lot biased against ascended gear, you can say it’s 0.00001% difference, it’s not going to change my mind. Plus you forgot to mention infusion slots and how vertical progression will probably follow with better infusions.

I came to GW2 in beta knowing this would not happen, and 3 months later they take my candy away. Fiends! :’(

It’s a pity you take this small improvement for personal character progression and ruin the entire GW2 experience for yourself, especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary. If you are the kind chasing after numbers as a casual gamer, this game isn’t for you.

Reverence.6915:

It’s a pity you take this small improvement for personal character progression and ruin the entire GW2 experience for yourself, especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary. If you are the kind chasing after numbers as a casual gamer, this game isn’t for you.

I’m not, that’s why i came here, and it became like you said “not the game for me”.

Galen Grey.4709:

Mastruq.2463:

hellsmachine.4085:

I believe there are many different ways to keep a player hooked, be it new skills, new maps, new PvP modes, new weapon types etc. These are just a few examples All it takes is some creativity and for some one to think outside of the box.

Progression doesn’t have to be vertical. And if you’re not interested in an MMORPG without it. That’s fine because I know that many people are.

Hopefully a developer somewhere is reading this right now and starts to make a new game all together as I believe it’s too late for GW2.

This I do agree with. They wanted to expand the game regularly after launch and the first two patches heralded such additions, but with the onset of the living story permanent additions became scarce. At the same time their heralded cosmetics focus was transfered into the gem store. Game over man.

except for one or two instances at most every single release had permanent stuff with it.

Yea of course, a token event for the temporary content that stays afterwards – I’m not going to argue semantics about it but if you feel that the LS patches are the same magnitude in permanent additions that came with the first halloween then we just have different opinions and expectations. They added a ton of stuff that was unrelated to that holiday content with the halloween ’12 patch, and the lost shores patch added an entire new zone (albeit unfinished) alongside a big event. Both also still had interesting scavenging hunts/riddles in their content instead of simply clicking a torch/pinata 100×. This is off-topic to the vertical progression whine though, so lets drop it or continue in another thread.

To go back on-topic, I said as much a year ago but as long as there is no new tier after ascended I’m absolutely fine with it and indeed am very happy they added it. I say this with a mindset that likes having a longterm goal in the background that I slowly work towards, similar to the legendary. A choice of different goals is better then just a few, so I’m fine with these additions. In the same vein I am looking forward to more legendaries.

If they DO add a new tier this fall then I’m no longer happy with the situation, but for now I consider this one-time new tier as them admitting that they royally screwed up their calculations about how quickly players will get each exotic piece. Getting exotics+ runes is much faster then getting the same in GW1 imo, which they were probably shooting for in the first place. Ascended fixed that (whether it overcompensated is opinion, imo it doesnt), but it’s also such a little difference that any complaints outside of the WvW elite tryhards (which have a point, however slightly) trigger a lukewarm “meh” from me.

Everyone I know who were excited and boasting about Ascended gear were people who already had thousands of gold and mats. Now these people barely log in after finishing it, a few log in, annoy everyone around them in map chat and log out. The only two people I know who made ascended and still play are officers in my guild and they love GW not the grind, they just made the stuff because they been playing for so long.

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

Gene Archer.8560:

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

Ascended isn’t necessary to complete content. It’s there for people who are after progression.

Why hate on that?

fellyn.5083:

I’m confused how ascended gear has ruined the game for you.

Outside of extreme high level fractals there isn’t a single reason for why you’d need to have it.

This.

Gene Archer.8560:

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

I would support this.

Reverence.6915:

Gene Archer.8560:

Reverence.6915:

especially when it’s absolutely unnecessary.

Great, so since Ascended is so unnecessary, we can get rid of it.

Problem solved.

Ascended isn’t necessary to complete content. It’s there for people who are after progression.

Why hate on that?

Because the moment those people finish, they’ll want the next tier of gear. They’ll also want content based around the power of said gear. At which point the treadmill begins and Ascended and future gear tiers become mandatory in order to complete content.

And if those people wanted vertical progression, then why did they come to a game that said time and again during the design phase that it wasn’t going to have vertical progression, but horizontal progression.

We were fine with just exotic. We didn’t need Ascended. We didn’t need difficult to get armor. We didn’t need this grind.

Gene Archer.8560:

We were fine with just exotic.

/Agree

We didn’t need Ascended.

/Agree

We didn’t need difficult to get armor.

Not entirely true. We wanted difficult to get gear, but we wanted it to be cosmetic only. Difficulty is part of the appeal for hunting super rare skins. However, because it’s cosmetic is totally optional.

We didn’t need this grind.

Also, not entirely true, but again goes back to the cosmetic thing. Its an optional thing, that a person chooses to do because they want that particular skin, and that by no means should be removed or downplayed.

Ascended sort of kicks this in the teeth, since many will feel it is a necessity for any number of reasons.

Xenon.4537:

fellyn.5083:

I’m confused how ascended gear has ruined the game for you.

Outside of extreme high level fractals there isn’t a single reason for why you’d need to have it.

This.

If ascended would not enter wvw that statement would be true, but it does.

Gene Archer.8560:

We were fine with just exotic. We didn’t need Ascended. We didn’t need difficult to get armor. We didn’t need this grind.

If that were true, then why do you think the people who watch the whole of the player base every single second suddenly scrambled to implement what is indeed a massive gear grind?

Your belief that you are a proud member of the majority-demographic aside, there are two options:

A) ArenaNet is staffed entirely by morons who wanted to make as much work for themselves as they did for the players, right before they put themselves out on the street.

B) They saw a substantial number of players gear up to full exotic within weeks of launch… and then those players never logged in again.

As amusing as saying “It must be A” might be, they’re not actually intent on wiping out their own source of income. NOBODY spends as much time and effort designing a system like this as was expended without a clear and present NEED.

Nike.2631:

If that were true, then why do you think the people who watch the whole of the player base every single second suddenly scrambled to implement what is indeed a massive gear grind?

If i take as a sample everyone i knew who wanted ascended, they failed miserably, because every single one of those people left the game long ago.

Shadow Blade.1324:

fellyn.5083:

No I think I’m okay. It’s not up to you who gets to post in this thread.

And posting some nonsense article isn’t a valid answer to how ascended gear has ruined the game for you because the reasons in that article have largely not happened.

not sure if trolling or genuinely oblivious

you just have to look at the Spvp changes

replacing the currency you earn through playing the game with the one you buy with your credit card

its all about monetization now and ascended is the primary tool to keep people grinding or pay anet to get gold to skip the tedium.

What spvp changes? You mean removing glory? I’m not sure what you’re saying there and what that has to do with ascended armor.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Not entirely true. We wanted difficult to get gear, but we wanted it to be cosmetic only. Difficulty is part of the appeal for hunting super rare skins. However, because it’s cosmetic is totally optional.

Agreed. I should have been clearer. We didn’t need difficult to get stats. Unfortunately, even in this game, I tend to only see armor as stats and not cosmetics because, frankly…there aren’t a lot of cosmetics =/

Also, not entirely true, but again goes back to the cosmetic thing. Its an optional thing, that a person chooses to do because they want that particular skin, and that by no means should be removed or downplayed. .

My bad again. Once again, referring to stats.

Ascended sort of kicks this in the teeth, since many will feel it is a necessity for any number of reasons.

Indeedilydoo

hellsmachine.4085:

I’m curious to know if you, the people that asked for vertical progression/gear grind/carrot on a stick, are happy with Ascended gear being added to the game. Is this what you were after? Are you now satisfied? Or are you disappointed? Are you now craving the next level of grind/progression/carrot chasing? Or have you already returned to whatever game it is you came from?

I’d really like to know if this was really worth damaging the game for me and many others.

Those that say Vertical Progression is necessary for a games longevity, then how do you explain successful games such as LoL, DOTA 2, GW1, DAY Z and TF2 (currently 10 x more popular than Planteside 2, even after over 6 years.) all thriving with little to no vertical progression?

Great question OP. As someone who still only uses Ascended Jewlery and back pieces for the most part I too wonder this same thing.

I have over 40 Ascended globs and 40 Ascended mithril but I have yet to get my tailoring past 438. I just hate crafting in this game and I feel forced to do it for basically a 1% stat gain.

Nothing in the game is better because of Ascended gear.

If however if was acquired by overcoming new challenges (like 10 man raids), then yes, I’d actually like it.