Guild Wars 2

So the community has been quite enraged over the addition of ascended gear to the game.

Let me start by saying I despise grind. I got all my exotics through crafting from materials I collected playing the game or bought with gold I earned playing the game the way I liked. Absolutely no tiring form of grind, though arguably I did still grind for my gear. Point is, I enjoyed playing the game up to that point.

Lost Shores patch hits, I simply continue playing the game the way I had been, maybe with the exception of exploring a fresh new area (not that great, but better than nothing). I looked into ascended gear and saw that I was still very far off from getting it, so I ignored it.

My enjoyment remains the same. It is as if Ascended gear has never been added to the game. My power level relative to all PvE content remains the same, ankittenep enjoying the game the same as I did before, currently working on going through all the dungeon paths. For fun. That’s it. I still do stuff I find fun, and I didn’t get a single bit less effective at doing it because Ascended got added. Some people got slightly better and if for them grinding for that gear is fun, so be it, I’m glad for them.

The point some people are missing is that if you don’t like the idea of grinding for Ascended gear you can still play just as effectively as before with your regular gear.

People who like grinding for better stats get new gameplay. People who like me despise grinding can still keep enjoying the game as they did before. Am I missing something?

I think some people are very attached to the concept of no grinding for anything whatsoever and I can see their point. I personally think that is too extreme a position to take. I dont think its wrong to reward people who dedicate a large portion of their time to playing the game with very minimal stat increases such as ascended gear. It doesn’t bother me at all that I can’t get it, because its addition doesn’t actually represent a power decrease or enjoyment decrease for me.

Additionally if they add other ways of getting that gear that I find enjoyable, it has the potential to be very cool.

My 2c, if it requires “work” and I can’t be bothered doing it then I won’t do it… that’s how I view ascended gear.

When I hit 80, I bought a full set of lvl80 greens.

Previously I purchased blues or used greens I picked up.

Now saving up money slowly to play the TP a bit.

I seem to do fine and haven’t received any complaints in dungeons and so forth. I did a bit of fractals but the effort to get a full group puts me off so I’m doing other stuff. As for WvW, I was a staff ele so I’m used to getting killed in fights :P Now I’m D/D but havent visited WvW since then.

I’m mature enough to not be bothered that somewhere out there people have better stats than me or have stuff I dont have.

I do want Ascended gear. No, I don’t need it, but I do want it. Why? Because when I reach a goal (like finishing a zone) there is a feeling of accomplishment that is satisfying. It makes the fun of trying to reach the goal even more fun. I’m quite happy to do random stuff just for fun, although I prefer some aspects of game play over others. It’s just a nice little add-on to get pixelated rewards as well.

Might as well play nude.
White is only slightly better than without armor anyway.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I do want Ascended gear. No, I don’t need it, but I do want it. Why? Because when I reach a goal (like finishing a zone) there is a feeling of accomplishment that is satisfying. It makes the fun of trying to reach the goal even more fun. I’m quite happy to do random stuff just for fun, although I prefer some aspects of game play over others. It’s just a nice little add-on to get pixelated rewards as well.

Exactly why I want to get world completion. It is fun, feels satisfying and gives an awesome reward. Does everyone need to do it in order to enjoy the game? Absolutely not. BUt if you do you get a cool, non-essential reward that makes you feel awesome and doesn’t make everyone else feel bad. Much like the minimal increase in stats Ascended gear gives, except I personally loathe grinding, and Ascended is a reward for grind. That’s ok with me.

I think people might be more worried about the future because what is happening right now and not what is happening right at this moment. The stats on gear will creep up in power as more pieces of ascended gear get added, unless how gear is distributed changes. Power creep is one of the most common issues within the MMORPG genre. There are multiple downsides to it. Two examples of symptoms of power creep is gated content and dividing players into tiers. There are more problems with power creep, but those two are usually the worst for when it comes to playing with others in an online game. I’ll post a video on power creep below.

I’m currently not actually playing GW2 because I’m waiting to see if the gear further creeps. I heard that the developers are trying to come up with more ways to distribute ascended gear, but actions speak louder than words, so I’m peeking at the forums once in awhile to see what ArenaNet does.

Haishao.6851:

Might as well play nude.
White is only slightly better than without armor anyway.

Thats uncalled for. While you can’t effectively play the game nude, the game gives you very easy access to better gear. Masterwork costs like half a gold for a full set and rares cost like 2 and a few gold. The game gives this to players without much grind and this allows for effectively playing the game and having fun doing it (I completed the entirety of Orr in green non-80 gear). If you play a bit more you’ll eventually be able to afford Exotics. NOt much grind required, just a semi-decent time of gameplay.

when i log in i dont care about ascended gear because i dont even know how to get it, aside fractals apparently hoping for a drop from a chest.

if I remember the increase in stats without the infusions was about 7%, magic find about 40-60%.

With stones I can’t say, but over all that is not a “little” bump in stats.

You don’t care because you don’t understand the issues at hand. There are resources on the net that will bring you up to speed. Google “game design” +"power creep" to get started. Vertical progression, power creep, gear grind, whatever you want to call it will affect, negatively, everyone playing the game.

If you are a competitive player, then the grind for stats is absolutely terrible. There is no debate here.

Yeah I was kind of surprised when I heard about another gear tier being added. I get it, I really do, I just hope they don’t go down a road they can’t turn back on. Game is under 3 months old and already we’re getting higher gear tiers.

I just hope we don’t see a trend and having this game turn into a gear grindfest. That’s why I quit WoW – I don’t want to do all that over again in GW2.

I keep doing this, and will keep doing this, but let me point you over to GW1 – they had several rarities:
White: common items without any upgrades or modifiers.
Blue: common items with low-range modifications.
Purple: uncommon items with mid-range upgrades.
Gold: rare items with maximum or near-max improvements.
Green: unique items; with very few exceptions, these have perfect stats and modifiers and they drop from dungeon chests, bosses, or as a special reward.

Each piece of gear at any rarity had a stat plateu. No sword could ever be more than 15-22 damage, for example. But even at the end game stuff in GW1, the best items (in appearance and otherwise) were always rares that you got from dungeons or other feats.

I’d love to go more in-depth on the system that loot had in GW1 but that’d take forever. Basically long story short, all the top end items – be it unique, rare, uncommon, whatever – all had the same stats and allowed for customization (minus uniques) but were always the best you could have.

I will be very put off if they continue adding gear tiers every couple of months and will not be arsed to farm new gear every 3 months. I just won’t bother at that point.

My $0.02

Raine.1394:

You don’t care because you don’t understand the issues at hand. There are resources on the net that will bring you up to speed. Google “game design” +"power creep" to get started. Vertical progression, power creep, gear grind, whatever you want to call it will affect, negatively, everyone playing the game.

Also this, and I really do hope they don’t get in the habit of adding more gear tiers for the sake of doing it. Once again, like I said in my previous post, I would be very put off of this game if every time I logged in I felt “well kitten I’m behind in gear, gotta go grind”.

I don’t care about ascended gear, or should i say I don’t care about becoming a grind monkey to achieve it.

What I do care about is the future of the game I have waited for a few years for and the impact ascended gear is having on it.
Forget all the arguments about how much of a stat increase there is, the fact is, this is having an impact on other aspects of the game as a whole, whether you personally experiencing now or not, because eventually you will.

The community is fractured and segregated due to it. I haven’t experienced an overflow anywhere other than LA since Lost Shores, unlike getting overflow on a daily basis prior to ascended being introduced in majority of places i went.

I, like some didn’t rush through content in the first week and complete everything then whined about there being nothing to do, which now Anet seem to be appeasing to this playerbase. Meaning I and other casual players face a lot of empty zones, which ok most are soloable, but when you take into consideration that some people cannot even get their “personal story” finished because there is noone around to do the DE’s to get Arah opened, noone around that is interested in Arah it seems, so noone around to get a group going for the story mode.

This is just a small example of the impact occuring, and its hasn’t even been 2 weeks since FotM and ascended was introduced.

So no, I don’t care about ascended gear as such, I care about the detrimental effect its having on aspects of the game and where this may lead in respects to the future success of the game.

I however have faith in Anet (based on the good stuff they did in GW1, but this won’t hold forever), so I am hoping they are aware of the different impacts and will come up with some solution to keep everyone happy.

Snix Spoonman.3871:

I don’t care about ascended gear, or should i say I don’t care about becoming a grind monkey to achieve it.

What I do care about is the future of the game I have waited for a few years for and the impact ascended gear is having on it.
Forget all the arguments about how much of a stat increase there is, the fact is, this is having an impact on other aspects of the game as a whole, whether you personally experiencing now or not, because eventually you will.

The community is fractured and segregated due to it. I haven’t experienced an overflow anywhere other than LA since Lost Shores, unlike getting overflow on a daily basis prior to ascended being introduced in majority of places i went.

I, like some didn’t rush through content in the first week and complete everything then whined about there being nothing to do, which now Anet seem to be appeasing to this playerbase. Meaning I and other casual players face a lot of empty zones, which ok most are soloable, but when you take into consideration that some people cannot even get their “personal story” finished because there is noone around to do the DE’s to get Arah opened, noone around that is interested in Arah it seems, so noone around to get a group going for the story mode.

This is just a small example of the impact occuring, and its hasn’t even been 2 weeks since FotM and ascended was introduced.

So no, I don’t care about ascended gear as such, I care about the detrimental effect its having on aspects of the game and where this may lead in respects to the future success of the game.

I however have faith in Anet (based on the good stuff they did in GW1, but this won’t hold forever), so I am hoping they are aware of the different impacts and will come up with some solution to keep everyone happy.

Well spoken. I agree with you, it does feel like the only players in Anet’s sights are the ones that clear everything the second it comes out and then cry for more. I seriously see people with an ascended item in each of the currently available slots already. People that have completed Fractal level 50 and higher.

They sit in LA all day complaining how there’s nothing to do and that the game sucks and scream for more content or they’re uninstalling. I agree, it’s a huge problem, and I agree most will shrug it off until it comes back later in a way that hurts everybody.

Quench.7091:

I think people might be more worried about the future because what is happening right now and not what is happening right at this moment. The stats on gear will creep up in power as more pieces of ascended gear get added, unless how gear is distributed changes. Power creep is one of the most common issues within the MMORPG genre. There are multiple downsides to it. Two examples of symptoms of power creep is gated content and dividing players into tiers. There are more problems with power creep, but those two are usually the worst for when it comes to playing with others in an online game. I’ll post a video on power creep below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

I’m currently not actually playing GW2 because I’m waiting to see if the gear further creeps. I heard that the developers are trying to come up with more ways to distribute ascended gear, but actions speak louder than words, so I’m peeking at the forums once in awhile to see what ArenaNet does.

That was a great video.

Probably my number one favorite thing in GW 1 was simply just collecting the tons and tons of skills that game offered.

Anyone remember the PVXWiki and the insane amount of different builds to try?

Anyone remember the PVXWiki and the insane amount of different builds to try?

I just checked, i still have it as a bookmark, it was a heavily used site for me.

I agree with you guys 100%. My only beef with fractals are they are making the other maps empty, hopefully that gets fixed in the next update.

Well the prices of everything used for gear continue to climb, and a large segment of the population is effectively not playing with you, and some people with similar attitudes as you have quit. So, I wouldn’t say you were unaffected…

My view on this is the following:

If they accept the idea of adding better gear, they might add even better gear in the future, eventually forcing me to acquire said gear to remain competitive in WvW, be able to participate in some of the future content.

And if the gear is not needed for whatever content they will add, why put it there in the first place.

Why implement better gear if there is no need for it? Which makes me think there will be need for it one day. (The most obvious being WvW, once the full ascended set is live / any other tier that might come late)

illgot.1056:

if I remember the increase in stats without the infusions was about 7%, magic find about 40-60%.

With stones I can’t say, but over all that is not a “little” bump in stats.

It is in the grand scheme of things.

<The following math is incorrect because I’m an idiot: Please see this post. Point still stands, though>

[Comparing the now pretty well-known Yakkington’s Ring vs Some Other Exotic Ring gives us base increases in three stats: +15 for Power and Precision from Exotic to Ascended and +3% Magic Find from Exotic to Ascended. That’s a 28% increase for the first two stats and a 48% increase for the second. I don’t personally consider Magic Find to be comparable to Power and Precision increases, because it’s not a stat that directly affects a character’s ability in battle, but a secondary thing with a different kind of value.

However, a level 80 Engineer (my class) has a base Power and Precision of 916. Let’s presume I’m wearing nothing but one of these the relevant rings – that’s an increase from 969 to 984: 1.54%. Presuming that both stats support your playstyle and that you’ve gone all out and are wearing two of them, that’s an increase of 6.16% comparing the Exotic ring above to Yakkington’s. Magic Find is tougher to measure, as I’ve mentioned, and doesn’t directly correlate to a character’s longevity in battles beside in a fairly nebulous way based on additional factors.

Adding in actually ensuring that my character has a viable build gives me a base Power and Precision of 1216 each. A +15 increase from Exotic to Ascended – 1269 vs 1284 for each stat – that’s an increase of 1.18%. Presuming both stats support the build and that I have two of them – that’s an increase of 4.72%.]

Actually giving my guy some equipment besides the above two rings further decreases the impact that having Yakkington’s over the Exotic has.

And so, as far as these rough numbers show us (and I’m willing to accept that I may not be considering the most accurate or representative calculations if someone can show me their own), the actual impact that having Yakkington’s over the above Exotic is fairly negligible based on raw stats alone. Infusions might be significant and I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the most efficient builds, items available, etc, but I doubt they could add more to the weight than another few percentage points.

Otherwise, and presuming that these calculations are accurate and representative, I’m not going to tear my hair out over a <5% increase in the statistics of a single character. I’d rather save the time I’d need to get that increase and do something else.

[Edit: And while this increase will naturally become more weighty as more pieces of armour are added to the Tier, the time investment likely needed to acquire them will mean I just won’t bother]

Proxy’s math seems to be sound, and based on that I find myself forced to agree with him. However I’d like to put another reason on the table why I personally will not bother with Ascended gear. That being it seems to be geared more to the FotM dungeon than regular PvE play. I mostly do PvE play. I like map completion, running my daily achievement, and just doing events. I will applaud ANet for adding the dungeon, and it does seem to be very popular, but unless someone is doing that dungeon a lot there doesn’t seem to be any reason for getting Ascended gear. Since I leave the dungeon alone, I don’t need to worry about the gear. That’s my honest opinion.

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

having in mind that you don’t pay monthly, it’s not actually impacting the company, now thinking about the player base I would actually love to see less whinnies and more content, because I’m enjoying it, so essentially it’s all good.

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

Ah, good. Something to work with. Prior warning – this is long.

- Provided that X-Fire is a trustworthy source – I’m not familiar, and for the sake of the following we’ll say the answer is ‘yes’ – there are a wide variety of reasons as to why the playerbase has apparently decreased over the past month. I’ll also presume, for sake of simplicity, that player hours directly correlate to the number of players in the game (as the playerbase could remain fairly stable but simply be playing less, or a smaller number of players playing more. I’d suggest the former, as it is more likely presuming the point below);

- GW2 does not provide everyone with limitless play. In fact, considering those who have likely left the game (not necessarily permanently) due to simply accomplishing that which they set out to do is likely to be a significant reason as to why the apparent playerbase has shrunk. 3 months is plenty of time to get a character to Level 80 and achieve additional goals. It’s also considered natural that, over the span of time following a game’s release, the initial figures for players in-game will decrease. Content is completed, people are distracted, the time set aside for a new game eaten up by responsibilities;

- Judging by the obvious pattern, we are currently in a mid-week lull. Based again on this pattern, this weekend is likely to see a spike of players – a ~25% increase has been fairly common throughout the past month, except for during the Lost Shores event. The average player number could therefore be considered partway between the base and the spike, but closer to the base. We are also in a week following the US Thanksgiving holiday, which could possibly mean that people are playing the game less and working harder to make up for work time lost (and coming up to the holiday season);

- The most interesting thing is that, according to this data, a fairly small number of players began to play less when Ascended gear was announced during the week preceding the Lost Shores event. There was a dip of about 1.5k, but that recovered by Thursday and into the next week. The weekend spike following the event was ~2k lower than the weekend preceding it, but that could be down to player fatigue or real-life issues following investment of time into the event itself;

- I can’t quite see this nice graph beyond a month’s worth of data, but from this alone, we can surmise that the number of hours people are putting into the game has decreased by ~40% over the past month. But, crucially, we don’t know why. The hypothesis that Ascended gear and Lost Shores caused this is not fully supported by the data – Ascended gear was announced on the 13th November, by which point ~5k of the ~8k player hours decrease had already happened;

- Importantly, however, much of this is conjecture based on the statistics provided. We still do not know why the player hours have decreased because we haven’t taken an adequate sampling. We may have the data, but not the reasons, and in this case it is the reasons that matter. It is not surprising that people are playing less. It is valuable, however, to know why.

I don’t know if there are records of this data available on the website beyond the past month, or whether records of this current data will also be accessible. It may be worthwhile tracking things over time and drawing your own conclusions.

But presuming that correlation equals causation likely won’t get you very far.

proxy.7963:

It is in the grand scheme of things.

Comparing the now pretty well-known Yakkington’s Ring vs Some Other Exotic Ring

This ring is a bad example. The major stat is kind of meaningless and the power is a minor stat. This choice softens the visible stat increase. Can we say ANet choose this in particular for that or is that an honest “mistake” ?

If you do some more meaningful comparison, you have http://www.gw2db.com/items/71366-red-ring-of-death vs Ruby Orichalcum ring.

The first got 104 total Power, the second got 92. That’s more than 12% increase in power for a ring. A more careful analysis of each stat weight per item type should be able to predict exactly how much power will increase in full ascended but it’s a lot more than what you say.

Alright, I’ve just realised that the difference between the linked-to Yakkington’s vs Exotic is +5 per stat, not +15. Serves me right trying this while eating – I’m an idiot. This further decreases the gap between the two pieces of gear significantly:

- 63 Power/Precision to 68 – increase of ~8% each, 16% in total, 32% for two rings;
- Stick two rings on 916 base stats: 979 to 984 × 2: 1% increase;
- Stick two rings on 1216 base stats: 1279 to 1284 × 2: 0.8% increase.

stof.9341:

proxy.7963:

It is in the grand scheme of things.

Comparing the now pretty well-known Yakkington’s Ring vs Some Other Exotic Ring

This ring is a bad example. The major stat is kind of meaningless and the power is a minor stat. This choice softens the visible stat increase. Can we say ANet choose this in particular for that or is that an honest “mistake” ?

If you do some more meaningful comparison, you have http://www.gw2db.com/items/71366-red-ring-of-death vs Ruby Orichalcum ring.

The first got 104 total Power, the second got 92. That’s more than 12% increase in power for a ring. A more careful analysis of each stat weight per item type should be able to predict exactly how much power will increase in full ascended but it’s a lot more than what you say.

Alright, let’s break that down in the manner I did above.

104 total power, compared to the yellow Exotic pointed out above (let’s ignore, for the time being, that apparently people are fine with different items within the same Tier having fluctuating stats and that the comparison between Yakkington’s and Red Ring of Death shows that apparently there can even be Vertical Progression within a single Tier):

63 Power vs 104. That’s quite a lot, right? A 60% increase and 41 points in a single stat. And Precision is 63 vs 69 – a 9% increase. And we can argue that increasing Power has more direct benefit than increasing Precision, as Power helps everyone who hits things and Precision only really helps certain builds and when luck smiles on you. It’s worth keeping that in mind.

Putting that into my above character build, with 916 base stats in Power and Precision gives me relative increases of 979 vs 1020 for Power (4%) and 979 vs 985 for Precision (0.62%). Overall that’s an increase in character stats, from Exotic to Ascended, of 4.6%, times 2 for two rings, equals 9.2%. With 1216 base stats (as my previous post), those become 1279 vs 1320 Power (please note my previous total for the former was off by 10 points – always check your math!) with an increase of 3.2% and 1279 vs 1285 for Precision with an increase of 0.5%. In total, for two rings, that’s 7.4% increase based purely on the stats given by two rings. Heck, let’s remove Precision because it functions in a different way to Power, now that I’ve looked up that formulae – 6.4% for two Red Rings of Death.

As for the second statistic, whether you personally find Magic Find useful or not is really down to your play style. It’s too subjective to measure without some pretty intense breakdowns of player time vs item reward.

This is intended to put these apparently drastic differences into perspective. If people believe that a 6.4% increase is worth getting upset over, it’s their choice. But the sooner the community acknowledge that spending dozens of hours chasing after such a small stat increase is only worth it to those who care, the better we’ll all be. And that goes for those for, against and those who are neutral in the whole thing.

If you feel my math is inaccurate, please check it for errors. I’d happily adjust as necessary.

[Edit: It’s also worth pointing out that according to the formulae, the difference between the Exotics’s Precision bonus (63) and Yakkington’s (68 – choosing this for the higher Precision bonus) is negligible]

SleepingSloth.8340:

People who like grinding for better stats get new gameplay. People who like me despise grinding can still keep enjoying the game as they did before. Am I missing something?

Nope. You are not.

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

Yet another prediction of doom based on Xfire numbers. Accepting (generously) 27k players as the max on the graph shown, and 2,000,000 (from official announcements on sales by NCSoft), XFire players at peak represented no more than 1.35% of the total population. While those kinds of numbers might be statistically significant for Neilsen ratings, or political opinion polls, Xfire users do not represent a sufficiently random sample to attain statistical significance.

OK, the difference between Red Ring of Death and Ruby Ori Ring of the Berserker (to compare apples to apples) is 12 points in the major stat, 6 in the minor stat and 2% critical damage. So, people are saying that one Ascended item is not going to make a significant difference in effectiveness.

A different approach would be to compare Ascended —> Exotic vs. Exotic —> Rare.

Red Ring (104, 69, 8%) —> Ruby Ori Ring (92, 63, 6%)
Ruby Ori Ring (92, 63, 6%) —> Ruby Mithril Ring (80, 55, 5)

We see additions from Exotic to Ascended of 12, 6 and 2%, whereas from Rare to Exotic of 12, 8 and 1%. Looks not that different.

Now, eventually, those increases will be propagated across 14 different items (back plus 5 jewelry, 6 armor, and 2 weapons — with double handed weapons being very close to 2 weapons in stats). Sure, we don’t know what the exact numbers will be on the unrevealed pieces, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the comparison between Rare-Exo and Exo-Ascended remains similar. Are you really going to argue that people transitioning from full Rares to full Exotics did not notice a difference in effectiveness? I sure noticed one.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Are you really going to argue that people transitioning from full Rares to full Exotics did not notice a difference in effectiveness? I sure noticed one.

Of course. The fact that I one shot you with a backstab is purely skill. Ignore the gear.

IndigoSundown.5419:

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

Yet another prediction of doom based on Xfire numbers. Accepting (generously) 27k players as the max on the graph shown, and 2,000,000 (from official announcements on sales by NCSoft), XFire players at peak represented no more than 1.35% of the total population. While those kinds of numbers might be statistically significant for Neilsen ratings, or political opinion polls, Xfire users do not represent a sufficiently random sample to attain statistical significance.

I agree that the Xfire numbers do not represent doom, but something can be drawn from the trends. The hours played is on a steady decrease, which is to be expected of a game as the content gets older, but look at what happened on the 15th through the 18th. It jumped up pretty high. Now look at what happened after it. The trend continued its normal pace. Ascended gear and dungeon didn’t seem to attract those players into playing any more than they already were.

proxy.7963:

And so, as far as these rough numbers show us (and I’m willing to accept that I may not be considering the most accurate or representative calculations if someone can show me their own), the actual impact that having Yakkington’s over the above Exotic is fairly negligible based on raw stats alone. Infusions might be significant and I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the most efficient builds, items available, etc, but I doubt they could add more to the weight than another few percentage points.

Otherwise, and presuming that these calculations are accurate and representative, I’m not going to tear my hair out over a <5% increase in the statistics of a single character. I’d rather save the time I’d need to get that increase and do something else.

[Edit: And while this increase will naturally become more weighty as more pieces of armour are added to the Tier, the time investment likely needed to acquire them will mean I just won’t bother]

I always find posts by those who make this argument interesting. They always point to the change in power level as insignificant. Have you wondered why the devs would spend so much time developing and delivering insignificant game features? Ascended gear is a major product enhancement after all, and the best supporters can say about it is that it’s insignificant.

And, yes, you answered yourself in your edit. Little changes, over time, add up to very large changes. Let’s pull a number out of the hat and say the rings and back only represent a 5% increase in stats in their respective slots. Only three slots are impacted and the change in total power level will be small. However, when you have it fully implemented, 7 armor slots, 1 or 2 weapons, 5 jewelry, infusions, and of course sigils/runes will probably be affected at some point. The impact is huge versus the player before the grind in simple exotics.

I notice Anet asking the players to avoid slippery slope arguments when considering the Ascended gear. There is no need to resort to them actually, as we known full well the impact of Ascended gear fully implemented. And, with vertical progression now firmly ensconced in the design philosophy you can look forward to further, well, vertical progression which will be accomplished by further power creep. The major issue is the change in direction, not the degree to which they have gone down the road.

That youtube video sums it up nicely.

The current level 1 ascended gear may not be all that big a boost now but that doesn’t mean it won’t be later. I’ve given up on pve. Currently, I only play in pvp, but randomly sometimes do wvws. A couple months or years from now after having not done any fractals, will I still be viable in wvw or even in later dungeons? Probably not. I don’t like the feeling of being capped because the game designers exercised poor judgment and lied to us.

Some people like gear progression. Anet should’ve been smart enough to realize they can’t cater to everyone. They’ve chosen their stance.

I had been looking forward to this game to avoid the gear grind, and yet here it is. When they claim that the system should’ve been in place at the beginning, that makes me sad, and I wish I didn’t spend the money on it. I’m better off playing Angry Birds.

To Anet adding Ascended gear was a bugfix in a way. They though the “time gap” (not power) between exotics and legendary needed to be filled. It should have been there from day 1. They admitted they messed up with how they implemented it making it unavailable to many play types and that they will fix it.

I play WvW almost exclusively. If they add a system whereby I play WvW and over time can acquire this new gear there is zero problem. Maybe remove the agony resist aspect from WvW acquired ascended gear so WvW doesn’t become an easier path for PvE players to get it and we are good to go.

Quench.7091:

IndigoSundown.5419:

mjharrison.3209:

Anet got greedy and now they are paying the price:
http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

There’s no doubts about which direction this game is heading.

Yet another prediction of doom based on Xfire numbers. Accepting (generously) 27k players as the max on the graph shown, and 2,000,000 (from official announcements on sales by NCSoft), XFire players at peak represented no more than 1.35% of the total population. While those kinds of numbers might be statistically significant for Neilsen ratings, or political opinion polls, Xfire users do not represent a sufficiently random sample to attain statistical significance.

I agree that the Xfire numbers do not represent doom, but something can be drawn from the trends. The hours played is on a steady decrease, which is to be expected of a game as the content gets older, but look at what happened on the 15th through the 18th. It jumped up pretty high. Now look at what happened after it. The trend continued its normal pace. Ascended gear and dungeon didn’t seem to attract those players into playing any more than they already were.

Nor did FotM or Ascended do anything for my guild. My take on why they just stopped playing and have not returned? PvP. Their take was that neither Wv3 nor S/ /t Pvp had sufficient depth by comparison to both GW1 and other PvP games.

You don’t have to look at XFire to determine that numbers spiked during the event and are down since. All you have to do is log in and see if, how often and for how long you are shunted to an overflow. If the XFire and overflow trends are representative, it doesn’t necessarily follow that players who wanted gear escalation are not logging in to play. The observed phenomenon could also be the result of players who wanted gear rewards logging in more to play FotM, counter-balanced by a reduction in play by those who had a negative reaction to the gear.

Stiv.1820:

To Anet adding Ascended gear was a bugfix in a way. They though the “time gap” (not power) between exotics and legendary needed to be filled. It should have been there from day 1. They admitted they messed up with how they implemented it making it unavailable to many play types and that they will fix it.

I play WvW almost exclusively. If they add a system whereby I play WvW and over time can acquire this new gear there is zero problem. Maybe remove the agony resist aspect from WvW acquired ascended gear so WvW doesn’t become an easier path for PvE players to get it and we are good to go.

I’m not sure I understand your first paragraph about fixing a bug. Are you saying that they filled a time gap by creating a power gap? Do power gaps fix time gaps? And why would they have Legendary items with the same power level as Exotics at launch if they knew they were going to introduce Ascended gear with stats higher than Legendary? Legendary wouldn’t be so Legendary would they? No, they had to fix Legendary after they introduced Ascended. I just can’t wrap my mind around this as it just doesn’t fall together into any kind of logical cohesion.

Your second paragraph makes perfect sense to me. I did a fair amount of PvP in WoW and with each new tier I’d grit my teeth and hit the battlegrounds to grind out the new honor gear. They said they would make the new tiers available everywhere and I trust them on this, so if you don’t mind the grind I’m sure PvP won’t be excluded.

Stiv.1820:

To Anet adding Ascended gear was a bugfix in a way. They though the “time gap” (not power) between exotics and legendary needed to be filled. It should have been there from day 1. They admitted they messed up with how they implemented it making it unavailable to many play types and that they will fix it.

In that regard it was a complete and utter failure. Not only did the time gap not become any less obnoxious, it actually became far, far greater. I initially thought they were giving us a gear track completely independent of legendary that would be done simultaneously. Any way you look at this disaster, it spells very bad things for the future.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Nor did FotM or Ascended do anything for my guild. My take on why they just stopped playing and have not returned? PvP. Their take was that neither Wv3 nor S/ /t Pvp had sufficient depth by comparison to both GW1 and other PvP games.

I’m in a fairly massive guild; we were losing players at an alarming rate even before Ascended gear was released. Activity has dropped off 90% since mid-September. Since Ascended gear hasn’t seemed to spark any increase in activity at all, and no further dropoff can be attributed to it, I can only assume that most players left for the reasons you describe above. Namely, that WvW has several substantial issues.

I’m inclined to believe that the push for vertical progression is A.net’s response to determining that culling (and other issues) cannot or will not be fixed any time soon.

SleepingSloth.8340:

ankittenep enjoying the game

A.net’s gotta have the harshest censor I’ve ever seen.

Apperently I am the only one that enjoyes new goals on a regular basis in my MMOs. I hated the side-ways progression of GW1 and feel GW2 is doing a great thing in adding more diffucult content, and better gear. This “power creep” everyone keeps talking about is going to keep me, and hundreds of thousands of people playing this game. Lets hope someday they even raise the level cap!