Guild Wars 2

If they are going for vertical progression, why is it so poorly done?

Its grind extraordinare
Its limited to one dungeon

Because they have no experience with this sort of thing.
GW1 launched in 2005, with a level cap of 20, and an item power cap that never went up. NEVER.

There were titles to grind for (some that offered resistances and bonuses versus certain types of enemies); There were armors and weapons to grind for (some with requirements as crazy as the Legendaries), there was a boatload of ‘grind’ available, but all of it was optional and none of it made a player stronger than the other.
Max level and Stats could be obtainment within 8 hours of playtime and what amounts to ~5 gold in GW2.

It’s both funny and sad how badly this whole thing turned out.

Hellstrike.5980:

Just to add my two cents. May be people should take a step back and see it in the developer’s point of view?

Horizontal progression inherent a big problem, people will have the choice to do it or not. For some like me, found that the medium armour skins from all the dungeons are ugly, if not of the achievements I would not have run the dungeon at all, but even though I did, it was only once.

So if this patch there is no Ascended pieces just some new skin that you dont like how many times will you run the new dungeon? The developer used up so much resources to build the dungeon and pray that the majority will like the new skin so that the company will not close down this underperforming department?

That is true – the better stat tier is a cheap solution to not being able to put in a good content. Which is another reason why i’d rather have good content and not a new stat tier.

This is the part I don’t understand though. He wants no effort to get to the top, hell he’d rather just be the best when he logs in the first time. He doesn’t want a game, he wants a chat room essentially. I want to actually play the game, that’s what I paid for.

An activity doesn’t require vertical progression to be a game. Millions of people literally spend hundreds of hours every year (each) playing games that have no vertical progression whatsoever. Just because you and others need “vertical progression” in a game doesn’t mean that something is not a game unless it has vertical progression.

If my friends and I play many FPS shooter games together – us against the computer, or PvE, so to speak – in many if not most of them there is no vertical progression – or at least, there didn’t use to be back when I played those games. Was cooperative play in Doom not a “game”? Most of those games used to be constructed around the concept that all players had to differentiate themselves was their skill.

League of Legends has no vertical progression to speak of (it’s very minor and really only exists to ease you into an understanding of the game). Is it not a game? Are the sPvPers in GW2 not playing a “game”? There is no vertical progression whatsoever in sPvP.

Like I said before, you might not understand why we want to play a stat-cap game, but the least you can do is attempt to accept that it’s a perfectly fine gaming concept that a lot of people would prefer.

That way you still progress, yet it nearly doesnt matter because its so easy for anyone to do it. This makes both sides happy.

Vertical progression of any sort doesn’t make a stat-capper happy, and I sincerely doubt that vertical progression that “nearly doesn’t matter” will make many stat-progressives happy.

Counter-Strike up to Source is one of the most popular games of all times, and it doesn’t have any of the modern progression systems that other games have (Global Offensive recently added that). Did we have less fun it? Probably not.
GW2 is even meant to be an MMORPG as far as I know, so it would be better off sticking to the chatroom concept than vertical gear progression, because that naturally attracts players that don’t actually want to RP.

Guys would you please stop whining about ascended gear as you are doing it way too soon. The stat difference between exotics and ascended it very small, therefore no need to get them if you don’t feel like it. Also, people are talking about having to “grind fractals”. there are 9 different fractals with about each having multiple paths. Lets say you would have to play to level 15 to get ascended ring (by then you would also have the mats/gold to get ascended backpack btw). That would be 45 fractals + 7 times the jade boss. So about 5 times per fractal. To get full set of dungeon armor you have to play each path more than 5 times. Also, a fractal takes 10-30 min to play with a PUG, dungeon run takes at least twice that. So it really is not any more grind than if you want dungeon armor set.

Another point. You all want skill to matter, not gear. Fractals level 1-9 is the place where this is the fact. More than anywhere else in PvE. In each fractal you have to work with your team. If you are skilled, you can be the guy who makes the team work (saving everyone when you are wiping, or being the kitten who just outdamages the enemies. Here you have to be able to stay out of red circles. It helps if you can follow what the bosses are doing. In swamp you need 3 guys to take right skills and know what to do. In dredge fractal you need everyone to have good idea what they have to do.

Ascended gear was and is a thing gear grinders can look forward to. It add’s a lot to do and lot of challenges to them. If you don’t want to grind, you still don’t have to. No1 outside fractals requires you to have ascended gear. It doesn’t help.

Last but not least I want you to think this, whether you agree or not:
ascended gear might not be the perfect way to work as a middle way from grinding exos to grinding legendary, but if you screw the ascended gear, fractals are a great way to work towards legendary (farming ectos for example).

I’m on the side of those who see vertical progression as a bit of a cancer.

It would be like playing Grand Theft Auto and having to slowly grind my way up to every better car model available, whilst dealing with taxes on my available resources. Rather than, you know, just waltzing up to the car I want and stealing it. And apparently this makes GTA not a game? That’s news to me. No, that’s too kind. That’s the silliest thing I’ve read since the election.

But looking at this thread I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some kind of age/culture divide going on. I’d love to see people share their world region and age, just to get a feeling for whether I’m right or not, here. So I’m going to start a bit of an information gathering exercise, we can move this to another thread, if necessary.

How old are you, what region of the world are you from, and do you support vertical progression?

I’ll get the ball rolling: 37, UK, and no I don’t.

31, EU, I will not play any game with dangling carrots.

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP. The introduction of Ascended gear has trespassed over the most important reason for why I purchased GW2, why I played GW2, why I spent so many years in anticipation of GW2, and why I thought ArenaNet was a team that I could stand behind and support in creating the game I wanted to play. Their position on vertical progression moving forwards feels like the highest betrayal of my trust, and gives me great incentive to reconsider logging in in the future.

39, UK, and ascended gear and the implication that they’ll be adding new tiers and levels leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.
Constant iteration caters to those with the most time on their hands. Usually, those people are the unemployed or full-time students, both of which have less money to spend than people in full time employment.
ArenaNet are alienating their most valuable customers.

38, Canada. I like both forms for what they each offer, and can take or leave either.

It’s not a question of age, it’s a question of preference. One is not inherently “better” than the other except to the individual, based on their personal preferences and tastes.

39 Australia

To me the question is not ‘what is the gap?’ The issues are pretty core to the game’s longevity. The game did not have enough horizontal progression, acquiring skill, skins, titles, abilities, perks, conveniences, to keep people interested long term.

Why not? Well part of the problem is the very limited way they are handling classes. The classes are very streamlined and offer the players little flexibiity. This lack of flexibility really limits the options for horizontal progression. I had every worthwhile skill a month after launch.

Therefore, they sat down a month after release and said ‘Oops Wtf now?’ and plopped in this Ascended gear to keep people busy. Why? Because it is easy and cheap, not because it is good gameplay or fits with their Manifesto.

OP is a scholar and a gentleman.

I agree.

On the record, I totally agree with OP whom pinned the problem in a really comprehensive way.

Oh, and I’m 32 from France.

Cancer.9065:

we have no place else to go

This.

I always thought it was “silly” to be a fan of a company, after all the ultimate goal of a business is making money (and this is not a bad a thing). But Anet’s manifesto made me a believer, sadly (thankfully?) it was a short live fandom. I’ll still play just like I still play other games that I own. I’m just not a “fan” anymore.

I know I’m a bit late to the thread, but I had to chime in and state that you summed up my feelings perfectly.

Like you, I’ll keep playing, but the magic is gone. What had once seemed like a likely home for a good long time now just feels like another stop on the gaming trail of life.

24, Canada. Filed for a refund last night after reading the Reddit interview, which (it seems to me) amounted to “We didn’t break the manifesto; we just arbitrarily redefined some of the terms and weren’t explicit about our intentions. See, you CAN trust us!”

And if I weren’t such a cynical kitten to begin with, I would’ve cried while doing it.

I would like to add that the actual stat difference is not the issue. When it’s a matter of principle and sticking to them, the difference between 0 and 0.1 is bigger than the distance between .1 and 100. Why do I say that, because as soon as you get off the 0 it shows that you are willing to move and once you moved, it’s easier to move again.

This is why a lot of people reacted strongly, not because of a small stat increase but the fact that Anet is willing to do stat progression at all and anything they say that it won’t be that bad or it won’t happen again cannot be trusted.

I know it isn’t literally in the manifesto but it was implied in all their communication. If you want to check the manifesto, listen to what they say about grind and especially about the story line. I haven’t heard many players say that they loved the story line and that it was really about their toon and how powerful and heroic they felt. I did hear about horrible voice acting, very few quests that make up the story line and that trahearne was actually the lead character in the second half of the story and not the player.

So to be fair, the level cap is a big issue for me, but there’s more that wasn’t delivered and actually I put up with that because it was more casual and didn’t have gear progression….guess what? Now that element is gone from the game, so am I….

Grinding Gears

After five years, two lifetime accounts and a hell of a lot of money spent, I left LOTRO for GW2. When I saw the MMO Manifesto, it was a religious experience. It was as if ArenaNet had read my mind and put it on video.

When I left LOTRO, I left behind many things I was glad to leave: node-jacking, kill-stealing, haggling for loot and all those other traditional MMO mechanics that make PVE nothing more than PVP by other means.

Among the things I was glad to leave behind was the legendary item gear grind. In LOTRO, legendary items can be upgraded and “grow with your character”. And once you hit the level cap, that’s basically true.

Until the level cap is raised, at which point the legendary items you worked so hard to upgrade become obsolete. Now you can start all over again — with a little help from the LOTRO store, if you like.

The addition of the Ascended tier and open-ended gear progression in Guild Wars 2 doesn’t closely resemble the LOTRO legendary item system. There is no raise in the level cap. Current items don’t become obsolete and are still as useful as ever.

They just become superseded by items that are better. And these items are also used to gate content (cough LOTRO radiance cough), but that’s another can of worms altogether.

No, grinding for Ascended tier items is not mandatory. Neither are Exotics, or Rares, Masterworks, Fine or Common items. Heck just grab a boulder off the ground, run around naked and go nuts.

But just as reaching the level cap means no more worrying about having to replace lower-level gear, acquiring Exotic gear used to mean no more worrying about replacing it for a higher tier. It was the best you could get. Stat-enhancing infusions for Ascended gear potentially extend the process indefinitely, by design.

This is the beginning of a new “gear treadmill” that feels eerily similar to what legendary items have become in LOTRO: gear that is as good as it gets, until better gear comes along and the new carrot is moved a little farther away than the old one.

No amount of semantic gymnastics can change the obvious. We know what we’re seeing, and it’s a stunning abandonment of some core principles that were selling points for the game. It’s not a minor thing, and implications that players are overreacting are direct insults to the people who pay the bills.

We know what we bought. We know what we paid for.

I appreciate the desire to offer different players different ways to enjoy the game, and don’t want to discourage that. But I’ve seen this slippery slope before in LOTRO, and don’t want to see it again.

Guild Wars 2 is hands-down the best game I’ve ever played. Period.

Please don’t discard or erode the principles that make it the best, because after playing GW2 and seeing how awesome an MMO can truly be, there’s nowhere else I can go if it devolves into just another WoW wannabe.

I’m a stat-capper. I’m 38 and in the US. I did my time as a stat-progressive 13 years ago in EQ1.

These days, I feel that if the activity isn’t fun enough so that I do it for the sake of doing it, I won’t do it. I don’t care what carrot you dangle in front of me.

I am disappointed that they chose to ignore this but nothing we can do but continue to try and get more horizontal progression into the game.
I do understand from and dev point of view – that it is cheaper,easier,less time and roll out to do stat grind but if they did it with some imagination it might have been better.

The thought now turns to the fact they are trying to please everyone and doing nothing well. That is not a good direction (every direction) and things can become a mess.
Finally they have to compete with every other mmo in the market since GW2 is exactly the same and will they be able to succeed at the player draw and retention considering how things have been botched.

For now I dont believe what they said in PR and want to see direct implementation of what was promised. They were disingenuous about the grind ect so I need proof before I think about coming back let alone spend a penny.

Late 20s, Singapore. I hate this item progression bullkitten. No, I love kittens, just not this particular one. I generally dislike how grindy this game has become. What happened to cosmetic upgrades? Regarding microtransactions. They could have made a bomb selling us frivolities like townclothes, costumes, weapon skins and whatnot. TF2 still going strong on a f2p microtransaction model. It can work, just not the kitteny way Anet has done it. Instead we get gear grind, of which I fail to see how it can possibly be profitable.

Also like someone above said, it’s a matter of principle. Doesn’t matter if the increase is 0.2% or 20%. They reneged on their promises.

Early 20’s. College student and 972 hours played since release and i hate this kitten. If you would had released everything as you did BUT did not increase the stats on the gear i would still do fractals like i do now, except i wouldn’t feel forced to RNG my way for the rings that i want for my alts for WvW. I quit Rift for GW2, as others have said no matter how small the difference is there and it will keep getting bigger the more pieces of ascended you add.

Well discussing statcap vs stat inflation in a GW2 forum is definitely beating a dead horse now after the AMA. The ship has sailed.

I’m here just to pinch in to this demographics/background survey attempt. It was interesting to see everyone is older and have an EQ clone in their background. We know better :P

Anyway, I’m from Brazil, “stat-capper” and I’m 29. EQ1 and its clones made me hate grind and gear, GW1 made me believe in MMOs again, GW2 made me quit the genre altogether until people start making some serious Massive Online Games.

Naviiso.9241:

Guys would you please stop whining about ascended gear as you are doing it way too soon. The stat difference between exotics and ascended it very small, therefore no need to get them if you don’t feel like it. Also, people are talking about having to “grind fractals”. there are 9 different fractals with about each having multiple paths. Lets say you would have to play to level 15 to get ascended ring (by then you would also have the mats/gold to get ascended backpack btw). That would be 45 fractals + 7 times the jade boss. So about 5 times per fractal. To get full set of dungeon armor you have to play each path more than 5 times. Also, a fractal takes 10-30 min to play with a PUG, dungeon run takes at least twice that. So it really is not any more grind than if you want dungeon armor set.

Another point. You all want skill to matter, not gear. Fractals level 1-9 is the place where this is the fact. More than anywhere else in PvE. In each fractal you have to work with your team. If you are skilled, you can be the guy who makes the team work (saving everyone when you are wiping, or being the kitten who just outdamages the enemies. Here you have to be able to stay out of red circles. It helps if you can follow what the bosses are doing. In swamp you need 3 guys to take right skills and know what to do. In dredge fractal you need everyone to have good idea what they have to do.

Ascended gear was and is a thing gear grinders can look forward to. It add’s a lot to do and lot of challenges to them. If you don’t want to grind, you still don’t have to. No1 outside fractals requires you to have ascended gear. It doesn’t help.

Last but not least I want you to think this, whether you agree or not:
ascended gear might not be the perfect way to work as a middle way from grinding exos to grinding legendary, but if you screw the ascended gear, fractals are a great way to work towards legendary (farming ectos for example).

You are exactly the problem.

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff412/Raphael_diSanto/GW2/statcapper.png

That is all.

Other ideas instead of inflated stats:

1. More cosemetics, tons more, City of Heroes more. You continuously get new pieces you can mix and match, like dye, but even more.

2. You hunt for skills like GW1. They are balanced with one another like LoL. So it’s not a #’s benefit, but things to tinker with and like better.

3. Keep everything in the open world and make it more lively day by day. Make that a world no one can compete with. All zones worthwhile, if it’s even an event that runs daily in one zone, then the next day another zone runs the big DE. Have 1/2 off nights at rotating cities.

There isn’t a mmo that I’ve played where I haven’t said to myself. “Instead of making more land mass to do the same basic things. Take what you have and add more interactivity.” To me Gameplay=Interaction. Not just more of the same.

Why can’t pubs be a place to gather where we can sit down at, a table chat pulls up and we can play cards like Pogo, but be in GW2 and hang that way? Perhaps that is the process on how you get a team to run a dungeon. But just keep adding interactive content to the backdrop you already have, don’t make more of that, you keep spreading everyone out.

As a wise man said just but yesterday. If GW2 is going to be about loot, well my friend there are much better mature options out there right now, it was offering something unique in that category, aka “the hook”.

I want to echo others by saying Great Post. It sums up many of my own feelings much eloquently than I am capable of. I’m not going to quit playing today or tomorrow or even the next day based on the promise of more vertical progression but my long term attachment to the game does seem doubtful now (unlike the 5+ years I spent with GW1). Hopefully the design team takes your post in to consideration for future content.

@OP – Excellent, well written post. Completely agree. Nothing more to add.

PS – you seem to think the anti-gear-grind crowd is a minority, but over on reddit they appear to be the majority.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13v5is/chris_whitesite_ama_11262012_qa_transcript/

Spot on OP. Im just playing this game until Firefall comes out. It looks like gw2 with guns. Already preloaded this weekend’s beta. If all goes well i’ll just buy a founder’s package and call that game home.

I wager 19 out of 20 posters to this thread have never even looked at the formulas for performance in GW2, have never worked out where their stats come from. (hint: about 1/5 is your gear)

mulch.2586:

I wager 19 out of 20 posters to this thread have never even looked at the formulas for performance in GW2, have never worked out where their stats come from. (hint: about 1/5 is your gear)

If you would know how stats affect you, you would see the gear makes up most of your character damage.

Puandro.3245:

mulch.2586:

I wager 19 out of 20 posters to this thread have never even looked at the formulas for performance in GW2, have never worked out where their stats come from. (hint: about 1/5 is your gear)

If you would know how stats affect you, you would see the gear makes up most of your character damage.

I see you’re one of the 19.

What’s the damage formula?
Bunch of multipliers (weapon damage + power) / (target’s armor + toughness)

Weapon-damage is about 1k. You get 916 power naked. You get 1400 stat points from traits, plus the other good things they do (such as Might on crit…), some of which may affect your power/toughness.

What’s the max power you can get from a set of armor? 301?

Chiming in to applaud the OP. You have put to words exactly how I feel.

I am sorry, but I don’t get all this discussion in terms of abstract principles, which are in the end really not compelling, and I mean from both sides.

I don’t know if there’s really something like Stat-progression players and Stat-cap players, which the OP seems to assume as an obvious, deep and rigid distinction. Actually, it honestly seems to me very rethorically effective but also very unhelpful to actually address the reality of how the game is, both for the good and the bad.
I am personally a player who has not much time to play, a heartfelt hate of grindy games and unfair PvP settings, and a great passion for RPGs. You would thus say that I am a perfect candidate for joining the “Stat-cap players” crowd.

But I actually refuse such oversimplification.

I didn’t buy GW2 because I was promised a “Stat-cap experience”. I did buy GW2 because I expected a great and beatiful game, easily enjoyable in all its components by every kind of player and offering a fair PvP environment. So far I got it all, and thus I don’t feel betrayed. Of course, I am not delusional: the game has flaws and not every part of the Ascended system actually persuades me. Apparently, I have to say after last night AMA, it doesn’t fully persuades ArenaNet as well.

That said, though, what I would really like to see are discussion about these concrete elements: is the game beautiful and fun? Is the content offered accessible? Is the PvP environment fair? I mean actually, for real, as it plays, not in the abstract distinctions between imaginary crowds of likeminded players and not in the raving prophecies about how the game will be in a year.
So far, for me, it was pretty great. I have like 2 pieces of Exotic gear so far on my main character, so I was definitely NOT Stat-capped even before the Lost Shores patch. And still I could easily join every single part of the game and have fun at it, FotM included. Sure, if I want to progress into the FotM beyind the 30 level I’ll have to acquire Ascended gear and infusions, yeah. And probably it will be almost impossible for me. But why should I want to do that in the first place, given my playstile? Insofar I can still reasonably access, play and be competive at most parts of the game, why on earth should I think that Ascended gear is going to destroy this game, provided also that I know that some people with lots of time in their hands are actually enjoying to obtain that gear, and I am actually HAPPY for them to be able to do that and have their fun.

I will judge the game based on the fact that I will still be able to access any area, to see and complete any dungeon, to join sPvP on fair ground with other players and maybe, in a year, I COULD have to face a 9% more powerful player than me in fully Ascended gear in a crowded WvW area. If this is the reality of what I will still be getting, as it seems, I honestly can’t see the problem. If the reality of the game actually goes to another direction, I’ll complain and even leave if necessary.

But if the problem is that someone will have some Infusions I don’t have, honestly I can’t see why I should complain more than I could now, just because all those “Stat-cap players” had the free time to get a full Exotic gear while I can only dream about it. Is this unfair as well? No, it isn’t.

In the end, I am not a Stat-progression player and I am not a Stat-cap player. That’s it. If we want to actually discuss about the real game and how it does its things, I am in. Otherwise I really don’t understand what all this Stat-progression players and Stat-cap players are arguing with each other about…

I strongly DISAGREE with OP.

As much as I despise the gear progression models used in most mmos I think strict caps are just as bad.

Anet made an excellent design choice with the Ascended items. No insta-boring strict cap and no mandatory grind for uber power. The gains are so small they can be ignored, but it’s really good to know that I can still find a better item, even if it’s just a tiny bit better.

Of course throne knows the initial implementation is not perfect and a lot of things will need to be improved, but we already know they will provide other means of getting Ascended gear and are looking into lowering the extreme grind.

This is no fix to the very poor and primitive item system this game has, but at least it will add some more variety and depth.

Personally I’m very far from being a hardcore player, I don’t even yet have all the exotic pieces I would like and I haven’t yet made it to fractals lvl 10, I play at my own pace enjoying the game and I really appreciate that both: I don’t have to do things I don’t like to in order to be able to access content or remain competitive AND that while I’m being well rewarded I won’t run out of opportunities to progress any time soon.

Overall, the near-but-not-completely-flat progression curve is the perfect model for this game and it’s not to be found anywhere else.

Starlightpaw.5871:

I really think that ANet is on to something by getting rid of the gear treadmill. They need to do more with this concept. I really hope that ANet doesn’t accidently trip and fall into the hole that is the grave of gear treadmill MMOs.

So here’s a question, what makes you want to keep playing GW2? I just want your thoughts I’m not trying to start anything.

For me its the world, Map completions seeing the vast world, leveling up to 80 Casually, each new map is something to explore, Creating new characters over and over following different story quest paths and profession changes on each alternate character.

I don’t mind doing dungeons a few times, but then it gets boring fast, the dungeons Risk vs Reward is not fun for me..way to hard for such little gains.

I love getting new weapon and Armor skins, customization is paramount and Stats are not at all my main focus…I do not PvP much as it just angers me, and i’m not very Competitive i don’t care who wins or loses..

This is why Guildwars 1 appealed to me so and why Guildwars 2 after the last event has lost its “fun” aspect to me

I’ve been trying to point this out for a while. Vertical progression is not something to fear. It’s not some arbitrary catch word that you can look at and say “WELP NO REASON TO PLAY THIS ANY MORE” because no two vertical progression systems are made equal. This mechanic is only as prevalent or as opaque as the designers implement it to be. This isn’t a world of black and white where vertical progression can either be non-existent or lead to you being left behind by guildmates because of a power creep that is too hard to keep up with without devoting absurd amounts of time to staying relevant.

There is an innumerable amount of methods for a game to implement vertical progression, and each system in one game is different than another because they are created under different environments with different intentions. We know Anet’s intentions, and we know the unpopularity of overly-permeating power creeps so at the present we have no reason to believe that their brand of vertical progression should be anything like that of previous MMOs. It inherently won’t be, but I’m talking about a much larger difference than between WoW and Rift (though I’ve never played Rift honestly).

Edit: Just wanted to add a shout-out to the OP for making such a well-written post. Very intelligent and well thought out.

Wintyre, you are my hero. You managed to express just exactly how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks with perfect words and helped make up my mind on what I think I want.

I agree completely, I just want to get to max level and play with my friends. I don’t really even care what content they feel like playing so long as I don’t have to keep pushing to keep up with them.

mulch.2586:

What’s the damage formula?
Bunch of multipliers (weapon damage + power) / (target’s armor + toughness)

actually its
Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

armour is the sum of defence +toughness, you might know that if you read the wiki rather than accusing other people of not doing so.

from a target dummy you can easily see what % of your damage gear contributes, just take everything off apart from a weapon and spam 1, note the range and then compare to the range with full gear

personally my base damage contribution from armour is about 1/3rd

Harbard.5738:

Well discussing statcap vs stat inflation in a GW2 forum is definitely beating a dead horse now after the AMA. The ship has sailed.

Actually it hasn’t. As long as the discussion is still going strong ANET can’t ignore it regardless of whether they participate in it. They can act like it isn’t there, but it always will be. At the very least it will serve as an extremely necessary ethics check when they evaluate themselves as a business.

If this general conversation topic is still going by the game’s first anniversary as strongly as it’s going now it will be a massive discouraging factor for any further stat progression (one can’t help but hope the massive backlash they just used Chris to shield themselves from has already achieved that). Can you even imagine? What other issue in a game consisted of half the active discussion in said game’s forum for that long without seeing results? I don’t mean some halfhearted Q&A that essentially leaves a developer to fend for himself in the face of a firing squad. That’s not a result, that’s an attempt to smooth over a volatile situation before everyone realizes the well was poisoned. Has it worked? That AMA thread is 700 posts strong and it’s just as divisive as any other thread with a heated discussion going on so the signs point to no. A result is a tangible change to the game. This is, after all, the most (not only, just most) logical explanation for why Ascended gear came so late. The discussion before Ascended gear was around was just as it is now, so they added it. Now the discussions are more heated than ever and involve more people, so what’s the proper step to address this? Probably to halt the progression and leave it at an increased stat cap (with the understanding that Ascended is here to stay).

Early 20’s, mid USA.

Late to the discussion, but actually read about 80% of the posts thus far (skipping only poor grammar and trolling). Anyways, here’s my $0.02, even if it’s just for statistics purposes.

I’m a 39 year old professional in Canada with real life responsibilities. I’m lucky enough to be able to devote a couple of evenings a week to this game – well, up until two weeks ago; I’ve only logged in maybe twice since then. With a hard cap for stats, I enjoyed exploring this amazing world, knowing that I was working towards a goal I’d eventually reach.

But now I’ve learned that the goalpost will just keep moving further. I find parts of the world world abandoned because the majority of players are grinding it out in some crazy dungeon. I’m not able to join my guildies on high-level fractals, and they don’t want to “waste time” on the low-level FOTM runs. In short, I’m losing interest.

Thing is, the personal storyline and appearances of my characters (I run alts) are important to me. So I’ve bought gems at the gem store to get extra character slots, and to turn into gold to get a skin on the TP. Simply put, as a professional with a busy workweek, I don’t have the time to grind. If I can get there eventually, awesome. But if I’m chasing a target that runs faster than I can, I’ll never make it there – and I’ll stop investing in my characters, which for me is as much of a monetary expense as it is a time expense.

So, in the end, they’re going to lose revenue from me with the incremental power creep. How ironic.

TL/DR: the original poster is spot on.

Vertical progression was not needed to make GW1 fun and keep people playing and it isn’t needed here to make GW2 fun and keep people playing. There are tons of things to do in this huge game world other than grind a single dungeon for max stat gear to inflate your virtual ego.

That being said, I have no problem with vertical progression as long as it isn’t a play barrier for new content or between players (for example, not getting invited into a group due to gear level etc.) What I do have a problem with is when the gear treadmill leads to all PVE being obsolete other than one single “end game” dungeon. I also have a problem with the gear elitism that it creates if certain gear is required for certain scenarios.

What I valued most about the GW games is that it was easy to enjoy the game with others, regardless of level and gear and that there was always fun things to do instead of feeling obligated to hop on a gear treadmill for fear of being left behind. I really hope Anet isn’t going to turn this into another mediocre MMO where you have to grind for the latest greatest gear every 4 months to be on par with your fellow max level players.

I disagree completely. I don’t play a game for “stat progression”. I play the game for fun. I enjoy challenging dungeons, fun dynamic events, socializing with other players, pvping competitively, WvWing, exploring, roleplaying, making money, etc.

To be honest I feel many MMORPGs use stat-progression carrot on a stick gameplay to make up for what is otherwise a boring game mechanic-wise/feature-wise

I don’t play Battlefield 3 over and over and over again in multiplayer rush, conquest, and deathmatches in an attempt to “get better stuff”. I play for the fun, the skill, the actual GAMEPLAY. Not the REWARDS from playing. For some reason, this mentality has been completely lost on many MMORPG players. They want some sort of second job where they’re obligated to grind boring repetitive content 1000 times a week just so they can have a Uber Epic Sword of No-Life. (BTW I was one of the first rangers in EQ to get his epic-weapons lol.) But I feel that GW2 was supposed to represent a NICE CHANGE.

The bottom line is simply that there are 1000 other MMORPGs out there with gear treadmill game designs. Tons of highly popular games like EQ, Aion, WoW, and 10000 other MMORPGs have this carrot on a stick style gameplay.

Isn’t it time we have ONE that doesn’t have it kitten

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Lady Vireo.5189:

This is the best post yet in the Ascended gear debate. Very well said, OP, and said with intelligence and respect for both sides of the argument. I wish everyone could express their heartfelt opinions in such a thoughtful and courteous manner.

I hope everyone reads and emulates this post, whatever side they are on. And I hope Anet will read it, too, and keep in mind all of us who loved the horizontal progression of GW1 or who came to GW2 from vertical progression games hoping for something different.

The real problem ANET faces (or, if the choice has been made, faced) is that these two different kinds of players – stat-progressives and stat-cappers – have an irreconcilable difference in how they require their game to be fundamentally structured. One game simply cannot serve both.

I think it is highly unlikely that GW2, which focused so much of it’s original content philosophy, integrated design and mechanics on a stat-capped system, can simply switch over and significantly compete in a market saturated by stat-progression titles that are created from the ground up to be just that very thing. The game might continue on, but I doubt it’s going to enjoy a larger revenue from the saturated stat-progression market than it would have garnered being the only modern AAA MMOG on the market with capped stats.

the problem with what you said here, is that GW2 was never made with horizontal only progression in mind. It is actually built for vertical progression. Colin johansson mentioned months before the game came out in an interview that he would totally increase the level cap when an expansion came out.

people assumed because GW1 was a stat cap game that gw2 would be, thats not the case, its not in the manifesto.

Do not confuse the companies philosophy on grinding to experience content with a philosophy on a finite growth. They are two different concepts and are not mutually exclusive.

adding support to OP’s post.

i am a sPvP player, so am still unaffected by vertical progression, but it is sad to hear that the PvE side has fallen off the wagon ( considering the dire straits PvP is in atm as well ).

They can do stat progression all they want. But when they introduce a new progression, please adjust how easy the players are going to obtain second and third best stuff.

Like before Ascended was introduced, top stuff is Legendary, second best is L80 Exotic. So it is reasonable that Legendary takes you a long long time to get, while L80 Exotic takes a fair amount of time, and L80 Rare is almost like no time.

If they keep it in this scale, stat progression would be more acceptable to me. Say after Ascended armor is here, L80 Exotic is no longer the second best stuff. So the order should become: Legendary – long long time; Ascended – fair amount of time; L80 Exotic – no time.

And after higher level cap is introduced as they mentioned at the AMA, all L80 stuff should take you no time to get. I know this will give players who have spent days and nights getting that L80 Exotic a very hard feeling, but with this scale at least new players AND returning players wouldn’t feel they are lacking far far behind.

(Talking of hard feeling, it would be ideal if they introduce some way to upgrade your hard earned L80 armor to match the latest level cap without having to earn it from scratch. Well but that’s just my 2 cents. There might be many other problems involved as well. :\ )

Shadow Blade.1324:

mulch.2586:

What’s the damage formula?
Bunch of multipliers (weapon damage + power) / (target’s armor + toughness)

actually its
Damage done = (weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

armour is the sum of defence +toughness, you might know that if you read the wiki rather than accusing other people of not doing so.

from a target dummy you can easily see what % of your damage gear contributes, just take everything off apart from a weapon and spam 1, note the range and then compare to the range with full gear

personally my base damage contribution from armour is about 1/3rd

An additive model in my stats accounts for 96% of the variance.
Doesn’t particularly matter at this point because there’s only one common tier (80 exotic) of weapon damage, so it’s basically a constant.

Here’s the stats that matter.
Every 100 power gets you not quite 5% more damage on your hundred blades and on your great sword swing. 440 power gets you 18.6%-19.4% This is based on actual data from an Asuran warrior in GW2 (Soldiers/Knights with “of the Warrior” runes). The increments are linear, r=.98.

+100 power from gear is hard to get. There’s 301 total power on an exotic berserker’s armor set. Ascended gear right now (3 pieces) gets you what, +33 power over exotic.

In terms of actual damage, adding 440 power gave me 76 more damage to Hundred Blades regular damage with an exotic 80 greatsword (i.e. not a lot more than the weapon’s inherent variability).

In the AMA, Chris referred to deploying the ascended tier in a variety of ways “on a low power curve.” What he’s referring to is this tendency for stat upgrades to have miniscule effects on game play. With FotM, you get 5-10% increases to 3 of 12 non-weapon slots. This small change, combined with your 1400 points from traits and your 5496 naked stats (+11 to a stat, given this base line is tiny), makes for negligible change in performance. Because most of the relevant stats are not from your gear.

So the point of this thread is to debate whether a Cap or variable ceiling in possible stats is important or not.
My claim is, whether you think it is or isn’t important, what truly matters is the effect on your character will be too small to notice.

mulch.2586:

So the point of this thread is to debate whether a Cap or variable ceiling in possible stats is important or not.
My claim is, whether you think it is or isn’t important, what truly matters is the effect on your character will be too small to notice.

Then why have it? If it adds nothing, it’s unnecessary.

If they didn’t want to add more grind (which they did), they could have added the gear with the new slot and the same stat pool and put rewards that get you closer to your legendary in the higher frac levels. That would give incentive to go out and get the new gear, but not change the manifesto (which they did regardless of what they say in the AMA).

The devs objected to the slippery slope argument, but if they don’t intend to add further tiers, why have another tier at all?

(By the way, you should be using the flat (purple) weapons in the HotM to do your damage calculations, they take out variable weapon damage making it very easy to see what the addition of power is to your damage).

Last thing … in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. When no one else has it, a 10% bump in damage or durability is a massive advantage.

Well written, OP. I’m totally agree with you. But sadly vertical progression is a simple, cheap solution to make players keep playing a MMO.

For me, I’m not totally against vertical progression but I really wish Anet can handle it much better in the future. If the new Ascended gear can be achieved from many different ways(karma vendor, carfting, world drop or chest after a DE chain) not just grind to one dungeon, i think there will be much less complains now.