Guild Wars 2

I can understand adding agony resistance or other resistances to the new tier, even though I would GREATLY prefer that resistances be tied to a fractal related title instead.

However, I really can not understand the need for a statistical increase for armor. Can someone explain this to me? Try to be civil and level headed…

Anet made the decision that they wanted some slight form of gear progression. Even though the stats on the new gear will not give you any advantages, if you want 1-3% increase go for it. If not a fully exotic toon can easily compete with someone who has some FOTM gear. There is not much of that stuff out anyway. Rings and a back piece I think. ( Never ran the FOTM dungeons. Nor do I care to)

I think once Anet starts to release more gear and weapons in the new tier they will make it easy to acquire. Via crafting, TP and dungeons. I just hope Anet does not decide to make it exclusive to a dungeon in the future. ( I loathe dungeons in this game) If they do I really wouldn’t care. I am happy just being in all exotic. The stat difference is not that big of a deal at all.

Sure. It’s all about how GW2 was designed and marketed. Unlike the first guild wars, GW2 was designed with a majority of the focus placed on PvE content and rather little focus on PvP and WvW in comparison. It was marketed as the next big MMO to rival the likes of WoW.

As such, to keep their newly found PvE fanbase playing, they need to continue expanding upon the already existing loot grind. So, I would expect to see new weapons/armor released in intervals that is better than the stuff released before it.

I’m not sure why having to deal with another tier of gear is so repulsive to many people. Still don’t understand the furor over the ascended items.

There is no way in this game to gearcheck people, and the incremental increases are miniscule that you won’t tell the difference.

Heck, speccing properly is more important than gear.

Maybe the people who run lvl40 fractals are very strict on gear requirements, but those guys are hardcore and elitists (hey, I’m one too). But if you want to hang with the big boys who do the hard content, then it’s fine for them to have those requirements fulfilled.

The game as it is right now is perfectably doable in rare gear. There is no need to rush to go gear up on full exotics or ascended when it’s released.

I agree that having two rings and a backpiece really won’t make that much of a difference. However, having 16/16 equipment pieces being ascended vs being 16/16 exotic will.

I really want to see what they do with the new crafting recipies and stuff first, though. I’m pretty confused as to the direction they are trying to go in (was supposed to be an optional grind for aesthetics), but I suppose I can wait until the jan-march updates are done to see what they have in mind…

People from other MMOs were losing interesting in GW2, so ArenaNet responded by putting in a “slight” gear treadmill. Back when the Fractals came out in late November, there was a firestorm of positive and negative PR from this. (Most of the fire was negative PR.) If you want to really hunt through Google, I’m sure that you can find many articles about it.

The vocal masses wanted instanced dungeon grinding for better gear. ArenaNet gave those masses what they wanted. I’d say it was a move to appease a player base who was never that interested in GW2’s original design philosophies, but it really doesn’t matter at this point. A chunk of those who were unhappy got satisfied, which was balanced by many satisfied customers becoming temporarily or permanently enraged.

In theory, ArenaNet is planning on making Ascended access more widespread. Since there will be no way to avoid the +Stat escalation game, ArenaNet stated that they wanted to offer some over land PvE and WvW options for acquiring the new gear. However nothing has been implimented yet and the 1st set of Fractals changes slated for late January have made no mention of Ascended being added elsewhere.

Wiser with Age.3714:

The vocal masses wanted instanced dungeon grinding for better gear.

How depressing. If ArenaNet is going to appease these players with a gear treadmill, they should’ve kept it out of WvW. Even making ascended items available in WvW sucks; it means you have to play for hundreds of hours just to get optimal gear for a new build.

I think more stats is bad. You can already do ridiculous amounts of damage. Don’t need more

It basically boils down to this.

People from the traditional mindset of other MMOs complained enough that GW2 wasn’t like other MMOs, so Anet caved in to them and gave them what other MMOs already offer them instead of staying true to themselves.

So basically Anet gave a vocal minority a gear treadmill and will continue to add more tiers in the future to appease those who don’t like GW2 for what it was.

Because you wouldn’t run fractals if it didn’t.

I think it was an attempt to please the people who were demanding a dungeon grind for vertical gear progression (which is apparently the only acceptable form of “end game” for an MMO to a lot of people).

They’ve got their dungeon, they can grind it indefinately and earn drops with better stats if they do, which then allow them to grind the dungeon even more. But the difference is minimal enough that everyone else is free to ignore it and get on with playing the game.

“Dedicated” players found that it was easy for them to get to max lvl and attain all exotic gear for their characters. It was at this time that they realized their existential dilemma, there was no longer a purpose to playing the game. These players who define their experience of fun through their ability to “progress” no longer wanted to play because there was nothing to strive towards achieving anymore. Legendaries weren’t sufficient as their power was the same as exotics and therefore offered no “real” progression, so these players made several forum posts about how there was nothing to do in the game. Anet, who was already disappointed by their game’s lackluster sales, became fearful for their game’s success and hastily put together a new gear tier to satisfy these dedicated players. And there you have ascended gear.

The sad thing is that the dungeon grinders that cried about the gear seem to have already maxed themselves out, gotten their back pieces and rings and then suddenly went quiet between Wintersday and now.

I’d be willing to put money down on the fact that either they all up and left or that they’re the people who are currently crying about bringing the “Holy Trinity” setup to this game.

ArenaNet added a higher tier of gear for a group who has either left or shouldn’t even have been here in the first place. And all I’d ask them is if those players who demanded a new tier of gear have spent any money to buy gems. Did adding Fractals increase their income from that demographic to any degree? Or did it in fact only add a new method of grinding gold which that demographic used and in the end they never needed to buy any gems because they’re the kind of people who have more time than they do cash?

Some developer that knows nothing about making a good game but a lot about making money (supposedly), probably pushed this philosophy change through.

Whatever the loyal customer base thought about that was irrelevant, they needed to please new customers.

Of course, that also meant the potential revenue they could get from me just got lowered by 90%.

You can’t have vertical progression without inflating the power level somewhere and the easiest place to inflate it is gear. What they added on 11/15 was not Ascended gear, that will be just one tier of many to come. What they actually added was vertical progression.

Hate the Idea of Ascended gear.

- Keep it as GW1. Dont add better gear after a games release. Prestige och progression should come from cosmetics only!
- WvW will be even more unbalanced.
- Already Exotics player will have to waste probably hundreds of hours to replace their already perfect set of Exotic arsenal.
- Remember Agony Resistance came from a Campaign Quest in GW1! Good times.

I think ascended gear should have the same stats as Exotics but with just added Agony resistance for Fractal of the Mists dungeon.

I’m taking a break if this game forces me to get new gear, after just spending 119G on Cultural armor and dungeon running for Exotics for transmution and thinking I’m all set to enjoy the game in WvW and Explorer the world etc. Now I dont have to worry about my gear. And then Ascended happens to satisfy the minority wich will kill the original GW1 players and in the end this minority of WoW players will go back to WoW anyway. Bam! this game is dead.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

It basically boils down to this.

People from the traditional mindset of other MMOs complained enough that GW2 wasn’t like other MMOs, so Anet caved in to them and gave them what other MMOs already offer them instead of staying true to themselves.

So basically Anet gave a vocal minority a gear treadmill and will continue to add more tiers in the future to appease those who don’t like GW2 for what it was.

No need to blame those people.
The only ones to blame here are Anet: Ascended gear and FotM was planned/designed before launch but I am guessing that Anet just kept quiet about it because they knew a lot of their old fans would stay away if we had known the facts about ascended gear.

At least they were decent enough to introduce it early on – Saves me money that I can spend on other games. With the introduction of ascended gear and the promise of future extra levels and more gear progression I am no longer spending anything on Anet products.
I am just one customer and many seem to really enjoy FotM and gear progression. In the end Anet’s decision may have been the best from a business perspective.

I am not complaining. I got my moneys worth – I just refrain from funding the future of statprogression in GW2 because to me it is/was totally unnecessary.

Halandir.3609:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

It basically boils down to this.

People from the traditional mindset of other MMOs complained enough that GW2 wasn’t like other MMOs, so Anet caved in to them and gave them what other MMOs already offer them instead of staying true to themselves.

So basically Anet gave a vocal minority a gear treadmill and will continue to add more tiers in the future to appease those who don’t like GW2 for what it was.

No need to blame those people.
The only ones to blame here are Anet: Ascended gear and FotM was planned/designed before launch but I am guessing that Anet just kept quiet about it because they knew a lot of their old fans would stay away if we had known the facts about ascended gear.

At least they were decent enough to introduce it early on – Saves me money that I can spend on other games. With the introduction of ascended gear and the promise of future extra levels and more gear progression I am no longer spending anything on Anet products.
I am just one customer and many seem to really enjoy FotM and gear progression. In the end Anet’s decision may have been the best from a business perspective.

I am not complaining. I got my moneys worth – I just refrain from funding the future of statprogression in GW2 because to me it is/was totally unnecessary.

And that is what I very much doubt. If ascended gear had been planned from the start they would have added a lot more venues to obtain it from by now. Ascended gear was a last minute addition to the karka/fotm update. Everything reeks of it never have been given any proper thought.

Personally i just want new skins. so tired of wearing same 30 or so pieces of armor…

Conner.4702:

Halandir.3609:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

It basically boils down to this.

People from the traditional mindset of other MMOs complained enough that GW2 wasn’t like other MMOs, so Anet caved in to them and gave them what other MMOs already offer them instead of staying true to themselves.

So basically Anet gave a vocal minority a gear treadmill and will continue to add more tiers in the future to appease those who don’t like GW2 for what it was.

No need to blame those people.
The only ones to blame here are Anet: Ascended gear and FotM was planned/designed before launch but I am guessing that Anet just kept quiet about it because they knew a lot of their old fans would stay away if we had known the facts about ascended gear.

At least they were decent enough to introduce it early on – Saves me money that I can spend on other games. With the introduction of ascended gear and the promise of future extra levels and more gear progression I am no longer spending anything on Anet products.
I am just one customer and many seem to really enjoy FotM and gear progression. In the end Anet’s decision may have been the best from a business perspective.

I am not complaining. I got my moneys worth – I just refrain from funding the future of statprogression in GW2 because to me it is/was totally unnecessary.

And that is what I very much doubt. If ascended gear had been planned from the start they would have added a lot more venues to obtain it from by now. Ascended gear was a last minute addition to the karka/fotm update. Everything reeks of it never have been given any proper thought.

Exactly how i feel, Ascended felt very tacked on, hard to believe it was intended to be honest..
I really hope FotM and Ascended just get pushed to the background and the rest of the game continue on/get revamped accordingly following pre Nov 15th manifesto, we can then all look at FoTM and Ascended as a failed experiment and strive for a better Guildwars 2 with horizontal progression as per Guildwars 1..

pencapchew.5432:

Even though the stats on the new gear will not give you any advantages, if you want 1-3% increase go for it.

Wrong, an ascended ring has 11% higher stats than an exotic ring and they’re gonna release all tipe of ascended equipment.
Not just “1-3%”

It’s because this game was specifically advertised in their concept videos as not having a gear grind or adding stronger gear. Of course, design philosophies do change, that’s not too surprising.

we need a “slight” vertical progression!

Since doing Fractals (did them not because of ascended gear). I’ve found it more exciting and enjoyable to attain higher level of fractals than getting the ascended rings. I have both Solaria and Lunaria rings sitting in my bankspace; and still wearing my personally crafted exotic rings.

Tiger.7506:

we need a “slight” vertical progression!

No, we don’t.

Rhysati.4932:

Sure. It’s all about how GW2 was designed and marketed. Unlike the first guild wars, GW2 was designed with a majority of the focus placed on PvE content and rather little focus on PvP and WvW in comparison. It was marketed as the next big MMO to rival the likes of WoW.

As such, to keep their newly found PvE fanbase playing, they need to continue expanding upon the already existing loot grind. So, I would expect to see new weapons/armor released in intervals that is better than the stuff released before it.

Well said sir. I kittening love it.

KRUSSIDULL.6845:

Hate the Idea of Ascended gear.

- Keep it as GW1. Dont add better gear after a games release. Prestige och progression should come from cosmetics only!
- WvW will be even more unbalanced.
- Already Exotics player will have to waste probably hundreds of hours to replace their already perfect set of Exotic arsenal.
- Remember Agony Resistance came from a Campaign Quest in GW1! Good times.

I think ascended gear should have the same stats as Exotics but with just added Agony resistance for Fractal of the Mists dungeon.

I’m taking a break if this game forces me to get new gear, after just spending 119G on Cultural armor and dungeon running for Exotics for transmution and thinking I’m all set to enjoy the game in WvW and Explorer the world etc. Now I dont have to worry about my gear. And then Ascended happens to satisfy the minority wich will kill the original GW1 players and in the end this minority of WoW players will go back to WoW anyway. Bam! this game is dead.

I agree entirely with this post too. Keep it like the original. Cosmetic upgrades only.

I can only speak from my own perspective but without some form of progression (ie: something to do, not ‘being more powerful’) I probably would have given the game a break by now. Ive completed all that I want to complete on my main character including world completion, jumping puzzles, most dungeons (still missing Arah, will do it when I get a stable guild), personal story, master crafter and every event up to date. I got an alt to max, have everything I need for him, nearly finished his personal story etc and if I ever wanted to make a legendary ive got 80% of the mats sitting here to do so.

Ive enjoyed every minute ive played so would never complain, however without something to work towards (Legendaries excluded due to the fact I do not like any of the current skins) id have taken a break and popped back to check out the events every month that they are released. That is why im pleased Ascended gear was introduced. It gives me something to do each day and keeps GW2 on my mind. The only shame is that every player in every guild ive ever been in has quit so the lack of friends aspect is still a little disheartening. Im sure ANEt are aware of this and thats why they are making these changes.

For every one person that is against gear progression there is at least one for. You cant please everyone all of the time.

EDIT: Im all for cosmetic upgrades as well but only if they are extremely hard to get. In my opinion GW2 suffers from the fact that most items are far too easy to obtain. Even legendaries are now no longer rare- I partied with three separate players today, all with Twilight and Gandara is hardly a ‘popular’ server..

Got my first Ascended Ring from FotM 10 daily and I can’t wait to get my hands on the Rings which gives +103 Power, +68 Precision and +8% Critical damage.

Currently still sticking to my Exotic Rings because the only Ascended Ring I have is the Solaria which I equip it only during Fractals boss fights for the Agony Resistance.

pencapchew.5432:

Anet made the decision that they wanted some slight form of gear progression. Even though the stats on the new gear will not give you any advantages, if you want 1-3% increase go for it. If not a fully exotic toon can easily compete with someone who has some FOTM gear.

It’s much more than just 1-3%, as you can see from the GW2 Wiki here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ascended_equipment

and these are just the rings and back items. They have yet to release other parts. Altogether it’s going to be a bigger advantage compared to Exotic stats.

It’s funny, in my opinion there is no “progression” with gear progression (or even levels for that matter); they only provide an illusion of progression. All they do is burn time in most games, because people don’t really care about the “role-playing” part of games anymore; all people care about is their kitten kitten.

They could easily have implemented some sort of horizontal progression instead of a vertical with Ascended. Why not have special equipment (maybe even add in an extra slot for certain “special equips”) that do certain things:

Vindictus

• Chains: groups can use these to “pin” bosses temporarily. In easier battles they only take one player (and sometimes quite a bit of skill to hit the right spot), but in more difficult boss battles they can take two or three players chaining simultaneously to get that pin.
• Spears: Can be used to break off certain pieces of boss armor to obtain special crafting ingredients in certain battles. Also, can be sometimes be used to stun an enemy.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

• Hookshot: Used to get to certain areas
• Hover boots: Boot equipment used to float and cross certain areas.

Why can’t they just do this kind of stuff here? Have special items that grant a special skill or power (hover boots) to overcome certain challenges in dungeons (even have some areas that require them in open world too)?

Also, you wouldn’t have to require all members in a group to have the item either. I mean wouldn’t it be cool to have special paths that can be opened by having someone have an item like a hook shot? Kind of like official versions of certain glitches where players get to certain areas they couldn’t normally by using certain skills.

Have them be obtained through long quest chains, maybe a bit of dungeon grinding for a different item, crafting for another, maybe a mix for that other item; vary it up a bit.

FateZero.8536:

Got my first Ascended Ring from FotM 10 daily and I can’t wait to get my hands on the Rings which gives +103 Power, +68 Precision and +8% Critical damage.

Currently still sticking to my Exotic Rings because the only Ascended Ring I have is the Solaria which I equip it only during Fractals boss fights for the Agony Resistance.

pencapchew.5432:

Anet made the decision that they wanted some slight form of gear progression. Even though the stats on the new gear will not give you any advantages, if you want 1-3% increase go for it. If not a fully exotic toon can easily compete with someone who has some FOTM gear.

It’s much more than just 1-3%, as you can see from the GW2 Wiki here:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ascended_equipment

and these are just the rings and back items. They have yet to release other parts. Altogether it’s going to be a bigger advantage compared to Exotic stats.

This is spot on. My question is why would anyone ever want to spend their hard earned resources, such as 250 Globs of Ecto, on a Unique Exotic when it will soon be obsolete. I would be happy with the Whisperblade and Lyss but I’m not dumb enough to buy or craft them because they will soon be equal to current build Green weapons. The difference in WvWvW will be immense.

this is all my opinions and you will have to bring a quite strong argument to change it.

ascended gear is there simply to increase the required time to reach max-stats somewhat. and i think that the ascended was part of the plan from the beginning, way before the release but it just didn’t make it to the release of the game for some reason ( they had better things to take care of right before launch). so it’s not something thought off after the launch because an additional gear-tier is a huge deal.

and u might say this is a gear treadmill. and i can agree with that its a slight treadmill because they will add more and more gear pieces. but they will stop. once all ascended pieces are out and you have them all and the best upgrades for them, you will never ever get higher stats on that character. so until then, yes there is a gear treadmill. but only temporarily because they can only produce content that fast. if they were to add higher stats somehow after all of the ascended items is released. then they would break the promises they made. and only then i will truly belive there is going to be a gear treadmill in this game. untill then, nope, I can’t see them adding a treadmill in this game.

“but why did’t they include ascended pieces already when the game released?” because i think they plan on doing something special with the ascended items. they don’t want ascended items to be crafted or just bought off the TP. for example: you can’t get ascended back pieces or rings without playing the fractals, it’s impossible. maybe the next ascended will be some kind of scavenge hunt or requiring playing wvw or something else. maybe they will allow to craft some ascended. but i agree with that ascended gear shouldn’t be acquired via dungeons only.

@Theplayboy.6417
i think you miss the point of those weapons. the point with crafting those expensive-to-craft-exotics, like the one you mention, is for the skin and not the stats. if you want the stats you are better of with just crafting the cheapest thing (the pearl-weapons or whatever they are called). you craft the weapon and then transmute it with the stats to your liking. very few keep their stats on their skins. unless they get lucky and the skin they like have the right stats.

Players wanted a sense of progression, and instead of coming up with something creative (there are tons of examples of how to do this…and they needed to look no further than GW1 to find a lot of them), they decided to go the easy and lazy route: better stats on gear.

Like much of their devoted fanbase, 11/15 was like a punch in the mouth. Am I still playing the game and having fun for now? Yes. But have I fallen out of love with it and have started to look at other MMOs on the horizon? Unfortunately, also yes.

I think in retrospect ANet was a bit disappointed in how readily available Exotic gear is in game. You can buy it off the TP for a few Gold, 42k Karma isn’t all that much either in today’s GW2 etc. etc.

People do need a little grind in endgame otherwise gear doesn’t feel like an accomplishment.

I believe they wanted to remedy this by adding a new Tier of gear that wasn’t quite as readily available as Exotic gear.

Ansultares.1567:

Because you wouldn’t run fractals if it didn’t.

Rooks Zaer.5846:

Players wanted a sense of progression, and instead of coming up with something creative (there are tons of examples of how to do this…and they needed to look no further than GW1 to find a lot of them), they decided to go the easy and lazy route: better stats on gear.

Like much of their devoted fanbase, 11/15 was like a punch in the mouth. Am I still playing the game and having fun for now? Yes. But have I fallen out of love with it and have started to look at other MMOs on the horizon? Unfortunately, also yes.

The game is new (5-6 month isn’t a lot for a MMORPG). and was most likely released 2 or 3 month before the devs actually wanted it to be released. I wasn’t there in vanilla GW1. so idk if the max stats that ever got out was there from day1. but a lot of the things that made GW1 so great did’t get out on day1.

and no they didn’t go the lazy route. if they were going the lazy route we would have had all the ascended pieces by now and we would acquire them in the same way as we acquire the rings as of now or the back piece. the fact that they haven’t released them all means that they either haven’t finished the content for how to acquire the ascended pieces or they aren’t sure if its’s the right thing to do. they are listening to the player base. making decisions from multiple forums, they’ve even said they take feedback from world chat ingame. the winters day jp is a brilliant example.

and why do you assume that the entire fan base are taking “a punch in the mouth”? I like the fotm I like a challenge. yeah it’s hard, but that’s the point. if u don’t want hard pve stuff. go do easy pve stuff or pvp stuff. yeah having the ascended exclusive to fractals is debatable if its good or bad. but the next ascended pieces might be acquired in another way. we don’t know thats the point, within the next week we know somewhat of what they are planning on doing within the upcoming 6 months. and imo the January and the February patches is make it or break it patches. those two patches and possibly the March patch as well will more or less decide for a lot of players if they will be returning/leaving from/to another game.

Dee Jay.2460:

People do need a little grind in endgame otherwise gear doesn’t feel like an accomplishment.

I believe they wanted to remedy this by adding a new Tier of gear that wasn’t quite as readily available as Exotic gear.

Make that: “Some people do need…” And I’ll agree.

Adding gear that was harder to obtain than exotics does not explain why that gear need better stats.
Only Anet’s wish to add stat-progression explains that. And there is no such thing as “slight” stat-progression: It is either/or…

Every time I see someone pulling the “it’s only a slight…”-card I see this teen girl coming home to her parents, explaining: “Relax, no need to panic… The guy only made me slightly pregnant!” :-)

I still hope that Anet eventually will abort the abomination, but I am not trying to pretend that my hope is realistic.

Sollith.3502:

It’s funny, in my opinion there is no “progression” with gear progression (or even levels for that matter); they only provide an illusion of progression. All they do is burn time in most games, because people don’t really care about the “role-playing” part of games anymore; all people care about is their kitten kitten.

They could easily have implemented some sort of horizontal progression instead of a vertical with Ascended. Why not have special equipment (maybe even add in an extra slot for certain “special equips”) that do certain things:

Vindictus

• Chains: groups can use these to “pin” bosses temporarily. In easier battles they only take one player (and sometimes quite a bit of skill to hit the right spot), but in more difficult boss battles they can take two or three players chaining simultaneously to get that pin.
• Spears: Can be used to break off certain pieces of boss armor to obtain special crafting ingredients in certain battles. Also, can be sometimes be used to stun an enemy.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

• Hookshot: Used to get to certain areas
• Hover boots: Boot equipment used to float and cross certain areas.

Why can’t they just do this kind of stuff here? Have special items that grant a special skill or power (hover boots) to overcome certain challenges in dungeons (even have some areas that require them in open world too)?

Also, you wouldn’t have to require all members in a group to have the item either. I mean wouldn’t it be cool to have special paths that can be opened by having someone have an item like a hook shot? Kind of like official versions of certain glitches where players get to certain areas they couldn’t normally by using certain skills.

Have them be obtained through long quest chains, maybe a bit of dungeon grinding for a different item, crafting for another, maybe a mix for that other item; vary it up a bit.

What you’ve described is vertical progression.

Especially in the Legend of Zelda games where you literally cannot go to the next dungeon and therefore cannot progress the story until you’ve got the special item from the one preceeding it.

No need to have higher stat armors, just have rare skins for more choice.

Could bring back infusion type quest (a la Guild Wars Prophecies) to make any armor ascended, which give you a buff against (whatever they want to call the debuff).

Just spit-balling here, but what if the big benefit to getting ascended armor is that you get to choose which stats are on the armor, instead of the preset combinations. The stats are all the same as the exotic armors, but you could choose any combo you want (thus personalizing the piece).

Just an idea.

Because unimaginative people think the only new content that are worth playing in MMOs is obscene grinds for +1 gear so you can fight the new plus +1 monsters.

Somehow to them that +1 makes it new and interesting.

Levetty.1279:

Because ADD people think the only new content that are worth playing in MMOs is obscene grinds for +1 gear so you can fight the new plus +1 monsters.

Somehow to them that +1 makes it new and interesting.

There is nothing wrong with Anet wanting to provide something for everyone. Give people a carrot if they really want it. The problem with GW2 at launch (and this is just a theory of mine) is that they wanted to ween players off the treadmill in order to provide a more unique experience. The only problem is that their method of “weening” was going cold turkey. It was a shock to the system for a lot of MMO veterans and honestly I can’t blame them. You can’t expect a rat in a lab to respond positively to new circumstances without any kind of indoctrination. Thankfully, I think people are for the most part getting over their old convictions. At least, the ones that were willing to put up with it a little longer instead of just jumping back to WoW’s more “fulfilling” gameplay. (not bashing WoW, I just feel it kind of manipulates you into playing for the sake of playing and not because you are having fun)

Probably because their ex-Nexon Monetization Producer realized there was good money to be made in it. The more gear you grind for, the more likely you are to stick around and buy things off of the gem store.

Basically the same mindset that had them change from the CONFIRMED situation of dyes being account bound to suddenly becoming character bound only… right around the time said Monetization Producer appeared

http://my.mmosite.com/2221790/blog/item/guild_wars_2_team_hires_nexon_employee_as_cash_shop_manager_changes_already_apparent.html

Honestly, Anet probably got spooked by players asking for a gear grind. The only reason for a higher power level would be to add vertical progression and a gear grind treadmill. They added the reward to a dungeon because that’s how WoW does. They thought this would make the grinders happy. Of course, this emptied the open world as people realized there were better stats available. Another outcry occurred and they said they would locate the treadmills throughout the world. Now, instead of the non-grindy game we bought we have a grinding game and a grinding culture similar to WoW’s.

The entire debacle supports the view that the best way to manage a game’s evolution is through the game’s DNA rather than mob rule. The DNA is the developers vision for the game and the DNA was the manifesto in this case. If they would have followed the manifesto they would have avoided the debacle and we would be playing a better game for it.

well, what else can you add so people will keep playing? More skins? sooner or later anet will have to raise the level cap as they add new expansions, and along with that will come higher tiers. Mark my words.

Asumita.2174:

well, what else can you add so people will keep playing? More skins? sooner or later anet will have to raise the level cap as they add new expansions, and along with that will come higher tiers. Mark my words.

That, unfortunately, is the sad realization that eventually killed my motivation and love for what was once my favorite MMO. The Ascended gear was the start- it hurt seeing it added but it was ignorable. But then the realization that by the first expansion all our current gear will become worthless and we’ll have to redo this whole grind?

That’s just not the Guild Wars I loved. :-\

But I suppose a series based not on level and gear grinding but rather story, immersion, exploration and collection just wouldn’t sell as well in their eyes.

Ah well.

For everyone saying that Fractals introduced item progression (I think I hear some people saying that), I don’t think we should so readily dismiss the fact that Anet stated prior to the game even launching that there would be level increases beyond 80 for expansions. So, Asumita, you are right about them increasing levels as this was confirmed long ago. This should have been the warning/notice to anyone who cared that item progression was part of the initial design philosophy.

It was definitely an undervalued footnote in the PR prior to release but with regard to item progression, it was always going to be there in one form or another. More importantly, what some people have mentioned thus far, GW2 was created with a different design philosophy than GW1. Some honored design tenets of GW1 have been abandoned but I still think that it’s a game that GW1 vets can appreciate even with item/level progression. Quite frankly, I’m interested to see if they maintain the same leveling curve for items and experience that they used for this iteration of GW2. Dungeon completion experience, I’ve learned, really makes open world leveling seem incredibly inefficient.

nightwulf.1986:

For everyone saying that Fractals introduced item progression (I think I hear some people saying that), I don’t think we should so readily dismiss the fact that Anet stated prior to the game even launching that there would be level increases beyond 80 for expansions. This should have been the warning/notice to anyone who cared that item progression was part of the initial design philosophy.

There is one big difference here though. Level increase was expected. Before release they stated that they will probably increase the level cap. Which as we all know, means new gear for when the level cap increases. Note, I said when the level cap increases (can’t stress that enough). So we expected a new tier, but only when the level cap increased.

Then after release (November patch), they released a new tier without a level increase. So while we were all expecting a new tier, we were not expecting a new tier without a level increase. They never said anything before release that they would introduce new tiers. They only said they would increase the level cap (which would mean a new tier, but only when they increase the level cap).

That is true. The new tier came without a level increase. The issue I saw was that people were saying that no new tiers at all was the status quo. That is a different argument than saying that we weren’t expecting new tiers without a level increase. Most people, at least the ones I’ve been seeing, haven’t been making arguments against new tiers with that nuance. I think some people were just honestly misinformed and that shaped their opinion of the ascended tier.

THere are few things to discuss. here:

1)even if they will raise the level cap, this dont really justify a new tier of items, or only partially. But i really dont get Why raise level cap and item stats? the kind of progression we (the poeple that follow this project from the beginning) wish, is all about skills and build diversity! Like the previous guild wars.

2)the main problem about the ascended tier is only because it introduce a different progression, if this set is the only one released on the whole Gw2 lifetime(to fix the easyness of the exotic gear), i dont see the problem, but without any statement we know that they will release New sets, not this year, but maybe with a future expansion, and this is against the advertise made for 5 years.

Ganzo.5079:

THere are few things to discuss. here:

1)even if they will raise the level cap, this dont really justify a new tier of items, or only partially. But i really dont get Why raise level cap and item stats? the kind of progression we (the poeple that follow this project from the beginning) wish, is all about skills and build diversity! Like the previous guild wars.

2)the main problem about the ascended tier is only because it introduce a different progression, if this set is the only one released on the whole Gw2 lifetime(to fix the easyness of the exotic gear), i dont see the problem, but without any statement we know that they will release New sets, not this year, but maybe with a future expansion, and this is against the advertise made for 5 years.

1). No, build diversity is the kind of progression that GW1 players want. However I assume Anet did their market research and found out they could increase profit by appealing to the WoW/traditional MMO crowd.

2). To be honest, I think even a one off tier increase is bad design. If anything, they should make maxed armor more accessible by making more types available for purchase through karma, so that players don’t have to grind 50G to get optimal gear for a new build. That they would do the opposite and dis-incentivize build variety puzzles me.