Guild Wars 2

So many people claiming they’ll stop playing because of this. But how many will actually follow through? The only ones that are against it seem to be those that have dedicated so much time in the game. I’d find it surprising if they quit over something like this.

There’s also a chance that its just a minority that are against this. You can’t tell anything from these forums as to what the actual percentage since people tend to complain more than compliment. Just look at reviews of places or satisfaction surveys filled out.

I also don’t see what the big deal is about gear. All of the exotics are relatively cheap and if you’re attached to a skin then just transmute. Am I missing something?

The idea is..with more power you get more challenge to use that power on. But there’s a cap otherwise it will be like WoW where it’s an endless gear grind. You don’t need more powerful gear to provide more challenge you just need variety and diversity.

More powerful gear won’t make me play more since I already play as much as I can. However if it is too much of a pain to get I will probably start playing less. I quit WoW back in the vanilla days because raiding Molten Core was a huge pain due to infusion/agony, err.. I mean resist potions/fire damage and the insane amount of time you had to put in to raiding to get even one piece of gear.

Power creep is not fine. An excellent video explaining why

I feel like Arenanet is dangling above the pit TOR and countless other MMO’s fell into.

And that pit is: trying to cater to “MMO hoppers”. Instead of focusing on the people still playing the game without issue, they are focusing getting back the players that aren’t playing anymore. And it will most likely fail. There is a significant portion of players who get bored very quickly and just go from MMO to MMO to MMO. They are never satisfied, no matter what. Wasting effort on trying to tie them down when the effort is exactly that: a waste.

Do they really think that adding a gear ladder is going to bring back that many players that stopped playing? And even if it does, do they really think it’s going to tide them over another 3 months? Most of them will be done within weeks, if not days, and just stop playing again. They upset a huge portion of the dedicated playerbase in attempt to get the flaky/non-existent playerbase back. They are risking players they know would have kept playing the game on the chance they might get some of the hoppers to return.

This just doesn’t seem like a smart gamble to me, and for the most part, history will back up my feelings on the matter.

That’s exactly what happens. Power creep is a huge problem in MMO design.

aliquis.9180:

You are right, of course. But for Arenanet to go all out and market their game as THE ONE that dares to be different, getting millions of people to buy into that promise, only to betray them 3 months later, that’s downright comical.

I’m not going to quit GW2 yet. Partly because I still adore with a passion what Arenanet has done with the game before this patch and because I think they deserve a chance.

Like I said, that other MMO is having an extraordinary peer pressure effect on GW2. It’s only natural for Arenanet to buckle under such massive pressure. I’m very saddened by Arenanet’s decision, but I respect it. To say they’ve “betrayed” us I think is a bit too strong, even given the situation. And in their eyes, they’re giving the people (The people crying for gear treadmills and newer endgame) what they want.

I will not play more.
I can’t. I’m an adult with responsibilities.
I may complete the map and see how I feel.
I’m against the ascended gear based on the company lying more than anything else.
I hate liars.
Oh, and I hate gear grind as well.
So that’s two pretty big strikes against A-net

Blacksarevok.8104:

I feel like Arenanet is dangling above the pit TOR and countless other MMO’s fell into.

And that pit is: trying to cater to “MMO hoppers”. Instead of focusing on the people still playing the game without issue, they are focusing getting back the players that aren’t playing anymore. And it will most likely fail. There is a significant portion of players who get bored very quickly and just go from MMO to MMO to MMO. They are never satisfied, no matter what. Wasting effort on trying to tie them down when the effort is exactly that: a waste.

Do they really think that adding a gear ladder is going to bring back that many players that stopped playing? And even if it does, do they really think it’s going to tide them over another 3 months? Most of them will be done within weeks, if not days, and just stop playing again. They upset a huge portion of the dedicated playerbase in attempt to get the flaky/non-existent playerbase back. They are risking players they know would have kept playing the game on the chance they might get some of the hoppers to return.

This just doesn’t seem like a smart gamble to me, and for the most part, history will back up my feelings on the matter.

I hate to double post, but this guy is 100% right, and deserves to know it.

I’m a casual gamer. No longer have time to grind X armor or Y weapons to be able to keep up with the Joneses.

@title

no. but more and better content. will

Blacksarevok.8104:

I feel like Arenanet is dangling above the pit TOR and countless other MMO’s fell into.

And that pit is: trying to cater to “MMO hoppers”. Instead of focusing on the people still playing the game without issue, they are focusing getting back the players that aren’t playing anymore. And it will most likely fail. There is a significant portion of players who get bored very quickly and just go from MMO to MMO to MMO. They are never satisfied, no matter what. Wasting effort on trying to tie them down when the effort is exactly that: a waste.

Do they really think that adding a gear ladder is going to bring back that many players that stopped playing? And even if it does, do they really think it’s going to tide them over another 3 months? Most of them will be done within weeks, if not days, and just stop playing again. They upset a huge portion of the dedicated playerbase in attempt to get the flaky/non-existent playerbase back. They are risking players they know would have kept playing the game on the chance they might get some of the hoppers to return.

This just doesn’t seem like a smart gamble to me, and for the most part, history will back up my feelings on the matter.

Quoting for truth of truths.

if it gives me something more to work towards then yes. I have 100% map, i have most of the armor i want, i’m bored of WvWvW and there’s nothing to do.

the only limiting factor to how fast you get bored of endgame is gold. you can grind for costumes, bank slots, bags, armor etc.. but when you have all you want what reason is there to continue?

this game needs a gear treadmill in PVE only that allows you to gain gold whilst gaining gear at the same time. dungeon runs are good, but mostly frustrating as they lack fun mechanics. they need to give bosses better skills and patterns, make some reall raids and introduce gear tiers in PVE, and give us some endgame.

the problem is this an action mmo, so making bosses with fun patterns would be difficult. so much skill spam you can’t see anything for the most part means it’s hard to implement challenging but fun elements rather the “oops i just got 1 shot downed” stuff we have now.

I left wow because I was tired of constantly having to keep up with everyone else to remain competitive. Same goes for this game, if it goes in and has better stats I really cant see myself logging in anymore.

Not to mention the headache that infusion will bring, I already did that with resistance gear in vanilla wow raiding, I absolutely refuse to do that again.

If anything it will stop me from playing.

I’m solely a WvW player. Although I don’t know how exactly the new items will play out and affect “my” part of the game, the whole scheme smells suspiciously like a gear treadmill that will force me to do a dungeon to remain at the top lvl of (WvW-)competition gearwise. And that’s obviously a very poor design choice.

But here’s to hoping that ascended gear will be useless/exactly as usefull as exotics in WvW.

vespers.1759:

if it gives me something more to work towards then yes. I have 100% map, i have most of the armor i want, i’m bored of WvWvW and there’s nothing to do.

the only limiting factor to how fast you get bored of endgame is gold. you can grind for costumes, bank slots, bags, armor etc.. but when you have all you want what reason is there to continue?

What are legendaries?

What are speed clears and other self-imposed challenges?

What is playing PvP and getting better at the game?

Blacksarevok.8104:

I feel like Arenanet is dangling above the pit TOR and countless other MMO’s fell into.

And that pit is: trying to cater to “MMO hoppers”. Instead of focusing on the people still playing the game without issue, they are focusing getting back the players that aren’t playing anymore. And it will most likely fail. There is a significant portion of players who get bored very quickly and just go from MMO to MMO to MMO. They are never satisfied, no matter what. Wasting effort on trying to tie them down when the effort is exactly that: a waste.

Do they really think that adding a gear ladder is going to bring back that many players that stopped playing? And even if it does, do they really think it’s going to tide them over another 3 months? Most of them will be done within weeks, if not days, and just stop playing again. They upset a huge portion of the dedicated playerbase in attempt to get the flaky/non-existent playerbase back. They are risking players they know would have kept playing the game on the chance they might get some of the hoppers to return.

This just doesn’t seem like a smart gamble to me, and for the most part, history will back up my feelings on the matter.

This is so true!

Also, the guys who really want the gear treadmill will always stay with WoW (or whatever stuff Blizzard is cooking up in the future). They just do that better than any other company who has tried to copy their business model.

So to me this whole announcement sounds like a lose-lose situation.

No, it won’t make me play more.

I am simply not interested in grinding a dungeon for stats, so I will just miss all content that requires infusions.

Haette.2701:

vespers.1759:

if it gives me something more to work towards then yes. I have 100% map, i have most of the armor i want, i’m bored of WvWvW and there’s nothing to do.

the only limiting factor to how fast you get bored of endgame is gold. you can grind for costumes, bank slots, bags, armor etc.. but when you have all you want what reason is there to continue?

What are legendaries?

What are speed clears and other self-imposed challenges?

What is playing PvP and getting better at the game?

i have no interest in grinding 300 gold for the precursor alone. i want content, not crazy grind.

i would do dungeons more if they were actually fun. if the mechanics were there, i would enjoy doing them, but as they are now, they are not something i want to do after i get the gear.

as for pvp i don’t see much room for improvement as wvwvw is based around mindlessly zerging from place to place. if they added arenas for 1v1 i’d be thrilled. i spend a decent chunk of time in most mmos hanging out at the arena and trying stuff out, but here i get lionsarch or SPVP which frankly i would feel bad about goofing off in.

vespers.1759:

i have no interest in grinding 300 gold for the precursor alone. i want content, not crazy grind.

i would do dungeons more if they were actually fun. if the mechanics were there, i would enjoy doing them, but as they are now, they are not something i want to do after i get the gear.

as for pvp i don’t see much room for improvement as wvwvw is based around mindlessly zerging from place to place. if they added arenas for 1v1 i’d be thrilled.

Exactly. My. Point.

These are the things they should be working on, and the sad thing is they actually ARE! This “scavenger hunt” talk about precursors has potential to be a very nice thing. New dungeons are always nice, and this new one actually sounds really cool apart from the lazy damage/resist mechanic. I just hope the bosses get more interesting as the game gets older, this dungeon will be the first test of that.

It’s like they’re serving a delicious meal with one hand but flicking snot on it with the other.

My commentary about dungeons:
- Hard to get a group of players together. We need a cross server dungeon finder.
- Dungeon is challenging but some parts are just darn frustrating.
- Lack of Risk vs. Reward. There’s too much risk not enough reward.

Additional tiers of equipment is more likely to make me eventually stop playing altogether, leaving sooner than I otherwise would have.

Escalating stat changes on equipment do not somehow make a game “more fun”. This is a game where:

1) Stats scale down depending on your location, making an increase in stats fairly meaningless for most of the world. And that’s a big deal in GW2, where the entire world map is largely considered to be entirely end-game content under this design.

2) As players are given equipment with increased stats they are ultimately countered by NPC opponents with increased stats, making the entire thing a pointless wash.

Take a level 10 character, for example, and pit him against a level 10 monster. Now take that same character, give him equipment that has three times the stats, but raise the stats of the monster by a factor of three to maintain the balance. There is going to be no difference in the feel of that fight beyond seeing bigger numbers everywhere. What actually makes higher level content more exciting is the introduction of new abilities, mechanics and tactics on both the player, the environment, and the NPC opponents. You don’t have to throw in stat changes on top of that to accomplish the goal.

The only thing character stats are really good for in GW2 is to slowly unfold the world around the player. A level 10 player can not survive a level 80 zone until his stats have improved. That gives them a location and a goal to strive for over time. It becomes the point of leveling up – to be able to survive in more areas of the world. But once you reach max level, increasing stats just for the sake of increasing stats does little beyond making your current gear obsolete (which I doubt anyone is fond of). It’s also mechanic that can also be used to gate content by forcing a player to get tier 1 equipment in order to raid a tier 2 dungeon, to then obtain tier 2 equipment to raid a tier 3 dungeon, and so on.. but that’s the treadmill this game was supposed to be avoiding like the plague, and even now the developers are insisting they’re opposed to this design.

Players want to believe that there’s always a dungeon out there that is unconquerable until they have invested both time and effort into coming up with a way to survive in it and ultimately conquer it. WoW has taught us that the solution to this dilemma must always come in the form of gear with better stats. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We shouldn’t have to make our current gear obsolete every time we do that. There are plenty of other ways to gate content and make players feel like they are progressing through challenge after challenge. WoW rarely bothers trying this because they already have a mechanic: the illusion of gear “progression”. GW2 could continue its brave trend of being different and use a different way if they really believed in their original philosophy. And I really wish they would.

When players cry for progression, I think what they actually want is a never ending opportunity to open that loot panel and see something amidst the bits of treasure that excites them. That usually tends to be equipment that is more powerful than your current equipment in most MMOs. Really, it is in the hands of the developers to replace that with an exciting alternative or just settle with copying every other MMO. Personally, I would prefer not to see the latter.

Haette.2701:

vespers.1759:

i have no interest in grinding 300 gold for the precursor alone. i want content, not crazy grind.

i would do dungeons more if they were actually fun. if the mechanics were there, i would enjoy doing them, but as they are now, they are not something i want to do after i get the gear.

as for pvp i don’t see much room for improvement as wvwvw is based around mindlessly zerging from place to place. if they added arenas for 1v1 i’d be thrilled.

Exactly. My. Point.

These are the things they should be working on, and the sad thing is they actually ARE! This “scavenger hunt” talk about precursors has potential to be a very nice thing. New dungeons are always nice, and this new one actually sounds really cool apart from the lazy damage/resist mechanic. I just hope the bosses get more interesting as the game gets older, this dungeon will be the first test of that.

It’s like they’re serving a delicious meal with one hand but flicking snot on it with the other.

i’m cautiously optimistic, but i’ll hold off on the panic until it releases :P boos fights are a big thing for me. there’s a lot they could do. the first thing i would say is to get away from the red circles and make animations that are easy to see.

No.

Enough said.

No, it’s just makes me never want to play again.

The new gear would be perfect if it was isolated to the new dungeon. Similar to sPvP where you get a different set when you enter the Mists.

I’ve got no will to play further, especially since a friend of mine has already quit the game over this issue. I can’t formally “quit”, but I’ve got no motivation to play anymore.

Today I logged in first time since the news about ascended gear. Only had enough energy to finish my daily and logged of after an hour. So the answer is no.

I even only have one exotic weapon till now. So that’s not the reason. I came to the conclusion that I lost my GW2 fun because I really thougth GW2 would be a different game, a game without the power creep.

And even worse I believed Anet I really thaugth they are different from other game developers. I thought they did tell us the truth when they said : Best gear will be exotics and legendary will have same stats with nice skins.

It’s obvious they had other goals since some time already. “Lost shores” wasn’t developed in a day. So my trust in Anet is gone and I will probably quit. Whatever that means in a game without subscription.

If more powerful gear made me play more I’d still be playing a game designed around farming the best gear.

I’m not, so no it won’t.

Defora.3694:

They are not adding WOW like gear tiers that make old gear useless.

This is quote from News and Announcements:

Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:
“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.

Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.

Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.

Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."

Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside

If you read it, it clearly says: We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
It is just one level of gear. If they had that since release no-one would have been worried.

Just like legendary items (which will gain Ascended-level stats when they release Ascended weapons), Ascended items are items of prestige. They are meant to give the most hardcore players a good and challenging goal to work towards, while not breaking the game or seriously gating content in any way.

People say that this is a step towards WoW in progression. This is ArenaNet introducing a perfect solution to catering to casual and hardcore players, without creating any sort of rift between those two player types.

Also note that Ascended gear lacks slots for players to choose runes, gems, and sigils (when weapons come out). This means that despite Ascended gear having slightly higher stats, they’re less open to customization and are likely to not even replace exotics in many scenarios. I imagine this is why they are introducing the rings and back slot first, because it will not take away runes/sigils from people.

TLDR: I’m happy with new free content that we will get. I will not start running one instance over and over to get Ascended gear as fast as possible. I’m still exploring the world with friends who are slowly moving to GW2.

I’m glad you believe this. They are creating a gear treadmill for the simple fact that they already are doing something they said they wouldnt to appease the people who are already geared and bored, and the new gear is better than the other gear statwise.

So now these same people will burn thru the ascended content and get that gear and complain again and they will again make changes to the gear system to appease them.

Instead of actually creating more real content they are putting artificial barriers in the game and creating artifical time restraints just like the wards in Warhammer Online. The flaw in this design is no matter how hard or how time consuming they make it the 1-percenters will still burn thru this content and demand more and they will have to act or lose them.