Guild Wars 2

“Past should inspire the future.”

And boy I was not inspired after reading the devblog.

I truly do not believe the Ascended tier is the solu­tion to the gen­uine com­plaint of lack­ing of pro­gres­sion at end-game. Just look at the game’s pre­de­ces­sor, Guild Wars 1. The only thing I would call “power creeps” are con­sum­ables and PvE-only skills; none of them hides behind the man­tle of “char­ac­ter pro­gres­sion”. Con­sum­ables are foods that give a good stats gain for a mod­er­ate amount of time. Their craft­ing com­po­nents being the most abun­dant mate­ri­als in game, eas­ily farmed and traded, and the craft act as a sink for these items. PvE-only skills, intro­duced in Fac­tions cam­paign and becomes a true power creep in Eye of the North expan­sion, is well bal­anced and since then became part of the metagame. Like con­sum­ables, these skills are very eas­ily obtained by any­one, their power is lim­ited by only allow­ing each player to have max­i­mum of three PvE-only skills out of eight total skills.

Any­way, from the look of this devblog, I think the fol­low­ing will grad­u­ally befall to Guild Wars 2 as its expan­sions accumulate.

• A gear “pro­gres­sion” sys­tem that is sim­i­lar enough to the other MMORPG, (you know, the one that is pretty much this game is built from ground up to be dif­fer­ent), to the degree that one is excluded from pugs doing level x Frac­tals dun­geon for not hav­ing y amount of Infu­sions. ANet does not real­ize that play­ers who want this kind of dis­crim­i­na­tion will always feel more at home at the other MMORPG (and the genre of game it “inspired”), and are not who they mar­keted this game to.
• A few new series of dun­geons equiv­a­lent to Frac­tals are intro­duced in future expan­sions, fea­tur­ing their unique resist stats, and require play­ers to farm inside those dun­geons to acquire the appro­pri­ate gears. Wel­come to Gears Wars 2.
• The newer breed of dun­geons, like Frac­tals, will be the de facto PvE end-game con­tent. Play­ers are com­pelled to farm in whichever of these dun­geons that just came out from the lat­est expansion.
• The Leg­endary weapons’ power will con­tinue grow in the form of higher stats, as there will be enough expan­sions before a higher tier than Ascended is introduced.

I’m sorry to inform the devs that there is no way that I can be more excited rather than worried about the future projected in that devblog. Again, the past should inspire the future, and the Ascended equipment and strings attached to them are definitely a relic of the past, which with the wisdom of the past has failed to enlighten.

PS: I tried to “derantify” my post from its original version … hopefully it’s good enough for a discussion rather than a ventilation.

indeed, their latest blog doesnt show much creativity…
totally a “raid” mechanic. raid to get better gear to redo the same content over and over again; but at least, you get to go deeper! i wonder how appealing itll be to replay it endlessy.
and if the other dungeons are gonna be empty now.