Guild Wars 2

Really ? If you are a gamer there are tons of MMO’s that think the same way, go play those please.
If you are a developer, please resign from Anet.
I don’t even get why this is a discussion, the most core aspect of Guild Wars should be a gear/level ceiling, they already upped the cap to 80 and will probably increase it further in the future, now an extra tier of gear, where is this to stop ?

If anyone from Anet could tell us why we shouldn’t consider this as them selling out, I would gladly hear it.

I agree the game needs to have some kind of progression, but bigger numbers ? really ?

Yeah, it’s not very imaginative.

Ohhh again this.Stop making new posts and write in the merged one

The merged thread is basically a trash can. It’s about damage control and not about discussion.

I’d say this is more a thread asking what happened to their ideals, a lot of people, myself included, loved the original guild wars for those ideals, we had to watch them go down a slippery slope of lets add jumping, lets add a bigger level cap, and now let’s add a new tier of gear, at this point it’s fair of me to ask a friggin’ explanation from someone who works at Anet

I totally agree.
That ceiling was what made GW1 the best MMO ever for me.
I could play several characters without having to choose a main for whom I always have to grind equip.
A ceiling grants flexibility and a freedom ; I don’t have to play the same character over and over again/ grind gear for him.

Whereas the “progression” forces me to constantly grind with all my characters to remain at this point.

I’m done with PvE now.
I got myself 5 exotic armors and now they’re useless.
Anet also cut me off WvW with this patch.
Unless they give me an option to gain this new Armor by Honor I’m most likely complete done with GW2.

Playing sPvP all day isn’t fun, playing WvW and sPvP gave me option and was fun.

It’s like disabling half of the race tracks from a racing game.

Michael.6849:

I’d say this is more a thread asking what happened to their ideals, a lot of people, myself included, loved the original guild wars for those ideals, we had to watch them go down a slippery slope of lets add jumping, lets add a bigger level cap, and now let’s add a new tier of gear, at this point it’s fair of me to ask a friggin’ explanation from someone who works at Anet

Jumping was fine; bigger level cap is pointless, gear treadmills are unimaginative.

There are many, many other ways for games to have a sense of progression without merely increasing stats.

So, no I don’t think “progression means higher numbers.”

Everybody knows dealing 9999 dmg is much funnier by far.

/sarcasm

Hell no.

Players like me are drawn into this game precisely because it promises to have a stat ceiling that lasts forever, at least until the next expansion.

Besides, long time MMO players already realized every increasing gear treadmills makes no difference to the power of your character at the end of the day because it will be countered by an equivalent increase in mob stats, regardless whether they like it or not.

Which means I have no idea why anybody over at Anet think this is even a remotely good idea.

well, if my damage was 9999 it would be over 9000 I can see the attraction in that, suddenly I also have an urge to kill panda’s with all that DPS

But seriously, some dev please answer me, why are you guys selling out on one of the core principles that made GW what it was ?
As much as I loved having the ability to combine professions and a myriad of skills I can understand it was murder for the balance of the game, but the low level cap and equipment ceiling were revolutionary and brilliant, you already chucked one of those out the window, please don’t murder the other with pink gear

There’s a plethora of things you could do that haven’t been done before in any MMO, sure they might fail, but at least the WoW comparisons would stop

Loumy.7841:

The merged thread is basically a trash can. It’s about damage control and not about discussion.

Wise words

Static numbers or higher or lower …?

Wow this is an original thread.

please keep it going because I have not heard this type of argument before.

Loumy.7841:

The merged thread is basically a trash can. It’s about damage control and not about discussion.

Putting trash in trash can is …. wrong?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

They’re just adding Ascended. They’re not adding new tiers every 3 months.

That is not a gear treadmill and that is not WoW style progression. People are overreacting like mad.

Michael.6849:

we had to watch them go down a slippery slope of lets add jumping

What on Earth is wrong with being able to jump? O.o

Kana.6793:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

They’re just adding Ascended. They’re not adding new tiers every 3 months.

That is not a gear treadmill and that is not WoW style progression. People are overreacting like mad.

Michael.6849:

we had to watch them go down a slippery slope of lets add jumping

What on Earth is wrong with being able to jump? O.o

Everything is wrong with being able to jump!

You can jump over fences and bypass the content!

Gosh the nerves of you :P

They’re `reacting` because people just geared out characters so they could relax, and now Anet is basically forcing them to regear if they want to stay on top tier. Players have a right to be angry about this when it was said that this type of gear treadmill wouldn’t be around.

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

Progression means requiring strategy, new skills being implemented, new weapons even, new cosmetic gear, and more challenging content that doesn’t include bigger numbers.

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

That response came a day after these complaint threads started, so maybe they listened to us then? Anyway I just hope it is the last tier, I am willing to forgive them this mess once. Honestly even if I was just aware of this tier first I would have been fine, I wouldnt have bothered with exotics and focused on making ults instead.

I’ve always thought progression meant that I was getting better at something, such as playing a game, not that a number was getting higher. After all, in those scenarios, if my numbers get higher, so do the numbers for the monsters, so I’m just doing the same thing. The end result is the same as it was before. That isn’t progression. That’s staying in the same place.

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

^ Probably one of the most chilled, well informed poster I have seen on the forum today.

Quaz.4931:

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

That response came a day after these complaint threads started, so maybe they listened to us then?

Of course they listened.

When a thread has 6900 posts, its hard not to listen, is it? lol

I thought the reward jump from exotic to legendary was nil.
Apparently it was massive.

If a 0 stats jump is massive, how do we classify a +10% stat jump?

Progression means unlocking new abilities, gaining access to new areas and getting better at using those abilities against the challenges in all areas of the game.

When something can’t be done by all the game isn’t fun for everyone.
When something can be done faster, more efficiently or at a higher difficulty by some, but everyone can still do everything, the game can become fun for everyone, as everyone plays at their own pace, but everyone plays.

You can see all forms of “progression” in all sorts of games, like in games such as Castlevania, Zelda series, Metroid, Assassin’s Creed, Deus Ex, Protoype, Legacy of Kain series…

You don’t really need numbers at all for progression. Not levels, not gear stats, nothing like that.
But when numbers are used to create progression, they should be there simply to add “walls” that do not affect everyone.
Instead a door you can’t open until you advance in the story or get the proper tool, levels are there so you can’t face those challenges until you get close enough to that level.

But by the time you have completed the story, and unless there’s ‘new game+’ or something similar to replay the story at a higher difficulty, progression should have ended, and you should have all the available tools.

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

Right now legendaries are on par with exotics, there is no jump. When ascended weapons are released they will be buffed to be on par with ascended weapons, when this happens there is still no jump. They could easily release double ascended SSJ3 uber gold gear down the road if they wanted to, and buff legendaries with it.

If with gap they mean the difficulty of obtaining legendaries compared to exotics, that would mean ascended is going to be harder to get than exotic items. With exotics currently only being available for loads of karma, lots of dungeon runs or rare expensive crafting mats, you’ll get an idea of how hard it is going to be to get ascended items. This would mean that there is going to be minority out there who outperforms the majority simply because of superior gear. There is only a 5 stat difference now, but when they have released the whole ascended set it could be a 60 stat difference, equal to a full set of divinity runes. Some people say “ascended gear doesn’t have upgrade slots”, but all we’ve seen right now is the ring, and they have the stats from the upgrade baked in the baseline stats. The same logic could be used for armor pieces, by having pre-selected runes in them. Heck, they could have a random superior rune baked in, to create a big long grind.

They have said there will be other ways of obtaining ascended items, but they would still have to be very hard to get otherwise they no longer close the gap between exotic and legendary. If not, it would only give Arenanet more reasons to introduce yet another rarity to keep the treadmill going.

Exactly Vengus.

Lets use something in game.

Imagine the adept manual is exotic and the grandmaster manual is legendary.
I need to buy them in order, so I spend 10s and then 2g. Total 2g10s.

Now I add master manual (ascendant) to bridge the huge disparity in price between exotic and legendary.

Now I have to buy adept, master and grandmaster manuals for a total of 3g10s.

Wow much easier to get legendaries by adding something else to spend additional resources in.

How many of us would buy the master manual if the grandmaster manual didn’t require it?

How many of us will spend time/resources in exotics knowing ascendant are out?

And of course the same crowd that complained that legendaries are a waste of time because they are the same stats will say the same about them since they have the same stats as ascendant.

Latest update from Anet contains this about the FotM Dungeon:

“The dungeon will remember your progress, and will poll the party’s levels when you enter, scaling the dungeon to the highest common attained level.”
“It’s a true challenge, but as you hit higher and higher scales, the dungeon will get more and more rewarding.”

Seriously Anet, are you guys smoking kittens or something ? I agree there should be harder content that is more rewarding, but gating it like this is just . . .

In terms of holding gw2 to gw1 standards, I say nay. If a person or group designed guitars and they were really good, but decided to switch to violins. It doesn’t seem right to tell them they can’t. Regardless if they are a franchise of guitars and want to move onto something different, it’s unfair to stop them from doing something new (relative to them). So if you really loved gw1, go play gw1, I’m sorry it has no more updates planned for it, but gw2 is a different game made by the same people.

In regards to the broken promise debate, yeah, I’ll give you that one, they did kinda let people down on what the inferred from their ads. But by all means, GW2 is not GW1.

Michael.6849:

Latest update from Anet contains this about the FotM Dungeon:

“The dungeon will remember your progress, and will poll the party’s levels when you enter, scaling the dungeon to the highest common attained level.”
“It’s a true challenge, but as you hit higher and higher scales, the dungeon will get more and more rewarding.”

Seriously Anet, are you guys smoking kittens or something ? I agree there should be harder content that is more rewarding, but gating it like this is just . . .

What’s wrong with this? A dungeon that never ends, becoming progressively more difficult as you progress. I find this to be a rather exciting idea. Did you want it to never end, and have the difficulty remain the same?

No by all means, make it insanely hard, but this part : “poll the party’s levels when you enter, scaling the dungeon to the highest common attained level.” bothers me because of this part: “as you hit higher and higher scales, the dungeon will get more and more rewarding.”

What do you think this will lead to, seriously, “GLF 1 more scale 50+ ascended pink kitten chasing after carrots” maybe

I think it’s a very real possibility, let’s just go ahead and call it an inevitable reality

Vengus.1098:

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

Right now legendaries are on par with exotics, there is no jump. When ascended weapons are released they will be buffed to be on par with ascended weapons, when this happens there is still no jump. They could easily release double ascended SSJ3 uber gold gear down the road if they wanted to, and buff legendaries with it.

If with gap they mean the difficulty of obtaining legendaries compared to exotics, that would mean ascended is going to be harder to get than exotic items. With exotics currently only being available for loads of karma, lots of dungeon runs or rare expensive crafting mats, you’ll get an idea of how hard it is going to be to get ascended items. This would mean that there is going to be minority out there who outperforms the majority simply because of superior gear. There is only a 5 stat difference now, but when they have released the whole ascended set it could be a 60 stat difference, equal to a full set of divinity runes. Some people say “ascended gear doesn’t have upgrade slots”, but all we’ve seen right now is the ring, and they have the stats from the upgrade baked in the baseline stats. The same logic could be used for armor pieces, by having pre-selected runes in them. Heck, they could have a random superior rune baked in, to create a big long grind.

They have said there will be other ways of obtaining ascended items, but they would still have to be very hard to get otherwise they no longer close the gap between exotic and legendary. If not, it would only give Arenanet more reasons to introduce yet another rarity to keep the treadmill going.

You’re over exaggerating the difficulty in obtaining exotics a bit here. I have a near full set, and I’ve not done anything to obtain them other than killing dragons and doing dungeons every now and then.

The gap is indeed referring to the difficulty in obtaining. It’s not about breaking manifesto, or adding vertical progression. It’s about balancing rewards. Legendaries are so out of reach that many players (myself included) really didn’t consider ever obtaining one. What are they to do? Make legendaries easier to obtain? Ascended gear gives me something to work towards, but is not necessary for me to enjoy the game. I WvW on a normal basis. I’m not all geared out with exotics, and yet I still manage to kill plenty of players and avoid getting rofl-stomped unless I come up against a lone guardian or thief. And that has less to do with their gear, and more to do with the profession and skill of the player.

A few stat points (Yes yes, I know about the 8% and what not) are not going to make or break one player fighting another. Furthermore, the slow introduction of this tier set to the game will likely insure that the majority of players will have a piece or two before the remaining pieces of the set are released. Since, like everything else in this game, you’re rewarded for doing pretty much anything.

This would of course be speculation on my part, but that’s all anyone is doing at this point. I think we’ll just have to wait and see. If ascended gear turns out to be a terribly game breaking and unpopular addition to the game a few weeks down the road, I have no doubt it would be addressed. But to expect them to just toss something out because the internet fervor assumes the sky is falling is ridiculous.

Is it really progression if the future content is going to be designed with higher stats in mind?

If a mob has 100hp and you do 10hp damage to it now and after the whole ascended thing you do 11hp damage but the mob has 110hp, are you really doing more damage? Is that really progression?

It’s basically a hamster wheel, an illusion of getting stronger without actually getting stronger.

Progression can be done in so many different ways. Progression via higher numbers is just lazy design, imo.

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

Lutharr.1035:

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

I don’t find it entertaining. I’ve been chasing numbers in virtually every single MMO to date. It’s gotten old already. GW1 was different and I played it for years because of it. GW2 was different too, until this new patch at least.

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

I don’t find it entertaining.

well when you invest millions of dollars of your own money into a game feel free to only put in what you personally find entertaining.

@OP, there is a thread for this. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/page/162#post729913

How about more story progression? How about allowing us to do something with our personal instances? How about more skills for more character progression? How about more weapons for the classes? How about fleshing our your cities more by adding more activities? How about more titles? How about more pets?

How about we scrap this stupid numerical progression and focus on things which actually amount to something?

@ArcTheFallen, read the post next time, I already mentioned this when someone else suggested I’d put it in the trashcan

“I’d say this is more a thread asking what happened to their ideals, a lot of people, myself included, loved the original guild wars for those ideals, we had to watch them go down a slippery slope of lets add jumping, lets add a bigger level cap, and now let’s add a new tier of gear, at this point it’s fair of me to ask a friggin’ explanation from someone who works at Anet”

Lutharr.1035:

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

I don’t find it entertaining.

well when you invest millions of dollars of your own money into a game feel free to only put in what you personally find entertaining.

Do you know what customer feedback is?

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

I don’t find it entertaining.

well when you invest millions of dollars of your own money into a game feel free to only put in what you personally find entertaining.

Do you know what customer feedback is?

yes but it works both ways. Not just YOUR opinon that matters in the world.

Lutharr.1035:

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

krookie.6378:

Lutharr.1035:

who cares if its an illusion if you still find it entertaining.

I didnt sit through the Avengers with my son saying “its an illusion so ya cant enjoy it”

I don’t find it entertaining.

well when you invest millions of dollars of your own money into a game feel free to only put in what you personally find entertaining.

Do you know what customer feedback is?

yes but it works both ways. Not just YOUR opinon that matters in the world.

So you’re giving me feedback on my feedback?

Thank you!

Could you 2 get a room, to debate in of course, wouldn’t want to get another infraction for what I consider to be humor, I actually had some good, fair points in this post, and was demanding an answer from someone at Anet regarding them selling out on the core principles that made GW the game it was.

I will say two things here, reflecting both sides of the argument:

1. Exponentially increasing numbers/gear treadmills are a terrible, terrible design paradigm. I really have no idea why WoW was as successful as it was because it did so many things wrong. GW1 had much better progression with a low level cap and skill acquisition replacing a constantly raising level cap and an endless gear treadmill.

2. I’m not convinced that ANet is trying to make this a WoW-like gear treadmill, it seems to be that they are simply fleshing the game out more, adding more content and more things to occupy people in the end game. People are overreacting preemptively.

I will say with #2, though, that I do hope they listen to the concern being generated by this change, because the last thing I want GW2 to become is an endless stream of new level caps and new tiers of gear. The genre absolutely without question needs a breath of fresh air in this department. Many of the things that were listed in above posts such as new skills, new weapons/sets, new low level areas, new cosmetic changes, new personal stories, etc. would be vastly superior to throwing on 10 new levels and a new tier or two of gear every time they want to update the content.

If anything, doing it the way WoW does it is world-destroying. It is impossible to maintain a sense of immersion in a game that so obviously revolves around gamist design goals.

Kana.6793:

Quaz.4931:

People aren’t over reacting, they are just making it perfectly clear to A-net what they think about this “addition”.

Maybe it wont stop this ‘ascended’ tier, but the outcry may hopefully stop any further tiers being introduced

There’s nothing to stop. They have already said:

“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.”

There are no future tiers.

I apologize. Where exactly did they say this was the last tier?

Come on Anet, give us a decent answer to our questions, not some deliberately vague answers that just raise more questions, what is this, “Lost” ?

Michael.6849:

Come on Anet, give us a decent answer to our questions, not some deliberately vague answers that just raise more questions, what is this, “Lost” ?

The only way we’ll get a real answer is to wait until Friday when this new change goes in effect.

Whoever does the PR at Anet seriously dropped the ball on this one, if you aren’t going to give real answers to people who feel betrayed by your “180 degree change in direction of the manifesto” rage inducing blog posts, than don’t make them kitten /p>