I just decided to send an email to ArenaNet. Maybe that way this message could be noticed. I doubt it, but I feel the need to express myself, so here it goes:
“I was never one of the complaining types. I know that the highest tier gear is not necessary. I will never aim for a legendary and I’m fine with it, but I really wanted ascended items. So much so that now I’m feeling a bit depressed. The system after the update makes no sense and is actively stopping the guild that I’m in from expanding. It’s actually breaking the game.
Here’s the game breaking part:
I’m in a 15 member guild. We were slowly getting our upgrades, one by one. We were never big, so we never complained about how slow it is for us to get it. But here’s the thing – we will never be able to get enough influence to be able to run guild missions. You might say “just get a few more members!”. Well my recruiting efforts are going to waste now, because first thing that people want before joining is to know that your guild will have enough influence to unlock and run guild missions right now. Well we can’t have that because we don’t have enough members. And we can’t get enough members because we don’t have it.
Here’s the solo player based part:
I was able to get ascended rings no problem. Running fractals is easy enough. I thought that their laurel price made no sense (they have less stats than the amulet, but cost more), but because I already had them from fractals I had no complaints there. The amulets came out. I thought “that’s where I will spend my laurels!”. Yes, it takes 20 days to get even one and I have 8 alts, but I can do it! All it takes is time, right (it would take me about 5 months to get the amulets for all of my alts)?
But then the accessories came out. Here where it makes no sense – they have less stats than the amulets and the rings, but they cost more! 40 laurels + 50 ectos. 50 ectos would already push it close to impossible for me, but I won’t complain here, plenty of ways to get ectos, it would be my own fault if I wouldn’t get 50 of them (15 gold to buy it, so a full earring set would cost 30 gold, or if I would want to get free exotics to salvage and my luck would stay what it is – about 150 dungeon runs). But 40 laurels when their stats are lower than the amulet? Let’s see, so I have 8 alts – that’s 14 months of dailies and monthlies + 240 gold spent if the prices don’t change if I want to get it for them. "
Earrings are impossible for me. At least they’re impossible for me if I want to gear all of my alts. Either that or I’ll have to be one of those cheap shots that joins a random big guild (or more than one of them), only to get my stuff and leave. And I don’t want to resort to doing that. Yet I do want the earrings. I agree to work for them, but 40 laurels for each is something I will not be able to afford.