Guild Wars 2

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication. You will be spending a lot of time in raids learning the encounters and running constant trials until you and your guild finally succeed.

If people are willing to commit so much effort into doing the raids, why aren’t they willing to put in the effort into getting Ascended gear? At least the weapons and trinkets, anyway.

Because there is a huge difference between skill and organization as a requirement on the one hand and grind as a requirement on the other? Not that I am one of the people who complains about ascended equipment, mind you, but I can see where those people are coming from.

Because grinding the mats or the gold together is plain boring and tedious.

Again, where do you people get off calling anything you find remotely boring a “grind?” There’s a difference between “grind” and long-term goals! You can’t just get everything you want in a week! Christ!!

I understand having asended gear for endgame content but like any dungeon people are going to go all elitist on people and expect a certtain armor. It has taken me a long time to make my ranger armor and it will just be a waste and a hastle to create new armor for him or completely be ignored for raids because he is a ranger. Until legendary armor comes out most of us will be inconvienced and it will force a lot of people to have to wait to do the content.

Raiding is about coming prepared. It’s about gathering people who want to win and are willing to work at it.

The threshold of difficulty for amassing a set of Ascended gear is trivial. It takes some time. It’ takes some mats. If you can’t be bothered to do that, you’re not the ‘willing to work at it’ type and if we get genuinely hard raids that take a while to master, I want people in my group accustomed to undertakings that take more than a week.

ElijahFitzroy.5762:

I understand having asended gear for endgame content but like any dungeon people are going to go all elitist on people and expect a certtain armor. It has taken me a long time to make my ranger armor and it will just be a waste and a hastle to create new armor for him or completely be ignored for raids because he is a ranger. Until legendary armor comes out most of us will be inconvienced and it will force a lot of people to have to wait to do the content.

Can you blame anyone who would take raids seriously? The content was designed around ascended gear, having roles like healing and “tanking” and will require maximum effort. Nobody can realistically expect the devs to keep making endgame content around auto attacking in exotic zerker gear anymore.

I’m not that surprised, since people call everything a ‘grind’ these days. Just like the new buzzwords -wall and -gate. :P
Hell, I’ve even seen people call leveling (of all things!) in GW2 a grind.

It’s all in the mindset I think, if you want everything nownownow and go full obsession mode farming 24/7, yes then it probably feels like a grind. Like everything would. Even baking cakes and eating them will feel like a grind when approached in such a manner.

What Nike said, but here’s how hard a piece of ascended is.

Go in Silverwastes for three hours. Craft vision crystal. Buy everything else.

Ascended done.

Gaebriel.3754:

Hell, I’ve even seen people call leveling (of all things!) in GW2 a grind.

Lol. Maybe it’s a grind for someone who has 2 hours to play a week.

Altho, I was doing a low level Sylvari war for story achieve last night and I got something like 4 levels in about 2 hours, so even at 2 hours a week it wouldn’t be that bad.

I knew a guy who played Vanguard for years and he used to talk about how in that game, it took him months of 16 hour days (every day) to reach max level.

I am sorry, but there is no way Ascended is going to be required for raids unless Anet ads in a mechanic similar to Agony.

10% stats above Exotic is just not game breaking enough for the masses, so requiring BiS Ascended is not going to make/break raiding in this game.

sirsquishy.8531:

I am sorry, but there is no way Ascended is going to be required for raids unless Anet ads in a mechanic similar to Agony.

10% stats above Exotic is just not game breaking enough for the masses, so requiring BiS Ascended is not going to make/break raiding in this game.

At no point in my post did I say that I felt Ascended gear was required for raids. It is for me personally because I want to be a better contribution, but again, at no point in my post did I talk about this.

I think it’s a non-issue as you don’t actually need Ascended equipment for the raids, trinkets can be bought with laurels and you will be getting Ascended drops in raids. A combination on the three and the fact that you can now change stats on Ascended equipment will mean that people who start raiding in Exotics will find themselves in useful Ascended equipment quite quickly.

Quite how they’ll be able to keep adding challenging new encounters when everyone is already at gear cap is the real question. The gearing barrier is how traditional raid games work, you release a new raid and everyone needs to upgrade their gear with drops from that raid in order to be able to progress, it slows down teams and delays the time until a raid is put on farm status. I imagine that teams will blast through new raid content in GW2 much more quickly. I’m curious to see if they have plans to combat that beyond splitting the raids into multiple small releases.

Grinding is just a bad game design. No exceptions.
Silverwastes cf is one of the most boring things in this game. It is a good way to start to hate playing GW 2.

I am sorry, but there is no way Ascended is going to be required for raids unless Anet ads in a mechanic similar to Agony.

10% stats above Exotic is just not game breaking enough for the masses, so requiring BiS Ascended is not going to make/break raiding in this game.

To be honest, the most grinding part is only an armor. But armor makes a 0.5-0.7% difference between exo and asc. Yes. Zero point five/seven percent. So. Ascended armor don’t required for raids. Forget about it.

Diovid.9506:

Because there is a huge difference between skill and organization as a requirement on the one hand and grind as a requirement on the other? Not that I am one of the people who complains about ascended equipment, mind you, but I can see where those people are coming from.

Irrelevant. If you like it or not, you want to have the reward, you have to do the grind. I don´t like raids, but I have to do them if I want the reward. Both parties lose, but it is a compromise often found in politics too, the least satisfying solution for everyone.

I personally find that to be easily avoidable, but Anet is armed to the teeth with the resolve to push raids, so let the suffering begin.^^

It’s not so much that it’s a grind it’s more that it’s not fun. WvW is fun, spvp is fun, I have had fun raiding in other games even as a mainly pvp player. I have trinkets and I guess I will make a weapon now that I have too but I won’t be making armor it’s not worth it and it drops in the raid.

The thing is people find things to be a grind when they no longer enjoy what they are doing. Being rewarded when doing content you like is great the problem is only certain activities are rewarded meaningful in this game and if you don’t find those activities that reward ascended to be fun then you are SoL.

And there we already are with different opinions and perceptions.

I think for example SPvP is boring and puts me better to sleep than a sleeping pill could and people should be paid for playing it. And even with that in mind, I would still vastly prefer if over raids bcause I can exit a PvP match after one round and get something for my effort. So it is not fun for me. On the other hand, going over the old maps to collect something does not bore me. It doesn´t particulary excite me of course, but I can spend hours with it if there is nothing better to do or if I want the mats.

Nike.2631:

Raiding is about coming prepared. It’s about gathering people who want to win and are willing to work at it.

The threshold of difficulty for amassing a set of Ascended gear is trivial. It takes some time. It’ takes some mats. If you can’t be bothered to do that, you’re not the ‘willing to work at it’ type and if we get genuinely hard raids that take a while to master, I want people in my group accustomed to undertakings that take more than a week.

challenging content is about using skill, practice, and strategy to overcome adversity. Its Intense and focused.
Personality types who seek challenge, are generally easily bored by easy repetitive tasks (thats the opposite of challenge)
Its not the amount of work or non work thats the problem with ascended being part of raid progression, its the type of work. Easy time spaced based rewards and easy repetetive gold farming is the worst way to appeal to the challenge loving type(of course this is not absolute, merely a archetype)

Heres the thing, many challenging types will make it through the ascended aquisition style, but they will hate it, the goal may get them through it, but they will not enjoy it. This is why almost every raid system has a raid progression, whether it be event based or gear based.

When i hit max level in FFXIV i only needed to get to ilevel 80 to begin attempting bahamut coil, which took less than a week for me as a noob, and if i was already established, i would probably either have the gear ready, or could buy the gear.

I never played wow, but from what i hear, you can begin teired difficult content, and be raiding within a week or less from hitting max, that clearly prepares you for the next difficulty. High skill level people can skip many teirs.

Point is, its not the work or dedication thats the problem with ascended aquisition, its the playstyle. The worst is time gated things. For a challenge loving type thats the worst. No matter how hard you work, or how good you are at the game, you have to wait. Do this trivial task everyday and come back to me in a month. Challenge types can see getting gold faster as a form of challenge, but time gates? nothing you can do about that
but wait.

hopefully anet has already considered and have a plan for these types. Because the current ascended aquisition doesnt really fit their psychology.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

What Nike said, but here’s how hard a piece of ascended is.

Go in Silverwastes for three hours. Craft vision crystal. Buy everything else.

Ascended done.

farm up 150 gold to level crafting
farm up 60-150 gold per peicex6

spend 40+ hours doing the most monotonous activities in game, shoot self in head.

easy

Torolan.5816:

And there we already are with different opinions and perceptions.

I think for example SPvP is boring and puts me better to sleep than a sleeping pill could and people should be paid for playing it. And even with that in mind, I would still vastly prefer if over raids bcause I can exit a PvP match after one round and get something for my effort. So it is not fun for me. On the other hand, going over the old maps to collect something does not bore me. It doesn´t particulary excite me of course, but I can spend hours with it if there is nothing better to do or if I want the mats.

your right here, but thats why the progression to get into raids, should be different because your personaility type as you said doesnt like raids.
Ascended aquisition is designed to be a reward for playing consistently over a long period of time and doing a bunch of fairly easy repetive things over the course of months.

Which is the worst type of progression for people who specifically seek challenge and intense situations.

They stated VERY clearly that the first wing won’t require ascended, and that in fact, NONE of it requires ascended, it’s just tuned for ascended. An even better more coordinated group could do it all without. The first wing isn’t even going to come out with the xpac, it’ll be a few weeks later (enough to earn ascended with the new more engaging map rewards system, which makes the grind you complain about more of a legitimate achievement), then they’ll do the first wing and you won’t even need the ascended gear, and may not even need it in the next wing. They also said that raids drop ascended gear, and have better rewards than average, and as it’s on a week raid lock, ascended drops could easily be super common, and thus you can earn the gear you need by doing the raid.

Lauriewonnacott.9841:

They stated VERY clearly that the first wing won’t require ascended, and that in fact, NONE of it requires ascended, it’s just tuned for ascended. An even better more coordinated group could do it all without. The first wing isn’t even going to come out with the xpac, it’ll be a few weeks later (enough to earn ascended with the new more engaging map rewards system, which makes the grind you complain about more of a legitimate achievement), then they’ll do the first wing and you won’t even need the ascended gear, and may not even need it in the next wing. They also said that raids drop ascended gear, and have better rewards than average, and as it’s on a week raid lock, ascended drops could easily be super common, and thus you can earn the gear you need by doing the raid.

map completion is not challenging content. I had to do it eventually to get more gifts of exploration for a second time. Its incredibly tedious.

Telling people to be bored for 4 weeks in a game isnt really the best option.

The only thing i will say is, IF people actually party with exotic users fairly regularly and dont do gear checks for raids, AND getting ascended isnt locked out with like a 20% chance per week, the last solution you suggest may work.

but based on the previous tuning, most people will enforce and believe that you should only be attempting raids if you have at the very least all accessories and weapons.

Boredom is for boring people, I hang out with a friend or two and actually enjoy map completion, I’ve done it on several characters.

The “grind” should really just be a by-product of hanging out and playing the game with other people, then it doesnt feel so bad.

I really dont feel that ascended crafting has been any kind of challenge, it takes time, and it’s a bit expensive, but that’s it. Try to enjoy yourself, it’s just a game after all.

One of the big selling points for GW2 was the lack of treadmill to obtain best ‘stat’ equipment, thus making most effort go towards obtaining shiny, but not statistically significant skins.

This is the reason why release of ascended items caused such an uproar – it changed the power curve from being flat to being…less flat.

Most other MMOs run with following system

Level > obtain tier 1 items > do dungeons > obtain tier 2 items > do entry raids > obtain tier 3 items > do higher tier raids > obtain tier 4+ items > roll out expansion making all your previous work useless > go to step 1

GW2 promised something different
Level > gain exotic armor (dungeons, crafting, drops, tp)> do anything you want in the game

With the introduction of ascended and now raids, the system is slowly shifting towards the ‘standard’ MMO model

Level > gain exotics > grind crafting and/or do fractals/missions whatever > gain ascended > do raids

Simply put, original GW2 model emphasized your ability to play your character(even level field with everyone in exotics). The outcry comes from not wanting that to change to emphasize the equipment and using it as soft gating for content.

If they balanced around exotic and casuals raids would be just as easy as dungeons, people solo dungeons, we need actually difficult content in pve. Acended has been around for years, it’s not hard to get (especially accessories) the stat difference on the armor is minor, the only real thing you might need is weapons which if you’re a pve player, should be the first thing you go for if you haven’t already RNG d a few.

Plus good players will have no problem doing raids in exotics.

It used to be more of an issue before you could change stats on the ascended gear.

Really, guys, if you’re not willing to spend 60 hours chest farming in the Silverwastes, I don’t know why you expect to be able to raid. It’s basically the same thing, you just don’t want to do the first part of it. Kittening casuals and their not-wanting-to-spent-literal-days-chest-farming-in-silverwastes. You make me sick.

Ascended rings, asscesoires and amulets are basically free (login rewards), so the total change in armor stats isnt even 10%, more like 5. And that is in armor stats only, so the total amount of stat increase really feels insignificant to me. Grinding for an awesome reward is one thing, grinding for armor of wich you wont even notice its use is something entirely different.

roelvanesch.2817:

Ascended rings, asscesoires and amulets are basically free (login rewards), so the total change in armor stats isnt even 10%, more like 5. And that is in armor stats only, so the total amount of stat increase really feels insignificant to me. Grinding for an awesome reward is one thing, grinding for armor of wich you wont even notice its use is something entirely different.

ascended trinkets, aside from rings are just as annoying, and weapon requires you to craft.

Now tell me, do you think someone who loves action packed intense moment to moment fights. Who loves going toe to toe with powerful opponents and facing death when they mess up. loves working with others and coming up with strategies to overcome adversity

wants to log in then log off for 28 days
and once a week to do jump puzzles and map hunts for 4 weeks?
how about following a list from a crafting guide, buying tons of crap and making crap they dont want or need so they can get to max level crafting to get each of their weapons.

Do you really not know anyone who hated obtaining ascended? who lost interest or stop playing before completing the majority of it? Who basically had to ignore it or lose their desire to play? I know many.

wasnt this expansion supposed to bring back, and retain those guys?

phys.7689:

farm up 150 gold to level crafting
farm up 60-150 gold per peicex6

spend 40+ hours doing the most monotonous activities in game, shoot self in head.

easy

I’m sure there will be groups that cater to your inability to do your homework.

Just not mine.

Andred.1087:

Again, where do you people get off calling anything you find remotely boring a “grind?” There’s a difference between “grind” and long-term goals! You can’t just get everything you want in a week! Christ!!

It becomes a “grind” when it’s an imposed long-term goal. Remember way back when, when exotic was the best? Then Ascended came out. But it was ok. Because it was only needed for high level fractals. So you could do the content, so you could see what it was like, and if you enjoyed it. Then sure you’d have to get Ascended gear if you wanted to do the higher levels, but that was your choice.

Personally I feel the first raid should not need Ascended gear to be able to do it. But the other wings should. Nothing is going to annoy people more than wasting there time on gear they don’t need because they don’t like raids in GW2.

Now I have full Ascended gear, and I’m working on a second set. I don’t really do fractals, but I have the gear because I like to have the ability to play what I want. I know people who hate fractals and have said they will never set foot in them again. But want to try raiding. But see Ascended gear as a wast of time/gold as they don’t needed to play the vast majority of the game.

This is a sticking point for them, and others I’m sure.

Nike.2631:

phys.7689:

farm up 150 gold to level crafting
farm up 60-150 gold per peicex6

spend 40+ hours doing the most monotonous activities in game, shoot self in head.

easy

I’m sure there will be groups that cater to your inability to do your homework.

Just not mine.

Of course, i dont really expect anyone to let people in exotics in on their serious attempts at beating raids.
but do you really think creating interesting challenging content should be about doing your homework, or writing your times tables 20 times?

do you really think someone who writes books will find much purpose in writing the definition of the vocabulary words 5 times for a month?

did you know irl they realized that having non challenging homework/classwork often lead smarter students to disengage and lose interest?

If you are designing a course for intellegent students, you test them, or give them difficult tasks. You dont give them wrote repetition or accept them into high end programs based on their attendance records.

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication. You will be spending a lot of time in raids learning the encounters and running constant trials until you and your guild finally succeed.

If people are willing to commit so much effort into doing the raids, why aren’t they willing to put in the effort into getting Ascended gear? At least the weapons and trinkets, anyway.

I got all classes at lv80. With exotic you were able to switch class, and build on demand (condi vs. power, and now with druid you need cleric stats).

So what you’re telling me is that it should be fine for me to grind 3 armor class ascended sets (which I have now thanks to doing fractal 50 for over a year), on top of that at least 3 more sets for condi builds for a total of 6 ascended sets.

If my characters are different races, since my ele is norn and uses norn racial armor and my mesmer/necro/ranger/warrior are sylvari and the thief/guard human, that means I also gotta craft separate ascended sets for those since you can’t just equip ascended armor with a racial transmutation, and you can’t even transmute it into your own since you can’t equip the gear so you can’t transmute it to be usable by another race.

So instead I gotta grab that racial gear, go to hall of monuments, get the old school skins, apply them over the ascended armor, transfer them to the other race toon, and then transmute those.

In essence, ascended is a putrid idea that only serves to restrict and create goldsinks for no reason whatsoever. The whole appeal of guild wars is switching builds and classes on the run, which exotic allowed you but ascended doesn’t.

What’s more, you can say ascended armor can change stats, but not without losing runes and infusions costing upward of 60+ gold for strength or scholar runes or 13 gold per sigil of force for weapons.

Zenith.7301:

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication. You will be spending a lot of time in raids learning the encounters and running constant trials until you and your guild finally succeed.

If people are willing to commit so much effort into doing the raids, why aren’t they willing to put in the effort into getting Ascended gear? At least the weapons and trinkets, anyway.

I got all classes at lv80. With exotic you were able to switch class, and build on demand (condi vs. power, and now with druid you need cleric stats).

So what you’re telling me is that it should be fine for me to grind 3 armor class ascended sets, on top of that at least 3 more sets for condi builds for a total of 6 ascended sets.

If my characters are different races, since my ele is norn and uses norn racial armor and my mesmer/necro/ranger/warrior are sylvari and the thief/guard human, that means I also gotta craft separate ascended sets for those since you can’t just equip ascended armor with a racial transmutation, and you can’t even transmute it into your own since you can’t equip the gear so you can’t transmute it to be usable by another race.

So instead I gotta grab that racial gear, go to hall of monuments, get the old school skins, apply them over the ascended armor, transfer them to the other race toon, and then transmute those.

In essence, ascended is a putrid idea that only serves to restrict and create goldsinks for no reason whatsoever. The whole appeal of guild wars is switching builds and classes on the run, which exotic allowed you but ascended doesn’t.

What’s more, you can say ascended armor can change stats, but not without losing runes and infusions costing upward of 60+ gold for strength or scholar runes or 13 gold per sigil of force for weapons.

yes this is the other big flaw with the ascended changes and requiring different gear sets.
The devs didnt experience this because they can auto create any set they need, but ascended aquisition and inventory rune sigil etc are huge headaches an impediments to the lets figure this out and use whatever classes/stats/builds we need to exceed type of gameplay they said they wanted people to do for raids

short version:
trial/difficulty based ascended aquisition
better gear swapping/inventoy/rune/sigil system for the game as a whole.

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication. You will be spending a lot of time in raids learning the encounters and running constant trials until you and your guild finally succeed.

If people are willing to commit so much effort into doing the raids, why aren’t they willing to put in the effort into getting Ascended gear? At least the weapons and trinkets, anyway.

It is unfortunate that you do not list skill or anything of the sort in your list of what Raids take.

Dedication, commitment, and investment in growing as a player are all very much things that I consider a normal part of playing a game (for me). Crafting, to me, not only is not playing the game, it also demonstrates a lack of dedication, commitment, etc to becoming a better player.

100 hours practicing a single maneuver but not five minutes at the crafting table.

Sigmoid.7082:

It used to be more of an issue before you could change stats on the ascended gear.

Changing stats on ascended gear is a nonstarter. Scholar/strength runes are 70 g per set and you lose your infusions as well, unless you want to pay real life cash for upgrade extractors.

The stat change only affects when you get an ascended chest with stats you don’t want so you can change the stats of the set before you rune it up.

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication.

Because people don’t know what raiding is. They think raid as dungeon or fractal.

Jahran.8456:

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication.

Because people don’t know what raiding is. They think raid as dungeon or fractal.

No, people just don’t equate raiding with endless hours of chest farming in silverwastes. Nor should they.

phys.7689:

yes this is the other big flaw with the ascended changes and requiring different gear sets.
The devs didnt experience this because they can auto create any set they need, but ascended aquisition and inventory rune sigil etc are huge headaches an impediments to the lets figure this out and use whatever classes/stats/builds we need to exceed type of gameplay they said they wanted people to do for raids

short version:
trial/difficulty based ascended aquisition
better gear swapping/inventoy/rune/sigil system for the game as a whole.

A couple of things.

• 1) Ascended gear is not hard to make. It’s just time consuming. If you play the game normally, you’re rewarded with Mats that you can use to craft your Ascended gear. I have a full set for each weight class. Most I crafted. Some I used Ascended armor chests. Same goes for the weapons.

• 2) As a convenience item, you can purchase Gem Store items that can remove runes and other stuff. But from a value standpoint, it’s cheaper just to buy another few rune sets. Then after you swapped your Ascended gear stats, slap on the new runes and you’re good to go. When you succeed at a Raid, you’ll be rewarded with gear that you can swap stats on the fly. That’s the best incentive of all to succeed. If there were gear swapping outside of Legendary gear, you take away from the prestige of those luxury goods.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

phys.7689:

yes this is the other big flaw with the ascended changes and requiring different gear sets.
The devs didnt experience this because they can auto create any set they need, but ascended aquisition and inventory rune sigil etc are huge headaches an impediments to the lets figure this out and use whatever classes/stats/builds we need to exceed type of gameplay they said they wanted people to do for raids

short version:
trial/difficulty based ascended aquisition
better gear swapping/inventoy/rune/sigil system for the game as a whole.

A couple of things.

• 1) Ascended gear is not hard to make. It’s just time consuming. If you play the game normally, you’re rewarded with Mats that you can use to craft your Ascended gear. I have a full set for each weight class. Most I crafted. Some I used Ascended armor chests. Same goes for the weapons.

• 2) As a convenience item, you can purchase Gem Store items that can remove runes and other stuff. But from a value standpoint, it’s cheaper just to buy another few rune sets. Then after you swapped your Ascended gear stats, slap on the new runes and you’re good to go. When you succeed at a Raid, you’ll be rewarded with gear that you can swap stats on the fly. That’s the best incentive of all to succeed. If there were gear swapping outside of Legendary gear, you take away from the prestige of those luxury goods.

yes, as i said ascended aquisition is primarily a time/ loyalty reward, which makes it a pretty poor gate for challenging group content. I never said it was hard

The type of systems i think it would be best to design would be based around obtaining the gear or upgrading the gear, or unlocking stats.
This would mean a legendary would unlock all stats, whereas an ascended item would only unlock one stat.
There fore the legendary is still superior, = to like 14 different prefixes, wheresas the ascended is only 1/14 a legendary. Not to mention legendary is future proof.

phys.7689:

yes, as i said ascended aquisition is primarily a time/ loyalty reward, which makes it a pretty poor gate for challenging group content. I never said it was hard

The type of systems i think it would be best to design would be based around obtaining the gear or upgrading the gear, or unlocking stats.
This would mean a legendary would unlock all stats, whereas an ascended item would only unlock one stat.
There fore the legendary is still superior, = to like 14 different prefixes, wheresas the ascended is only 1/14 a legendary. Not to mention legendary is future proof.

At least with the current setups, you have access to nearly all stat combos in game. You just need to use the correct Mats to swap your Ascended gear stats with. There’s already a couple of combos that I think you need to unlock.

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

I’m sure there will be groups that cater to your inability to do your homework.

Just not mine.

Of course, i dont really expect anyone to let people in exotics in on their serious attempts at beating raids.
but do you really think creating interesting challenging content should be about doing your homework, or writing your times tables 20 times?

I do. And I realize this in an unbridgeable gulf in our expectations and perceptions. Which is why it’s good the system allows groups of both sorts to form. And say all you like about the fairness of it, the group with better gear will progress faster, all else being equal.

do you really think someone who writes books will find much purpose in writing the definition of the vocabulary words 5 times for a month?

did you know irl they realized that having non challenging homework/classwork often lead smarter students to disengage and lose interest?

If you are designing a course for intellegent students, you test them, or give them difficult tasks. You dont give them wrote repetition or accept them into high end programs based on their attendance records.

Believe me I am aware of the joys of being ensnared in public school navigating a curriculum designed for goldfish. HOWEVER, as I’ve matured I’ve also gained an appreciation for the value of persistence. There is a lot to be said for the personality types who can do exactly that, and that sort of steadiness in the face of adversity is a desirable trait in a raid group. Like I said earlier, if you can’t manage the commitment of a whole 39 log-in days to bang out a set of armor, I’m not expecting much from your attention span in an environment where you can only earn rewards once a week. Find a group more to your liking.

The system allows those free spirits to try it. It also allows me to look at them very skeptically. All parties are well served.

Nike.2631:

phys.7689:

Nike.2631:

I’m sure there will be groups that cater to your inability to do your homework.

Just not mine.

Of course, i dont really expect anyone to let people in exotics in on their serious attempts at beating raids.
but do you really think creating interesting challenging content should be about doing your homework, or writing your times tables 20 times?

I do. And I realize this in an unbridgeable gulf in our expectations and perceptions. Which is why it’s good the system allows groups of both sorts to form. And say all you like about the fairness of it, the group with better gear will progress faster, all else being equal.

do you really think someone who writes books will find much purpose in writing the definition of the vocabulary words 5 times for a month?

did you know irl they realized that having non challenging homework/classwork often lead smarter students to disengage and lose interest?

If you are designing a course for intellegent students, you test them, or give them difficult tasks. You dont give them wrote repetition or accept them into high end programs based on their attendance records.

Believe me I am aware of the joys of being ensnared in public school navigating a curriculum designed for goldfish. HOWEVER, as I’ve matured I’ve also gained an appreciation for the value of persistence. There is a lot to be said for the personality types who can do exactly that, and that sort of steadiness in the face of adversity is a desirable trait in a raid group. Like I said earlier, if you can’t manage the commitment of a whole 39 log-in days to bang out a set of armor, I’m not expecting much from your attention span in an environment where you can only earn rewards once a week. Find a group more to your liking.

The system allows those free spirits to try it. It also allows me to look at them very skeptically. All parties are well served.

Well, if you are looking for consistency and dedication, ascended is a fair arbiter of that. And you can use whatever ideas or concepts that you think make a good team.

And as i said this is not about me personally. I have a fully ascended char all crafting maxed and some legendaries.

But i dont expect everyone is like me, i know a lot of people who are not, who lapsed playing or lost interest. My goal is to get all the type of people who would be interested being able to play without cursing the systems at play.

Well, keep in mind that clearing raid content has nothing more to offer (other than convenience of stat-swapping and prestige) to the all-ascended participant. So groups that start there won’t accrue stat-advantage any further, just experience. When they’re strong enough and stable enough it’ll be easier to bring along skilled-but-under-geared folks and they will get some nice pink box drops that bring them up to gear-parity.

My attitude about ‘homework’ becomes much more relaxed once most of my composition has the encounters on farm mode .

((but you still have to bring your consumables!))

Lome.8239:

I’m confused by the people who are against the grind to get Ascended gear for raids.

Raids are supposed to be endgame content that takes commitment, investment and dedication. You will be spending a lot of time in raids learning the encounters and running constant trials until you and your guild finally succeed.

If people are willing to commit so much effort into doing the raids, why aren’t they willing to put in the effort into getting Ascended gear? At least the weapons and trinkets, anyway.

Maybe because people would rather like that content to be about skill. Yes, i know why raiders would prefer it that way – it lets them pretend to be skilled, when the real difficulty lies in a completely different category.
Grind is not challenge. It’s just boring.

Astralporing.1957:

Maybe because people would rather like that content to be about skill. Yes, i know why raiders would prefer it that way – it lets them pretend to be skilled, when the real difficulty lies in a completely different category.
Grind is not challenge. It’s just boring.

And here I thought the genuinely skillful would relish the challenge of something that tests them to the utmost rather than being trivialized by having a higher tier of gear than it’s designed for.

We’ve already seen content scaled for exotic gear in a post-ascended world is not a challenge. It’s boring.

I want a fight that takes BOTH skill and preparation.

Nike.2631:

Astralporing.1957:

Maybe because people would rather like that content to be about skill. Yes, i know why raiders would prefer it that way – it lets them pretend to be skilled, when the real difficulty lies in a completely different category.
Grind is not challenge. It’s just boring.

And here I thought the genuinely skillful would relish the challenge of something that tests them to the utmost rather than being trivialized by having a higher tier of gear than it’s designed for.

We’ve already seen content scaled for exotic gear in a post-ascended world is not a challenge. It’s boring.

I want a fight that takes BOTH skill and preparation.

The ideal solution would be to scale down ascended gear to exotic/scale up exotic to ascended.

Ascended armor is simply too prohibitively expensive for it to be reasonable to expect people to experiment with different sets of it. It completely removes the element of playing around with your build to see how to approach things.

Customisation is fun, progression is not, and ascended gear ruins the former.

Preparation is only enjoyable when you have to think about it, i.e. tailoring your builds for the encounter based on your understanding of the mechanics involved. Just grinding objectively higher stat gear doesn’t do that. There’s no trade off to make to it, the trait system is interesting because in order to take one trait, you have to forego another in that spot, with ascended gear, you don’t end up with more of one stat at the expense of another, you just get more of it.

why should I get ascended armor anyways now since there is gonna be legendary armor that will be any stat i need for the armor type. So glad i choose to make more money over ascended armor that only real place in fractals. and as they said you could have mix ascended pieces and exotics I mean the most basic of ascended kitten should be every item is ascended besides the armor

Vella the knight.6072:

why should I get ascended armor anyways now since there is gonna be legendary armor that will be any stat i need for the armor type. So glad i choose to make more money over ascended armor that only real place in fractals. and as they said you could have mix ascended pieces and exotics I mean the most basic of ascended kitten should be every item is ascended besides the armor

Well you will still have to earn your legendary gear and raid content IS designed for ascended gear.

They said “mix of exotic w/ ascended by top players”…. That was in reference to earlier paths. Ascended for boss paths or whatever, I’m not looking up the quote now. Also ascended gear is “recommended”, just like snow tires are recommended for your vehicle in winter… Sure, you don’t have to buy better tires, but if you crash over and over then you may change your mind…

Serious teams are not going to want to carry you in your exotics and I guarantee your pugs in exotics will fail the harder paths. And if your guild takes you and keeps failing knowing you are sitting there refusing to gear up properly, then I’m sure you’ll ruffle a few feathers.

Edit- before you ask how are people going to know what gear you have… Anyone serious about these raids will start using the gw2 efficiency site and request that you ping your info before they take you… Yes, it has anet approval so there is no escaping gear checks now…

Nike.2631:

And here I thought the genuinely skillful would relish the challenge of something that tests them to the utmost rather than being trivialized by having a higher tier of gear than it’s designed for.

Sure. But i doubt they’d consider actually getting that gear an important part of said challenge. Because it really isn’t.

Nike.2631:

We’ve already seen content scaled for exotic gear in a post-ascended world is not a challenge. It’s boring.

Well, then there exist an obvious solution to both problems – make ascended easily obtainable.

Nike.2631:

I want a fight that takes BOTH skill and preparation.

Gearing up is not preparation. It’s just a grind gate.

That’s why in content that’s about skill (sPvP) all gear is made easily accessible to everyone.