Guild Wars 2

Hey there, after reading again about the exotic/ascended matter I had a hilarious idea that may be really worthwhile.

Noone wants to spend forever for ascended gear and the percentage difference is noteable but atleast ignorable at the same time. Also there are other things like inscriptions (or whatever it was that reduced damage in fractals) that are rather hard to obtain, some players even have hard struggles to get a full exotic set.

Here the Idea, if your charakter reached Lvl 80 he gains the ability to buy a charakter-bound easy mode upgrade for say 100 gems (for 10 charakters this would be only 1000 gems, a amount very payable with real money), this upgrade gives you a lot of benefits without giving real advantages over other players

possible benefits
- vendors that sell exotic armor and upgrades (soul bound) for a cheap price
- no drops from stuff you dont need (like mats for ascended)
- you gain a stat-buff as high as the difference between exotic and ascended gear (so with exotic gear you have the stregth of ascended gear)
- all in all you have max stats and easier obtainable equipment, which will help casual players to keep up and negates the rift between pro gear and standard gear
- a devide useful for anet would be to add rather few new skins only for regular players won the background of gemstore skins

possible disadvantages
- less luck stat
- zero drop chance for certain items
- certain skins will be locked
- ascended gear cannot be used
- crafting isnt possible below 400
- certain items will be destroyed and certain skins, crafting progresses will be overwritten by

Advantages for regular players
- a sign like a colorated point beside your name that depends on your lowest part of equipment. If you have only one green part (rare?) and rest better (like orange (exotic)), you are still green. So to get violet, you have to get full ascended and any player can see (solves problem of skins mutated) easy mode players stay get white or a new colour, marking them as easy mode players.
- exclusive drops (for crafting), skins and maybe even items that give advantages not needed for a easy mode player. This also could grant anet the possibility to give new skins as reward only for regular players as reward to play as regular and to encourage them to target ascended and legendary gear. (Also some existing, more outstanding skins could be locked for easy mode and overwritten if you obtain easy mode)
- certain gemstore items could be cheaper for regular players
- exclusive titles.

Ascended gear is supposed to take time, just like a Legendary is supposed to take time. I like the fact that there are benefits to crafting it or having it as a good drop; it at least means something. Doing what you suggest with purchasable stats skirts the “Pay To Win” line a little to close for my taste. I’ve seen and done that, and no thanks. I’m glad certain things take time to get.

I don’t think being able to buy BiS in the Gem Store would go over too well. Why would we want the game to become Pay to Win?

Nay on the idea from me.

thomdane.3670:

Ascended gear is supposed to take time, just like a Legendary is supposed to take time. I like the fact that there are benefits to crafting it or having it as a good drop; it at least means something. Doing what you suggest with purchasable stats skirts the “Pay To Win” line a little to close for my taste. I’ve seen and done that, and no thanks. I’m glad certain things take time to get.

This.

Ascended gear was added at least in large part to the devs not realizing how quickly everyone and their mother would have exotic gear. Your suggestion goes against that reasoning.

Yeah.. lets make it even more easier. The next step would be: The first time you log in after purchase your account has: All 8 classes lvl 80 in full ascended and complete wardrobe unlocked xD

I am slightly annoyed how half of my suggestion is completely ignored.

• 100 gems once is really cheap and though it brings you easy max stats, it grants you nothing better than max stats, so it is nothing near pay to win. Also like suggested, I think it is fair to increase the price of further gemstore buffs like 50% more EP for playwrs with an easy mode upgrade.
• The game is easy, but you can still fail, especially if you play rather less and not gold oriented, which normally also means that you also take far longer to gain max gear (I had a few in my guild that loved to play the game, but it was pretty obvious they had not even exotic gear yet), I think it is real nice thing to give such players a easy way to obtain max gear.
• In the easy areas it is without meaning, but in the difficult areas max gear plays a more important role. I think even if you prefer to have better stats on hard to obtain equipment, you should also prefer having rather many around with maxgear stats.
• I think if you are full ascended you should be able to show it off, though skins are not really an option cause transmutation. If other players know you are ascended, the actual better stats shouldn’t be a need at all.

Most important, Easy Mode brings big disadvantages for players that play a lot and want to show off. You won’t get a lot of valuable items, such as mats for ascended gear or ascended gear itself, after all you got already max stats through easy mode, especially legendaries are out of questions and many skins are locked. Also this would give Anet a new way to work in two directions: Easy Mode Players are limited on skins and gaining money through rare drops, they did choose Easy Mode themself, but if they want more skins, more than enough skins in the gemstore. Regular players have a chance for rare drops and skins and are able to build ascended /legendary gear, also after there now exist a easy mode for the others, the game can concentrate more on items/titles that are hard to obtain, as such greats show-offs and of course limited to players wothout easy mode

In the time it takes to gather enough materials and resources to craft a full set of ascended, you should have gained enough skill to make the increased stats insignificant. (outside of high level fractals or world-class PvP)

Any content that’s stomping you in full exotic won’t suddenly become a cakewalk in ascended gear.. it’s ‘win more’ not ‘lose less’.

Nahh, thats not exactly what I mean. I played pretty rarely and my skill was more than enough, GW2 is pretty easy after all (and you should know, with enough time at their hand even a player without skill will get ascended…)

I have three charakters at 80, and maybe for my first one you can say there was an increasement in my skill, but after reaching it with my other two, it was pretty easy from the start.

My problem is, that I could really feel the difference between exotic gear and the gear I had beforehand. Also even the Stats made big differences (Berserker/Celestial/Upgrades), but to get full gear and best upgrades takes some time and I do not have equipped my 3 full yet and stopped already having fun getting them.

Or in other words, I admit that gaining equipment for one charakter might be pretty doable, but I do not see, how farming/running CoF over and over again for each of my charakters will ever increase my skill even more. And above that, I am pretty sure that noone wants to see a thief with not even exotic in his team.

You could say, that my suggestion just makes the games easier, but since it comes with huge limitations for gaining things you aim for as an intense player and does not give anything you cannot gain normally, you cant say it gives really any advantage.

At the same time my suggestion means that players like me, that just want to play the game without spending forever to get the needed gear will be able to enjoy the game a lot more. Yeah, of course it is possible to do it without max gear, but if you play with someone who is bad, the problem is in most cases the combinition of not knowing the needed tricks (like running a dungeon the first time, where having better gear is clearly a good thing) or having bad gear, to just have no skill is rarely a problem (the few times I had players with really no “skill” were mostly ones with bad PCs and obvious laggy behavior)

Remember The first Dungeon in Ascalon? The path where you kill the things the foes come out from (haven’t played lately, so sorry for not knowing the names). My Ele can bring them down in no time, but I had multiple runs where I had only team-members without offensiv stats. A 80 exotic berserker player alone can bring one of them down in 10s where 4 supportive players wothout max gear can need over 2mins. To have skill is nice, but max gear is often more important.

It`s “lazy” mode, not “easy” mode. Why even play a game if you want everything handed to you? Besides:

1. You dont need ascended equip for anything except fractals, heck, you dont even need ascended armor there as you can get infusions from trinkets and stuff.

2. Exotic armor is enaugh for every content and is incredibly easy to get. You can buy it for karma (like 250k for whole set), you can craft it (berserker is about 40g which is like nothing), you can get pieces from dungeon.. You can easily get whole set in about 2-4h of playing and i dont think it`s too much to ask to equip new character.

3. Your example with AC is exaggerated.. 4 lv80 players with support set-up even in green gear wont need more than 30sec to destroy burrow unless they cant dodge and die there (which having better equip wont even help a bit)

tl;dr Your idea is bad.