Guild Wars 2

Ascended is such an insignificant boost to your stats (About 5%) that I actually wonder if it would really cripple your team to use exotic armor. If we were talking about FoTM then I’d understand, since they have infusions, but I don’t see how it will be much better unless they plan on making ascended better in some way.

Chances are they will probably add agony into raids like they do with fractals. Also, maybe they will add something to ascended gear that we don’t know of yet.

Use correct numbers.
~12.5% diference between exo and asc. exo trinkets WITHOUT upgrades.
~7% difference comes from weapon
~5% trinkets
0.5% armor.

Raids will not require ascended… don’t spread misinformation. Ascended is recommended as in the mob hp and damage are balanced around Ascended, but not required. You will be able to run the Raid in full Exotics, or with mix-max Ascended / Exotic.

Ascended accessories are easy to come by and weapons are a direct damage increase (+5% raw damages), you should at least make those your priority.

FinalEmbrace.2847:

Chances are they will probably add agony into raids like they do with fractals. Also, maybe they will add something to ascended gear that we don’t know of yet.

No, they already said ascended gear won’t be a hard gate. What they probably meant was that raids are balanced around the whole team being entirely in ascended gear. Which in turn probably means that for most people ascended gear is a requirement but for some players (i.e. the absolute best and expierenced players) part or even most of their gear could be exotic.

They won’t. It was a misnomer it wasn’t meant to be required rather ‘recommended’ as I am almost 100% sure the Devs did all their internal testing of raids before they announced it to us in said gear. This gave them the false assumption while tuning it to Ascended that Exotic would be out of the question to attempt the content.

We have seen this is not the case. Stop spreading the idea that it will, it won’t.

Timiok.1048:

Ascended is such an insignificant boost to your stats (About 5%) that I actually wonder if it would really cripple your team to use exotic armor. If we were talking about FoTM then I’d understand, since they have infusions, but I don’t see how it will be much better unless they plan on making ascended better in some way.

Actually, ascended is a significant boost when you look at the numbers. Take the Vale Guardian (first boss of the raid). He had 24 million hp. In comparison, Lupicus has 1.2 million ish.

The Vale fight has an 8 min timer. Let’s assume the Vale Guardian takes 7 min’s to kill by the average full ascended raid group (first kill was about 6min 20 I think). In 7 mins, the ascended group did 24 million damage.

As exotics do 10% less dps (I think it’s 12.5% but we’ll use 10), that means, at the 7min mark, the exotic team will have done 21.6 million damage and have to burn the last 2.4 million in 1 min. The exotic team would be averaging 3.1 million ish damage/ min til that point so at their current rate would require 47 second to kill the boss assuming no mistakes.

[I know this isn;t entirely accurate because the second half of a fight usually has higher dps because of traits like executioner and bolt to the heart, in addition damage during burn phases is higher than the average dps calculations but I’m only tring to show a rough guide.]

As you can see, full exotics cut it much closer to the timer and allow for far fewer mistakes. It may be a case, some timers are so finely tuned that it takes almost the whole timer to kill the boss for an ascended party.

The tldr version is 10% off the bosses we know about now e.g. lupicus, moss man etc are in the hundred’s of thousands. 10% off the raid bosses will likely be many millions in damage and to confound this their will be a timer, this is how I think AN are fine tuning/ balancing their raids.

arkealia.2713:

Ascended accessories are easy to come by and weapons are a direct damage increase (+5% raw damages), you should at least make those your priority.

Agreed. On top of that, making ascended weapons is much cheaper/easier than making ascended armor, which is all the more reason to start there. The only reason you are going to really need ascended armor is for high level fractals.

The original plan for ascended gear was to offer progression through infusions. One day ascended will become a requirement, but at that time, it’ll also become easier to acquire.

Raids could easily require ascended gear by simply offering new infusions. If they’re trying to appeal to traditional raiders, they’re going to need vertical progression.

Healix.5819:

The original plan for ascended gear was to offer progression through infusions. One day ascended will become a requirement, but at that time, it’ll also become easier to acquire.

Raids could easily require ascended gear by simply offering new infusions. If they’re trying to appeal to traditional raiders, they’re going to need vertical progression.

The only thing they need to do to appeal to us traditional raiders isn’t vertical progression, it is progression utilizing:

- Wonderfully entertaining and difficult encounters that have us coming back for weeks or months even after defeating the encounter once.
- The current status quo of progression through unique and appealing skins
- Not creating a gear treadmill like other MMOs and to an extent, what Fractals have. Raids should be done strictly through a mixture of builds, skills and gear stats, not specific infusions. No one liked Potion Gating in Vanilla WoW or BC.

Healix.5819:

The original plan for ascended gear was to offer progression through infusions. One day ascended will become a requirement, but at that time, it’ll also become easier to acquire.

Raids could easily require ascended gear by simply offering new infusions. If they’re trying to appeal to traditional raiders, they’re going to need vertical progression.

I think requiring infusions for raids is unlikely. They have already said (in a follow up to the original comment on Twitter that caused al this nonsense about ascended gear being required) that AR was not being added. They can’t go and require something that would take up the same slot as AR without creating a huge problem for people that do fractals. Having said that, they could conceivably add a new type of slot.

Ascended what, though? Berserker? Sinister? Rabid? Soldier? Celestial?

How do you gear content toward a specific tier of stats, when those stats are basically an unknown variable?

I still think that practice, knowing the fights, coordinating with your group, and having an effective build is going to make 95% of the difference between winning and wiping.

Timiok.1048:

Ascended is such an insignificant boost to your stats (About 5%) that I actually wonder if it would really cripple your team to use exotic armor. If we were talking about FoTM then I’d understand, since they have infusions, but I don’t see how it will be much better unless they plan on making ascended better in some way.

Wait for the first patches/ updates to be launched, then decide if and how ascended will be “required”; not just “mechanical” feasibility of the raid, but also guilds and parties’ attitudes towards your gear.
No more promises or manifestos or tweets, just watchful wait.

Short answer: It’s crap. They can recommend anything they want, But if they tune to ascended they’re tuning to a nearly fixed party structure (because class and build are more important than gear) and to a skill level that excludes a far too large number of playrs (proper skill usage/rotation is also far more important than gear).

Yeah, the idea that it is so tightly calibrated that a difference of 5% in stats is make or break is clearly impossible.

Skill>gear first wing forsure but depending on what drops ascended armor/legendary armor parts?
I had a fight with a kittened guild member that was zealous in ascended or they aren’t bringing them.

Like it wouldn’t matter if a person was fully ascended if their dead and kitten they are not bringing anything to a raid.

Ascended armor main use was to make it required ar for higher fractals in which I hated fractals in design and length wasn’t hard but pugs did drag on if 1 or 2 players can play right. Like weapons and trinkets are not hard and should be base point of any player now but the armor is not going to make or break these fights.

its gonna come down to all that friendly casual time this game has had for last three years are gonna test guildships and such because to be frank you are gonna have to put your foot down if a player is preforming poorly.

And the question of the stats difference is really up in the air too.

Still, a few guidelines:

1) The difference for physical DPS is greater than the difference in stats. This didn’t matter previously, but it could possibly now.
2) The vast vast vast majority of the advantage in ascended gear comes from the weapons and secondarily the trinkets. Ascended Armor is essentially meaningless.

Windsagio.1340:

And the question of the stats difference is really up in the air too.

Still, a few guidelines:

1) The difference for physical DPS is greater than the difference in stats. This didn’t matter previously, but it could possibly now.
2) The vast vast vast majority of the advantage in ascended gear comes from the weapons and secondarily the trinkets. Ascended Armor is essentially meaningless.

You keep saying this, but you are ignoring that defensive mitigation can easily be made to matter with undodgeable attacks

You also ignore that healing and extreme defense lowers dps.

Before mitigation wasnt that big a deal, but now? It easily could be.

Also what raids eventually lead to is optimization. They may not have done heavy math and iteration for statiatics fight ing before, but they will now. And they ll get better at it.

They basically are optimizing the fights as we speak with high end guilds.

You think its unlikely for them to develop around specific groups, but looks like that is the intent.

They may not have done it before, but the paradigm shifted

What that dev essentially told you, is it is totally their intention to design the final battles so that ascended armor makes a difference. Essentially you are doubting their capability to pull that off.

But the intent is there. And remember anet is not above using obvious simplified tactics to achieve this.

See agony and aoe unavoidable damage pulses in the first fight.

They could easily make the last boss have unavoidable aoe that does curved damage based on armor rating.

No phys, you’re missing my point.

Point 1 goes like this: Prior considerations of Ascended advantage only focused on DD DPS to the negation of all other effects. This is likely no longer be the case, in which case the impact of ascended gear is lessened.

As to the rest, I’ll repeat my feeling on that tweet and it’s follow-ups: Either the dev was talking out their kitten and not thinking (as shown by the retraction) OR It’s a marketing derived statement because they want to give raiders considering buying HOT the feeling that the experience will be familiar as possible.

Shortly, it’s a mistake or it’s a PR scam

~~~

I don’t have a horse in this race, I do fractals regularly so I have ascended armor out the yin-yang.. That being said, the claim that ascended matter will be ‘required’/‘heavily reccomended’ makes no godkitten sense based on our current understanding of the game.

I’ll grant your point that they could hamhandedly shoehorn a side-effect that gear gates on ascended (shades of the resist fights from early wow, epseically the SR gate in Black Temple), but if they were gonna do that , why not just use agony? For the reason that they have an effect they could use and they’re not, I doubt that will be their answer.

EDIT: Sorry for abusing bold, my posts tend to be wordy, so I use it to apply the key points for people skimming

Achievement points are not required for dungeon runs, either. It literally does not matter whether it the content can be completed without it, Ascended will be required for “meta” PuG runs. The rationale will run something like, “Any statistical advantage is an advantage, no matter how slight, and ‘we’ don’t run with those who haven’t made the effort to get fully kitted out.” Or just, “Only ‘bad’ players didn’t bother to get Asc.”

IndigoSundown.5419:

Achievement points are not required for dungeon runs, either. It literally does not matter whether it the content can be completed without it, Ascended will be required for “meta” PuG runs. The rationale will run something like, “Any statistical advantage is an advantage, no matter how slight, and ‘we’ don’t run with those who haven’t made the effort to get fully kitted out.” Or just, “Only ‘bad’ players didn’t bother to get Asc.”

Why is that so important to people that there is a limit? Is it what I said above, that they long for the most ‘progression-raid-like’ experience they can, that they want to exclude other people based on time investments instead of skill level?

It’s really bizarre to me how much people want this limitation.

Ascended items have an infusion slot. Whatever kind of infusions the future will bring exotic gear has no access to them.

In China players have access to infusions granting 11+ additional points of an attribute. This means you can boost one attribute by around 150 or more using these infusions in all possible slots.

We have no idea what is planned in regard to infusions in NA/EU with HoT. We only have hints that they have a cool idea for the jeweller 500. Could be connected to more powerful infusions or not. We have to see.

Here’s a dev response to this whole “ascended required for raids”-thing for you guys:

“A good puzzle is one that starts out hard and then after playing it and learning how it works it becomes easier. I mean when Teq came out it was hard now it’s on farm. […] Clearly after something is on farm it’s easier to do it with less gear, or with some number of people on a quaggan tonic.”

sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3mz8ta/crystal_reid_raids_will_be_balanced_around/cvk562n

AzureSky.3175:

Here’s a dev response to this whole “ascended required for raids”-thing for you guys:

“A good puzzle is one that starts out hard and then after playing it and learning how it works it becomes easier. I mean when Teq came out it was hard now it’s on farm. […] Clearly after something is on farm it’s easier to do it with less gear, or with some number of people on a quaggan tonic.”

sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3mz8ta/crystal_reid_raids_will_be_balanced_around/cvk562n

this was a PR response, not a design intent.
He basically is saying once people learn how to play they will probably be able to do it more easily, because thats what usually happens.

He is not saying that is the design intent.

The other person who is actually on the raid team said, that they expected people who play the first fight to be doing it with a mix of ascended and exotics(based on tests she achieved this) but that later wings they excpect people to want to have full ascended.

her statement is more a description of their design intention, whereas his is more a statement that im sure players will surpass our expectations eventually

Fyrebrand.4859:

Ascended what, though? Berserker? Sinister? Rabid? Soldier? Celestial?

How do you gear content toward a specific tier of stats, when those stats are basically an unknown variable?

It’s not unknown variable. The Vale Guardian fight enrage timer seemed to be balanced around mostly dps setup (the 6m20s time mentioned above is for full ascended 6x zerker, 3x sinister, one hybrid condi). The builds and classes were also quire finetuned to get as best dps as possible. The time buffer till enrage they got allows for some leeway, but if they were in full exotics that leeway would be almost nonexistent.

AzureSky.3175:

Here’s a dev response to this whole “ascended required for raids”-thing for you guys:

“A good puzzle is one that starts out hard and then after playing it and learning how it works it becomes easier. I mean when Teq came out it was hard now it’s on farm. […] Clearly after something is on farm it’s easier to do it with less gear, or with some number of people on a quaggan tonic.”

sauce: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3mz8ta/crystal_reid_raids_will_be_balanced_around/cvk562n

well, if they suggest that after that learning phase they are going to nerf it the same way they nerfed Teq (which was the thing that resulted in it going “on farm”), then i’m all for it.

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

Windsagio.1340:

No phys, you’re missing my point.

Point 1 goes like this: Prior considerations of Ascended advantage only focused on DD DPS to the negation of all other effects. This is likely no longer be the case, in which case the impact of ascended gear is lessened.

As to the rest, I’ll repeat my feeling on that tweet and it’s follow-ups: Either the dev was talking out their kitten and not thinking (as shown by the retraction) OR It’s a marketing derived statement because they want to give raiders considering buying HOT the feeling that the experience will be familiar as possible.

Shortly, it’s a mistake or it’s a PR scam

~~~

I don’t have a horse in this race, I do fractals regularly so I have ascended armor out the yin-yang.. That being said, the claim that ascended matter will be ‘required’/‘heavily reccomended’ makes no godkitten sense based on our current understanding of the game.

I’ll grant your point that they could hamhandedly shoehorn a side-effect that gear gates on ascended (shades of the resist fights from early wow, epseically the SR gate in Black Temple), but if they were gonna do that , why not just use agony? For the reason that they have an effect they could use and they’re not, I doubt that will be their answer.

EDIT: Sorry for abusing bold, my posts tend to be wordy, so I use it to apply the key points for people skimming

i have no horse in the race, i just think you are basing your beliefs on an old paradigm. The old battle system, sure that one gear was about speed. But this is not the old system. They got guaranteed dmg, fights that take a 8/10 zerker might stacked team 7 minutes.
They are definately trying to design to the upper limits of what is capable. Some parties simply wont be able to succeed, based purely on party composition now. You principle is correct, they wont be able to make ascended matter unless they incredibly limit build diversity and viable groups, as well as balance it for top end performance.

The difference is you think they wont do that, i think its highly likely they will try. They may not succeed, but that is their intent.

like i said, right now they are tweaking it based on the performance of highly coordinated boss hunters and speed clearers, and whatever they can come up with. Their intention is that the top 5% will feel ascended is valued in this fight.

basically it will get easier, but mostly cause people will know good team compositions, and they will get better at the game.

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

calculus, programming, piano playing, painting, illustration

that aside, in this case has little to do with the puzzle, its really going to come down to execution, and how tight the tolerance is on mistakes or non optimized party structure.

the puzzle will be solved fairly quickly.

Timiok.1048:

Ascended is such an insignificant boost to your stats (About 5%) that I actually wonder if it would really cripple your team to use exotic armor. If we were talking about FoTM then I’d understand, since they have infusions, but I don’t see how it will be much better unless they plan on making ascended better in some way.

I thin k so long as you have asc trinkets and weapons you should be OK. I doubt they’ll add agony to raids, thats a fractal mechanic only.

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

calculus, programming, piano playing, painting, illustration

that aside, in this case has little to do with the puzzle, its really going to come down to execution, and how tight the tolerance is on mistakes or non optimized party structure.

the puzzle will be solved fairly quickly.

Give someone trained in calculus or programming the same problem over and over again and see its difficulty evaporate.

Piano playing, painting, and illustration are not puzzles. Even if they were ask someone to play the same piece of music that they have already learned to play a few dozen times and see them manage it half asleep.

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

calculus, programming, piano playing, painting, illustration

that aside, in this case has little to do with the puzzle, its really going to come down to execution, and how tight the tolerance is on mistakes or non optimized party structure.

the puzzle will be solved fairly quickly.

Give someone trained in calculus or programming the same problem over and over again and see its difficulty evaporate.

Piano playing, painting, and illustration are not puzzles. Even if they were ask someone to play the same piece of music that they have already learned to play a few dozen times and see them manage it half asleep.

thats what people think, but its incorrect. Doing difficult tasks at a top level always requires work.
master pianists practice for months before recitals
basketball mvps, train throughout the year and shoot 1000s of shots, and still come up short when it matters some times.
artists and painters spend great amount of time creating things, and still get it wrong/are unsatisfied.
programmers discover their old solutions were ineffecient and not well thought out.

calculus, well if you do the same exact problem, it will be easier. However within the same family of problems, it can still be incredibly difficult.

now make no mistake, things get easier, but sometimes even if you have a solution, executing it can be difficult, and sometimes solutions change based on new variables. Also there is solution optimization, where time, effeciency, or quality becomes a factor.

really it depends how deep you go.

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

phys.7689:

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

calculus, programming, piano playing, painting, illustration

that aside, in this case has little to do with the puzzle, its really going to come down to execution, and how tight the tolerance is on mistakes or non optimized party structure.

the puzzle will be solved fairly quickly.

Give someone trained in calculus or programming the same problem over and over again and see its difficulty evaporate.

Piano playing, painting, and illustration are not puzzles. Even if they were ask someone to play the same piece of music that they have already learned to play a few dozen times and see them manage it half asleep.

thats what people think, but its incorrect. Doing difficult tasks at a top level always requires work.

master pianists practice for months before recitals

and what is their performance quality compared to when they started? Obviously the difficulty for them has reduced over time.

basketball mvps, train throughout the year and shoot 1000s of shots, and still come up short when it matters some times.

and what is their shot accuracy compared to when they first started? Obviously the difficulty for them has reduced with practice over time.

artists and painters spend great amount of time creating things, and still get it wrong/are unsatisfied.

Of course, but how does the painter’s quality of work after years of practice compare to their first time? Obviously the difficulty for them reduces with practice over time.

programmers discover their old solutions were ineffecient and not well thought out.

but the solution works and is easier to implement after much practice than when they were first attempting to solve that particular problem..

calculus, well if you do the same exact problem, it will be easier. However within the same family of problems, it can still be incredibly difficult.

A given raid encounter is essentially the same problem each time. Presented with a calculus problem I might be stumped (haven’t studied it in close to 30 years). But after coming up with the solution, if you handed me the same problem again I would hand back the same answer. The third time there would be less effort to remember the specifics of the solution, and eventually I would be able to recite it as readily as I can my social security number.

now make no mistake, things get easier.

which was my point all along.

responses in bold.

You guys might be arguing the same point here and I agree, once you start getting down raid bosses to a science the same 10 people can walk into there and start failing less or not at all.

But that’s just one puzzle, you know those 9 people with you are doing the puzzle correctly, what if one of them gets sick for a week and you bring someone else in? Perhaps they are more experienced at one role you have already gotten down and you have to flexibly adjust your raid, or maybe they have zero experience and you are going to give them the full Raid Tour as it were…

Just like any other mode in this game, Raiding is another means for players to socially gather and take on a challenge…course this challenge is high-end PvE content for 10 players but you get the idea.

phys.7689:

this was a PR response, not a design intent.
He basically is saying once people learn how to play they will probably be able to do it more easily, because thats what usually happens.

He is not saying that is the design intent.

The other person who is actually on the raid team said, that they expected people who play the first fight to be doing it with a mix of ascended and exotics(based on tests she achieved this) but that later wings they excpect people to want to have full ascended.

her statement is more a description of their design intention, whereas his is more a statement that im sure players will surpass our expectations eventually

Uhm yeah… exactly! I’m not really sure if you wrote this to disagree with me, or to agree with me and add further information. Right now I’m thinking it’s the latter. I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding you.

Of course they didn’t design raids for groups that include three Quaggan.

But he’s expecting people to surpass design intentions, yes. It will become easier and easier the more you learn how the bosses work, and people will finally be able to beat raids in groups of less than ten.

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

One that doesn’t have a “cheap solution”. Or simply one that is a little bit different everytime.

I’m not only saying I want “more randomness” in a raid but the things each players does in there should change the outcome. I mean how many of you would be able to move and use everything exactly the same every fight with 10 people?

You should be able to make (very) small mistakes that don’t result in a wipe but in a change of plan.

Bosses like Lupi are so monotonous everytime, yeah maybe “hard” for some but once learned it’s not that hard to repeat.

Neox.3497:

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Still, he’s wrong. A good puzzle is one that remains hard even after it has been done few times already.

What puzzle retains its difficulty after you not only know the solution, but have practiced its implementation?

One that doesn’t have a “cheap solution”. Or simply one that is a little bit different everytime.

Cheap or not if the solution is known and practiced the difficulty goes down.

A puzzle that changes each time is a new puzzle each time and so its solution is not known and cannot be practiced. Personally I love the idea of a certain degree of randomness to slow down (it wouldn’t stop it) the rate of difficulty loss for a given encounter.

They don’t require ascended I think that’s a common misunderstanding that they haven’t corrected well enough. What they really mean is that the raid encounters have been tuned for players with ascended gear. When they worked on the raid to make it challenging, they were shooting to make it challenging for players in ascended gear.

phys.7689:

The difference is you think they wont do that, i think its highly likely they will try. They may not succeed, but that is their intent.

like i said, right now they are tweaking it based on the performance of highly coordinated boss hunters and speed clearers, and whatever they can come up with. Their intention is that the top 5% will feel ascended is valued in this fight.

basically it will get easier, but mostly cause people will know good team compositions, and they will get better at the game.

If they tune it that tightly, the mode will fail. I’d hope they learned the lessons of their previous content and don’t make the same mistake again.

Astralporing.1957:

well, if they suggest that after that learning phase they are going to nerf it the same way they nerfed Teq (which was the thing that resulted in it going “on farm”), then i’m all for it.

Teq was “on farm” long before the spec patch or the condition changes. There was no nerf needed before Teq was “on farm”.

Windsagio.1340:

Why is that so important to people that there is a limit? Is it what I said above, that they long for the most ‘progression-raid-like’ experience they can, that they want to exclude other people based on time investments instead of skill level?

It’s really bizarre to me how much people want this limitation.

I don’t see it as an enforced limit, however would you really want someone who has never done fractals before to come with you in a Raid? Although you might argue about their “skill level” but someone who hasn’t done fractals or is at a very low personal level, probably doesn’t have enough experience with instance content in GW2. Or you think someone who never run fractals or dungeons for some reason has excellent skill level and is a great player of instanced content?

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

well, if they suggest that after that learning phase they are going to nerf it the same way they nerfed Teq (which was the thing that resulted in it going “on farm”), then i’m all for it.

Teq was “on farm” long before the spec patch or the condition changes.

True. but there were other significant nerfs done to him before (for example, the megalaser does 5% of his full hp damage to him everytime it shoots. Originally it didn’t. Teq’s hp’s were adjusted as well at least once before condi changes. Scaling ranges were fixed so dps zergs wouldn’t overscale defenses, etc).

maddoctor.2738:

Or you think someone who never run fractals or dungeons for some reason has excellent skill level and is a great player of instanced content?

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

I still think it’s aimed at people who like raids and are thinking about buying HOT

Windsagio.1340:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

I still think it’s aimed at people who like raids and are thinking about buying HOT

And those people who like raids will join just for 10-man content and not do 5-man content first?

Windsagio.1340:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

I still think it’s aimed at people who like raids and are thinking about buying HOT

If that truly is the case, why put a set of armor behind it at all? Why not something entirely new or just a title if it is a new layer of customers Anet wants to attract? As maddoctor already said, people that did for example fractals at high level are probably much more willing to do raids than your casual guy who plays an hour a day maximum. So that group surely won´t get bigger, rather smaller when you substract guys like me who do raids as long as they deem it to be necessary and then never set foot in one again. So your only way out if it is indeed an entirelly new set of players that are willing to level and gear up.

I also think that WvW players and SPvPers are the most unlikely participants in raids. You don´t need legendary gear in wvw, ascended or even exotic does the trick if you know how to play your chosen class. PvE was already there the whole time, why enter now with something much more time consuming coming in when people could not be moved to enter the less time consuming stuff?
It´s even worse in the case of pure SPvPers, why should they step foot into PvE at all? They get all they need to play and will see a large influx of easy victims with HoT. So why bother with raids?

Torolan.5816:

It´s even worse in the case of pure SPvPers, why should they step foot into PvE at all? They get all they need to play and will see a large influx of easy victims with HoT. So why bother with raids?

And PVE for 10 people no less, while the “true” sPVP is for 5 people.

Torolan.5816:

Windsagio.1340:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Possibly. They may have been doing spvp/WvW roaming up to that point, and actually be better skilled than most raiders, you know.

The chances of a spvp/wvw player to come do PVE just for raids are very slim. If they had an interest in instanced content they would’ve done some already. Raids won’t change that and also being good at spvp or wvw doesn’t make someone an expert at dungeon running by default.

In the end, I doubt this whole “ascended is recommended” discussion is aimed at spvp and wvw players, but rather at pve players who had no interest in instanced content so far but yet want to participate in Raids, and just in Raids, for some reason.

I still think it’s aimed at people who like raids and are thinking about buying HOT

If that truly is the case, why put a set of armor behind it at all? Why not something entirely new or just a title if it is a new layer of customers Anet wants to attract? As maddoctor already said, people that did for example fractals at high level are probably much more willing to do raids than your casual guy who plays an hour a day maximum. So that group surely won´t get bigger, rather smaller when you substract guys like me who do raids as long as they deem it to be necessary and then never set foot in one again. So your only way out if it is indeed an entirelly new set of players that are willing to level and gear up.

I also think that WvW players and SPvPers are the most unlikely participants in raids. You don´t need legendary gear in wvw, ascended or even exotic does the trick if you know how to play your chosen class. PvE was already there the whole time, why enter now with something much more time consuming coming in when people could not be moved to enter the less time consuming stuff?
It´s even worse in the case of pure SPvPers, why should they step foot into PvE at all? They get all they need to play and will see a large influx of easy victims with HoT. So why bother with raids?

Because of expectations: Raiders are willing to work to get the gear requirements, it’s a rule they’re very used to.

It both gives a more familiar experience and gives them a desired filter (once they’ve revved up to speed).

So you think it could be a Pavlov´s dog case? Ring the bell and the goodie is not even necessary anymore? Although that could actually be accurate and would really fill out my last unachieved stereotype about hardcore raiders if I think about it, why put a reward in at all? The bell is rung, the dogs will appear anyway with or without a goodie to get.

Torolan.5816:

So you think it could be a Pavlov´s dog case? Ring the bell and the goodie is not even necessary anymore? Although that could actually be accurate and would really fill out my last unachieved stereotype about hardcore raiders if I think about it, why put a reward in at all? The bell is rung, the dogs will appear anyway with or without a goodie to get.

The reward is the legendary armor (+ apparent ‘unique drops’) that’s still there and that’s the bait.

In my mind it’s less about reflexive reactions and more about comfort zones.

The comfort zone for raiders is Time investment == unique benefits. If ascended works as a limitation (which again I don’t believe in), it fits perfectly in that system by adding an investment filter on the content. They love that kitten.

Edit: Because, even if they’re starting from scratch, they know they’ll pass that barrier with some work and they’re willing to put in the work.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

well, if they suggest that after that learning phase they are going to nerf it the same way they nerfed Teq (which was the thing that resulted in it going “on farm”), then i’m all for it.

Teq was “on farm” long before the spec patch or the condition changes. There was no nerf needed before Teq was “on farm”.

Windsagio.1340:

Why is that so important to people that there is a limit? Is it what I said above, that they long for the most ‘progression-raid-like’ experience they can, that they want to exclude other people based on time investments instead of skill level?

It’s really bizarre to me how much people want this limitation.

I don’t see it as an enforced limit, however would you really want someone who has never done fractals before to come with you in a Raid? Although you might argue about their “skill level” but someone who hasn’t done fractals or is at a very low personal level, probably doesn’t have enough experience with instance content in GW2. Or you think someone who never run fractals or dungeons for some reason has excellent skill level and is a great player of instanced content?

Personally I’ve done some fractals but I haven’t even done any that require AR, and I don’t really want to. It isn’t really hard content. I didn’t find the early ones hard, and then people who do 50s regularly told me it doesn’t even get very hard so I didn’t bother. That doesn’t mean I’ll be bad at raids though – I mean I’ve done raids in loads and loads of games just fine. I’d argue being decent at PvP might put people at a better chance of succeeding in raids than being able to do a Fractal 50, it’s basically just stack and smash + you have to know the puzzles.