Guild Wars 2

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, see the issue with the general logic you and others are trying to apply here?

The “logic” is very simple. You and others say “I want an alternative, and alternatives can be the same difficulty”. I say having same difficulty alternatives is simply impossible. Nothing to do with Raids. Raids is new content, and as they’ve always done, new content gets new unique rewards, isn’t that how it always worked since release? Will the raid be easy for some people? Yes. Will it be hard for others? Yes.

maddoctor.2738:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

So, see the issue with the general logic you and others are trying to apply here?

The “logic” is very simple. You and others say “I want an alternative, and alternatives can be the same difficulty”. I say having same difficulty alternatives is simply impossible. Nothing to do with Raids. Raids is new content, and as they’ve always done, new content gets new unique rewards, isn’t that how it always worked since release? Will the raid be easy for some people? Yes. Will it be hard for others? Yes.

If the same difficulty is impossible, then difficult content in general is an impossibility. By you own words, raids will be hard for some, easy for others. You agree there. Therefore raids cannot exists as ‘difficult’ content cannot truly exist. By your own words, its an impossibility. So, scrap em. Now you’re desiring raids and items locked behind raids becomes nothing more than what you’re accusing others of – selfishness.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

If the same difficulty is impossible, then difficult content in general is an impossibility. By you own words, raids will be hard for some, easy for others. You agree there. Therefore raids cannot exists as ‘difficult’ content cannot truly exist. By your own words, its an impossibility. So, scrap em. Now you’re desiring raids and items locked behind raids becomes nothing more than what you’re accusing others of – selfishness.

Let’s say that the raid is difficult for 90% of the population and easy mode for only the 10%. For your alternatives to be “same difficulty” they need to be the same, I really doubt removing all aspects of difficulty, no reflex, no teams, no coordination, no builds, no nothing, and replacing them with “grind” will have any effect like that.

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

Finally, I don’t want to put items locked behind raids at all. I want all pieces of content to have unique rewards, does that make me selfish for wanting all types of content to have thematically appropriate rewards? Isn’t this an RPG we are playing?

Tirien.1326:

I just came from WoW after playing it for around 1 month, i usually play it 1-2 months every other year, and every time after trying to complete as much AP as i can and try as much different things as i can, i always come to the realisation that.. “Why… Why am i doing this? Do i get Achievements in real life by doing them here, no, do i get anything from it, no, is it worth all that hundreds upon hundreds of hours to complete, no”
………………….

Not just gearing up (Which i agree should take time, not like in Gw2) Building up your character should take time.

But every little part of WoW is a huge grind, every little small thing is a grind….
That Gw2 has some grindy parts is okay, same goes for WoW, but it shouldn’t end up taking ALL your time for doing anything, if a game is that grindy, it lacks on several other aspects.

So for me, legendary should stay legendary, and that SHOULD be a grindy part of the game… If i one day get one, most ppl would have one, that takes away the legendary status to a common one. I wouldn’t want that xD

English is not my native language.

Well, i agree with the first philosophical part.
The latter part: there is already as much grind as you wish.
Full ascended is not shorter than preparatory raiding gear..and legendaries won’t be shorter to get than full raid-reward gear.

there is no evident direct correlation between between the 2 parts, though.

maddoctor.2738:

Let’s say that the raid is difficult for 90% of the population and easy mode for only the 10%. For your alternatives to be “same difficulty” they need to be the same, I really doubt removing all aspects of difficulty, no reflex, no teams, no coordination, no builds, no nothing, and replacing them with “grind” will have any effect like that.

You can have the same difficulty without the same requirements though. That’s where your hitch seems to be. Difficult content doesn’t have to be team based. It doesn’t have to be about reaction time. Or pattern memorization specifically. Those are all assorted components that can be used to affect difficulty, but aren’t all necessarily required. Nor did I say to remove all of the aspects except grind, though that is surely an option in and of itself. Extensive grind can test anyone’s fortitude.

maddoctor.2738:

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

No, you can’t have alternatives to every piece of content out there, I suppose. However, we typically have more than one option to achieve the high end functional goals. Ascended gear for example – you can craft it, or you can hope for a drop. Legendary weapons (gen 1) you can buy it, farm your life away and craft it, or pray to rngesus it drops. With Hot, you have new collections. Dungeon rewards you can earn by running the dungeons or by playing pvp. Just to give a few examples.

For something like the fractal specific skins, no alternative is necessary, because it’s a skin.

Raids are presently the point of contention not because of what they are, but because of what they offer with 0 alternatives to obtaining those offers. If they offered just a fancy skin, it would be far less of an issue.

Even with the new legendary components from wvw and pvp are at least purchasable if you can’t/don’t do those modes. (Not my preferred alternative, but an alternative none the less)

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Raids are presently the point of contention not because of what they are, but because of what they offer with 0 alternatives to obtaining those offers. If they offered just a fancy skin, it would be far less of an issue.

I agree that a “fancy” skin would’ve been enough and adding a new tier of gear only there was a bad choice. Unique rewards were always supposed to be skins anyway and never more powerful items.

Those are all assorted components that can be used to affect difficulty, but aren’t all necessarily required.

Of course you don’t need all of them. But utilizing just one or two, like with Jumping Puzzles doesn’t exactly scream “difficulty”. Unless we are talking about some really hard jumping puzzles, like the Not So Secret one. That would be a fun question, would people find the Not So Secret jumping puzzle or the Raid, maybe I will make a poll after the Raids are released and get some answers :P

You just said fractal skins dont require an alternative method of acquisition because its just a skin. But thats essentialy exactly what legendarys are. They dont need another alternative because they are just an ascended with a fancy skin. The stat changing is pointless and hardly ever used. Just make ascended with every stat combo and there you go.

The first wave of legendary s is a really bad example because the whole reason this new wave of legendarys is having its acquisition method changed is because the first set didnt align with anets goal for what legendarys should be and were essentially just buyable with gold instead of through dedicated gameplay like they were intended to be

Kayberz.5346:

You just said fractal skins dont require an alternative method of acquisition because its just a skin.

A skin that can change stats when out of combat That’s not “just a skin”.

maddoctor.2738:

Of course you don’t need all of them. But utilizing just one or two, like with Jumping Puzzles doesn’t exactly scream “difficulty”. Unless we are talking about some really hard jumping puzzles, like the Not So Secret one. That would be a fun question, would people find the Not So Secret jumping puzzle or the Raid, maybe I will make a poll after the Raids are released and get some answers :P

Thus the whole point I was making. Yes, they’d have to be new, difficult puzzles. Things that couldn’t be cheesed with mesmer portal, like Not So Secret can be (though admittedly I thank mesmers that portal me for that crazy thing). So yes, it comes down to which play style do you prefer, not which is easier or less work.

Kayberz.5346:

You just said fractal skins dont require an alternative method of acquisition because its just a skin. But thats essentialy exactly what legendarys are. They dont need another alternative because they are just an ascended with a fancy skin. The stat changing is pointless and hardly ever used. Just make ascended with every stat combo and there you go.

The first wave of legendary s is a really bad example because the whole reason this new wave of legendarys is having its acquisition method changed is because the first set didnt align with anets goal for what legendarys should be and were essentially just buyable with gold instead of through dedicated gameplay like they were intended to be

Legendaries, while the same stats as ascended, are not just skins because they offer additional functionality. If they did not have the stat swapping, then yes, it wouldnt matter. It doesn’t matter if you feel the stat changing is pointless, or if you don’t use it. The point is that they are not just skins.

Now if raids have one legendary skin, and alternatives had other specific skins for their legendary sets, that’d be fine too. The issue arises in that there are no other legendary sets, nor options to achieve them.

maddoctor.2738:

Kayberz.5346:

You just said fractal skins dont require an alternative method of acquisition because its just a skin.

A skin that can change stats when out of combat That’s not “just a skin”.

It has the same stats as ascended. Thete is nothing a legendary does that you cant accomplish by just making ascended pieces with different stats you want. A legedary is an ascended with a very impractical convenience attatched. It doesnt need an alternative method of acquisition because that alternative to have the same functionality technically alrdy exists regardless of how inconvenient it is

Kevan.8912:

Tirien.1326:

I just came from WoW after playing it for around 1 month, i usually play it 1-2 months every other year, and every time after trying to complete as much AP as i can and try as much different things as i can, i always come to the realisation that.. “Why… Why am i doing this? Do i get Achievements in real life by doing them here, no, do i get anything from it, no, is it worth all that hundreds upon hundreds of hours to complete, no”
………………….

Not just gearing up (Which i agree should take time, not like in Gw2) Building up your character should take time.

But every little part of WoW is a huge grind, every little small thing is a grind….
That Gw2 has some grindy parts is okay, same goes for WoW, but it shouldn’t end up taking ALL your time for doing anything, if a game is that grindy, it lacks on several other aspects.

So for me, legendary should stay legendary, and that SHOULD be a grindy part of the game… If i one day get one, most ppl would have one, that takes away the legendary status to a common one. I wouldn’t want that xD

English is not my native language.

Well, i agree with the first philosophical part.
The latter part: there is already as much grind as you wish.
Full ascended is not shorter than preparatory raiding gear..and legendaries won’t be shorter to get than full raid-reward gear.

there is no evident direct correlation between between the 2 parts, though.

You’re forgetting you need to do the preparatory grind for WoW for each new raid tier and each new expansion, GW2 you do it ONCE. I personally have been “raid ready” for a year and a half gear wise – and as soon as you get to that stage you no longer need to do it again.

There is a big and obvious difference between getting raid ready in GW2 once and trying to stay raid ready in WoW (which is a continuous effort). I don’t know how you missed this…

Wow is that since the launch. You knew it when bought each of dozens expansions.
Gw2, i knew at first: no grind for bis.
then it’s grind for bis but you don’t need it.
now it’s you might need it but hey, just play other content and not raids.

Ascended is a massive effort, although not a “continuous effort”.
Legendaries are going to be even worse.
we still do not know if there will be treadmill or not.
Infusions are there for that very specific purpose: increasing numbers, like ascended vs exo. not cosmetic.
“makes no difference” has no meaning when talking about mmos.

again. less grind doesn’t mean no grind at all.

ps: I played wow wotlk and cata and had “preparatory gear”: not so boring and slow as ascendeds…even if steps of a treadmill.

Zach.2618:

Guys if you look at the whole thread it is mostly just ohoni arguing against everyone else. Why is this thread still alive seriously, just let ohoni perceive it as taking grind to a whole new lvl who cares. Why are you trying to convince someone who obviously won’t be convinced.

That’s every thread.

Kevan.8912:

Wow is that since the launch. You knew it when bought each of dozens expansions.
Gw2, i knew at first: no grind for bis.
then it’s grind for bis but you don’t need it.
now it’s you might need it but hey, just play other content and not raids.

Ascended is a massive effort, although not a “continuous effort”.
Legendaries are going to be even worse.
we still do not know if there will be treadmill or not.
Infusions are there for that very specific purpose: increasing numbers, like ascended vs exo. not cosmetic.
“makes no difference” has no meaning when talking about mmos.

again. less grind doesn’t mean no grind at all.

ps: I played wow wotlk and cata and had “preparatory gear”: not so boring and slow as ascendeds…even if steps of a treadmill.

On the flip side: I gravitated away from games like WoW and SWTOR because of all that handholding. It’s NICE for once to be able to earn my big bad Final Weapon™. It’s NICE to be able to feel a sense of accomplishment in broadcasting those ingredients on mapchat, and it feels good to hear the response of the crowd. Most of the time, it’s words of congratulations – because those people know what kind of effort it took.

Some of us respect that kind of effort. It translates well offline in most cases.

My suggestion to you, then, is similar to the suggestions I get from socialists that take over Silverwastes event maps to do their boringass little chest trains: There are plenty of other places that cater to your desires, and no one in this free-market economy is telling you that you are forced to play this game. You’re more than welcome to take your spending power to WoW or SWTOR or any of the other handholders and buy yourself a max-level character.

I know. It sucks to be told that. But that’s the bottom line. There are very few games left that present any kind of tangible challenge to some of us that have been playing video games quite literally for decades now. Some of us want to earn it. And there’s just as nothing wrong with that as there is wanting to have one’s hand held or buy one’s way to power.

I’m not trying to take that away from you by going to WoW or SWTOR and telling them they have to present more of a challenge. Please, respect those who would actually like to earn their way into power overwhelming in a similar fashion.

Or don’t. Whatever. I ain’t your parole officer. -Sid

Actually it means the opposite xD If Ascended Armour takes a bit of time that gives people something longer term to go for but also not infringing too much on others’ ability to keep up.

Don’t you understand yet?

But you’re saying that the points aren’t enough that people should really care about them, so why care about keeping them away from people? If they make so little difference, then why not just let people have them so that they don’t have a reason to worry about it?

When there’s conflicting opinions or opposing opinions you’re suggesting to disregard one of those sides, while most people opposing your opinion are merely saying to split those sides and make parts of the game for each side.

That’s how they like to frame their position, but really they are just being disingenuous. In reality, they are being no less dismissive of the dissenting view, They just try to portray their desired solution as a “compromise” position. Having exclusive items that cannot be earned through alternate methods cannot be considered a compromise in any form.

Ohoni is just a perfect example of the damage caused by the “everyone gets a trophy” generation, people wanting the reward but not wanting to actually achieve what is needed to get it

He thinks that not getting a reward he wants, despite his complete lack of effort to obtain it, as unacceptsble, pure self entitlement.

It’s a game. The goal is to have fun. It’s in every player’s interests to push the game to be as fun as possible. There is nothing wrong with that.

So, since difficulty is indeed relative from person to person, how are you going to keep the different types of content at the same difficulty? Sounds like an impossibility.

If you take that attitude then it’s impossible to balance any aspect of the game and they might as well give out Legendaries for doing Queensdale Heart Quests for all it matters. I think that while achieving perfect balance for all people is impossible, and irrelevant, achieving reasonable balance is quite achievable. Yes, some people will find one method easier than the others, and some will find that same task to be harder, but that’s fine, they can do whichever one they prefer. The target would be for them to be found equally kitten average, and that’s quite achievable.

And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

You’re the one talking about raids. I’m not sure who “everyone” is, but I at least, am talking about ALL content in the game. If some people are talking more about raids specifically than other content, it’s because they are the most recent addition.

Finally, I don’t want to put items locked behind raids at all. I want all pieces of content to have unique rewards, does that make me selfish for wanting all types of content to have thematically appropriate rewards? Isn’t this an RPG we are playing?

There is a distinction between “thematically appropriate” and “content locked.” Foefire weapons are “thematically appropriate” to Ascalon, but are earned through the mystic forge. Mystic weapons are “thematically appropriate” to Rata Sum, but are also gained in the forge. Numerous other weapons are “Thematically appropriate” to certain areas, but can be earned practically anywhere.

Nobody is arguing against thematically appropriate rewards, or even in having some bonus to acquire them in certain locations, like having them cost less and/or drop more often there, but that shouldn’t make them completely impossible to earn elsewhere. I mean, if I want to buy Japanese style home decorations, I could always get them in Japan at the best prices, but I could also buy them in local stores or on the Internet if that’s more convenient to me.

Of course you don’t need all of them. But utilizing just one or two, like with Jumping Puzzles doesn’t exactly scream “difficulty”. Unless we are talking about some really hard jumping puzzles, like the Not So Secret one. That would be a fun question, would people find the Not So Secret jumping puzzle or the Raid, maybe I will make a poll after the Raids are released and get some answers :P

Personally, if I had to choose between farming the NSS puzzle or the Raid, I’d probably choose the puzzle. I’ve done the puzzle a few times, it’s well within my wheelhouse. I’d give the raid a shot just to see how it compares, but the puzzle seems less of a hassle. For puzzles to work as a valid alternative though, they would need to remove the ability to portal through them, and perhaps require more repetitions of it than certain other content, so it wouldn’t be “do a raid or do one JP,” but rather “do a raid or do three JPs,” or whatever it would balance out to.

Btw, I think the simple solution to the portal issue, if they did want to go this route, would be to have a buff generator at the entrance, a solid 2h+ buff, and you need that buff at the end if you want to receive the full “worthy” benefit, but it gets stripped if you use a Mesmer portal. Fairly simple to use, I think, and it would still allow players to cheese their way through if they were just fooling around or wanted the Achievement or the basic chest or whatever, but if they wanted the “competitive” conclusion, they would have to play it straight.

Thete is nothing a legendary does that you cant accomplish by just making ascended pieces with different stats you want.

Oh yes? Then how would you swap a chest piece from Zerkers to Soldiers without leaving an instance, and without taking up any inventory space?

Ohoni.6057:

Actually it means the opposite xD If Ascended Armour takes a bit of time that gives people something longer term to go for but also not infringing too much on others’ ability to keep up.

Don’t you understand yet?

But you’re saying that the points aren’t enough that people should really care about them, so why care about keeping them away from people? If they make so little difference, then why not just let people have them so that they don’t have a reason to worry about it?

Because some people want them for something longer term to go for – I just said this… Lots of people dropped from GW2 after launch with the problem of “nothing to go for” so Ascended was put in.

Lets say there are 2 sets of people A and B.

Set A wants something longer term to go for, Ascended Armour gives them something to strive for over time (this set exists as shwon from early leaver in GW2 and even by my presence alone makes it nonempty).
Set B don’t like having to get the very pinacle to compete within reason (this set exists by your existance).

Ascended Armour gives something to both these sets; +20 primary stats and +16 secondary stats gives a little extra to strive for but will not force separation.

You want to force the game for only set B and I am saying sets A and B are accomodated – which they are.

Because some people want them for something longer term to go for – I just said this… Lots of people dropped from GW2 after launch with the problem of “nothing to go for” so Ascended was put in.

Yeah, I really don’t think that many people dropped the game because of a lack of Ascended, or came back when it was added. But even so, wouldn’t most of those people that were actually into that sort of thing already have full ascended? I mean, I could have had mine like two years ago if I actually cared. I don’t think there’s anyone out there today that’s like “Why ANet?! Why are you taking this opportunity for pointless grinding away from me?!”

So the way I see it, the following groups are likely to consist of actual human beings:
1. Those who see the current crafting methods for Ascended armor to be a worthwhile life goal. These people already own one or more sets of Ascended armor.

2. Those who do not believe the current crafting methods for Ascended armor are worth the effort. These people may or may not already have Ascended armor.

So of the two groups, group 2 people would be happy because if they lack Ascended armor they could get it, and group 1 people would have no reason to be upset, except if they get upset when other people are happy.

You posit a hypothetical group 3, people who see the current crafting methods for Ascended armor to be a worthwhile life goal, and yet have somehow, over three years, failed to manage it, but I see no reason to believe that this group exists in any statistically significant number. They strike me as being about as likely as arachnophobic exterminators, or illiterate book editors.

maddoctor.2738:

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

No, it’s not bad only for raids to have such rewards. How bad it is depends on how difficult the content behind the rewards are locked is, and what rewards are locked this way.
Thus, so far, only 4 cases really stand out. One is legendary armor, one is tournament armor, one is liadri mini, and one is a llama mini.

Of those, i consider a mini to be a more reasonable reward (though i understand that there might be people that will disagree) for this type of content. That leaves a tournament armor (against which i did protest), and a whole category of items locked beyond raids.

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

So, Raids get picked out, because in their case the problem is the biggest and most visible.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

No, it’s not bad only for raids to have such rewards. How bad it is depends on how difficult the content behind the rewards are locked is, and what rewards are locked this way.
Thus, so far, only 4 cases really stand out. One is legendary armor, one is tournament armor, one is liadri mini, and one is a llama mini.

Of those, i consider a mini to be a more reasonable reward (though i understand that there might be people that will disagree) for this type of content. That leaves a tournament armor (against which i did protest), and a whole category of items locked beyond raids.

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

So, Raids get picked out, because in their case the problem is the biggest and most visible.

I agree with Astral here. I think skins are an appropriate thing to lock behind specific content because it signifies the content you completed. A tier of armor(legendary)being locked behind a specific type of content isn’t the best in my opinion. I think you should be able to get Legendary armor in a number of ways and maybe lock some armor skins behind raids. Visually that signifies you’ve completed the raids. Fractal Weapon skins were handled like this. You want the fractal weapon skins? Do Fractals. You want dungeon armor skins? Do dungeons. Locking the whole Legendary Armor(Tier) exclusively behind a raid gate is a little counter-intuitive to what GW2 stood for when a bunch of us started playing. Let players get legendary armor from doing raids. Let players craft it. Let them do a quest for it. Look at the metrics after that and see where most people get their armor from.

It’s my opinion that ArenaNet is using Legendary armor in raids to drive players to actually do the raiding content. That shouldn’t be the reason. The reason should be because those players actually want a skillful challenge. I think they know that the number of people that want an actual challenge in this game isn’t that high so they are using the armor to get people to play the content. It’s a mistake.

Iason Evan.3806:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

No, it’s not bad only for raids to have such rewards. How bad it is depends on how difficult the content behind the rewards are locked is, and what rewards are locked this way.
Thus, so far, only 4 cases really stand out. One is legendary armor, one is tournament armor, one is liadri mini, and one is a llama mini.

Of those, i consider a mini to be a more reasonable reward (though i understand that there might be people that will disagree) for this type of content. That leaves a tournament armor (against which i did protest), and a whole category of items locked beyond raids.

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

So, Raids get picked out, because in their case the problem is the biggest and most visible.

I agree with Astral here. I think skins are an appropriate thing to lock behind specific content because it signifies the content you completed. A tier of armor(legendary)being locked behind a specific type of content isn’t the best in my opinion. I think you should be able to get Legendary armor in a number of ways and maybe lock some armor skins behind raids. Visually that signifies you’ve completed the raids. Fractal Weapon skins were handled like this. You want the fractal weapon skins? Do Fractals. You want dungeon armor skins? Do dungeons. Locking Legendary Armor exclusively behind a raid gate is a little counter-intuitive to what GW2 stood for when a bunch of us started playing. Let players get legendary armor from doing raids. Let the craft it. Let them do a quest for it. Look at the metrics after that and see where most people get there armor from.

It’s my opinion that ArenaNet is using Legendary armor in raids to drive players to actually do the raiding content. That shouldn’t be the reason. The reason should be because those players actually want a skillful challenge. I think they know that the number of people that want an actual challenge in this game isn’t that high so they are using the armor to get people to play the content. It’s a mistake.

Yeah,

With Astral and Iason here.

Although having Legendary armor locked behind raids doesn’t really bother me all that much I do think that a specific skin rather than a category of armor would have been a better option.

Ultimately I think that this indicates a great deal of doubt, on Anet’s part, in the merit of the content in question. If they feel the need to go further than skins to push the content they can’t have much confidence in the fun factor of the content IMO.

Ohoni.6057:

group 1 people would have no reason to be upset

Unless you count having someone take away something you worked for as a reason to be upset – do a bit of thinking xD

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

Coulter.2315:

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

I do.

But I also understand that not everyone will agree with me.

Hm, But isn’t legendary armor basically not the same as legendary weapons? Legendary weapons also have very specific tasks (or buying it on the TP) in order to get it.

Of course, the skilllevel of raids could be so hard that legendary armor is basically a non obtainable goal for many a player.

But it remains to be seen on how that is structured. If it’s tokens like with dungeons and you can “merely” complete one of the easier raid wings for parts of the legendary armor, that is a whole different thing than you need to do this specific boss in this specific raid wing. Not to mention that we don’t know how hard raids will be after playing them for a while. It might be that after a while a raid ofthe first wing is really easy to do, and the way to do it is standardized like it is with Arah. Or can even be run by a smaller group of people who know exactly what to do. Like Tequatl. (Which also has a whole set of unique rewards btw) That also took a week.

I would say it’s slightly too early to say whether it’s one case or the other. At launch getting a legendary also wasn’t that easy. I would say that the time you put in from when you bought gw2 to getting your legendary weapon is something you definitely should expect to do again for armor.

Personally, I find the notion “As long as there is an option to endlessly repeat content you like for a reward is all okay.” definitely not something that is not making the game more fun in any way, it’s just putting an arbitrary time requirement on the rewards. It would be no better than a mobile game solution. It sounds to me like endorsing the attitude that if you don’t like a certain task you can go here to press this button a thousand times for a set amount of hours and then you can get the reward as well, without any notions of game lore, game play or other rules set out by the game masters that would potentially enhance the experience and actually consists of any more intricate game design choices.

It is just so inelegant. It’s like bulldozing over a well-developed rainforest to make a highway because there’s people who like highways more than rainforests.

Ashen.2907:

Coulter.2315:

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

I do.

But I also understand that not everyone will agree with me.

Which means it shouldn’t and couldn’t be implemented – glad we got that sorted.

Coulter.2315:

Ashen.2907:

Coulter.2315:

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

I do.

But I also understand that not everyone will agree with me.

Which means it shouldn’t and couldn’t be implemented – glad we got that sorted.

It could be.

Should or should not is subjective.

Note that all Ascended was added after hundreds of thousands of people invested hours in a game that had been advertised as not having a post max level gear progression/grind.

Works both ways.

Iason Evan.3806:

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

For the record, I was never against alternatives. I’m against having alternatives in every piece of content possible. And also, I never understand why everyone is only talking about raids in discussions like this, as if Raids is the only content that has unique rewards. As if the rest of the game doesn’t have any kind of unique reward but somehow it is bad only for Raids to have them.

No, it’s not bad only for raids to have such rewards. How bad it is depends on how difficult the content behind the rewards are locked is, and what rewards are locked this way.
Thus, so far, only 4 cases really stand out. One is legendary armor, one is tournament armor, one is liadri mini, and one is a llama mini.

Of those, i consider a mini to be a more reasonable reward (though i understand that there might be people that will disagree) for this type of content. That leaves a tournament armor (against which i did protest), and a whole category of items locked beyond raids.

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

So, Raids get picked out, because in their case the problem is the biggest and most visible.

I agree with Astral here. I think skins are an appropriate thing to lock behind specific content because it signifies the content you completed. A tier of armor(legendary)being locked behind a specific type of content isn’t the best in my opinion. I think you should be able to get Legendary armor in a number of ways and maybe lock some armor skins behind raids. Visually that signifies you’ve completed the raids. Fractal Weapon skins were handled like this. You want the fractal weapon skins? Do Fractals. You want dungeon armor skins? Do dungeons. Locking the whole Legendary Armor(Tier) exclusively behind a raid gate is a little counter-intuitive to what GW2 stood for when a bunch of us started playing. Let players get legendary armor from doing raids. Let players craft it. Let them do a quest for it. Look at the metrics after that and see where most people get their armor from.

It’s my opinion that ArenaNet is using Legendary armor in raids to drive players to actually do the raiding content. That shouldn’t be the reason. The reason should be because those players actually want a skillful challenge. I think they know that the number of people that want an actual challenge in this game isn’t that high so they are using the armor to get people to play the content. It’s a mistake.

Except legendary really isnt a different tier. It is the exact same as ascended. All the stats that can be choosen on a legendary can also be choosen for an ascended item and they are completely identical in stats. Changing the stats on legendarys is both unnecessary and impractical because it doesnt change runes/sigils. Locking unneeded luxory conveniences behind specific content is definitely accaptable because not having it in no way prevents you from experiencing anything in the game

Kayberz.5346:

Except legendary really isnt a different tier. It is the exact same as ascended. All the stats that can be choosen on a legendary can also be choosen for an ascended item and they are completely identical in stats. Changing the stats on legendarys is both unnecessary and impractical because it doesnt change runes/sigils. Locking unneeded luxory conveniences behind specific content is definitely accaptable because not having it in no way prevents you from experiencing anything in the game

This is why, though I think that a skin would have been a better option, gating legendaries doesn’t bother me all that much.

The one benefit of a legendary over an ascended piece would be too expensive to use. Just imagining the cost to replace my runes with any degree of frequency is enough to make me flinch.

Unless you count having someone take away something you worked for as a reason to be upset – do a bit of thinking xD

Nope, I don’t count that at all.

It’s the nature of life that things become easier the longer you wait to do them. Most products tend to go on sale if you wait long enough. There’s no reason to expect that just because Ascended armor has a certain cost today, that it should always maintain that cost, or to be upset when other players can get it for cheaper than what you spent. The game already includes this function in many ways, like when HoT releases, there will likely be new items that will provide some cool new use, either skins or unlocking something, and they will rocket up the TP to some price, say 10g each, and then over time more and more of them will drop, supply will rise, and simultaneously more and more people will have their own, so market demand will drop, and so the price will drop accordingly.

Making something like Mawdry costs considerably less these days than it did back when it was first an option, Clay Pots alone are selling for about half the price or less, so why would it be a catastrophe for Ascended armor to cost less today than it did six months ago? People who bought it six months ago bought it six months ago, and have had it for those six months.

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

I don’t think anyone’s suggested removing ascended armor from the game. The proposals on the table involve some combination of either making them easier to acquire for those that don’t already have it, or in negating the stat benefit they offer in certain content, which you already claim is so negligible that nobody should care about it anyway.

Personally, I find the notion “As long as there is an option to endlessly repeat content you like for a reward is all okay.” definitely not something that is not making the game more fun in any way, it’s just putting an arbitrary time requirement on the rewards.

Well look, the alternatives should just not be on the radar for people who can do things the “right” way. If that’s something within your capabilities and interests, then you should always do things the “right” way, that will be the fastest and easiest method out there. The alternatives are for people for whom the “right” way is, for whatever reasons, not a reasonable option. For them, it’s not a question between “do it the right way” or “do it the alternative way,” it’s between “do it the alternative way” or “never get that thing that I want.”

People complaining about other players having the choice of pursuing alternative routes is like a well off and skilled person going “why bother going to medical school to earn $200K per year or more, when I could instead just become a janitor and earn $200K over the course of a couple decades?”

Of course if the shortcut is something you can do, you take the shortcut, but not everyone can take that shortcut, and a longer path is better than no path at all.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think anyone’s suggested removing ascended armor from the game.

I have.

Ohoni.6057:

Oh yes? Then how would you swap a chest piece from Zerkers to Soldiers without leaving an instance, and without taking up any inventory space?

By creating another set, legendary armor will cost around the same as 1 legendary weapon (confirmed by the devs), and technicly that would make the legendary armor cost about 4-5 times what a current ascended set costs. In fact 2 ascended sets is way more handy then legendary armor atm, since you can’t runeswap in legendary gear without loosing the runes each time anyway… (at least as far as we know, going of the weapons that can’t sigilswap)

Ohoni.6057:

Unless you count having someone take away something you worked for as a reason to be upset – do a bit of thinking xD

Nope, I don’t count that at all.

It’s the nature of life that things become easier the longer you wait to do them.

And they are easier.. Unless you’re saying you haven’t managed to amass wealth over the last 2 years which early adopters instead had to farm to get Ascended early. OR have you infact spent all that money on other priorities and just because you didn’t prioritise something you want an easy route?

Lazy.

In the raid instance you are put into combat, so Legendary Armor can’t flip stats anyways.

Ashen.2907:

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think anyone’s suggested removing ascended armor from the game.

I have.

Which was needless and silly – the amount of outrage you’d want to cause shows a lack of sense (just look at those people who got upset about Karma boosters – something genuinely useless – asking it to happen to something that took work, time and improved peoples’ characters is just insane).

Sykper.6583:

In the raid instance you are put into combat, so Legendary Armor can’t flip stats anyways.

Perhaps, but it might make it easier to alter your spec from your norm to meet the needs of a group before entering the raid.

Still face the cost of changing runes though.

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

group 1 people would have no reason to be upset

Unless you count having someone take away something you worked for as a reason to be upset – do a bit of thinking xD

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

It’s too late for that, i’m afraid – but then, if you really looked at Ohoni’s posts you’d realize that this isn’t what he’s asking for.

At this moment what should happen is to make ascended gear more easily obtainable.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Hm, But isn’t legendary armor basically not the same as legendary weapons? Legendary weapons also have very specific tasks (or buying it on the TP) in order to get it.

Of course, the skilllevel of raids could be so hard that legendary armor is basically a non obtainable goal for many a player.

Yeah, that’s the difference. Almost anyone can make a legendary – it’s just for some it will take a really, really long time.

FrizzFreston.5290:

At launch getting a legendary also wasn’t that easy.

It was (except maybe for the ones that needed tokens from Arah). Or rather, it was as far as skill was concerned. It just took a long time. It still does.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I would say that the time you put in from when you bought gw2 to getting your legendary weapon is something you definitely should expect to do again for armor.

They said that the amount of effort for the whole armor set is comparable to the amount for a single legendary weapon. I’d be perfectly okay for it to take more – as long as nothing is hidden beyond a gate that is designed to block most players from passing (like raids).

FrizzFreston.5290:

It is just so inelegant. It’s like bulldozing over a well-developed rainforest to make a highway because there’s people who like highways more than rainforests.

It’s more like making a highway aaround the rainforest, in case you don’t find running across it fun (no matter how great it looks). Because, you know, most people would rather not have to go on foot through one. They tend to be rather deadly.

Astralporing.1957:

Coulter.2315:

Ohoni.6057:

group 1 people would have no reason to be upset

Unless you count having someone take away something you worked for as a reason to be upset – do a bit of thinking xD

Do you really believe it would be reasonable to just remove all Ascended equipment from the game tomorrow given the hours that hundreds of thousands of people put into getting them?

It’s too late for that, i’m afraid – but then, if you really looked at Ohoni’s posts you’d realize that this isn’t what he’s asking for.

At this moment what should happen is to make ascended gear more easily obtainable.

Things are easily obtainable once you’ve had 2 years of time saving up to get it – or did you infact just not prioritise it and spent your money on other things and now are too lazy to undo that mistake with work and are so advocating for this “easer to obtain” option. Classy.

Ashen.2907:

Sykper.6583:

In the raid instance you are put into combat, so Legendary Armor can’t flip stats anyways.

Perhaps, but it might make it easier to alter your spec from your norm to meet the needs of a group before entering the raid.

Still face the cost of changing runes though.

You only are stuck in combat when the boss pulls – not inside the raid permanently.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t think anyone’s suggested removing ascended armor from the game.

I have.

I stand corrected.

By creating another set, legendary armor will cost around the same as 1 legendary weapon (confirmed by the devs), and technicly that would make the legendary armor cost about 4-5 times what a current ascended set costs.

That would fail the condition of “would not take up additional inventory space.”

As for the cost, that’s a tricky one, because Legendary weapons have wildly different costs to them, and a large part of that is in the Precursor, which will always be a free drop in this case, so while they say “the cost will be the same,” I doubt they mean that you’ll end up spending as much in gold as if you bought everything you could to make a Sunrise or whatever, it probably just means that there will be equivalent quantities of collectibles.

And they are easier.. Unless you’re saying you haven’t managed to amass wealth over the last 2 years which early adopters instead had to farm to get Ascended early.

No, that’s a silly example. I mean that the requirement becomes easier over time, not that you accumulate a better ability to overcome the existing requirement.

You really should have understood that from the context, I’m starting to become concerned with you.

In the raid instance you are put into combat, so Legendary Armor can’t flip stats anyways.

Nor could you swap armor sets, so that’s a moot point, the point of the question was about whether you could swap armor stats in between content.

velmeister.4187:

Guild Wars 2: Grind of Thorns?

I enjoy reading the articles posted on the front pages. But, I really got totally lost in the description of what a player needs to do to obtain a legendary weapon in HoT. Not only it seems convoluted as described in words (maybe a small VISIO diagram would have helped), it also seemed that the main objective of the designers was to slow down players from obtaining these desired items rather than to create a satisfying feeling of achievement.

I honestly believe the entire mastery system is a layer of grind and on top of that grind, now we have map and fractal grind, and on top of that WvW grind, and it does not end there, sPvP grind for shards of glory.

My simple question to ANET, why are you trying to create a grindfest in a game that simply does not need one? Why are you trying to do that every other MMO ends up doing — adding layers of grind to create pseudo-content?

Before we get the first post discrediting this OP by usual argument about working hard, casual player, blah blah bullkitten, screenshot attached to counter some of the usual nonsense. Yes. I played this game. A lot. And still do.

Almost everything about HoT is in fact grind. The Mysteries are XP grind, the Elite Specializations are Hero Point grind, the Legendaries are extreme examples of grind in the game. When you start in HoT there is nothing remarkably new about your play experience coming into the expansion. Every nuanced new feature you will have to work to achieve though some play elements that will be grinded by some to obtain things faster than others. This was done on purpose by the designers and yes it goes against the games initial manifesto and vision of having an MMO for everyone to enjoy, even those who can’t be on 24/7. The bottom line is they have run the numbers and figured out those who love to grind (the stereotypical MMO player) are the ones spending the most in the cash shop anyway so HoT is catering to them now and the original ’we are for the casual player" spirit has left. They will point you to the core game if you want that I guess.

In sticking with the original “we are your casual MMO option” manifesto there should at least be cash shop items to help, but there is nothing for hero points.

GrapeGatsby.6937:

I don’t get these types of post aren’t all MMORPGs inherently built so that the players will grind for something? If there was no grind and everything was given to players, what exactly would you do in this type of game for end game content aside from PvP? Also what do you define as a “satisfying feeling of achievement”?

The problem is that grinding isn’t fun when you realize it is a grind. Here is an example, going to a vendor and seeing an item takes the adventure out of the quest for the item. It isn’t some legendary rare weapon forged in the hellfire of mount doom. The weapon is on a vendor in town, and the guy selling it is some noob npc.

The story behind the weapon, the quest to get the weapon, and how you get the weapon are linear. They really don’t add to the fantasy immersion. I want to go on a quest, not a grind.

The problem is that grinding isn’t fun when you realize it is a grind. Here is an example, going to a vendor and seeing an item takes the adventure out of the quest for the item. It isn’t some legendary rare weapon forged in the hellfire of mount doom. The weapon is on a vendor in town, and the guy selling it is some noob npc.

That’s sort of an issue of presentation though. I agree that the presentation of vendor rewards is a bit lackluster, because they have things like Dungeon Armors that essentially use the same UI as buying rice balls off the chef vendor.

If I were designing that reward mechanism, I would have each dungeon have its own NPC, with his own location in the world (maybe in one of the cities, maybe out in the map), with a theme, and they would have specific reasons to be collecting the dungeon tokens, and instead of just having a vendor list, he would actually forge each item you request, out of the tokens you bring him.

You can take what is mechanically a “vendor,” in that they exchange some currency for a finished good, while still giving them a lot of lore and atmosphere.

Ashen.2907:

Ohoni.6057:

You’re confusing “Grinding is not fun” with “Anything not fun is grind”.

Both statements are true.

So bending over to pick up a $100 bill found on the sidewalk one time is a grind because it isn’t actually fun?

How is that not fun?

I can feel the rush as I pick up the $100. It is much more fun than working 8 hours for $100

How is that not fun?

I can feel the rush as I pick up the $100. It is much more fun than working 8 hours for $100

Sure, but the point is that the [act of bending to pick it up] is not fun, in and of itself, but rather the [receiving $100] is fun. As I went on to say, the reward itself by far overcomes the very minor inconvenience, it is by far a net-positive experience and I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it or would feel bad about the overall experience if I did, but the question was specific to the act itself.

Astralporing.1957:

No, it’s not bad only for raids to have such rewards. How bad it is depends on how difficult the content behind the rewards are locked is, and what rewards are locked this way.
Thus, so far, only 4 cases really stand out. One is legendary armor, one is tournament armor, one is liadri mini, and one is a llama mini.

Of those, i consider a mini to be a more reasonable reward (though i understand that there might be people that will disagree) for this type of content. That leaves a tournament armor (against which i did protest), and a whole category of items locked beyond raids.

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

So, Raids get picked out, because in their case the problem is the biggest and most visible.

As a mini collector; you are totally right. I still don’t have all the mini llama but they are a desirable effort & just skin.

The legendary armor hidden behind raid is not; I would be cool if there was another legendary set for PvE/WvW/PvP/.. aside from Raid.

Astralporing.1957:

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

I agree with that. The best solution in this case is to add legendary armor through other types of content, one such example that was given once was higher level fractals (or lower, just put it behind pristine/fractal relics)

I agree with that. The best solution in this case is to add legendary armor through other types of content, one such example that was given once was higher level fractals (or lower, just put it behind pristine/fractal relics)

Higher level Fractals and Raids are the same kitten ed thing. That’s like saying that maybe to be fair they could lock unique armor between either Conquest OR Stronghold PvP, that’s still just one choice, PvP.

If there are to be alternatives, they have to actually be alternatives, if Raids is the one method, then the alternative needs to be something that is nothing like a dungeon experience, nothing that requires a set small group of players to enter an instanced encounter.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

If it was just a case of a mini, or some singular unique skins, i might perhaps stomach it. In this case i just can’t stay silent.

I agree with that. The best solution in this case is to add legendary armor through other types of content, one such example that was given once was higher level fractals (or lower, just put it behind pristine/fractal relics)

WvW – maps would be constantly full, people (including people who normally ONLY do WvW) would complain that they can’t get in to farm for the legendary gear. If you try saying “EoTM” karma train hello.

sPvP – remember raids get a week lockout, how can that apply to sPvP? If you put it on a track, people can just constantly play to keep grabbing it, faster than someone doing a raid. Not to mention, you would be rewarded legendary armor for losing technically if its based on a reward track. Not very fair to the raiders who lose and just get nothing.

PvE – I thought raiding was PvE..but ok…a thread complaining about grind, wants to throw up a suggestion to add grind for legendary in PvE. Make it random from boss drops won’t cut it, people will complain, collect XXXX items, people will yell about grinding, not to mention “I already have my legendary gear and just keep getting more and more XX tokens! Anet, create a sink for them!” Plus, again, the rate would have to be close to the aquisition rate a Raider would get.

Fractals – tokens? (see PvE). higher level fractals? “WTS Fractal lv XX for legendary gear you only get once a week for 100g!” and then the reports: “I sent my gold and was kicked! Didn’t get my legendary gear!”

Astralporing.1957:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Hm, But isn’t legendary armor basically not the same as legendary weapons? Legendary weapons also have very specific tasks (or buying it on the TP) in order to get it.

Of course, the skilllevel of raids could be so hard that legendary armor is basically a non obtainable goal for many a player.

Yeah, that’s the difference. Almost anyone can make a legendary – it’s just for some it will take a really, really long time.

FrizzFreston.5290:

At launch getting a legendary also wasn’t that easy.

It was (except maybe for the ones that needed tokens from Arah). Or rather, it was as far as skill was concerned. It just took a long time. It still does.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I would say that the time you put in from when you bought gw2 to getting your legendary weapon is something you definitely should expect to do again for armor.

They said that the amount of effort for the whole armor set is comparable to the amount for a single legendary weapon. I’d be perfectly okay for it to take more – as long as nothing is hidden beyond a gate that is designed to block most players from passing (like raids).

But that still depends how it’s structured. Raids aren’t automatically out of range. Or their rewards aren’t when sellable. What I meant with legendaries not being easy was more the dungeons weren’t as easy yet during launch. Simply because of the routes available. I see raids mostly like a 10 man dungeon tbh. Ofcourse these days theres also pvp tracks obviously, so it got easier.

FrizzFreston.5290:

It is just so inelegant. It’s like bulldozing over a well-developed rainforest to make a highway because there’s people who like highways more than rainforests.

It’s more like making a highway around the rainforest, in case you don’t find running across it fun (no matter how great it looks). Because, you know, most people would rather not have to go on foot through one. They tend to be rather deadly.

I meant the highway as the to go to solution, but yea. :P Personally I’m not against different routes to a reward, and just recognize that in some cases a specific route adds something to the game. A long beautiful easy path to the jungle, while harder to make, seems bettr than the long way around.

Plus, Ohonis proposition is basically what the gold currency currently is. It does everything he proposes, while also setting out a progression track for it. And the traders of tokens is nothing more than players in my opinion.

Of course that does give the people who are able an advantage, much like the medical degree person over the janitor. Just to use Ohonis example.

Ohoni.6057:

I agree with that. The best solution in this case is to add legendary armor through other types of content, one such example that was given once was higher level fractals (or lower, just put it behind pristine/fractal relics)

Higher level Fractals and Raids are the same kitten ed thing.

I don’t see Fractals as the same as Raids, for example Fractals require half the amount of players, less organization and less coordination than what Raids should require. But Fractals was more like an example, I’d rather they start with “similar” content, than going for something completely different. If they can’t balance Fractals/Raids rewards how are they supposed to balance completely irrelevant and different game modes?

If/when they actually release alternatives I wouldn’t expect them to release everything at once, it might take some time, start with more familiar settings and move on. For example, the Fractal legendary back piece should be “balanced” with the sPVP legendary back piece, both are legendary, require different acquisition methods and they are both behind 5-man organised “instanced” content.