Guild Wars 2

and its ‘requirement’ to complete raids.

When I started playing GW2, Exotic was said to be the ultimate gear and no gear would superscede it. Yes there were Legendary weapons but they were no more powerful than Exotics. In some cases I spent real money to buy gems to equip a whole raft of alts.

Then Ascended was launched. Yes, the Ascended was mainly for Fractals but it increased the power base for everything. But it felt like a kick in the teeth, and I deleted many alts since crafting Ascended just isn’t in my game plan. Say what you like about Ascended being account not soulbound, I wouldn’t have been happy unless each alt had their own gear. So most of my alts became obsolete.

As it turns out, I didn’t even bother crafting Ascended for the remaining alts, and I nearly quit the game because of the betrayal.

Now the new raid content has been centred around Ascendeds.

Imagine buying a car and 2 years later a newer, faster model is launched. You suck it up, you still have a good car.

But imagine then being told “Your car isn’t good enough to drive on certain roads”.

That is why I am salty.

To be completely honest, i don’t believe for a second that ascended will be REQUIRED for raids. It’s 5% superior to exotics. I’d take a decent player in exos over a scrub in full pink any day.

Kevan.8912:

Kormeg.2469:

Kevan.8912:

Q:“Why havnt you bought HoT yet?”

A: Because I won’t buy it at all. edit

You have been very active on the forums for someone uninterested in playing the game.

Lets assume you’re genuinely interested in others’ opinions and not just trolling with quotes:
nobody said that there is not “gates” in other games.
In fact, an eternal carrot-on-a-stick is the most common behavior that mmorpg show….the caplevel-new BiS/stats-raiding cycle, in the order we prefer.
but that new gates in here are not welcome.
Ok, it’s not a new tier gear or cap level, they say. meh?
Still it’s not what many mean for horizontal progression.

Ascended/FOTM/grind to BiS had already caused a lot of troubles..so just to cool down the flames. and keep the kitten manifesto alive and healthy..
they could just make ascended easier to obtain and make raids a mere matter of skills, not farming another parameter…and they would have avoided all this mess.

Nope. Instead, they add fuel to the fire with raids and gating through BOTH ascended and masteries. bullseye!
So anet’s position about gw2 and future becomes evident: they’ve irreversibly taken a path that a part (don’t know if a major or a “vocal” small population of whining casuals like me, but definitely I’m not the only to think this) of the original players don’t like.

Everything has its price.
I understand that it’s a matter of money and audience and devs will do what they think it’s convenient, but at this point it’s hard to continue to cater so different kinds of users with opposite expectations.
However, I don’t care so much about market trends, I’m a customer and feel “betrayed” once more…it’s obvious that I’m here to make them all know it. It’s..umh..was MY game, too.

autoquote in a similar thread
Yeah, I know your pain bro.
It’s same here…that joke about unnecessary gear and there is no gated content.
The original sin is… we trusted this few lines of txt:

“But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun”

Will the player base, based on Anet’s statement that top tier players should (not must) have full ascended in order to beat the raid, self impose such as a requirement?

If the designers are telling the player base as a whole that the best players should have ascended for this content, I think that it is unreasonable to assume that players wont take that to heart as a requirement.

Yeah and Arah was centered around 5 man groups in full exotics, yet people have solo’d it naked.

Look, with all due respect I understand Anet’s statement about Ascended. But “should” does not mean “required”. Just because the devs say that you “should use ascended” does not mean it is required. The only way it will be required is if there is a system in place that FORCES you to have ascended before attempting the raid. Currently there is none.

There’s also the fact that ascended is literally a total of 12.5% dmg increase in total. Meaning, if you were going to hit 1k with an auto attack normally in full exotic, you’d be hitting 1125 dmg instead. Just means that in the long run you may need to autoattack a boss one more time.

Even disregarding that 12.5% damage increase if you equip trinkets, which are easy to get from laurels, and just get an ascended weapon (easier to get than full armor) then your damage difference comes out to a measly 7.5%. That’s nothing. That will literally not make or break the raid.

You’re salty about ascended? Welcome to the club, OP. Been salty about it since the Lost Shores myself, but it’s been in the game for so long I’ve basically become resigned to its existence. Thankfully I have a full set of it, so if its needed for raids, I should be fine. I have doubts that it will be, though.

Sorann Peace.9056:

You’re salty about ascended? Welcome to the club, OP. Been salty about it since the Lost Shores myself, but it’s been in the game for so long I’ve basically become resigned to its existence. Thankfully I have a full set of it, so if its needed for raids, I should be fine. I have doubts that it will be, though.

But is it Ascended Zerk? If so, according to comments on all the new content, you could be SoL

GuzziHero.2467:

Sorann Peace.9056:

You’re salty about ascended? Welcome to the club, OP. Been salty about it since the Lost Shores myself, but it’s been in the game for so long I’ve basically become resigned to its existence. Thankfully I have a full set of it, so if its needed for raids, I should be fine. I have doubts that it will be, though.

But is it Ascended Zerk? If so, according to comments on all the new content, you could be SoL

ArenaNet never said zerker stats wouldn’t have a place, they simply said (or implied) that the zerker meta won’t be a thing anymore. The difference being that not everyone will be running zerker like in the past, but a few still might. More variety is the goal, I think.

Zelkovan.2630:

Yeah and Arah was centered around 5 man groups in full exotics, yet people have solo’d it naked.

Look, with all due respect I understand Anet’s statement about Ascended. But “should” does not mean “required”. Just because the devs say that you “should use ascended” does not mean it is required. The only way it will be required is if there is a system in place that FORCES you to have ascended before attempting the raid. Currently there is none.

There’s also the fact that ascended is literally a total of 12.5% dmg increase in total. Meaning, if you were going to hit 1k with an auto attack normally in full exotic, you’d be hitting 1125 dmg instead. Just means that in the long run you may need to autoattack a boss one more time.

Even disregarding that 12.5% damage increase if you equip trinkets, which are easy to get from laurels, and just get an ascended weapon (easier to get than full armor) then your damage difference comes out to a measly 7.5%. That’s nothing. That will literally not make or break the raid.

Ashen had already answered you before you posted it lol.

Devs cannot first create it, make it useful (and necessary to do fractals – and make them count also outside fractals, in wvw especially, where they have some sense) and then expect that who cannot acquire it, same those who they sold the game to “no grind no biS” motto, just ignore it saying “no problem, you don’t need it”
….and then tweet about it too, talking about raids.
so plz, it’s enough with this thing that we don’t need it.
Ascended do exist, the problem is the same existence of a better tier than exo, much more difficult to acquire.

To me, there’s only one solution: make exo’s same stats and slots with ascended/legendary, and leave them just a skin.
The quarrel would instantly come to an end, and all the pro’s who feel much better than pugs would still close the raids naked and still would have their legendary skins and titles to feel “elite” (and i feel that this would be perfectly fair: skill should be rewarded..but not with power: with cosmetics)

EDIT:
And I nearly forgot the big news: as ascended were not enough and AR was not so evident, let’s put another “gate” for raids and map completion/storyline : masteries"
Let’s see how it goes, but it has the potential to get even worse than ascended increase in stats…such as Agony in fractals.

There is no grind if Ascended is the end gear forever. How much time since ascended was released?? You can always take your time to get it so no grind ( on other games if you dont grind they release a better tier then you are more behind ). Just because you cant get it the moment you hit 80 ( exotic anyone get full set the moment they hit 80 ) doesnt mean they are grindy. The only grind there is are legendary and they have the same stats that ascended. If you really care about raids, really challenging fights you would have ascended already ( you can get rings, ascesory, amulet with laurels for just logging in the game for gods sake )

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

Its not needed.

GragorR.9768:

To be completely honest, i don’t believe for a second that ascended will be REQUIRED for raids. It’s 5% superior to exotics. I’d take a decent player in exos over a scrub in full pink any day.

Keep in mind 5% extra damage is ALOT if 10 people all are in ascended gear. That’s 50% more damage which will make a big change.

But to op the games been out for 3 years, and SW over a year. Getting the money to buy a full ascended set of weapons and armor should not be an issue for anyone in this game.

Eh, I just never bothered with Ascended gear since I don’t do fractals that much. Might pick up a set now but that’s about it.

Sylent.3165:

GragorR.9768:

To be completely honest, i don’t believe for a second that ascended will be REQUIRED for raids. It’s 5% superior to exotics. I’d take a decent player in exos over a scrub in full pink any day.

Keep in mind 5% extra damage is ALOT if 10 people all are in ascended gear. That’s 50% more damage which will make a big change.

But to op the games been out for 3 years, and SW over a year. Getting the money to buy a full ascended set of weapons and armor should not be an issue for anyone in this game.

If you have 10 people pumping out 100 damage each, 5% for each person is an extra 5 damage. So if you add the total the damage its 1000 and include the total increase % its 50 damage. Which is still 5%. NOT 50%

Not sure where you learnt maths.

OnizukaBR.8537:

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

I have been actively hunting ascended gear for going on three years now. I (not counting trinkets) have three pieces at this point.

Killing the same mobs day in and out for three years to get three pieces of equipment. I had BiS before ascended was released. Three sets of armor and at least one of every weapon for my main. At this rate I can expect it to take in excess of 20 years to get back to where I was shortly after launch.

Not a grind ?

You are mistaken.

Ashen.2907:

OnizukaBR.8537:

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

I have been actively hunting ascended gear for going on three years now. I (not counting trinkets) have three pieces at this point.

Killing the same mobs day in and out for three years to get three pieces of equipment. I had BiS before ascended was released. Three sets of armor and at least one of every weapon for my main. At this rate I can expect it to take in excess of 20 years to get back to where I was shortly after launch.

Not a grind ?

You are mistaken.

So your master plan of obtaining ascended gear is simply hope for it to drop off a mob? lol… sigh.

You do realise you can buy them of the Trading Post, or simply craft the items yourself.

Glad I could help.

Youd have a point if ascended was in fact “required” for raids. But since it isnt, and has never been said to be (hint: required and recommended have different meanings in the english language), you dont have a point at all.

Arah is easier with ascended, but its not required. Living story steps are easier with ascended, but its not required. Killing champs in orr is easier in ascended, but its not required. Raids will be easier with ascended, but its not required. Not sure how people can deal with the first 3 but not the 4th.

Thobek.1730:

You do realise you can buy them of the Trading Post, or simply craft the items yourself.

Glad I could help.

My apologies.

I did not realize that ascended weapons and armor were no longer account bound. Do you by any chance remember when this change was implemented ?

Thank you for your assistance.

Edit: Apparently ascended weapons and armor are still account bound and cannot be traded on the TP. I shall assume that you are merely mistaken rather than engaging in dishonesty via the spread of misinformation. Perhaps you are merely new to the game or don’t understand what you are reading when looking at item descriptions, wiki entries, or forum posts.

I remember in my old raiding guild (‘nother game) we sometimes had people in blues and greens who’d be out-dpsing guys in the best gear available, or close to it.

Gear matters, insofar as min-maxing goes, but everything I have read indicates that ascended is not required at all. Rather, it’s recommended in the same way that a bicycle helmet is recommended. If you kitten up, you aren’t as likely to get a concussion.

I’m of two minds about Ascended at this point. While crafting this crap is the worst implementation of BiS I’ve ever seen in terms of enjoyment, it has made the price for the mats used to craft it go up. This has essentially created a market that did not previously exist.

As to it being required in raids… Players will make that decision, not ANet. Remember that in PuG’s gear pings are one of two ways to filter out those who will not contribute as much to the group as others might. Like the second way, AP, it is not all that accurate, but it’s what there is. If the rumors about the revealed raid boss being downed already are true, and if ANet toughens up things to where success hangs on superior performance and stats, players will make that call. After all, exclusion is part of the pastime.

I think the big thing to take into account is that if you’re doing Ascended Armor for the first time it’s a big deal. A lot of players, myself included, only did Ascended Armor for Fractals. It really wasn’t required until this expansion. So here’s the thing, you’re going to see ALOT of people angry about this. How many friends do you know who have spent their time getting minis or what have you? Especially your girl friends, girlfriends, and etc? The typical player, until now, pretty much wrote ascended off the menu. Heck, even my guild said I was crazy to get ascended just to do fractals and that’s one of their big things. It was NOT required. Most people have spent their money elsewhere, on aesthetic properties to their characters, gem store (which is not cheap! – gold or rl money) and so on. Damask is gated in making, so it’s 1 month just to get the Damask around. If you’re a caster it’s a month + 4 or +5 days. That’s not a small thing to ask of a casual player community. They’re either going to say “Beep-this” or have a fit. That’s just a fact. This isn’t a game where you can just go out and farm up materials. Silk doesn’t drop from trees nor does it drop from a creature that rightly should have it. It drops when it drops. That’s about it. It comes from salvage when the RNG decides to grace you with some. So, now it’s 24 to 35 days to make the damask and how many days to get the silk? How many hours is that exactly? How much gold are we talking about?

I think anyone that takes this seriously is going to realize pretty fast Ascended Armor is a few months of game time for just one character. There are how many classes in this game?

And okay, so legendary armor is coming and you’re going to say, “That’s a drop. Just do the raids.” Besides the absurdity of that statement if raiding requires ascended… let’s think about it a bit more. The whole legendary armor set is supposed to be only the value of crafting one legendary weapon or is it ascended weapon? If it’s going to be a the value of an ascended weapon that’s sneeze money. One night of serious dungeon runs will nearly get you there. Two days in the Silverwastes surely will come close. So, if it’s the cost of an Ascended Weapon then Legendary Armor is the way to go to get a character finished up. If, on the other hand, it’s the cost of a Legendary Weapon this is again the cost of several months of a player’s time.

No matter how you do it Ascended Armor is a real investment for anyone. Most players will not have the money because they’ve spent it elsewhere, on making themselves look good, gem store things, dyes, minis, and so on. Again, all of this stuff is not cheap.

This Ascended Armor “must have” is going to be the first kind real Gear-Locked Content we’ve seen in Guild Wars 2. It’s going to change how hard those elite people hit in WvW. It’s going to change the game from being about skill to being about having the best armor. That’s the sad reality of this. It’s a bad shift for the game.

GragorR.9768:

To be completely honest, i don’t believe for a second that ascended will be REQUIRED for raids. It’s 5% superior to exotics.

This. The difference isn’t large at all, much less than having a solid build that complements the others in the group and good teamwork. If it were the case that you had to have builds that meshed perfectly, great teamwork, and ascended gear, the number of people that ended up completing the raids would be miniscule.

Might it give you a slightly larger margin for error? Sure.

I’m also kittened about the ascended gear and raiding too. The requirements (because all you guys who believe it’s just a suggestion are naive about how toxic elitist culture is in online gaming) will block all casual players from even attempting to try raids. So now, elitist players will actively be kicking anyone who doesn’t have ascended gear. On top of that, it’s content that’s now become unavailable to the masses (this IS an MMO after all) and on top of that has legendary armour sets as their rewards, again another step in the direction of elitism and exclusionary content.

This is not okay.

Challenging content is not the whole issue (which difficulty tiers would easily solve, but whatever, that’s not what this thread is about). The issue is the elitism that will arise from the requirements that toxic elitist players will create because ascended is the best gear. The issue will lead to further elitism as by a certain point, if someone doesn’t have a full set of legendaries, no way are they going to be allowed to do raids, as the strategies of each boss will most likely be more easily handled if stats can be changed on the fly. This is going to create more divide, exclusionary behaviour and toxic elitism that will damage this game’s playerbase.

There are ways around this. Making ascended items easier to achieve, having the ability to craft a FULL set of legendary gear without needing to step into raids, fractals etc. Steps like those will help remove the ability for players to become elitist and actively deny content to more casual players. I’d be fine with doing a raid, even trying it if it’s too difficult for me, but I am not okay with this situation that WILL harbor poisonous attitudes towards more casual gamers.

Personally I find the grind for ascended gear on a pretty level field with the best gear in MMOs or easier. It really isn’t very difficult to grind it out, it’s just a very boring process and it doesn’t feel like your earning it in some sort of progression in the story towards a final encounter where it’s necessary – it is literally just a grind and with a few time gates in the process of getting trinkets.

The easiest way to actually fix this is an obvious answer that Anet has not supplied…make ascended gear tradeable and sellable on the TP. There, we’ve fixed the problem because now ANYBODY can gain access to it if they have a friend willing to make it or enough money to buy it. I do understand why they haven’t though, considering it’s currently just like how exotics used to be before you could start buying them. Now everybody and their mom has exotics.

RyuDragnier.9476:

The easiest way to actually fix this is an obvious answer that Anet has not supplied…make ascended gear tradeable and sellable on the TP. There, we’ve fixed the problem because now ANYBODY can gain access to it if they have a friend willing to make it or enough money to buy it. I do understand why they haven’t though, considering it’s currently just like how exotics used to be before you could start buying them. Now everybody and their mom has exotics.

The interesting thing is, ascended gear pretty much is buyable with gold, it’s just a long, complicated process. I guess there’s a karma requirement or two as well, but that’s about all I can think of. If you have the gold to buy the mats, getting to 500 in the relevant professions isn’t hard. Just expensive. Same with many of the mats.

Ashen.2907:

OnizukaBR.8537:

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

I have been actively hunting ascended gear for going on three years now. I (not counting trinkets) have three pieces at this point.

Killing the same mobs day in and out for three years to get three pieces of equipment. I had BiS before ascended was released. Three sets of armor and at least one of every weapon for my main. At this rate I can expect it to take in excess of 20 years to get back to where I was shortly after launch.

Not a grind ?

You are mistaken.

It’s a grind because you are using the LEAST optimal method to obtain it, not because of any game mechanic preventing you from getting it faster.

Misguided.5139:

GragorR.9768:

To be completely honest, i don’t believe for a second that ascended will be REQUIRED for raids. It’s 5% superior to exotics.

This. The difference isn’t large at all, much less than having a solid build that complements the others in the group and good teamwork. If it were the case that you had to have builds that meshed perfectly, great teamwork, and ascended gear, the number of people that ended up completing the raids would be miniscule.

Might it give you a slightly larger margin for error? Sure.

Players will make the decision as to what they require. After all, glass gear was not required for dungeons by ANet design.

Ashen.2907:

Thobek.1730:

You do realise you can buy them of the Trading Post, or simply craft the items yourself.

Glad I could help.

My apologies.

I did not realize that ascended weapons and armor were no longer account bound. Do you by any chance remember when this change was implemented ?

Thank you for your assistance.

Edit: Apparently ascended weapons and armor are still account bound and cannot be traded on the TP. I shall assume that you are merely mistaken rather than engaging in dishonesty via the spread of misinformation. Perhaps you are merely new to the game or don’t understand what you are reading when looking at item descriptions, wiki entries, or forum posts.

All you need: 500 crafting discipline
the recipe for the piece: 5 laurels and some gold.
Combination of the ascended materials refinement, 500 of each material for the chest, 300 for all the other pieces.
The rest you can buy of the TP. So yes basicly you can buy ascended gear of the tp. Since the 2 other ingredients you get by playing the game.

Getting the crafting to 500 is the most expensive part, but can of course be done in stages. It will cost about 100 gold for most proffesions. Crafting the ascended materials refinements costs basicly nothing.
From there on, you can literly buy the ingredients needed for the recipe, costing you about 60-80 gold per armor piece if you don’t want to use the time gated cheaper ways to craft these ingredients

Obtena.7952:

Ashen.2907:

OnizukaBR.8537:

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

I have been actively hunting ascended gear for going on three years now. I (not counting trinkets) have three pieces at this point.

Killing the same mobs day in and out for three years to get three pieces of equipment. I had BiS before ascended was released. Three sets of armor and at least one of every weapon for my main. At this rate I can expect it to take in excess of 20 years to get back to where I was shortly after launch.

Not a grind ?

You are mistaken.

It’s a grind because you are using the LEAST optimal method to obtain it, not because of any game mechanic preventing you from getting it faster.

Leveling crafting is even more of a grind to me because there is zero play involved.

Fox.3469:

All you need: 500 crafting discipline
the recipe for the piece: 5 laurels and some gold.
Combination of the ascended materials refinement, 500 of each material for the chest, 300 for all the other pieces.
The rest you can buy of the TP. So yes basicly you can buy ascended gear of the tp. Since the 2 other ingredients you get by playing the game.

Getting the crafting to 500 is the most expensive part, but can of course be done in stages. It will cost about 100 gold for most proffesions. Crafting the ascended materials refinements costs basicly nothing.
From there on, you can literly buy the ingredients needed for the recipe, costing you about 60-80 gold per armor piece if you don’t want to use the time gated cheaper ways to craft these ingredients

Gold is not a concern. Crafting is the concern.

Ashen.2907:

Obtena.7952:

Ashen.2907:

OnizukaBR.8537:

TL/DR: Ascended is not grind gear, only legendaries are.

I have been actively hunting ascended gear for going on three years now. I (not counting trinkets) have three pieces at this point.

Killing the same mobs day in and out for three years to get three pieces of equipment. I had BiS before ascended was released. Three sets of armor and at least one of every weapon for my main. At this rate I can expect it to take in excess of 20 years to get back to where I was shortly after launch.

Not a grind ?

You are mistaken.

It’s a grind because you are using the LEAST optimal method to obtain it, not because of any game mechanic preventing you from getting it faster.

Leveling crafting is even more of a grind to me because there is zero play involved.

this is… rediculous, it takes 10 minutes at most to get from 0-500, if you follow a guide. I like crafting so i crafted mine up normally, but jeez common, be real, you don’t want to lvl it because you don’t have the money because you spend it all the time, wich is probally also the reason you don’t have legendary armor.

There’s an easy solution to this, just make Ascended gear way cheaper, so that players can reasonably gear many alts.

Ohoni.6057:

There’s an easy solution to this, just make Ascended gear way cheaper, so that players can reasonably gear many alts.

Ok, what about the many people already having ascended gear?

1.) they aren’t hard to get. Even for casual players.

2.) they aren’t needed for raids. Just a suggestion or probably to build hype.

3.) in all honesty, raiding isn’t being targeted at players that are so far into the casual category that they can barely get exotics, those types of players haven’t been asking for hard content because a super casual player probably won’t be good enough to handle the content anyways.

(And I’m a semi-casual player but definitely not so casual to where this is a huge thing.)

The funny thing is, OP, that you and your supporters show exactly the type of entitlement raiders are notorious for.

To quote the band Queen here:
“I want it all, I want it now!”

You want the shot of glory, instantly, now, pure. You are on the other hand unwilling to suffer through the pain a glory junky has: work, equipment check, work, practice, work. Do you think people that jump from sky scrappers, climb the K7 or do pearl diving without air tanks do that with their old equipment if new one is available? Of course you can continue to attempt to reach the deep sea with your trusty snorkle, but to give you a spoiler, it won´t work.

And speaking of fairness:
I find it to be gloriously fair that if I am forced to do raids if I want the shinies, you on the other hands are forced to make the grind to get an ascended armor if you don´t want to be shunned from your own brethen for being a lazy bum. Just because you don´t like it does not mean that there should be ways around it. That sentence sounds familiar to you? It´s the here often used argument to defend content exclusivity, just in the reverse direction.

Ok, what about the many people already having ascended gear?

They get to keep it?

Ashen.2907:

Gold is not a concern. Crafting is the concern.

What bothers you about crafting?

With a guide and enough gold, you can breeze through any profession. In fact, in my experience with crafting in this game, the only time-consuming part is if you’re trying to be frugal. If you can throw gold at the problem without a care in the world, all you gotta do is buy the components you need before you start, from a list, and clickety-click your way to the top. Probably be 0-500 in 30 minutes or less.

Also, pop crafting booster before you start and you’ll need like 2/3 of the normal components required, cause of all the crits you’ll be getting.

Ohoni.6057:

Ok, what about the many people already having ascended gear?

They get to keep it?

And this is why you aren’t in charge. I can’t even begin to imagine the backlash.
Anyway i just wanted to expose your argument, no desire in another discussion like you did in raids topic.

the stat difference is pretty small isnt it? i think if raids are as advertised then not too many people are going to be sitting in the area where that small difference will make or break the run

And this is why you aren’t in charge. I can’t even begin to imagine the backlash.
Anyway i just wanted to expose your argument, no desire in another discussion like you did in raids topic.

Are you saying that they would be upset that they paid a certain amount, while new players would be paying a lesser amount? Well too bad. Did people complain when they paid $60 for GW2 three years ago, and now it’s free? Or before that when it was $10? Did people complain when they added wardrobes, making double legendaries redundant? Or when they added Precursor Crafting? Were those who did complain anything other than spoiled babies?

Things go on sale all the time, it’s a practice thousands of years old. I paid $900 for a laptop a few years back, and then a month later they released a new version with much better specs at the same price. Too bad for me, but not their problem. If ANet wants to offer a better price for something, then they should. If people get upset about being offered a better deal, then that’s their problem, not ANet’s.

At the very least those players would be able to buy more ascended sets for their alts or alternate builds, that benefits them as well.

A company can’t avoid doing things that benefit the majority, because the minority on top doesn’t want them to have nice things.

Lets be real here, ascended gear was introduced within 3 months of launch. And it was to remedy the problem of exotics being acquired at an unforeseen easy and fast pace, and to create a system for fractal progression.

You talk about “betrayal”, when the reality is that the addition was a quickly deployed post-beta adjustment. One that they have stayed true to for the 3 years since, and for the foreseeable future.
That’s not a betrayal, that’s run of the mil game development.

Of course they are going to balance raids, which are supposed to be demanding and difficult content, around the highest stat tier. To balance it around a lower tier would be to set the system up for failure from the get-go. People with the higher stat gear would encounter lesser difficulty as a result. And given the nature of these raids, most people interested in them likely already have mostly ascended gear already.
Heck, most people who play regularly should have full ascended jewelry (which accounts for 5 gear slots, roughly 40% of your total stats), given how easy it is to come by.
And, as others have mentioned, it being balanced around ascended stats doesn’t actually require you to have ascended to complete it. A 12%ish(for full exotics, less if you have that ascended jewelry I mentioned) stat difference can be overcome, especially in a game like GW2.

And do you realize how ridiculous some of what you said you did is? So you made exotics for all your alts, even spent money to do so, but then ascended came out and you didn’t feel like making it, so you deleted all your alts?
How is that even a sensible thing to do? Exotics were more then good enough for all the content that was in the game at the time, and remained good enough for all the content that has been added in the 3 years since. Ascended weren’t even that big of an upgrade, and at the time they were first introduce were only out for literally 3 gear slots.
Imagine buying 5 cars, and then a new model comes out. So you have a hissy and destroy 4 of your cars. Yea that’s reasonable.
Not to mention how easy the ascended jewelry slots are to fill. Heck, if you actually played those alts over the past several years, you probably would have gotten full ascended jewelry by happenstance, just by playing.

Also, your car analogy is bad. It doesn’t encompass the situation at all.
You’re salty because you don’t feel like grinding ascended armor. I’m pretty sure that’s all this comes down to. And you know what? I don’t feel like grinding it either. You can just say so, it’s not a big deal.

My two mains have full exotic armor, exotic weapons, and ascended jewelry. That’s what they’ve been wearing for a year or two now. And I have enough resources stockpiled to gear another 5+ fresh characters that way easily.
I likely have enough stuff stored to churn out a couple sets of ascended armor too. Yet I probably won’t. The ~5% stat increase (from a full armor set specifically, not a full gear set) doesn’t seem worth the effort/resources. So I’ll try out raids with what I’m wearing now, maybe grab some ascended weapons at most.
If I’m into it, maybe I’ll gear my main raiding character in full ascended. He’s the only one who’ll need it after all.
Whatever weird OCD you have about gearing alts is your prerogative. It’s not ArenaNet’s problem or fault.

Arewn.2368:

Lets be real here, ascended gear was introduced within 3 months of launch. And it was to remedy the problem of exotics being acquired at an unforeseen easy and fast pace, and to create a system for fractal progression.

You talk about “betrayal”, when the reality is that the addition was a quickly deployed post-beta adjustment. One that they have stayed true to for the 3 years since, and for the foreseeable future.
That’s not a betrayal, that’s run of the mil game development.

Of course they are going to balance raids, which are supposed to be demanding and difficult content, around the highest stat tier. To balance it around a lower tier would be to set the system up for failure from the get-go. People with the higher stat gear would encounter lesser difficulty as a result. And given the nature of these raids, most people interested in them likely already have mostly ascended gear already.
Heck, most people who play regularly should have full ascended jewelry (which accounts for 5 gear slots, roughly 40% of your total stats), given how easy it is to come by.
And, as others have mentioned, it being balanced around ascended stats doesn’t actually require you to have ascended to complete it. A 12%ish(for full exotics, less if you have that ascended jewelry I mentioned) stat difference can be overcome, especially in a game like GW2.

And do you realize how ridiculous some of what you said you did is? So you made exotics for all your alts, even spent money to do so, but then ascended came out and you didn’t feel like making it, so you deleted all your alts?
How is that even a sensible thing to do? Exotics were more then good enough for all the content that was in the game at the time, and remained good enough for all the content that has been added in the 3 years since. Ascended weren’t even that big of an upgrade, and at the time they were first introduce were only out for literally 3 gear slots.
Imagine buying 5 cars, and then a new model comes out. So you have a hissy and destroy 4 of your cars. Yea that’s reasonable.
Not to mention how easy the ascended jewelry slots are to fill. Heck, if you actually played those alts over the past several years, you probably would have gotten full ascended jewelry by happenstance, just by playing.

Also, your car analogy is bad. It doesn’t encompass the situation at all.
You’re salty because you don’t feel like grinding ascended armor. I’m pretty sure that’s all this comes down to. And you know what? I don’t feel like grinding it either. You can just say so, it’s not a big deal.

My two mains have full exotic armor, exotic weapons, and ascended jewelry. That’s what they’ve been wearing for a year or two now. And I have enough resources stockpiled to gear another 5+ fresh characters that way easily.
I likely have enough stuff stored to churn out a couple sets of ascended armor too. Yet I probably won’t. The ~5% stat increase (from a full armor set specifically, not a full gear set) doesn’t seem worth the effort/resources. So I’ll try out raids with what I’m wearing now, maybe grab some ascended weapons at most.
If I’m into it, maybe I’ll gear my main raiding character in full ascended. He’s the only one who’ll need it after all.
Whatever weird OCD you have about gearing alts is your prerogative. It’s not ArenaNet’s problem or fault.

They said no gear grinding or whatever before launch and then proceed to ignore that and make better gear that was only obtained by grinding stuff you may not have wanted to grind, then around a year and half~2 year later they released the armor parts that was only obtained by grinding crafting for obscene amounts of gold, don’t know how it is now since I haven’t played in a year but it’s still entirely ANets fault and probably still extremely expensive/annoying to grind, especially on more than one character.

Ashen.2907:

Fox.3469:

All you need: 500 crafting discipline
the recipe for the piece: 5 laurels and some gold.
Combination of the ascended materials refinement, 500 of each material for the chest, 300 for all the other pieces.
The rest you can buy of the TP. So yes basicly you can buy ascended gear of the tp. Since the 2 other ingredients you get by playing the game.

Getting the crafting to 500 is the most expensive part, but can of course be done in stages. It will cost about 100 gold for most proffesions. Crafting the ascended materials refinements costs basicly nothing.
From there on, you can literly buy the ingredients needed for the recipe, costing you about 60-80 gold per armor piece if you don’t want to use the time gated cheaper ways to craft these ingredients

Gold is not a concern. Crafting is the concern.

Ask yourself, what is the average wealth of the average player. I doubt it will run over the 800g range. But more in the 50g range. Yoyo won’t even be able to craft one item with that.

I think all this talk about ascended weapons and armour is a mute point after just watching a video of a guy soloing a couple of the bosses on youtube.

you can all relax now. ascended doesn’t look like its needed – not when someone is already soloing the content.

Fox.3469:

you don’t want to lvl it because you don’t have the money because you spend it all the time, wich is probally also the reason you don’t have legendary armor.

This is not true.

Making statements of this sort knowing that you do not know me well enough to judge my spending habits in game is an act of dishonesty.

glaphen.5230:

Arewn.2368:

Lets be real here, ascended gear was introduced within 3 months of launch. And it was to remedy the problem of exotics being acquired at an unforeseen easy and fast pace, and to create a system for fractal progression.

You talk about “betrayal”, when the reality is that the addition was a quickly deployed post-beta adjustment. One that they have stayed true to for the 3 years since, and for the foreseeable future.
That’s not a betrayal, that’s run of the mil game development.

Of course they are going to balance raids, which are supposed to be demanding and difficult content, around the highest stat tier. To balance it around a lower tier would be to set the system up for failure from the get-go. People with the higher stat gear would encounter lesser difficulty as a result. And given the nature of these raids, most people interested in them likely already have mostly ascended gear already.
Heck, most people who play regularly should have full ascended jewelry (which accounts for 5 gear slots, roughly 40% of your total stats), given how easy it is to come by.
And, as others have mentioned, it being balanced around ascended stats doesn’t actually require you to have ascended to complete it. A 12%ish(for full exotics, less if you have that ascended jewelry I mentioned) stat difference can be overcome, especially in a game like GW2.

And do you realize how ridiculous some of what you said you did is? So you made exotics for all your alts, even spent money to do so, but then ascended came out and you didn’t feel like making it, so you deleted all your alts?
How is that even a sensible thing to do? Exotics were more then good enough for all the content that was in the game at the time, and remained good enough for all the content that has been added in the 3 years since. Ascended weren’t even that big of an upgrade, and at the time they were first introduce were only out for literally 3 gear slots.
Imagine buying 5 cars, and then a new model comes out. So you have a hissy and destroy 4 of your cars. Yea that’s reasonable.
Not to mention how easy the ascended jewelry slots are to fill. Heck, if you actually played those alts over the past several years, you probably would have gotten full ascended jewelry by happenstance, just by playing.

Also, your car analogy is bad. It doesn’t encompass the situation at all.
You’re salty because you don’t feel like grinding ascended armor. I’m pretty sure that’s all this comes down to. And you know what? I don’t feel like grinding it either. You can just say so, it’s not a big deal.

My two mains have full exotic armor, exotic weapons, and ascended jewelry. That’s what they’ve been wearing for a year or two now. And I have enough resources stockpiled to gear another 5+ fresh characters that way easily.
I likely have enough stuff stored to churn out a couple sets of ascended armor too. Yet I probably won’t. The ~5% stat increase (from a full armor set specifically, not a full gear set) doesn’t seem worth the effort/resources. So I’ll try out raids with what I’m wearing now, maybe grab some ascended weapons at most.
If I’m into it, maybe I’ll gear my main raiding character in full ascended. He’s the only one who’ll need it after all.
Whatever weird OCD you have about gearing alts is your prerogative. It’s not ArenaNet’s problem or fault.

They said no gear grinding or whatever before launch and then proceed to ignore that and make better gear that was only obtained by grinding stuff you may not have wanted to grind, then around a year and half~2 year later they released the armor parts that was only obtained by grinding crafting for obscene amounts of gold, don’t know how it is now since I haven’t played in a year but it’s still entirely ANets fault and probably still extremely expensive/annoying to grind, especially on more than one character.

An MMO company makes literally thousands of statements before launch and some things will change. Anyone playing any MMO should know that. Things change.

The system they started with wasn’t working out, so they changed it. That’s what they had to do. You can feel betrayed by it if you want, but no one did this TO YOU. They did what they thought they had to do for the good of the game.

It would have been more of a betrayal not introducing something like that, if it were going to affect the over all game even more negatively.

glaphen.5230:

They said no gear grinding or whatever before launch and then proceed to ignore that and make better gear that was only obtained by grinding stuff you may not have wanted to grind, then around a year and half~2 year later they released the armor parts that was only obtained by grinding crafting for obscene amounts of gold, don’t know how it is now since I haven’t played in a year but it’s still entirely ANets fault and probably still extremely expensive/annoying to grind, especially on more than one character.

“Or whatever” demonstrates your understanding of the situation quite well.
Their entire “no grind philosophy” was vis-a-vis things like gear treadmils. The idea that you’d be trapped in an endless cycle of get gear-> do content->get better gear->do better content->get even better gear->do even better content, every time they release new content. It wasn’t to the exclusion of any and all grinding. Grinding is subjective to begin with, merely playing can be considered grinding. The idea was to avoid forced grind as a requirement for content participation as much as possible. Notice the caveats in that sentence? it wasn’t a blanket “never ever no grind, at all, ever, zero”.
The initial addition of ascended gear didn’t ignore that at all. They added what has for the past 3 years been an optional tier of slightly stronger gear that was a fair bit grindy to acquire. But heck, you could gear a toon out in ascended in a few weeks if you chose to pursue it, which is a fairly standard pace of acquisition for high-end gear in most MMOs.
They added it because they found exotics were far too quickly acquired, and large swathes of the player base were looking for something to do, something to make them stick. A mid-term goal to pursue. And for those that didn’t want the extra grind, exotics remained more then sufficient for their needs anyways.

And you know what? 3 years have gone by since then. Exotics someone got in October of 2012 would have served them well all the way up to October of 2015. And could continue to serve them even for the first couple raid bosses of each wing, and the entirety of Heart of Thorns’ content outside of raids.
That’s assuming your exotic jewelry hasn’t already been replaced, given how easy it is to come by ascended jewelry over time. Ascended rings rain down from fractals, and between laurels and guild coms you’ll inevitably get ascended amulet/trinkets.

Granted, the crafted ascended gear is expensive. Granted you’ll likely want ascended gear for raids. And yes, granted, that is a bit of “forced grind”. But with all the time that has past, the progression of the game’s development and it’s playerbase, and the nature of ascended gear (i.e it’s the highest gear tier, and will stay that way. You won’t have to replace it, therefore still no gear treadmil), having a small amount of content that favors, not even requires, just favors having full ascended gear by virtue of being tuned around those numbers, isn’t bad.

I’ve already mentioned how my mains are geared; full exotics with some welfare ascended I picked up along the way. I also don’t want to grind out ascended armor either, and likely won’t. But I still think it’s for the best that they tune hard content around the highest stat tier, and I still think ascended gear was, and continue to be, a healthy addition to the game.

There’s an easy solution to this, just make Ascended gear way cheaper, so that players can reasonably gear many alts.

@Ohoni.6057
That defeats the entire purpose of adding ascended gear in the first place.
Conveniently, exotics are easy/cheap/quick to get, and very close to being as good as ascended. Wearing full exotics means you are viable and ready to tackle nearly all of the game’s content, including the first couple raid bosses.

Ascended gear exists because exotics fell short. They were too easy, too cheap, too quick to acquire, and the game needed something that would require greater investment from the player to get. Exotics were short term goals, and legendaries long term goals. They needed a mid term goal for players to strive for, to keep the market spinning and players motivated.
To make ascended gear “way cheaper” is to forget all that.
It helps the market because a lot of material goes into ascended gear, and there’s a high demand for them. That keeps the economy alive and combats gold inflation through TP taxes and the like.
For player motivation, there’s a lot packed into that. There’s the basic “I want the strongest gear, and will play to get it” motive.
There’s also how players view different gear rarity.
Look at green, yellow, orange, and pink rarity gear drops.
Green is salvage fodder, yellow’s a standard reward and gets me ecto, orange is fairly rare and will fetch a pretty penny, and pink is precious.
But what about the difference between green and blue gear? Is there an appreciable difference?(4s on the tp from the rune in green gear I guess?) To most players at 80, the two likely blend together, it’s a redundant gear tier at this point.
While it wouldn’t be as bad as blue/green gear, making ascended “way cheaper[to get]” is similarly making it redundant.
Ascended gear occupies an appreciable space in the game. As someone who hates grinding, I am definitely behind the sentiment of not wanting to grind out ascended armor. But the game has done everything it can to cater to me on those grounds, and continue to do so under 90% of situations, so I don’t think ascended’s inclusion, implementation, or “requirement” in raiding is a bad idea.
On the flip side, I’m actually kind of worried about the effect legendary armor will have. Since legendary armor has ascended stats and the ability to switch stats on the fly, how will that impact the value of getting new ascended sets in the future?

Yeah sorry I’m totally going to waste my time to get their exact statement after 3 years and not playing for a year. How was the system not working out exactly? There was no one complaining about not having stronger gear to grind but tons complaining when this crap was released. Why aren’t people complaining for higher tier, come on ANet let’s see raids give higher stat gear than ascended. Also are you ignoring fractals? You need to grind ascended to do fractals so they completely ignored their promises.

im sorry ascended gear drops in many different places. its been out for years. If you dont have a set of ascended gear you have less than 500 hours of play time and arent ready for raids anyway. if you have more than 500 hours and dont have 1-5 sets of ascended armor stop sitting in lions arch mulling around map chat. I have a f2p in my guild thats already working on ascended gear and he just hit level 80.