Guild Wars 2

Labjax.2465:

I don’t think I conveyed myself clearly. It was not my intention to criticize those who seek difficult-to-attain items. I was commenting on status symbols and how it is unfulfilling to seek a status symbol, since it is ultimately just a symbol and doesn’t fulfill one’s needs. I was not referring to the process of completing a goal, which can fulfill one’s need for fun and recreation.

The difference in what I’m saying is in what the reason is for which one does the activity. If someone completes a collection for the fun of achieving a goal that is different from completing a collection to gain a status symbol; when completing a goal purely for the status symbol, the person is unlikely to get any satisfaction out of the process or the results and may come away upset that it didn’t provide the satisfaction they thought it would. When completing a goal for the fun of the process, the person will be getting satisfaction as they go along and then get a sense of satisfaction when they are finished, before moving onto another goal or something else in their life.

The psychology of status symbols is fairly simple. People seek status symbols because they value something about them. They think, “Someone who has attained X is looked up to!” because they would look up to such a person. Once they obtain a status symbol, they think others are looking up to them because they would be, and because people will generally assume that anyone else who matters thinks the way they do. Another side of this behavioral tendency is that it allows people to marginalize those who do think differently than they do.

Hah, gear “progression”. Because grinding 10% better gear in a world where mobs arbitrarily deal 10% more damage and have 10% more health is such a “progression”.

It’s a threadmill, in the purest sense. You keep running and running, but you never really move forward. If you stop, you fall off the back. You can get the same experience by just throwing away your current gear every 6 months and starting over from scratch.

That is the kind of entertainment a hamster gets from its running wheel.

I’m guessing this just isn’t the game for the OP.

I haven’t read the entire thread (it would just kitten me off if I were to do so), but generally speaking most of the people that scream / rant / whine / beg / cry / plead that they want “gear progression” really just want a different game. They desire that treadmill to sink hours and hours of their life into because they either have no life, or they simply have nothing better to do (for any number of reasons). Yes, that sounds harsh and cruel, but it is what it is. Very simply put, there are many other games that offer this, please go play one of those.

There is nothing wrong with having a game that ‘breaks’ that mold. Where people that don’t eat, sleep, and breathe the treadmill can enjoy themselves. People toss out the word “casual” like its some type of corruption, or poison when the fact of the matter is simply people grow up. They aren’t in high school or college anymore. They have jobs, families, social lives, responsibilities, etc. They don’t necessarily have 40+ hours a week to sink into a game where that treadmill exists and you have to play it like a second job just to ‘keep up.’

Additionally, there are people that just don’t like that type of set up either. They want to spend time ‘playing’ what they enjoy playing, not necessarily having to worry about the next piece of gear they need to hunt down. Which is entirely not optional. The nice thing about cosmetics is that they are optional. If you don’t want it, don’t like it, whatever, you don’t have to go after it. You make the choice and work on it as you so choose. (Obviously within reason, as some things are time sensitive)

So, I have to agree with many others here…No to more gear tiers. Enough is enough with Ascended / Legendary.

Vayne.8563:

I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

To be fair, we both know people who hated dungeons and enjoy them now, because someone like you helped them learn the mechanics. That’s even more true for fractals, including T4s.

So perhaps this is the rare case where you don’t enjoy certain content, because (for a change), you’re the one who would benefit by being shown the ropes.

Regardless, the OP in the thread asked about true gear progression, not about fashion or functionality. And, however we feel about raids or about legendary armor or about l-armor being tied to raids, I hope we can all agree that it’s not part of what the OP means by “gear progression.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

To be fair, we both know people who hated dungeons and enjoy them now, because someone like you helped them learn the mechanics. That’s even more true for fractals, including T4s.

So perhaps this is the rare case where you don’t enjoy certain content, because (for a change), you’re the one who would benefit by being shown the ropes.

Regardless, the OP in the thread asked about true gear progression, not about fashion or functionality. And, however we feel about raids or about legendary armor or about l-armor being tied to raids, I hope we can all agree that it’s not part of what the OP means by “gear progression.”

Interesting point. I wonder if some of the people bringing hate of raiding from other games, allowing gw2 to inherit other games’ baggage, would have their minds changed if taken in by a raiding group and shown the ropes.

I dont mean one of the “training runs” where one or two knowledgeable raiders tries to run herd on a group of 8 or 9 novices, but rather an organized group opening up a spot or two for learners and taking it slow enough to really explain things along the way.

To be fair, I made it sound easy to show someone the ropes in raids; it’s not. Dungeons can be easily carried by two ‘average’ players, making them ‘safe’ environments for mentoring. Even T4 fractals can be easily managed with just 2-3 good players, which allows less-skilled or less-experienced folk the time & freedom to learn the mechanics, without worrying about wiping.

In contrast, it takes 6-8 people to create that level of safety net for raids and it still will be difficult for some folks. (And it’s no picnic to find such a group.)

So I believe a lot of people would like raids if they were “shown the ropes” and I acknowledge that’s it’s unlikely that most of them will be able to find that opportunity.

IMO the raid’s entry level is too high, mostly due to needing people and time in quantities not easily affordable to everyone. Maybe they also require a lot of skill, but I don’t know. I have never been able to experiment with a group decent enough to really get into the “get better” level.

All the tries I’ve done consist of about 40 minutes of organization, profession & gear filtering, and specting “one more” to show; then 15 minutes of wipes; then someone goes away; then the cycle begins again. Then I have to go too, because it simply impossible to me to stay more than 1 hour and half totally dedicated to the game, due to real life reasons.

That being said, I don’t think the Raids or even the new Legendary Armor counts as real “Gear Progression”. They are somehow alike, but not even close to what other MMOs do with levels and power creep.

Even being inaccesible content for many, GW2 raids aren’t that evil.

Sweet RNGesus, no. I would much rather go for new stats or skins if I decide I want/need them than have to do a mandatory gear grind based purely on a % boost to stat power. shudder

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

Then you’re not from a category Vayne was speaking of, since he clearly mentioned people that didn’t enjoy the content.

It’s impossible to create content that everybody enjoys. There will always be those who like it and those who don’t.

Agreed. That’s why creating incentives that go beyond merely trying out that content is a bad idea, unless the appeal of those incentives doesn’t really reach beyond that content.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

As long as the incentive remains at the try level. Legendary armor goes miles beyond that level.

Why should it remain at the try level?

In order to make people like you realize that they do like the content, without making people not like you continue beyond the point where they realized that , after consideration, they still hate it after all.

There’s absolutely no gain in making people who hate the content play it.

Feanor.2358:

Legendary weapons, too, require to go all the way in the map completion. You don’t get it for completing one map.

When legendary weapons were created, devs assumed that this kind of gear vanity will only appeal to PvE players. Thus, the weapons require heavy investment in pve, and some dipping in other modes (WvW). We now know that this assumption was at least partially wrong, and that alternate methods of acquisition for PvP players should likely have been made.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

To be fair, I made it sound easy to show someone the ropes in raids; it’s not. Dungeons can be easily carried by two ‘average’ players, making them ‘safe’ environments for mentoring. Even T4 fractals can be easily managed with just 2-3 good players, which allows less-skilled or less-experienced folk the time & freedom to learn the mechanics, without worrying about wiping.

In contrast, it takes 6-8 people to create that level of safety net for raids and it still will be difficult for some folks. (And it’s no picnic to find such a group.)

So I believe a lot of people would like raids if they were “shown the ropes” and I acknowledge that’s it’s unlikely that most of them will be able to find that opportunity.

There’s something in that, but i’m not sure if it doesn’t miss the heart of a problem.

What you are saying is that a lot of people would find raids more fun if they could run them casually with friends, with a high degree of success. I fully agree. I just don’t really think it’s as easy to achieve as “being shown the ropes” by experts. Unless those veterans will happen to be your friends that will have no problem with helping you along (or even carrying you, if you end up skillwise not as good as you might want, while at the same time not making you think you are the weakest link).

And there will always be the cases (and not as edge ones as you might think) where people will not be able to adapt to required raid playstyle/mindset because it’s that very part that they dislike/find painful/distasteful.

Being shown the ropes in dungeons work, because those ropes are so much lower than in raids.

So, yes. Many more people would like raids, if raids were easier for them.

Feanor.2358:

The point stays. If the approach makes some players discover new content they enjoy, it’s good for the game and it makes it better. That it didn’t work for you is unfortunate, but doesn’t make it objectively bad.

If you can’t see the difference between locking a single reward type, between a single type of content, or encouraging people to try content, I’m not sure what to tell you. There are many ways to encourage people to try content. This reward encourages me to not play as much, and over time, maybe not at all. I’m not sure why anyone would defend that.

Vayne.8563:

Feanor.2358:

The point stays. If the approach makes some players discover new content they enjoy, it’s good for the game and it makes it better. That it didn’t work for you is unfortunate, but doesn’t make it objectively bad.

If you can’t see the difference between locking a single reward type, between a single type of content, or encouraging people to try content, I’m not sure what to tell you. There are many ways to encourage people to try content. This reward encourages me to not play as much, and over time, maybe not at all. I’m not sure why anyone would defend that.

The thing to remember is that he is not defending you being encouraged to play less any more than your support of HoT maps is not a defense of me being encouraged to play less.

He honestly, it seems, believes that rewards can be used to encourage players to discover content that they didnt even know they would enjoy. Im sure that it doez for some people even as I am sure that it has the oppozite effect on others. Im imagine that he believes that more people will be affected positively than negatively.

Personally, I am not fond of the idea of an entire tier of armor, with unique functionality, being gated in this fashion. A title, aura, even a skin…sure (although I prefer the non skin options). I think that weapons would make the best special rewards because they are so much easier to produce.

please no, walking the treadmill for the next item level is not ok. keep the lvl cap, keep the item cap, and deliver content.

Vayne.8563:

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone.

That’s factually untrue. It did make it better for me, on two separate occasions. First, I was forced into WvW because of the Gift of Battle change. And I ended up enjoying it. Second, I was forced into raiding, because I’m kind of completionist and want everything possible for my main. I ended up enjoying that, too.

The big negative of giving the same reward across multiple game modes is it doesn’t stimulate you to step out of your current comfort zone. People tend to stick with what they know. Giving them an incentive to try something new objectively does make the game better.

A valid middle ground would be to introduce a new set, with different means of acquisition. This way you’d still keep the incentive for people to try raiding, while giving another for something else. But ANet seem reluctant to do it for some reason.

P.S. It’s not a coincidence they added reward tracks as an alternative of content they chose to no longer support.

It is true. Because you ended up enjoying it. You were forced into an area of the game that you didn’t know if you’d like or not and ended up enjoying it. I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it. I’ve PvPed that much as well.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

you are wrong because you claim there is no benefit, and he claims there is some benefit.

also id say he is right, there are some benefits.
however, i’d say a dev should carefully weigh the benefits and the goal, each time they lock something.

as a general rule, id say cosmetics can be locked
if an item requires attaining mastery, it should only be locked if the item itselfs main use is heavily tied to the content. like agony infusion in fractals, even though agony itself was a boring mechanic.

if an item is primarily to get people to try X, they should probably not make it exclusive, but rather make it way more efficient than to do it in another way. that or require only a small investment.

but a game, imo definately needs to incentivize certain actions, and if everything you do could get you anything else, everything would be at war with each other in terms of effeciency.

which would lead to a game that wasnt very fullfilling.

Well, part of the problem with this raids thing and exclusivity is that GW2 wasn’t even a raiding game until, what, 2015? 3 years after its release? In games that are built to support raids and have raiding be a core part of the content cycle, it makes more sense for the tippy-top of reward output in the game to be tied to raids… because for some games, raiding pretty much is the tippy-top. That’s where it all leads and other content is sideline content.

In GW2, not so much. It has 3 years worth of development in other things before it ever saw a “real” raid and that’s not including what was released with base game. So to change the tune at what is now 5 years into the game’s life is hard to justify.

They took something that has been more of a wide-range-activity acquisition process (legendary items) and, for legendary armor, easily one of the most requested features in the game’s life, released it as “raiding is the end-all, be-all.” Maybe they have plans or are open to releasing it in other content formats, but that’s beside the point. They’ve already set the precedent, making it look like raiding is their flagship content.

Which, for a game that has put so much money into e-sports and didn’t even have raids until 3 years in, just makes me scratch my head. I’m flummoxed as to why now, raids are suddenly the king of end-game. This game wasn’t even built for raiding; the combat system is a rather odd fit for it, imo.

Most raiding games use some form of the classic trinity system. This game’s classes has some possible variation in roles, but is built on a fundamental level to support a more solo approach to combat.

It’s just weird. I don’t understand the decision.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

To be fair, I made it sound easy to show someone the ropes in raids; it’s not. Dungeons can be easily carried by two ‘average’ players, making them ‘safe’ environments for mentoring. Even T4 fractals can be easily managed with just 2-3 good players, which allows less-skilled or less-experienced folk the time & freedom to learn the mechanics, without worrying about wiping.

In contrast, it takes 6-8 people to create that level of safety net for raids and it still will be difficult for some folks. (And it’s no picnic to find such a group.)

So I believe a lot of people would like raids if they were “shown the ropes” and I acknowledge that’s it’s unlikely that most of them will be able to find that opportunity.

Astralporing.1957:

What you are saying is that a lot of people would find raids more fun if they could run them casually with friends, with a high degree of success.

No, that’s the very opposite of what I’m saying.
(I don’t disagree that more people would try them out and probably enjoy them if that were true — it’s just not what I meant.)

My starting point for this digression was that someone said they didn’t like raids — they had tried them and found it lacking. And I remember knowing many, many people who said the same about dungeons. For them, it turned out the issue was it seemed hard. So I provided an environment where they could more easily learn the mechanics and I wouldn’t have to carry them.

Similarly, I helped a bunch of folks learn T4 fractals. They, too, thought it “wasn’t fun” and again it turned out that the issue was they just didn’t under stand how they worked.

Astralporing.1957:

I just don’t really think it’s as easy to achieve as “being shown the ropes” by experts. Unless those veterans will happen to be your friends that will have no problem with helping you along (or even carrying you, if you end up skillwise not as good as you might want, while at the same time not making you think you are the weakest link).

For some people, it will be as easy as that.
My point is that finding a group of veterans willing to help out someone, even friends, is very difficult. It can take ages to take people from scratch to T4 fractals, where the mechanics are basic to the game: defiance bars, damage avoidance, might stacking, etc. For raids, there’s a lot more for novices to learn.

Astralporing.1957:

And there will always be the cases (and not as edge ones as you might think) where people will not be able to adapt to required raid playstyle/mindset because it’s that very part that they dislike/find painful/distasteful.

No question about that — raids will never be for everyone.

The point I’m trying to make is that there is a substantial subset of people out there who don’t raid now, but could and don’t know (yet) if they might like raids; they might even think that they don’t like them.

Astralporing.1957:

Being shown the ropes in dungeons work, because those ropes are so much lower than in raids.

Yes, certainly the bar is lower for dungeons. But it’s substantial for T4 fractals and I know people who ‘graduated’ from being completely unable to handle them to being pretty good …and enjoy doing them regularly.

Astralporing.1957:

So, yes. Many more people would like raids, if raids were easier for them.

That’s true (perhaps trivially true); it’s just not at all connected to the point I was trying to make. (And that’s probably my fault for explaining it poorly.)

Ashen.2907:

I dont mean one of the “training runs” where one or two knowledgeable raiders tries to run herd on a group of 8 or 9 novices, but rather an organized group opening up a spot or two for learners and taking it slow enough to really explain things along the way.

You’re correct, that’s a better way from the perspective of the learner. I figure the main issue would be to find a solid “core” team of experienced players which have openings and don’t mind accepting a new player and helping him out.

Astralporing.1957:

Agreed. That’s why creating incentives that go beyond merely trying out that content is a bad idea, unless the appeal of those incentives doesn’t really reach beyond that content.

Again, existing legendaries all go much beyond merely trying out content. Want The Ascension? Grind a lot of PvP. Want Ad Infinitum? Play tons of fractals. Want a legendary weapon? Map-complete Tyria, then grind a WvW reward track. Want a gen 2 legendary? Map-complete HoT, then grind every map to get the required materials.

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried. In this game, legendaries have always been such an incentive. And it has worked.

Astralporing.1957:

There’s absolutely no gain in making people who hate the content play it.

Then don’t. It’s not mandatory. Simple as that.

Feanor.2358:

Ashen.2907:

I dont mean one of the “training runs” where one or two knowledgeable raiders tries to run herd on a group of 8 or 9 novices, but rather an organized group opening up a spot or two for learners and taking it slow enough to really explain things along the way.

You’re correct, that’s a better way from the perspective of the learner. I figure the main issue would be to find a solid “core” team of experienced players which have openings and don’t mind accepting a new player and helping him out.

Astralporing.1957:

Agreed. That’s why creating incentives that go beyond merely trying out that content is a bad idea, unless the appeal of those incentives doesn’t really reach beyond that content.

Again, existing legendaries all go much beyond merely trying out content. Want The Ascension? Grind a lot of PvP. Want Ad Infinitum? Play tons of fractals. Want a legendary weapon? Map-complete Tyria, then grind a WvW reward track. Want a gen 2 legendary? Map-complete HoT, then grind every map to get the required materials.

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried. In this game, legendaries have always been such an incentive. And it has worked.

Astralporing.1957:

There’s absolutely no gain in making people who hate the content play it.

Then don’t. It’s not mandatory. Simple as that.

Then please point us to what other content we can get legendary armor with stat swap functioality. Since raiding aint mandatory anymore.

Linken.6345:

Then please point us to what other content we can get legendary armor with stat swap functioality. Since raiding aint mandatory anymore.

Why would you expect this?

First, legendary armor was announced as raid-only. Two years ago.

Second, except for gen-1 legendary weapons which can be traded on the TP, every single legendary item in the game is gated behind specific content. Both backpacks, all the gen-2 legendaries. Notice a pattern here? ANet is using legendaries to promote specific content.

Third, legendaries aren’t mandatory either.

Linken.6345:

Feanor.2358:

Ashen.2907:

I dont mean one of the “training runs” where one or two knowledgeable raiders tries to run herd on a group of 8 or 9 novices, but rather an organized group opening up a spot or two for learners and taking it slow enough to really explain things along the way.

You’re correct, that’s a better way from the perspective of the learner. I figure the main issue would be to find a solid “core” team of experienced players which have openings and don’t mind accepting a new player and helping him out.

Astralporing.1957:

Agreed. That’s why creating incentives that go beyond merely trying out that content is a bad idea, unless the appeal of those incentives doesn’t really reach beyond that content.

Again, existing legendaries all go much beyond merely trying out content. Want The Ascension? Grind a lot of PvP. Want Ad Infinitum? Play tons of fractals. Want a legendary weapon? Map-complete Tyria, then grind a WvW reward track. Want a gen 2 legendary? Map-complete HoT, then grind every map to get the required materials.

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried. In this game, legendaries have always been such an incentive. And it has worked.

Astralporing.1957:

There’s absolutely no gain in making people who hate the content play it.

Then don’t. It’s not mandatory. Simple as that.

Then please point us to what other content we can get legendary armor with stat swap functioality. Since raiding aint mandatory anymore.

To be fair stat swap functionality already exist in the game. And you certainly don’t need to a legendary armor to do that. It is called the mystic forge.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

Agreed. That’s why creating incentives that go beyond merely trying out that content is a bad idea, unless the appeal of those incentives doesn’t really reach beyond that content.

Again, existing legendaries all go much beyond merely trying out content. Want The Ascension? Grind a lot of PvP. Want Ad Infinitum? Play tons of fractals. Want a legendary weapon? Map-complete Tyria, then grind a WvW reward track. Want a gen 2 legendary? Map-complete HoT, then grind every map to get the required materials.

Yeah. All of those have their problems. Especially the Ascension, that’s likely on top of the list of the things that had hurt SPvP the most.

Feanor.2358:

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried.

Yes, there shoudl be. It’s called “fun”. And the only thing necessary for that incentive to work is to not disincentivize the content by having the generic rewards for that content be subpar compared to difficulty/time invested.

Feanor.2358:

In this game, legendaries have always been such an incentive. And it has worked.

Nah, it didn’t. It seemed to work for PvE legendaries simply because most of those people were already okay with playing PvE in the first place. In the end i don’t think it has helped to retain any players that weren’t already okay with playing PvE. PvP backpack, on the other hand, was, basically, a grand failure, and likely a cause of a significant decrease of PvP community numbers (and not only among the hardcore PvPers, but the semi-casual ones as well).

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

There’s absolutely no gain in making people who hate the content play it.

Then don’t. It’s not mandatory. Simple as that.

Nice way of completely sidestepping the issue. Good to know, however, that you too don’t know of any good reason to incentivize people to play the content they hate.

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried.

Yes, there shoudl be. It’s called “fun”. And the only thing necessary for that incentive to work is to not disincentivize the content by having the generic rewards for that content be subpar compared to difficulty/time invested.

Nice utopia you have here. However, it just doesn’t work like this. Not for the amount of time ANet want their players to spend in their game. Like it or not, legendaries do keep players in the game for a long, long time after they would otherwise quit. It’s true for the weapons, it’s also true for the armor. I’ve already seen players become less active after they got the legendary armor. It’s not because of the existence of the reward, however. It’s because you exhaust the potential for fun from the same content by repeating it over and over again. It becomes routine. There’s no way around that, rewards or no rewards. No rewards simply means people quit earlier. So – yeah, it did work. It worked for PvE, it worked for PvP and it worked for FotM.

There is another way to keep players in, of course. Adding new content. However, it’s much more expensive to produce. Hence the need of long-term grinds. All MMOs do it, because nobody can produce content at the rate the players exhaust it.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried.

Yes, there shoudl be. It’s called “fun”. And the only thing necessary for that incentive to work is to not disincentivize the content by having the generic rewards for that content be subpar compared to difficulty/time invested.

Nice utopia you have here. However, it just doesn’t work like this. Not for the amount of time ANet want their players to spend in their game. Like it or not, legendaries do keep players in the game for a long, long time after they would otherwise quit. It’s true for the weapons, it’s also true for the armor. I’ve already seen players become less active after they got the legendary armor. It’s not because of the existence of the reward, however. It’s because you exhaust the potential for fun from the same content by repeating it over and over again. It becomes routine. There’s no way around that, rewards or no rewards. No rewards simply means people quit earlier. So – yeah, it did work. It worked for PvE, it worked for PvP and it worked for FotM.

There is another way to keep players in, of course. Adding new content. However, it’s much more expensive to produce. Hence the need of long-term grinds. All MMOs do it, because nobody can produce content at the rate the players exhaust it.

I have been reading everything you have stated in this thread. A lot of what you say is true. But when it comes to Legendary Armor, I think locking it behind raids was a mistake.

First off, raids were added to give high end-end game content to a very small subset of the player base. They weren’t meant for everyone. ANET stated that multiple times. That is why the difficulty scale really jumps from T4 Fractals to raids.

You talk about legendary weapons being locked by content. They are not really locked by content. You can go to WvW and totally suck and still get your Gift of Battle, you just have to grind out there (and before you could just do the JP’s there for the badges and buy it before the change to a reward track). Mapping either for HoT or Core legendaries isn’t locked behind content, it is just a grind. Legendary Armor is locked behind content, content that is going to be really difficult for some people and maybe never be able to do it because of whatever reason.

So based on those two reason, you assertion of the other legendaries being locked by content is wrong, they aren’t. Now the legendary backpacks are a different story, but again the content they are in isn’t on the same scale as raids and honestly can be grinded out the same as the weapons. This is not true of Legendary Armor.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone.

That’s factually untrue. It did make it better for me, on two separate occasions. First, I was forced into WvW because of the Gift of Battle change. And I ended up enjoying it. Second, I was forced into raiding, because I’m kind of completionist and want everything possible for my main. I ended up enjoying that, too.

The big negative of giving the same reward across multiple game modes is it doesn’t stimulate you to step out of your current comfort zone. People tend to stick with what they know. Giving them an incentive to try something new objectively does make the game better.

A valid middle ground would be to introduce a new set, with different means of acquisition. This way you’d still keep the incentive for people to try raiding, while giving another for something else. But ANet seem reluctant to do it for some reason.

P.S. It’s not a coincidence they added reward tracks as an alternative of content they chose to no longer support.

It is true. Because you ended up enjoying it. You were forced into an area of the game that you didn’t know if you’d like or not and ended up enjoying it. I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it. I’ve PvPed that much as well.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

you are wrong because you claim there is no benefit, and he claims there is some benefit.

also id say he is right, there are some benefits.
however, i’d say a dev should carefully weigh the benefits and the goal, each time they lock something.

as a general rule, id say cosmetics can be locked
if an item requires attaining mastery, it should only be locked if the item itselfs main use is heavily tied to the content. like agony infusion in fractals, even though agony itself was a boring mechanic.

if an item is primarily to get people to try X, they should probably not make it exclusive, but rather make it way more efficient than to do it in another way. that or require only a small investment.

but a game, imo definately needs to incentivize certain actions, and if everything you do could get you anything else, everything would be at war with each other in terms of effeciency.

which would lead to a game that wasnt very fullfilling.

I think there’s no net benefit if more people leave the game than stay with the format you’re “forcing them into”.

That is to say, over all, if 5% of the playerbase is really annoyed by it, but 1% of the playerbase ends up liking a format they’ve previously avoided, then the benefit is a negative. I’m thinking about it from a business point of view.

If I make changes to my shop and I sell less because of it, even if a small percentage of customers like the change, then there’s no benefit. The benefit doesn’t exist.

My argument is this sort of thing hurts the game, thus there is no benefit. Some people may like it but that doesn’t necessarily benefit the game.

This is the same thing with gear progression. Some people crave it, but adding it to this game will not benefit this game. Too many people would feel betrayed, and the negative publicity alone would hurt the game. Too many people are here because there is no gear progression.

Vayne.8563:

I think there’s no net benefit if more people leave the game than stay with the format you’re “forcing them into”.

That is to say, over all, if 5% of the playerbase is really annoyed by it, but 1% of the playerbase ends up liking a format they’ve previously avoided, then the benefit is a negative. I’m thinking about it from a business point of view.

If I make changes to my shop and I sell less because of it, even if a small percentage of customers like the change, then there’s no benefit. The benefit doesn’t exist.

My argument is this sort of thing hurts the game, thus there is no benefit. Some people may like it but that doesn’t necessarily benefit the game.

Makes sense, all we can assume is that arenanet does exactly that and keeps an eye on their statistics and data and make business decision based on what information they have.

Since raids are currently still going strong and arenanet has shown no signs of changing their approach, we must assume that business wise they feel their approach is sound.

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried.

Yes, there shoudl be. It’s called “fun”. And the only thing necessary for that incentive to work is to not disincentivize the content by having the generic rewards for that content be subpar compared to difficulty/time invested.

I remember Colin Johanson’s, “Is it fun” blog from before launch. That approach lasted exactly as long as it took initial adopters to get their dungeon set. It was not long after launch when the complaints about no goals, nothing to work toward, etc. approached critical mass. And we still hear such complaints. It was complaining players who disabused ANet of the idea that an MMO player base would repeat content long enough for fun so that ANet could produce more new stuff. At that point, they began adapting the game to rewards-based incentives — just like the other MMO’s.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I remember Colin Johanson’s, “Is it fun” blog from before launch. That approach lasted exactly as long as it took initial adopters to get their dungeon set. It was not long after launch when the complaints about no goals, nothing to work toward, etc. approached critical mass. And we still hear such complaints. It was complaining players who disabused ANet of the idea that an MMO player base would repeat content long enough for fun so that ANet could produce more new stuff. At that point, they began adapting the game to rewards-based incentives — just like the other MMO’s.

Ironically, the dungeons from your example proved beyond all doubt that you don’t need unique/exclusive rewards for the content to be popular. It was the generic rewards that made (and then killed) dungeons. And it’s also not Ad Infinitum that makes Fractals popular.

Feanor.2358:

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

There must be an incentive to revisit content you’ve tried.

Yes, there shoudl be. It’s called “fun”. And the only thing necessary for that incentive to work is to not disincentivize the content by having the generic rewards for that content be subpar compared to difficulty/time invested.

Nice utopia you have here. However, it just doesn’t work like this. Not for the amount of time ANet want their players to spend in their game. Like it or not, legendaries do keep players in the game for a long, long time after they would otherwise quit. It’s true for the weapons, it’s also true for the armor.

Maybe, but that works only for players that are either cool or at least ambivalent with the content where you can get them. Legendary armor does absolutely nothing to retain players that hate raids – quite the opposite, it may cause some of them to leave faster.

And farming content for the sake of obtaining specific rewards, instead of playing for fun and getting rewarded for it as a byproduct, often leads to a much faster burnout. That’s why you should never make a reward that for many players would completely overshadow the content. And legendary armor is such a badly thought-out reward.

Hjorje.9453:

So based on those two reason, you assertion of the other legendaries being locked by content is wrong, they aren’t. Now the legendary backpacks are a different story, but again the content they are in isn’t on the same scale as raids and honestly can be grinded out the same as the weapons. This is not true of Legendary Armor.

The scale is a different thing. I was talking about the purpose. I think legendaries are used as ways to keep players in specific content. Yes, only raids are that difficult, but the intent seems the same.

Astralporing.1957:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I remember Colin Johanson’s, “Is it fun” blog from before launch. That approach lasted exactly as long as it took initial adopters to get their dungeon set. It was not long after launch when the complaints about no goals, nothing to work toward, etc. approached critical mass. And we still hear such complaints. It was complaining players who disabused ANet of the idea that an MMO player base would repeat content long enough for fun so that ANet could produce more new stuff. At that point, they began adapting the game to rewards-based incentives — just like the other MMO’s.

Ironically, the dungeons from your example proved beyond all doubt that you don’t need unique/exclusive rewards for the content to be popular. It was the generic rewards that made (and then killed) dungeons. And it’s also not Ad Infinitum that makes Fractals popular.

Dungeon generic reward popularity was because of the many non-exclusive rewards the game offers, all of which to some extent either require large amounts of farming or the use of gold to bypass some (or a lot of) that farming. The problem with dungeon gold farms is that players played the easy paths only — which is because farming is always going to be a max reward for minimum investment kind of thing. The hard paths were ignored except by the players who could complete them expeditiously.

I remember the exec brought in to salvage AoC saying something to the effect of, “Our demographics show that most players play hard content as little as possible, and seem to prefer to repeat easier content.” Since no content in an MMO gets repeated unless there is some reward, the only way to entice players to repeat hard content to the extent that an MMO needs for them to is put in rewards that cannot be gotten elsewhere. That’s because of basic human nature coupled with the MMO business model.

The gear progression the OP favors is a classic example. The best stats were in raids, and it took many repeats to gear up the whole raid party. I greatly prefer skins being locked behind content I don’t care to complete than BiS stats.

[ Back in vanilla gw2, you had to go through masterwork>rare>exotic, but now you instantly jump to exotic. ]

pretty sure everyone was exotic in like the 2nd month of the game. yes people grind from 1-80 but gw2 grind is like peanuts… this has always been the case. the stat cap is not the issue imo. you can do +5 infusion. and I expect to see minor infusion expansion like +7s… or 2 stat infusion… but what would really expand the build option would be new sigil and runes…

overall gw2 stat cap hasn’t really change in the game.

You know what’s sad about all this, you all typed all this up, for 3 pages straight, for nothing and he (or she) is already gone. They are not coming back to comment or read this. You all had solid points on what he/she could do to stay and have fun or things they could work towards past just getting better gear, (mastery grind, raids) and wait until next expac for what may be next to work for, but they already said their thing and left not even caring to check back.

Its like, they went to an empty podium to say their peace then didn’t care if anyone was around to even listen.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

You know what’s sad about all this, you all typed all this up, for 3 pages straight, for nothing and he (or she) is already gone.

Doesn’t matter. Other people will see it and it might make a difference for them.

If the only reason for you playing the game is grinding gear,play something else.
I have fun playing the actual game content,and I want this to be gated by gear grind as least as possible.
Ascended for Raids,Fractals and WvW is more than enough.
GW2 already has some serious grinds,but they are related to vanity items and they don’t act as gates for content.
Also,and since you brought it up,I left BDO for exactly this reason.
It’s impossible to do anything competitive and PvP related in that game unless you grind for overpowered gear 6 hours a day.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

You know what’s sad about all this, you all typed all this up, for 3 pages straight, for nothing and he (or she) is already gone. They are not coming back to comment or read this. You all had solid points on what he/she could do to stay and have fun or things they could work towards past just getting better gear, (mastery grind, raids) and wait until next expac for what may be next to work for, but they already said their thing and left not even caring to check back.

Its like, they went to an empty podium to say their peace then didn’t care if anyone was around to even listen.

To be fair, discussions like this changed the way I viewed things forever.

I come from Diablo, so the idea of a level and gear game without the endless power escalation was a completely foreign concept to me.

Granted, I don’t mind either way, but this does seem like the better way.

ArchonWing.9480:

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

You know what’s sad about all this, you all typed all this up, for 3 pages straight, for nothing and he (or she) is already gone. They are not coming back to comment or read this. You all had solid points on what he/she could do to stay and have fun or things they could work towards past just getting better gear, (mastery grind, raids) and wait until next expac for what may be next to work for, but they already said their thing and left not even caring to check back.

Its like, they went to an empty podium to say their peace then didn’t care if anyone was around to even listen.

To be fair, discussions like this changed the way I viewed things forever.

I come from Diablo, so the idea of a level and gear game without the endless power escalation was a completely foreign concept to me.

Granted, I don’t mind either way, but this does seem like the better way.

Great point. Diablo (any of the games) would be absolutely terrible without gear progression, the whole game was designed around it. Doesn’t mean it fits everywhere. GW2 was designed around it not existing, and would suffer for adding it.

Trying to believe there will be no better gears after ascended is like trying to believe exotic was the ceiling back then.

I expect once they are done with legendary amulets, rings and accessory, the next tier gears will be coming. Next xpac will be very likely associated with legendary trinkets.
New tier gears should be on 3rd xpac.

We are already on wow-esque road with raid (trinity) and mounts (next xpac). So, expecting a vertical gear progression is not too far fetch imo.

Pino.5209:

Trying to believe there will be no better gears after ascended is like trying to believe exotic was the ceiling back then.

I expect once they are done with legendary amulets, rings and accessory, the next tier gears will be coming. Next xpac will be very likely associated with legendary trinkets.
New tier gears should be on 3rd xpac.

We are already on wow-esque road with raid (trinity) and mounts (next xpac). So, expecting a vertical gear progression is not too far fetch imo.

I disagree. Consider the outcry of all the owners of a legendary item. These are huge time/gold/effort sinks. You certainly do not want to see the product of all this outdated.

Alternatively, you could “retroactively” update all existing legendaries to higher stats. But that just defeats the purpose of having a next tier of gear, as the invested players who this gear treadmill would be aimed at are mostly the same ones holding legendary items.

So no, chances are pretty low. Not in this game. More legendaries, certainly. More fashion. But nothing that challenges fashion’s power level.

Feanor.2358:

Pino.5209:

Trying to believe there will be no better gears after ascended is like trying to believe exotic was the ceiling back then.

I expect once they are done with legendary amulets, rings and accessory, the next tier gears will be coming. Next xpac will be very likely associated with legendary trinkets.
New tier gears should be on 3rd xpac.

We are already on wow-esque road with raid (trinity) and mounts (next xpac). So, expecting a vertical gear progression is not too far fetch imo.

I disagree. Consider the outcry of all the owners of a legendary item. These are huge time/gold/effort sinks. You certainly do not want to see the product of all this outdated.

Alternatively, you could “retroactively” update all existing legendaries to higher stats. But that just defeats the purpose of having a next tier of gear, as the invested players who this gear treadmill would be aimed at are mostly the same ones holding legendary items.

So no, chances are pretty low. Not in this game. More legendaries, certainly. More fashion. But nothing that challenges fashion’s power level.

Your ‘alternative’ will be very likely the case here for legendary gears. So the very notion of legendary gears owners’ outcry is out of the window.
Remember the jump from exotic to ascended stats for legendary weapons? Yes, it will happen this way if they released next tier.

I’m guessing you weren’t around when they introduced ascended and changed legendary weapons’ stats from exotic to ascended back then. The ‘alternative’ you mentioned isn’t exactly an alternative, it has been done before.

We are heading wow-esque route. It is very likely. We have player base still throwing tantrum about manifesto. It has gone and left us long time ago.

Feanor.2358:

I disagree. Consider the outcry of all the owners of a legendary item. These are huge time/gold/effort sinks. You certainly do not want to see the product of all this outdated.

Alternatively, you could “retroactively” update all existing legendaries to higher stats. But that just defeats the purpose of having a next tier of gear, as the invested players who this gear treadmill would be aimed at are mostly the same ones holding legendary items.

So no, chances are pretty low. Not in this game. More legendaries, certainly. More fashion. But nothing that challenges fashion’s power level.

Pretty sure if there’s another tier of gear that they would change the legendaries to match it.

Though, if they decide another expansion needs some kind of gear advancement, there’s potential room for something insidious: Ascended Jewelcrafting.
But wait, going to 500 Jewelcrafting is worthless, right? We get stat-selectable items basically for free!
But it’s not for rings and jewelry. It’s for. .we’ll call them “Facet” slots. Those only show up in Ascended gear, and JC is the only thing that can make them. Xunlai ingots finally get released in the game, and that’s our next step of stat creep.

Pino.5209:

Your ‘alternative’ will be very likely the case here for legendary gears. So the very notion of legendary gears owners’ outcry is out of the window.
Remember the jump from exotic to ascended stats for legendary weapons? Yes, it will happen this way if they released next tier.

But then, where’s the point? When it’s only weapons, invested players have a goal to work on – upgrade their armor and trinkets. The more legendary items you can have, the less of a goal they’d have. In a scenario where all your gear is legendary, you’d just get a powercreep without even noticing. Zero effort required, zero goals, zero meaning.

Feanor.2358:

Pino.5209:

Your ‘alternative’ will be very likely the case here for legendary gears. So the very notion of legendary gears owners’ outcry is out of the window.
Remember the jump from exotic to ascended stats for legendary weapons? Yes, it will happen this way if they released next tier.

But then, where’s the point? When it’s only weapons, invested players have a goal to work on – upgrade their armor and trinkets. The more legendary items you can have, the less of a goal they’d have. In a scenario where all your gear is legendary, you’d just get a powercreep without even noticing. Zero effort required, zero goals, zero meaning.

The point being Legendaries gears is the ultimate endgame items. It will always be like that. That was the reason they changed the stats from exotic to ascended back then (weapons). The message is the massive grind you did for them is the definition of endgame items grind/process. And this will never change.

Like i said, it has been done before on smaller scale. You can’t compare the effort required to get an ascended and legendaries to begin with. The massive gap alone covers the justification for stat change. That is the way Anet sees it, I believed.

There was a time Anet was against Raid, Holy Trinity, Mounts, …
You can fill in the rest of the dots. It doesn’t take much to see the pattern on where GW2 is heading to.

No, I totally get the point of legendary items. I don’t get the point of introducing new tier of gear once you have covered all slots in legendary. Heck, even without the trinkets I still see no point. The very people that new tier is supposed to keep busy will already effectively have it. It’s pointless.

Feanor.2358:

No, I totally get the point of legendary items. I don’t get the point of introducing new tier of gear once you have covered all slots in legendary. Heck, even without the trinkets I still see no point. The very people that new tier is supposed to keep busy will already effectively have it. It’s pointless.

You keep saying it’s pointless. However, that was exactly how Anet operated (with legendary weapons) and probably will be if vertical gears progression is to be introduced in the future.
Legendary gears players, especially armors, are raiders. They will obviously have new form of carrots and fights for them to play. May be new legendary skins that can be only applied to legendary armors as raid reward, for example.
We have 2nd generation legendary weapons, the idea of 2nd gen legendary armors would not be too absurd in the far future. (another example)
You can always invent new carrots.

Again, when the only existing type of legendary is weapon, the situation differs dramatically. An active player still needs to upgrade most of their gear. 6 armor pieces, 6 trinkets. With the current situation, you’d need to upgrade a grand total of 5 items (2 rings, 2 accessories and an amulet). It would require much less effort and these are easier to obtain to begin with. In a hypothetical scenario where everything is legendary, you’d have to upgrade 0 items.

This type of progression is made to give players something to do. It would give very little now and it wouldn’t give anything at all if they introduced legendary trinkets. “They’ve done it before” isn’t a reason to do it now. Inventing new carrots doesn’t do anything at all if you’re giving said carrots automatically.

Feanor.2358:

Again, when the only existing type of legendary is weapon, the situation differs dramatically. An active player still needs to upgrade most of their gear. 6 armor pieces, 6 trinkets. With the current situation, you’d need to upgrade a grand total of 5 items (2 rings, 2 accessories and an amulet). It would require much less effort and these are easier to obtain to begin with. In a hypothetical scenario where everything is legendary, you’d have to upgrade 0 items.

This type of progression is made to give players something to do. It would give very little now and it wouldn’t give anything at all if they introduced legendary trinkets. “They’ve done it before” isn’t a reason to do it now. Inventing new carrots doesn’t do anything at all if you’re giving said carrots automatically.

In this game skins alone count as carrots for many people. Also, gear is not the only carrot. to some what you see as the carrot others see as the stick.

Pino.5209:

Trying to believe there will be no better gears after ascended is like trying to believe exotic was the ceiling back then.

I expect once they are done with legendary amulets, rings and accessory, the next tier gears will be coming. Next xpac will be very likely associated with legendary trinkets.
New tier gears should be on 3rd xpac.

We are already on wow-esque road with raid (trinity) and mounts (next xpac). So, expecting a vertical gear progression is not too far fetch imo.

Except exotics being the ceiling was not really a thing for long. Ascended was introduced within a few months of release. It was due to complaints that exotic was too easy, and also suggested that ascended was planned already but they didn’t have the time to implement it.

It’s possible they’ll have new gear in the future, but nothing in the last 4 years has been particularly surprising.

Shortage.5427:

armaduras.8972:

I really hope not. I have 4,300 hours logged into the game currently with five sets of ascended and five legendary weapons. I am more than happy with the gear provided.. and it would appear that the model would be for new stat sets rather than armor sets. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get the ability to ‘Bless’ Ascended armor too.

Every tier of gear you add to GW2 only increases the stress on inpatient new people… and new players really are impatient. I’ve personally watched over twenty people join our guild, play the game for one to three months, progressively, and then simply quit once they start researching the time needed for ascended gear. Everyone wants the best, even if it isn’t needed. Legendary armor is going to be more than enough of a blunder in the same regard.

Yes but you also push away the people who wants this stuff. From my 60 in game friends and 30 followers only 3-4 are online. Also games such as BDO and BnS seem to have stolen lot’s of people from GW2 because it felt a “Waste of time” or rather “Too casual for me”. The more you restrict the people the easier the get bored.

Also it’s a MMORPG game. There is no MMORPG without some type of grinding or gear progression. It was fun till i reached 1600 hours and completed everything.

It all goes back in the box, and move on a diffrent game?

To be honest i saw the new expansion leak and it was amazing. But now i am wondering if it’s worth that much.

So you have all the achievements? You have unlocked every skin? in 1600 hours? did you not sleep? how luck where you? and how did you do the giant slayer in that time?

Feanor.2358:

No, I totally get the point of legendary items. I don’t get the point of introducing new tier of gear once you have covered all slots in legendary. Heck, even without the trinkets I still see no point. The very people that new tier is supposed to keep busy will already effectively have it. It’s pointless.

the point is that people who see the point get new content. People who don’t get that are not going to understand the point of new legendary items.

I like British football, i don’t like American football as much, I don’t expect American football games to change so players kick the ball. This is the same discussion that happened half a decade ago : horizontal v vertical progression.

ArchonWing.9480:

Except exotics being the ceiling was not really a thing for long. Ascended was introduced within a few months of release. It was due to complaints that exotic was too easy

The complains were about lack of content, not about exotic gear being too easy. It’s just that Anet didn’t have any content to give, so they panicked and attempted to “do something quick”.

ArchonWing.9480:

and also suggested that ascended was planned already but they didn’t have the time to implement it.

They suggested it, sure, but somewhere around HoT reveal they admitted that it wasn’t actually true. In this version they introduced them because people got exotics earlier than expected. Which might have been a result of them having different expectations when they’ve been developing the game.

Shortly after first introducing ascended they have been talking about continuing on the path of “low curve item progression” (for example we do know they planned stronger stat infusions, as well as different types of agony-like effects for other parts of the game) but all of those ideas were abandoned later, because (surprise surprise), it turned out that the majority of players didn’t actually like them at all.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Feanor.2358:

No, I totally get the point of legendary items. I don’t get the point of introducing new tier of gear once you have covered all slots in legendary. Heck, even without the trinkets I still see no point. The very people that new tier is supposed to keep busy will already effectively have it. It’s pointless.

the point is that people who see the point get new content. People who don’t get that are not going to understand the point of new legendary items.

They aren’t talking about new legendaries. These have a place in the game, as they add more fashion endgame. They are talking about adding a new tier of more powerful gear and updating legendaries – existing and future ones – to match that new power level.

It’s not that I get the point, it’s that the point is missing altogether. Gear treadmills are created to keep players busy. The active players, those who spend hundreds and thousands of hours in the game. These are the same players who participate in the “fashion endgame” in GW2. It simply makes no sense to introduce new tier of gear when you would be giving it immediately to all the players who are supposed to be kept busy by it. It concept of upgrading the power of the legendaries defeats the only purpose of introducing said tier.

Personally I wouldn’t like gear progression. However I do think that some sort of progression would be very nice.

I think having progression through masteries that actually give us unique power boosts (something gear progression gives us, something that drives people to play day after day.) would be very nice.
As long as it’s not as easy as “get experience, get mast er poins, bam ur done” but maybe with some a diffirent kind of mastery points gained by playing certain content.

The current mastery system doesn’t feel like progression. It feels like something that gates your progression & gives very situational abilities you won’t use often.