Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

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”.

They go hand and hand; the idea of reaching 80 and gearing up went really fast, and then that results in lack of stuff to do. Enter fractals, where ascended was introduced, as well as the self contained progression system that means it was largely optional. In a few more months, ascended jewelry would be given via laurels, to seal the deal.

I completely disagree that it was a panic. It was, in fact, rather well designed.

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.

And we haven’t seen a new gear tier since…. Details, aside, I don’t see a need, nor do I see a trend suggesting otherwise.

Feanor.2358:

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.

ah thats a different kettle of fish, i didnt realise that Ye agree about adding it to older legendaries, that does feel like a design contradiction.

If the new tier added say 1 power point or something so trivial that it would not impact anything then I could live with that, and it would actually motivate myself to go for the gear over time. It has to literally be 1 stat point at most so that even with a full set it does not give any significant advantage over other older gear.

In term of progression, I think that a system more similar to Guild Wars would a good addition. We could for example have utility skills tied to a mastery added (only in PvE) so that the higher we push the mastery, the more powerful that utility skill becomes.

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

Astralporing.1957:

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”.

There were all sorts of complaints at launch, including that exotic was too easy to acquire. There were some people saying there wasn’t enough content, but not nearly as many and they were mostly people who raced through the personal story. (So it was less saying “lack of content” and more saying “not enough content for how they played” — legit complaint, but not shared by many.)

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

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

Astralporing.1957:

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”.

There were all sorts of complaints at launch, including that exotic was too easy to acquire. There were some people saying there wasn’t enough content, but not nearly as many and they were mostly people who raced through the personal story. (So it was less saying “lack of content” and more saying “not enough content for how they played” — legit complaint, but not shared by many.)

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

some gear progress and something to do for people who ran out of things to do are the same thing.
it didnt create a profit for crafting, unless you mean selling your daily ectoplasm craft, which doesnt really equate to profit for crafting.

And while it was definately used to sink materials, i doubt that was its reason for creation, so much as an opportunity. The same way i dont think halloween events were created primarily as a means for sinking materials, but probably more because they wanted to have fun halloween events.

Ascended was created, because they underestimated the games need for longer term goals. I will tell you this was already an internal consideration from the time the game was in beta. Some members of the staff believed you didnt need a big grind for best in slot, and some believed that it was the nature of the beast in an MMO, that you cant keep up with people’s content demands, and thus must set up long term and mid term goals.

The problem, IMO with their analysis, is it focused on a very simple mechanical answer to the problem, rather than an artful design. While you do need progress, it doesnt have to be gear progress.

It was a fast and relatively simple solution though, and they probably felt they needed one fast.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

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

Astralporing.1957:

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”.

There were all sorts of complaints at launch, including that exotic was too easy to acquire.

Sure. There were also complains that exotics were too hard to acquire. I don’t remember the former to be any more numerous than the latter however. And both were marginal.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

There were some people saying there wasn’t enough content, but not nearly as many

There were more of them than those that asked for new tier of gear (in fact, discussions about new tier of gear were mostly one-sided, with one person starting the thread asking for new tiers, and everyone else bashing him for it).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

So you say. I remember it differently.

There’s no way to tell if a group was in the minority or marginal or whatever beyond anecdotes, especially based on forum posts. All we know is that said complaints existed, and the game designers have metrics and contact with various streamers or whatnot that we don’t have access to. In any case, regardless of how marginal that group was, apparently they were important enough to address.

But there is a difference between the self-contained grind of fractals with viable alternatives and entirely new gear tiers passed out on a regular basis. The later imposes itself off on all players. Currently it is reasonable to say that 10-15% difference in worse case scenarios (pure exotic vs ascended) is not enough to really affect performance for your player of average skill, especially not in anything that’s not raids or high fractals. In the real world, the difference is significantly smaller due to the large access to ascended trinkets and most of the crafting cost lopsided towards the final few percent in armor.

Introducing new tiers would increase this gap, and over time it would be hard to deny that it would make a major difference. The gap between exotic and the new gear tier, or even worse, the gap between subexotics that new 80s are wearing will be very noticeable. A 20-30% gap or greater effectively makes the grind mandatory. This is basically like 25 stacks of might.

With the new legendary armors, there really is no reason to require a tier that requires more time than ascended. And furthermore, in general, this attitude for more gear tiers is pve-centric. Making people in WvW grind for more gear would probably have a negative impact, as most reward content is in pve and hard to balance between it.

‘Currently it is reasonable to say that 10-15% difference in worse case scenarios (pure exotic vs ascended) is not enough to really affect performance for your player of average skill, especially not in anything that’s not raids or high fractal’

Bear in mind this goes 2 ways, even a 5% differential is absolutely massive because skilled players get this bonus too. for e.g 5% in a tightly tuned raid, or pvp makes that % essential, where players are equally skilled, the player with 5% will win most of the time.

I’m glad we do not have gear progression....

This has several reasons:
* It allows the downscaling of characters....
* It allows the whole world to stay relevant.
* It allows my horde of alts to stay relevant.
* It allows for continuation for people who went away for a while when they return.
* It allows for no needless grinding after you geared up your charcters and frees your finances for QoL , dyes and skins, including legendaries.
* It allows to choose your content you like
* It doesn’t create powershifts between gamemodes.

It keeps the game simple withing it defined parameters and allows me to play the game and to explore and wander instead of being forced to grind and grind for nothing but another destabilizing upgrade completely removing the previous content from relevance...

The powercreep inherent to the HoT elite specialisations was a pretty being destabilizing thing in this game... all specs became 10% stronger in a flash, with gear progression this would have been more... I doubt we would need more... if any gear grind would be added I’d suggest +6 or +7 stat infusions, OR craftable aura’s....

For quadruple the price for + 6 stat / + 9 AR or 16 times the price for + 7stat /+ 9AR s of course... lets see ppl shed another 9000 gold for 18 additional stat points.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

Astralporing.1957:

So you say. I remember it differently.

So Linsey Murdock wrote.

As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.

We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach. Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression. The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, which will be encountered in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and is mitigated by Infusions.

Ascended gear (and agony resistance) was added to introduce some gear progression. To the extent that you have to do something to get the next tier of gear, sure, that qualifies as “something to do” — the main goal was gear progression, not filler.

IWN,

I would take that Linsey Murdock quote with perhaps a grain of salt. In it she says that players were ready to start on the legendary progression (in other words already done with exotic gearing) sooner than expected…

And yet ANet had said that they expected players to be geared in exotics by the time they reached level 80. By definition being done gearing up in exotics after reaching level 80 cannot be unexpectedly soon under that condition.

The reality, IMO, is that they changed their mind after launch. Any comment about not expecting, etc, was CYA.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

Astralporing.1957:

So you say. I remember it differently.

So Linsey Murdock wrote.

As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.

We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach. Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression. The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, which will be encountered in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and is mitigated by Infusions.

Ascended gear (and agony resistance) was added to introduce some gear progression. To the extent that you have to do something to get the next tier of gear, sure, that qualifies as “something to do” — the main goal was gear progression, not filler.

Well personally, when I look at the ascended and legendary gear in this game, it doesn’t look like “satisfying progression rather than gear grind” to my eyes. It looks like “gear grind.”

The fact that you can manage in a lot of content with exotics and that there are some cheap-ish ways to get exotics just means, to me, that the “gear grind” is somewhat optional. It doesn’t change that there is one.

I just get the sense more and more that this game is, and has tried, too hard to please both casual and hardcore. And while I can see why they’d want to do both, it seems to my perception like it has caused them a lot of problems, with overlap between the two that don’t really work well for either crowd.

Of course, that’s just how it looks to me. Maybe it’s that my approach to this game is too casual for it to be a good fit in the long-term with what they make. I’m not really sure.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Regardless, the point is that ascended was introduced so that there was some gear progress, some sinks for various mats, and some profit for crafting. It was not introduced primarily as “something to do for people who ran out of things to do.”

Astralporing.1957:

So you say. I remember it differently.

So Linsey Murdock wrote.

As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.

We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach. Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression. The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, which will be encountered in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and is mitigated by Infusions.

Ascended gear (and agony resistance) was added to introduce some gear progression. To the extent that you have to do something to get the next tier of gear, sure, that qualifies as “something to do” — the main goal was gear progression, not filler.

if it wasnt meant to be something to do, it wouldnt be as grindy as it is. I have rarely seen in a serious top teir mmo, a gear teir that required as much grind to create as ascended.
its busywork.
you can spin it how you want, but at the end of the day, a rose is a rose.

vesica tempestas.1563:

‘Currently it is reasonable to say that 10-15% difference in worse case scenarios (pure exotic vs ascended) is not enough to really affect performance for your player of average skill, especially not in anything that’s not raids or high fractal’

Bear in mind this goes 2 ways, even a 5% differential is absolutely massive because skilled players get this bonus too. for e.g 5% in a tightly tuned raid, or pvp makes that % essential, where players are equally skilled, the player with 5% will win most of the time.

I left out raids because of that. But I’m not sure if 5% faster raid completions is a big deal unless you’re out to sort out world records, and we’re talking about hardcore stuff now. Of course, it’d be hard to imagine a frequent raider being unable to obtain at least all ascended weapons/trinkets at least. Then it’s not even 5%

PvP doesn’t use gear tiers, so that point is largely moot. In WvW, it may make a difference, but this tends to be dampened as numbers increase, especially with the large amounts of overhealing and overkill.

In any case 1 more hit out of 20 is less likely to matter, than 1 more hit out of 4-5 which would happen if a new gear tier occured.

ArchonWing.9480:

I left out raids because of that. But I’m not sure if 5% faster raid completions is a big deal unless you’re out to sort out world records, and we’re talking about hardcore stuff now. Of course, it’d be hard to imagine a frequent raider being unable to obtain at least all ascended weapons/trinkets at least. Then it’s not even 5%

Well, I can give a rebuttal to this.
Every monday we run with a dedicated group. However, sometimes there’s one guy who can’t make it, so once or twice a month we have 1-2 people pugged.
Now, when we run with the full dedicated team, we can clear all 4 wings in an evening, sometimes we make it past deimos, sometimes not.
But when we’re not a full dedicated team, especially if the missing role is an important one, we tend to have the entire wing 4 left behind, and sometimes even Xera.
So yea, to some extend, it’s only 5-10%, but 5% on 13 bosses can mean a delay of an entire wing.
Although, admittedly, the delay stems more from the fact that the newcomers don’t understand the mechanics indepth enough, in which case it’s not really the armor’s fault, but rather the playstyle of the pugger. We don’t blame them, though, we happily carry people if it means expanding the raiding community.

Amaimon.7823:

So yea, to some extend, it’s only 5-10%, but 5% on 13 bosses can mean a delay of an entire wing.

OR you’re being slower because of the player and not the gear he’s using? Most pugs are’t top of their class. Plus you might be using some tactics specific to your group which aren’t widely known (like we do in my static). Attributing to the delay based on lacking gear seems to be the least likely, by a wide margin.

Feanor.2358:

Amaimon.7823:

So yea, to some extend, it’s only 5-10%, but 5% on 13 bosses can mean a delay of an entire wing.

OR you’re being slower because of the player and not the gear he’s using? Most pugs are’t top of their class. Plus you might be using some tactics specific to your group which aren’t widely known (like we do in my static). Attributing to the delay based on lacking gear seems to be the least likely, by a wide margin.

That’s what I said at the bottom of my post, that more skill than armor is to blame. But it does add up.
Lack of optimized armor and skill can add up to 20-50% slower kill (.. maybe an exaggeration but you get my point)

Feanor.2358:

Amaimon.7823:

So yea, to some extend, it’s only 5-10%, but 5% on 13 bosses can mean a delay of an entire wing.

OR you’re being slower because of the player and not the gear he’s using? Most pugs are’t top of their class. Plus you might be using some tactics specific to your group which aren’t widely known (like we do in my static). Attributing to the delay based on lacking gear seems to be the least likely, by a wide margin.

This.

I run in 3 different raids per week (different groups, not days. Days it comes down to 4-5).

Group A – static group. Full clear all 4 wings in 2 1/2 hours. Sometimes if people are unfocused we might miss Xera or Deimos since our cutoff time is very precisely 22:30 (we start very punctual at 19:50 meeting and 20:00 start. We are german after all).

Group B – same raiding (as Group A) guild B team with 3-5 players from the A team helping out. We clear 3 wings easy but are quite a way from full clear in the same time period.

Group C – different guild (not primary raid focused) mostly static with 1-3 guild member pugs who do not know tactics, are new or wanted to tag along. We try to start on time but usually are a bit late (15-45 minutes) depending on when we are full. We clear 2 wings easy (1 and 4, haven’t finished wing 3 and not started wing 2). Again about 2 1/2 hours of raiding.

All the people in these groups are full ascended on their mains and at minimum full ascended with exotic armor on side characters. Combine this with the fact that super pro players have cleared entire raid wings in rare and masterwork items. The difference from ascended to exotic means diddly squat.

Tl;dr: it’s not the gear, it’s the players.

EDIT: and before any one gets any ideas, I enjoy every single one of the raids and people in them. Why else would I be running multiple bosses per week?

flog.3485:

In term of progression, I think that a system more similar to Guild Wars would a good addition. We could for example have utility skills tied to a mastery added (only in PvE) so that the higher we push the mastery, the more powerful that utility skill becomes.

Please no.

The title skills in EOTN literally broke the game in several ways, and the only reason they were implemented in the first place was because of the dead end balance quagmire GW1’s skill design eventually created.

Consumables and literally grinding for skills explicitly broke the game and trivialized a lot of its content because Arenanet decided to pivot to advertising GW2.

On top of that, Mastries already approximate the actual good parts of that system. Rank up a progression track, get some benefits in its respective areas.

Elite specs already do a good job of approximating the style of nonlinear character progression that GW1 used without creating the eventual balancing problems that GW1 had.

Stuff like heroes and title skills were horrible additions to GW1 and we don’t need to emulate them in GW2, as they were hasty and ill considered additions that took away complexity and community from the game and replaced them with ‘grind more to trivialize content’

We don’t need to emulate the worst features of GW1. We don’t need some endless power creep or more focus on NPCs playing the game against other NPCs while the players watch and refuse to group up because its less efficient.

PopeUrban.2578:

flog.3485:

In term of progression, I think that a system more similar to Guild Wars would a good addition. We could for example have utility skills tied to a mastery added (only in PvE) so that the higher we push the mastery, the more powerful that utility skill becomes.

Please no.

The title skills in EOTN literally broke the game in several ways, and the only reason they were implemented in the first place was because of the dead end balance quagmire GW1’s skill design eventually created.

Consumables and literally grinding for skills explicitly broke the game and trivialized a lot of its content because Arenanet decided to pivot to advertising GW2.

On top of that, Mastries already approximate the actual good parts of that system. Rank up a progression track, get some benefits in its respective areas.

Elite specs already do a good job of approximating the style of nonlinear character progression that GW1 used without creating the eventual balancing problems that GW1 had.

Stuff like heroes and title skills were horrible additions to GW1 and we don’t need to emulate them in GW2, as they were hasty and ill considered additions that took away complexity and community from the game and replaced them with ‘grind more to trivialize content’

We don’t need to emulate the worst features of GW1. We don’t need some endless power creep or more focus on NPCs playing the game against other NPCs while the players watch and refuse to group up because its less efficient.

You raised some pretty reasonable concerns that I did not think about. I guess I was feeling a bit nostalgic about it since what you call “emulating the worst features of GW1” is something that was already implemented when I started playing it and so I did not see the game become worse from your POV.

flog.3485:

PopeUrban.2578:

flog.3485:

In term of progression, I think that a system more similar to Guild Wars would a good addition. We could for example have utility skills tied to a mastery added (only in PvE) so that the higher we push the mastery, the more powerful that utility skill becomes.

Please no.

The title skills in EOTN literally broke the game in several ways, and the only reason they were implemented in the first place was because of the dead end balance quagmire GW1’s skill design eventually created.

Consumables and literally grinding for skills explicitly broke the game and trivialized a lot of its content because Arenanet decided to pivot to advertising GW2.

On top of that, Mastries already approximate the actual good parts of that system. Rank up a progression track, get some benefits in its respective areas.

Elite specs already do a good job of approximating the style of nonlinear character progression that GW1 used without creating the eventual balancing problems that GW1 had.

Stuff like heroes and title skills were horrible additions to GW1 and we don’t need to emulate them in GW2, as they were hasty and ill considered additions that took away complexity and community from the game and replaced them with ‘grind more to trivialize content’

We don’t need to emulate the worst features of GW1. We don’t need some endless power creep or more focus on NPCs playing the game against other NPCs while the players watch and refuse to group up because its less efficient.

You raised some pretty reasonable concerns that I did not think about. I guess I was feeling a bit nostalgic about it since what you call “emulating the worst features of GW1” is something that was already implemented when I started playing it and so I did not see the game become worse from your POV.

To be fair, I don’t think EVERYTHING was bad. Title grinds were actually lots of fun from the lens of the shrine buffs (where you got the random buffs that worked like an enhanced version of morale) and the way night fall (Junundu) and EOTN (Siege Destroyers) approached the concept of mounts was really cool. Individually the PVE skills where good additions to the game, the problem was really that they replaced “real” skills and invalidated a lot of considerations players would usually have to make about the game.

As far as heroes, I liked what they did for narrative (Recruit a party like a single player RPG) but their ability to be as good or better than humans combined with the number you could bring shot the community in the foot.

That said Heroes NOW in GW1 are solid system and make sense in a game with the low population you’d expect from a game that has been placed in maintenance mode, but at the time allowing 2 players to fill out a party of 8 in a game balanced primarily around doing stuff in parties of 8 felt like a mistake, and I saw a serious downturn in PUGs and general community opinion of players in a lot of content. Heroes would have made sense as an EOTN addition, as the team knew this would be the last expansion and thus they needed to “future proof” the game against lower population. At the release of nightfall though, it felt like a mistake to me. I always felt that henchmen were supposed to kind of suck compared to a player to incentivize players to actually group up.

PopeUrban.2578:

flog.3485:

PopeUrban.2578:

flog.3485:

In term of progression, I think that a system more similar to Guild Wars would a good addition. We could for example have utility skills tied to a mastery added (only in PvE) so that the higher we push the mastery, the more powerful that utility skill becomes.

Please no.

The title skills in EOTN literally broke the game in several ways, and the only reason they were implemented in the first place was because of the dead end balance quagmire GW1’s skill design eventually created.

Consumables and literally grinding for skills explicitly broke the game and trivialized a lot of its content because Arenanet decided to pivot to advertising GW2.

On top of that, Mastries already approximate the actual good parts of that system. Rank up a progression track, get some benefits in its respective areas.

Elite specs already do a good job of approximating the style of nonlinear character progression that GW1 used without creating the eventual balancing problems that GW1 had.

Stuff like heroes and title skills were horrible additions to GW1 and we don’t need to emulate them in GW2, as they were hasty and ill considered additions that took away complexity and community from the game and replaced them with ‘grind more to trivialize content’

We don’t need to emulate the worst features of GW1. We don’t need some endless power creep or more focus on NPCs playing the game against other NPCs while the players watch and refuse to group up because its less efficient.

You raised some pretty reasonable concerns that I did not think about. I guess I was feeling a bit nostalgic about it since what you call “emulating the worst features of GW1” is something that was already implemented when I started playing it and so I did not see the game become worse from your POV.

To be fair, I don’t think EVERYTHING was bad. Title grinds were actually lots of fun from the lens of the shrine buffs (where you got the random buffs that worked like an enhanced version of morale) and the way night fall (Junundu) and EOTN (Siege Destroyers) approached the concept of mounts was really cool. Individually the PVE skills where good additions to the game, the problem was really that they replaced “real” skills and invalidated a lot of considerations players would usually have to make about the game.

As far as heroes, I liked what they did for narrative (Recruit a party like a single player RPG) but their ability to be as good or better than humans combined with the number you could bring shot the community in the foot.

That said Heroes NOW in GW1 are solid system and make sense in a game with the low population you’d expect from a game that has been placed in maintenance mode, but at the time allowing 2 players to fill out a party of 8 in a game balanced primarily around doing stuff in parties of 8 felt like a mistake, and I saw a serious downturn in PUGs and general community opinion of players in a lot of content. Heroes would have made sense as an EOTN addition, as the team knew this would be the last expansion and thus they needed to “future proof” the game against lower population. At the release of nightfall though, it felt like a mistake to me. I always felt that henchmen were supposed to kind of suck compared to a player to incentivize players to actually group up.

Still your raised arguments made me suddenly realize that the only reputation titles that I dared to max out on one character only were the order of sunspear and the order of whisper. As for heroes…..well there is no way it is gonna fit into GW2 imo.

It just occurred to me that the infinite mists potions could be considered a form of “grind to trivialize content”, as the full set of three costs 18,000 relics. But they aren’t the only way to get those powerful buffs – the 1-hour large potions give the same for fairly cheap, and a full set of THOSE can be acquired for free by doing the 3 daily recommended fractals.

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

It just occurred to me that the infinite mists potions could be considered a form of “grind to trivialize content”, as the full set of three costs 18,000 relics. But they aren’t the only way to get those powerful buffs – the 1-hour large potions give the same for fairly cheap, and a full set of THOSE can be acquired for free by doing the 3 daily recommended fractals.

The infinite potions (and especially the omni version) are more incentives for people who have been living in fractals ever since they were added (like myself) since frelics are quite useless otherwise (most my characters are decked out in 20 slot bags of different colors. Multiple ascended backpieces from fractals etc.).

It’s quite clear that the idea is for newer players and less frequent fractal players to use the cheaper potions for the necessary buffs.

I wouldn’t really call it grind, more of an expensive option for people to burn frelics on.

Shortage.5427:

After 1.600 hours into the game, getting full ascended builds on ever char, i find myself having no motivation to play any further. Now i play GW2 every now and then (once or twice every month/3-months).

There is nothing to do in the game anymore. There is no gear progression and doing fractals or raids does not feel rewarding at all. Removing the dungeons was also removing a big part of content and variety of the game. I find myself getting bored from doing the same stuff over and over again. It feels mundane.

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

Everything gives you ascended, whether it is fractals,raids,word bosses.

And now the game ended up being a fashion contest game, with only purpose of “Looking good” rather “Getting Good”.

Hope with the new expansion we will see a new gear progression system that feels rewarding and hard at the same time. Rewarding and easy is never good.

Why on earth would you want gear progression in gw2? This game is to alt friendly to have some form of gear progression like that, first of all the rng would likely be an issue like in most mmorpgs second of all its just a stat illusion, it is not like your getting new abilities or more build diversity it is just an illusion, legendaries on the other hand are not and actually offer something unique then your typical mmorpg gear grind.

The only gear treadmill will probably be Fractals, where you have to upgrade your Infusions in order to do the highest Tier(s).

Personally I hope they don’t go this route, because once you have that Agony Resistance it is really no different than now, but I think the closest thing to what you’re looking for is that.

Couple of points:

A higher tier of gear isn’t about ‘getting good’ as you put it, it’s about grinding longer.

You haven’t even exhausted the available options, yet claim to have nothing to do. Sheer nonsense.

Lastly, you obviously wheren’t here when they first introduced Ascended. It wasn’t a popular move, and Anet assured the playerbase there wouldn’t be another increase after.

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..

I think you misunderstood the OP’s statement: They didn’t ask for more or higher-tier gear, they asked for different, more fun and rewarding (i.s., less boring/grindy) ways to get it in the future.

And I absolutely agree with that request.

I don’t think the game is about gear progression at all, aside from ascended and legendary tier stuff. For me it’s about raising my skill level, setting goals for myself (such as completing all jumping puzzles, leveling all professions, etc.) and the feel of playing with my guild mates.

Maybe you should just move on? You got way more than your money’s worth out of GW2. It might be time to move on to another game that gives you what you want, like WoW, BDO, etc.

Gear progression is something I really dislike in other MMOs. So no thank you.

Ashantara.8731:

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..

I think you misunderstood the OP’s statement: They didn’t ask for more or higher-tier gear, they asked for different, more fun and rewarding (i.s., less boring/grindy) ways to get it in the future.

And I absolutely agree with that request.

The journey to get a legendary weapon should be varied and epic so how exactly does that look? The best possible solution is a wide and varied mix of activities that you follow in an epic journey. You need to record progress in that journey, and the best possible way of doing this is a wide and varied mix of tokenisation and progress bars. Well this is what you have, what else would you do?

it is funny that some people prefer to play catch up with gear grinding than enjoying the game content….

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.

Of all of the people who have left (~75 friends I talk to) and maybe 200 followers who I’ve talked with before they quit when saying goodbyes, and myself, a gear grind was not the reason we stopped playing the game. I think you’re actually the first I’ve seen to request this. When ANet announced they didn’t have any intentions to release new tiers after ascended, most gear-grinders left as it was.

Odds are doing this will just further-diminish what’s left of the community. Though one can never really tell; ANet seems fixated on the high-end PvE scene.

DeceiverX.8361:

Odds are doing this will just further-diminish what’s left of the community. Though one can never really tell; ANet seems fixated on the high-end PvE scene.

One does not preclude another. Just look at the results of Anet’s former fixation on esports.

Astralporing.1957:

DeceiverX.8361:

Odds are doing this will just further-diminish what’s left of the community. Though one can never really tell; ANet seems fixated on the high-end PvE scene.

One does not preclude another. Just look at the results of Anet’s former fixation on esports.

I don’t doubt it; I mostly meant it on the rhetoric of what they think that kind of audience will want.

And sPvP was never going to ever be competitive given the amulet system and the fact that the professions were not balanced by the PvP team; PvE and general profession design have and still have all priority in making said adjustments, and according to ANet itself, operates entirely independently with little interaction with the PvP team. Just based on company dynamic it was doomed from the getgo; forget the poor streaming options.

Astralporing.1957:

Just look at the results of Anet’s former fixation on esports.

That never existed; the fixation was all on our end. ANet spent some of their marketed dollars on Esports; they didn’t devote significant game-development resources.