Guild Wars 2

Dear Anet,

first of all, sorry i’m ranting here.
secondly, sorry if i’m double posting.

I’m posting this on my thoughts of your team’s comments prior to HoT’s launch that your team wants to have players to try out other build variants, and what I found that really turn me off, a casual player.

I know some hardcore players will probably flame me for what I’m going to say below.

Just some background on how long I have played GW2 (excluding GW1), and how frequent I play and what most of my time spent on during my play time, which other casual players may or may not share.

I started playing GW2 about 7 months ago, and I spent about 5-6hours a day playing, sometimes double the hours on weekends.

Each day I would spend 3-4hours on WB follow by about 1hr on fractal, the remaining time exploring tyria, map meta events, and occasionally story.

So, with the above frequency i spent on in-game contents, I finally saved enough to go for ascended armors, bought the new recipes and was really excited to try out the new Viper states.

However, when I opened up my crafting list and scrolled down to check out materials I need to craft the new ascended insignia, excitement turned to grieve, and a feeling of lost of hopes.

To craft just one of these insignia, just base on the cost of the material from TP, it’s equivalent to 300g. If to farm for the material, as a casual player, it’s going to take months.

To hardcore players, it probably will not take that long to either gather 1200g or farm for the materials, but to the casual players that wanting to try out new builds with the new stats introduced in HoT, it’s becomes extremely agonising experience of repetitive grind, which will probably end up with one of these scenarios.

• Buy gold off 3rd party sites. (I think your team is probably well aware that players wanting to experience more of your contents may turn to this, especially with the current gem to gold ratio, which the cost of gem pretty much doubled in the last 6 months)
• Stay in existing build, most likely Berzerker and become bored.
• Stay in the lower grade Exotic gears, get left behind from the new harder contents because they are still getting their gears (I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about since your team made the comments on twitch)

This is not simply a new stat to us players, but a huge amount of investment from the players themselves, that can turn into just a single virtual copper coin with a change of design directions from your team.

so Anet, if your team want more build diversities in your player base, and wanting players to do more fun things in your game and progress onto all these additional contents in your team put so much hard work into.
Please don’t turn away from GW2’s design philosophy inherited from GW1.
Please be considerate to those players that can only play after their 9to5 work.
Please be considerate to those players that have a family to look after, and see your game a way to relief their daily stress.
Please be considerate to the health of all your players, they need to stand up, walk around and exercise a bit, have some face to face communications to their peers and families rather than glued to panel of tiny light bulbs all day.

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore. As soon as you complain about not being able to craft ascended items “as a casual player”, your point becomes invalid.

Ascended and legendary items are long term goals and it is intended that player will need a long time, so what you describe is nothing else than “working as intended”.

Getting “left behind” just because you have exotic gear while others may have ascended gear is an illusion and happens only in your head. I do not have a legendary, or ascended weapon and I do not worry in the slightest about “getting left behind”, and the difference in power is so small that you will likely never even notice it while playing. To be honest, your post seems to be a repetition of what people posted back long ago when ascended items were first announced.

Just a side note about gold buying: What you write makes no sense at all. If anyone is willing to spend real money to get ingame gold, the “current gem to gold ratio” which you say has “doubled” works in his favor and not against him. Because now he gets twice as much gold if he buys gems from ArenaNet and exchanges them for gold, which is a perfectly legit and intended thing to do. So the gem to gold ratio in no way drives people to 3rd party sites.

1 – Playing 6 Hours a day is far from being “Casual”. I play 1 hour per day and I am a hardcore who have no problems at all with any gold or difficulty in the game.

2 – Prices will settle down, gotta wait a few. I agree, its quite expensive atm, but if you are sincerely a “Casual” player, why go to such a expensive Ascended stats ? Just go for the exotic set, the ascended is only a recquirement for fractals at super high level atm.

You don’t need ascended for anything but high level fractals. If you’re casual like you say you are, exotic tier stats are more than sufficient for you to enjoy the game.

I consider myself a hard core casual (oxymoron, I know) and as such my recommendation is to skip the ascended armor. Get the ascended trinkets and weapons if you don’t have those yet as they give you the most stat boosts. The armor isn’t worth it, except for fractals, bragging rights and for those who are doing it as a ingame goal for completionists sake.

Compare to your casual playing experience.

Thank you i just found that i am not so casual. i play 15min to 1hr per day and i almost never go fractial. i have crafted myself almost a full set of ascended armor.

You know what? i told my wife i am casual and she said i’ve played too much….

PSI: You can cheaply and easily use exotic insignia/inscriptions to change the stats of ascended armors and weapons in the mystic forge.

You can purchase insignia with the zone currency from dynamic/meta events without any high mastery level from the zone merchants. (Viper for example can be bought from a merchant at the first waypoint you get when entering Auric Basin.)

Shikigami.4013:

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore.

That might have been true year ago, but is becoming less and less true with each passing day. Ascended offer significant advantage over exotics, and since the new content is no longer balanced around rares, as it was originally (and in fact in some cases is finetuned to make ascended “strongly encouraged”), saying “ascended aren’t needed” is now closer and closer to saying that you don’t need any form of transportation beyond your shoes to get from NY to LA.

Astralporing.1957:

Shikigami.4013:

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore.

That might have been true year ago, but is becoming less and less true with each passing day. Ascended offer significant advantage over exotics, and since the new content is no longer balanced around rares, as it was originally (and in fact in some cases is finetuned to make ascended “strongly encouraged”), saying “ascended aren’t needed” is now closer and closer to saying that you don’t need any form of transportation beyond your shoes to get from NY to LA.

My full exotic characters still does just fine in the new content, I haven’t really noticed a difference in difficulty when I play on them vs a full ascended character in similar stats.

Sorry, I have to agree with the above. If you’re upset about something taking months to craft you’re not casual. The response a casual player has to, “it will take months to acquire the needed materials to craft this,” is, “K, I’ll get around to it.”

I think the underlying thing here, what everyone is trying to vocalize but it seems to not be worded correctly is as follows: in base GW2, you could play for 2-3 hours a day and feel like you accomplished something meaningful. You played some dungeons, did some pvp, did some world bosses, whatever. In HoT, 2-3 hours doesn’t seem to make a dent in anything. It makes things seem overwhelming.

That’s what I understand from the conversation anyway.

that amount of hours doesnt sound casual to me…
unless you are referring to casual mentality which should be your case
in that case, i think you should actually put in efforts to get what you want.

edit: btw, i hav this member who spent 3 months to get legendary while playing 3-4hrs per day and here you are, complaining about that while playing more hours than him. seriously

Is casual a mentality or a way to play a game? I believe it to be the way I play a game. 2-3 hours a day, maybe take a week or two off to do something else, come back to it ect. However, it doesn’t feel like a short amount of time investment into the game is meaningful.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

I think the underlying thing here, what everyone is trying to vocalize but it seems to not be worded correctly is as follows: in base GW2, you could play for 2-3 hours a day and feel like you accomplished something meaningful. You played some dungeons, did some pvp, did some world bosses, whatever. In HoT, 2-3 hours doesn’t seem to make a dent in anything. It makes things seem overwhelming.

That’s what I understand from the conversation anyway.

In two to three hours you can do and complete any of the meta events in any of the zones. How would that not be an accomplishment?

Maximillian Greil.1965:

Is casual a mentality or a way to play a game? I believe it to be the way I play a game. 2-3 hours a day, maybe take a week or two off to do something else, come back to it ect. However, it doesn’t feel like a short amount of time investment into the game is meaningful.

I consider it a mentality. I could put in more than 2-3 hours a day, but choose not to. I could devote my play time to really trying to get certain things, but I tend to just let them happen as they do, unless I really want them. But even then I generally only put a small amount of effort into them.

Like right now I’m crafting Tier One Spark. I could put in effort to make gold and buy the deldrimor steel, but instead I’m making them one brick at a time. It’s going to take me a month, but so what?

Kal Spiro.9745:

Maximillian Greil.1965:

I think the underlying thing here, what everyone is trying to vocalize but it seems to not be worded correctly is as follows: in base GW2, you could play for 2-3 hours a day and feel like you accomplished something meaningful. You played some dungeons, did some pvp, did some world bosses, whatever. In HoT, 2-3 hours doesn’t seem to make a dent in anything. It makes things seem overwhelming.

That’s what I understand from the conversation anyway.

In two to three hours you can do and complete any of the meta events in any of the zones. How would that not be an accomplishment?

The metas aren’t the primary content of HoT, the masteries are. There’s a huge bar on the bottom of your screen pointing out what you’re working on. Go into any map and ask anyone why they’re doing a meta, gonna bet most of them say it’s the mastery.

As for the second part, I consider it a play style not a mentality. So we’ll have to agree to disagree there. A play style that was accommodated by GW2 before, and is no longer accommodated by it.

Astralporing.1957:

Shikigami.4013:

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore.

That might have been true year ago, but is becoming less and less true with each passing day. Ascended offer significant advantage over exotics, and since the new content is no longer balanced around rares, as it was originally (and in fact in some cases is finetuned to make ascended “strongly encouraged”), saying “ascended aren’t needed” is now closer and closer to saying that you don’t need any form of transportation beyond your shoes to get from NY to LA.

The only place in the expansion I’ve seen where is was said that ascended was strongly encouraged is raids. If the OP, or any other person, is not doing raids or fractals then they aren’t doing content that requires ascended equipment, much less ascended armor that has such a small stat boost that food has more. I’m not using any ascended armor and I’m not having noticeable difficulties in the new areas.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

The metas aren’t the primary content of HoT, the masteries are. There’s a huge bar on the bottom of your screen pointing out what you’re working on. Go into any map and ask anyone why they’re doing a meta, gonna bet most of them say it’s the mastery.

As for the second part, I consider it a play style not a mentality. So we’ll have to agree to disagree there. A play style that was accommodated by GW2 before, and is no longer accommodated by it.

You make very little sense, but I’ll try to explain in a way you may understand. Just because other people are farming masteries, it doesn’t mean that’s what you are forced to do. I have a couple guildies who rushed Masteries and already capped them out at 161. So what? I’ll take my time and it may take me a year to get there and I’m not bothered by that at all.

GW2 did nothing to disaccommodate your play style. Your personal goals don’t match your play style. Adjust your personal goals and you’ll be fine.

Silly.5837:

Maximillian Greil.1965:

The metas aren’t the primary content of HoT, the masteries are. There’s a huge bar on the bottom of your screen pointing out what you’re working on. Go into any map and ask anyone why they’re doing a meta, gonna bet most of them say it’s the mastery.

As for the second part, I consider it a play style not a mentality. So we’ll have to agree to disagree there. A play style that was accommodated by GW2 before, and is no longer accommodated by it.

You make very little sense, but I’ll try to explain in a way you may understand. Just because other people are farming masteries, it doesn’t mean that’s what you are forced to do. I have a couple guildies who rushed Masteries and already capped them out at 161. So what? I’ll take my time and it may take me a year to get there and I’m not bothered by that at all.

GW2 did nothing to disaccommodate your play style. Your personal goals don’t match your play style. Adjust your personal goals and you’ll be fine.

I don’t think we’re communicating properly here. Let me try to rephrase myself. My 3 hour time investment is not being rewarded now, like it was with previous content. The time vs reward ratio with HoT is different than GW2 vanilla. That’s the complaint.

This has nothing to do with goals. This has to do with what I get out of my 3 hours. Grinding a mid tier mastery for 3 hours doesn’t really get you much. Even if you finish it, all you get is the ability to talk to some merchant half the time. The masteries that do matter, lock content behind them which isn’t cool either. I want meaningful masteries that don’t lock content behind them. The pact commander line is a pretty good example of a well done mastery. There’s nothing locked behind it, but it makes available content easier.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I consider myself a hard core casual (oxymoron, I know)

I knew there was a reason I liked your posts. There are more of us out there than you think. I refer to myself this way all the time. But yeah, ascended armor is a thing you can work on over time if you like, but not something that is necessary.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

Silly.5837:

Maximillian Greil.1965:

The metas aren’t the primary content of HoT, the masteries are. There’s a huge bar on the bottom of your screen pointing out what you’re working on. Go into any map and ask anyone why they’re doing a meta, gonna bet most of them say it’s the mastery.

As for the second part, I consider it a play style not a mentality. So we’ll have to agree to disagree there. A play style that was accommodated by GW2 before, and is no longer accommodated by it.

You make very little sense, but I’ll try to explain in a way you may understand. Just because other people are farming masteries, it doesn’t mean that’s what you are forced to do. I have a couple guildies who rushed Masteries and already capped them out at 161. So what? I’ll take my time and it may take me a year to get there and I’m not bothered by that at all.

GW2 did nothing to disaccommodate your play style. Your personal goals don’t match your play style. Adjust your personal goals and you’ll be fine.

I don’t think we’re communicating properly here. Let me try to rephrase myself. My 3 hour time investment is not being rewarded now, like it was with previous content. The time vs reward ratio with HoT is different than GW2 vanilla. That’s the complaint.

This has nothing to do with goals. This has to do with what I get out of my 3 hours. Grinding a mid tier mastery for 3 hours doesn’t really get you much. Even if you finish it, all you get is the ability to talk to some merchant half the time. The masteries that do matter, lock content behind them which isn’t cool either. I want meaningful masteries that don’t lock content behind them. The pact commander line is a pretty good example of a well done mastery. There’s nothing locked behind it, but it makes available content easier.

That depends entirely on what you’re doing to work on those masteries. If you’re mindlessly farming veteran spiders, then no, you’re not going to get much reward. If you run the meta events then you’ll be getting drops and “keys” for zone chests, which can be a significant reward.

Also, this is an argument that was thrown around a lot during the first weekend. Masteries aren’t content. I partially agree. I mean I feel that anything new is content, but truthfully masteries are only mechanics available in the new content. The new content is the maps and the meta events, and of course the story.

Masteries are HoT Levels. If all you did in Core Tyria was grind levels, then your experience would be similar. But from your own description of your Core Tyria activities you were running content. That’s the Meta. You’re not comparing apples to apples. Run the content, earn the masteries. You don’t even need most of the masteries, so what does it even matter if you don’t get them for a while.

He’s still going to need Ascended gear for fractals, even if he is a casual player, casual players still participate in High-tier play.

I get what the OP is saying, it’s a pretty daunting task to gather what is needed, not to mention the time investment for a single set of gear, sure you can switch the stats with inscriptions/insignias but, overtime that get’s pretty costly as well.

With the new content, and Raids coming out, your going to have to be flexible, and not everyone is going to have sets of gear/weapons to swap out/in for different builds.

You’re spending more time playing GW2 per week than I spend at my full-time job that bought a kitten 3-story house…

Odokuro.5049:

He’s still going to need Ascended gear for fractals, even if he is a casual player, casual players still participate in High-tier play.

I get what the OP is saying, it’s a pretty daunting task to gather what is needed, not to mention the time investment for a single set of gear, sure you can switch the stats with inscriptions/insignias but, overtime that get’s pretty costly as well.

With the new content, and Raids coming out, your going to have to be flexible, and not everyone is going to have sets of gear/weapons to swap out/in for different builds.

Actually, that’s a good point. Can’t just make any other Ascended item and just switch the stat to one of the new ones?

6 hours is not casual. That’s pretty hardcore. And you are in the exact same boat that everyone else is in for how much the new items cost to make. I’ve already realized I won’t go Viper anytime soon. And I most people don’t have 1200g to begin with, even hardcore players.

Gasp! Months to gather materials for something?! How horrible!

/s

Considering MMOs are games people play for years, some even over a decade, I think a few months if completely reasonable to gather materials “the old fashioned way” to make something you want, with the added option of being able to buy them outright from the TP if you simply don’t want to spend the time.

I crafted both of my legendaries from scratch, with the exception of the precursors which I painstakingly saved money up for (it actually got me into TP flipping, which I found enjoyable, and now money isn’t really a problem, which is nice). But gathered up all of those T6 mats, lodestones (which I ended up selling all extra T6 mats I didn’t need anymore to put towards the lodestones), ectos, and everything else on my own. It took me two years or so playing casually (10hrs/week).

Why does everything need to be rushed?

Be considerate to casual players you mean the players they have catered to for 3 years casual players have been catered to for so long its the hardcore players turn.

I feel like this breaks down to the same argument used with Elite Specs. I want to use this feature, and since I want to use it I expect to be able to use it immediately and have complete access to it. Anything at all that interferes with this is obviously a punishment and proof that ANet hates me and how I want to play the game.

Odokuro.5049:

He’s still going to need Ascended gear for fractals, even if he is a casual player, casual players still participate in High-tier play.

I get what the OP is saying, it’s a pretty daunting task to gather what is needed, not to mention the time investment for a single set of gear, sure you can switch the stats with inscriptions/insignias but, overtime that get’s pretty costly as well.

With the new content, and Raids coming out, your going to have to be flexible, and not everyone is going to have sets of gear/weapons to swap out/in for different builds.

I like your post because it’s still relatively easy to get the Ascended trinkets you need to enter into Fractals, and as you progress, earn some gold/mats, make other Ascended over time … it’s not necessary to have the whole set starting out.

@ Kal Spiro: You could, if you plan on having a Mystic Forge in your back pocket, during a Raid, which you might need to “On the spot” change up your Build, and gear for whatever reason.

@ Obtena: Well there easy to get as long as you have the Laurels ect. for them, we got a big rush of new players when the Core game went F2P, as well as the rush of new players with the HoT launch, so not everyone have a few hundred “X” laying around to get them.

All in all, with all the people saying, “Not required unless for High level fractal”, “Ascended items aren’t that much better than Exotics”, “You really don’t need them to stay competitive”. For all those reasons and more, I believe that Ascended crafting should be looked at again, in terms of time/money investment, and make it more of a reasonable goal for someone new/casual to the game who like I said, doesn’t have access to disposable income to just toss at getting Ascended items.

Casuals were catered to before, hardcore players are being catered to now. You can’t cater to both, or you risk alienating both.

My issue is the game has been casual, it has been a game I can take a break from for 3 months, come back, and still do any content I want. Now that’s changed, and it shouldn’t. They should pick one philosophy and stick to it.

I believe the ascended equipment are at the right spot as of now in terms of time/money invested. i’ve got about 5 ascended chests from various contents of game and crafted a full set. With the recent addition of events making 300g (even as a casual player) takes less than a week. Any reduction in the amount of mats required in crafting ascended gear will be unfair to the ones who have crafted multiple sets and is likely to crash the material market which is source of gold for many.

So yeah, i dun think the ascended crafting is aimed at the hardcore players a casual can get as lucky with a chest and score an ascended piece. Crafting is just a sure way of getting one

SilverThorn.5047:

I believe the ascended equipment are at the right spot as of now in terms of time/money invested. i’ve got about 5 ascended chests from various contents of game and crafted a full set. With the recent addition of events making 300g (even as a casual player) takes less than a week. Any reduction in the amount of mats required in crafting ascended gear will be unfair to the ones who have crafted multiple sets and is likely to crash the material market which is source of gold for many.

So yeah, i dun think the ascended crafting is aimed at the hardcore players a casual can get as lucky with a chest and score an ascended piece. Crafting is just a sure way of getting one

I would love to hear how to make 300g in less than a week as a casual player.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I feel like this breaks down to the same argument used with Elite Specs. I want to use this feature, and since I want to use it I expect to be able to use it immediately and have complete access to it. Anything at all that interferes with this is obviously a punishment and proof that ANet hates me and how I want to play the game.

The Elite specs and most of the HOT content was intended to go hand in Hand. Most Elite specs have strong CCs, which is a major requirement to the new Break bar system. It also opens up (in theory anyway) multiple new build types… none of which we can’t experiment with unless the Elite Traits are fully unlocked.

Of all the things that needed to be readily accessible, the Elite specs were clearly one of them. But in an ironic twist of fate, the Elites on most classes are extremely flat, lack synergy, and hinge heavily on their Grandmaster trait….

In short, they aren’t even worth using until their fully unlocked. Theres no point in a growth curve thats regressed in the beginning, when the even the weakest mobs in the new areas are significantly more difficult then existing mobs, and built to be defeated by the high end of build performance.

How dumb is this? Its having someone work their way up to an M50 LMG, then making the enemies bullet proof. You then tell the player he needs laser guns to defeat them, hand him a pocket laser pointer, and say this is the starting weapon for the laser. Its a huge Catch 22…. You’re existing strategy is severely hampered in this new environment, but still stronger then the regressed weapon that you need to level up. But you can’t level up the regressed weapon unless you use it.

It was clear they wanted to start the player with very little (or even nothing) and work their way up. But the difficulty spike was so massive, that not giving them the tools would make it impossible to get past the “easiest” part of the ramp up in a meaningful time frame. Even in early GW2 areas, the difficulty didn’t outpace the expected power of the player….. but there was also that speed bump between level 50-70 where the mob difficulty spiked with the expectation of build synergy, but players lacked the trait points to achieve it. Its not until you can work with at least 1 grandmaster trait do you get the raw power to start dealing with mobs, and then have enough to get the secondary traits you need to compound it to really see the class take on a real threat.

saturn.4810:

I would love to hear how to make 300g in less than a week as a casual player.

4 hrs of SW chest farm = 11g/hr approx
44×7 = 308g week

flush all champ bags in mystic toilet… get lucky… score a precursor +500~800g

i got leaf of kudzu with flushes before you ask

Odokuro.5049:

@ Obtena: Well there easy to get as long as you have the Laurels ect. for them, we got a big rush of new players when the Core game went F2P, as well as the rush of new players with the HoT launch, so not everyone have a few hundred “X” laying around to get them.

… and Laurels are also easily gotten because the people that need ascended trinkets they buy are well positioned to obtain laurels. Being new isn’t even a valid excuse … PVP dailies are open to everyone with no entry cost.

No matter how you cut it, the progression for obtaining ascended and gaining fractal levels is clear and well paced. You don’t need a full ascended to enter fractals, you progress in fractals is balanced and regulated by your gear evolution from exotic to ascended. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence either and it’s smart because all these arguments about being unable to participate in game content because of not being able to get ascended fall apart in the face of that intelligent design.

Odokuro.5049:

@ Obtena: Well there easy to get as long as you have the Laurels ect. for them, we got a big rush of new players when the Core game went F2P, as well as the rush of new players with the HoT launch, so not everyone have a few hundred “X” laying around to get them.

I have a fresher at my work place who want’s to take my job that i have been working on for 4 years… he may not have ‘x’ amount of experience in the job but cmon he deserves a chance don’t he?

Looking at the materials needed for Ascended Vipers Insignia, wouldn’t it be cheaper to make different statted Ascended armour and then change to Vipers in the forge using the much cheaper Exotic Insignia. Haven’t checked to see if it’s possible, also don’t know if someone else has suggested it to you.

if there is an exotic insignia it’s quite possible…. however we all wanna reduce mats reqd :P

Yeah you need the exotic insignia to make the ascended one if I’m not mistaken.
It would seriously reduce the grind, removing the need for things like ley line sparks which have enough sinks already. Significantly reducing the cost of the armour.

SilverThorn.5047:

I believe the ascended equipment are at the right spot as of now in terms of time/money invested. i’ve got about 5 ascended chests from various contents of game and crafted a full set. With the recent addition of events making 300g (even as a casual player) takes less than a week. Any reduction in the amount of mats required in crafting ascended gear will be unfair to the ones who have crafted multiple sets and is likely to crash the material market which is source of gold for many.

So yeah, i dun think the ascended crafting is aimed at the hardcore players a casual can get as lucky with a chest and score an ascended piece. Crafting is just a sure way of getting one

Wow… I barely scraped together 1000g in over 1000 hours of gameplay (that’s including vanilla, where rewards were legitimate). And I went through both hardcore and casual times (some 1-hour weeks, some 14-hour days, etc). I’m all ears for a 300g/week earning. (Or do you just mean PvP ascended chests – associated value – rather than actual gold?)

Edit: Just saw your reply post. Hmm, that’s only assuming you’re on at the same time champion trains are on… and that by “casual” you mean 4 hours (casual for me is ~45 mins to an hour per day).

I know there are somewhat competing definitions of a “casual player”, but with 6 hours every day (mind you, that is almost a work day for most westeners), you are anything but. And when you do WB for that long a time, you are actually farming. Your problem is not “being casual”, your problem is not “the game is not catering to casuals anymore”. Your problem is you must be doing something really, really wrong in acquiring resources for the things you aim at. I suggest you find out what that is instead of Anet trying to change the game around your lacking strategy.

Just get the amulet, rings, and accessories. It takes no gold, just laurels and a few guild missions. You can even reduce the costs furthermore by spending a few hours in WvW.

After that, forget the ascended armors. Without it, you’re like 2% weaker than a full ascended player. It’s so insignificant that there is no need to be upset about it. You can even laugh at the people who spend a fortune on the ascended armors. Most of the stats are from the trinkets.

Too casual to spell a two letter word?

Swift.1930:

Wow… I barely scraped together 1000g in over 1000 hours of gameplay (that’s including vanilla, where rewards were legitimate). And I went through both hardcore and casual times (some 1-hour weeks, some 14-hour days, etc). I’m all ears for a 300g/week earning. (Or do you just mean PvP ascended chests – associated value – rather than actual gold?)

Edit: Just saw your reply post. Hmm, that’s only assuming you’re on at the same time champion trains are on… and that by “casual” you mean 4 hours (casual for me is ~45 mins to an hour per day).

I was referring to OP who said he has 3-4hrs game time daily and bout 6-8hrs on weekends. so i took 4 hrs on average. There are farming guilds for SW2 champ trains that are much faster and have more earning per hour. However if you barely dedicate like 45mins a day why do you care for ascended sets 45 mins is like 2 fracs on an average player a day. you could be doing great 1hr content with exotic set as well as there is like 5% stat increase in total.

Shikigami.4013:

You do not need ascended items to play, be it casual or hardcore. As soon as you complain about not being able to craft ascended items “as a casual player”, your point becomes invalid.

Ascended and legendary items are long term goals and it is intended that player will need a long time, so what you describe is nothing else than “working as intended”.

Getting “left behind” just because you have exotic gear while others may have ascended gear is an illusion and happens only in your head. I do not have a legendary, or ascended weapon and I do not worry in the slightest about “getting left behind”, and the difference in power is so small that you will likely never even notice it while playing. To be honest, your post seems to be a repetition of what people posted back long ago when ascended items were first announced.

Just a side note about gold buying: What you write makes no sense at all. If anyone is willing to spend real money to get ingame gold, the “current gem to gold ratio” which you say has “doubled” works in his favor and not against him. Because now he gets twice as much gold if he buys gems from ArenaNet and exchanges them for gold, which is a perfectly legit and intended thing to do. So the gem to gold ratio in no way drives people to 3rd party sites.

They have said we will need all ascended to raid.

Not that I currently have any intention to raid, in this game, but maybe the OP does, I don’t know?

…and yes, you can notice the difference while playing, whatever some may try to tell you to the contrary.

There again, I come from WoW, where min/maxing and noticing even the slightest improvement in performance/survivability is practically a pathological obsession.

Fluffball.8307:

You’re spending more time playing GW2 per week than I spend at my full-time job that bought a kitten 3-story house…

…and this, dear readers, is the entire problem with F2P (or even B2P).

Because, almost any job and certainly any (legal) job in any Western country, will earn you far, far more than you can ever earn in-game per hour.

Leaving people in a multiple-edged quandary of “Is it morally OK to pay real money for everything in a game?” and “But, if I do that, what is the point in playing at all?” and “But, if I do that, the game makers will be making far too much money for what they’re actually providing us with.”.

What an unpleasant dilemma it truly is…

What people need to realise is, if they make the game more casual than it already is, with everything in mind. There will be less things to do for everybody.

If everybody can do or craft everything with minimal time spent, there will be less things to do in the end for EVERYONE. The reason mmorpg’s have some things that take more time, is so people will have some things to do in the end.

How long did it take for most people to do everything gw2 had to offer when it was released? Not long, not even a month. That is bad, but it should never be like in WoW where every little thing take ages, i mean it, every little thing takes forever in WoW, and that is not the answer either.

You let everyone play all the game has to offer, but let some minor things take more time, and those minor things atleast in gw2 is gear (It is not a gear treadmil like in WoW thank god) and some things are actually truly rare in this game (Also thank god).

I’m sorry but i’m a casual too, and i disagree because you have to look at the big picture, you can still play the game even without ascended, legendaries etc. The answer i have to you is to NOT make these things take less time, maybe just introduce other means to get them that should take equal time/equal gold spent etc.

If the raid requires Ascended gear, that’s great. They should stick to that. If anything, maybe they should introduce other means to get ascended… what means is up to A-net, but they should never make it any easier/less time consuming/money consuming.

So to sum up, no.

Silly.5837:

You make very little sense, but I’ll try to explain in a way you may understand. Just because other people are farming masteries, it doesn’t mean that’s what you are forced to do. I have a couple guildies who rushed Masteries and already capped them out at 161. So what? I’ll take my time and it may take me a year to get there and I’m not bothered by that at all.

Which is fine until you come up against the Story or other content that’s GATED by masteries you haven’t got round to yet, at which time you’re forced to do the grind you put off until then.

Ok im being real here. All those guys who say that ascended does not matter are kinda lying through their teeth. Full ascended over full exotic gives you something like an 18% increase in effectivness. Not going for that is like gimping yourself. Now more than ever since you can stat swap acended armor and weapons.
Yes that armor itsself does not give much in the way of raw stats but you do get a very nice defense boost.
Also i would reccomend you go and farm your brain out at the silverw(h)astes right now!
When raids are out this stuff will be even more expensive since everyone and their mom is gonna try to make ascended armor.

Casual can be hardcore.
Casual = no much time to play.

That’s why they change Fractals for exemple. Now you just do 1 fractal instead of 3+boss.
And there is an AR checker !

Maximillian Greil.1965:

I think the underlying thing here, what everyone is trying to vocalize but it seems to not be worded correctly is as follows: in base GW2, you could play for 2-3 hours a day and feel like you accomplished something meaningful. You played some dungeons, did some pvp, did some world bosses, whatever. In HoT, 2-3 hours doesn’t seem to make a dent in anything. It makes things seem overwhelming.

That’s what I understand from the conversation anyway.

Guild Wars 1 was the same way though. Once you had everything in the base game done, the stuff you had left to do was like a long, slow crawl. Survivor title, Defender of Ascalon title, the kurzick/luxon progression, the lightbringer progression, filling books in Eye of the North….sure when you start a new character you get stuff like achievements really fast.

And then you get most of them and it takes a long time to get the next thing.

The problem isn’t that people can’t make progress. They simply can’t make the specific type of progress they want. They want masteries to be a short term goal when that wasn’t intended. But there are plenty of achievements that are easy to get. You can get through the story pretty fast (in fact that’s one of the complaints about the game).

So yeah. I get stuff accomplished every day. Now I play a lot more than most players. Then again I"m level 55 mastery and have a ton of the new achievements done.