Guild Wars 2

Even better, once you kill the guild claimer NPC, just aggro/pull/push the others out of the circle, and enjoy the free capping.

You can still fight them, and cap at the same time, as long as they are all outside the circle.

It’s just you.

The system put in place by the developers has been carefully thought out… over a development time of 5 (FIVE) years. It has been iterated and reiterated upon, until it reached the current incarnation we see in the game.
Feedback from both Alpha and Beta testers has been astounding, and all of them agreed it was a great system and could see no shortcomings with it.

Thus, the only logical conclusion is that’s it’s just you.

If you really have a problem with this… Stop playing.

Nothign else will ever deliver a message. Every one of you that still plays is only telling them “we’re suckers and we’ll put up with it, as long as it’s not too long and not too thick, and you give us a kiss afterwards”.

It’s “New Coke”, people.

They roll this masterpiece out, then when they go back to the old system, people will be happy and stop complaining. Then they don’t have to bother with actually fixing culling at all…

Moving Forward.

Mirta.5029:

Amonde Daneren.2380:

So why is this a problem? You don’t HAVE to play in Orr, or visit the maps. You can just go to Queensdale, or Plains of Ashford, or any of the other zone of the map.
Stop asking for everything to be handed to you. If you WANT to do the maps, then you have to work for them.

if you want full world completion, then you HAVE to enter Orr. It’s also a pain in the butt when you’re running trough ALL of it just to reach the level 80 zone. Those two maps (70-75, 75-80) suffer a really bad design and are intended for a lot of players to be running them constantly.

You can play the game without world completion, you don’t NEED it.
Get a guild, or go get a group in LA if you can’t solo it.

So why is this a problem? You don’t HAVE to play in Orr, or visit the maps. You can just go to Queensdale, or Plains of Ashford, or any of the other zone of the map.
Stop asking for everything to be handed to you. If you WANT to do the maps, then you have to work for them.

mulch.2586:

Amonde Daneren.2380:

Pizza doesn’t cost much, buy one every day and they add up.
Play only one character ever, moving forward, you won’t have to grind much for Ascended.
Play one of each profession and you could end up doing nothing but chasing the carrot forever.

But this is neither here nor there. As for people who are saying the Ascended increase is negligible…

Rings only: 0.85% damage over someone in Exotics
Greatsword only: 6.48% damage over someone in Exotics.
Greatsword and rings: 7.19% damage increase over someone in Exotics.

It shouldn’t be too hard to see what the difference becomes when you add up all the gear, and then with infusions on top it gets even higher.

Don’t make up pretend numbers…

Actual numbers, a ring will be less than that. Of course it depends on build and all, but getting all 3 ascended items will be around 1.25% increase in damage if you’re going power-style.

There is no ascended greatsword, and we’ll have to wait and see if/when ascended weapons are added.

For the time being, if you do or if you don’t, doesn’t very much matter.
Using actual number for actual items in game — We’re looking at shaving a second or two off a two-minute boss fight.

Ha, I love this kind of kitten. Take two characters, give them base stats, add the stats from rings and the greatsword they accidentally released, then run the damage formula (you can find it on the wiki). Ascended versus Exotic. My numbers will come up.

Whether it’s +5 power or +15 power is not the issue, the question is how much damage that translates to, versus someone in exotics.

Pizza doesn’t cost much, buy one every day and they add up.
Play only one character ever, moving forward, you won’t have to grind much for Ascended.
Play one of each profession and you could end up doing nothing but chasing the carrot forever.

But this is neither here nor there. As for people who are saying the Ascended increase is negligible…

Rings only: 0.85% damage over someone in Exotics
Greatsword only: 6.48% damage over someone in Exotics.
Greatsword and rings: 7.19% damage increase over someone in Exotics.

It shouldn’t be too hard to see what the difference becomes when you add up all the gear, and then with infusions on top it gets even higher.

If you had followed the progression of the game you would have seen that at one point they were talking about how earlier in development they had decided to go with NO LEVELS AT ALL. And how later on they we considering having infinite levels (much like you continue to gain “invisible levels” for skill points, it would just be a cosmetic thing).
Between this and “GW2 takes everything you love about GW1”, it was strongly implied.

All in all, this is moot now.

The no subscription fees argument for increasing stat caps is very soft. GW1 made them a ton of money, with a minimalism cash shop that was introduced late in the game’s life.

Wanna know the funny part? I spent more money in GW1 cash shop than i did in GW2. And that is for a very simple reason: I knew what I was buying. And it actually had some value. None of this random pack bullkitten. And the costumes, besides looking MUCH better. Could be worn at all times (even in combat).

But hey… TF2 hats generate more money than the whole of GW2, and it has capped stats, no vertical progression and all hats are purely cosmetic. It all comes down to offering something that is actually worthwhile, not an afterthought.

fled.4691:

Take a tip from a real life negotiator folks…are you holding to a position or an interest?

I don’t know about anybody else, but I am not negotiating for anything. I simply will not play this game as long as there is vertical progression, no matter how they dress it up.

The reason I am posting here is to make it very clear to them exactly why I am not playing anymore (people stop for all kinds of reasons). Since launch, I have played every day, right up until the patch.

They have metrics and will see exactly how many players quit, as well as how often they played and lord know what else. What they can’t see is why we stop, and that is the reason threads like this are important.

Yes, this. this so much. The ONLY way you will ever give them a clear message is to stop playing altogether.

The measure of increase as of this time is irrelevant. Anyone that can do math can see the difference between full ascended and full exotics is going to be 15% AT A MINIMUM without taking into account any infusions.

While that may be tolerable today, tomorrow they could very well add a new tier, which they have explicitly declined to rule it out.
Furthermore, with the cap being raised in future expansions, it opens up the path for progression without ever having to introduce new tiers. Just release an expansion every 6 months with 5 more levels and new gear to grind.

Those of you saying ignore it should understand this: none of us is willing to invest time in any endeavor where that time ultimately ends up being wasted. With vertical progression, you have to keep investing more time, always, or you get left behind and all those hours end up being nothing more than resentment.

The distinction between those asking for a cap and those asking for creep is not imaginary.
I have stopped playing the game altogether. On principle. Every other MMO out there has “progression” (except for GW1) and laughably they all do it far better.

Looking forward to A/net going around and pleasing each player out there, personally.

You are missing the point here a bit. The recent changes are in no way insignificant. I for one will no longer play this game, do you think the $60 or whatever are in any way compensation for the hours I now consider to have WASTED on this game?

If you’re in your 30s and start out a relationship by clearly stating that you want to have children, and the other person says that’s amazing that they love children so much, and that hearing this makes them happy; only to ultimately let you know 3 months down the line that they will not have children because they don’t want any… the $60 you spent on dinner are insignificant to the three months of wasted relationship that was never going to go anywhere.

Good to see your dojo is full of pawning noobs with your crushing skill. Be sure to keep up the good work in GW2.

To the people saying: two players are never equally matched, so there is always an imbalance, the ascended stats are not that much higher, it should not matter:

Personally I feel it comes down to this: If one gets outplayed, that’s fine. You both had access to the same things, same number of trait points, same gear, so if you got beat, it’s on you. You need to improve.
Having people out there that can potentially have better stats then you is like being stupid rich and dating… you always have that nagging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, they only like you for the money.

Not surprisingly, many rich people prefer not to let on that they are rich when meeting potential dates; while conversely others like to throw their wealth in people’s faces.

Can you see how it could matter now?

It’s OK, only the loyal fans of Arena.net and GW1 were really affected. And considering the amount of fun that game offed us, i for one do not regret my pre-purchase in the least, even if I am never going to play this game again because they added vertical progression.

As far as the logic of the refund, here in the EU, you have 6 months after purchase to evaluate a product and see if it meets your needs, if not you can ask for a refund, no questions asked.

For me there are no second chances to be given. This is no longer about mistakes, but irreconcilable differences.
I will not play a game with vertical progression. It doesn’t matter if it’s +1 or +50, if you need 1 demon eyes or 250 demon eyes. I can tolerate it, and frame it as an extended tutorial, as long as I have clear indication that it will at some point STOP.

The recent AMA was very informative, and gratz to them for doing it. I found out what I needed to know: this is not a game that I can play.
As for coming back, or still playing on the fringes, I will not do that as I feel it sends out mixed messages. I only wish their marketing campaign had made this point clearer, not for the money (i consider that a tip for the fun i had in GW1), but so that it has saved me the effort and time that I invested in a game that I cannot ever play the way I want to.

I agree with the first part of the title, but not the second.
I feel it is important for me to stop playing this game altogether, because that sends a very clear and unambiguous message: I will not tolerate any MMO with vertical progression.

My hope is that others do the same, and that some developer out there catches on to the fact that I, and many others like me want to play a game for the gameplay with no gear increases EVER.

If i hang around and just play on the fringes, I feel this sends the message that while I am not OK with this, I will tolerate it, and maybe I can even be converted. I can’t and won’t be converted.

Random people don’t just walk up to you and say things like that. Someone has to feel very cheated to get that kind of emotional response.

I for one would stop and ask myself if i had maybe done something wrong.

31, EU, I will not play any game with dangling carrots.

Mike O’Brian came out and said: “Presumably players aren’t shocked that GW2 rewards through progression, since it has a level 80 cap.”

What more is there to say… They have grown older, fatter and very very willing to please… everyone.

I will flat out not play any game that tries to dangle a carrot in my face. They have refused to say they will never add new tiers, just that they will not add them “for the foreseeable future”.
All I needed to know.

As of right now, I doubt there is.
With luck, after you and me and everybody else on the GW1 bandwagon -that is sick and tired of having to keep chasing carrots and having to spends tens if not hundreds of hours grinding to equip alts so we can have game play diversity- abandon this game it will be a big enough bleep for some other company to step in.

There can’t be that many of us. Surely someone is intelligent enough to come along and want to take our money, and keep taking it after 3 months.

I don’t know how to explain it any better but here goes…

Say there’s a book, or a movie, or a comic, or a TV show, or a series of book, or paintings, whatever. You love them and you just can’t get enough, and you are excited about them and you talk about them to other people, online, friends, it’s all great.

But then you have to start writing reports on them. It doesn’t have to be very frequent, and they don’t have to be overly long, but you HAVE to do them, or you start missing out on blooper reels, or maybe blog posts from the authors… and you have to keep doing them because if you stop, you start getting slowly cut off, over time. In time it will kill any and all joy you ever had for that thing you once loved.

The arguments of "it’s only 5 pages (only 5 % better stats guise, chilaxxxx), or that you don’t have to do it very often (we won’t release a new tier every three months), are irrelevant. When the activity becomes mandatory, fun starts to slowly fade, and then die.

zippo burntfur.9307:

Imo the biggest screw up they did was limiting how you could get ascended gear, making running FoTM did not score much imo. If they would have made craftable version’s, and pvp version’s from the get go, I think alot of this firestorm could have been negated or atleast deminished.

But they did make them craftable, friend.
250X Tier 6 Mats
50X Ecto
1X Drop of liquid RNG
and 24 skillpoints

And to upgrade that:
Previous Item
250x ecto
Concentrated Liquid RNG
and some skillpoints

I love this logic From O’Brien:

“Presumably players aren’t shocked that GW2 rewards through progression, since it has a level 80 cap.”

REALLY? GW1 had a level cap of 20, and no progression. Is this the new metric for how grindy an MMO is, the level cap on release?

Yeah we aren’t shocked that it rewards through progression, we are shocked that you have no decided that said progression is NEVER GOING TO END. Why keep chasing the carrot if you never ever get to eat it?

See, you might think that, but what I, and I am sure many others did, when faced with the prospect of getting to a high fractal level and then having to do that again and again on each alt is this:stop playing because we don't want to grind.

People keep saying: “They promised they won’t add a new tier”. They actually didn’t, they said they won’t add a new tier “every three months”. That means they can do it in one, or two, or four, or six.

People say “it’s not a grind, work for it”. Exotics require 5 blood, 5 ecto? Ascended require 250 blood (FIFTY times as much), and 50 ecto (ten times as much), and for the improved version another 250 ecto (FIFTY times as much). How would you describe that kind of increase? It’s not double, or triple, it’s x50. The only reason it’s not any higher is because items don’t stack to more than 250. And then there’s every other slot that will eventually have an Asceneded item made for it.

People are saying, “it’s not that much of a difference, it’s only X%”. Yeah, X% on the rings, on the backpack it’s huge increase, but even so, when you add all the other items they are going to add, it’s going to be at least six times bigger. Six armors, six trinkets, 2 weapons; that’s a lot of little bumps that add up to a BIG power bump.

People say “it won’t affect you, so ignore it”. It might not affect me now directly, but already the rest of the game is being dried up. And it will sure as kitten affect me later, when they have released all the ascended items. What? You think they will make new content at the old power level?

To everyone that says “it will be available later in WvW and other ways”, i direct you to the long list of features that were supposed to be in the game at launch and are still not there yet. All we know is “soon”. Soon doesn’t really mean anything. Why was it not there now?

Wow, just wow. The lack of clear reading comprehension in this thread is staggering.

When you give your gold to get gems, you are NOT getting them from A.net directly.
You get them from other players that choose to sell gems they have for your gold.
The gems they have, either came from other players (bought with gold) or from A.net (bought with real money).

TL; Can’t even read: You can’t buy gems for gold until someone else buys them with real money and chooses to sell them to you.

They KD each and every second during their channel.
If you have a stun breaker you need to use it IMMEDIATELY after their damage packet and the dodge out. (can be hard to do if there’s multiple things hitting you)
Their charge animation can be “lost” in tight corridors, fighting several monsters and the KITTEN fire/burning particle effects that always cover it.
They can be charging up to attack another player who then dodges out of the way, causing them to hit someone else that was standing behind/to the side, concentrating on another foe.

Find a skill challenge NPC.
Activate the event.
Knock it down a cliff.
Push it far away.
You have now prevented most other people on your server from accessing it.

Remember when we had to wait for server resets to do skill points? Man, that sure was fun, let’s bring that back.

Because they have no experience with this sort of thing.
GW1 launched in 2005, with a level cap of 20, and an item power cap that never went up. NEVER.

There were titles to grind for (some that offered resistances and bonuses versus certain types of enemies); There were armors and weapons to grind for (some with requirements as crazy as the Legendaries), there was a boatload of ‘grind’ available, but all of it was optional and none of it made a player stronger than the other.
Max level and Stats could be obtainment within 8 hours of playtime and what amounts to ~5 gold in GW2.

It’s both funny and sad how badly this whole thing turned out.

Or it can be attributed to people that feel the latest patch is a departure from the game we were told we would be buying before launch, and are therefore refusing to play or play until we are given clear, factual answers as to the direction the game is headed in.

You can use gold to buy gems that others have bought with real money, and have elected to sell to you.

It’s sad that instead of standing up and saying; “NO, we will not put up with this RNG kitten! The manifesto clearly mentioned that RNG rewards are un-fun and that there would be a token system” you guys keep trying.

They will then point at the metrics and declare that the system was a great success due to the number of people that ran on the wheel, and then proceed to spread it further and include in any and all new content.

Guys, guys, why are you complaining. Didn’t you buy this game specifically for the promise of no/minimal grind?

The developers worked so hard so that you could enjoy this content over and over again, on each character, with no grind.
They made each level separate and are forcing you to go through each one so that there is no grind.

Why so ungrateful?

If only there was a different MMO out there… One developed by a company that would come out with a Manifesto where they would specifically say that RNG is un-fun and would be replaced with tokens; so that players always got rewarded and could always estimate exactly how much time and effort would be required to obtain an item.

It’s very easy to track down the source of this using Goole. Competent programmers are creating these bots and then selling them to people. The bots are super good for this sort of thing. They can scan the map for resources, and then teleport there to gather them and then move on. In fact, the better ones do this UNDERNEATH the map (think of Mesmers accidentally teleporting under the terrain in that “water” that is always under every terrain), so they can’t be attacked or seen, and don’t even need to level to farm the high end areas.

And this is one of the more benign bot/hax/exploits. The ones in PvP are so much more fundamentally worse. So many things in this game are broken.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Please stop comparing this change to “mortal imminent danger”. Pretty please. I do not require playing this game. I do require my life. There is a nontrivial difference.

But this is the thing you don’t get… It is both very clear mortal danger to many of us. There are tens if not HUNDREDS of grinding gear progression MMOs that come out with higher level caps and gear tiers in expansions. There is NO OTHER MMO built on the idea of horizontal progression without the ever expanding stat ceiling (other than GW1 ofc).

This is the reason those opposing ascended gear are speaking out so strongly. We have one last hope, and it is being ruined by people that want a TOTALLY different kind of game, and bought this one being wholly uninformed as to what kind of game it was supposed to be.

Fractal reward chest discourages grouping.
Fixed that for you.

But Ascended gear is int he game RIGHT NOW. SO we need Inspection.

If they ever remove it, then we won’t need, it but we need it now, tonight, so we can filter people out of our groups.

It’s working as intended, or it would not have been released.

If what you say would be implemented, there would be less content gating, less grind, and people would just skip to a difficulty they are comfortable with, instead of grinding though many levels of much lower difficulty.
Then you would get “noobs” and “scrubs” and "casuals’ being carried into the lower levels where they would then pug and make it harder for the elite groups to get a super uber leet group of doom.

If you cannot play the game because of real life, accidents, natural disasters or acts of god, then you don’t deserve to keep up with everyone else and get “wellfare FOTM progression”.

The reason why i oppose this change is because it goes against their Manifesto, which was what caused me to buy the game in the first place.

It is better for progress to be character bound because then you are forced to experience the content again and again. It is more enjoyable when you can do level 21, but are forced to do everything from 1 again.

I really don’t see a reason why progress should EVER apply to all characters, because they are not you, it’s not your skill that matters’ it’s the characters stats and skills and gear that are important.

It’s like totally not a grind.

They added ascended gear… so now they have to add inspection. Without infused gears, players will die and be a burden to the team. This is what content gating is… you can’t access the content, without the key: Ascended items.

As soon as you reach level 10, there’s agony, so players need a way to be sure that other players (which are always worse players than them, obviously) have the necessary ascended crutch to carry them (all randoms are unskilled).

So either they add Inspect feature, or they remove Ascended gear.

Sure friend, you enjoyed the journey, as did I, but then I made another character… And the journey was less shiny, but still acceptable.

Now I look up at the Ascended gear wall, and all I can think is that IF I do go and climb it, There might be another wall at the top. And IF I do climb it, I have to then climb it again and again for each other profession I want to play. And then I log out.

Everyone is missing the point. In DoA, if you were with a full guild group, as a player you could CHOOSE to take someone with 0 Lightbringer, it was your choice to take them or not.

FOTM does not let you choose. If i have 4 guildies online and 3 of them are on difficulty 10 with me while the last is on difficulty 1, it will only let you enter on difficulty 1. That person could have done up to 20 on another character, but on this one they are level 1, and it will STILL not let you.

This is worse than in WoW. Worse than in just about nay other MMO. And sure, you can go do levels 1-10 again, and AGAIN, just because you don’t have the right people online, or they have to take a break.

It’s beyond absurd. It’s even worse when you are a Commander in WvW. You simply cannot coordinate anything because you are suppressed within minutes.

No, but that isn’t going to happen. Blatant bait and switch, and a to add insult to injury, they act as if they did nothing wrong and insult our intelligence with “this is not a grind” posts.

Sure, they are meant to be hard, just like every other explorable dungeon. None of them are inherently pug friendly. Problem is the stupid artificial gating system.

To better illustrate, consider this:
You must do Story mode on every character for a dungeon if you want to join an explorable group.
You must complete Path 1 in that day if you want to do Path 2.
You must complete Path 2 in that day if you want to do Path 3.

That’s what the current fractals are, essentially. I’ve done 44 fractals according to my achievement tab, without ever failing one, and am still only on level 8. I currently have 6 guildies online, but can’t play, because i am sick of getting people through the lower levels, it does not benefit me at all. I don’t have the right people online in order to progress. I am forced to progress to at least level 10 in order to play the daily RNG lottery and hope to get a ring, or vial in order to be able to keep progressing when the right people do end up being online.

All the people saying but they added stuff, the old stuff is still there, just keep doing that… You can’t. there just aren’t enough people, to uncontested the dungeons and do them with.

Protip, if you have a banana in your group, you are carrying it. Being a fruit does not mean they can press the proper buttons. Same with vegetables.

If there is scaling in there, it’s because it was added INTENTIONALLY.