Guild Wars 2

Whoa, what? Salvage all? Haven’t seen that yet.

Map rewards are excellent, though I’m a bt confused as to what triggers them.

I played the new WoW expansion for a week, saw a lot of knock-off GW2 mechanics, and thought, “Why am I paying a sub for this when I could play the real thing for free?”

So, after almost 2 years away from the game, I reinstalled GW2, picked up HoT, and finally hit 80 for the second time on my Elementalist.

Then I hit 400 in cooking and artificer, and killed Zhaitan again.

Fear Not This Night played, confetti rained down on Fort Trinity and I was hooked like it was 2012.

The changes to champ loot drops, the revised daily login rewards, mastery system, and the pivot away from the “two models facing each other” storytelling are massive improvements to the game.

I’m currently tearing through LW Season 2 before diving into Heart of Thorns in earnest, and farming up mats and gifts for The Bifrost.

I think Guild Wars 2 is in a great spot in the MMO space, and I’m excited to see what the rest of LW leads into.

(Thanks Anet!)

Are there any other changes, subtle and overt, that returning players (or veterans!) are really enjoying in the last few patches?

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Nerfing DPS is the first step they are taking towards adding the next tier of gear.

How do you figure?

Pariah.8506:

Mackdose.6504:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m pretty sure that when proponents of other sets asked for the gap to narrow, they weren’t just asking for berserker to be lowered — they were asking for others sets to be more effective/desirable. This is not what will happen. No mob changes, no adjustments to the effectiveness of other gear set-ups.

What ANet is doing is the functional equivalent of adding ~10% to the health of mobs — but only for dedicated DPS-max groups. The experience of non-berserker groups will not change at all. The experience of groups with a berserker or two will be slightly longer run times. Dedicated speed run groups are no more likely to be willing to accept soldier or cleric users than they were before.

This change is nothing other than ANet taking the easy way out by adjusting some numbers in tables — rather than accepting the harder task of actually fixing mobs to be more diverse, have better AI, and to demand more diversity because of their mechanics. It’s a cop-out.

They could be doing both you know. I assume you understand how hard AI in an open environment is to code. This means long development, and a massive amount of testing.

We already have AI in the heart of the Mists that dodges, cleans conditions and uses more than that one skill whenever it’s off its CD.
We had smarter mobs in the first beta (whose flaw of being turned harmless by AoE could easily be fixed by allowing them to attack on the move just like us).

Honestly they’ve got a lot covered already, and I’m sure that many others like me will greatly appreciate enemies that require a different approach than huddling in a corner.

Call me a hardcore elitist (lol) but I enjoyed when roaming the field was a dangerous proposition.

I’d suggest a hardcore server but that’d split the player base too much.

Toroxus.9256:

Immensus.9732:

yeah the only mmo i remeber releasing numbers is WOW and that because they wanted to show off their record amount of players they had playing wow

That’s because the only reason people play WoW is numbers.

This is true on so many levels.

Space Odin.2605:

Recently Anet stated that: “Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population,”

What’s keeping them from officially releasing the numbers? Why can’t the actual server population be shown in the server selection menu instead of just how many accounts are linked to that shard? Talk is cheap I want to see the proof.

You could play the game to see proof.

Less flippant:

Unless you can say “our numbers are higher than WoW’s” there’s literally no point in releasing numbers.

Ashen.2907:

Mackdose.6504:

Morgash.3165:

Mackdose.6504:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m pretty sure that when proponents of other sets asked for the gap to narrow, they weren’t just asking for berserker to be lowered — they were asking for others sets to be more effective/desirable. This is not what will happen. No mob changes, no adjustments to the effectiveness of other gear set-ups.

What ANet is doing is the functional equivalent of adding ~10% to the health of mobs — but only for dedicated DPS-max groups. The experience of non-berserker groups will not change at all. The experience of groups with a berserker or two will be slightly longer run times. Dedicated speed run groups are no more likely to be willing to accept soldier or cleric users than they were before.

This change is nothing other than ANet taking the easy way out by adjusting some numbers in tables — rather than accepting the harder task of actually fixing mobs to be more diverse, have better AI, and to demand more diversity because of their mechanics. It’s a cop-out.

They could be doing both you know. I assume you understand how hard AI in an open environment is to code. This means long development, and a massive amount of testing.

Open environment… we are talking fractals and dungeons as well… that’s where there are speed runs.. not in open world. There is no reason not to fix 5 man group dungeons for a more diverse build/class make ups.

How would you fix it, then? I’m genuinely interested.

Also, Mob AI is kind of a global thing.

Do you think it would be possible for mob AI to be altered in dungeons ? I know that setting the game to hardmode altered mob AI in GW1. Do you think the varying AI based on instance settings could be managed here ?

Thing is I’d want better AI in the game as a whole, not just in my preferred play ground.

I actually enjoyed when mobs could kick my skrit in playing GW1 and the first and second betas of GW2.

Morgash.3165:

Mackdose.6504:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m pretty sure that when proponents of other sets asked for the gap to narrow, they weren’t just asking for berserker to be lowered — they were asking for others sets to be more effective/desirable. This is not what will happen. No mob changes, no adjustments to the effectiveness of other gear set-ups.

What ANet is doing is the functional equivalent of adding ~10% to the health of mobs — but only for dedicated DPS-max groups. The experience of non-berserker groups will not change at all. The experience of groups with a berserker or two will be slightly longer run times. Dedicated speed run groups are no more likely to be willing to accept soldier or cleric users than they were before.

This change is nothing other than ANet taking the easy way out by adjusting some numbers in tables — rather than accepting the harder task of actually fixing mobs to be more diverse, have better AI, and to demand more diversity because of their mechanics. It’s a cop-out.

They could be doing both you know. I assume you understand how hard AI in an open environment is to code. This means long development, and a massive amount of testing.

Open environment… we are talking fractals and dungeons as well… that’s where there are speed runs.. not in open world. There is no reason not to fix 5 man group dungeons for a more diverse build/class make ups.

How would you fix it, then? I’m genuinely interested.

Also, Mob AI is kind of a global thing.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m pretty sure that when proponents of other sets asked for the gap to narrow, they weren’t just asking for berserker to be lowered — they were asking for others sets to be more effective/desirable. This is not what will happen. No mob changes, no adjustments to the effectiveness of other gear set-ups.

What ANet is doing is the functional equivalent of adding ~10% to the health of mobs — but only for dedicated DPS-max groups. The experience of non-berserker groups will not change at all. The experience of groups with a berserker or two will be slightly longer run times. Dedicated speed run groups are no more likely to be willing to accept soldier or cleric users than they were before.

This change is nothing other than ANet taking the easy way out by adjusting some numbers in tables — rather than accepting the harder task of actually fixing mobs to be more diverse, have better AI, and to demand more diversity because of their mechanics. It’s a cop-out.

They could be doing both you know. I assume you understand how hard AI in an open environment is to code. This means long development, and a massive amount of testing.

Question, Zerkers.

If berzerker gear is still the best dps gear, what exactly would you swap to?

Everything I loved about GW1:

1. No sub fee.
2. Flat stat curve.
3. Gorgeous artwork.
4. Amazing score.
5. Interesting lore.
6. Fresh take on fantasy.
7. Fun, engaging combat.
8. PvP

Manifesto: 1 — Unrealistic Expectations: 0

Flissy.4093:

Grats! This sure is going to make me pick up Clerics, Soldiers and Magi! Good job ArenaNet, diversity has been promoted!

/endsarcasm.

Actually less diverse now, professions that used parts of Assassin over Berserker, such as Guardian, Warrior & Ele, to min/max are now just going to sit in full Berserker.

But even as a whole, this is a fair change for regular dungeons, maybe players will have to take note of mechanics of bosses now, because as it was the “risk” by dropping the defensive stats was nowhere near the reward obtained from the offensive stats.

This little change could be enough alteration to burst damage of groups that, for example, they now need to acknowledge Kholer’s spin, and may have to find a source of vigor/extra dodge for Subject Alpha.

You do realize you just neutered your whole point with that last paragraph, right?

Flissy.4093:

Mackdose.6504:

Flissy.4093:

Flissy.4093:

Actually less diverse now, professions that used parts of Assassin over Berserker, such as Guardian, Warrior & Ele, to min/max are now just going to sit in full Berserker.

Since when was min/maxing (read: cookie cutter max dps) a sign of diversity?

We will now only be using 1 gear type – Berserker – instead of 2, Berserker & Assassin. Any defensive stat sets are still not even going to get a glance, because they still are useless to someone worth their kitten.

That doesn’t address what I said at all.

Oh no, 30k 100B crits will now only crit for 27k. The horror.

Amiron.1067:

I’m going to eat my words now. They are indeed nerfing zerker gear (by ~10% they said), and I’m very disappointed with the dev team. Here I was hoping they would actually make other builds more viable.

Instead, they make the strongest build 10% less strong, while doing absolutely nothing to other stats to make them more desirable in pve situations. Shame on me for having even the slightest amount of faith in ANet.

Yeah, instead they should’ve introduced a never ending stream of power creep by bringing every other stat allocation up, that would make the game much better.

/sarcasm

Flissy.4093:

Flissy.4093:

Actually less diverse now, professions that used parts of Assassin over Berserker, such as Guardian, Warrior & Ele, to min/max are now just going to sit in full Berserker.

Since when was min/maxing (read: cookie cutter max dps) a sign of diversity?

Aeonblade.8709:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Asia Skyly.7198:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And no, you can’t use high level Fractals as an argument for gearing.
…

Are you serious? Why not? Because it invalidates your statement? Fractals is the sole reason for Ascended armor to be honest. Limiting you to one character is by definition NOT Alt Friendly.

Because it’s an invalid argument. Fractals are elite dungeons. If you want to do the elite content, you gear yourself appropriately. If you want to be able to play the other 99% of the game, you don’t need Ascended.

Just because you can’t afford to do one dungeon, does not mean the game is alt unfriendly.

If you do WvW, full ascended is also required to play to the best of your classes capabilities. Min/Max baby, min/max

Actually, you have to be good at the game to play to the best of your class’s abilities.

All the gear in the world won’t save you from chain CC.

Asia Skyly.7198:

The current system is punish altoholics and it pigeon holes players into a build. What if that build changes?

Except it doesn’t do that unless you absolutely must have the best possible gear for all alts at level cap, for all builds.

I can’t be the only one who finds the above scenario preposterous.

MrRuin.9740:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category. Some players feel that they should be able to get all the BiS gear quickly and easily. Because Ascended gear takes time and effort to craft, you get the push back from players who don’t want to expend the time and effort.

Do you have this ready to paste in any topic that talks about Ascended?
Maybe you should read some of the topics you paste this into in a blind rush to defend something people aren’t even asking for. Very few, if any, are asking for it to be easy or quick.

Let’s assume that they removed the time-gate.

Now we have threads about how those with more time to play are “getting catered to” because the grind can be done in marathon mode. Now the game is casual-unfriendly.

No way to win.

Astralporing.1957:

1. “In every MMO” – “everyone is doing it”, or “it has always been that way” was never a good argument against changing things for the better. Or for changing things for the worse.

But it does set the standard of what is a reasonable request and what isn’t. If I went to any MMO forum and requested that I should have all of my characters geared BiS in even 3 months, I’d be flamed to death. 3 months isn’t enough time in other MMOs to even have a main geared in BiS. Perhaps you should get some perspective before implying that this game is unfriendly to alts.

You don’t need BiS on every character to enjoy your characters, or the game. You aren’t missing out on content by not having BiS. Making Ascended gear easier to get would defeat the point of why it was introduced in the first place, not to mention be a slap in the face of everyone who’s worked for it.

2. Even if i agreed with you on the “non MMO” part about GW1 (and i don’t), it has no bearing whatsoever on the argument at hand. GW1 proved, that this is in fact possible. Ignoring it because the game was labeled slightly differently doesn’t make that fact suddenly go away. It only makes you look desperate to ignore arguments that do not fit your theory.

First off, ArenaNet’s label for the game is CORPG. Whether you agree with the label is irrelevant. GW1 was designed completely differently using different design goals than GW2. GW2 is a western MMO, Guild Wars is not. [source: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars]

3. I can hold the game to this standard, because the game once promised to hold to that standard.

Exotics are easy to get on every character. Promise fulfilled.

For some, yes. For some, not so much. And the curve, partly due to existence of ascended, i bet, seems to be shifting already.

Cite your sources, or this is pure speculation.

It won’t carry me, but it sure as hell is going to help.

Get a pink weapon then, as that will be the largest part of your damage increase. You hardly need every slot for every character.

Astralporing.1957:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Astralporing.1957:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

morrolan.9608:

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to grind.

But here’s the catch. You don’t have to grind.

Ah yes, another fallback position, used when there’s no real arguments addressing the problem. Yes, i don’t have to. It doesn’t change the fact that it is alt unfriendly. Extremely alt unfriendly, in fact.

The fact that you bring up non-existent problems pretty much highlight my side of the argument. This game allows you to gear and play all the alts you have.

People want BiS gear, but don’t like the requirements. That’s fine. You can have the tier right below it. Exotics aren’t much different stat wise, and are much cheaper. Very alt friendly.

Yes, yes, i understand your argument well. GW2 is very alt-friendly. Unless i actually want to have alts, and play the game. But hey, i don’t need to, so it’s okay.

C’mon Astral, you know that you’re ignoring Exotics to suit your argument.

The game doesn’t offer Ascended gear without time and effort. That doesn’t make the game “alt-unfriendly.” It means that your alts either have to settle with -GASP- Exotics, or you have to play the game to earn BiS on every toon you want BiS on.

This isn’t unreasonable.

morrolan.9608:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category.

Ah yes entitlement, the fallback position to demonise those who don’t want to play the game.

Fixed that for you.

Yes, you are entitled if you feel like the game owes you something for doing nothing.

Hule.8794:

In 1 year Anet added one new tier of weapons/armor. We have another year in front, will we see new time-gated armor or weapons?

I highly doubt it.

Look for Infusions increasing in power, though.

I have a couple points to chime in on here.

1. In what MMO (this excludes Guild Wars 1, which was a co-op RPG) have you ever been able to get BiS for every character you have at level cap easily or quickly? Zero. Stop holding this game to an unreasonable standard.

2. Since when was BiS considered “gearing up” in this game? Did you anti-pink-gear guys forget that Exotics are already above the power curve of the game? Exotics let you smash on every piece of PvE content until you get to high-level fractals. If you’re going on a tear about WvW, get a better understanding of the game, because you should know that gear won’t carry you.

I’m also really tired of reading “I CAN’T EXPERIMENT WITH BUILDS.” Yes you can, there’s this rarity called “Exotic.” I’m sure you’ve seen the orange text before. This is the rarity to experiment with. It’s cheap and readily available by many, many avenues.

Being unreasonable isn’t a convincing argument to make, and that’s all this thread is.

Delta Blues.8507:

Man srsly you’re arguments and examples are so stupid they make me feel like confronting with a colorblind kid that pretends to help someone cross a street looking at a traffic light.

MOBA games make you start on the same level as your opponent, so your argument is invalid as you start each fight on the same level and same gear as your opponent, it’s not like you start the game with “ascended swords” that already give you an edge before you hit anything.

And for the rest i’ll just quote the awesome reply of zaragoz on the 12th page

zaragoz

I say this as a player who has full ascended and is working on an alternate set of full ascended now. I think its absurd to stay competitive in a game mode I enjoy I am forced to do a stupid meaningless task on a daily basis. Just my 2 cents, but I feel like the only players who would be against this are the ones who need a crutch to stand on and enjoy killing players who are at a stat disadvantage to them.

There is no argument as to why ascended makes things better, it does not. The fact that wvw is already not balanced doesn’t make it an excuse to implement even more things that are imbalanced.

In fact, if you’d take away all the things that unbalance pvp in wvw that are only obtainable through grinding and/or that are exclusive you’d already have much better fights.

you could start taking away:
wvw rank stat buffs
ascended
bloodlust

and you’d already see much better fights around. Sure, you’ll still see uneven numbers, but at least small scale battles and occasional encounters won’t be destroyed by stat gap. Saying it’s alright to screw that up as everything else is already trash is not really smart thinking to me

And you can save yourself from saying that wvw is about holding objectives since the only thing that matters and that everyone does is agglomerating in karma trains flipping a map and then moving to another

Until I see someone get destroyed by a stat gap, I’m going to assume it doesn’t happen.

This thread has demonstrated that this is a valid position to take.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

If you have limited time and want to get an ascended weapon, you will have to join the “do it the efficient way” zergs, otherwise you might never get the best loot.

I don’t care if I have the best loot. Missing it is not impeding me from having fun.

There’s this idea floating around that if the best loot is in the game, you must have it right now! This idea is bullskritt.

The skill system is as good as you make it.

I mean, GW2 combat has animation cancels that usually only exist in fighting games. The cancels aren’t there by accident.

The skills are meant to be simple so that you can pay attention to the battlefield and react to telegraphs. They have long CDs because you’re meant to use them situationally rather than in rotation. Weapon skills lend themselves to certain skill combinations (Ele staff and the arcane blast and bolt abilities for example).

There’s depth there, it’s just not very obvious.

Nick.6972:

I guess I missed the Official Manifesto Explanation video then.
Good thing they made it known for everyone who didn’t spend time researching every bit of information posted on unofficial sites.

Maybe you should pay less attention to a 3 year old video. Just my two copper.

I dunno, I’m still not really reward motivated in this game. Farming chains and figuring out the most efficient way to get rich isn’t appealing to me.

I still play events whenever I see them, mobs in DEs typically have better loot than the overworld mob packs (This might be complete folly, but it’s what I’ve noticed).

I’m guilty of roleplaying in the world and fighting DEs are about as In-Character as it gets.

I like to log on an hour before the reset and hammer out two daily achieves in one session.

Using this method allows me to miss a day (Pacific timezone here) without missing a laurel.

I too would like to axe my enemies a question.

I could see it on warrior, ranger, engineer (yeah, I went there), elementalist, and necro.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

That is what you think, but hey, everyone thinks, and the others are always wrong.

It would have been enough for the hardcore players to seperate themselves from the casuals, that is all that was needed.

Simple and basic human psychology.

Ascended gear isn’t meant to separate the “hardcore” from “casuals,” is was meant to give the player base something to reward them for playing the game after they got full exotics.

It’s like I’m forced to argue in circles.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

But that doesn’t matter, it still makes this gear tier better. Therefore there is a motivation to get it.

Simply as that.

It doesn’t matter to you.

With the rune set bonuses in Exotics, I don’t think just the infusion slot would have been enough.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

No, you only see progress as a raise in stats, your view is fairly narrow.

This is not true for me at all, however there are a lot of people who do think this way.

And there is even a raise in a stat, agony resistance, and you still don’t see progression?

But you can’t take those stats out of the fractal instance which doesn’t really provide the progress that a lot of players are looking for.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

You would have agony progress, you would have tier level progress? I don’t see your point.

No, you refuse to see my point, there’s a difference.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

TL;DR: You’re not reading anything I’m typing, or have no counter-point.

Nah, you can just not give a reasonable point for why ascended gear needed better stats in game.
It helps noone anyway, maybe it is trivializing the content, and who wants that?

Reasonable point for why it needed higher stats: power is the largest player motivator in video games.

“Why the hell would I grind for something that gives literally 0 benefit?” – majority of MMO players

versus

“OH SNAP, THAT THING GIVES +10 OVER MY CURRENT GEAR? MUST HAVE BIS.” -the same MMO players.

People did it for the looks of legendaries, people would have done it of the agony stat and slot. That would have been more than enough.

Your better stat argument is futile in this matter. Otherwise legendary would never have been popular in the first place…

Yeah, my well documented fact is nothing compared to your hypothetical scenario. /rolleyes

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001612.php?page=2

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

TL;DR: You’re not reading anything I’m typing, or have no counter-point.

Nah, you can just not give a reasonable point for why ascended gear needed better stats in game.
It helps noone anyway, maybe it is trivializing the content, and who wants that?

Reasonable point for why it needed higher stats: power is the largest player motivator in video games.

“Why the hell would I grind for something that gives literally 0 benefit?” – majority of MMO players

versus

“OH SNAP, THAT THING GIVES +10 OVER MY CURRENT GEAR? MUST HAVE BIS.” -the same MMO players.

CrassBippy.4619:

Anyone who makes excuses as to why ascended is ok for wvw don’t want a balanced pvp game. There is no argument as to why ascended makes things better, it does not.

It is completely unnecessary and is simply a mechanism to retain players and make money. This has nothing ti do with “make it like spvp” its making a gametype balanced. Even footing.

People for ascended are the ones who already play a ton, and don’t care about balanced fights. Its pretty obvious as to why balance promotes pvp play, so all counter arguments are kind of pointless. just scale stats down to exotic in wvw. You keep your fancy weps, game stays easier to balance

Nothing about WvW is promoting “even footing.”
Scale stats up to ascended or make no changes.

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

With a long/low power curve, the grind is never over. And, if you have alts, you are acutely aware that you may be years of grinding away from having them all outfitted. This is usually where white knights trot out the, well, you don’t really need ascended gear. I’m sorry, but I understand the implications of positively relating power to time, which is the mechanism of VP. And, if it truly doesn’t matter, why on earth would you spend resources to create something that doesn’t matter and is of no consequence. Anet knows that it does matter. VP is a hook that stimulates increased gameplay. Anet knows exactly what it does and why they implemented it—they are gaming professionals after all.

You may understand the theory, but you fail to allow anyone else who doesn’t share the drive to get BiS (like myself) to say that the gear isn’t mandatory. You basically parade your interpretation of vertical progression around like it’s fact when the game is literally staring you in the face and saying you’re wrong.

It’s not just the low power curve, it’s the fact that the environment doesn’t scale up statistically with player power. The whole game minus fractals is 2 rarity tiers behind the BiS curve.

Anet makes encounters difficult using environmental mechanics, dodge or die power attacks and large numbers of hard hitting mobs that need to be controlled.

---

As for the time gap, there absolutely was one.

You could get exotics pretty much instantly.
You could get a legendary after months of grinding.

Anet sees that without medium term goals, players would get bored with exotics and quit(majority), or stick around to grind out a legendary (minority).

Enter ascended gear, a tier to give players in full exotics a goal that will yield a tangible reward after a medium-sized time sink. The increased power is that tangible reward.

You can dance around with semantics all you want, but prior to pink gear, there were no medium-term goals to pursue.

I don’t have an interpretation of vertical progression. I understand it’s history in gaming. I know its definition, how it functions, and why it would be chosen as a method of character progression. I know its pros and cons. They are not mine as I learned them myself from general definitions and understandings. You can google the terms yourself and learn everything I have learned.

It’s actually incredibly simple. In terms of motivation, it is thought to provide players with a sense of character progression, and it provides an incentive for regular play. You can understand it by understanding the words that make up the concept: vertical, the power level of the game increases; progression, it increasing continually over time. By relating power to time the incentive becomes an offer you can’t refuse. To understand this you only need to understand the dynamics of a curve where X is time and Y is power.

OK, you want to say that VP is not mandatory. Understanding what it is (see above) and noting that the power level of the game has increased by 10% within one year, let’s suppose this is the rate chosen for the power curve. OK, you want to play long term, for years. I personally have no problem with you thinking that 10% is not significant, but what will you think in the 4-5 year timeframe when the difference is ~50%. You can’t possibly see this as insignificant. And it will be 50% in that timeframe at the current rate. This is not my understanding or interpretation of VP. It’s simply what it is and how it functions.

On time and power gaps. Time and power are two different dimensions. There is no need to address a time gap by raising the power level of the game.

TL;DR: You’re not reading anything I’m typing, or have no counter-point.

Sardonia.8196:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

With a long/low power curve, the grind is never over. And, if you have alts, you are acutely aware that you may be years of grinding away from having them all outfitted. This is usually where white knights trot out the, well, you don’t really need ascended gear. I’m sorry, but I understand the implications of positively relating power to time, which is the mechanism of VP. And, if it truly doesn’t matter, why on earth would you spend resources to create something that doesn’t matter and is of no consequence. Anet knows that it does matter. VP is a hook that stimulates increased gameplay. Anet knows exactly what it does and why they implemented it—they are gaming professionals after all.

You may understand the theory, but you fail to allow anyone else who doesn’t share the drive to get BiS (like myself) to say that the gear isn’t mandatory. You basically parade your interpretation of vertical progression around like it’s fact when the game is literally staring you in the face and saying you’re wrong.

It’s not just the low power curve, it’s the fact that the environment doesn’t scale up statistically with player power. The whole game minus fractals is 2 rarity tiers behind the BiS curve.

Anet makes encounters difficult using environmental mechanics, dodge or die power attacks and large numbers of hard hitting mobs that need to be controlled.

---

As for the time gap, there absolutely was one.

You could get exotics pretty much instantly.
You could get a legendary after months of grinding.

Anet sees that without medium term goals, players would get bored with exotics and quit(majority), or stick around to grind out a legendary (minority).

Enter ascended gear, a tier to give players in full exotics a goal that will yield a tangible reward after a medium-sized time sink. The increased power is that tangible reward.

You can dance around with semantics all you want, but prior to pink gear, there were no medium-term goals to pursue.

The thing is with the living story, they did not need to bring in additional gear. The living story would of gave incentive to play the game with new material every 2 weeks.

And what if now I have all the ascended gear? What do I do? You are now in the exact same boat you were with exotics.

1. Ascended gear predates the living story.
2. To get full pink gear is a much longer journey than to get full exotics.

Here’s where you’re not in the same boat as exotics (this could be good or bad depending on your preferences)

Gearing for a different build with exotics is as easy as buying everything off of the TP.

Gearing a new build with pink gear is yet another (albeit shorter) journey to get the max stats for a given build.

Basically, once you cap stats, all progression is horizontal until new infusions come out.

Raine.1394:

With a long/low power curve, the grind is never over. And, if you have alts, you are acutely aware that you may be years of grinding away from having them all outfitted. This is usually where white knights trot out the, well, you don’t really need ascended gear. I’m sorry, but I understand the implications of positively relating power to time, which is the mechanism of VP. And, if it truly doesn’t matter, why on earth would you spend resources to create something that doesn’t matter and is of no consequence. Anet knows that it does matter. VP is a hook that stimulates increased gameplay. Anet knows exactly what it does and why they implemented it—they are gaming professionals after all.

You may understand the theory, but you fail to allow anyone else who doesn’t share the drive to get BiS (like myself) to say that the gear isn’t mandatory. You basically parade your interpretation of vertical progression around like it’s fact when the game is literally staring you in the face and saying you’re wrong.

It’s not just the low power curve, it’s the fact that the environment doesn’t scale up statistically with player power. The whole game minus fractals is 2 rarity tiers behind the BiS curve.

Anet makes encounters difficult using environmental mechanics, dodge or die power attacks and large numbers of hard hitting mobs that need to be controlled.

As for the time gap, there absolutely was one.

You could get exotics pretty much instantly.
You could get a legendary after months of grinding.

Anet sees that without medium term goals, players would get bored with exotics and quit(majority), or stick around to grind out a legendary (minority).

Enter ascended gear, a tier to give players in full exotics a goal that will yield a tangible reward after a medium-sized time sink. The increased power is that tangible reward.

You can dance around with semantics all you want, but prior to pink gear, there were no medium-term goals to pursue.

Monadproxy.3489:

Mackdose.6504:

Galen Grey.4709:

Balance: Yes ironically ascended gear can help bridge the gap when you’re outnumbered or less skilled in a fight

Nope.

If you’re outnumbered, you’re about to get wrecked by CC.

If you’re less skilled, you’re going to get eaten alive no matter what gear you have.

so ascended gear is not that big of a deal if you have no skill? ok. why remove it?

I’m not asking to remove it. I’m just saying that ascended gear isn’t going to carry you.

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Tiger.7506:

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

How about there was no bridge stats wise between exotic and legendary gear. If it is just a time bridge, make them all the same stats again.

. It’s quite obvious that it wasn’t addressing a time to acquire gap.

How is it not obvious that that is exactly what they were addressing?

Galen Grey.4709:

Balance: Yes ironically ascended gear can help bridge the gap when you’re outnumbered or less skilled in a fight

Nope.

If you’re outnumbered, you’re about to get wrecked by CC.

If you’re less skilled, you’re going to get eaten alive no matter what gear you have.

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Are you debating what the meaning of treadmill is? Let me ask you a question. Is the content static?

No, it isn’t.

You can’t have a treadmill without both the environment and player power increasing in lock step.

The point of “gear treadmill” is that you keep getting stronger, but so do the mobs, thus making the progression an illusion.

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

Crapgame.6519:

Mackdose.6504:

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

You any good at math? It is simple.

Guild vs. Guild – pick any number, say 5 people in each group. Guild group one has only exotics. Guild group two has exotic armor but ascended where applicable. Now, work with me here, which guild group has the extra stats due to gear?

Everything being equal the group that has only exotics is at a disadvantage.

Note: WvW is uncontrolled, unpredictable, and can be any form of combat such has large (zerg / bait ball), small (duo, trio, etc), solo, and other options of combat that stats may or may not matter. But the simple fact that there is a difference in a WvW format of play, it matters. I’ll bet you a gold piece now that when they do implement the JP’s GvG area, ascended gear won’t be allowed or they will enforce some form of gear restriction…

That scenario is statistically rare, and therefore an edge case.

Should we change the rules of an entire game mode to remove a tier of gear for the sake of an edge case?

No.

If your solution was to have everyone scaled up to ascended, I’d be more supportive. I’d still say no change is necessary.

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Rooks Zaer.5846:

I can’t wait until the stats on ascended armor are revealed and the final calculations can be done. It’s going to be hilarious when people continue to argue that ascended gear is optional and doesn’t matter when the power gap grows to about 15-18%.

I also remember seeing that masterwork infusions are already in game…as in, the chat codes already exist. With infusions slots, ArenaNet can add more vertical progression all day long without violating any “no more new tiers” promises.

They already announced that that was what they were doing.

Sirendor.1394:

quaniesan.8497:

runing dungeons and fractual with groups with legendaries and ascended in my super outdated full exotic gear and not a single soul complained or even noticed the difference.

Again, this is PvE. PvE isn’t influenced by ascended.

WvW is.

Take it to the 12 page thread, and until someone shows me how ascended gear affects WvW as a whole and not just 1v1’s where all other factors are controlled for, I vehemently disagree.

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Skan.5301:

Henri Blanche.8276:

If other players join me in this approach then that will force ArenaNet to finally listen.

If only it were true. Sad when you think of what the reality is. You’ll have people say “Yeah!” and then next LS update something will come up for 800 gems and they’ll jump on it. Not all, but many will. And that’s still revenue, no matter how small.

Mackdose.6504:

Wow.

Giant HP bags are basically timers that say “The better your gear is, the less time to have to make a mistake and fail.”

The bosses in this game can always 2 or 3 shot you, no matter what gear you’re in.

If you don’t see how dodge or die mechanics relate to the power level of the game, you shouldn’t be having this discussion.

Clearly shown by the “stack and spank” mentality that most bosses/legendaries in this game have, correct?

Fractals/Explorables? You know… hard PvE content?

I’m actually not talking about just hard PvE content; I’m talking about all PvE content. As the power level of the game rises in terms of the player base, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever not to balance the environment to the players with corresponding adjustments to power, health, etc. While not the only aspect, this is certainly the most basic aspect of game balance. To argue otherwise is simply to misunderstand gaming.

For what you’re saying to be true, though, we’d have to already be at a point where ascended gear is balanced with the overall PvE content. It isn’t, it’s overkill. Exotic gear already over-powers 1v5 mob confrontations at 80. If this power shift you’re talking about was going to happen, it already would have.

Mob power in the open world isn’t scaling with player gear. Then again, open world bosses are beaten with player zergs and not gear.

Haha. If ascended is “overkill”, and players are generally in ascended gear, that would mean the game is currently imbalanced and in need of balancing, which is exactly my point. It’s the current power level of the game that is used in determining and adjusting game balance. If players are OP, the environment will be buffed in order to make gameplay properly challenging. If Ascended gear makes the game trivial, then that would simply indicate that the environment is in need of a buff. Again, this is pretty basic stuff we’re dealing with here in terms of game balance.

Exotics and ascended both make open world tasks trivial, because the open world is easy. Move into hard content and ascended reduces the time to kill stuff, but bosses are still just as hard as when you were in greens, yellows, etc.

This is why you need to be specific. Instead of saying “Ascended makes the game trivial” which is false, say “open world content is trivial with ascended.”

You can’t paint the whole game with the same brush, because the different modes of play are meant for different balance philosophies.