All it takes is one peek at the mystic forge recipes to know this game is basically putting a big giant carrot in front of your face… which was very much optional before Nov. 15 for anyone that wanted to maintain max stats. Unfortunately, they moved the goal posts for everyone but nerfed the means to get there for casual players.
You would be able to watch 2hrs of it alone, but the last 10mins you would need to find 3 other people to watch it with you because the movie wouldn’t continue otherwise.
Would be great if they posted actual numbers instead of words, but no MMO does this.
Nothing wrong with vertical progression. There is something wrong with doing it poorly though. As someone not interested in dungeons or grinding hundreds of T6 mats, there isn’t much for me to do in terms of getting the gear without a credit card or hundreds of hours. Pass.
Game != Life
Or something something something like that.
To OP, absolutely. At the end of the day it isn’t about stats, power curve or being destroyed in PvP or whatever as much as that is annoying it isn’t the sole reason. It’s the entire situation combined that has pushed me out of the game.
The entire reason behind ascended gear is such a joke. The tier was unnecessary. The rollout to one part of the game (dungeon grind) is also joke. The lack of response for weeks was the biggest joke. Loot drops being as horrible as they are is frustrating. The abandonment of the “no grind” motto stings as well. And finally, the fact that they truly believe they can please horizontal and vertical progression advocates at the same time is mind boggling.
Please insert credit card so I may eat your monies!
By in a WvW queue for 1-5 hrs, you really mean 1-5 mins, right?
Why would anyone want to burn up resources and currencies like mats, karma, badges and tokens on exotics when future ascended gear will likely require many of those same things? They’ve made it a farm and wait game. This is what happens with vertical progression being rolled out at a snails pace.
Pre-CU Jedi. Those things were bad kitten
Do you know what Low, Med, High, Full pop ranges are? Because I sure don’t.
low about 2000 people
med – between 5000 and 10 000 people
high is 10 000 people
full cap is about 15 000 or so me thinks.
I haven’t seen those numbers posted anywhere. Is this a guessing game or do you actually know?
Do you know what Low, Med, High, Full pop ranges are? Because I sure don’t.
Don’t worry, you aren’t the only one. I have 2 level 80s who haven’t completed Arah. As soon as I saw them point me to a dungeon, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, 80 levels of solo story only to be forced to group for the last one. That makes complete sense…”
However, I wasn’t all that surprised because MMOs have this fetish for forcing people into dungeons (points at Fractals).
I’ve never known a single MMO to list actual concurrent users online. It’s always some arbitrary scale they devise that I’m sure is locked away in a safe somewhere.
Any game has gear. On this game the difference between the gear is so small that I perform as well on greens as I do on exotics. …
Does your skill go up when you are in worse gear to account for the loss of stats or something?
nope, but you don’t need it. You can kill people in WvW being in worse gear than them, you can run dungeons with worse gear and you can clear areas with worse gear. Very little people actually geared with with exotic. The truth is that the difference between the gear is so low that you can compensate it with dodges. My bf did not even want to bother for going for exotic weapons at first and I’m still wearing level 20 jewelry. It does not make me perform any worse.
Of course you can fight in terrible gear. That doesn’t make it ideal.
in WvW as a level 40 with upped level you can defeat level 80. While you can’t stand a chance at level 1, the fact that you do stand at level 40 with level 40 gear shows how little impact gear has.
Gear makes quite an impact, I’m sorry to say. But I guess you can believe what you want. Thread has been derailed enough.
Any game has gear. On this game the difference between the gear is so small that I perform as well on greens as I do on exotics. …
Does your skill go up when you are in worse gear to account for the loss of stats or something?
nope, but you don’t need it. You can kill people in WvW being in worse gear than them, you can run dungeons with worse gear and you can clear areas with worse gear. Very little people actually geared with with exotic. The truth is that the difference between the gear is so low that you can compensate it with dodges. My bf did not even want to bother for going for exotic weapons at first and I’m still wearing level 20 jewelry. It does not make me perform any worse.
Of course you can fight in terrible gear. That doesn’t make it ideal.
Any game has gear. On this game the difference between the gear is so small that I perform as well on greens as I do on exotics. …
Does your skill go up when you are in worse gear to account for the loss of stats or something?
Not anymore. I did recommend $10 Torchlight 2 to a bunch of friends though during the Steam sale and now I can play that with them.
The two Star Wars games are the bigger ones I’ve seen, with SWG taking the cake and SWTOR being kind of a cruel joke more than anything. AoC was bad, but at least the music and graphics were unreal for an MMO at that time lol. WAR? Meh… server issues more than anything.
While GW2 changes piss me off, the full effect on the game won’t be known for a while.
If vertical progression is where this game is headed, then some of the current exotics need their stats adjusted to account for the somewhat lengthy grind, otherwise people will skip them to go after a legendary and once again you get into the debate about this “time gap”.
Again this goes back to ascended being released way way way too early without proper planning. Either certain expensive/grindy exotic recipes need adjustment or they need to be bumped to ascended-level status.
Because you can’t appease both sides. One wants to go west the other east. Anet says let’s go north instead. the end result neither gets what they want. That’s what will happen if you try and keep both horizontal and vertical player groups. They will be left with the indifferent people that don’t care.
^ Bingo. Can’t please everyone. Just pick your group and run with them. If I would have known this was the direction of the game I would have stayed away rather than be part of the grand experiment.
You are not one of their “most dedicated players”. Don’t worry, neither am I apparently.
Anything repeated to the point where you no longer inherently enjoy the activity you are participating in must be considered a grind (to me).
If the stat boots on ascended are so minor that they don’t mean anything and won’t affect skill or anything else, why not simply remove them? Thanks. Look forward to your answer.
They are minor, but its just something extra to work toward if your bored. If you already maxed out everything you want why not work for a little extra push even if it means little?
Its there if you want it, out of the way if you don’t.
I don’t want to be behind in stats. If a small stat boost is so meaningless, how about removing it or making it vastly easier to obtain because there are those who think it is meaningful? I put reasonable amount of time for my other gear, why must this one be a massive grind for me? Work and fun are not synonymous with one another, to me anyways. Why is my opinion demonized? I’m not here to “work”. I’m here to “play”.
If the stat boots on ascended are so minor that they don’t mean anything and won’t affect skill or anything else, why not simply remove them? Thanks. Look forward to your answer.
Why to remove extra content? It’s something new to reach for. I have full exotics and I’m a level 80. I would like to reach for legendary even though it’s nothing more but a skin. I do not do better than people with rares and greens, but I feel like I’ve achieved something by putting work into making and getting it.
Gear is not content for me. It’s a mechanism to allow me to be competitive in content. That is my take on it. /shrug
If the stat boots on ascended are so minor that they don’t mean anything and won’t affect skill or anything else, why not simply remove them? Thanks. Look forward to your answer.
No thanks. I don’t feel like being made a fool for a second time.
I mean they are trying guys give them a chance. People are treating this game like it been out a year. And that is really not fair at all.
I will not parley!
Whether the recent decisions came from someone at some other big company or not, the recent mistakes they are making have been done by countless other developers and PR folks over the years. Honestly, I’m guessing most of them have been in the business long enough to know that several game mishaps and a number of PR disasters in a row will result in angry forum-goers. It’s not exactly a shocking thing to me. Sorry if it is to you.
Power creeps creeps; that’s why they call it power creep.
Power creep = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0 ?
I’m a bit confused how they think they can cater to advocates of horizontal and vertical progression at the same time. As another person said, these two viewpoints are in opposition to each other. Either way, the horse has been thoroughly beaten. Good luck with your game.
Because they seem to think that drip-feeding the gear upgrades is somehow going to make it more palatable to both parties. It’s a compromise.
I’m not confident however that either party will be satisfied enough with this strategy.
This isn’t really a problem I would want to solve, let alone introduce to a game just 3 months after launch. Because a compromise usually means neither party is truly happy with the resolution. So I have to agree.
I’m a bit confused how they think they can cater to advocates of horizontal and vertical progression at the same time. As another person said, these two viewpoints are in opposition to each other. Either way, the horse has been thoroughly beaten. Good luck with your game.
I don’t know what to expect from GW2 patches anymore. This is a problem. Consistency leads to trust, inconsistency leads to dissent. Some patches lots gets fixed, others break things more. I don’t know who is asleep at the helm, but it’s time to wake up.
I’m a casual and even I know how precursors can be obtained…
First off, one new tier of gear does not make a treadmill.
Second, they’ve said already that they will be adding more ascended gear and more ways to get it.
Great. So what’s the timeline? Can I use my existing WvW tokens and karma or will yet another annoying currency be introduced? Will ascended materials ever be lowered for crafters and non-dungeon grinders so they can acquire them as well?
I don’t know if the game is still doing okay or not, but the complete lack of information is no help at all.
Everyone, the thing we have to remember is; what the cure is for some, maybe poison to another. In every mmo out there you have both, regardless of what the dev’s say. Areananet added this content to give those at level 80 something to do, Nd though they new it would not be liked by everyone, they still had to try something. Does it work? In my opinion yes, most definatly though i wish there was a requirement in order to get in, like say " equipped all exotic gear" or something.
So the fix to the newly added gated content is to add a second gate? HAHA! Good one… oh wait, you’re serious.
That’s a lot of MAYBE’s about the reasoning behind ascended gear. As many others have already posted, the gap between exotic and legendary were purely aesthetics prior to the patch. Now, it is aesthetics + stat advantage. You can’t just “opt out” of the legendary/ascended grind lest you be left out of future content or find yourself getting beaten handily in WvW. Skill > gear only works when gear is widely available, which ascended is currently not and has no timeline on future ascended gear releases or lowering of absurd grinding requirements for non-dungeon grinders.
Oh and for the record I do vids on the fractals and literally show how much of a grind it ISN’T! It’s not hard takes moderate casual skill and you can do it slowly. I got 2 pieces doing 2 dungeons per day for the last 9 days. So people calling this a grind just plainly didn’t do it and assuming. It’s so easy it should actually get buffed so cut it out drama queens. Or you can try and fight facts fight the post you didn’t read and the vids I threw up barely trying on fractals. I am not a Anet fan boy I just don’t like lying or misinformed people and thats what is going on now.
You have a very different definition of what isn’t a grind compared to me.
As others have said, ascended gear uses the same mats as legendary gear, so it’s a waste of time to even pursue unless of course you have unlimited time to spend grinding or you don’t want a legendary for some reason. Fake gear gap is fake.
Is this not a paradox? It’s a waste of time to pursue something with limited time whereas an item which costs more in the end with the same limited timeframe is more acceptable?
Keep in mind Ascended gear does not, in fact, require the same “mats” as Legendary gear. Legendary gear, among other things, requires 100% completion of the map, as well as 200 skill points.
You’re right I guess. Not all ascended gear requires the same mats. But I guess, why work on that stuff when you can put that effort towards legendary? Mind boggling.
As others have said, ascended gear uses the same mats as legendary gear, so it’s a waste of time to even pursue unless of course you have unlimited time to spend grinding or you don’t want a legendary for some reason. Fake gear gap is fake.
Welcome to the LA lobby. Coat check is to your left.
Well, I can get into any WvW zone instantly today which is odd for a Saturday, I went to the Lost Shores and ran into a total of 9 people, 1 doing the jumping puzzle and 7 farming karka and 1 person going for the same ori nodes I was. Everyone else is in LA spamming for FotM, but I’m level 1 so not much point in trying there lol! Is this what successful patch is? Brand new zones completely void of players, instant WvW queues and bored people spamming for groups? I laughed. I logged off, and unless they address the problems on Reddit this coming Monday, I make like a tree.
As people always say, you don’t have to worry about it unless YOU are noticing in on your server, as of now it has a healthy player base and all of the people that were going to quit or have quit are already gone. Once we see desperate promotions for the game like TOR, then get worried.
Like weekend friend invites?
I’ve already come to the understanding that the update blog post was basically their backwards way of saying “we don’t want your kind anymore”. That’s fine. It just means I’ll have more money to spend on other things.
I don’t know why you don’t want the money from an existing customer. It’s a strange money making strategy dumping some of your customers for the mythical customers you don’t yet have. You might as well go on a search for the holy grail or for sparkling unicorns.
The good news is Valve is still Valve, for now anyways.
If it is true, the only real option they have is to hope the changes they may have been “forced” to make are a complete success. If the game tanks? Fired. If they disagree publicly? Fired.
IF gear above exotic was purely cosmetic, would this even be an issue?
I would imagine the answer to that is a “no”.
Considering the main thing I enjoy is WvW and there was nothing new about it this patch I’m not too pleased. I haven’t logged in since the update and there is currently not enough info on ascended gear acquisition from WvW (or standard crafting for that matter) for me to bother chasing the carrot. Not gonna grind a dungeon endlessly when I don’t enjoy that playstyle. I’ll wait to see what they say next week on gear and stuff, but I won’t hold my breath.
Even the installation is a grind!
C’mon, someone had to say it… lol.