Guild Wars 2

Solaxo.7409:

I have been a good customer and still plan to be

If the angle your aiming for is how much would I need to spend to offset the loss of people leaving over this…my answer would be the new customers brought on.

I just want to reiterate that I can see why some people are upset looking at it from the surface.

But let’s be honest. You can run every fractal and the boss in game w/o ascended gear. I’m going out on a limb here but I bet future fractals will have the same accessibility. If they make it so you can only get a sweet looking set from running these, I am fine with that. I’m still building my 2nd dungeon set for my main in the original dungeons.

WvW stats that people are upset about don’t make sense to me when some groups use feasts or run with characters under 80 (it’s true!) WvW is so much fun, but honestly a 10 v 10 fight with people that got ascended gear and just wvw a little vs 10 level 60s that live off WvW are going to mop the ascended group to the ground. Another view point of skill vs gear.

The manifesto that everyone is so hot about was a marketing piece with best intentions. You still have to grind….if you choose….to level, gain gold/ karma, get your legendary, etc.

I tried to meet in the middle with my idea for ascended gear. I would like to see everyone happy, but I just don’t get why this has become such a hot topic with people claiming to quit or else.

It’s quite sad that most of people like you just don’t get it.

I’ll try and explain it to you. There are players that don’t have a lot of free time but they still enjoy playing a good game. ArenaNet was speaking directly to those players while developing GW2.

If it takes you 1 week, 1 month, 1 day or whatever arbitrary time you want to throw at us to get the gear, some people will need more time. Let’s say that it will take me 6 months to get the gear I want but there will be new gear available in 4? I’m speculating here just for the sake of an argument but we all know what statistical gear progression means. Why would I even bother with current gear if I know there will be a new set before I will be able to complete the current one?

Am I getting through to you? There is a reason why so many of us stopped playing WoW. Most of my friends from vanilla stopped playing. We just don’t have the time to grind the gear.

Guild Wars 2 was supposed to change all this nonsense, boy were we wrong. Try to think outside of the box for once.

NastyPiggy.2046:

Erasculio.2914:

It’s interesting to see how much this one has fallen.

The weekend with an event is over? It’s not unusually for a huge drop off after a weekend.

What, what? But they’ve implemented this awesome gear so people can grind it because they requested it? What the hell?

It’s also hilarious how fanboys on every blog/podcast downplays the situation. Funny how nobody wants to say anything bad because that next interview might get canceled.

I really hope they will pull it off though. I would hate to see another BioWare.

Lemuria.3195:

Yet still no one even cares about the gap between rare and exotics. The funny part is the gap is actually wider between those two than it is between exotics and ascended. Seems pretty clear to me that stats aren’t the reason people are angry, it’s all squabbling over the alleged broken promises.

I’ll try and explain it to you. As soon as you introduce statistical gear progression the whole meta changes. It’s not about “do anything you want” anymore. What you get is getting the most for your time invested. You become dependent on patch cycles. New patch, new gear. If you are not able to play the game because of school/work/spouse/significant other you fall further and further behind. You can already see that in /map chat. People are trying to minimize time investment for maximum gain hence “lvl80 exotic only” BS.

ArenaNet was advocating that this is a bad MMO design and potential game designers should avoid it for a reason. This is what people including myself are all up in arms about.

Verteiron.8734:

Leave Ascended gear, it’s a nice balance point between Exotic and Legendary. Make sure it’s flashy and showy. …

For the gazillionth time, how could something be a nice balance between two pieces of gear if they share exactly the same stats? In case you didn’t know, Legendaries and Exotics have the exact same stats. There is no gap, never was.

Swoo.5079:

Nerth.3940:

It doesn’t matter, mutiny has never worked in any game apart from EvE Online because of studio-publisher relationship. CCP is the developer and the publisher of the game. They care because their studio existence is directly linked to player subs.

NC Soft makes a killing in Korea and EA is still making a killing despite all the player rage against them. Go figure.

Actually NC Soft shares took a 50% hit in the last 12 months, http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/036570:KS .

Likewise EA stocks dropped 33% in the last 12 months, http://www.google.com/finance?cid=168725 .

So, neither will be happy.

Investors won’t be happy but stock market is a sham anyway. Regardless of their stock price they are still making a killing in profit but we’re derailing the conversation so let’s get back on topic or this thread will be locked in a blink of an eye.

It doesn’t matter, mutiny has never worked in any game apart from EvE Online because of studio-publisher relationship. CCP is the developer and the publisher of the game. They care because their studio existence is directly linked to player subs.

NC Soft makes a killing in Korea and EA is still making a killing despite all the player rage against them. Go figure.

Logun.2349:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/11/19/flameseeker-chronicles-guild-wars-2s-lost-shores-recap/

Elisabeth Cardy just put up a “Lost Shores” recap article at massively. She doesn’t even mention the Ascended armor debacle, or this thread.

I mean … really? It’s not even worth mentioning?

Ya, many fan site based news is that way, they worry about not getting there interview or pre-view look of the next project if they report on something negative.

Could be she’s holding out on reporting on the issues until she’s had a chance to see the effects of what’s going on first hand.

Yeah, fan sites/blogs are usually the worst when it comes to controversy. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this shift in game design and if we learned anything from all “failed” MMOs is that wait and see approach doesn’t cut in. If it smells like kitten, looks like kitten it probably is kitten.

People were using the same argument when the TORtanic phrase was coined. Where all the “whiners” or whatever you want to call them wrong? Unfortunately no, some people have a long history of playing MMOs and can see past the PR BS. “Wait and see” is the same PR BS.

If it’s not announced don’t count on it and even then take it with a grain of salt. New dances for WoW characters anyone?

Lt Latency.7415:

xtorma.1283:

Lt Latency.7415:

What else would you do that give you that kind of value for your money??

I went to see the new bond movie and the add was nothing like what I thought the movie was going to be.

That cost me alot more then 10 cents an hour.

But when you went to see the bond movie , it didnt turn into twilight half way through.

Actually it sort of did.

I thought i was going to see a movie about bond a super spy and gadgets like normal but he was a worthless bum who couldn’t pass his training and had no spy tools.

But bond is not the actual point.

What is it then? I bought a product because it was advertised in a certain way. I don’t play games with gear grind (WoW, Rift, SW:TOR, …). I don’t have the time anymore. So, they advertised that this is going to be different, whole game is end-game, play how you want to play, we respect our players, yadda, yadda, yadda. What happens? they do a 180 on us after we bought the game and spent a considerable amount in the gem store.

Oh, just to be clear, I can’t get a refund because I was one of those fools who pre-purchased on the same day it was available to show my support for their so called “manifesto”. I even planned to buy at least 20€ worth of gems every month, just like a subscription to show my support for their efforts.

Makes sense?

Lt Latency.7415:

What else would you do that give you that kind of value for your money??

I went to see the new bond movie and the add was nothing like what I thought the movie was going to be.

That cost me alot more then 10 cents an hour.

Your analogy would work if you were promised a Bond movie, bought a ticket for a Bond movie but you would get to see a romantic comedy that has nothing to do with a Bond movie.

Logun.2349:

I’ll also ask this, allot of people are raving about how much fun the new dungeon is ….. so would it instantly be less fun if it was just for cosmetic improvements with Agony as the only upgrade?

For those that have to have a new shiny thing just around the corner to even play the game yes. For those of us who like to play the game because it’s fun the answer is no.

If you ever played WoW you’ve seen “that” guy in Stormwind/Ogrimmar idling on his shiny new “uber hard to get” mount next to the bank 24/7 so he can feel good about himself responding to all those whispers about his shiny new mount of awesome.

populationcontrol.5072:

I read half of the first page, and it’s pretty heavy to read…

And all I could think about is that life itself is a gear threadmill. It’s Darwin’s theory of evolution! You have a given environment and given abilities, adapted to this environment but the world is dynamic, so you constantly have to evolve and become better adapted to changing conditions.
We wouldn’t exist in a static world. There would be no need for us. No conditions to require something as complex as us.
If we suddenly didn’t need to learn to walk, we’d still be born with legs. And not using them would cause them to become unusable, withered and deformed.
If we don’t have something to work towards, to become better at, we wither and die. Or, quit the game. Pun intended.

I play guitar. Playing the same old songs gets boring, even if I love these songs and I always want to play them better. I need to learn to do things I think as hard, so they eventually become easy and boring and leave room for the need of something harder to learn to do. In turn, this new knowledge makes those old songs easier to play. Progression.

Just a note, musicians use chord progressions to make a song interesting…

A fashion sense is only gonna take you so far in a game, but that is a progression in itself. Better looking, more wardrobe and attitude options, etc.
Some people, like me, also like better stats, so we can do better in the game world, take down bigger mobs. Do things we weren’t able to do before.

Seeing the constant yet?

The status quo constantly needs to be challenged for things to become better. For things to evolve and for players to evolve, which is what keeps us interested.

Saying that a defining trait of mmo’s is progression (story, gear, difficulty) should be obvious to anyone. Life is progression. Everything in it progresses and changes to adapt to new conditions. Everything we create mimics this principle.

Anet’s manifesto is just a guiding ideal. An Ideal is static. Reality is dynamic. That’s why ideals don’t do well in the real world. That’s why when you put 2 volts signal through an amplifier that multiplies it by 2, you don’t get 4 volts. You get 3.9 volts. There is always some loss in one way or another. There are always conditions that require you to adapt, as in putting in a stronger signal to be amplified if you really want that 4 volts.

I’m just rambling. Meh, I felt like replying. Sorry if I sounded moralizing. Sue me.

Point is, things change. And staying or leaving is a choice. Just like when volcanoes erupts and destroys cities, some people chose to stay and rebuild, others leave to build away from volcanoes. They just have to deal with a new environment, with its own challenges.

They’re both right. They both adapt. That’s all we’ve ever done.

Let me be a nerd and quote my favorite movie: “All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you”.

Your guitar playing analogy would make sense if you would have to have a better, more expensive guitar to be able to play more complicated songs. You don’t, a guitar wizz can play anthing on the cheapest guitar he can find. No matter how expensive your guitar is, if you are bad you won’t be able to play those songs.

You’ve just described a horizontal progression where your skill alone is a factor in your progression. Better amplifiers, guitars, effects, etc provide you with a different/better sound but that’s subjective and personal preference.

If you can’t play not even the most expensive guitar in the world will make you a good guitar player. Practice will.

Urrid.4593:

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads] – 10,053 replies 114,938 views.

And no response of real value to date. (Nov 17th.)

We won’t get any. What can they say? “Sorry guys, we decided some time ago that we’ll change the game and try to get all the grinders but couldn’t tell you because …”

Rollback is not going to happen, this was in the pipeline for some time now. It was a brilliant marketing scheme, I’ll give them that. I even think pre-purchase was started in April for the sole reason to avoid as much refunds as possible.

hint MMO hoppers rarely play for more than a month and very rarely use the cash shop.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

Even if they’d say that, I would never bet my money on it again. Could I really trust them not to pull this BS again? I don’t know, probably not.

tjockis.3798:

Renegadeimp.8439:

Theyre not being “fresh” at all. They are also doing a complete 180 on their manifesto.

THAT is why you are seeing complaints from a lot of players. All they want is for a dev to respond to these complaints, and the devs just arent doing it.

isnt it time to forget that kitten manifesto soon? yeah, they changed their mind, havnt you sometimes? im also starting to get insanly tierd of all complains on this and other forums. i try to come here looknig for USEFULL info, guides, help and other various
well cheers! things, but everytime its filled with unhappy whinnig ppl. EVERYTIME! if i was so unhappy and miserable about just about EVERYTHING and NOTHING i sure would leave. maybe come back when next patch arrives to check that out, maybe. i might be uniqe in that matter, who knows. just grow up or something, will you? (and not just you, but all other who complain, youre only one of em and i happend to use you and quote you, could be anyone). what happend to the small thing called FUN that ppl used to have when playing games? and again – if its not fun, pick another game.

im just so tierd to see all complains and useless whine. grow up, get over it and lets play!

Stop reading threads you don’t like? Problem solved.

Druitt.7629:

The holy trinity is a stupid idea. Unrealistic and stupid. I’d buy GW2 to as a vote against this sacred cow, even if I didn’t care about the rest of the game.

The tank-healer-DPS pigeonholing makes balance more difficult, leads to poor play by most players — a price GW2 is paying now — and ends up with ridiculous developments like a tank class also being the best DPS class, or a healing class also doing higher DPS than a DPS class. The worst. idea. ever. period.

I would argue that a new tier of gear in its current form was unrealistic last week. You never know.

Ostra.3927:

Frankly they could just make ascended the same stats as exotic.

Keep infusion for JUST ascended. This places it as a dungeon armor for FoTM style dungeons for the future. This is a horizontal progression not a vericle yet still gives the people that want to have that “goal” something to shoot for before hitting legendary

This also easily stops the problem with WvW and DE inflation and invalidating the lower content as well as lower dungeons.

Its a simple and quick fix that solves 90% of the problems people have here.

That would be logical and I think most people would be fine with it. But WoW-crowd would scream “amagad!!!!!!!1111111oneeleven, no new gear to grind, I quit”.

CJAncients.6907:

Now that the treadmill locusts got what they asked for, people are moving on to demand the holy trinity.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Against-De-promoting-Holy-Trinity

I called it in this thread yesterday. People are so predictable. If anyone knows about an MMO with vertical progression please PM me.

I’m looking for a new game to play.

Logun.2349:

Your spending habits likely reflect that of the average player and there pretty close to mine, this sort of gave me an “Ericka” moment.
I’ve been racking my brain as to why they would make this move, drastically departing from their core ideologies, and I finally figured it out.

MONEY!

It’s really simple players that stop levelling and reach the maximum gear stop spending large sums of gold.

When players no longer have a need for gold they stop buying gold from Arena Net, and you can bet a good portion of players just said “screw it” and spent real world money on gems converted it back to in game gold and there you have it instant best in Slot Gear. Oh, and then they came to the forums and complained they didn’t have anything to work for….LOL

Now because the Legendary weapons are too far a gap for players to “buy” into and there was no power benefit many just said no thanks to them and were happy with their Exotic gear. This is not a good thing for Arena net they need players to have a need for items to keep the revenue stream lubricated.

Now, Arena Net doesn’t care how many of you are playing so much as you all keep using the store and buying your way into better armor. So what do you do, we are 3 months post launch and revenue is dropping off.

I know….I know …..we put out a new gear type with greater stats then exotics and we bake in the set bonuses so we make it harder for players to complete sets. The set pieces will then get traded over the TP and players in a rush to get there set piece will buy gold from us to get them.

Then we’ll add a new slot in the gear for infusions and we’ll give them stats as well and mitigation for special dungeons we’ll put in. Each time we put in a new dungeon we’ll just add new infusions again.

Oh, and this time we’ll make sure crafter can’t craft it and we’ll release 1 or 2 pieces every month so we can keep a steady flow of revenue coming in.
It’s Genius …. if you’re not on the receiving end.

Those kind of players don’t buy legit gold mate. They buy it from the gold sellers because it’s a lot cheaper. I’m not a very social person and I’ve met several of them having no problem admitting it.

They don’t even care if they get banned because there’s always a new and shiny MMO around the corner.

So, let’s pull up some numbers.

Guild Wars 2 Digital Edition €54.99 pre-purchase 10. April 2012
Gem purchase: €50.00
Gem purchase: €35.00
Gem purchase: €35.00
——————————————————————————-
Total: €174,99

I guess I’m not “dedicated” enough. Thank you Linsey Murdoch for making it very clear. Not once have I asked for a new tier of gear or complain that I have nothing to do. I’ve always felt that I’ve found a perfect game for myself after 6 years of WoW and other gear-progression oriented games.

I would like to thank the good folks at ArenaNet for a clear and honest statement. Not a single purchase from the gem store ever again.

P.S. I was also thinking about buying Eye of the North expansion for original Guild Wars. Guess what, no deal.

A very interesting quote on Guild Wars Wiki

I’m sure you saw that again in my most recent blog post. This industry just needs to move on. We’ve seen a bunch of “WoW 2.0” attempts, and who actually wants that? Do we really want to be playing those same game mechanics for another 5 or 10 years? —Mike O’Brien 20:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

We don’t Mike but I guess you’ve changed your mind.

You know what guys? In the next patch they will introduce the trinity back to the game. Due to a popular demand of course.

I think we’re at the 7th stage of seven stages of death, acceptance.

Ostra.3927:

the closest we will get to an answer

" Freyar (Who’s… 16 minutes ago
I’m concerned over ascended gear. Is Guild Wars 2 supposed to be moving towards traditional MMO progression? One of the reasons I stepped away from WoW and others was so that I could enjoy an MMO at my own pace without the risk of being excluded by something like Gear Score.
IsaiahCartwright @Freyar (Who’s best… 2 minutes ago
I can see your concern, our goal with ascended items is to fill the gap in our progression between exotics and legendary as well as give us a new tool with the infusion slot to give more depth of rewards by offering new and interesting infusions that are directed at different game types.

basically did not answer the question and went back to PR speak. They are all on damage control now.

Of course he can see our concern but it doesn’t matter anyway. They already have our money. Pre-purchase was a wise decision.

Let’s face it, we were played. Hats off ArenaNet, I didn’t see it coming.

Wolfend.5287:

Snow.5269:

Can we just have someone from A-NET “clarify” why we are seeing stat increases? The most recent official post was very vague & tip toed around the issue which left more questions than answers.

my two cents,

I have watched as ArenaNet’s philosophy slowly change over the years. First word came that we’d be getting WoW’s 80 levels, then announced we’d be getting a robust system where players would play numbers rather than challenges – robust stats progress [wow]. Jeff Strain and James Phinney, who spearheaded the horizontal hub system EoTN and other gw1 innovations, left the company. Current lead designer, a former WoW developer, seemed very proud about the many aspects that were turning GW1 into WoW II.

It is a hard call in truth, EoTN, Hardmode, gw1 generally, had just scratch the surface of an entirely new concept for the MMO genre, horizontal progress as ‘entertaining content’ – access – rather than the human hamster on stat crack, spinning the hamster wheel – gating by stats.

Now that ArenaNet has moved so much closer to WoW, the company has realized they’ve created a ‘half measure’ an incomplete product that is neither WoW or GW1, a hybridization, though less hybrid and more a corruption; a collision of two incompatible systems.

ArenaNet has to now make a choice as players sense the fabric is flawed, both wow players and old gw1 players. The game is beautiful, but it lacks a true soul. What should that soul be? Well, we have lost two of the best designers for the original GW1 structure, so my educated guess is that ArenaNet, to regain financial ground, needs to move to the WoW model, as current ‘lead’ development embraces WoW model most of all.

It will make a beautiful WoW II, but as you can see from my sig I choose to take my business elsewhere; already tried WoW, and GW2, not much difference between the two when you add the unattainable end game carrots [stats].

I was actually enjoying the game [gw2], have collected lot of small suggestions with larger relevance, a good sign I am invested. But now there is little ArenaNet can do to repair the lost faith in their integrity.

My business advice to ArenaNet, fulfill your destiny, make the ‘easy’ choice go for WoW II, build a complete tier system for the stat hungry. Though it may be the soulless choice in the end, the profits may improve a bit

Actually that makes a lot of sense.

Loosifah.4739:

How exactly am I being disrespectful here? I am being civil and not insulting anyone. I am expressing my viewpoint and am not personally attacking anyone. In fact I have been personally attacked repeatedly throughout the life of this thread.

Because you are constantly arguing with people about semantics.

Look, this is not a subscription based game, I’m not a subscriber. I’m a customer. It’s my decision to spend money in the gem store and support the developer. If something like this would happen in a subscription based MMO, subscriptions would tank and the game would go F2P or die.

So, if I chose to spend my money and support someone I expect to be treated like a customer or I won’t be a customer anymore. If I go to the store and the clerk sells me, let’s say a laptop, and he knows a new model will come out a week from now and doesn’t tell me I will never ever buy anything in that store again because I would feel I was taken advantage of.

Business treat customers with respect because they know they can take their money elsewhere.

I’m not sure if you understand that the existence of this game is directly liked to the gem store generating enough revenue to sustain it. Do you see where this is going now?

People got burned with this debacle. It’s not bad just for ArenaNet, it’s bad for the entire F2P genre.

Loosifah.4739:

I really don’t see an issue behind it. I’ve spent all my in game cash and money from the cash shop before to get the best item I could get only to have an expansion come out a week later that had better gear. Was I a little irritated I had to save more? Yes. Was I crying about my own stupidity? No.

And I’m sorry; but if you spent £100 on equipment in a virtual game that was not necessary, then that’s your fault. Not theirs

I will stop feeding the troll after this one, I promise.

Seriously, how old are you? That’s a legitimate question, I would really like to know.

Expansions are announced well ahead of time with all the features and changes made to the game. This is not an expansion, this is just a content patch. And the fact we will get a new tier was announced vaguely 3 days before the patch.

But that’s OK with you. Well played sir, well played.

Loosifah.4739:

How is having a cash shop open for you to buy whatever you want ill intention? Fusion stones? Purely cosmetic, you could want them for any gear you have. Boosters? They serve a purpose. Mini’s? Purely cosmetic. Town clothes? Purely cosmetic. Bank/Bag expansions? They serve a purpose.

Then finally exchanging gems -> gold. Just because they didn’t announce new gear til the update does not mean they deceived you into buying gold via gems.

I’ve spent over $100 on the cash shop for keys for the boxes, dye packs, boosters, etc. I even traded some gems for gold. Do I feel I’ve been betrayed? Hell no. I spent the money on things I wanted.

There’s new stuff to spend money on? Awesome, more stuff for me to buy.

People were knowingly let to believe exotic is the final tier. They have stated several times that some people have time and some people have money so they have an option for those people to get their gear from the trading post and they want to provide a safe and secure way of buying gold.

So, let me give you a real life example, if I know a stock is going to tank and I encourage people to buy it I am making a criminal offense. It’s called inside trading.

For the record, I haven’t bought gold to buy gear, I haven’t made a single gem→gold transaction but I know people who did and let me tell you, they are not happy about it.

How would you feel if you finally managed to get the last piece of gear you wanted, spent 100€+ on the cash shop only to find out the next day your purchase was made obsolete because “Oops, we made a mistake, sorry guys, tough luck but thank you for your money and please, come again.”

According to your statements you wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Loosifah.4739:

Nobody made you purchase anything with real money. Throw that argument out. Spending real money is completely optional.

Selling something with ill intentions is called a fraud and is a criminal act. If the translation from German is correct they new exactly what will happen and knowingly withhold that information from us.

You are correct, nobody forced me to buy anything from the cash shop and I will never ever buy anything from NC Soft or ArenaNet ever again.

You are right, things change but any company with a shred of decency announce that change long before it actually happens.

My dear Loosifah, leveling to max level is not gear progression, new content doesn’t equal gear progression. You can spin it however you like.

“This journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”-Lao Tzu

Loosifah.4739:

I read your post, and comprehended it.

But your post does not quote them saying “There will never be a higher tier than exotic” or “Exotic will forever be best in slot” or “We will never for any reason add ascension gear”.

All it says is they introduced it because of a reason, that doesn’t say it wasn’t already on the drawing board; but just being postponed.

ANet clearly stated that this game will not have vertical gear progression at max level. Every gaming blog on the planet got it, players from Guild Wars 1 got it, people that bought this game for this specific reason got it even review sites got it and recommended it to players with limited time to play games.

Why can’t you get it?

tkalamba.2541:

It’s an uncompletable dungeon. It doesnt finish….. and you can still experience all 9 fractals without Ascended gear. This means it’s not gated content, therefore the Ascended gear is not mandatory. If there’s no end to it, and it resets everyweek…. then you may never need to bother with Ascended gear, as you still have access to all the content and the option of doing the dungeon. You can still WvW, you can still Spvp.

Nothing at all will be locked out to you. You can even still do the difficult portions of the dungeon, all it is a resistance, not a 100% immunity. Sure at a certain point you will need to mitigate Agony, but you can still do the entire fractal at a lower difficulty, over and over and over again.

Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must.

Source: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

English is not my first language but if I remember correctly, must is a verb expressing necessity.

Loosifah.4739:

My argument isn’t that adding a new tier isn’t vertical. My argument is that they never promised exotic would be the last tier; that was an assumption on your part.

They have promised that they wouldn’t be adding a new tier every three months(Which people are picking apart), but the reason it was worded that was is because everyone was screaming “WHAT IF THEY ADD A NEW TIER EVERY THREE MONTHS!?”

Clearly you don’t want to or can’t understand. I will give you one final example.

Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.
-Mike Obrien

We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills
-Colin Johanson

Let’s take WoW for example. Why are you running the same dungeons over and over and over again? To get better gear because the next dungeon is impossible to complete without gear from the previous one.

What are we getting? New armor with better stats because the new dungeon will be impossible to complete without this gear.

Do you see the resemblance?

It doesn’t matter if it’s every 3 months, ever 3.5 months, every 5 months … When you need to have better gear to complete a new dungeon you have vertical progression and you have to get that gear to be able to finish it. See where this is going? New gear is not optional anymore, it’s mandatory.

Now, please read the second quote again.

Dedalus.3065:

Once again, you can’t know any of that for sure. They said that they will add a new gear tier (ascended), you don’t know if they will add another or not. And even if they did, you still wouldn’t know how hard it would be to acquire it. Maybe you would just have to do the dungeon once, maybe not.

You must understand why they added a new tier, and right now you think it’s because some people complained on the forums. I think differently but whatever (I already expressed my thoughts on the previous page), let’s assume that what you say is true and that the forums were the cause. Then you don’t have anything to worry about. Now don’t think that I’m saying that you should go whine as much as possible because then the developers will listen. What one should do in the case of lack of certainty, is to embrace possibilities and simply state that “IF the game becomes like this, or IF there is a major grind, then I will be displeased”, not to assume something and quit altogether.

And you must understand that with a cash shop you are a part of an ecosystem. You chose to invest in a game if you have a long-term plan playing. Revenue doesn’t come from the content locusts, revenue comes from dedicated fans and long-term players.

When a company preaches their game design philosophy for several years and changes it 3 months after release that trust is gone and integrity lost.

I don’t want to wait and see because it’s irrelevant. If they want to get revenue from me they have to provide me with a clear set of goals and direction they are taking. I would never expect Blizzard to change WoW to a game without gear progression. It’s their bread and butter and they are good at it.

I chose this game for a specific clame made by the developers about their goals regarding gear progression. I’ve already spent quite a lot of money in the gem shop because I thought I was here for the long-run.

Is this really so hard to understand? Their revenue model is not sub based, it’s based on players buying stuff from the gem store. Do you really think all those people prasing this decision with statements like “amagad!!!!!1111111oneeleven, I will reinstall the game for this patch, gear grind, woot!!!!1111oneeleven” will spend a dime in the gem store?

No they won’t, they will just uninstall the game again and wait for the next tier of gear. Happens all the time in other MMOs. A big influx of people for the patch and then it slowly dies out again.

Megaera.5923:

To give Arenanet its dues, their posts about ascended gear so far is PR speak at its very finest (all the sentences are just so rich in placating, fluffy, feel good but ultimately meaningless words).

I’ve read legal suits written by lawyers that couldn’t even dream of reaching the amount of meaningless blather that Arenanet has managed to spout with just two posts. So hats off to you Arenanet, you must employ some first rate spin doctors.

However, how about giving those spin doctors a break and just come out with all the details of the new gear system so people can make an informed decision about what they should do with your game?

That would be common sense but we know it doesn’t work like that. One phrase comes to mind though “We’ll fix it in post.” A bad movie is a bad movie and no matter how hard you try you can’t fix it in post.

PR is spectacular, I’ll give them that.

mantrunks.4810:

Yes, league of legends hasn’t released a new map. They release new champions, rework skills, redo and add/remove items. I guess that must be static. I’ve been playing league since beta and it has lost “fun” for the most part. Only reason to play it is with friends since they live far.

Who said the carrot needed to be on the stick in order to play. A change in gear or stats is bound to happen in any MMO. Different items, critters, bosses, etc is what keeps the game fresh. I don’t know why they are doing this 3 months in, but regardless its what they can do to keep people interested. Don’t like how it is supposedly going to affect WvW over the next months to a year? Go to sPvP. You will have plenty of time through the releases to get the upgraded equipment

Not sure where your skill comment is derived from but even in this game, as I’ve mentioned before in this thread, I have taken down people with legendaries with some blue gears. Everyone feels that this “gear grind” and its small % stat increase will completely overshadow any skill required in WvW. It doesn’t really affect PvE at all since there is minimal effort required for that. If you were dominant before in WvW, get the gear and stay dominant. If you were bad in WvW or whatever PVP, get the gear and practice some more.

Imagine Riot blog post like this “Dear LoL players, we are listening to your concerns and from now on, every new champion we release will be slightly more powerful. We plan to introduce this change in a slow pace to give you time to buy new champion and learn to play them. …”

A change in gear or stats is bound to happen in any MMO. Different items, critters, bosses, etc is what keeps the game fresh.

Where on earth did you get the idea that a new tier of gear is needed to introduce new types of enemies to the game? Companies do this only to keep people subscribed hence carrot on a stick analogy. It requires time to get new gear to fight a new boss in a new raid instance. Time is a limited commodity, so you have to decide, play and keep up with the gear progression or stop.

Why do you think so many people quit playing MMOs because their lifestyle changed? Back in collage I was able to play for 8+ hours a day, I grew up, found a job so I can’t play as much anymore. I’m not subscribed to any MMO that has gear progression because I don’t have the time to keep up with it. I have a job, I don’t need a game to be my job.

Innovation is doing something different, gear progression, stat inflation, power-creep, or whatever you want to call it, is not it.

Creslin.1758:

tkalamba.2541:

Creslin.1758:

Principe I.1492:

sireuh.3870:

A guy said this on another forum

A few quotes from 3 months back about gearing:

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet

Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”
– Colin Johanson

they just told a mountain of lies.

I will not give a penny to ArenaNet

No…you don’t know if they lied yet. Read what they said:

If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game.

They only promised that items that take an unrealistic amount of time to acquire will not have statistical advantages. Now ask yourself, do you know that Ascended items will take an unrealistic time for most players to acquire? No, you don’t. For all we know, Ascended items may take around the same time to acquire as exotics.

Legendary items are clearly what they are talking about in the quote above. They actually DO take a ridiculous amount of time and dedication to acquire, and as they said, they are only differentiated by appearance.

So long as Ascended items can be acquired in a reasonable amount of time, then no promises have been broken.

This is exactly what people are choosing to not see when they go about saying they were lied to and that others are being illogical for saying otherwise.

Yep…a forum equivalent of a full-blown torches and pitchforks mob here at this point, and reason has gone out the window for most people.

But for anyone who is still thinking…

Please just give the patch a chance. It may turn out that Ascended gear is not that much of a pain to get, and thus no promises were broken, and everything is fine. On the other hand, it main turn out that Ascended gear requires a massive grind to get, and at that point, I will join you with your pitchforks.

But let’s at least give ANet the benefit of the doubt for now. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

It’s not about this patch, it’s about the change in game design philosophy. Who can guarantee us this is the last stat gear upgrade before the expansion/level cap increase? Do you believe someone who fooled you once? You might but I don’t.

I’ve been playing MMOs for a long time now and heard so many promises from the developers I’d be a millionaire if someone gave me 1$ for each and every one of them.

mantrunks.4810:

A question for everyone. How does a company make a dynamic game with a statically requested system?

If a new PVE map/dungeon was released with having no real change to gameplay was released, who would play it? It would be visited for a 1 time run through on most cases, and its the truth. If it has nothing new to offer, why bother? Who would use it?

According to your logic, nobody is playing League of Legends or any other game that is based on player skills.

Change for the sake of change is a bad thing and it usually bites you in the rear. I mean no disrespect but I guess you are a member of younger generation. Let me tell you something, some of us played games on 8 bit machines for years because the gameplay was fun and engaging. Do you really have to have a carrot on a stick to play the game? Wouldn’t it be nice to play a game because it is fun to play?

I know, Utopian concept.

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

Urxx.6840:

tkalamba.2541:

But Agony is limited to only a single dungeon, so the condition is already incredibly limited, and only kicks in after you progress to a certain point. It is entirely possible to experience the entirety of the dungeon without having to deal with agony.

Again, that’s the situation we will have now. But they already said they will keep expanding the infusion system, and that implies they will make it more and more relevant, otherwise why introduce it and a whole new rarity tier in the first place?

To provide options in end game content. It’s an option you can choose to do that won’t effect any other aspect of the game. They never said ALL future content will have to deal with Infusions.

But then why oppose the fact exotic gear receives an infusion slot and you trash the whole ascended concept?

You still have your options and they keep their word about the fact exotics are and remain the most powerful items.

Why make the hard work of a lot of people that have geared up several toons obsolete? That’s the base of the threadmill system which most despise and is going to put ArenNet against Wow, which does these thing a lot better because they had 8 years to perfect their threadmill system.

There is still the acquisition gap between Exotic and Legendary. You can get your full set of Exotic gear at 80 within a few days after hitting max level, but will take forever to get a Legendary.

Ascended gives players something to work towards between Exotic and Legendary, it closes the gap in acquisition time. Exotic gear is flawed, its too easily acquired. They wanted something that players in the end game could work towards getting as a final step. This in turn gives the end game some aspect of length vs. having the final gear so quickly. You get all your exotic, then what do you do? Sure you can explore, you can go for new skins but alot of people already rushed for map completion, and dungeons can get boring. This gives you yet another option to work towards. If Exotics took longer to get, they wouldn’t have had to add these items. Besides, with the slow trickle of Ascended items being released, most players wouldnt have an issue of obtaining some of it.

This is like whining about [insert MMO here] releasing new gear with every content patch. If you buy a game that is marketed as a game without horizontal progression and expect anything different you have a problem with logic.

How hard it is to understand that those of us who bought this game because we were promised something but now we get the exact same crap we’re so tired of are a little angry and disappointed?

I don’t care how hard it is to get it or how easy it is, I’ve been following GW2 for a long time and every time the subject of gear progression in terms of numerical improvement came on the table it was categorically denied by the developers. Guild Wars 2 will never have traditional gear progression other MMOs have.

In this blog post I am told there will be a new tier of gear with “slightly” better stats. I don’t care if it’s +1 or +100, +1 is still larger than zero. It doesn’t matter if the introduction of this new tier will be slow or fast. Sooner or later current gear will be obsolete.

Every rational person with basic capability of logical thinking will come to the same conclusion. I was promised A and someone wants to give me B. Either I was mistaken or someone lied to me.

It’s quite obvious we were lied to and the argument about acquiring legendaries doesn’t hold water either. New tier of gear that takes more time/effort to get is fine by me as long as it has the exact same stat budget as current exotics. This is clearly not the case in the situation we are in.

If you want statistical gear progression go and play other games, there are a bunch of very good ones. Or don’t because this one is clearly becoming one of them.

I’ll let my wallet speak for me and since there is no subscription to cancel I’ll say “So long and thanks for all the Quaggans” to the BLTC.

This reminds me of an event not so long ago in an MMO created by a company that was considered the best of the best among its fans. Release was smooth, the game was great and the patch 1.2 came. People were up in arms on the forum but what did that company do? Nothing, they went ahead with the patch and everything went downhill from there.

The only thing left of that company is a trademarked name, nothing else. True story. Will I still play the game? Sure, I will because let’s face it, there is no monthly fee to do that but will I invest money into it? No, I won’t because I don’t see the point. Rewarding a snake-oil salesman is a no-no in my book.

Gear-treadmill or no, that’s not the point here. We were promised something different, something special and all we are getting is gear progression. Thanks but no thanks. The moment I will have to do something I don’t want to do to experience content I’m out of here. I’m too old to do something I don’t want just for the sake of it. Life is too short.

I’ve played enough MMOs with gated content and statistical gear improvements and guess what, I’m not playing them anymore.

Cheers for the honeymoon ArenaNet, it was great while it lasted.

noskill.6294:

Guys:

Gw1——-> CORPG
Gw2——-> MMORPG

what is appening atm is absolutely normal.

It is not, we were promised a skill based MMO, not a gear based MMO. You can find many quotes from top people at ANet stating there won’t be any statistical end-game gear progression in this game only cosmetic “progression”.

If I wanted a gear based MMO I’d still be playing WoW, LOTRO, Aion, SW:TOR, Rift just to name a few.

The irony with your name is very entertaining Made me laugh for the first time reading this behemoth of a thread. Thank you for that. Nothing personal, I’m sure you’re a very skilled player.

Webba.3071:

And that data includes the box sales and all income associated with the release. How does GW2 maintain its position as a revenue driver without that income in future quarters?

So many people seem to forget that you already bought the game, there is no sub fee so customer retention is a myth. What you want as a company in a B2P or F2P game is to sell items in a cash shop.

It doesn’t matter if people play or don’t play as long as you generate enough revenue to keep the game alive.

I have already spent money (100€) on gems to upgrade my bank, character slots and bag space because I thought I was in for the long run and I don’t mind spending a lot more for cool armor skins but there aren’t any.

So, instead of populating the gem store with cool stuff to buy I will get the same gear grind I’ve left other MMOs for? That has to be the best business decision ever.

And I can assure you that the best customer is a paying customer with money to spend. Long gone are the collage days when I had a lot of time but little money. Nowadays, I have enough disposable income but a lot less time to “grind” in games.

Guess what I will do if this goes through? I won’t spend any more on the gem store because I know that several months to a year down the line the difference won’t be just 8% in stats. Been there, done that and I’m done with gear based MMOs.

Voted for “I will leave GW2…” since it’s very simple for me. If I wanted gear with better stats every couple of months I would be playing WoW, Rift, SW:TOR or any other gear based MMO.

Sure, it’s a a minor upgrade now but what will happen one year down the road? Think about it. It looks like another company wants to get WoW numbers and will burn every bridge with their loyal players since GW1.

Have you guys learned nothing from the recent fiasco called SW:TOR from BioWare?

A large portion of the world does not participate in DST.