I see people bring up topics like this every time an update occurs. At the root of the matter, I believe it’s a conversation about players and the mindset that the most profitable thing is the only thing worth touching. In a month or so, this update, like most updates will be out of everyone’s mind. If it were to be left in the game the amount of people visiting it would be trivial at best in most cases, essentially degrading it’s worth to “giant phallus spewing poison everywhere, taking up space that no one cares about”.
In my own opinion I believe keeping it leaves room for old school D&D style game play which to me is what this games core concept was all about. “There’s a huge tower full of Nightmare krait no one seems to be doing anything about. You should probably get a group of people together and go kill everything inside.” That would be cool.
Combating that view however is the story. Everyone wants this thing gone. Everyone wants to crush this new alliance in the same fashion Norwegian teenagers crush lemmings with ridiculously large boots. There’s even evidence that new enemy alliance’s never last long with us around. So it’s safe to say this content will go the way of le dodo shortly.
I think all these angry posts sound quite ridiculous. Here are my thoughts!
-First: Anet stated last November that Ascended gear was supposed to be in game at launch, but didn’t make it do to budget and time constraints.
-Second: There is NO higher tier content being added with ascended weapons. Meaning you don’t even need them for any part of the game other than just having them with their MINIMAL stat increase. If you don’t want one, don’t craft one. It will not matter.
-Third: This is not a GearTreadmill nor is it a ItemSpiral. Those occur when new tiers are added every 2-4 months. It has now been over a year and we don’t even have a full tier added ( just rings, back pieces, trinkets and the soon to be weapons).
The thought of rage quitting a game over a new tier weapon with a tiny stat increase just sounds absurd. Do people expect Anet to still just hand out weapon skins 5 years down the road? I love new skins, but skin wars 2 won’t survive. People will not care in 5 years when they have over 600 new weapon skins in their bank. I think they have found a great balance to please both types of players. New tier for those who wont better stats but minimal enough so that no one needs them to appeal to those who don’t want them.
in the end I feel really bad for everyone who has or will rage quit. When all is said and done, I think Anet is doing a great job here. The game is growing, changing and in my opinion getting better with age. I feel bad for everyone who will miss out and such a great MMO down the road.
Thank god a voice of reason exists in this thread. I was considering answering all of the crazy tinfoil hat claims that have been expressed so far myself. Ascended gear was supposed to be a tier in the initial release of the game for the love of all that is fluffy. In a year, if they’re implementing a NEW set of gear, then I will find the wacky doomsayer, coolaid drinking mania a slight bit more reasonable. Instead you should be glaring at the time gating on the new gear. There’s a bit more reason for eyebrow raising in that decision.
People seem to be bashing skilled group play here. Roaming has it’s place. Scouting has it’s place. It’s quite vital to take camps at the 5 minute count, roamers can accomplish this better than larger groups.
The point of WvW is to show SERVER cooperation. It’s not about physical rewards. It also takes massive amounts of skill to zerg versus zerg, it’s a science. Look at the huge WvW guilds from TC, BG, SOS, FA. The only time one of these groups goes PVDoor is when they don’t have supply, they’re on a paper keep and they want to save supply for the inner. 40+ people all cooperating and coordinating their efforts as one is a pretty kitten accomplishment, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
If you’re insulting the huge groups of militias who are unorganized, even they have their place. I can’t count how many times a militia has come behind an enemy zerg that’s gotten the drop on my guild and helped us win the fight.
We’re talking about the same company who had dyes originally account wide, until someone pitched the excellent idea that they could make more revenue by making it per character and pushing “Dye packs.” through the gem store. Same merchandising strategy applies to character soulbound infinite tools. “Buy’m for all your characters, while supplies last!”
Beefing up event farms is not a healthy incentive to getting people back in an area for the right reasons. If you bring back shelter/ Penn/ Plinx you’ll just see people at those three events, sitting there, or running between them. Make the area it’s self more engaging and rewarding and people will return. Although this raises another problem, if Orr is the only profitable region for people in the game, it will be the only area people visit. Which will spark more threads about the maps in this game being dead, except for Orr. Make the entirety of the game profitable relative to level and people will be more encouraged to get out into the corners of the game rarely visited. For instance all of the mid level areas see rare use. items and materials from these areas have since seen a spike in profitability, albeit less than Orr. I suppose I could digress further and say that it’s much more profitable for most people to sit in lions arch and play the trading post. I suppose what I’m saying is that there are a plethora of reasons as to why Orr is depopulated at the moment, and by extension all areas of the game. As others have said, wait until these recent events are over and you will see a return to Orr. However, we may not depending on how profitable southsun is after the event is over.
I don’t exactly hate Orr as an area, i just hate that the main baddies are… whooptykittendoo zombies. Was really disappointed with that. It’s lazy, unimaginative and overused to hell and back.
The risen are not the main bad guys, they’re pawns used by the elemental dragon of undeath. The dragons themselves are the main “Bad Guys.” and they cover a variety of things.
Dear holy mother of Sheba. This zone was designed from the get go to be a challenge, hence the annoying factor. It used to be a whole lot worse. As a note, the monsters can’t snare you if you dodge the snare, learn it and it becomes laughable unless you’re fighting 20 of the kittens. The place is dreary because it was recently in a most allegorical fashion at the bottom of an unwashed fish tank. It’s supposed to be bleak and depressing, a whole civilization was wiped out, sunk beneath the ocean, raised, and zombified in it’s boundaries. It covers so much area because it was designed as a majority of the premiere story to be in a fashion “The End Game.” the ultimate challenge of skill and cooperation between players. That all fell through, of course. As another peeve that must be answered, why is anyone expecting anything else but Risen in an area where an elemental force of undeath has turned almost everything that isn’t in itself an elemental force into… Risen?
It’s been a while since I was level 20, however I can confirm that to get that crit rate you’re sacrificing power for precision in almost every regard. Precision does not affect your damage, neither does it affect your crit damage. It only affects how often you do crit. By this logic, every point over 100% crit is a waste of stat allocation. Also Hundred blades doing 791 damage at level 20 is actually a little low. If you add a little power back into your armor and accessories you might be able to reach 900+. If you’re still confused at to why your hundred blades is able to hit that high it’s due to the fact that each hit of 100 blades is capable of critical damage. Take the number given and times it by two and you have a more accurate figure of the skills capability.
Wow. I thought the dredge were actually unique and interesting and it turns out that they’re simply another case of the game ripping off reality. Great.
Most culture in MMORPG lore is derived from research based in reality. I hope you don’t find this disappointing.
As one might think the shield implies defense and it is exemplary in this department. In terms of pure dps you will definitely lose out in burst with a shield in your off hand, but you make up for this being able to stay in the fight longer with a disrupting charge and an invulnerability which can mean the difference between life and death in a fight against a glass cannon.
This is really more of an Axe & Board WvWvW build, but yeah, I get your meaning. Off topic, why did you skin a Corrupted Skeggox over a Destroyer Axe? Back on topic, is the perma swiftness worth the loss of mobility skills from say the sword/greatsword/hammer? Are the two regen heals from the signet and adrenal health enough to sustain you in longer high pressure combat scenarios? I’m just curious as to the details of your experience.
Also, trying to farm for lodestones yourself is a soulless unpleasing endeavor due to the low drop rates. In most cases it is actually more profitable to farm gold and buy the lodestones even at the inflated prices.
RNG can go bite a railroad spike. In D&D there is randomized loot but most adventures have rooms with specific loot. More of that, less of the RNG, please, is my opinion.
Guardian is considered great for support. Staff is commonly used for it’s healing/support capabilities. Other than that I have no idea. you might check out http://en.gw2codex.com/build/ to be better informed on traits. A guardian should really get back to you on this, but I didn’t just want to jump at you on the main reason why I was answering your thread. Race has no typical bearing on what you’re capable of in the game. The only “Skills.” you get from your race are elite skills that are not usable in pvp that only serve as a flavor and offer no real advantage over another race. In other words choose the race you find the most aesthetically pleasing.
Edit- P.S. Please, play the game for yourself and level a character to 80, then form your own opinion about the game. Don’t let people like HERO influence you with terrible logic on why you shouldn’t try something.
Yesterday I saw people with arrow carts and ballistas, eating chili and weenies out of a can waiting for people get kitteny enough to try and take their puzzle. Such a waste of time just to troll people looking to get badges/puzzle achievement.
Even doing the 100% world exploration, there are oddles of easter eggs in each map that you’ll never see on the Cartographer websites. I’m at 97% world exploration with only WvWvW to go and I’m quite certain I ran over 50% of the hidden content without ever knowing it was there, and I’m a very thorough explorer.
So I don’t understand, are you testing this in the name of SCIENCE? Are you attempting to create more precursors in a hope that the prices will eventually go down? Are you trying to corner the market on the precursor game? Also to anyone who is spending huge amounts of gold gambling for a precursor you might want to stick to the age old tradition of the piggy bank, it’s what I’m doing, and slowly but surely it’s working.
I like this game. I’m looking forward to where it goes in the next several years. Having played several MMO’s at beta and onward I’ve seen all of this nonsense talk on the forums before. Nothing changes, people will always moan and groan because the thing they placed their faith in didn’t live up to their expectations.
“o, you don’t achieve 13k karma at level 39 just by playing normally. You have either been farming DEs or completing low level zones as you progressed, which is far from “playing normally””
Completely exploring maps as you level isn’t playing normally? I’m sorry I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say.
This is called Horizontal progression. This game is all about cosmetic rewards, power progression is meant to be obtained in skill not superior number of stats. That being said don’t even bring up the ascended gear/gear treadmill/arenanet’s lied to us argument because frankly we have no idea where that’s going yet.
They wanted to release it globally, as to who’s decision it was to stick it in that one dungeon I have no idea. I reckon they just got lazy and decided they could distribute it later without anyone going nut crazy.
Legendary weapons show a mastery of all mechanics in the game. They’re also meant to be a long term goal, a holy grail. These things exist in real life too. Wanna go to med school? Be prepared to grind through a whole lot of college time. Wanna be a lawyer? Be prepared to grind through college and then law school. Yes, this is a game, it’s meant as an escape, I agree. However, the whole legendary mechanic was designed with this in mind.
/signed
I remember a couple of days ago I had finally rallied some people to take Grenth’s temple and started to explain the mechanics of the priest battle. I was shot down after my first paragraph by some kittenaying “No kitten, sherlock.” Not everyone knew the information I was trying to give, and I was just trying to be helpful. When you’re doing dynamic events, group events, dungeons, whatever, leave your ego at the door. Everyone is pushing towards a common goal and it helps if everyone is on the same page. Even if everyone knows what to do, it’s still good to state it so that if the off chance that one person doesn’t know, they will be properly informed. That’s what communication is, learn it, love it, it’s what humanity is all about.
Edit: I’m going to leave the Kittenaying filter there. It’s too good to take out.
As my own opinion I find that with a decent group, three paths a day for an armor set you want is relatively light on the grind compared to other games. It’s an argument of semantics of course because some people will say that running that kitten more than once is a grind, while others don’t consider it a grind unless the gear is RNG and the dungeon is on a timer.
Edit: P.S. I used to hate the idea of an LFG tool in this game. Now I have fevered day dreams about it while I plead in map chat for more people to join my Ascalonian Catacombs group.
If it makes you feel better, and you would like to be truly convinced, it was never arena nets intention to release ascended gear exclusive to one dungeon. It has also been confirmed in the Chris Whitside AMA that it sure as hell won’t stay this way.
Reading comprehension: A real problem amongst some forumites. I also don’t believe any AMA in the history of ever has laid out a detailed description of plans to be implemented at a later date. This is mainly due to them not knowing their own detailed plans of what they are going to implement. They have ideas, but they aren’t going to regurgitate them at you word for word as they come out of their head, it’s not their job. Their job is to give you a general status update so that you don’t go entirely crazy from being in the dark. Play the game, or don’t. There is no subscription fee, no one is twisting the arms of anyone to do anything.
I had a lot of troubles on my elementalist during the 20-35 range. Keep at it, it get’s a little easier with time. Think more appropriate actions per minute and rotations for specific situations. Kill ranged attackers first, always.
I have no idea how this happened to you. Maybe I’m just blessed with the natural abilities of escaping such situations so I don’t get it. Ignore people of such nature, if they continue to harass you, screen shot/report them. Griefing is looked down upon heavily by moderators and developers of this game, you have plenty of allies.
Welcome to a taste of what open world ffa pvp in this game would be like. I’ve always giggled at people who thought it would be a good idea, because most of them just don’t realize what they’re asking for. In short I agree with you, in my own opinion it’s ridiculous to have an explorer achievement in an area of supreme hostility where your goal is survive other players. On the flip side, it’s kind of a prestigious challenge, they should make an achievement for it if nothing else.
Most gamers I know play games to escape from the social experience of life. It’s sort of a throwback to the 30 year old guy who lives in his parents basement who failed to launch due to his fear of the human experience. It’s a common theme for people to think that other people are always out to get them, even when they’re not. It’s especially common in mmo’s since in the majority of mmo’s one must compete for resources.
I’m seeing a lot vitriol being posted about people who are supposedly wanting things on a silver platter, then I’m seeing the posts that have inspired these comments. The biggest complaint I’m hearing is that people who play a specific part of the game who have significant amounts of that currency, for instance badges and Karma from WvWvW, but little gold due to repair costs are unable to get the cultural prestige armor. These people are working hard, they’re not playing casually. Thousands of badges and hundreds of thousands of Karma are not obtained lightly. The cultural prestige armor should have multiple methods of currency acquisition in my opinion. I also find it strange that the armor is bought with money while the weapons are bought with karma. It’s weird, and lacking design unity.
In my personal opinion the degradation lies not with the feature it’s self but with the community of people who use it. You have guilds who want a lot of active members who are all out to help each other and have a good time. Great. The problem comes in with the “A lot.”. I can’t speak for everyone but I meet a lot of people on this game whom I can nearly consider “The dregs of society.”. Guild recruitment is a science, it requires screening. I my self am a member of a guild in which there is no screening process. Invite a horde of people and encourage them to do WvWvW, and that’s it. In other words, I think because of the system people have stopped treating guilds as a given instead of a privilege and a formality. Hence the problem.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the game too, a whole lot in fact. I’d like to state that criticism isn’t a bad thing, especially criticism that’s not a scathing attack. There is a lot of this game that I can’t stop praising, but that makes the things that don’t work out so well all the more apparent when they do happen. This game is great, really great in my eyes, but it is not perfect and I shall voice my opinion on the matter, especially if I have expertise on the matter at hand. Acting is my job, it’s what I do. If I notice acting of any sort that doesn’t quite work I’m going to ask “Why didn’t that work?”.
Let’s not forget to mention the voice acting that ranges from abysmal to fairly decent and the nearly as bad dialogue. Although I might could forgive the dialogue if the voice actors didn’t trip over it half the time. Being a theatre actor myself, I cringed a great deal throughout the personal story. I eventually got tired of hearing it and began to speed read the dialogue and skip the voice acting entirely. Also being a theatre actor, always constantly looking for work I must say “Da Kitten, Arena Net?” there are thousands of actors out there who are GOOD at their job who would probably kill for a chance to work on a game like this. I know I would. Why the mediocre voice talent? We actors work for dirt cheap, really we do.
Reuniting a fractured group of hero’s, surviving missions you’re not expected to return from and stopping a force that makes most uneasy at best, and quake in terror at worst and expecting a little better than greens and blues is not “Wanting things on a silver platter.”. In every guildwars campaign, at the end of your hard fought battle against whatever evil was plaguing Tyria, you received a max level weapon that was relevant and useful, AND it had a pretty nice skin. It’s really not expecting much. Telling people to suck it up and just use a fine transmutation stone is just ignoring the issue. I will do that, but I’m still going to ponder “Why the hell didn’t they just give me a decent weapon?” Anyhow I personally am not attacking arena net on the issue but I will say that this isn’t like the insightful arena net I grew to know and love while beta testing the first game.
WvWvW build, but yeah, I get your meaning. Off topic, why did you skin a Corrupted Skeggox over a Destroyer Axe? Back on topic, is the perma swiftness worth the loss of mobility skills from say the sword/greatsword/hammer? Are the two regen heals from the signet and adrenal health enough to sustain you in longer high pressure combat scenarios? I’m just curious as to the details of your experience.