Guild Wars 2

Ironically I play with a buddy here at work who in the same sentence described how he loves going to get better stat gear cuz why woulkittenep playing?, but then stated how much he hated having to go get better gear every time a new tier was released in wow. Thought that was funny per this topic. :-D

Orion.7264:

For example, my necromancer is finished cosmetically (for now; again, I’ve got a wait-and-see approach to newer Legendaries, but none of the current ones really work for his look). I’ve got him geared out with a mixture of dungeon, orders, Halloween, and crafted armor that I think looks very nice, and he’s a Staff + Dagger/Focus necro, so I went with Deathwish, Tear of Grenth, and Gaze. All told, I’d have to check gw2spidy for current prices on the weapons, but his gear is worth somewhere around 50g. That’s not including whatever gold value you want to assign to the work I put in for the dungeon skins. What’s my reward for that work? Every time I play my necro, I get rewarded by thinking: kitten I look pretty bad kitten " I feel that there was plenty of progression for him in getting those items, and I am pleased with the reward that stays with me every time I play. Stat progression on the other hand will not reward me every time I play, it will be a one-time relief of “Finally done grinding for stats, now I can play how I want”, followed by content adjusting itself in difficulty and eventually a new tier outdating the stats I just got. There is no real progression, there’s merely forced invalidation; there’s no achievement, no sense of pride, merely a rest period between periods of required work. Relating cosmetic progression to vertical progression is like relating FINALLY getting that dream car you’ve always wanted to the 15-minute break you get at work.

Gotcha. Like I said, I’ve never played to get a certain style of gear for a character, so I can’t really relate. I usually just play for stats. To me this whole idea of cosmetic upgrades sounds more like putting a ferarri body on a fiero and calling it a dream car.

Orion.7264:

Puffpuff.7390:

Steely Phil.3952:

Puffpuff.7390:

This was bound to happen anyways. Think about it. It every society there are always different levels of income, ie rich, middle class, poor. Problem is this game becomes pointless and so does any economy if there is a “cap” on how good your gear is (in game) or much money and possessions you can amass (in real life). The elite players of this game, the people who spend all their time playing this game, want to be rewarded with an advantage.

I’ve seen this argument posted a lot; “Always gonna be rich and poor” “If you want the good stuff you have to work for it” “Life isn’t fair”.

I don’t care. That fact that real life is hard and unfair does not mean my game should be hard and unfair. I can think of all sorts of ways to better simulate real life. How about if some accounts have a lower level cap then others due to genetic disease? Or some accounts could just start with a 100g trust fund in the bank while others have to send off 10g every month to support their ailing mother? Every once in a while random characters on your account will just be deleted and you’ll get a message saying they were hit by a yak and killed.

(No personal offense meant Puff. You’re just the most recent one to bring up this argument.)

No offense taken. I understand your counter argument (don’t speak too loudly, Arena net might make your idea a game feature).
First, I would say that the things you mentioned as real life examples are things that someone would have no control over. The argument I was making was that in the game you have control over whether or not you want to be in the elite. There is nothing stopping you from achieving whatever you want in the game. Now there would just be more to achieve. I’m not trying to make the game more “realistic”, I just don’t personally see the fun if there’s no payoff for trying.
Second, when you say you don’t want the game to be hard and unfair, I think its unfair to hold the other gamers back from moving on to bigger and better things. I think its more unfair that the hardcore players don’t get access cooler stuff. I’m not even a hardcore gamer so I’ll never have to make the choice, but I certainly don’t mind them being able to. Good for them.

Either way I’m gonna keep playing so whatever.

They’ve always had access to cooler stuff, just in a cosmetic form and not a stat form. There’s no point to making their rewards statistically superior, because content becomes balanced to that making it meaningless in the end. As someone who does a lot of playing and could reasonably achieve this Ascended stuff if I wanted to, I don’t see why I should be working my kitten off for meaningless numbers rather than cool looking gear, and be punished until I have it by stat disparity. I was planning on grinding and working for Legendaries for most of my characters (if not all, depending on whether the new Legendaries match the aesthetic I’m going for on some), but I don’t see the point in playing a game wherein I HAVE to work and grind for things I don’t want just to be statistically complete.

Makes sense to me. I disagree on a “I find something fun different than what you find fun” level, but that’s just a difference of opinion.

Steely Phil.3952:

Puffpuff.7390:

This was bound to happen anyways. Think about it. It every society there are always different levels of income, ie rich, middle class, poor. Problem is this game becomes pointless and so does any economy if there is a “cap” on how good your gear is (in game) or much money and possessions you can amass (in real life). The elite players of this game, the people who spend all their time playing this game, want to be rewarded with an advantage.

I’ve seen this argument posted a lot; “Always gonna be rich and poor” “If you want the good stuff you have to work for it” “Life isn’t fair”.

I don’t care. That fact that real life is hard and unfair does not mean my game should be hard and unfair. I can think of all sorts of ways to better simulate real life. How about if some accounts have a lower level cap then others due to genetic disease? Or some accounts could just start with a 100g trust fund in the bank while others have to send off 10g every month to support their ailing mother? Every once in a while random characters on your account will just be deleted and you’ll get a message saying they were hit by a yak and killed.

(No personal offense meant Puff. You’re just the most recent one to bring up this argument.)

No offense taken. I understand your counter argument (don’t speak too loudly, Arena net might make your idea a game feature).
First, I would say that the things you mentioned as real life examples are things that someone would have no control over. The argument I was making was that in the game you have control over whether or not you want to be in the elite. There is nothing stopping you from achieving whatever you want in the game. Now there would just be more to achieve. I’m not trying to make the game more “realistic”, I just don’t personally see the fun if there’s no payoff for trying.
Second, when you say you don’t want the game to be hard and unfair, I think its unfair to hold the other gamers back from moving on to bigger and better things. I think its more unfair that the hardcore players don’t get access cooler stuff. I’m not even a hardcore gamer so I’ll never have to make the choice, but I certainly don’t mind them being able to. Good for them.

Either way I’m gonna keep playing so whatever.

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Puffpuff.7390:

This was bound to happen anyways. Think about it. It every society there are always different levels of income, ie rich, middle class, poor. Problem is this game becomes pointless and so does any economy if there is a “cap” on how good your gear is (in game) or much money and possessions you can amass (in real life). The elite players of this game, the people who spend all their time playing this game, want to be rewarded with an advantage. The rest of us with less time don’t spend nearly as long playing the game, so I’m not sure how I can justify someone else being forced to be equal with me. Not every kid gets an A. The whole point is there’s stuff we can get if we work hard and make good choices. Both in the game and in real life there will and should always be outliers. Arena net should apologize or at least explain why they changed their mind on the gear grind, but I bet I can spell it out for you: a large part of the gaming population is asking, “Dude, what else is there to do, we already got all the best gear in a few weeks?”
I mean does anyone seriously plan on keeping the same gear forever and just unlocking new textures? Every RPG I’ve ever owned I stopped playing once I hit the max level because , meh, what’s the point. The whole fun for me is getting the next greatest thing. The one’s I played over and over (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, two worlds 2) generally let me do what I want as high as I want it.
For all you haters talking about “pay to win”….I work and am married to a non-gamer, so I don’t have a bunch of time to play. I would have loved when I played wow to spend a few extra real bucks to catch up to the rest of you who have more time. I never got to do one raid in wow because by the time I got to the right level the next expansion came out and boom, 10 more levels to gind out before I can raid…..wish I could just pay to get quick xp so I can play with the rest of the population….

Now, WOW had an “impossible” treadmill that sucked because if you were lvl 68 you HAD to buy the next expansion because the green gear from the next expansion was BETTER than the legendary stuff from previous one.

You wrote a whole lot but you just missed the key point. Ascended gear was introduce as a bridge between exotic and legendary (invisble gap) as well as prepare the player for new future content. They are going to release each piece slowly to give people time to acquire them. Having that being said does it not force the player to eventually do what they don’t like in order to enjoy this new future content?

Yes I do see your point. Having watched the manifesto again I do see what the major compaints are and that they are valid. So I guess my response is I’m not one of those players that doesn’t care and is excited to try to get the new gear regardless. I don’t find the game to be a grind and often group up with strangers to accomplish the events and quests that pop up everywhere. I never played GW1 as it was old by the time I got into MMO’s, so I didn’t realize that there was no gear necessary to keep going into other areas of the game. Still don’t see how that would be fun…but that’s just me.

This was bound to happen anyways. Think about it. It every society there are always different levels of income, ie rich, middle class, poor. Problem is this game becomes pointless and so does any economy if there is a “cap” on how good your gear is (in game) or much money and possessions you can amass (in real life). The elite players of this game, the people who spend all their time playing this game, want to be rewarded with an advantage. The rest of us with less time don’t spend nearly as long playing the game, so I’m not sure how I can justify someone else being forced to be equal with me. Not every kid gets an A. The whole point is there’s stuff we can get if we work hard and make good choices. Both in the game and in real life there will and should always be outliers. Arena net should apologize or at least explain why they changed their mind on the gear grind, but I bet I can spell it out for you: a large part of the gaming population is asking, “Dude, what else is there to do, we already got all the best gear in a few weeks?”
I mean does anyone seriously plan on keeping the same gear forever and just unlocking new textures? Every RPG I’ve ever owned I stopped playing once I hit the max level because , meh, what’s the point. The whole fun for me is getting the next greatest thing. The one’s I played over and over (morrowind, oblivion, skyrim, two worlds 2) generally let me do what I want as high as I want it.
For all you haters talking about “pay to win”….I work and am married to a non-gamer, so I don’t have a bunch of time to play. I would have loved when I played wow to spend a few extra real bucks to catch up to the rest of you who have more time. I never got to do one raid in wow because by the time I got to the right level the next expansion came out and boom, 10 more levels to gind out before I can raid…..wish I could just pay to get quick xp so I can play with the rest of the population….

Now, WOW had an “impossible” treadmill that sucked because if you were lvl 68 you HAD to buy the next expansion because the green gear from the next expansion was BETTER than the legendary stuff from previous one.