I don’t see the point to raising the level cap in first place. I would much rather see more character building elements introduced that shapes who your character is in game and how they interact with the world.
They had that dignity, charm, ferocity stuff, but did seemingly absolutely nothing with it. I would like to see them build on stuff like this instead (and actually make it matter a bit; maybe not in a way that limits what you can do, but how your character can successfully approach different situations in game in events and stuff).
They should also build on the three Orders too. There should be special missions you can do depending on which order you chose (there should be a chance to change orders at least once at some point if they were to build on this). Each order would represent a different play style: Vigil would be centered around larger groups and direct conflicts (larger battles requiring anywhere between 5-10 players); Priory would be for explorers taking them around to all the nooks and crannies of the world (exploring certain areas and finding relics and stuff, and a few tests and stuff here and there); finally, the Whisperers would be for players looking for small group and solo missions (essentially solo and duo stuff) centered around information collecting, infiltration, etc.
This kind of stuff I think would be more meaningful in the long term than some arbitrary stat increase that gets countered by enemies having their stats increase. You know actually play a character and etch out who they are and what part they play in the world?
“Urgh… But… huff… that sounds like work… bah.
If I just copy this database and add +50 to each field, aren’t we good?”
Unfortunately, one market is much easier to satisfy.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Nope. Am still playing WvW with my guild but won’t be spending a penny more.
I especially liked that we should have known there was going to be a treadmill because the level cap was raised to 80. Isn’t that one of the things that should have been clarified early on when all people have to go on is your previous game, which didn’t include a treadmill. But, apparently that game was stagnant according to Mike O’B.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I happen to have an ascended item, the quiver of swift flight, and to be fair I can’t really tell the difference in my gameplay. I die just the same in Orr if I act like an idiot. Only reason I got it is because I thought a quiver would look awesome on my thief rather than the lightsaber legendary dagger or my little pony legendary shortbow. Yes, legendary gear blows for my class.
Congrats on the new gear piece!
You’re not seein a diff in the performance because of the way stats work in GW2. There simply isn’t a detectable difference with your upgrade.
The upgrades amount to about .004 * dps increase (4/10 of a percent) in dps.
A detectable increase in light/loudness/taste is ten times as great.
Every new piece of ascended makes the increase more pronounced. Then we can add the infusions which are currently their lowest tier.
When does this increase become significant? Is there a certain point an increase in stats becomes significant that we are all unaware of?
And to say this increase is insignificant and no one can tell is just an insult to all the people who want vertical progression added. You are saying ANet is tricking them in to believing there is vertical progression just so they keep grinding away, all for no benefit.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Thank you for this write up. Puts forth most of the problems I have with this new direction. Especially the leveling part, which I think many are conditioned in to believing is necessary. I kind of see why they included it, to guide people through the world. But it was still a grind, but an acceptable grind because it had an end we could see.
Now we have a treadmill that we have no idea when or if it will ever stop.
Thank you again OP.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I’m playing casually, leveling some alts to get dailies.
With a new tier of item coming out it felt pointless to carry on with my efforts to get exotics on my main.
Haven’t even done FotM. Would rather not start the treadmill at all.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
My god people.. they added one tier of gear as a one-time gameplay improvement, why the kitten is everyone acting like this is the apocolypse?
The term “slippery slope” comes to mind. Many players here have years of MMO playing experience and they can smell rats from a distance. And they are sounding a warning.
Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy. Congratulations for losing your debate.
The term seems to be perfectly apt in this situation. There are only 2 possibilities. Either there is an end to the gear progression, or their isn’t. Previously, with exotics, there was. With ascended, we cannot see it.
They have said they added ascended gear for the “dedicated” who reached the “wall”. Ascended gear either keeps this wall moving away, or people hit it again.
If ANet stops the treadmill, people will hit the wall again. Then what does ANet do?
Either there is no end game again for these dedicated players, or ANet introduces a new treadmill.
As they have already done it once, there is precedence to do it again. They have to upset one group, might as well be the one who they upset last time, right.
I think I have made an argument which potentially makes “slippery slope” not fallacious in this situation.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
That’s right, THREE HUNDRED ECTO for Infused Ascended gear.
Plus 250 of whatever T6 crafting material you need.
Who cares? Thats what the whiners asked for and got. However, if you dont plan on running for more than BiS gear for everything besides fractals all you need are the regular pieces. The infused piece only comes with resistance, worthless outside the fractals.
The difference between regular and infused is +5 agony resist.
edit: Also regarding group finding, yes it can be annoying, yes its not perfect. But I havent spent much time lfg. I’ve found good groups and done more than 1 difficulty at a time. 5-11 just today, covered with 2 groups.
Infusions also have stats, and there are more tiers to come.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I just want to point out to the people who haven’t yet tried how easy it is to get your legendary precursor.
I got dusk on the first chest of my second dungeon. (this wasn’t just luck, another in my group looted dawn, and two other ppl each looted the legend). Then it took me 45 minutes to get the mats for forge…
Gift of mastery is after 500 badges of honor from wvw. I’m no where near that yet but I will get there. Honestly, this is not a gear treadmill.
So far wow wars 2 has been a lot of fun even since all the idiots who want to have fun without getting good gears (AKA WHINERS) and I must say the art and environments are AMAZING. Good job Arena net
Except your legendary currently has the same stats as my exotic, so I can say “Congratulations” and complement you on your nice new piece of shiny gear. But that grinding did not make your gear any more effective and we are still playing on a level playing field.
Just 1 aspect of horizontal progression, guys! Wow!
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
What about people who start after the roll out.
And I’m not sure arguing semantics about the speed of the treadmill really helps your argument.
And ArenaNet are going to be introducing other methods of acquiring this gear with future patches, so those who start later may in fact find it easier to obtain than it is now.
And why was Ascended added again? Wasn’t it to fill the gap between exotics and legendary’s? But they will make them easier to get later? Why would they do this exactly?
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Black lion chest, with a rare chance to get a xmas chest. The xmas chest has a rare chance to get a skin or mini inside.
Everyone likes opening presents, so everyone will be happy!
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I’ve pretty given up expecting any satisfying feedback from ANet.
There must be a grave reason for this turn of events and I wouldn’t expect us to get an honest answer about the internal workings or decisions made within the company.
Three of the staff have now come out to try to convince us this is not a change in direction. Probably just time before they have all made the same statement.
It looks like they are backed in to a corner. Some of us won’t believe what they say, others will accept whatever they say and many more won’t even be aware of what they say.
I guess they are just hoping that losing the core player base that this game was originally aimed at will not negatively affect them in the long run.
I’ve had my say in the forums and now I’m just apathetic to the situation. I don’t see a satisfying conclusion to this debacle. And would rather not spend any more time here. Good luck and have fun everyone. Hope it turns out for the best.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Same for me, managed to make it through to the 2nd (!!!) reinforcement event and disconnected. Kept reconnecting to try to get back to my original overflow. Found another in a similar place so continued there, disconnected again. Repeated again and have just disconnected a 3rd time, all in the same place. Half way through 2 reinforcement event.
Lag is just so bad now. But was kinda okay up until the reinforcement events.
Fun, fun, fun.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I found the personal story forgettable as a whole. It adds nothing to my personal character as every choice is forgotten by the next mission. The only positive I saw in it is the snippets of lore you could gain from missions, but that had nothing to do with the way the story was handled, only that they included lore in the story.
This can’t be considered a branching story, branches diverge, they never converge. Decisions consist of doing a couple of alternative missions, then completely forgetting that decision ever existed in the first place.
More on topic with the title of the thread, the dialogue was pretty hit and miss. I wasn’t overly distressed by it, but I wouldn’t consider it good. I have low expectations, I guess.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
It makes me seriously wonder if it’s fair to say that gear progression is an accepted element of MMORPGs, and games without vertical gear progression are therefore outliers.
I think it probably is fair to say this. Many people have been conditioned to expect it an MMO, as seen by the people requesting it in GW2.
It is also the reason why many of us were so invested in GW2 and their promotion of anti-treadmill mechanics, and why this turn of event is so aggravating to many of us.
Earlier you asked why vertical progression had become so prominent if it wasn’t a necessity in an MMO. Many reasons come to mind for me, but I don’t have anything to back them up with:
1) Easy to churn out – much easier to change a number in a database than make interesting new content.
2) Subscriptions – Fear of falling behind the curve makes it difficult for people invested in the game to take any breaks. Companies have stable subscriptions.
3) It is “safe”. Many MMO’s use this system and it clearly works (but not everyone enjoys the same thing) so it makes it a safe bet. Taking risks can be dangerous.
4) Requires less balancing. Players get stronger and stronger so eventually they can beat challenges, no extra skill required by the player and the devs didn’t have to change anything.
I tried to list some things from a development point of view rather than the customers. I do believe many customers are conditioned in to believing they need it rather than for any specific reason.
Some points could prove debatable and there are doubtlessly many more reasons, but I just tried to note a few common ideas this system is so popular with developers.
Edit: 1 more point I think is quite important is to gate content, and try to slow the consumption of content.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I don’t think the discussion can really develop much further than this. You seem adamant that an MMO cannot exist without vertical progression.
This is what GW2 was promoted as. It is what GW1 currently still adheres to.
Unless you can explain why it is impossible for GW2 to follow the same pattern as GW1 and Anet’s own vision, how much more can we say about this?
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
They did the interviews advertising this as a new kind of mmo, for people who don’t like grinding etc. They came out with it, it was their idea and their vision.
The people who quote the manifesto became interested because they were touting all these features they were implementing and because it was unique.
Sometimes it sounds like people think we forced Anet’s hand in to making something they didn’t want. The manifesto was made by A-net to promote and market their game and interest potential customers.
So after 2 months, when they backtrack on this manifesto, I do think the customers invested in the product should get a few reasons on what on earth happened to their own philosophy.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Well written post. Details concerning issues and doesn’t rely on hyperbole.
Your events are proving to be a time when we should avoid logging in rather than be excited to be involved.
They have been an exercise of frustration this weekend and really not worth the time to be involved in.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
In overflow, catapult was being built for over 30 minutes. Boat icon appeared. Nothing of note happened. Went to new zone by the boat and the lag was horrendous. Was disconnected midway through the event. Rejoined and had to start again. Lag was marginally better but a far cray from enjoyable, gameplay wise. Eventually completed event and have logged out.
That was an incredibly disappointing thing to experience. I can’t remember the last time I had less fun, perhaps a funeral.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
10,000 posts (not including those that were removed) on a single topic concerning the game (whether for or against) and we’ve had 2 posts from the devs.
1 which started the whole issue, and 1 over 3 days ago which clarified nothing.
Now the patch has been implemented, we have seen the issues first-hand and still nothing.
How much longer can they dig their heads in the sand and wish this would go away?
Granted, they do have their hands full with patch full of blocking bugs that is intended to entice new players.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
From the looks of the ascended gear so far, if it’s gonna take that kind of outlay for an invisible piece with no discernible improvement… no, not worth it to me at this point.
Thus far, ANet has provided expensive ways and very cheap ways to get stuff. I got a couple sets of armor, all for free (karma and dungeon tokens), just by playing the game.
And at what point does the difference become discernible for you?
At what point do you think the stat increase is relevant and you can’t get the new gear “just by playing the game”? Will you start grinding, or stop playing?
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
That’s why I said ‘if they do it right’, rather than make it a statement of fact that you’d be able to.
We already have precedent (the back piece). And can see current recipes.
But your reasoning is that if they completely change the system from what it is currently, it might work. Is that a reasonable assumption to make?
If they pull this off right, people should be able to work towards their Ascended gear without compromising their progress for Legendary gear.
How does collecting the mats for ascended gear not directly compromise their progress for Legendary gear?
Legendary’s are still just as expensive.
Once they have their Ascended gear, then they still hit the “Legendary wall”.
Can you explain how this closed a gap?
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
It isn’t ‘easy’ to obtain at all. It involves a grind, be it a direct or indirect one. Some people will be lucky enough to be able to throw gold at anything they need, which isn’t ideal for those of us who don’t devote our time to grinding money.
Time to wake up buddy.
Getting to 80 was a grind.
Getting your exotics guess what…. oh thats right it was a grind.
I like how people seem to think that with ascended gear theres now a grind…. it was there all along. What do some of you smoke?
It was a grind, yes. I don’t think anyone has suggested otherwise.
But it was a grind with an end in sight. It was an achievable grind.
People could achieve it without repeating the same content over and over again. Endlessly grinding the same stuff for another stat upgrade is not comparable.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Kamohoali’i is most definitely Hawaiian. It’s the name of a shark god and a brother to Pele (the volcano goddess). Quite an appropriate name for a legendary underwater weapon.
Kotaki may be a Japanese last name, but Kekai’s first name is Hawaiian (translates to “The Sea”). Kekai was born and raised on the Big Island, so he’s from Hawaii. Hard to determine if his lineage is Hawaiian with his last name, but it’s certainly possible since there are plenty with Hawaiian heritage who do not have Hawaiian last names due to marriage. He may or may not not be kanaka maoli (native Hawaiian). But he’s most certainly kama’aina (“child of the land,” a Hawaiian word commonly used for Hawaiian residents).
For those who are curious, the name of the legendary translates to “The Chiefly Chosen One Kotaki.”
It’s like you’re arguing with me, but talk about a completely different thing.
That picture is really awesome. Some very nice artwork.
Just sort out issues with underwater combat and there might be some reason to go for it!
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
It will definitely take longer than this to determine any change in chance. The sample is just too low still.
The change in price is much more likely due the expectation of a price crash in precursors, rather than anything directly from the patch.
How many more hits does that actually mitigate at level 80? After thinking about it, I’m convinced the number is so small it doesn’t even make a difference.
It’s like taking 200 damage when you have only 165 HP instead of 150. It doesn’t make a difference.
They might not be breaking their manifesto if they do this right. That is because it is possible numbers will be so miniscule that it makes no difference in level 80 combat.
In which case. what was the point of the increase?
Did you think your argument all the way through?
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
who cares if he is or isnt the real worlds first creator of this legendary? at the end of the day he’s happy with the weapon and has come on here to show the rest of us how awesome it looks which is more than others who claim to have made it first chose to do.
Nice pics FILTHOUND.7659 and congrats on the legendary
i love when ppl post stuff like this, HE CARES. thats why he says it. personally the trident or whatever with the eels is 10x cooler than this one, i mean the devs couldnt even decide between a hawaiian or japanese name so they just merged it or something
Actually, it’s all Hawaiian. Kotaki is the last name of our illustrious former lead concept artist Kekai Kotaki who is Hawaiian. The concept for this Legendary is the last concept piece he did for us before moving on.
Congrats on your Legendary!!!
Kotaki is most definitely Japanese.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Exaggerations and empty threats of quitting (yesterday I again checked a handful of people that “quit over this and were never coming back”) and nine out of ten were online and playing at some point between 7pm-3am EST) pretty much invalidate any arguments and opinions you could have because it shows you’re clearly unreasonable.
There is no subscription. We can continue to play the game we originally bought and not use the cash shop to support this new direction.
Arena.net still get no money from us either way.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
It just irks me that people complained constantly about a lack of endgame content and then when extra endgame items appear along with a new, complex endgame dungeon and another endgame area then all they do is howl that the game is pandering to traditional MMO concepts.
We should be respecting that they’ve even fought traditional MMO concepts for this long, their changes to the genre have been well executed and we should cut them a bit of slack I think.
Do you think it is the same people complaining?
They said they are adding the ascended items due to player feedback. The people who don’t agree with the change and think it goes against the game that Arena.net marketed are now giving their feedback.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Their stock would surely suffer more if all of the dedicated players who still spend money in the gem store just stopped playing (or at least stopped spending money).
ANet deserves failure for lying to us.
I’ve stopped, not another cent from me. This is no longer the game that deserves my money, if it had a sub I would’ve cancelled my subscription.
Well, that’s the nice thing. We already paid for the game.
I can continue to play the game as I have been until now and don’t have to give them any more money to support this 180 they’ve done.
We’ll see soon enough if the grinders support them, too.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
OMG ! So excited!
I can increase my stats by jumping in to the gear grinder. How has no one ever thought of this before?! It is a unique and exciting concept. So excited.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
I’m seeing a lot of people reacting to Magic Find being an issue here, so I felt I should clarify something.
Magic find has always effected dungeon creature drops – we haven’t changed that at all. Magic find does not effect chest drops however. This has always been the case in dungeons.
The mention of Magic Find for the sub bosses, is to say that we have given them unique loot drops, and that Magic Find is a factor in what you get from them. That is no different in the past as it has been in the future. The more Magic Find you have, the better chances of obtaining a rarer item.
I’m not sure how that allays any of the issues that people have been bringing up. You are encouraging individuals to bring a selfish (limited build) stat to group play.
Running with guild members may still be fine, but this will be very detrimental to pug groups.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
It has always been profitable doing dungeon runs. It was the fact that the loot was trash.
Running dungeons was just a means to get tokens and some money.
I’m not really sure what adding a bit more karma and silver does for it, though.
Maybe they added some nice loot to some of the tables, so you might get an occasional surprise. Hopefully.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Sounds like you’ve spent a great deal of time making these updates.
Can’t wait to get in to my mf gear. My party will suffer for it but at least i will get nice loot.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
After hitting the big wall of [Ascended Armor + Ascended Infusion] the only way to continue without following the – uild Wars 1 way of stopping at the maximum – will be to add a higher tier of armor and infusion.
Then we get an expansion and repeat.
But apparently it isn’t a gear treadmill because they reduced the speed of the machine and renamed it a gear initiative. Innovative thinking.
In the end, though, for us, it is just a game. For them, it is their livelihood and business. There is only so much influence a customer can make, after that they have to do what they believe is best for their product. Unfortunately for us.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
As much as I dislike the sound of the agony mechanic (sounds like a lazy gear > skill mechanic to slow people’s progress), I do not understand why ascended gear has to be a new tier.
We already have blue, green and yellow tiers which become obsolete once you acquire exotics. Why not begin to make equal tiers to satisfy different niches?
Exotics would continue to have the upgrade slot for customisation, while ascended gear would have fixed stats but have an infusion slot. Neither type becomes obsolete and just increases the potential item pool.
Legendary’s could have customisation slot and infusion slot.
All 3 tiers would have equal max stats. Exotics and ascended would fill different niches and legendary’s would be the best of both.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Ascended gear goes hand in hand with the artificial gating of Agony. The slow release of ascended gear has little to do with making it easier on the players to obtain. It has a lot more to do with gating the deeper levels of FotM.
With no ascended gear we can do level 1, with back and ring, we can do level 2, when they add the next ascended we can get to level 3 and so on. They are controlling how far we can get in the dungeon with a passive stat held to ransom on ascended gear.
That is also the reason they couldn’t just add the new slots to exotics. They wouldn’t be able to control how much agony resist we could get.
We will have to see the mechanics of the dungeon before we can say no skill is required but this system certainly makes sure that no matter how good you are, you will not be progressing faster than anet wants.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Ascended gear goes hand in hand with the artificial gating of Agony. The slow release of ascended gear has little to do with making it easier on the players to obtain. It has a lot more to do with gating the deeper levels of FotM.
With no ascended gear we can do level 1, with back and ring, we can do level 2, when they add the next ascended we can get to level 3 and so on. They are controlling how far we can get in the dungeon with a passive stat held to ransom on ascended gear.
That is also the reason they couldn’t just add the new slots to exotics. They wouldn’t be able to control how much agony resist we could get.
We will have to see the mechanics of the dungeon before we can say no skill is required but this system certainly makes sure that no matter how good you are, you will not be progressing faster than anet wants.
“Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
