“Population-wise, we’re doing great,” insisted Johanson. “We’re very happy with where we’re at. Six months ago to now, it’s a very steady, very very healthy population.”
Common -> Fine -> Masterwork -> Rare -> Exotic -> Legendary….
is not a gear treadmill, but..
Common -> Fine -> Masterwork -> Rare -> Exotic -> Ascended -> Legendary
is a gear treadmill?
Why? because it takes more than a handful of hours to get?
Basically, yes. Gear progression turns into a treadmill when you have to work hard to keep up with it. If you can come back after a lengthy absence, skip few tiers and equip yourself in BiS almost right away after login, it allows you to shortcut the whole “running to stay at the same spot” problem.
Gear progression is a treadmill when you are constantly throwing away your BIS armor because new BIS armor was introduced with new content and your old BIS armor simply isn’t capable of getting the job done now.
I guess its not a gear treadmill then because exotic armor is still plenty capable of getting any job done. Like others have noted in the forums in increase is really minuscule you can’t notice the slightest difference. You don’t NEED this armor to do anything.
The difference is anything but minuscule. I could easily notice a damage increase of 14-19%.
Injustice, Oppression, Elitism, and Favoritism, is this the future we need?
I’ve noticed a lot of that from the developers and here on the forums from those who run it.
But to contribute to the topic, I don’t look forward to anything exciting from GW2 in 2014.. I’d happily pay a sub for one of these up and coming games though.
I keep finding it funny that in every mmo forum I keep seeing people asking for sub-based games and if a game decides not to go sub-based they are all mad but in the last 9 years (really resent released games still need to prove them-self) all games that went sub-based failed with there sub-based model. I do understand that you do not like a micro-transaction based model but GW1 had a good model where they focused on expansions. That was really good.
I think if GW2 switched to an expansion model like they did with GW1 with new skills, abilities, classes, physics and NPC mechanics the game would probably hold more players.
It’s more likely that GW2 will be released in China before they can produce a large expansion but; there isn’t much time before the competition arrives. If they are very successful in China they might abandon the North American market.
I would bet against GW2 being successful in China at this point. GW2 was originally supposed to release in China during 4Q ‘13, but NCSoft made it clear during their last investor’s call that they are shifting their focus away from GW2 in China due to the huge popularity of Blade and Soul. They are now no longer committing to a time frame for the GW2 China release. I think they said “sometime in 2014” due to “strategic timing”. Anyone with any knowledge of NCSoft knows what that really means.
Not explicitly no. But it is definitely part of the “takes everything you love about GW1” line. If you were to survey everyone that played GW1 and asked what they love about it, I -guarantee- “lack of vertical progression” makes the top 3. And I would bet on it being a contender for the #1 spot. It was very much a franchise-defining feature.
Which would suggest that they didn’t survey people that played GW1.
Because anyone that have actually played GW1 (past Factions) is fully aware that there are vertical progression in the game.
Also taking everything you love about GW1 would more or less mean “Making GW1 with better graphics” since there is most likely people that love every single thing in the game.
It is marketing, plain and simple. Anyone that actually thought that they would simply remake GW1 were fooling themselves and clearly didn’t check up on anything said about the game.
I personally didn’t expect them to take absolutely everything that anyone ever loved about the game and remake GW1 with better graphics. But I definitely expected them to maintain the franchise-defining characteristics of the original game (specifically things that GW1 did well in comparison to other games), as well as keeping to the same priorities. And that is not even remotely true in the GW2 that exists today.
For example, the manifesto, the video I’m talking about here, mentions neither vertical progression nor gear grind.
Not explicitly no. But it is definitely part of the “takes everything you love about GW1” line. If you were to survey everyone that played GW1 and asked what they love about it, I -guarantee- “lack of vertical progression” makes the top 3. And I would bet on it being a contender for the #1 spot. It was very much a franchise-defining feature.
I’m excited for 2014… but not for GW2. As much as I’ve loved and supported Guild Wars over the years, I find myself extremely disappointed with Anet and how they’ve handled GW2 over the past year. Oh well, there’s the new D3 expansion, ESO, EQ:N, and eventually Camelot Unchained to look forward to. So yes 2014 will be an exciting year, but I don’t have much hope for GW2 at this point.
This is -exactly- how I feel. The game that I envisioned based on my experiences with GW1 and all of the pre-launch interviews, blogs, etc and the game that exists today are 180 degrees apart from each other. And it’s absolutely baffling. Looking at all of the competition on the horizon and what they offer…this game is going to get steamrolled. And it’s going to be ugly.
A lot of the ideas here seem so simple that I cannot imagine them not coming up at all during your meetings. Most of those should NOT seem new to you guys.
Just wanted to echo this. Ideas on how to do a better job at progression have been all over the forums for the better part of a year now. This issue still being in a pre-planning phase is…troubling.
Add to this the fact that GW1 is basically -the- holy grail on how to do interesting character progression and it makes the current state of progression in GW2 absolutely baffling. It’s like a master chef serving burnt toast and raw eggs.
They only said that there would be no more tiers in 2013. 2013 is nearly over, so adding another tier will soon be back within the realm of possibility. They’ve also talked about progression through better infusions.
Anyone that thinks they can now see the finish line for stat grinding is going to be in for a surprise.
With the overflow system, there is no reason to even have multiple servers from a PvE perspective. The only reason to have split servers is for WvW matches…and there are way too many servers for the current level of WvW activity. Merges should definitely happen before they start Season 2…it’s an opportunity to make league matches much more competitive and balanced than they were in Season 1.
I say bring it on ANet, bring out your ascended armor sets, the sooner I’ll be done grinding for the best stats the more I’ll have fun in the game, cause I won’t have to mind about the stats any longer.
They talked about continuing vertical progression through higher level infusions back when ascended gear was first introduced, and I seem to remember chatcodes for masterwork infusions being discovered already. Anyone that thinks ascended armor is the end of stat chasing would be incorrect.
A 15% drop in revenue when the game is basically uncontested right now just seems like a bad thing to me. What will happen 3-4 months from now when an onslaught of new MMOs hit the market?
Why don’t we wait guild wars 2 releases in China before making any hasty conclusion?
i.e making expansions.
The China release has been delayed in favor of Blade and Soul….no mention of a future date, but they said it was not going to be happening in Q4 as originally planned. My guess is that it’s going to end up not happening.
However I can say with some certainty that since it is a combination of 4 stats increasing instead of just 1, it will almost certainly be higher than 5% for zerker gear.
Isn’t this where people have been coming up with the double digit % increases? Because of the disproportionate gains in crit damage (compared to other stat combinations) and how the 4 stat increases result in a compounded effect?
Yes, very boring. I used to think that the dynamic event system and the impact they would have on the world would mean that I’d get an entirely different experience with each character that I leveled. Not even remotely the case.
I can’t wait until the stats on ascended armor are revealed and the final calculations can be done. It’s going to be hilarious when people continue to argue that ascended gear is optional and doesn’t matter when the power gap grows to about 15-18%.
I also remember seeing that masterwork infusions are already in game…as in, the chat codes already exist. With infusions slots, ArenaNet can add more vertical progression all day long without violating any “no more new tiers” promises. Anyone that thinks that chasing after BiS items is going to end with ascended armor is mistaken.
Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses? Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game <snip>
perm
There are dozens of things they could have done with ascended gear that would have been better and more novel than the current implementation, including the things that you suggest. Instead they went with the dullest and most unimaginative implementation possible: “just put bigger numbers on it”. Ascended gear has unfortunately proven that ArenaNet is not looking to think outside the box at all when it comes to giving players a sense of progression.
Between the prices and the increased frequency of the cash shop updates (seems to have gone from monthly to almost weekly), this game definitely feels like it has entered its “milking” phase.
Fourth I was a huge Razer fan and went through a couple of nagas before trying the g600…and I consider it vastly superior. Side buttons are angled so they are easier to get a feel for, and the mouse is larger which is great if you’ve got bigger hands. Plus it has the an index finger button, which I use for weapon swap.
So Anet made the manifesto, there was confusion, Anet explained the manifesto. Then they proceeded to have two years of pretty crystal clear communication that everyone seems to have completely forgotten while trying to make a point about a two year old video that was clarified at the time.
See, this is where I’d disagree with you. I dont’ think there was confusion. There’s nothing in the manifesto that is confusing. At all. It’s very simple and straightforward. Now, there -may- be misunderstanding and/or expectations that were not met, but that’s different. No confusion meant that no one had any reason to go out looking for clarifications, because people thought they fully understood the type of game that they were going to get.
As a side note, if I look at the manifesto from the point of Colin talking about combat and Ree talking about personal story…it doesn’t even seem like it would have been worth making the manifesto at all. Permanent choices in areas of the game that are instanced? Is that even worth advertising? Why would anyone make a point of that?The supposed clarifications/backpedaling are waaay more confusing than anything the manifesto or pre-launch inverviews talked about.
Applying Occam’s Razor, I think they made a manifesto video showing what they wanted to do, they were forced to push the game out about a year before it was ready (and had lots of progression options in place for people hitting level cap), people hit level cap and complained they were bored, and ArenaNet took the quick fixes in an attempt to retain players and make their game more sticky….and if the manifesto and “Is it fun?” blog had to be compromised to get something in place quickly, so be it.
I’m hoping there will be some information on whether or not they are going to go ahead with ascended armor/weapons. So people can plan their stay or exit from this game accordingly.
Sorry but I was in retail for a long long time. Now if Anet made an ad, let’s say the manifesto or an article and TWO YEARS LATER they opened the business, and between the same two points they annouced what the business would have in great detail, it wouldn’t be bait and switch.
The point of bait and switch is immediacy. I advertise something today which I don’t have in stock and when you get into the store, I then at that point try to sell you something else. It’s a point of sale thing.
If I advertised something six months ago, and since changed what I do, no court in the WORLD would call that bait and switch.
A manifesto is not a guarantee of delivery, it’s a statement of intent. You can’t really call someone intending to do something but not guaranteeing it bait and switch, because not every intent can come to pass.
And beyond all that, you can argue all you want, but unless Anet advertises that dyes are account bound and that’s a major selling point of the game, and you end up buying the game JUST BECAUSE dyes are account bound, that wouldn’t be bait and switch either.
Sorry but the whole bait and switch thing is nothing more than hyperbole. You’re exaggerating a claim to try to make a point.
And using the words bait and switch means you lose credibility with those who know what it means.
Stuff said years before a product comes out doesn’t apply to bait and switch.
Are you still pitching the “it was two years old” argument…despite the fact that the main guild wars 2 site had a direct link to it (complete with graphics) on the main page basically right up until release?
They posted a clarification. they stopped talking about it It’s two years old. They’ve had so much stuff after it, that it’s beyond amazing that this is ALL anyone talks about. It would be like going to an architect and he draws some stuff about how he wants the house to look, not a mechanical drawing, but a sketch to give you an idea.
Here is a link showing the guild wars 2 main site on May 10th, 2012.
If they knew the manifesto video was the subject of mass misinterpretation, they should have redone it to be more clear. Or taken it down. Anything short of that would be, at best, irresponsible. And at worst, intentionally misleading.
The rumor is that Anet will not be releasing any more stat-based vertical progression items, but instead return to the fully skill-based 100% horizontal progression game GW2 was marketed as for years. So it looks like the ascended trinkets items will be will be Anet’s stop point in the failed experiment of trying to please the WoW teenagers. And I’ve also heard that there is a massive number of beautiful new armor and weapon skins being designed by Anet, with a myriad of paths to attain them (laurels, dungeons, gem store, karma, crafting ect…). Of course your laurels will not be wasted, because they will be one of the methods of attaining the beautiful new skins and multiple sets of exotic gear so you can use many different builds for your character.
If people with transmuted legendaries get shafted, these forums would go nuclear. Especially since it would be in addition to the inevitable re-igniting of the ascended gear debate that would come with the introduction of the weapons.
The living story content gives them an excuse to update the gem store multiple times a month…if they didn’t include it, it would be entirely too obvious to players that this game has entered its “milking” phase. The shallow content and recycled achievements are just fine for that purpose. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be unique. It doesn’t even have to make sense lore-wise. It just has to exist.
If they are still planning on adding ascended weapons and armor, I want them to say so. I want a confirmation. I don’t want a blog post a few days before it goes live saying “New Ascended Items!”…I want to know what their intentions are in advance.
Not everyone is satisfied getting just a skin. A lot of us enjoy the effort of making our character stronger through gear.
That’s fantastic! I completely respect your desire for this type of game. Lucky for you, there are a lot of MMOs that offer this already. GW2 was supposed to be the one MMO for those of us that don’t want to grind gear for better stats and want to play for fun and aesthetical rewards. But instead of enjoying the 20 or so McDonalds that are already in town, people had to walk into the one Burger King in the area and start demanding Big Macs…completely ruining it for those of us who enjoy Whoppers. Now we have 21 McDonalds and those of us that like Whoppers are being told we’re wrong to complain because “some people like Big Macs”.
ascended accessories killed the jewel-crafting trade.
ascended armor will kill armor smith, leather working and tailor trades.
they really should update the crafting skills so that ascended gear can be crafted!
The problem with ascended gear being craftable is that the game would take a significant step towards pay2win. If people with lots of disposable income could buy gems, covert to gold, get crafting mats off the TP and kit themselves out in full ascended gear, I can see a pretty big outcry as a result.
If Ascended gear’s stats are as trivial as everyone keeps saying, I don’t see how this would be “pay to win”, since you can already craft exotics.
Or are you saying there is a big enough gap between exotics and ascended that being able to craft it would grant those players an advantage over someone in all exotics?
The people saying the stat increase is trivial simply haven’t done the math. It’s a 13% damage increase from exotic berserkers to ascended berserkers due to the multiplicative nature of the individual stat increases. This doesn’t even take into account future ascended armor and weapons likely having more armor rating and weapon damage in addition to the base stats.
ascended accessories killed the jewel-crafting trade.
ascended armor will kill armor smith, leather working and tailor trades.
they really should update the crafting skills so that ascended gear can be crafted!
The problem with ascended gear being craftable is that the game would take a significant step towards pay2win. If people with lots of disposable income could buy gems, covert to gold, get crafting mats off the TP and kit themselves out in full ascended gear, I can see a pretty big outcry as a result.
I am a little bit scared after the last few updates. I feel like we are getting these shallow living story/holiday events merely as a way to wrap frequent gem store updates. As if they’ve given up on any longer term content plans and want to milk as much cash out of their current players as they can before everyone has lost interest.
I have to say that I felt out of love with GW2 on Nov. 15th. This coming from someone who got 50/50 HoM points in anticipation of the game, read both books beforehand, and watched every single stream of guildcast prior to launch. I really thought that GW2 was going to be revolutionary and be a giant leap forward from the 8 years of WoW-clones that companies have been feeding us. Finally a game that concentrates on fun rather than chasing carrots (for people that like this sort of thing, there are plenty of options already available). Ascended gear proved that ArenaNet really isn’t looking to think outside the box.
I absolutely agree that GW2 needed (and continues to need) more venues of progression for players…but ArenaNet took the easiest, dullest, and most alt-unfriendly way possible to address the problem: tossing out gear with bigger numbers. Nothing about the way Ascended gear was implemented suggests that it was premeditated…despite a quote from a single dev that say that it was.
I’ve still been playing the game simply because I have guildmates playing that I want to keep in touch with (we have a moderate amount of fun in WvW), and GW2 launched in kind of a dead space for MMOs. But the lack of competition for the game is only temporary, and I don’t think it has the stickiness it needs to survive the MMOs that are on the horizon (Wildstar, FF14 2.0, ArcheAge, TESO, etc.)
They lied. Manifesto video was full of lies to get people hyped and to get more attention, potential players.
That being said, some people are completely happy about this game and everything about it, and that’s fine, but this is not the sequel of GW1.
The moment someone releases MMO with GW1 mechanics, I’ll quit this game and never look back.
Pretty much this. They marketed the game to GW1 fans and people who are sick of playing the same MMO over and over again in order to drive pre-orders, then turned the game into a cash grab post-launch by 1. using mediocre living story content to wrap frequent gem store updates (and always with a gambling component) 2. intentionally keeping the game unrewarding with rampant loot nerfs designed to push people into converting cash to gold and buying what they want off the TP.
They’ve built a game around a business model instead of building a business model around a game.
Of course they’ll open the Crystal Desert at some point.
The story will be completable in about an hour. There will be a single pvp-like instance that rewards containers of some sort. They will also drop off mobs. In the containers will be consumables mostly. Maybe one jumping puzzle will be included. There will also be achievements that require you to mash your interact key a hundred times or so on various things. Completing them all will give you a back item.
Along with offering new, exciting items in the Mystical Crystal Coffers….available now in the gem store! These coffers will have a few new mini pets, along with a rare chance to contain a Sandstorm Weapon Ticket!
These updates can practically write themselves at this point.
They know that if they caved to those complaining, that would just bring about a whole new set up people complaining about their changes.
You think if they got rid of their gambling boxes….people would complain? ….seriously?
Yep. I do. There are a lot of people who like them who are not upset when they don’t get what they hope for. They are realistic and know they are taking a risk. I’m one of them. I know many others. We are realistic in knowing that we may not get anything no matter how much we buy. We just don’t complain about it when things do not go our way. So they would be upset if they had everything effectively handed to them. It would make the game boring.
But wouldn’t your complaint be better directed towards getting more weapons/armor skins that you can earned rather than gambled for? Right now it takes a mere minutes to buy a bunch of boxes and click through them all. Are you saying that these moments that you can gamble away some money are what is keeping the game from being boring for you? And that you’d prefer this method over having more skins that you can spend some time earning in game?
Imagine if they had a system where you could support them and get something in return.
Don’t worry, they’re getting plenty of financial support from the gambling-addicts that are spending 8k gems trying to get a ticket. You certainly don’t have to feel like you should give them money…they’re getting plenty of it. If they weren’t, they would change their strategy.
I was a huge Razer fan and went through a couple of nagas before trying the g600…and I consider it vastly superior. Side buttons are angled so they are easier to get a feel for, and the mouse is larger which is great if you’ve got bigger hands. Plus it has the an index finger button, which I use for weapon swap.