Guild Wars 2

My 2 pennies worth:

Myself and the friends I play with in game have avoided Dungeons almost without exception due to a perceived high barrier to entry plus a general dislike of PUGs. We also have the issue that we can’t all be around to run Dungeons together due to schedule conflicts etc. Now, of course, the barrier to entry thing isn’t such an issue if we had managed to get going at the start of the game, but now, not only is there an issue finding groups for Story modes, but also, there is the idea that at this point everyone should know all the tactics for all the instances by now, and we really are not interested in encountering the elitism that comes with first time run-throughs at this stage in the games life.

With all that being said, I guess what I’d like to see are Dungeons that scale not only to level but also to number of people that want to run them. This means that smaller guilds/groups and people that just prefer it that way can still see this content and never have the issues that I have outlined above.

As for loot – I think a simpler Daily random system would work fine with a single currency for all Dungeons that lets you go after the gear you desire without the needless grinding of a single Instance.

Interesting topic – yet I feel like most here are somewhat late to the party. Anet have recently spoken toward the fact that Ascended items were not rolled out in the fashion they would have liked. It was mentioned numerous times during the recent AMA on Reddit that Anet would have preferred to roll out these items from the launch of the game and to have made them achievable pieces via many styles of game-play, not just through Fractals. Further – this is what they plan to do moving forward.

To me, this is an acceptable compromise. I am willing to have a gradual stat increase as long as it is always obtainable whilst playing the game the way I wish. Of course, some will feel that having gear be so relatively easy to obtain negates the need for a gear creep in the first place, but to my mind, this is all other games do to a greater or lesser extent whereby the major difference is that other MMOs create a split, elitism based culture within their community’s. I don’t believe that anyone is really fooled in any MMO by the “carrot on a stick” analogy. Everyone understands that it is an artificial, never-ending false sense of reward, but this in no way reduces my, and others feeling of satisfaction at gaining these items. What I think has changed is that many players are no longer prepared to jump through any and every hoop the designers tell us to just to get these rewards. Rather, we want to be rewarded for having fun and staying loyal to the game.

I do understand that for some, this creates the issue that if everyone can have everything, then who’s special? To that end, I do agree that legendary items feel somewhat less than legendary to acquire, but are working in the sense that they are rare and obtainable for those that have the jump through hoops mentality.

All in all, for me, it was the lack of communication with the player base over the whole Ascended issue that caused the real problem. If they had but released a statement similar to the recent AMA, much of the consternation could have been vastly reduced.

I’m not a regular forum lurker and certainly don’t reply to topics here, but I would just like to add my disappointment with this gear inflation idea, especially so soon after the games release.

As someone who doesn’t run dungeons due to the fact that there is already a steep learning curve in the dungeon game, I already feel that I lack experience to find groups to run them with at this point in the games life, now add to this the fact that I will subsequently need to have certain gear to go… sad face. I feel this will lead to the exact same type of elitism so prevalent in other MMOs out there. I would have been happy to pay for a new expansion, lets say, 6 months to a year down the road that had a new level cap, but this just feels far to soon. I would also have expected there to be a more diverse range of cosmetic skins and the inclusion of more readily available exotic Back pieces before thinking about new stat ideas.

Lastly, I’d like to point out that in general, resistance sets have never lasted in many of the MMOs out there, for good reason imo; they feel like a lazy design philosophy – arbitrary mechanic that forces a grind as opposed to actual skill from the players or just more involved mechanics from a given mob/boss.

Apologies if much of this has already been said, but 58 pages… you know!

1920 × 1080 27" Monitor. Looks fantastic!

As a male Norn who enjoys JPs, my monitor and I thank you for this wonderful change!