Guild Wars 2

I’d just like to make one final post to convey my extreme disappointment in Anet for not only pushing this through, but showing no authentic attempt to have genuine two-way conversation about the changes. They never once tried to answer the solid vertical progression questions asked dozens of times here and elsewhere. They simply dismissed our concerns and claimed that we were wrong. Well, the patch is here now and we were not only correct, but we somehow managed to understate their conviction to this new vertical gear treadmill path.

I’ve been a longtime player of Anet games, and made huge attempts to recruit numerous people over the years. I’ve loved GW1 and many, many facets of GW2. The art style is wonderful, the exploration refreshing, and the world alive.

However, this extraordinary about-face in design will not only result in me permanently leaving, but all of those guild and real world contacts as well. That’s many a gem that would have been gladly bought to support Anet’s original vision and manifesto.

We were promised a break from the treadmill. An alternate to the mundane mmo. That’s what drew us here, and ultimately now pushes us away.

Best of luck to all. We tried to fight the good fight.

tkalamba.2541:

Snerf.1650:

tkalamba.2541:

Nerth.3940:

Loosifah.4739:

My argument isn’t that adding a new tier isn’t vertical. My argument is that they never promised exotic would be the last tier; that was an assumption on your part.

They have promised that they wouldn’t be adding a new tier every three months(Which people are picking apart), but the reason it was worded that was is because everyone was screaming “WHAT IF THEY ADD A NEW TIER EVERY THREE MONTHS!?”

Clearly you don’t want to or can’t understand. I will give you one final example.

Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.
-Mike Obrien

We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills
-Colin Johanson

Let’s take WoW for example. Why are you running the same dungeons over and over and over again? To get better gear because the next dungeon is impossible to complete without gear from the previous one.

What are we getting? New armor with better stats because the new dungeon will be impossible to complete without this gear.

Do you see the resemblance?

It doesn’t matter if it’s every 3 months, ever 3.5 months, every 5 months … When you need to have better gear to complete a new dungeon you have vertical progression and you have to get that gear to be able to finish it. See where this is going? New gear is not optional anymore, it’s mandatory.

Now, please read the second quote again.

It’s an uncompletable dungeon. It doesnt finish….. and you can still experience all 9 fractals without Ascended gear. This means it’s not gated content, therefore the Ascended gear is not mandatory. If there’s no end to it, and it resets everyweek…. then you may never need to bother with Ascended gear, as you still have access to all the content and the option of doing the dungeon. You can still WvW, you can still Spvp.

Nothing at all will be locked out to you. You can even still do the difficult portions of the dungeon, all it is a resistance, not a 100% immunity. Sure at a certain point you will need to mitigate Agony, but you can still do the entire fractal at a lower difficulty, over and over and over again.

If you want to be on an even playing field in wvw you absolutely will need it.

It raises the ceiling post release. If you are serious about competing in WVW, ascended gear will not be optional.

I compete just fine without full exotics. You’re talking about a game mode that rarely involves 1 on 1 encounters. A vast majority of people who play it competitively do not solo WvW. We all run in groups, and when faced with numbers, your individual stats mean nothing. WvW is not balanced in the slightest, and not every opponent you face will be on equal footing. It’s not like gear is the only thing that gives you a boost, I can trait for an additional 200 toughness and it wont make me unbeatable. The +5 power and +5 precision from a ring won’t make much of a difference.

First of all, it adds up to more than plus 5 to a stat as currently designed.

Second, it doesn’t matter how small of an advantage it gives. My interest is in open WVW small group skirmish action. In these scenarios the smallest bit can help. There is no reason to add ascension gear hurdles to WVW.

Like I said earlier, if it’s inconsequential than it’s pointless, and if it makes a difference it’s another stepping stone to enjoying that area of the game.

Other serious WVW people will run it. To be on even footing, you or I will need to as well.

tkalamba.2541:

veritech.1048:

tkalamba.2541:

veritech.1048:

tkalamba.2541:

veritech.1048:

They actually have stated that exotic would be the final, best gear. They also stated that they wanted exotics to be easy to get.

A company sells their product on a promise, a manifesto that there would be no gated gear, no gear treadmill, no power creep. A promise that this MMO would be different.

Well, turns out that the entire time they have been developing gated gear with a power creep.

Why have they been developing this feature that was not needed when so many things in the game are broken?

The storyline is mediocre, at best. Whoever thought we should all play right hand to Treebeard the magnificent should feel bad.

The camera is still wonky.

Free transfers are still ruining WvW.

Bot problems.

The man running the economy doesn’t know anything about economics.

Broken events, broken quests, broken skills.

All of these problems that need to be addressed, and what did they spend my money on? Something I didn’t want, something I stopped playing other MMOs because of it.

Power creep. That’s all it is folks, don’t try to cherry coat it.

Should Anet continue on their current design model this game will just be another burnt out husk we will all refer to as another failed WoW clone.

Where/When did they state Exotics are the final tier?

When they promised no gated gear and no power creep. In their manifesto.

That never said Exotics were the last tier we would see. All it said was Legendaries would always be the Best in Slot items.

But they did say that there wouldn’t be power creep or gated gear.

This implies exotic is the final tier.

Just because you cannot read, doesn’t mean everyone else cannot.

One addition is not power creep. Now if they added a couple more tiers, I’d say they it is, but right now, I would say not.

Nothing is gated, you can still experience 100% of the content without Ascended gear. You can still fight all the bosses in the dungeon, you can still see all 9 fractals, you can still collect relics. You can do it all. You can even change the difficulty all you want. Agony kicks in at level 10? Just do the dungeon at level 9. The only thing you miss out on is Agony.

I can read just fine, I also don’t dig into quoted text looking for messages that aren’t there. The quotes I’ve seen all explicitly state that the rarest items (Legendary) will always be equal to the highest tier item. None of that has changed in the slightest.

But I believe that’s flawed thinking. When discussing design principles, you don’t just get a pass because you only deviate once. One extra tier added post launch is just as harmful to the “no vertical progression” model as 5 or 10. It sets up precedence that it is an okay option to take.

You either develop for a horizontal plateaued end game, or you don’t. It defines how big decisions are made.

tkalamba.2541:

Nerth.3940:

Loosifah.4739:

My argument isn’t that adding a new tier isn’t vertical. My argument is that they never promised exotic would be the last tier; that was an assumption on your part.

They have promised that they wouldn’t be adding a new tier every three months(Which people are picking apart), but the reason it was worded that was is because everyone was screaming “WHAT IF THEY ADD A NEW TIER EVERY THREE MONTHS!?”

Clearly you don’t want to or can’t understand. I will give you one final example.

Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games.
-Mike Obrien

We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills
-Colin Johanson

Let’s take WoW for example. Why are you running the same dungeons over and over and over again? To get better gear because the next dungeon is impossible to complete without gear from the previous one.

What are we getting? New armor with better stats because the new dungeon will be impossible to complete without this gear.

Do you see the resemblance?

It doesn’t matter if it’s every 3 months, ever 3.5 months, every 5 months … When you need to have better gear to complete a new dungeon you have vertical progression and you have to get that gear to be able to finish it. See where this is going? New gear is not optional anymore, it’s mandatory.

Now, please read the second quote again.

It’s an uncompletable dungeon. It doesnt finish….. and you can still experience all 9 fractals without Ascended gear. This means it’s not gated content, therefore the Ascended gear is not mandatory. If there’s no end to it, and it resets everyweek…. then you may never need to bother with Ascended gear, as you still have access to all the content and the option of doing the dungeon. You can still WvW, you can still Spvp.

Nothing at all will be locked out to you. You can even still do the difficult portions of the dungeon, all it is a resistance, not a 100% immunity. Sure at a certain point you will need to mitigate Agony, but you can still do the entire fractal at a lower difficulty, over and over and over again.

If you want to be on an even playing field in wvw you absolutely will need it.

It raises the ceiling post release. If you are serious about competing in WVW, ascended gear will not be optional.

Creslin.1758:

GADefence.5634:

“Not going to happen, and again they never promised exotic would be the last tier.

Also this may not be an official “expansion” but this is them opening up a new zone to play in. It’s basically a micro-expansion."

They promised no vertical progress. Exotics was the vertical limit. Ascended beats exotics. Egro, they promised exotics was the limit and broke their promise.

And don’t say ascended isn’t vertical progress. It’s better, and became required.

I’m going to rewrite part of your post and just change two words:

_They promised no vertical progress. Rares was the vertical limit. Exotics beats rares. Egro, they promised rares was the limit and broke their promise.

And don’t say exotics isn’t vertical progress. It’s better, and became required._

See what I did there? The game ALREADY had vertical progress.

The key point is raising the ceiling after release.

We knew about those tiers before. This it isn’t creep if it already exists.

Ascended did not exist, thus creep.

stof.9341:

Snerf.1650:

I think it’s an interesting concept to be sure. I agree that there would a lot of merit to creating a plateau for pve dungeons to design around. But don’t they already have that plateau?

That’s not a plateau. That’s making the game boring XD What next? After having everyone no matter the class in the game using exactly the same stat build, the new dungeons give all players a Caladbolg they cannot drop and locks their utilities and class skills?

I was simply agreeing that having a sort of rough power plateau would simplify dungeon design. I wasn’t saying I supported it, or that it would look exactly like that with one stat build. I also said that I believed that there already is one in a way; current exotic tier stats.

I’m not target audience though. I loathe doing any dungeons.

Hunterdan.4921:

I came across a thought I posted in another thread. But some of you fellas seem to be rather busy here, so I wanted to run this by you as well. Aside from the ragers, many of you are excellent conversationalists. So, here we go!

I think many of us saw the image of the ring posted, and assumed there would also be a power ring, and a precision ring, a healing ring, etc. But what if there isn’t?
What if the ring shown, was the only ring? It’s stats base lined for running dungeons? Putting everyone on a plateau that they can design pve dungeons around. Modifying variable being your infusion, and whatever weapons you happen to take along. Sure, I could equip my higher DPS ring, but agony would down me. Again, now I am at a plateau that they can design the dungeon around.

Thoughts?

I think it’s an interesting concept to be sure. I agree that there would a lot of merit to creating a plateau for pve dungeons to design around. But don’t they already have that plateau?

I think if that was the case however, they would be inclined to share that information. Rather than state that “this was just the beginning of a new item progression system”.

Really, a lot of this could be defused with changes similar to that. Or considerations to WVW impact, or many other small but meaningful details. The problem is that all indications thus far are for a blanket stat tier above current exotics.

Jezath.7395:

I like this theory fox. I ave always been an optimist snerf. I will remain so. Personally I thought anet had proved they could be trusted in what they say with what has been released and what has come before. So personally I take there statements at face value until im shown to be in error. If I am shown to be in error then of course i will retract all my posts and apolagise for being so naive. Until that time (if it ever comes) I stand by what I say.

I respect your optimism, you are absolutely entitled to that.

But those of us who don’t share that optimism still have valuable input to contribute on the topic.

These discussions are a vital function for true problem solving. It’s not harmful to debate the merit of the proposed changes.

Loosifah.4739:

I don’t see why anyone would refund someone’s money after playing a game for over a month. By that point you’ve more than got your money’s worth.

But either way if people leave or stay I’m cool with it. I love the game.

If a happens I’ll have people to run dungeons with

if b happens my server will have room for people who actually enjoy the game.

It’s win/win for me

We love the game too. It’s why we are vocal about this.

If we hated or were apathetic about the game, we wouldn’t be here.

Loosifah.4739:

I can tell you now they’re not going to scrap Ascension gear and infusions. It won’t be added in sPvP and tPvP, but it’s coming.

So you guys have 2 choices.

a> grin and bear it, and hope they keep their word about no gear treadmill

or

b> leave and if you’re from europe try to get a refund after 600+ hours(which I think is stupid that you can do that).

There are a third option, and it’s the one we prefer.

Let them know through the official forums in a clear, respectful manor why we disagree with the design choice in the time leading up to and immediately after the implementation.

I’m not advocating something ridiculous like trying to get a refund on a product someone has already spent many presumably enjoyable hours on.

But letting a company know why you are dissatisfied with their product has a lot of value to the company.

Sitting back and taking things without speaking up does nothing but turn people into victims. There is absolutely nothing wrong with speaking up and sharing what we believe. Especially if it’s done through intelligent discourse.

Jezath.7395:

No they havent lol….. I have read the same statements and I and many others have dran a different conclusion. This must be frustrating for everyone. It is for me.

Our difference is you read “we aren’t going to release things like this every 3 months” as, “No gear treadmill”.

We read that same statement as “We aren’t committed to not releasing additional vertical progression and are simply saying that the intervals will be at minimum 4 months.”

Until they say “We are committed to our manifesto and will never increase the gear ceiling” we can’t infer that it is their intention.

I’ve worked in communications before writing press releases like that. The art is looking at what they don’t say. And they don’t say that they won’t beyond 3 month intervals.

It’s not tin-foil hat talk, it’s how organizations work.

Jezath.7395:

You see this is going round and round in circles, ive explained all of this earlier in the thread, im afraid if people still do not understand that they have not contradicted anything or lied about anything yet, then they never will. A blind man cannot see, he will never see, no matter how you describe the colours to him he still wont truly understand there definition.

But using simple logic and critical thinking skills, people like myself have explained exactly why this isn’t true. We’ve read every sentence the devs have put out on the matter. We aren’t ignoring any concrete evidence.

Until they release an official statement that either repeals the ascension gear stat increase, or pulls that part of the update for review, they have put end game vertical progression in a game that was advertised as not being focused on end game vertical gear progression.

Loosifah.4739:

Their game philosophy never said that there would be no higher tier than exotic though.

There’s already progression in this game. White -> Blue -> Green -> Yellow -> Orange/Red

Adding a new tier post release is vertical progression. Arguing that just because they didn’t say exotic means it isn’t vertical progression is absurd logic.

Loosifah.4739:

No I bought an MMORPG with a lot of PvE content and things to keep me happy. Just because GW1 didn’t have any vertical progression on gear doesn’t mean that GW2 has to have none.

I personally think Ascension gear will be the last tier, and I’m fine with that.

But you understand where we are coming from then right?

The game was advertised, hyped, and sold as not being about vertical progression. Precedent with Anet and GW1 has showed this to be the case and all the GW2 prelaunch interviews and information confirmed that this design principle was still driving GW2.

Now this is changing 3 months post release.

It’s quite simple why many are not thrilled.

Loosifah.4739:

GADefence.5634:

“To this I just have to laugh. You’re playing a game at 3 months in and expect to NEVER get new equipment?”

Yes. What are you, dense or something? This is exactly what we expected. New gear (toughness,con, heal power) maybe, but not stronger. We have 7 years of this, and 3 years of promises, backing up that we thought this would happen.

What did YOU expect when you joined the game?

What I expected was an amazing game that I enjoy. So far I haven’t been let down.

I did NOT expect that after 3 months I’d never have to do anything ever again.

It’s not about us not wanting to do new things. It’s about us not wanting to deal with vertical item progression.

As has been pointed out in this thread many times, there are lots of other ways to handle growth than simple gear or stat inflation.

Loosifah.4739:

How is ONE tier of new equipment after 3 months into the game a deal breaker? Who’s to say that implementing ascension gear wasn’t always the plan as the final plateau of equipment?

Because the way the world works is once you make an exception to a design philosophy, it makes it very easy to do it again.

It’s like the story of the frog and the boiling pot of water.

Put it into boiling water right away and he will jump out. Put him in temperate water and turn the heat up slowly and he will stay there to be boiled.

The fact that for years they’ve held true to entirely horizontal progression is what makes this perplexing. If it’s been the plan for a long time as the final plateau, (as you posit), why would they have never communicated that to their player base? It doesn’t make sense to keep it secret and then spring it like this with a few days notice.

Loosifah.4739:

Why is everyone still crying about this? The update occurs tomorrow; they’re not going to cancel it now even if some of them wanted to.

It’s one single tier of equipment, with no customization.

You can cry “well I spent real money on my exotics” but who told you to spend real money? I’ve spent real money; but not on gold.

Some will cry “But I spent time getting all these sets of exotics, I don’t want to have to get another set!” To this I just have to laugh. You’re playing a game at 3 months in and expect to NEVER get new equipment? “But it should just be cosmetics! Not higher stats!” They never said exotics would be the final tier of gear.

But this is all just speculation. I personally look forward to new content, and the ascension gear. I’m geared out in full exotics on 2 level 80 characters. You don’t see me complaining “But now I have to spend more GOLD!”

At 80 when you’re doing whatever you want to you never stop making money.

Because vertical item progression in GW2 is an absolute deal breaker and if this is the direction the game is changing to, then we’d like to know if we have a future here.

Naoko.7096:

Sennar.2309:

Naoko.7096:

Arreyanne.2683:

Would I have purchased the game had I had knowledge that they intended to infuse a gear treadmill, or gear progression system. When they repeatedly said that they would not?

They already clarified that the ascended tier isn’t the start of a gear treadmill model but just part of the big update to strengthen/fixes the progression of the game as a whole.

They just go vs their gaming phylosophy.

Snerf.1650:

Even if this was the case, don’t you think that there is something unacceptable with advertising the game as avoiding the gear progression model for years and then suddenly adding it in a few months post release?

I’ll reply both at the same.
I don’t think it’s going to be a gear treadmill model because there’s no evident of it yet. They only released one tier, which is only one. As said by the dev around 11x page, they won’t like release stronger gears every few months. No one knows, ascended could be the only update for the game lifetime that is related to gear progression.

I perceive the update to be more like strengthening the progression between exotic and legendary. The progression between these 2 tiers really needs a serious emergency fix imo. (I reached exotic like in 2 days after Lv80? I calculated legendary going to take unrealistic 8 months on my pace if I play 4-8 hours per day? That’s a big gap.)

Okay, for the sake of discussion I’ll follow the idea that it really is the only tier ever, and that there is absolute developer refusal to go higher than ascended stats.

For many of us, getting exotic maxed stats quickly is part of the appeal. I play all 8 professions with the goal of playing all 8 in WVW. Gearing up all of that with multiple sets of exotics (power/crit, tough/cond, magic find, etc) is still a huge undertaking.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the ease at which current max stats are obtained.

That’s the appeal of horizontal progression. Let people grind or really work hard for rare skins or other rewards without raising the gear ceiling.

Guild Wars was designed to not put an emphasis on higher stats. It was designed to reward increase of player skill and build variety/creativity.

Even raising the stat ceiling once goes against this ideal and is unnecessary at best, and downright harmful or deceitful at worst.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Snerf said: “Also, I believe they must have have been working on this content for longer than the game has been live. Surely it would take longer than a couple of moths to plan, code, develop and implement content of this scale? We as a community can hope that they take great care when rocking the boat, and make no decision lightly. I expect nothing less from a group of professionals.”

Which calls into question why Linsey Murdock prefaced here statments about the “item progression initiative” with “As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall.” … as if the idea for item progression came as a result of their watching the live game unfold, and as if it wasn’t precisely the game design plan to (1) get exotic-quality gear fairly easily, and (2) reserve legendary skins for legendary efforts.

What she is implying is that they decided to start up item stat progression power creep in contradition to the stated game philosophy *because the live game was was playing out exactly as the original team expected – indeed, exactly how they had planned it. *

Even if server populations dropped (which there is no hard evidence for), thi is still exactly how the game was designed, and the kind of playstyle it was supposed to generate – a game where you didn’t have to devote your time to it, and you could “drop out” for a few months and revisit when new content came in.

These posts that try to claim “something went wrong, so they had to change course” are ignoring two things:

(1) None of thosehypothetical scenarios/reasons/excuses include anything that wasn’t expected by the original GW2 team. In fact, they spoke about these very subjects at length.

and

(2) this content had to have been originated long before there could have been such information available.

Conclusion: this content direction was a top-down decision made before launch and in contradiction the design philosophy that drove 5 years of development and advertising. It was, in fact, at least in final months, a deliberate case of bait and switch.

While I agree that it could have been in the works for quite a while (though honestly, it’s an irrelevant point in my humble opinion), it wasn’t me that said the original quote.

Naoko.7096:

Arreyanne.2683:

Would I have purchased the game had I had knowledge that they intended to infuse a gear treadmill, or gear progression system. When they repeatedly said that they would not?

They already clarified that the ascended tier isn’t the start of a gear treadmill model but just part of the big update to strengthen/fixes the progression of the game as a whole.

Except that they are making changes to the game to indicate that’s not the case.

They also have not made any comment that states that: “there will never be a stat tier higher than ascended”.

So really, there is absolutely no indication that it isn’t vertical gear progression. Simply calling it “item progression” instead of a “gear treadmill” is nothing more than word choice.

Naoko.7096:

Snerf.1650:

You make some good points, and I appreciate you sharing these thoughts on the subject.

I just have to ask, why does the carrot need to be “better stats”?

Thanks. As for your question, I don’t know about it myself. I guess it’s human nature to like the illusion-feel of being stronger than the pve monsters while they progresses. I only feel that item progression is better than no progression. I agree that there’re more kinds of progression that can be placed besides gear progression.

The current only skins progression as end-game isn’t effective because of the human nature of “beauty is in the eye of beholder”. Many players feel a wall is built infront of them after they achieve their favourite armor skin. No matter how much skin they add into the game, they still want to wear their favourite skin, and not new ones (unless the new skins became their favourite).

Even if this was the case, don’t you think that there is something unacceptable with advertising the game as avoiding the gear progression model for years and then suddenly adding it in a few months post release?

I mean, even if someone supported gear progression as a design (which is their prerogative), wouldn’t this act be somewhat disrespectful to the customers who have bought and played under the idea that it was not in the plans?

tkalamba.2541:

Mercutio.6312:

You have promised no gear progression in GW2. Remove Ascended gear or I don’t buy the first expansion.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it,
that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game.
Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet.

Nothing technically changed here though? Legendaries are still differentiated by their rarity as they will have the exact same stats as Ascended in they release the Ascended Weapons.

It will still be in line with the top tier item, thus that quote remains 100% accurate. None of the quotes even say Exotic will be the final tier. There’s still no grind in order to compete, you can still do the content, theres nothing you will miss out on, and Ascended Items are only a bit harder than Exotics to get. So no promises really broken.

Implementation a new tier of items above the previous max post release absolutely goes against the intention of Mr. O’Brian’s quote. Regardless of whether it specifically mentions the word “exotic”.

Relentless.5678:

Snerf.1650:

Relentless.5678:

Relentless.5678:

Wow. Content looks great! I’m really excited.

Thank you Arena Net.

Clarification: The content includes everything. I am lumping everything together. This includes ascended gear. I wasn’t being exclusionary.

Do you mind if I ask you how the act of raising the stat ceiling beyond exotic gear increases your enjoyment of GW2? Or rather, what current issue you have with the game that this addresses?

I don’t personally get any enjoyment out of stats, and I have no objection to Arena Net introducing a new mechanic, like infusion, which does not impact a pre-existing portion of the game.

I can only guess that the new tier was introduced for some technical difficulty with changing all currently available and existing exotics. This would be the obvious choice, but perhaps there is a systemic problem with doing so.

Also, I believe they must have have been working on this content for longer than the game has been live. Surely it would take longer than a couple of moths to plan, code, develop and implement content of this scale? We as a community can hope that they take great care when rocking the boat, and make no decision lightly. I expect nothing less from a group of professionals.

Thank you, that makes quite a bit of sense.

So even though you are looking forward to all the changes as a whole, keeping the progression model horizontal would also have been perfectly acceptable in your views?

Naoko.7096:

Rukia.4802:

@Naoko

You are the problem with MMO’s today. We don’t need a carrot, the whole point of GW was to remove or rather let us eat the carrot instead of endlessly chasing it. Again, trillions of other posters have said this but let me be clear with it: if you want grind, pandaland is that way —-->

If you say that I’m the problem of the mmo, it’s the same as saying people are the problem of this world. Progression is part of human nature. People wants to keep evolving. People wants to keep themselves anticipated.

The point is not about chasing carrot. <- This is a treadmill. Read carefully.
The point is that there must be a carrot after you ate another carrot.
That is progression in mmo.

It’s not where everyone reach the end and it’s a wall.
Let’s not just say “gear or skin progression”. It’s the progression as a whole.
Progression: Once you reached a goal, there must be another goal.

Item progression like ascended is better than no progression.
I see quite a big potential in the ascended gears. (infusions progressions and stuffs)
Take it like ascended was meant to be part of gw2 future addition.

Games are about goals. You play it because you want to achieve something higher and higher. If there’s no goals, people gets burned out after experiencing everything.

The problem with the current state of gw2 is that player is given every carrot in the game and they ate it all within 2 weeks to 1 month. Once all carrots are eaten, you don’t have anymore carrots to eat and leave the place. This is human nature. In mmo term, it’s called being burned out.
—————————
I really like ascended as it is to be between exotic and legendary. It’s because the progression betwen exotic to legendary is really horrible. The gap is unrealistic and 99% dedicated players rather not go for it. This causes dedicated players to stop their goals and creates low concurrency of players online per day. The ascended can be a good remedy for the progression between these 2 tiers.

I don’t know how guild wars 1 works but I’m curious to know the concurrency of players online in-game per day. With the lack of progression, the game feels like you only log into the game only if there’s a big event like halloween and christmas. On the rest of the days, players never log in. Only the small group of skin collectors are actually active. Why small group? It’s because beauty is in the eye of beholder for looks. Most players don’t feel the need to farm another armor look once they wear their favourite ones already. Evidence? It’s already in the game.

Small concurrency of players online per day isn’t good for guild wars 2 structure because most of the content is best when you experience with another player. It’s dynamic events. Imagine on a low concurrency day and there’s 10 dynamic events but only you and another player online. The rest of the players were not online because they are already satisfied with their gear looks and have no more goals. Those kind of inactive players are those who only come online if there’s any world event or major updates going on.

Sorry that people have to read the long post.
I just want to add something positive since there’s too much negativity around.
I want people to see that there’s both sides of the perception.

It’s a treadmill if they see it as treadmill.
It’s a progression if they see it as progression.

You make some good points, and I appreciate you sharing these thoughts on the subject.

I just have to ask, why does the carrot need to be “better stats”?

There are all kinds of other carrots that could be added that aren’t simple combat increases.

The players opposed to ascended armor aren’t opposed to awesome new things in the game, we are simply opposed to vertical increases.

We all love things like new skins, new areas, (and in my case player housing, Hall of Monuments, etc).

stof.9341:

Urxx.6840:

Who played Star Wars Galaxies or Ultima Online still remembers the day when they patched in the changes that would ruin the game forever.

Star Wars Galaxy got ruined. Ultima Online got saved by the changes. The game would have plain be closed a lot earlier without them. As said Origin at the time, either they gave Trammel to the players for them to move to, or they’d all move to Everquest which they were already doing massively.

In the case of UO, you have to somewhat define “saved”.

The game died with the world split. It may have limped on, but the soul was gone and so were most players anyways. I’d argue that not implementing that change could have benefited them more in the long run, as it would have been the single largest factor setting UO up as an alternate MMO experience to EQ.

With the world split, they simply tried to attract the same players who would look towards EQ anyways.

The problem with homogenizing your game is that if you can’t offer a different experience, you must offer a superior experience. There was no way UO could “out-EQ at being EQ” just as there is no way current or recent mmos can “out-WoW at being WoW”.

I believe that this example is absolutely relevant to the current discussion in this thread regarding the ascended gear and potential decisions facing GW2 devs.

Relentless.5678:

Relentless.5678:

Wow. Content looks great! I’m really excited.

Thank you Arena Net.

Clarification: The content includes everything. I am lumping everything together. This includes ascended gear. I wasn’t being exclusionary.

Do you mind if I ask you how the act of raising the stat ceiling beyond exotic gear increases your enjoyment of GW2? Or rather, what current issue you have with the game that this addresses?

I’d just like to add that those of us with issues with the ascended gear system are excited for the other content.

It’s a bit unfortunate that’s its being lumped together.

The only issues we are sharing in this thread are that of gating and vertical gear progression.

All of the other content looks wonderful. No one is “looking a gift horse in the mouth” or otherwise disparaging the developers for the work put in to the Lost Shores events.

Valmarius.4150:

Snerf.1650:

Which is one stance, sure.

However, I would argue that if what they are working is a design departure from years of public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedent, then they absolutely should be open and transparent of that process.

The important word there is ‘if’. IF this is the start of a real gear treadmill, I’ll also be pretty kittened. I’m willing to wait and see what they’re actually doing before I start demanding ritual sacrfice, though.

And that’s a perfectly fair response, to be sure.

However, thus far what they have done is said “no treadmill” while describing changes that absolutely indicate somewhat of a treadmill direction. It’s instituting vertical progression where there previously was none.

We are skeptical because it would have been very easy for them to add ascended items at the same stat level as exotics. This isn’t the case though. They very clearly and consciously created them as being objectively better, or a tier above.

Urxx.6840:

Snerf.1650:

Which is one stance, sure.

However, I would argue that if what they are working is a design departure from years of public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedent, then they absolutely should be open and transparent of that process.

Actually after years public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedents that design departure shouldn’t exist at all. Period.

Even if they were perfectly transparent about it, it would still be plain wrong.

I agree with you on this, and have been active in voicing my thoughts directly along those lines.

All I’m saying is that if a company was to change direction like this, I believe that the responsible way to manage it would be in an open and transparent way.

Valmarius.4150:

Xpiher.5209:

Yes because they are adding gear treadmills. Even if its craftable, if anet intends to add more gear later or use the current gear as a key to content then its treadmill.

Are they? Again, we’ve had such limited info that assuming -anything- is a fool’s game. The question of whether or they should have just given straight answers is a different discusison completely, but I don’t think ANet should be forced to reveal everything they’re working on whenever the forum gets up-in-arms about something. They’d have to have an equivelant to the bat phone to even begin to answer the flood of questions and demands.

Which is one stance, sure.

However, I would argue that if what they are working is a design departure from years of public statements, press releases, interviews, and precedent, then they absolutely should be open and transparent of that process.

Valmarius.4150:

Are you people serious? You’ve been playing this game for God knows how many hours, and you’re all spitting your pacifiers out based on a few paragraphs of PR speak?

I have a couple of suggestions. First, stop with the talk of quitting, because I fully expect to see everyone here complaining the same way the next time some new content is added. The few of you who really will leave over this, well, good job for sticking to your word, but really…try seeing how the new stuff pans out before you go and slit your wrists?

As I said, you’ve all seen, what, a few lines of text and a screenshot of a ring? What if ANet make the new stuff craftable in a month or two? What if ALL of the Ascended stuff, as it’s obviously intended for grinding the new dungeon, has Magic Find as one of it’s stats, and the slight increase on the others are intended to balance it a little?

You’ve seriously taken all the content in the game so far (which I’ve really enjoyed, personally), balanced it against one press release, and decided to form a lynch mob? Yeesh!

I understand that some posts may seem like it, but we are simply going off of clear statements by devs that directly indicate a key design direction of the game is radically changing.

We aren’t raging, we are simply:

A. Voicing the direction we feel is best for the game and why.

B. Asking for a clear, non-pr speak, explanation of what is coming, and why.

So far, there have been no official statements that present evidence to indicate that this isn’t a departure from the previously touted horizontal end game. Raising the stat ceiling above exotic absolutely brings in additional (and to many of us, unwanted) vertical progression.

So to re-cap, we aren’t frothing, we are rational dissecting public statements by Anet devs and voicing our thoughts on those statements.

Starhawk.2958:

“Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.”

I was a little more relieved after reading Chris’ post about how this gear is going to be made available. Unfortunately a lot of that post is ‘dev’ speak and doesn’t mean much other than giving huge generalities. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.”

First off, making this type of gear available to those of us who enjoy PvP and play the game for that ‘in time’ probably means they realize now that some of us don’t have any desire to dungeon grind for gear. Okay, well what does ‘in time’ mean? Because to me that says when you get around to adding it in as a reward for badges or whatever. The real sticking point for me is going to be 1. How long it takes them to get Ascended gear (or similar items) into the gear progression for WvW and other PvP formats and 2. How much they cost.

I can see this taking a good long time because of how poorly they have supported this game post launch. They haven’t fixed much of anything in this game for weeks, especially when it comes to class bugs. What I see potentially happening is when these items are available for pvpers they end up costing thousands of badges per item and will require months and months of time and effort per piece. We’ll see if Grind Wars is what this game becomes. /shrug

You make good points, but my question is this, why does it matter how easy it is to get?

Either it takes a long time and is a huge obstacle or it is easy to get an is a minor annoyance.

Either way, it doesn’t actually add any fun to equation. In your scenario, even at best it’s just a useless.

heavyscythe.9780:

Seriously I don’t get why people are so angry about new content being released.

If this update came 3 months from now we would be celebrating but instead we are complaining. All Areanet has done is keep things fresh by giving us things to work towards.

I am a casual player with only 1 lvl 80 character and 2 alts below 30 yet I find the challenge appealing. I’m not the type of player who skips straight to end game I spend most of my time playing through each level range of the game.

Considering the number of lvl 80 players with exotic or legendary armors that already exist, this update only gives players more activities to spend time on rather than getting bored and leaving as soon as they get to 80 and get 100% map completion.

The only people who would really worry about this new tier level are those who spend a lot of time in PvP and all it does in that case is to give people a bit more variety in opponents, instead of several opponents with the exact same equipment sets.

It also makes it so you have to challenge yourself to keep up with the new tier. The reason games are fun is because they are challenging, what is the point of a game that gives you everything with little effort on your part.

A new tier level just keeps the game interesting, if you want to continue to get the legendary instead of the new tier that is fine. But if you want to keep up with the rest of the players you should work towards getting the new tier equipment.

Again, we are against this because we don’t find enjoyment in constantly chasing mmo gear carrots. We enjoy playing the game, not constantly striving for the shiny that makes the biggest numbers.

MMOs don’t need to be about this, in fact the best ones weren’t. And that includes GW1.

Games where you “need to keep up with the rest of the players” aren’t fun. Anet has for years agreed with this design philosophy.

We prefer to get max gear once and not have to worry about it again.

Deth.4109:

Snerf.1650:

Deth.4109:

Caran.3217:

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

how do you know theres a “NEW” target for the game????. what if ascendeds are there way of setting up for a more logically sustainable method of fufilling the original models purpose?

Clearly this new change is not aimed at the audience which all their previous statements, press releases, interviews, etc were aimed at, because they are now saying the exact opposite of what they were saying before.

thats some what true, assuming ascendeds arent intended to become the new permanent level cap standard. i mean if they are then it pleases both types of players, example: all level 80s will in the future wear ascended armor, but by adding new infusions<possibly aquired through various means but for the purpose of my example ones specific to duneons> then hard core gear grinder pvers will have to constantly chase new infusios by doing this dungeon and thefore also be appeased.

Sorry to say but there is no logic whatsoever in your post.

People that have spent time, effort and possibly real money to get exotic gear are cheated and have to repeat the process of gearing up all over.

People that love a gear treadmill because they for whatever reason think this is needed to keep them playing will always demand more, the next tier.

Two fundamentally exclusive ‘ways to play’ – ANet sold a game on advertising A) and now they want to sell those people. This can not work ever.

thats the point of me saying its a more sustainable method, the market of gamers especially the ones who like mmos dont care for a system like what was in place with max level exotics. to most its literally “playing dress up” by adding more infusions for gear treadmill players they give them more ways to increase there effectiveness and create a flat levle “next tier”. not that those items would be any more powerful so much so as they simply increase the effectivness of that player in a particular setting. and because they can create gear upgrades via infusions rather than new armor tiers it creates the item level cap we were pormised with the original model.

Your mistake is that this game was never marketed or designed for those types of gamers.

Lots of other mmos do those games well, Anet marketed and designed this game for those of us who aren’t like that.

You don’t just change the entire design structure 3 months into a very successful mmo launch. It boggles the mind.

You can’t out-wow at being wow. Anet spoke for years about how that wasn’t their goal, and that really resonated with us. This game is never in it’s current form going to appeal to mmo players that need to chase the gear progression carrot.

if they changed design then maybe it wasnt a good idea like they thought it was going in, no one is above trial and error.

But it was a good idea. The launch was huge and successful, there are tons of us playing every day and enjoying it, and it was incredibly successful in GW1 which remains an awesome game to this day.

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

how do you know theres a “NEW” target for the game????. what if ascendeds are there way of setting up for a more logically sustainable method of fufilling the original models purpose?

Clearly this new change is not aimed at the audience which all their previous statements, press releases, interviews, etc were aimed at, because they are now saying the exact opposite of what they were saying before.

thats some what true, assuming ascendeds arent intended to become the new permanent level cap standard. i mean if they are then it pleases both types of players, example: all level 80s will in the future wear ascended armor, but by adding new infusions<possibly aquired through various means but for the purpose of my example ones specific to duneons> then hard core gear grinder pvers will have to constantly chase new infusios by doing this dungeon and thefore also be appeased.

This game was advertised as being for people who aren’t all about chasing carrots.

We don’t like chasing carrots. If someone really likes that in a game, I don’t understand how they ever gravitated to GW2 because devs were saying for years how Anet doesn’t believe in this as a design philosophy.

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

I don’t think you would find nearly as much opposition to this idea if the impact of the gear is only felt in that dungeon. The problem is that as proposed, it would greatly impact every area of the game outside Spvp.

I don’t expect that the impact could be even perceptible… WvW is combined effort and so is PvE (I play with blue equipment and I still have fun in spite of everything that you say).

And a question for you: can you actually say whose wearing what tier based only on their performance in PvE etc.? I can’t… So I don’t really care what they are wearing.

1% difference is still a difference. To serious pvpers/WVWers any advantage is mandatory. I primarily play GW2 for WVW, and I prefer small group/skirmish action in WVW where even small stat differences absolutely come into play.

lol…

WvW is just for fun… Becouse all those serious WvWers can be equipped fully exotic/ascended/whatever and have 200 sidekicked level ones as teammates… Your just being silly now.

No I’m being totally serious. This game was mentioned many times as the spiritual successor to daoc because of WVW being the new RVR.

It is the area of the game I am by far the most serious and competitive at. I don’t see why that is hard to believe.

HiddenNick.7206:

Snerf.1650:

HiddenNick.7206:

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

I don’t think you would find nearly as much opposition to this idea if the impact of the gear is only felt in that dungeon. The problem is that as proposed, it would greatly impact every area of the game outside Spvp.

I don’t expect that the impact could be even perceptible… WvW is combined effort and so is PvE (I play with blue equipment and I still have fun in spite of everything that you say).

And a question for you: can you actually say whose wearing what tier based only on their performance in PvE etc.? I can’t… So I don’t really care what they are wearing.

1% difference is still a difference. To serious pvpers/WVWers any advantage is mandatory. I primarily play GW2 for WVW, and I prefer small group/skirmish action in WVW where even small stat differences absolutely come into play.

Deth.4109:

Jestunhi.7429:

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

NB: So poor show to see that the controversial news and response to hate posts are being made by anyone other than Mike. Its your baby so take responsibility.

If there weren’t another tier lined up after this one then how would they keep the new target audience?

If they want to keep grinders then they need a constant grind, not just one new tier to occupy them for a few hours each time a new item is added.

how do you know theres a “NEW” target for the game????. what if ascendeds are there way of setting up for a more logically sustainable method of fufilling the original models purpose?

But we’ve already illustrated how this solution addresses a problem that doesn’t even exist until trying to implement the solution.

What is this “more logically sustainable method of fulfilling the original models purpose”?

If it’s changing course from the long-standing advertised model, I think it would be in good form for them to communicate that in an open and transparent way.

nerdy.1962:

First time posting on the forums but I feel like I need to pitch in on this so I can be counted with the players who are unhappy about the new gear.

I, like many of you here, played the original Guild Wars from shortly after it launched and was a massive fan of the skill > gear system. It was one of my favourite aspects of the game, the special skins were more than enough to keep me coming back for more and I spent a good amount of time collecting a full set of Obsidian armour for my monk main, along with a tonne of other weapon and armour skins for all my other characters.

The fact that GW2 was going to be continuing this tradition was awesome to me, since I quickly burn out on other games that have a stat based gear progression system, I always feel like my hard work counted for nothing when a new tier is released and my old gear becomes obsolete.

It took a while to get my head around the GW2 system but once I realised that exotic was the GW2 version of ‘max armour’ I was more than happy to start working towards a full set so I could then start collecting rarer skins and then hopefully a legendary weapon or two.

The recent announcement of Ascended gear has just left me disappointed, I’d be perfectly happy with this new dungeon offering infusions which could be applied to existing exotic armour similar to how it was with the Mursaat in GW1. I’d also be happy with them just adding an extra slot to existing armour and allowing us to collect infusion ‘runes’ or something similar to slot into them.

I just don’t understand the need for gear with higher stats, the original Guild Wars managed to add 3 expansions worth of challenging content without ever raising the gear level or even the player level, is it not possible to do that again?

The thing that bugs me most is the reason for adding it.

“One of the primary design purposes for the Ascended item tier is to bridge the gap between Exotic gear (which fairly casual players can have a reasonable certainty of acquiring without too much angst) and Legendaries (which are for the hardest of hardcores). " – Linsey Murdock

“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two.” – Chris Whiteside

If I understand correctly, the only ‘gap’ between exotic and legendary currently is the amount of time required to get them and the unique visuals of the legendary weapons, but the stats are exactly the same.

Why then do we need to ‘bridge the gap’ between them by boosting stats? There was never a gap there to begin with. What’s wrong with putting new and unique unique armour and weapon skins in the new dungeon with the same stats as exotics? Having this armour still shows people that you completed the dungeon, it still gives you the bragging rights, just without trivializing the effort everyone has put into getting their exotic sets.

I understand that Chris is saying this is it, this will be the max tier, and that it’s only ‘slightly better’ than exotics, but that just leaves me wondering, what’s the point?

I love you ArenaNet, I love the Guild Wars franchise and everything it stands for, I watched your manifesto a hundred times and showed it to all my friends saying ‘THIS is how you should run a games company’. This is genuinely the first time I’ve been disappointed.

I just feel like you’re listening to the wrong crowd here. I get that it’s a business and you’re in it to make money, but the people complaining about the ‘lack of progression’ are clearly in the wrong game, if I stormed into a Pizza restaurant and said ‘but I don’t like Pizza, I want Fish, what do you think they’d say to me?

Come on guys let’s stick to the original vision

This was a great post, I really appreciate you sharing this and agree with just about everything you said. Thank you.

HiddenNick.7206:

jakep.9572:

Legendaries were not meant to be the highest tier gear. They were meant to be the highest rarity, but it was always promised that they would not be statistically better than the top-tier gear. They ALWAYS said that legendaries were meant to be about the skins, not the stats

And that’s why they will never be more powerful then last tier before them.

One more thing. After reading post about new dungeon. It is still going to be available for players with even the most basic equipment. But the hardest difficulty level of the dungeon can be defeated only with ascended gear. I think that’s a win win for everyone. It’s like the game could scale up… For those who wants it.

I don’t think you would find nearly as much opposition to this idea if the impact of the gear is only felt in that dungeon. The problem is that as proposed, it would greatly impact every area of the game outside Spvp.

Rhyaehar.9504:

Snerf.1650:

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

You are absolutely correct.

And it’s a solution many of us have suggested. It’s so simple that it can’t be a case of them not thinking about it. Which means that it was likely a very deliberate decision to include it.

Is it one that they are flexible with? I don’t know, I guess we will find out in the coming days.

This would not solve every issue people have with Ascended gear, though definitely quite a few.

People would still have to upgrade / change their gear because of the new mechanic, if the wanted to deal with Agony.
A lot of people are complaining because they invested time and effort in Exotic items being led to believe this is the top tier. I for one would not buy full Exotic set, including all weapons my character can use unless I actually use them regularly, and I would definitely not transmute everything with Fine Stones if I was lead to suspect in any way there would be a new gear tier.

I would much prefer them drop the idea completely, and if it;s too late for that: not adding any more gear type than the one planned for that update, preferably removing the stat difference as well.

Sorry, let me clarify that I agree with you. I was simply saying that taking this one simple step would diffuse a lot of the current uproar and buy them time to think about things more thoroughly.

Shunsui Jiraiya.9103:

I’m desperate for Arenanet to answer to the following.

After the full set of Ascended items have been drip fed into the game is another tier on the road map?

The answer will decide if I continue to play.

Does it really matter though?

If they are open to the idea of raising the gear ceiling once, what honestly stands in the way of them doing it again down the road with expansions?

Once you open the flood gate and state that it is not against your design principle to do it once, it becomes an easy and likely option down the road.

Darkmoon Mist Raven.5913:

this kitten storm could have been, and could still be, easily averted : keep the patch the same, with the ascented gear, and just remove the stat increase.

SOLVED. now everyone can get excited about the patch content !

i’ll take the job, thank you.

You are absolutely correct.

And it’s a solution many of us have suggested. It’s so simple that it can’t be a case of them not thinking about it. Which means that it was likely a very deliberate decision to include it.

Is it one that they are flexible with? I don’t know, I guess we will find out in the coming days.

HiddenNick.7206:

One thing that a lot of people misunderstood – the highest gear tier is and its going to be legendary (not exotics as some of you states). Ascended gear will not change that… Or any other tier.

But before launch and many times when questioned, Anet repeatedly said that Legendary items will NOT be a new tier statistically.

They said specifically that they will only be COSMETIC and will functionally identical to exotics. Someone even posted the quote in this thread.

Making them a new tier alone is a huge departure.

I think it’s clear at this point that we want transparency above all else.

The initial post by Chris didn’t really address the heart of the question,

“Why is there a need to raise the gear ceiling?”

Once Anet responds to that question, I think it will clear up what their intentions are, and what direction GW2 is going to head in.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

This is from Chris Whiteside:
Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:
“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

While I think everyone appreciates some response, this response doesn’t actually allay any of our concerns.

It mentions bridging the gap between exotic and legendary. However, there is currently no statistical gap, as they are identical.

Implementing this tier of ascended gear is in fact creating a gap between exotic and legendary.

That’s why many of us are scratching out heads at the nature of the response. It uses a lot of words, but never presents evidence that the design approach remains the same.

In essence, it proposes a solution to a problem that’s only created by implementing the solution.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Snerf.1650:

Magiofdeath.2745:

Where was all this outcry of 150 pages when skill points and temple of balthazar was practically continually bugged for over a month after release? I don’t get this community – there was game breaking bugs in the game for over a month after release and there wasn’t a single thread that was 150 pages worth of people complaining about that (I did complain about that because it was a problem) and now they add a new tier of gear and there’s a thread that has amassed 150 pages of outcry. This new tier seems infinitesimal to the game breaking bugs the game had for a month, and which are still present to some small degree with PS, etc. I just don’t get it – can someone please explain that to me?

Sure, happy to help explain.

That was an unintentional bug that we all assumed would be fixed eventually.

This is a radical departure from years of design directions and could potentially signal huge changes in how end game gear and rewards are developed.

This entire game has been a huge change from the original GW. In GW1, I could do practically anything with all heros and if necessary a consumable set and didn’t have to worry about playing with randoms. Now, I have to rely on people to run a dungeon, whereas I didn’t in GW1. Some would say that is a radical departure from their design direction. Hate it or love it, GW is not what it used to be – its now a traditional style MMO. I like GW1 more than GW2 because of this but I’m willing to accept changes. If they add 25-man raids, then I’m done, lol. I don’t want new tiers every 3 months either, but I am going to give them the benefit of a doubt, that this is the only additional tier they will add and be neutral about it. We don’t know anything at this point aside what they’ve laid out in text. I just wish people would see what happens before raging. You know, being neutral about it.

I do understand and appreciate these comments, it’s true that this is a different game.

But in many of those other examples you put forth, they’ve come out and explained how they are departing and why over the last 3 or 4 years.

This case is one where they are directly contradicting years of direct commentary about GW2 specifically.

I also understand that we don’t have all the facts. But we don’t need more facts then they’ve currently provided us to see reasonable evidence that design has changed.

If, if fact it hasn’t changed, the onus lies with them to provide evidence to support a non-changing stance. Saying, “There is no gear treadmill” is not evidence. It’s an opinion.

Something along the lines of “We understand concerns over implementation of a gear treadmill. The ascended armor is designed to provide a rarity gap, rather than a statistical gap. Because of this, it will provide the agony protection to go along with the fractals dungeon, but no additional statistic benefit over current exotic gear”

That is all it would take to calm this storm. That they will not say this indicates to me that the design has indeed shifted.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Where was all this outcry of 150 pages when skill points and temple of balthazar was practically continually bugged for over a month after release? I don’t get this community – there was game breaking bugs in the game for over a month after release and there wasn’t a single thread that was 150 pages worth of people complaining about that (I did complain about that because it was a problem) and now they add a new tier of gear and there’s a thread that has amassed 150 pages of outcry. This new tier seems infinitesimal to the game breaking bugs the game had for a month, and which are still present to some small degree with PS, etc. I just don’t get it – can someone please explain that to me?

Sure, happy to help explain.

That was an unintentional bug that we all assumed would be fixed eventually.

This is a radical departure from years of design directions and could potentially signal huge changes in how end game gear and rewards are developed.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

But you can’t just think about yourself when discussing overall design.

It does impact many other people and especially people trying to mix/max in WVW.

yeah WvW isn’t about individual skill never was never will be
and as anet them self have said WvW is not ment to be 100% balanced

its a fight between severs not indaviduals If your severs have more players that go for max stat gear your sever is “better”

that said i kill people All the freaking time inWVW that have better gear than me

But again, you are missing the point.

Simply put, this design decision goes counter to all previous directions of Anet Guild Wars design decisions.

Whereas previously the designers opted for almost entirely horizontal progression at max level, they are now going vertical. That’s a huge fundamental difference.

Arguing about the extent of the impact is irrelevant. We are arguing about a fundamental design shift that is a huge shift in the design direction of the game.

Whether it makes 1% or 100% of a difference, it still makes a difference and signifies a departure from the unique aspects that led many of us to make GW2 our mmo homes.

mhe most people dont care and are looking forward to it

this 140 some odd page’s is nothing more than a solect few bicering back and forth

And that’s sad if true. People need to pay attention to things like this and not accept potential dishonesty or mediocrity.

Expect excellence. Expect transparency. Expect people to do the right thing. Pay attention to the little things.

I’m not insulting anyone here, just imploring people to care about things.

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

Snerf.1650:

UnderdogSMO.9428:

they said thay didnt want a gear tredmill, this is not adding a gear tredmill

the closest tredmill like aspect of this hole thing is just How far into the Fractals you can get

in no way dose this new gear lock you out of content

Adding new tiers of stat gear 3 months after a game is released is absolutely the definition of gear treadmill. It requires you to replace your sets of max stat gear that you were under the impression would remain best in slot gear.

yeah well from what i can tell none of the ascended gear looks like it will help much for my healing build so i dont have much to switch out for my dungeon runs

and i dont intend to spend all my time doing Fractals in the Mist

But you can’t just think about yourself when discussing overall design.

It does impact many other people and especially people trying to mix/max in WVW.

yeah WvW isn’t about individual skill never was never will be
and as anet them self have said WvW is not ment to be 100% balanced

its a fight between severs not indaviduals If your severs have more players that go for max stat gear your sever is “better”

that said i kill people All the freaking time inWVW that have better gear than me

But again, you are missing the point.

Simply put, this design decision goes counter to all previous directions of Anet Guild Wars design decisions.

Whereas previously the designers opted for almost entirely horizontal progression at max level, they are now going vertical. That’s a huge fundamental difference.

Arguing about the extent of the impact is irrelevant. We are arguing about a fundamental design shift that is a huge shift in the design direction of the game.

Whether it makes 1% or 100% of a difference, it still makes a difference and signifies a departure from the unique aspects that led many of us to make GW2 our mmo homes.