Guild Wars 2

DarksunG.9537:

Kirschwasser.3972:

… What’s wrong with feminist research, anyhow?

Quite a bit. Unless you are referring to a person researching feminism. If you want to get some glimpses into why it’s a problem I’d watch some girlwriteswhat & manwomanmyth on youtube.

Kirschwasser stated that only wants the same rights for everyone.

I agree with Kirschwasser.

To Mirta and others who pointed out that these aren’t serious problems.

You cannot separate the gaming industry from the rest of a given society, inevitably it will reflect that society, since it is part of it.

From games produced in markedly misogynist countries in the east, where women are portrayed accordingly, to the more subtle ways of western countries.

I find depressing to read an article about the E3, for example, and very much the only women you see are “Booth Babes”, good role models don’t ya think? no developers, nor programmers, just some babes to leer at
— of course as I say before, the game industry is not more guilty of this than any other industry, just more of the same trash we see everywhere.

Girls growing up learn fast what society values, so there we go with surgery, with anorexia, to be just a body, because if you are a woman that’s the only thing that matters at the end — regardless if some people say otherwise, is after all not what people would say, is what people do.

And we always see them doing the same.

Not even going to enter in how many doors are closed for women working in this industry, because it will be very much as in any other industries.

Given that these are general problems that affect billions of people in the east and in the west, of course — matters. And its impact is too far reaching to even begin here. What society expect of them, their self image, the lack of confidence in their potential, how they relate to other people, the relationships, and the uglier consequences as violence and abuse against them.

Just to be clear. I defend individual rights. Each person must have the same rights as every other person. (Of course) and thus, I am against positive and negative discrimination.

The only way bias can be overcome is by formation, and how people are portrayed in the media is a vital part of it. it is by example everywhere how people learn social roles. If some gender, or group of people is consistently portrayed (in the more benign cases) as inconsequential — just the girls in the movie that the male hero invariably conquest, a sidekick, and in others, in pretty obvious demeaning ways; what the general public learns?

We are flooded with this. it is so much everywhere that you hardly notice it, we are conditioned to not notice it. It is just how things are.

BTW I am a woman too.

(Sorry for my English)

Looks like many of the posters above were expecting a different tone, but…. hello, just from the moment you enter the game for the first time you see that the game isn’t taking itself very seriously.

Its not just the personal story, all the environment is pretty tongue in cheek — you could logically be expecting something else, since the setting is the world in the brink of being destroyed by the elder dragons, yet the environment everywhere is by no means gloomy.

While perhaps a darker world would be a better match, I really came to appreciate the environment — and I needed to say it, many of us loved Tybalt, best NPC in the game by far.

So far in the LS, I am liking Rox, no idea if people bother reading the background story that ArenaNet publish about places and characters, but hers was interesting. (So were other entries)

I was going to warn about the attack on the announcement page, but I see everyone is already onto it.

So it was made in house…..

Looks like the queen might not survive this.

This thread proves again why GW2 needs heroes and henchman; and yet some people still wonder why so many refuse to do any content that requires a group?

No one needs to suffer the glass … cannon fodder kiddos and similar fauna.

Forced grouping?

No, thanks.

Bring the tools to do any instance solo.

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Let me lend you my Hammer and a nail for the instance dungeon coffin!

It’s not the dungeons that are the failure, it’s having them there at all that is the failure. In a spontaneous dynamic world, where does a 5 man instance dungeon fit into that description? They are a cheap fix for content and a easy way to manage player population and time. GW2 was to be better than that, if I wanted that I could have stayed in WoW who does it better and cheaper. My 1 year subscription to WoW was so much less than I’ve spent on 1 year of GW2.

So make the dungeons solo-able. Or give us Heros like in GW1 to use. I’m much happier doing a dungeon with one other player I know and trust and 3 hero henchmen I can hire, or by myself and 4 hero henchmen. We have the technology to do it either by adjusting the dungeon or using hero henchmen. An you can party all you want with whom ever you like too. But be for warned most of the dungeons are empty!

I completely agree with this.

Mirta.5029:

No no no no.
The star? Maybe. But do you know how much profit I gain for leveling my 7th alt and going trough the world again? Also how much of the exp comes from finishing full maps? Leveling alts would be hell if world completion counted for all characters.

Look I already answered another person with the same concerns as you, you can see in the thread.

Here:

Nope, I am not talking of individual maps completion, I am talking of the world completion achievement.

In no way that means that when you do the same map with different characters you wouldn’t get a reward.

What I mean is that the achievement for WORLD completion should be account wide, it takes in account ALL your characters. Yet, you could do it more than once as now, in a single character for more than one legendary.

I edit to try to clarify more, ALL your characters contribute to the world achievement, yet you can do the same maps with different characters and still get the same individual reward for them as now.

The game can keep track of account wide completion for the world achievement, and individual character progress as well.

Astraea.6075:

If it bugs you, you could try my strategy. I’ve yet to finish the 100% on my main because there are certain maps that I’m reserving for alts to explore first. Once I’ve cleared it for the first time with my alt, my main will go and complete the map and inch closer towards the 100% mark.

Isn’t a bit against sense that you need to repeat the same areas with your main, because your alts won’t contribute to an account wide achievement?

I hope they’ll reconsider this policy, it places a severe penalty against having alts, when in fact they should encourage it, then people wonder why low level areas are pretty empty.

Instead of everyone facerolling low level areas as fast as they can on their main to get the achievement, what about actually playing on level with alts, and uncover Tyria normally?

Of course as I said before, individual maps completion would give rewards for each character as now, and you could do the achievement separately for more legendaries. Yet the world completion achievement naturally should be account wide. (Most people play with more than one character — shouldn’t be penalised for it)

Is in Anet interest to keep people playing, they have a huge map… let’s take advantage of it, stop penalising people for playing with their alts.

Celestina.2894:

I prefer map completion to be character based for 2 reasons:

1. The rewards for finishing a map. I’ve gotten black lion keys, make over kits, trans crystals, level 71-80 exotics etc. I would lose out on all of this if the maps were account based.

2. Map completion contributes a massive amount to leveling, and is part of the reason leveling in this game is so fast. Again, if maps were account based you’d only make leveling alts more and more difficult.

Nope, I am not talking of individual maps completion, I am talking of the world completion achievement.

In no way that means that when you do the same map with different characters you wouldn’t get a reward.

What I mean is that the achievement for WORLD completion should be account wide, it takes in account ALL your characters. Yet, you could do it more than once as now, in a single character for more than one legendary.

Kyven.7514:

I’m doing map completion on a second char. I agree with the repetitiveness of exploration; but it’s easier the 2nd time around as I’ve gone through the areas once already.

Having said that, I disagree it should be account bound and like it to be character bound like it already is. It gives me a sense of “I loved this character enough to travel the entire world of Tyria with him/her, s/he’s earned the right to that gold star”.

There is no reason you shouldn’t do it in one character then. Options is the word.

You want to do it in one character? Go ahead.

But others might want to uncover Tyria with different characters, trying to be on level on the maps.

Sorry if it came across rude, English is not my native language, I want to convey the frustration seeing that they are taking the potential off their own game.

We shouldn’t be encouraged to do and see everything in one character, when you have a map with several areas for each level range, which is ideal for alts.

To go around in a downleveled character is 10% of the fun you would have doing it on level. Not to mention the rewards won’t be up to par (I know that they might drop something for your real level tho) But still, the fun is to level in unexplored, different areas as much as is possible.

(Note I posted this in a different subforum by error, lost the post, going to recreate it more or less)

I used to play SWTOR, my main problem with that game was that the maps were small, and soon enough all your characters converged in the same areas (worlds there), and thus you were doing the same areas over and over, it made the game old fast.

Here we are lucky that the map is huge, with many different areas where you could level new characters, barely repeating anything, keeping the game fresh and interesting — a lot to experience and explore for any number of alts.

Then I found out that some genius decided that map completion should be done in one character, that is, to drag a downleveled character all over Tyria, instead of exploring it with different characters on level, as the maps were designed.

You have a huge map with the potential to level different characters exploring each one different areas — for example my first character was leveled mostly in the Shiverpeaks, another is being leveled in Ascalon (places I want to explore, is not based in their “race’s region”) If I already had everything done and explored in one character, there would be little point in rolling alts, or in fact to keep playing. That’s why I keep areas unexplored for new characters, I don’t want to spoil the game for myself.

The game shouldn’t care if I explore zone A with character Y, and zone B with character X, I am uncovering the whole map all the same.

For the people worried about the Gift for more than one legendary, the game could keep track if you achieved map completion in a single character, besides the general achievement.

BTW just for the record, as it stands now, I have 0 interest in getting a legendary.

But still map completion achievement should be account wide.

Hmm is the opposite, it is far easier to complete areas fast in your downleveled character than on level.

You uncover areas just the same.

(sigh) I lost the post, will try to recreate it in the general area.

I am going to post the topic in the general area.

I understand your point, but the game could track if you did map completion 100% with more than one character, and give the reward again.

The Prototype Fractal Capacitor should be included in the laurel merchant, as all other the other ascended items (minus some mystic forge recipes for skins)

Otherwise they would not fulfill the promise they made on November.

Would be appropriate to have ascended recipes for crafters too, and karma vendors.

Broad the options.

But at the very least, include it in the laurel merchant for now.

Heroes/Henchmen/Mercenaries
2 professions
A pool of skills which should work as it does in GW1.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

But that doesn’t solve the problem. It’s a cool thought that I can bring up with folks, but wouldn’t solve the problem of pets in dungeons while possibly adversely affecting PvP. Making the numbers bigger doesn’t work either (trust me, we’ve tried)

There are lots of pages in this topic, so I don’t know if anyone said it already, but this is the elephant in the room.

PLEASE don’t kitten PVE for the sake of PVP, use different skillsets

Some people never leave WvsW, and cannot care less about PVE, and the opposite is also true, many people cannot care less about PVP.

But even if they did, no reason to keep the same skillsets in both, otherwise the professions will be never-ending nerfed because some idiot cannot kill easily “class Y” today, “classX” tomorrow, and so on.

And that affects the whole gameplay, not just PVP, where many people never set foot. We shouldn’t drag any problems exclusive to PVP to a dungeon in particular, or any PVE in general.

Separate skillsets!

Folks there is a reason to give them a second chance, and it is not based in your trust on ANet.

The reason is us, their market.

We are a very specific segment in this market, Anet tried to test the waters to see how much they could cater outside their own segment…. and well, fortunately the answer from the community couldn’t be louder.

They are backpedaling now, acknowledging the error. Ascended gear is going to continue in game, yes, but available for all types of gameplay, and far more accessible. And they know they are under public scrutiny right now, they cannot say everything that was stated in the AMA to get our trust for how…… a few more weeks?

They know they need to deliver, but was really important is the fact that they acknowledged that this was the wrong way to do things.

Because us, their community wont take it. And as far as I know is it unique in the MMO market.

All other MMO comunities take grindy content as something that goes with the genre, unquestioned, and they jump full of joy when new sets of +stats are added…. While here, well you saw.

If they want to keep the game going they cannot go that route — yes some vertical progression (and little of it, we are not that kind of market), but available everywhere in the game, and with low grind. Otherwise people will be gone.

The community has a lot (in fact everything) to say about the future of the game. If you don’t want a generic MMO, you are in the right community.

I understand your frustration with ascended gear, I agree with you. But at least for me, there are reasons to be optimistic now.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/13tuac/im_the_studio_design_director_on_guild_wars_2_ama/

The answers are good enough, they acknowledged the error, ascended gear should be made available globally in the game and far more easy (read, far less grindy) to obtain, but at least they now agree with us (yes, ascended gear is here to stay, but is going to become more akin to exotic to obtain, than akin to legendary….) And no more tiers.

They intoned the mea culpa. Let’s give them credit for it — it nothing else because they saw it was a real bad move for the game (I am including the gating mechanic there as well)

So I am returning to the game, cautiously and no rushing (not going to grind the ascended stuff as it is now for sure)

I am not logging at all since I knew about the patch. I hope against hope that ArenaNet will come back to reason, and save the game before its too late. People are leaving in droves — THIS is not the game we purchased, no one wants to purchase something with a very concrete characteristics, and get delivered something instead that is very much the complete opposite of it.

To the OP, only your first suggestion would really work. People doesn’t grind a dungeon as much as that one will need to be, just for the sake of that dungeon. They want the stats they worked so hard to get, to have impact everywhere, and of course it matters a lot to them to show off; no deal if they cannot go around in “top gear”.

You cannot contain the problem, as some sort of tumor the game got somewhere, apart and hidden from view, with no consequences beyond its own space… nope.

Those people were conditioned to think about these games as work, and readily would disparage anyone who would remind them that games were there to entertain, to have fun. And yes, games could be complex, make you think, develop strategy, etc…. But since everquest, the main idea is to repeat the same stuff over and over like a mindless drone, and for some reason that is supposed to be admirable. (As you might guess by now, no I wasn’t ever going for legendaries, I thought no sane person would}

Very briefly put, those conditioned people crave that model; whereas the rest of us dread the moment we’ll log in the game, to keep doing the same chores.

Of course I dump those “games”

Take a look, the rat race is already going:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/users-are-getting-picky-on-party-toughts/first

I thought that they wasn’t going to introduce the dungeon the first day…… but as you see they are running.

And the expected show with it, soon tho, we’ll see other kind of complains, in particular the kind of grind (still the immense majority is unaware) and the gating. Its just the beginning.

Columba.9730:

Kozmec.1280:

I gotta be honest. I came into the knowledge of this new gear freaking out and thinking it was the end of the world. But now that I have seen the stats and how easy they are to obtain, I’ve come to realize that my faith in ANet should have been stronger.

These new items are exactly what the game needed. Anyone that wasn’t happy with the missing stat grind before is WELCOME to spend 90 hours running the same dungeon paths 360 times to acquire them, AND THEY SHOULD… I mean LOOK AT THOSE STATS.

In before ANet patches in the inability to use Ascended gear in WvW and open world PvE. You wanted stat grind, we gotcha stat grind right here.

90 hours per piece is easy? for you perhaps. I won’t get a piece in fewer than 3 months.

He/She was being sarcastic.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So, am I the only one here who thinks there’s already plenty of grinding in this game? I’m talking about the personal story- having to run through areas hoping for events to start to level up before doing the next quest. Where’s the complaints on that? GW1 never had it, but i’ve never seen anybody complain over it.

I love roleplaying this game and playing with friends, but if you’re more interested in the plot rather than mass events with others, this game has been a serious level grinder since day 1- hell, I play with friends in events and explore for fun and it’s still a pain to make that 2-3 level gap every time.

If you’re going to criticize this for being against the spirit of the original Guild Wars, why don’t you criticize the lack of AIs you can really fight with, lack of ability to chose all your skills rather than just a few that aren’t set by your weapons, and being able to truly play this on your own? Even if you want to play solo, you still have to do events that will require certain player participation rather than being able to tackle it head on.

And, dat level grinding.

Make sure you go to other races areas, for example in my case I mainly level off of my races areas (I favor the areas of the norm and charr, but I don’t have any myself, and my default “home” is Hoelbrak, home instance included, despite I am no norm ) The map is huge, don’t remain doing what is “expected”

But in general I agree with you, but you won’t get anything better in today’s MMO market (that is, until the patch hits). Personally I am trying GW1 now, (yep incredibly I never played it until now) I have no idea yet if I will go beyond the trial, but who knows this fiasco might drawn people back there, in the other hand many might not be in the mood to give any more money to Anet.

But other companies will notice this, someone will pick this up.

Cyanous.4597:

To be honest, I rarely bother to write on forums, but this is just ridiculous.

I can’t understand the amount of anger or distrust that the simple addition of new optional content to the game is creating. No one is or will ever force you to go to the new dungeon or get the new gear, nor you need the new gear to be competitive at any other aspect of the game. The supposed 8% increase to your stats will mean next to nothing in most aspects of the game.

This dungeon seems to be for people that want to try their hand at something that gets progressively harder, both for bragging rights and for the possible rewards that this will yield. If you enjoy this kind of test, now you should be happy. If you don’t, you can still skip the dungeon without being penalized in any way.

This is not the beginning of a gear treadmill, nor it is the end of GW as it stands. If you think it is, maybe you are missing the point that ArenaNet has been trying to adhere to much more than other company: play the game however you want it and have fun.

You enjoy crafting? Go ahead. Dungeons? Sure. Hate those but enjoy trying PvP? Do some WvWvW or tournaments or what have you. Just enjoy the game.

If none of these aspects really interests you, then take a break and stop playing. Being a free to play game, you can always come back whenever you feel like it and dive back into it without having to worry or pay for checking things out to see if things changed to your liking.

They can’t please everybody, but they are doing quite a good job in giving most people a good variety of options to deal with so that they can play however they like.

I will definitely give the new dungeon a shot. If it is not something I enjoy doing, I won’t do it and move to something else. It’s that simple.

This is nothing like 8%

http://i.imgur.com/BeyFB.png

The infusion slot also have stats.

And be sure to check this http://www.gw2db.com/items?filter-item-rarity=8

Where it is the “slight” change from exotics? I am serious, check it, you are going to be amazed.

But don’t jump too high, it takes hundreds of runs. Perhaps the grinders aren’t going to be as elated either.

Wait until the people who don’t read the forums finds out all the grind ahead of them. Many of those only know about the update so far. They will enter the new dungeon, new gear (“awesome stats!”) "ok a few times doing these instances and… hold on a second how many hundreds you said…!!?) “Then I can get this stuff somewhere else? what about WvW? and crafting materials? what?, they said some other time?”

The forums at least are going to be fun…..

Darknass.1903:

“My thoughts on this topic: there is already a “treadmill” in place you start off with white quality gear and end up (at 80) still getting white level gear aswell as blue yellow and finally orange and purple (or blue… w/e legendary is). If they intended for zero gear progression they would have either;

Well the current system doesn’t force you to grind any dungeon for months to get exotics that you could get in many other ways.

As for the other tiers, neither of course. The normal stuff as you level.

In other words, there isn’t any particular grind for any tier up to this point. (Except for skins as you know)

What we get now is a grind akin to getting legendaries, they claim it is halfway there, in grind, that is.

Kript.3291:

9300 tears and counting – give it a rest.

Those who wish to delete their account, do it. You proclaimed yourself a true fan and declare anyone else who hasn’t played Gw1, who doesn’t like horizontal progression and who wants to give the new tier a shot a wow locust/fanboy/whatever you wanna call it.

You know what’s ironic though? These “wow locust” paid the same money as you, contributed the same amount of dedication – if not, more – as you, and unlike you they are willing to give the new feature a shot and try new things, while you rage at the Devs for trying to look after the players who want different things.

We all signed up for the same thing. We are all the same audience, that has been promised the same deal when we paid for this game – no gear treadmill, no gear-based pvp. What you think when we bought the game we – the people who support the change – were expecting to play a game like wow?

No. We were intrigued by the idea of a game without endgame progression. Not everyone of us liked wow. Not everyone of us played wow. And yet while most others are willing to believe in Anet’s promise that they won’t be releasing a new tier every 3 month, only you – the self proclaimed ‘true fan’ – somehow felt like you’ve been cheated.

Most of us – those who support the change and want to see how everything works out – are not interested in the new gear. At least I’m pretty sure I’m not going to get it. I’m just gonna stick with my exotic gear for now. What we wanted, is to see the game that we loved change, evolve and hopefully survive. We want to support Anet and the future development of Gw2. We didn’t come only for some shallow promise – at least I know I didn’t – we came for a rich world created by a company that at least listen and communicate with the players. We came here to support them.

However, after trying for three month, some people are getting tired of doing the same two DE and running the same dungeon over and over again for exotic gears that we already have, do Spvp that’s filled to the brim with Mesmer, warrior and thieves, waiting for the tornument that never starts and dealing with coattail riders crying and trolling in WvW.

And the population must have reflected this.

You think a game that’s running on its prime would have a “invite friend” event 3 month after release? Swtor did that, but that was 6 month after it came out.

You think a game that’s running on its prime would – despite 10000 posts of whining – add a new tier of gear so people have more things to work towards?

No.

You ‘true fan’ alone, aren’t enough to help the game survive. Anet didn’t design the game specific for you, they’ve specifically said they wanted to cater Gw2 to both hardcore and casual gamer. You are only a portion of the target audience. It’s selfish of you to think you are entitled more when everyone paid the same money as you.

So go on. Delete the game. Bye.
Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

The rest of us will continue to enjoy and support the game whatever happens in the future.

The rest of us will continue to purchase gem and dedicate ourselves to improve the game so it doesn’t become one that catered only to a certain type of player, who cry and whine more than the real wow fan-boys ever did and ever will.

So weak.

Why then you bothered to come to a game that catered to another audience? There are myriads of games already like that, while this is part of the GW series, aimed to a different segment in this market.

You claim that the game wasn’t doing ok, with what data? People couldn’t change servers because almost all the time were full.

What doesn’t work is to cater to people who will hop from one grind to the next from one clone to another and then another, they don’t give a …. about this game, Anet is falling in their trap tho, as if they could be ever satiated. You cannot retain the locust.

kaffaljidhma.1496:

I thought that the official response was that the gear increase was a one time thing and that’s what we were discussing. Why are people getting back to gear treadmill as if there’s going to be another, higher stat item than ascended in the future?

Quoting from reddit:

https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Einige-Fragen-zum-November-Update-mit-Blick-auf-die-Zukunft/first#post158833

Google translate (and the very helpful infmelon) suggests:

They are explicitly not promising that Ascended gear will be the last item tier—they don’t want to make more promises that they can be accused of breaking later (like is happening this time). They note that in GW1, new gear was added over time—not a better-statted tier, but bonus combinations that weren’t available at release, like the +energy on staves.

New and existing content will be adjusted for the new tier. Old dungeons will likely be adjusted to still be worthwhile, but they’re not yet sure how. They see dungeon sets as non-obsolete because of the unique appearances.

They will look at how Ascended items affect the crafting skills, but there probably won’t be Ascended-related crafting adjustments this patch, even for Jewelers who are the most affected (what with Ascended rings being among the first Ascended items).

Q: What will happen when we’re done with the ascended tier—how will you satisfy the community desire for progression?
A: We’re focusing on progression content—so things like Fractals & Agony which gets harder. So the gear is just to serve the progression content.

Q: Ascended items fill the time gap, but why does that mean they have to have better stats?
A: They know there are different ways to fill the time gap, and were expecting different opinions on whether stat rises were the right choice—so they aren’t surprised by all the anger right now. As a side note, they are counting on the slow release of Ascended gear to contribute to the feeling of it being a longer-term goal than exotics.

Q:What about the triforge pendant?
A: they’re not planning on buffing it—it may be better than some of the early Ascended amulets. He points out that GW1 had some items that were valuable early on but later became less valuable, and some new items that were better than old items for some builds.

Edit1: changed point 2—looks like they are planning on changing dungeon armor, but not sure how.
Edit2: formatting blah
Edit3: Added a bit more on point 6.
Edit4: fixed crafting changes in point 3 and clarified the GW1 gear changes talked about in point 1. Edit 5: looks like Jewelers probably won’t get updated to Ascended tier this patch after all.
Edit 6: sounds like dungeon armor won’t necessarily be adjusted, but something in the dungeons will be (point 2)

Crater.1625:

Ultima Thule.3950:

How come anyone could still say this is not an horrible gear grind?[snip]

I made a post kind of putting this into perspective compared to the game’s existing dungeons:

So, I’m sure it’s been hashed out to death, but I just saw the “guide” to the dungeon, along with the picture of the rewards, and the description of how you get the tokens.

Now, it’s pretty clear from the icon (looking like part of the glowy piece from Linsey’s original blog), the stats (particularly that there are two ‘sets’ of stats, and one of them is ‘baked-in’), the name (“Prototype”) that the Prototype Fractal Capacitor is the precursor item to the Ascended back piece.
It’s also pretty clear (we’ve been told that the Ascended piece comes from a Mystic Forge recipe) that to get the Ascended piece is going to require the Prototype Exotic model, the “Gift of Ascension”, and possibly two other recipe components.

The Prototype Fractal Capacitor costs 1350 tokens, and the Gift is an additional 500. So the token cost is roughly on par with the cost of a full set of dungeon equipment, including weapons. For one piece.

The rate at which you get tokens, at least according to the information that that site has, is 5 tokens per ‘Fractal’, with each ‘Fractal’ taking 15-30 minutes. So the rate at which you acquire the tokens is slower than it was to get Dungeon tokens at launch (before they quadrupled the daily bonus and moved all the tokens to the last chest, in response to complaints about the massive, tedious grind).

So much for “Hey, maybe it won’t be too that bad.”

If you assume the most optimistic versions of those numbers (that you complete every Fractal in 15 minutes rather than 30, and that you don’t need to worry about a third and fourth Mystic Forge component when upgrading from Exotic to Ascended), it’s about ninety hours of grinding, for one piece.

The only thing that might alleviate a little of this is that we don’t know whether or not the number of tokens per Fractal increases as you go deeper, and if it does increase, we don’t know how far you have to go before it starts going up. But at the same time, we also don’t know 1) How deep you can go before Agony starts to kick in, or 2) How deep you can go before Agony effectively makes progress impossible without Infused equipment.

I couldn’t imagine that a precursor was also needed….. I feared tho, that we were for a major grind when I read this phrase:

“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.”

Massive jump in reward, there is not such a thing, both are the same except for the grind, so they wanted to put this new ascended halfway (in grind terms) between the two. Just imagine… Well no longer, we are seeing it.

Bottom line, it’s not at all a pessimistic projection to imagine that Guild Wars 2 now takes just as long to gear up in as any other EverQuest clone in the world.

Nope, I bet that except (perhaps) for the grindiest of all, this is worse than any other western MMO endgame.

I cannot imagine that they would do (thousand?) of times the same dungeon to get a set, I very much doubt it.

This is all extremely ironic. :/

How come anyone could still say this is not an horrible gear grind?

http://guildwars2hub.com/sites/sardu.tentonhammer.com/files/styles/full/public/fractal-relic-merchant.png

A new currency type has been added that is specific to the fractals dungeon, called Fractal Relics. At the end of each successfully completed fractal, a chest will spawn that contains 5 Fractal Relics along with any additional loot you’ve been awarded.

You need 500 for each Gift of Ascension, that is for only ONE piece of gear — We are not counting here that each infusion cost 75 (for the “simple”) and 225 (for the “versatile simple”) Keep adding.

How many hundreds of runs will be needed? :S

This from a company who had as a major selling point the lack of grind in their games (for anything like stats at least, for skins was another matter…)

How anyone would still deny is not a gear treadmill?

I am tempted to check if other western MMO’s (but who didn’t advertise anything like lack of grind) would actually be far less grindy than this at end game, probably far less time to get a set.

And well, “End game” we weren’t supposed to have any of that sort to begin with.

A lot but not all. There’s one issue remaining which is the biggest in my opinion, and a major reason why people are so opposed to gear grinds. They are still gating the content, locking people out of it that aren’t on the same ‘step’ as those that have run the dungeon multiple times and did get the new gear.

Am I the only one here wondering how come there isn’t a public beta server?

If there was, this content never would go through, I find strange that AN doesn’t want feedback from the community — before releasing any major patch, and more so with changes so drastic as this one.

Unfortunately, we can say it was very much hidden until almost live.

Yet ANet, you are seeing the very eloquent answer from your community, no matter how you may spin this with PR at this stage — This change is a huge error.

Revert the ascendent gear stats back to exotics, and don’t add any gating system that requires grinding… Unless you want to keep your customers from playing the content, which is the only thing that kind of system accomplishes. Well, except for being as efficient in driving the customers away. Tested and tried many times before, in every case a huge failure.

Given that many people might be leaving the game shortly due to this fiasco,I went to take a look to what the GW1 related forums were saying. Among them was this, funny because the date is from 17, October:

It’s very clear that they have a different view on the players than they did once before. GW1 was that special snowflake that stood out for its incredible originality, uniqueness, and it was really hit or miss with a lot of people. But ANet didn’t care, they kept it the way it was because the people who loved it were the only people that mattered.

GW2 is the total opposite. They want to try and please everyone, and omg, as if this wasn’t proven totally impossible with Blizzard trying to please casuals and hardcores in WoW. They should have kept it GW, but the game is not going to change in any dramatic manner so I digress… I will simply weep for ANet being the once true great heroes and my favorite company turn into Blizz.

I guess this happens with every company, no matter how good they are, once they expand it’s all over. RIP Guild Wars franchise. I will play GW1 until the servers are taken down and just hope one of these days they add more content, lol yea right, but still.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5727594&postcount=166

So, two things, GW1 players saw this coming from early on, and in a funny turn on events, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of new players went over there. Many of us kept learning how it is a far better game.

As far as we know, it is the only one that didn’t succumb to become yet another wow clone.

It’s simple, Either you want Guild Wars 2 to be around as a healthy and profitable game for ANet and NCSoft for the next 3-5 years, or you want outdated mechanics from 2004.

GW1 was launched in 2005.
In the other hand adding the “mechanics” of Everquest (1999) and WoW (2004) it’s very looking forward.

ANet is falling right now in a trap, there are countless game companies out there that were drawn to copy the economic success of wow, by somehow cloning it. All of them fell very short or were complete failures — the market is over saturated in that segment (same offer catering to the same players, and over the years more and more players are burned)It is also well know that that “mechanic” is exploitative of players.

ANet tried a very different and refreshing approach with GW, and worked very well, created their own segment, something that very few other companies can boast — loyal customers, most of them remained loyal to them instead of the habitual game hopping that is the norm in this market.

Obviously they are being more ambitious with GW2, but are choosing the wrong strategy, instead of selling a very strong and differentiated product (which the game was up to this point in time) are converging to become another generic wow clone, with the standard gear grind and gate mechanics included.

They were very adamantly selling a different product, but now when is time to deliver, they deliver something else.

If you go to a car dealer, and agree in purchasing a certain car model, having the seller telling you about its unique features and capabilities — then they cannot go round and deliver a motorcycle instead, once you paid for it.

That is very much what is happening here, it is far more than a change in game mechanics, they are delivering a different product, which is aimed to a different segment in this market. They are going blind to the fact that all the other clones are failures, or if you want, can retain players for a little bit, until the next grind monster comes along, (or the expansion in that other clone) and so on…. While trashing their own market.

If they do tho, others will pick up the niche that was left, the market will cover it. Eventually.

But by then will be too late for ANet.

I for one, hope they are receptive to the community, to their community, not the people that goes jumping for MMO to MMO, just looking for the same stuff. For you folks, there are many wow clones out there, no need to pressure the segment that doesn’t cater to you.

The Fractals of the Mists is made up of nine mini-dungeons, each with its own story and environment. A party of five will enter the dungeon and be faced with a random set of three of these dungeons at a time. Upon completing those three, the party will be transported to a hub to rest, repair, and merch -- and the difficulty scale for the dungeon will be raised. Every time the difficulty scale is at an even number, players will face a special boss encounter.

With great challenges come great rewards. The patch will introduce ascended items. Ascended armors are "slightly more powerful than exotics" and can, in some cases, hold slots for infusions. Infusions will allow you to increase your character’s power.

Unfortunately at least as it is explained there, it’s the classic gear treadmill.

I am as puzzled as most of you, I wasn’t expecting this.

We thought that the MMO market had at this point different offers to cater to different market segments, diversified -- in one side wow and its clones (soft everquests clones after all) and in the other hand, companies who didn’t follow that formula, among them ArenaNet.

They had their own segment in GW, now with the launch of GW2 they advertised all over, that they will keep in their own line.

I wasn’t too surprised though, that some players expected the wow clone endgame, being so ubiquitous in the MMO genre, despite the fact that this game selling point was the very fact that it WASN’T like that -- no classic endgame, no treadmill, no endless grind for gear over and over. Au contraire, the game featured different ways to obtain "end game" gear.

Given that the market have the wow clone model more than covered, it doesn’t make much sense for those players to expect (or demand) the same tired model here. There are plenty of games everywhere that feature it.

While the rest of us hope that the information in the article it’s somehow wrong, or in the worse case, letting ANet know that we aren’t for it at all, if we wanted that, we would be playing wow or its clones.

Keep your offer differentiated, otherwise would be one among myriads of the same.

I don’t necessarily want bikini armor for a female character, but seriously, trenchcoats only? What about full-body leather armor, as so many other MMO’s have implemented quite nicely? Trenchcoats are NOT medium armor- they are light, no matter how you spin it. To be proper medium armor, you have to have actual thick leather encasing the body- with thicker, extra leather pads in the key parts. A floppy coat ain’t gonna cut it.

Man that would be if you ONLY were wearing the coat, the coat in many of the designs in this game, it is wear over the armor. Take for example the Mist Walker set, Rascal set, Gunner set etc.

Awful? Au contraire, they are the best looking armors BY FAR. It was the general consensus when the game launched, that medium armor was the best looking by far. The long coats look really elegant, and adequate for being out there in the field you know. While way too many light armor outfits look like you somehow fled out of the circus in the middle of a performance, to the point of being humoristic… almost.

Please, MORE serious, elegant and appropriate for the task armors like medium (in particular those elegant long coats) I LOVE them.

And far LESS ridiculous outfits for females, all those “circus” and “stripper” look, aren’t elegant at all, (and that’s an understatement) and feel completely out of place in the field.

Male characters tho, are luckier most of the time — Almost not ridiculous looking outfits for them.

But all is right if we get coats for light armor (perhaps robes) and even for heavy armor, I love the look of long flowing coats.

Same problem in Piken Square, and not a new bug, every time I check he is still laying down — it is a Hylek —the skill chalenge is called Defeat Utcua, it makes impossible to complete that map.

in fact i cant regret order of whispers only because 1 single Npc (wierd?) i became fond with Tybalt almost instantly when i spoke with him, so Charismatic, funny, deep, witty and most of all, real.

so far ive completed Order of whispers and Vigil, im kinda new to priory but i can assure you Anet you have made an awesome job with Tybalt Leftpaw i cant name anyone but him as my “brother” in GW2 every time i could go in a mission with him i just say YES!!! to be honest the best and only the BEST missions were with him, your team have done an AMAZING job, the voice actor, the script, the modeling Bro-Fist for you Anet im not afraid to say that he belongs to my top of the best Npcs ive known, and i have played plenty, plenty of games.

Same here, absolutely agree, I was happy to go at every mission just by having him there... Hope it is not really gone, far too good for that. Wonderful character.

Jumping puzzles are not vistas.

Karma vendors are the hearts which are on the map.

Jumping puzzles are what leads to vistas...

Oh ok, I guess no one else here but you knew that karma vendors were the hearts in the maps. (sic)

Still crafters need consolidated information like: for what level (in the different crafting tiers) are recipes available, (are there or aren’t?) what recipes? where? etc.

As I said, you CANNOT know what is behind each karma vendor until you complete the heart, your suggestion is that we do the whole of Tyria take pics, so an alt might have a chance to know what is available, when etc?

Ok, the rest of crafters need consolidated info of what is available for their professions. The hunting online neither works, cannot find anything, NOR should be it like that, the information for crafting must be in game.

This is why I take screenshot of every karma vendor I encounter.
If you didn’t do that the wiki covers some of the recipes, hopefully that is actually an incomplete list.

Ok, you take screenshots of every karma vendor you encounter; the thing is, by the time I could explore each region for every given tier, I would be way PAST the level for which the recipe could be useful.

Crafters need consolidated info about their professions. You cannot compare vistas in the maps with this (BTW, vistas are marked in maps, specifically RECIPE [and for what crafting professions?] karma vendors, aren’t.

I completely agree with the OP, I am going broke trying to level 4 professions (and 2 of them are still fairly low level) and yes, the fine crafting materials are the deal breaker, each tier you need more and more of them — it is FAR FAR more expensive than just buying the weapons and armor already made in the TP…….. I really hope this is worthy for the exotics at the end, but for what i read ….. neither. :s

I am really puzzled about why there is nowhere information in game for crafters. How are we supposed to know when — at any given point when leveling our crafting professions — that there are recipes available that can only be purchased from karma vendors scattered all over the world, hidden behind hearts (you not even can check beforehand what an NPC would sell), with no indication whatsoever that there is anything of the sort available when you are crafting. You just need to imagine that at any point (when?) there might be or not, some recipes for your profession, that you might or might not want, hidden in whatever places in the world behind some random NPCs with no indicator of any kind that they are selling them — sorry what a bad joke for crafters.

We need consolidated information in game of what recipes are available for each crafting profession (which should be given by the crafting NPC in the crafting area) with either, the recipes themselves.. Why not? Or if Anet don’t like that, at the very least those NPCs should have the information of what recipes are available, and where to go if the player is interested in acquiring them. Like, “(insert NPC’s name here) in XYD Valley, has the following recipes available”, and so on. Or simply just having a karma NPC selling all the recipes so not drive us crazy…… please.