1. Ascended crafting
It is a grind. That is a fact, especially regarding the new armor. Look in the crafting subforum if you don’t believe me, the numbers are plastered all over many posts on the topic. It’s absolutely insane. On top of that, it’s fueled this massive BLTP speculation mini-industry that has completely gated out new players (more on that later).
Now I’m sure some people will say, “Hold the phone here. That stuff’s not required, it’s completely optional, its just a 5%(?) stat boost, and you only need it for fractals!”
Maybe that first part is technically correct. But even then, a 5% boost is a 5% boost. Why should I play for so long and settle for sitting on 95%?
Also, ascended stuff has also been tossed at us from every angle since its release. Dragonite from meta bosses and WvW, empyreal from dungeons… and wvw.
Bloodstone dust. ’Nuff said.
So let’s put this in perspective, the “optional” argument. A good example of “optional”? SPvP.It’s a button, next to other buttons at the top of the screen. I don’t like PvP, but that’s just my personal preference. GW2 has so kitten much content, that button remains a mere button. There’s never a reminder, or a poke, or a shoehorn shoving SPvP in my face, aside from the section for SPvP in the patch notes. But reading those is reeeally optional, and one can easily just skip over that section anyway. Fractals was much the same way, once, where you could completely avoid that little corner of L.A. and its concerns of ascended gear and agony resistance.
Now, you want to do a dungeon? WvW? Ascended mats. Meta events? Ascended mats. The only way to completely avoid it is to do PVE or WVW while deliberately never tagging meta bosses or champions, which means missing out on the best loot, which, if we’re honest, is a primary reason for engaging in those activities. There is no option to ignore this crap, because it piles up in your collections bank, and then it piles up in your bank, and then before you know it one of your alts becomes nothing but an ill-used bloodstone dust depository. That, unless you just toss it all out-but you went through the trouble of earning it, didn’t you? It feels like a waste. That brings me to my next topic.
2. Earning rewards.
One of the major selling points of this game, for me, and my friends, was the fact that exotic gear was the top tier, and there were many ways to receive it. You could craft it, get it with karma or, best of all, dungeons. You could get it in drops but by no means did you, or should you, have relied upon that method.
The reason I call dungeons the best method is because the amount of grind was not too much, not too little- it felt just right. It’s the porridge Goldilocks would have chosen. In addition to the rewards/loot, the PUG experience was a blast. Was. I’ll get to that later, too.
This has really positive implications for new players (hence it being a selling point). Put the work in to level your character, and perhaps at the same time, put several hours in on a dungeon or two (the stat sets are shared across multiple token rewards in several cases) and you can be outfitted in the gear and weapons of your choice, and they can carry you through everything else you do. Exotics were a level of prestige, an end-point, an accomplishment. Everything beyond that was customization: appearance, colors, etc. A complete matter of personal preference. Getting to that end point, of the stat set and look you want, was extremely satisfying, and gave a sense of having earned it, and owning it.
Now, what’s the point of doing dungeons? The tokens are irrelevant; it’s about the loot and the gold now. Exotics have become so undervalued that you can buy them off the BLTP for dirt. There’s no satisfaction to running CoF and CoE for two weeks for full zerker gear (for example) when you can buy the weapons and armor on the BLTP for a gold and a half or less which, in the GW2 economy of today, is pennies.
This, especially, because ascended crafters and tradepost moguls have turned exotics to lead and crafting materials to gold. With the sense of accomplishment, and to a lesser degree prestige, blown off of exotics, what’s left?
Ascended gear. And for that, you have to grind. Given how expensive mats have gotten and are likely to remain, crafting is basically gated off from new players for a long time, far more than it was for me than I started, and for more than it is for veterans who have spent a year stockpiling stuff through passive play.
