Guild Wars 2

I propose a new condition called gear rot, which will destroy your gear if you dont upgrade it to the next tier in time.

What is this vote about? Which game screwed their core fanbase more?

xtorma.1283:

Makes perfect sense, considering they dropped a bunch of precursers in the last event.

A bunch of precursors is a drop on a hot stone. Either way, the next time it makes sense for players that feel vertical gear progression is a gamebreaking criteria to play the game is after ascended gear and ascended infusions have been released. Add to that a couple of months of players undercutting each other in the TP and you may be able to get a fully ascended set + infusions, for roughly the same amount of work as exotics require now. You’d also be relatively save from further gear treadmilling.

If the economy stays keeps prices stable however, things are not going to get better.

Ganzo.5079:

Exotics vs legendary was a time gap, so whats the mean of increasing stats, and the shift of legendary stats above in the near future?

The “Gap” is BS PR talk. They want to slow down the rate at which players get Legendaries, so they introduced a new, grindy tier gear that people can’t ignore(that’s why is has increased stats) to siphon off time/money.

If you have to split your farming time between legendaries and ascended gear + infusion tiers, it’s going to take you a lot longer to eventually get the skins you want.

That’s the reason behind the ascended gear.

Bruno Sardine.2907:

There was no promise…. a manifesto is not a promise or binding contract/document… it has no weight in forcing the author or reader to follow it. It’s generally a bad rule of thumb to stray from your guidelines, but it’s perfectly within their right to do it.

I have to reluctantly agree with Bruno. What happened is that we took something that was in GW1 for granted and expected it to be the same in GW2. And at first, it really seemed like the route they wanted to stay on.

The only thing that I feel violates their manifesto is the amount of grind it takes to get ascended gear. I can see them turning it down in the future, and adding more ways to acquire it, which will decrease the amount of work you have to do. The new tier and the mere concept of vertical gear progression does not go against their philosophy. A good portion of people who WvW take it way more seriously than ANet intended it to be. They want perfect balance, a perfectly even playing field – things that really matter in a real, organized PvP scenario. I’m not saying that people should not demand equality for WvW. I’m just saying it’s not something ANet views as being worth balancing to a T.

So, old GW players and people who bought game for what it was in the beginning got basically conned. We gave them our money trusting them to keep things as they were. It’s a dick move, but it’s where they want to go with the game now. Our choices are to endure the treadmill or jump off.

panzer.6034:

I don’t think asking if max stat gear should be easy to get is even the right question.

May I direct to you multiple posts in this thread detailing why they hate long term gear progression? It is the right question to ask, it’s a much more fundamental question than assuming the majority of the player base would be okay if there were more ways to acquire ascended gear.

Adding new ways to get the gear is super easy and won’t upset a large portion of the players. Satisfying players that bought GW2 to escape a mechanic the developers have just added days ago is impossible. Not without removing it entirely.

If you want to have vertical gear progression in your game, then no.
If you want to have horizontal gear progression in your game, then yes.

Personally, the only thing I love working for is cosmetics(titles and skins), and as long as my gear is not maxed out, I am unable to indulge in that passion. Hunting for such “useless” things as skins is a waste of time if you could work towards having a ring that gives you +1 dmg.
Gearing up and leveling is a chore I endure to get to the fun stuff. I don’t feel more powerful the more trait points or poweful gear I earn. I feel less weak. I feel like I’m getting closer to the point of being able to allow myself the freedom to chase useless but beautiful cosmetics, or waste my money buying consumables to work on a food title.

It’s the reason they were introduced. I despise number progression, but I can tolerate it if it is short and has a static endpoint. Ascended gear and infusions work directly against my desire to finish gearing up quickly.

Crater.1625:

good post

I wholeheartedly concur. I tolerate the time it takes to plateau, but I actually really dislike it.
Ascended gear, and the treadmill of gradually releasing infusion tiers I cannot tolerate.

Fortuna.7259:

So you are essentially creating a grind just a large as the one for Legendary weapons (which were always viewed as optional). BUT this one is for stats (which are NOT going to be viewed as optional). How does this square with your philosophy!?!?

That is their intended goal, yes. The stat increase and new armor tier were specifically added to make it NOT optional, so you have to keep spending time grinding away. That’s the whole point.

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

ASB.4295:

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

I play GW1 for so many year not because i want a mini panda bear. Be nice if i did get one, but the point is that it was fun and if its fun you dont need gimmick to keep the player playing. Simple as that.

Don’t tell me, I’m in the same boat as you. Gearing up is a chore, not fun or anything for me. ANet just increased the amount of time I have to spend to plateau and feel like I’m not wasting valuable time hunting skins when I could be farming to gear up. They want to slow us down, and I’m sorry, that’s not fun for me. Dog kitten

Tifa Lockheart Ex.9614:

Was thinking the same thing. Why not rune or sigil like the dragon sigil +10% dmg vs risen. The new armor tier and stat wasnt necessary at all

Yes it was. Follow me here: They want to slow us down from getting to the power plateau, which means they need to add grinding time. The amount of time required to slow us down is pretty substantial, and if they had added a single small trinket, rune, sigil or other invisible gimmick with some insane monetary requirements(playtime = money), people would have freaked out even more. That’s why they had to add something tangible, something people could distinguish visually. That’s why we have a new tier.

It’s a pathetic design choice and game breaking for me, but if it keeps the grinders playing and paying, then so be it.

Galandil.9641:

why in Balthazar name the Ascended tier (and thus the “updated Legendaries” too) have higher stats than the Exotic one?

They want us to spend/waste more time getting legendaries, and in order to “incentivize” us to not just skip wasting money and time on ascended gear, the make it have higher stats.

THATS THE POINT

Okay, I get it now, ANet. Finally! Sorry for being so ignorant all the time.

Doesn’t change the fact that I can’t enjoy the game like that.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

2 – So ? The current situation is still unacceptable. Promising a fix “eventually” is unacceptable, since “eventually” includes “years from now”. At the very least, I want a timeframe for a fix.

I can give you an educated guess, if you want. With the current system, the treadmill will come to an end after the full ascended gear set and ascended infusions have been released. If we go by what the first content patch introduced(2 gear pieces and 1 infusion tier), the next gear release would have to be in another 3 months.

10 gear pieces | 4 infusion tiers left

February 2013 = Ascended Amulet and Accessory
July 2013 = 3 Ascended armor pieces, Masterwork Infusions
Oktober 2013 = 3 Ascended armor pieces
January 2014 = Rare Infusions
July 2014 = Exotic Infusions
December 2014 = Ascended Infusions

Hope to see you in 2015, the year of the sheep! Baaahahaha! (how fitting)

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

Derk.3189:

Stormleaf.1769:

Erulogos.2591:

Quoting you both as you both make the same argument, essentially, and miss the same issue.

The issue is not with -current- content. No Ascended gear is required to finish every dungeon and kill every boss currently walking Tyria.

The issue is with -future- content. It was stated, when Ascended gear was announced, that Agony (and thus Agony resist) was something that would be involved in content going forward. It was not stated, one way or the other, if it would be required to even attempt future content, and it therefore becomes a simple question: grind Ascended and Agony resist now, so you are ready for the new content no matter what, or wait and see if it will be required, and hope that, if it is, enough other people waited that you can get groups to grind it out.

It is true that as of this moment in time, the grind heavy gear is not required to see any of the content in the game. But we don’t know when or if it will be, and Anet has not said one way or the other. A lot of folks saying it is required are basically taking the cautious path, assuming it will be and preparing for the worst.

The issue with this is that ArenaNet could have easily made this content require Agony resistance from the beginning as well, by making it some Mystic Forge thing and introducing Agony at fractal level 1. They didn’t; heck, they even made it so low levels can participate. Exotics aren’t even a requirement for the early difficulty levels. If they didn’t do it now, why do you think they’re magically going to start doing it in the future? None of the content in GW2 has been restricted like that. There is zero indication of ArenaNet ever restricting content like that, and it’s simply not helpful to base your argument on an assumption that they’ll magically start doing it.

AHHAHA You really think they did that for the players? Its just there to draw out the content, an additional carrot on another stick. Oh you want to see what agony is like? Hit me up 10 levels.

The Agony mechanic wasn’t introduced at the start of the dungeon so that everybody can experience the content. While one of the goals of the Fractals of the Mists dungeon was to provide some difficult content for players looking for a challenge, we also wanted the dungeon to be available for everybody to experience. While getting far into the dungeon requires agony resistance from ascended gear, the content was designed to provide challenging content, and to allow players to choose what difficulty they wanted to play at.

As for ascended gear, to reiterate what Chris has said (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside), it’s not intended as a treadmill, but rather as a tier of rewards that can help bridge the gap between Exotics (a few hours of effort to acquire a piece) and Legendaries (hundreds of hours of effort to acquire one). They’re currently only available in the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, but we’re going to be adding new ways to acquire them, both inside of WvW as well as elsewhere in PvE.

I won’t bother with exotics when I know there’s a higher tier available. All it does is make me work more before I can go enjoy skin hunting. Woop de kittening do.

Mackdose.6504:

That doesn’t make it a requirement to anyone but children and elitists.

Guess who is largely influencing PuG behavior in these high end scenarios. SC Guilds, elitists with cookiecutter builds, who openly demand in map chat that party members need to have X,Y and Z to be able to join them. Normal players look at them and imitate them, because they think that if they do so they will get people that will make the dungeon run easier, faster and safer. On average, that’s actually the case.

Don’t discount the influence elitist loudmouths have. They usually are the catalyst for a meta change, and their dominant behavior in game has others look up to them.

Leite.9475:

IF this tier ends up being the only one to bridge the gap between exotics and legendaries…. then i don’t think ill have much of a problem with it, since it will just be another thing to work for …

Why is adding one tier okay, while adding more aren’t? Also, you’ll not only have to replace your gear with ascended, but also lower rarity infusions with higher rarity ones in the future.
I’m just curious about the answer.

Merthax.5172:

Real honest question:
How long (in gameplay hours) should it take to start a level 1 character and take it to max level with BiS items? Basically, I’m talking about reaching the maximum mechanical power of the character. Player skill, on the other hand, is an entirely separate matter.

That is an important question. One I cannot objectively answer. You could also ask: “Should PvE gear progression ever plateau or keep on going?”

I’m just going to say that I was fairly okay with how long it took you in Guild Wars Factions to get a level 20 with max gear, if you knew what you were doing. I don’t derive any joy from gearing up and will try to get this “obstacle” out of the way before I start working towards things I can really enjoy. If that is not possible because there is a month or year long progression curve, I cannot not enjoy the game.

Well, if open world dueling was in the game, party leaders could test applicants for their skill. It’s another form of check that doesn’t really tell you the guys gear, but at least you’d know you’re not taking a total dunce inside the dungeon if he’s any good.

Food for thought.

phanmc.6759:

Legendary grind is optional

Correction: Legendary grind was optional. Now, it’s the only way to gear up weapons without having to fear them becoming sup par.

Because they don’t add anything of substance to the discussion and there is no offtopic section.

Raziel.1853:

because wasn’t enough stuff to do in PvE.

And this here is the fundamental difference of how people perceive content worth doing.

One side absolutely needs to be rewarded with something that gives their character a definite edge over others in combat, whether that is PvE or PvP. Skins don’t accomplish this for them, invalidating the rest of the content and time they spend experiencing it. The earlier they get this edge in a treadmill cycle, the longer the feeling of accomplishment lasts. Once the masses gain this edge as well, it has lost its appeal and a new edge is needed.

I understand and tolerate this kind of player. If that’s what people need to feel a sense of accomplishment, that their time spend experiencing the content has been worth it, then let them eat cake.

The point is that there is another group of players who detest precisely this kind of edge and accomplishment, the neverending cycle of farm, farm, farm, brag, brag, brag, farm, farm, farm. Those people exist and were drawn to GW2 because it was one of the only places where this sort of progression was intentionally left out.
They viewed getting max armor not as an accomplishment, but more of a relief, after which they could freely choose between spending time on working on things that didn’t make them stronger, that were only useful to enhance their character. Some of them found joy in achieving something they didn’t need to achieve to be the best, like people who climb mountains. Not having max gear is a hindrance for them, because it prevents them from enjoying hunting for frivolous prestige when they could and should work towards finishing to gear up. It’s not about falling behind. In fact, I trust ANet to make sure this negative aspect of the gear treadmill is being eliminated. It’s about being done forever, not having to worry about keeping up, no matter how small the increase in power is.

What one seeks repulses the other. There is no compromise, no middle ground. One group needs to feel what another seeks to eliminate.

Unfortunately, you can’t start downloading the PS2 game files until tomorrow. Just a heads up.

Discrimination happened to the same degree GW1, but it was in slightly different areas, namely faction rank(for certain faction specific skills) and build/runes/insignia. It wasn’t a problem to get the right gear and upgrades, but you still had to title grind to be considered viable for “those” pugs.

“T-Way LF LB8 UA” or “LF 1hp BiP R9/10”

Urxx.6840:

Now I have a strong feeling that there’s no point in doing stuff, and even though right now the material differences with the previous situation are marginal, sooner or later my achievements will be made pointless.

You will regain this freedom once ascended infusions have been released, whether that’s in a year, or in 5 years. If they haven’t introduced another tier by then, chances are this is going to be the best in slot gear for good. Until then, your sense of permanence and freedom has to yield.

Hyperior Runes and Super high quality texture versions of existing weapon skins to give skin farming also some sort of item progression. You know, there’s a gap between not having a certain skin and having it, that’s why we need to bump existing skins down and add a new skin tier.

Onshidesigns.1069:

If infusions are only for endless dungeons, we don’t have to take part in them.
[/quote]

Do you think you will meet agony only inside 2 or three dungeons over the course of GW2s lifetime? After ANet pulled this thing with Ascended gear and infusions? Do you trust them to keep agony only inside a few instances? I know that I don’t.

Let’s try another hypothetical, and I’m trying to stay as close to ANet’s philosophy as possible.

Asceneded armor is released, and everybody who wants it is decked out in fine infusions that give 5(7 for defensive ones, whatever) against agony. A new expansions arrives, with a new agony dungeon, and Masterwork Infusions. The treadmillers will move on to grinding the next dungeons to get their gear back to 100%, so that it won’t hold them back from enjoying every part of the game, chase dungeon high scores, or what other reasons there are. Oh look, after ANet released the next part of the treadmill, they are merciful enough to lower the amount of work to get old infusions to a bare minimum. Everyone, come! You’re now able to start doing the next big agony ridden thing to try and get best armor. But you know what? Since I’m now adequately geared to do Fotm – meaning equipped with gear that was the best at the time of the dungeon’s introduction – I can finally do that without having to think about not having a high enough Agony resistance. But, oh shock, there’s nobody there to play with, even on higher levels of Agony, because the new dungeon/instance gives higher tier infusions!

This system cuts people off from, or makes it very difficult to enjoy content with a lot of lore hidden inside, just because they don’t want to keep gearing up? “You can do the lower levels.” you say. “With whom?” I reply.

You could even see this in GW1:EotN. 2 Months after it’s release, everyone wanted to only do Hard Mode dungeons. Luckily, the story mode of these dungeons was easily soloable, and with a bit of experience, you could also solo the “explorable” versions alone with AI, so you weren’t completely cut off.

GW2 dungeons actually better compared to GW1 elite areas, which for the longest time you couldn’t solo, and which had only people playing that required an ever increasing amount of proof(showing tokens) to be let into their highly specialized speed clear farming groups. Those were efficient grind parties that didn’t care about the area they were playing in. All that mattered clearing as fast as possible and reaping the rewards. You had to be pretty experienced with the area to even consider taking part in these. If you didn’t have a circle of 7 friends or a guild, those were your only hope of experiencing the area.

I didn’t like that kind of solo unfriendly design back then, and I didn’t like it GW2s dungeons for that reason. As of now, the community barely showed any signs of discrimination to complete certain content. Gringers and casuals are playing together, in the same party for the most part. Ascended gear and infusions are going to change that, if only for the dungeons with agony placed in them.

The main(and most personal) reason I won’t play this game is because of the way I like to enjoy games. I didn’t get exotic gear to get exotic gear, I got it to be free of that nagging voice in the back of my head going "you could either work towards getting the skins you like, or you could try and get your gear to 100% effectiveness. Getting max gear is a big relief for me, one after which I can allow myself to indulge in skin hunting. But not before! Work comes first, then comes joy. Even if I’ll never use it, I can’t enjoy the game knowing I could have a slight agony protection on my gear if I just spent time gearing up.

If ANet wants to take this freedom of not having to worry about increasing gear stats away from me to satisfy gear grinders and vertical progression oriented players, this game is not for me anymore.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Infusions are not the problem because they are for lower tiers of the endless dungeons. It’s stats on infusions that carry over to WvW and PvE that’s the problem.

There has to be a middle ground and this is it!

Infusions are the problem. They are a gating mechanism and a gear treadmill in and of themselves. Say you deck your 12 piece ascended gear set out in the best infusions that are available at the tame(rare, for arguments sake). Guess what happens when ANet feels like too many people have gotten those? Yes, they introduce exotic tiered infusions with +X resistance over rare infusions.

And it doesn’t even matter what they do in the future, the fact that ascended armor and infusions were even added started the treadmill. A treadmill is not characterized be the amount of work you have to put into it. That is grind. A treadmill is characterized by the fact of whether or not you will ever be able work towards the best in slot gear that won’t be devalued in the future of the game’s life.
Infusions are a treadmill, therefore a problem. Agony won’t stay confined to FotM or some other tiny areas of the game, because it would be extraordinarily stupid to work in a new tier of gear and an infusion treadmill for only one or two measly dungeons.

There is no middle ground, just as you can’t say someone’s “a little bit dead”, or “a little bit pregnant”. There is no “a bits treadmilly” with infusions. It is one. There is no middle ground.

Onshidesigns.1069:

*Downgreade Ascended to legendary gear with Exotic stats.
*Only Agony resistance on Infusion slots
*Add Infusion slot to all exotic gear and legendary gear.

This still give players progression through agony. And future
content can still be tied to agony.

Again, the biggest part of the treadmill are the infusions. If they did that, people that had max stat gear would still need to upgrade in order to be where they were before. Additionally, they will be adding rarer tiers of infusions, devaluing your old ones and stealing away your achievement of getting the best gear available. Even if infusions just carried an agony resistance stat, it would still be a treadmill.

Zinthros.6589:

I’m quitting the game if a tier above ascended is announced.

Question for you: Are you aware that they are planning to release new infusion rarities that would devalue the ones you are able to get now, and that you’d have to farm 12 of them to stay as powerful(relatively to the rest of the gear) as possible?

They don’t even need to add a new tier – releasing infusion tiers have enough treadmilling potential as it is.

Valtameri.2075:

I loved PS2 beta, but if you got somekind of phobia towards grinding, you might get disappointed.
You’ll need to do tons of objectives/kills to earn certs to unlock scopes ’n such. Or pay if you wanna get them without effort.
If you are ok with that, prepare for some kick*** fun.

Oh, I won’t be playing seriously, that means, with any kind of long term goal. GW2 taught me to never ever trust permanence in an online game. I know that those side grades are unlocked in a linear fashion, one after the other, which is stupid, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t care. Yay apathy!

Move on. Mainly because I can’t get back into the combat mechanics of GW1. Having to stop in order to cast? I… I just can’t.
I’ll have a look at PS2, cause that looks like it doesn’t have a treadmill built in yet, but I won’t be spending any time building my characters on an progression MMO for a long while.
Oh, I should say that I’m a pretty much exclusive PvEer, and the only reason I consider playing PS2 is because I don’t have to engage in direct PvP to be a credit for my faction. Just like in WvW.

Phyllo.3174:

so now we have a new tier ascended gear which i was sort of ok with and they even added another tier in with the ascended gear called infused ascended gear… how is this not a gear treadmill?

They space out the release of Ascended gear just so the treadmill lasts longer. You don’t need to release a complete set in order to have a gear treadmill. You don’t even need it to be armor. Look at the infusions, they are a treadmill in and of themselves. The ascended gear is the platform that infusions will use to keep the treadmill going. Its a very economic way, because they don’t even need to create new armor skins. Once you’re decked out in fine infusions, Masterworks will be released, and you have to farm 12 of those suckers to get back where you were before. Then rare, exotic and ascended. They officially confirmed that they are planning this.

Whether ANet had someone standing behind them and forcing their hand or not is not relevant. I don’t even know what would be sadder? ANet being forced or doing it on their own whim.

You want Feedback? Okay.

I won’t be playing a game that devalues my achievements through the introduction of a gear treadmill, which not only renders the stats of my gear I specifically worked to get(and not have to worry about upgrading anymore) sub-par, but also promises to keep doing so with each new gear piece and infusion tier release for years to come.

I didn’t spend hours and hours farming the money to get Exotic gear.
I didn’t spend hours and hours farming the money to get the best gear.

Why? Because I hate, hate, hate to have that little voice in the back of my head keep reminding me that I could do or take more damage if only I spend some effort upgrading my gear to the absolute top level. I want to stop worrying about getting more powerful and start looking towards spending my time on acquiring nice skins, dyes and titles. I can’t allow myself to work towards something frivolous as a rare skin if I could be spending that time on getting my gear back to 100% effectiveness. My psyche won’t let me.

It doesn’t matter what kind of stats the infusions carry. They are more effective than what I worked for either way, and what I worked for was the knowledge, the freedom of not having to worry about being sub par every again. When you release higher tiers of infusions when you feel the game needs it, rending the older ones sub par, the cycle is complete. I can not enjoy hunting frivolous things like skins and titles(the endgame I know and love from GW1) as long as there’s this sword of Damocles hanging over my head, threatening to take away the freedom of not worrying about effectiveness.

Of course, you developers know how the mind of gamers, so I’m sure my explanation wasn’t really necessary.

There was no gap between exotic and legendary rarities except for the time it took to acquire a legendary. You thought people would take longer to get legendaries and decided to violate your “no necessary grind” philosophy, artificially slowing down the rate at which they are acquired? That’s all ascended gear and infusions are: A giant time and gold sink.

I have nothing else to say about this update, as the addition of Ascended gear and infusions makes it impossible for me to enjoy the game.

Let me list the amount of gear and upgrades they are planning to add to the game over the course of the next months and years:

Ascended Armor(6 pieces)
Ascended Accessories(6 items)
Fine Infusions*¹
Masterwork Infusions*¹
Rare Infusions*¹
Exotic Infusions*¹
Ascended Infusions*¹

*¹ – You need 12 infusions to completely upgrade a set of gear.

That is what their new system can handle. As you can see, they have enough room to keep devaluing your max gear for years to come.

Wilky.7521:

If you believe this, you’re fairly naive and unimaginative. How are infusion slots any different from rune/gem/sigil slots? Oh, they’re not….

Adding a new infusion tier after you farmed the best one for your gear is like adding a new tier of runes beyond “Superior”. The fact that matters is that they spread out the release of tiers of upgrades to keep bumping your gear down from 100% effectiveness to 95%. That is the gear treadmill. Even if infusions just carry an agony resistance stat: Once the next tier is released, the work you put in getting the previous one will be devalued. Numbers don’t matter, it could be a 1% difference between tiers and still be a treadmill.

Ravenmoon.5318:

If running the same dungeon 30 times in a roll to get a single ascended item is not called a gear treadmill, I’m an airplane

What you’re describing is grind. Grind and a gear treadmill are not the same thing, they just like to team up in order to generate the illusion of a long lasting progression.

The ascended gear itself and the infusions are the first and second step of the gear treadmill, with further tiers of infusions being the next steps. If you’d completely take away the grind of running the dungeon and made acquiring ascended gear a matter of 5 minutes, it would still be a gear treadmill. It would be a a nearly useless one, but it would still devalue your gear every time they release a new part. The same goes for infusion rarity tiers.

Don’t be fooled if they turn around and announce that they’re making the gear easier to get. The treadmill will still be there, and it’s going to be used to keep you going for a long while.

Sykper.6583:

I feel A-Net wanted to fix the cry for end-game

A gear treadmill is the lowest and most boring form of end game there is. No matter what compromise they come up with to appease to the angry part of the community, the treadmill will stay. In this case, it really is a matter of principle.

Adding any content that decreases the relative effectiveness of your maxed gear is a treadmill. Ascended gear is a treadmill. Infusions are a treadmill. Making infusion as easy to acquire as in GW1 would make their addition irrelevant in the first place.

I’m not against gating as long as it is easy to overcome. No problem whatsoever. I have to do the story mode of a dungeon once before I can initiate an explorable mode? No problem. In GW1, you only had to be max level and have one of your characters complete the campaign to unlock hardmode for every other character on that account, provided they were max level. That’s a very reasonable gating mechanic, and makes sure you’re at least somewhat familiar with the content.

This? This is atrocious.

I’m not willing to keep upgrading my gear every few months/years, even if it’s just a matter of doing 1 dungeon run, meta event, or personal story quest chain. I simply won’t do it, and if you can’t assure me that once I reached max stats on my gear I will never have to work for those max stats again, then I won’t be able to play your MMORPG.

GW1 and other single player RPGs conditioned me, just like WoW conditioned grinders. I may be spoiled, but that are now my criteria now are for even considering putting any effort in a game with character progression. I’m willing to partake in vertical item progression if I can be 110% sure that once I reach the top stat wise, I’ll never have to return to working towards it again in order to stay at peak efficiency.

Infusions, whether they affect basic stats or just agony resistance, are an unacceptable mechanic for me. They aren’t a one time update, but are tiered as well.

What this means to me is, if ANet doesn’t scrap the concept entirely(which has pretty much no chance of happening), the next time I could even consider spending any time on maxing my gear is after they released the full ascended gear and ascended infusions. And who knows, by then they might have introduced another tier of armor with another set of upgrades like infusions.

A golem named BUY-4373, an NPC named Subdirector Blingg, and a jumping puzzle named Under New Management.

I’m sorry, but those references are too coincidental to just be funny. Thanks for letting us now, ANet.

There is a sense of closure with horizontal progression. Horizontal progression usually doesn’t get devalued by the addition of new content. If I farmed long and hard, saved every silver so that I could finally get the skin I wanted to titles maxed out, there’s usually not going to be an update that introduces a higher title tier of what I had already achieved. There’s not going to be an update that changes the texture quality of a skin I worked hard for to a much higher one without updating my item, because I got it before the update.

I want max gear not because I enjoy getting it. I want it to not have to think about it even more. It’s a chore, even in GW2, but as long as I know there’s an ultimate goal that will never move further away, I’m willing to soldier through the process of getting it, so I can have that final moment of relief after I put on the gear. I’m at the maximum – done, forever.

With skins and titles, it’s the same. You’ve seen a few people here worry about being deprived of their world completion title every time new content is released. Those people have the same underlying desire to keep what they worked for, which isn’t to explore the areas of Tyria that were available when they finished world completion, but to not have to start working on it again.

I don’t want to be Zeno.

Onshidesigns.1069:

This is about future content being accessible for all or only for some who like to grind.

It’s about more than that. It’s about never having the feeling of being “done” with your stat progression. They could easily mod exotics to carry infusions, but the underlying issue of them continuing to release gear(higher infusion tiers) that demote your gear form 100%“done and done” status to 98%“just about done” whenever they feel it is necessary to keep the grinders interested.

It’s about the desire of not having to put any more effort into your gear’s stats, and to concentrate on things that won’t make you more effective, even if it’s just +1DPS.

If a game can’t provide me with this sense of closure, I can’t enjoy it.

People suggest compromises that involve scrapping everything but the infusions, and only have them have agony related stats. They however forget that that’s where the long term treadmill actually is, not the ascended gear. Once the entire set of ascended gear has been released, stronger infusion tiers will be released, ones that are straight upgrades to the old ones, rendering those sub par, just like ascended gear devalues exotic gear.
Let’s say they add 2-3 pieces of gear every 3 months, and after the gear set is complete move on to releasing infusion tiers, they could keep the treadmill alive for a long time with the newly implemented system.

There is no “small treadmill”. It’s either there with either the ascended gear and/or infusions, or it’s not without them. Even if ascended gear and infusions were super easy(and I mean 20 minute play time per piece) easy to acquire, it would still be a treadmill. It would be the worst kind of treadmill, because grinders would feel unsatisfied or unachieved, and the purists loose their goal of not having to worry about keeping their gear stats maxed out permanently.

We’re at a crossroads, and ANet set the blinker towards the mill.

I don’t regret paying what I did for the original release of GW2, so I won’t demand a refund. The people responsible for developing the game have done a phenomenal job and need to be rewarded for everything they did before the treadmill. And even then, the content artists have probably had no hand in the decision about Ascended armor and infusions. It’d be unfair to be angry at them. In my mind, all of the money I spend so far went to the character artists, writers, map designers, and everybody else that wasn’t directly involved in the decision making process that lead to the addition of a gear treadmill.

I’m also glad that this change has come so early in the life of the game. I would feel a lot more angry and outraged if they pulled what they did 5 years into the game, after the attachment to my characters would’ve grown enough to make a separation very painful.

I’m still very interested in the lore of GW, but I can experience that almost as well through lets plays on youtube. I know it’ll satisfy me, because I did the same with GW1. For the longest time, a solo player couldn’t complete any of the elite zones because AI party members weren’t allowed in there and I was too inexperienced to join a speed clear PUG, the only reason players played that content. So I watched lets plays and walkthroughs of these areas, which didn’t really help me get into a SC group, but thanks to some very charismatic and lore appreciating youtubers, I was able to enjoy the elite content like I was playing it myself.

Can’t wait for someone to put up a detailed LP of the Fractals.

binidj.5734:

… and give us agony resist upgrade items (with no additional stats) to slot into our jewellery.

You do realize that infusions themselves are a gear treadmill, right? Fine, Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, Ascended. So even with an Exotic gear stat cap, you’d have to work to get your gear maxed out every time they release a new infusion type/rarity.

Yo, dawg! We heard you like progression, so we put infusions on your new gear, so you can grind while you grind.

AzureNightmare.3914:

So just what /will/ you do if this really is the end of it? No, I’m not looking for “Oh well that’s never gonna happen this is a guaranteed 101% trend now no turning back blahblahblah” I’m honestly just curious- what will you do if this is a legitimately one-time-only tier upgrade and everything was just more content instead of tiers and they just want to add something new to the game?

Ascended gear is just one aspect of the gear grind. Once all gear pieces are released, there are still infusion tiers you’d have to grind for. Why don’t they release everything at once? Because that would defeat the purpose of their gear progression. It’s a looming Damocles sword that at any moment in time for years, they could release an update that would devalue one of your gear parts or infusion upgrades.

Believe it or not, some people like being done with their progress. If you take this feeling away from them every couple of months, they loose their motivation.

It’s a natural thing: Players repeating content are getting increasingly bored of the repetitiveness, which increases their need to progress faster. They want to make sure their party members are geared up and experienced enough to complete the content as fast as possible, and the only way to do that is by discrimination of casuals and inexperienced players.

I don’t, because there are at least 4 more infusion tiers that they are most likely adding in the future, rendering the ones you played for obsolete. The ascended gear is just the platform for the real grind, which are the infusions.

This thread should be merged with one of the others or moved to the suggestion forum.

Onshidesigns.1069:

Infusions should be on exotics with no increase in stats outside of dungeons and maybe some future content.

Even if that was the case, you would still have to work to get back to being done with your gear progression every time they release a new infusion tier. The long term gear grind is in the infusions, which can be added at will and are much easier to create for them than full armor sets.

If they stuck to their manifesto, ascended gear wouldn’t exist, infusions wouldn’t have anything past agony related stats, and can be fairly easily acquired via the dungeon’s story mode. 1 story mode run = 1 infusion

But then there would be no long term gear “progression”.

Revrak.8594:

if everybody does this, and if we are the majority, they will be forced to comply with their manifesto.

I won’t be so sure. Right now it looks like they are trying to attract grinders while keeping up the illusion that there is no grind. If they can condition a large enough amount of people into believing that, and steal some part of the grinders away from other MMOs, they might even make more money than now.

It might work for them.

Lemuria.3195:

Spectral agony was essentially the same thing in GW1.

Except that:

*you could infuse any armor
*it was part of the story and pretty easy to get your set infused
*it only took one additional mission run to get another set of armor infused
*there was only one kind of infusion, which you never ever had to replace

No treadmill, no artificially forced progression that lasts for years, no real gating because infusion was easy to acquire and part of the leveling process/story.

edit: I forgot to add that in the beginning, you could only infuse one piece per mission run, so you had to run the thing 5 times for a full infused set. They changed that somewhat quickly, though. 10 days to be exact.

Quote by Arenanet from the patch that made infusion runs a lot easier:

We believe that the most effective way to play the game should also be the most fun way to play the game.

Pants.8315:

Going by the data mined legendary stats from before this patch went live, they did already have higher stats than the Exotic weapons, which could suggest that they fully intended this gear to be in the game at some point after launch.

Even if we could be sure that Ascended gear is the last tier of gear they will ever add, there is whole other layer of gear grinding below it called Infusions. Higher rarity infusions are most likely going to differ in stats too, just like everything else that is part of the gear ladder(except legendaries).

If they scrapped Ascended and made Exotics infusable now, there would still be a gear treadmill to get the highest rarity infusion.