Guild Wars 2

Why would it change? that’s where the best drops come from anyway.

Auum.3410:

As far as I know, Anet haven’t taken away any content – have they?

And yet somehow i have lost some of my BiS eq, and have been told that i will lose all the others as well soon.

Astraea.6075:

Would your opinion on ascended gear be different if it was available at launch, but still required some grinding to get?

No. It is the grind that makes them problematic, not the stats themselves. I’d have no problem with them making a new tier every 3 months, if it took me less than a day per toon to update (regardless from which tier i have started).

Not even necessarily ugly – just on the same level that basic white droppable/low tier craftable eq.
Basically, Ascended eq should be available from: vendors (gold, karma, dungeon tokens – including old ones, wvwvw tokens), drops (dragon class chests, lev 80 champions, dungeon boss chests etc), crafting (with the difficulty increase no greater that rare→exotic). They must also be sellable in TP. The costs(chance) must be low(high) enough to allow us to think about getting them for multiple characters and builds, not just one.

@Ivonbeton: a good idea, and i support it completely. I have even put something similar to this in the event feedback thread befoe.

Even the base cost is way too much (especially when you consider that there will be eventually a full set of ascended weapons, armor and accessories). Added cost is so far beyond reasonable it’s not even funny.

There should be games catering to both options. In the game i want to play? Definitely – i now want to play for fun, my times of grinding and hard work just to be able to have fun are long over. I don’t want to return to this anymore. I already have one work, and i don’t need a second one.

Raf.1078:

lunabaguna.8293:

Honestly, its great if the new mechanics dont affect you. However, Anet does need to focus on many different playstyles, and if they are creating things that are negatively impacting parts of their playerbase, the players have a right to voice their dissent and Anet can listen and decide if the points are relevant enough to warrant a change.

ANet or any other gaming company simply cannot make a game that appeals to everybody. All they can do is make a game that they have envisioned as being cool and let each player decide if its the game for him/her.

No matter what ANet does, they will NEVER satisfy everyone.

True. That’s why they should keep trying to satisfy the same group of people their game was originally aimed for. Instead of it they changed their targets and are now trying to satisfy a new group, with a radically different gameplay. The fact that the original group gets unhappy is no surprise.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

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.

Thank you kindly for attempting to explain your reasoning. Let me address it in order.

1. Agony mechanics as a “difficult content for players looking for a challenge” are unnecessary. You create difficult content by designing a difficult content, not by introducing gear-based punishment mechanics. In this case it’s not the Agony or the content that presents a challenge, but getting Ascended items and infusions. You “overcome” the “challenge” not by playing well, but by having a better gear.
The whole mechanics is completely unnecessary, serving only as a (not needed) gear gate check.

2. The dungeon available for everybody to experience – it’s technically so (on early levels). Main problem here is that FotM drops are so much better than all the other dungeons (both in quality and exclusivity) that it has made all othe content obsolete. Unfortunately, it’s also true for the deeper levels. Additionally the “fractal level”, with the increased drop chance it offers, creates a bar for casuals, seriously limiting their ability to find a group. Much better solution would be to allow people to join higher difficulty groups, but getting drops according to their own fractal level (and bumping up fractal level by 1 anytime they finish a level at or above their current max). Also, see point 1 about Agony.
All the old content should also be updated as far as drops go – the last changes go in the right direction, but compared to the FotM are just not enough.

3. Ascended eq and “bridging the gap”. As many people already mentioned the Ascended eq do not in fact bridge the gap in rarity between exotics and legendaries, as there are already exotics that are equally hard to get. Solution here would be to bump all those exotics (both named weapons and cultural armor) to Ascended tier. What is really problematic is that introduction of Ascended tier creates a completely new gap – one far more noticeable and one that influences the whole game. While grinding for looks and bragging rights in itself is generally okay, better stats are not really optional (apart from the game itself being optional, of course). Making this decision you have caused grint to be mandatory and have taken a step back from the ideas you have advertised in your manifesto. Regardless whether you wanted it or not, as long as these new best stat items are hard and tedious to get, what you have created is an eq treadmill. If you still want to avoid it, the solution would be either to remove the items from the game (i know, not very likely by that point), or to make them (or their stat equivalent) much more easily available – both by significantly reducing time needed, and opening lot of other sources of the gear (other than Mystic Forge).

It would be interesting to hear your response.

Denouement.3268:

I’ve been peaking at this thread and there is something I just don’t get.

All of this strange negativity. What is the source of this? It simply escapes me, I can’t experience it myself even if I tried.

Then you are likely NOT one of the many people that absolutely detest gear grind. One of the reasons why i hate this feature is because it forms the basis of a gameplay style that i find abhorrent. The Elitist Game.

The better gear is here not to make things easier for you (it doesn’t, the new content always is made with the best eq tier in mind and mob stats are adjusted accordingly). It is here so some people can feel better than the others. The only value of this gear is that the masses don’t have it. Once too many people manage to get it, a new tier is needed to separate “elitist nobility” from “common noob rabble”. There is absolutely no other reason for existence of new tier items. It just separates “the better” from “the losers” – and “the betters” will keep reminding you about it at every possibility, because that was their goal in the first place.

When a game caters to that gameplay style, it tells me that developers agree with it. Why would i want to play a game which considers me to be worse somehow, just for playing differently, even if i do spend likely more money that the achievers?

Remember, this elitist playstyle is actively hostile to the one i prefer. The two simply cannot coexist in the same game space.

(I also support Corvindi’s idea about bunnies. Even if i’ll feel sorry for them)

NinjaKnight.1340:

It has to potential to help get rid of the excess supply of many items thus raising their prices in the TP and making them viable.

Well, giving nothing in return does serve the main function of removing items from circulation rather well, don’t you think? Also, the whole Mystic Toilet seems to be in general designed to remove more than it gives back (on average of course). The long-term net result is supposed to be negative.

The only reason why anyone would want to use it is because some things just cannot be gained from other sources.

Yes, sometimes even a slight difference in relative height can make an underwater opponent go invulnerable. It doesn’t happen often, but can be seen from time to time.

Shootsfoot.9276:

That being said, if they have so little time to play, I’m not understanding how adding a gear level between exotic and legendary levels affects these people in the least.

Wait till the old content gets upgraded to Ascended level of difficulty (as it has already been announced it will be). The upgraded areas will get too difficult, while those that won’t get upgrade will become ghost towns (seeing as there will be no point in being there).

The new “progression initiative” has only started. The effects wont be felt immediately. Give it time.

Of course, when you will feel them (and you will feel them eventually) it will be much too late.

It had potential to be a great game. Unfortunately, it seems that potenial is now being wasted on trying to make it a WoW clone. And it that category it will never be better than the original.

Nayru.4537:

So you’re saying 98% of gamers are casual and 2% are hardcore? Ok.

2-5% for hardcore players is a normal value (the exact percentages change depending on the game in question, of course. There are games that are created specifically for hardcore crowd, and percentages there can be much higher). The majority of players usually consist of so called “dedicated casuals” – people that play a bit more (or even a lot), and spend quite a lot of cash, but whose gameplay activity is purely casual one. They are usually main source of income for the MMO games (since they are usually the ones that themselves posess a stable income).
Which isn’t suprising – the term “hardcore”, after all, straight tells us that we’re talking about minority whose mode of play significantly diverges from the average.

Raine.1394:

I think this is clearly one area that can be discussed. It was illustrated graphically for me in this weekend’s event. I was playing it ranged and my visual was the boss and a sea of downed players that were in melee range. You know, it looked like a cemetery with neatly aligned tombstones.

Some of the dead people had likely Berserker-statted armor. Lot of others weren’t melee classes.

There were two main problems of mass deaths in this last event (well, three). First was that in this event, the fodder consisted of mid-boss type monsters. In some cases a whole lot of them at once. Second was visibility – if you don’t see opponents until after they have killed you, there is not much you can do to survive. Third was the Karka skills – veterans and champions had a type of attack (rolling) that was a sure one-shot kill to anyone. If this game had true tanks, the attack would likely oneshot them as well. Coupled with the first two points (a group of such monsters attacking you, and inability to see them preparing to use such skill), and a relatively narrow staircase it had created a real deathtrap.
Also, the Karka mobs had a long range artillery type attack, and kept firing it from invisibility in massive salvos. It was not as bad as the rolling kill – could be survived and healed through, and was easier to avoid – but it added to the chaos.

It was not the mechanics of the game that resulted in piles of corpses, but rather mechanics specific to the event.

Feedback:

The Fractals are cool, and general basic idea of the new dungeon is okay. The levels (making it more difficult with each try) is not. This segregates the players, and makes it a top farming spot. Especially since the Ascended gear comes from here (see more on this below).

The new area looks nice, but looks empty, as far as events go. The mob population is okay – which is a nice change after Orr (though respawn times might be lowered a bit).

The new crafting drops (as well as some of the old ones) should really get their own slots in crafting tabs in bank.

Event was a zergfest with invisible mobs (especially funny in last event, when invisible groups of 10+ veterans, champion and lower fodder could kill whole group on that circular stairs in the cavern before someone even noticed they are there). Consider cutting down on server/overflow population caps for events like this, or try to divide event into smaller concurrently running parts.

Consider running the event several times during the day, so that everyone can participate (giving the reward once – making sure that it is indeed received, though).

Reward was nice (though i didn’t get a precursor or even any item that would be useful for me, with the exception of the both non-rng box and ring), but it would be better for the future to split it and deliver in parts, at each stage of the event.

Now… the ascended items. I guess the whole 200+ pages long topic on this sums up my feelings on this farce nicely.

The idea should never have been introduced. It was a bad decision, one that i don’t believe will work as well as devs expect it to (in fact, i’m certain it will work way, way worse). The best option would be to scrap it completely. I guess it would requre giving people that already got ascended items some sort of meaningful compensation though. I have no idea what it might be. Perhaps changing those items in legendaries or Exotics with some cool visual, legendary-type effects. It should work for backpacks at least. Rings would be a bigger problem.

If for some reason this is no longer possible, make ascended the new easily attainable top tier. Make them drop from level 80 areas and WvWvW, make them craftable (by crafting professions and mechanics, not Mystic Toilet), make karma vendors that offer them, add them to vendor list in WvWvW and FotM. In all these cases, the difficulty of getting the items/their price should be no more than 2-4x the difficulty/price of getting exotic gear.
Change the t3 cultural armor into Ascended. Keep the price as it is (it would be still too high for them even then in my opinion, but let’s pretend that these skins are worth it – it’s a completely different discussion). Fix the stats and make them be purchasable in several configurations (like dungeon armor).

Also: drop the infusion/agony mechanic and make the armor runable as all the lower ones (since it seems you are incapable of adding infusion mechanic to lower tier armors).

And last but not least – communicate with your playerbase. Lack of communications or communication only through blog posts in which you try to explain that you really didn’t do something everyone knows you did (or are full of PR speak that doesn’t convey anything) can only end in PR disaster. Try to avoid that if you are still interested in having a playerbase.

Ballistic.4531:

Ganzo.5079:

Ballistic.4531:

Fiennes.9568:

Irnhide.3428:

When you have a forum full of angry and upset and frustration…. its not a minority anymore.

Until you have figures showing how many people actually post here, versus those that don’t, you have no business really, saying that it is not a minority

True. However, same goes the other way. We also don’t know if it really is a minority.

but, if we take the forum as feedback, we cant say that the majority of player asked for a new stats tier. and without an in game survey, the forum is the only feedback they can use…i guess.

Again true. However, I’m not sure who said that majority asked for a treadmill.

All the people saying that those who don’t like gear progression are a “vocal minority” Anet shouldn’t listen to.

Pino.5209:

SpedalFlux.1520:

a lot of people were talking about some new karma sets, anyone got any info on those?

If that’s true, probably on par with ascended? let just say more less 500k per whole set. Progression!!! /prediction/wink/wink

Seing as that would be double the price of the current karma sets, it would sound about right. Which likely means the real price (if it even would get introduced) would be at least 10-20 times greater.

Lt Latency.7415:

They are also the easiest players to keep happy.

Gear grinders are impossible to keep happy. They either haven’t yet completed their shiny new tier eq set, or have completed it, and are screaming they have nothing to do. You propably meant keep engaged and interested (which is not the same thing). No, it’s not that easy, as all the WoW clones failures have already shown. On the other hand, gear grind is one of the easiest ways to make casuals unhappy. That unhapiness can already be seend, and it’s going to grow still, because lot of people are not reading boards and blogs, and are yet unaware of the consequences of late changes. That is going to change soon, though.

The reward was cool, but the event itself was just a zerg slugfest. Tedious, boring, long (too long) and bugged. Whatever good points it might have had has been completely overshadowed by it (and by rewards, of course, but that is a different discussion).

I must say, that to my amazement the loot WAS good enough to balance the lot of problems during the event itself (that made it much harder that it would have been otherwise – invisible long-distance AoE nuker mobs ftw).

Zephyrus.9680:

I was discussing this with a friend when the tri-forge pendant was discovered though I was not aware they had made this an official stance.

I think they are going in the right direction though. As long as they keep this new gear within reasonable reach of the average player, there should not be a significant issue.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s already beyond reasonable reach of average players. And if they’ll continue on that path, it will always stay so. Unless of course an even newer gear will make them obsolete.

Wait, they drop only from level 10 up? Is that someone’s idea of a sick joke?

Greyfeld.7104:

The only character I’ve really connected with like that, thusfar, is Magister Sieran. Her tendency toward quirky curiosity, desire to devour knowledge, and propensity for bucking off the rules to do just that, made me love the hell out of her. Not to mention the fact that she’s the proof that Sylvari blondes actually exist.

Love her.

The problem with her is, after five minutes of watching her antics i understood why noone takes Priory seriously. And the fact that my character was supposed to agree with her on everything (suggesting i was a dangerously naive idiot as well) was terribly irritating.

Also, it’s not her curiosity that is her defining feature. It’s the fact that she seems to have misplaced her brain somewhere. She is a flat stereotype that is just completely wrong in the place of your mentor.

Forgal is a good and likable character, you can really see him as a person. Destiny’s Edge… they would be okay if they were not so central to the story. I still dislike most of them, but i do dislike them as a people, and because they try to crowd me out of the storyline so much.

Trahaerne… don’t let me start on him. We don’t need more Kormirs in the game (and Kormir was actually less of a cardboard cutout)

Edit: also, i completely agree with the poster above on all of his points.

Amra.6028:

Ryan.6951:

“8%, wvw availability”

Get your facts right and I might read the whole post next time. Both of those are flat out wrong.

Correct them, then.

It’s more than 8%, and there’s no WvW availability.

TehMesmor.5602:

@Astralporing. Could you post a offical link to that? The thing about saying Infusion and Ascended gear will be the basis for new content??

Sure

I’d like to point you to the passage:
“This is just the beginning. In November, we’re only adding the first level of Infusions and Ascended Rings and Back slots, so that leaves us a lot of room to build upon these levels of Item progression in future content.

As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content."

I think that the message is clear. Future content will be built up on Ascended items and Infusion mechanic, and these will be designed for all end-game content. Not just for one dungeon. This post suggests as well that there will be other mechanics than agony that will be introduced later on. Whether they will require a new type of dedicated infusions, or a new tier of gears is, of course, only a guess.

At the moment i can’t find where they said that old content will be adjusted as well – i think it was in one of the forum posts, not the blog, but i lost the link.

If Anet really decided that Manifesto is wrong (or just impossible for them to realize), let them say so in plain text. I will be gone from this game then with no hard feelings.

Just don’t try to deceive anyone.

Sion.1653:

Here’s the thing. Anet has introduced new elements into their game that, as a player base, we would have never expected. Why? Because, before we bought this game, we were strongly convinced that this game would be different. It still has a chance to be.

Two paths lie before Anet:

Three paths, actually:

1. Return to the original manifesto and try to somehow win the trust of players back. It would be hard (trust, once broken is not easily regained) but possible – lot of us still want to believe that we can have the game we wanted back. The cost might be losing the grinders though.

2. Switch to the new approach. Go for treadmill, raids, mounts, holy trinity – all that the grinders want. This will lose them their old core community, of course, but if the management decides that such is the price of business, then so be it.
I personally think they will lose the grinders too, because so far no game managed to pull that crowd away from WoW for long, but Anet may think differently. Who knows, they may even succeed when other games failed.

3. Continue on the current path. Don’s explain anything, don’s speak with the community, try to please everyone with partial gestures.
It’s very unlikely to satisfy anyone but the most pure casual crowd, that doesn’t even buy anything in shop. For grinders it will not be enough, for old community it will be too much, and it will mean losing a distinct game image.
This option will most certainly will lose them the game. There’s no buts and ifs about that.

Regizer.1763:

Crater.1625:

Regizer.1763:

grumbles.5412:

So you are saying I don’t need infused Ascended in order to push deeper into Fractal Dungeons? ArenaNet did indicate I would be required to get this new tier in harder difficulties.

Where did they say this?

Right here.

In the upcoming Fractals of the Mists dungeon, we’ll introduce a new monster condition called Agony.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means. Players who wish to delve deep into the Fractals will find that Agony makes progress increasingly difficult, until they reach the point where some defense against this condition is a must. The only way to mitigate Agony damage is by building up resistance through Infusions, a new type of upgrade component that can be acquired in the Mystic Forge.

And Infusions can only be applied to Ascended gear.

Ah ok. Though this mechanic only applies to this one dungeon so whats the problem?

They also said that it will form the basis of all the new content, and that old content will eventually be adjusted for ascended-equipped characters.
They also said they cannot promise there will be no new “item progression” initiatives.

Malediktus.9250:

Soloed it already, no change needed.

You do realize, that he was actually much easier to do solo than in groups? The number of ember spawns depended on number of participating players, and after they passed certain threshold, they were able to just cover the whole floor with lava fonts. And they didn’t despawn when players died, of course, so you could end up alone against 30+ embers on your tail. Most large groups i have seen doing him just eventually defaulted to kamikaze tactics – no skill or subtlety, just brute force approach.

When i look for a skin for my weapon, the only thing i care about is if it will look good or not. Whether other people have the same skin or not does not influence that, so it’s completely irrelevant for me. I also don’t get any satisfaction from seeing others are denied the good things i have. My happiness does not depend on unhappiness of others.

Therefore, i don’t really understand your reasoning and don’t agree with it. If legendaries become more accessible, more people will be able to get them and thus more people will be satisfied. That seems good to me.

Considering the situation (and the price of cultural t3 set) it might be good idea to make it Ascended now. With perhaps 3 different sets of stats (like with dungeon armors).

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Judas.5432:

1. So start your own group and advertise it as a lvl 1 group. There will be a ton of people running this thing for the first time all weekend.

What about 6 months from now when most of the people have higher ranks ?

By that timethere will be a new dungeon that will make this one obsolete. Or at least everything so far points to it. Even if it doesn’t happen, it won’t matter anymore, because the runs will be “ascended eq only”.

better yet – can someone shut him up permanently?

The same on Gandara. He cannot be harmed.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Mandrax.7342:

I saw something on Kotaku where Isaiah Cartwright was doing a live Q&A. Someone asked a direct question about vertical progression which he neatly avoided answering properly.

Q: how important for you is vertical progression in GW2?

A: All progression is important to us, we want to make sure our rewards and progression systems hit a spectrum of players and makes everyone feel excited to play the game.

Was hoping to see more on the session but actually it was a pretty lame affair.

Link here: http://kotaku.com/5960951/the-lead-designer-of-guild-wars-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-now?tag=kotaku-q%26a

How is that avoiding the question? Unless you must be very paranoid. (which may or may not be logical) It’s obvious that they will have vertical progression in the future by the looks of that answer, as well as all other progression.
So how important is vertical progression? Just as important as all other progression.

Try to throw more controversy out of nowhere. Geez

He managed to answer that question without actually saying anything. Yes, that is an information in itself (namely, he didn’t deny that there will be a further vertical progression ).
It really seem that they decided on introducing EQ treadmill after all, but they don’t want to admit it. Perhaps because they know it would mean he end of this game.

Rangle.2539:

Guys, it’s just natural for the game to progress.

Yes, that’s why we’d rather want the game to progress, not the stats.

It better be. Not that i trust them at this point

Turkman.1089:

Why do the raiders, who obviously hadn’t informed themselves properly beforehand, feel to be in the right here and demand them to change one of the most important parts of this game’s philosophy, when there was just another WoW addon released where you could definitely gear-progress your kitten off?

They want to feel special. It is hard to show off your skill (and most of those heavy grinders don’t have that much skill, they just have more free time). New armor though – especially one that most casuals will never be able to get – is ideal for showing off. The harder to get, the better, because it helps them stand out more.

People that want eq treadmills are always a minority – because they want to be a minority. It’s hard to try to pass themselves as “Elite” if that “elite” is majority, after all.

And if that attitude is going to hurt the game they play, and is a turnoff to a lot of people? Who cares? (they certainly don’t).

They won’t be. Nothing has changed. If all, the Legendaries just got even harder/more costly to make.

Articluna.4509:

I’d love to be sarcastic about difference between crafted exotic and “huge boss drop”-exotic, but that’d be rather rude.

Remember, there is now a new tier of equipment that will start to be introduced in days. There is no craftable equivalent to it (not a guess – the new recipes were already data-mined, so we know what has been added). So, there is going to be a difference between crafted exotics and boss/dungeon-drop ascendants
It may not be immediately aparent, and the process might take some time, but the crafting has been effectively killed off with this last patch.

Artorous.8573:

I’m fairly certain when you link an item it doesn’t have the upgrade slot slotted.

Look again, it has. The upgrade is part of the base stats. And the difference is 8% for minor stats, but over 40% for the major one (which in example we were shown is MF).

MatthewMedina.5419:

The reason we chose the times that we did, when concurrency is at its peak, is precisely because it offers us the highest chance for the largest number of people to attend. By definition though, because concurrency rises and falls, that means it’s impossible for us to choose a time that offers us a chance for everyone to attend.

You could have picked a Saturday/Sunday night for the one-time event. That would offer much more options to adjust daily schedule than Sunday/Monday night. If the event will last past midnight – and since it’s supposedly “multi-hour” and starts here at 23:00 (i think) it’s very likely – i won’t be able to participate (work hours and all that).
And since thee will be a prize for participating… you see the picture?

Tweek.3190:

AshleySegovia.3948:

Hey guys – can you please tell me what error messages you’re receiving?

Build 16048
error code 42.6.3.2060

the same

It also suggests, that at one point it will become too difficult to do anymore, and you’d have to look for people with lower difficulty unlocks. Which suggests some interesting consequences for people that blow through content at accelerated rate.

Edit: oh, it will reset? I missed that one. Sounds good.

Xenon.4537:

This. There’s way too much vitriol and alarmist diarrhea being spewed all over the forums over something that hasn’t been tried yet and has already received a reply from Anet themselves that everyone ignores because omigosh it must be a lie or something.

Perhaps we’re ignoring it because there are several informations in it that are just plain untrue already. That doesn’t help in believing the rest, you know.

Yes, they will be. Unless ANET will decide to recalculate everything for Ascended stats, thus making the gap between elitist locust and casual majority even greater.

Jrunyon.3012:

Columba.9730:

Multiple approaches using math indicate that the increase is at least 8%. this really isn’t up for debate.

But that math is completely wrong. Its as simple as that.

Of course it was. It was based on secondary stats, not on primary one. In truth, it’s much bigger than 8%

Also, ironically, going with the way Sylvari work, Firstborns should be the worst choice.
They were born first, with no life experience at all. By most relations we see in the game they were woefully unprepared for the world – naive and lacking understanding. And they are at best 25 years old now.
The next generations are born gifted with the Firstborns collective experience – as a result, even if they are younger, they are supposed to be more mature and experienced.

The main reason why Firstborn are getting everything first (like Caladbolg – which one firstborn lost due to acing too rash, and your character recovered and proved they can use it) is because Pale Tree is playing favourites.

fellyn.5083:

Where did they ever say exotic was intended to be the final tier of armor? You seem in the know so I figure you’re a good person to ask this question.

The final tier armor was supposed to be easily attainable. If Ascended armor won’t be harder to get than exotics are now, it will technically fit that – but they already said it will be halfway between exotics and legendaries.