Guild Wars 2

Flynch.6034:

Caran.3217:

My entire point is on the ambiguity of the info we have and the assumptions being made. If Agony is a gate mechanic then yes we have ourselves a gear grind that is dependent on how long it takes to grind. After all, Exotics could be classed as a gear-grind as they are premium gear but because they don’t take that long, noone complains.

If players are able to see all of the content, yet when they repeat the content subsequently when Agony kicks in, then it’s not gated. (in my opinion)

The second point I probably didn’t explain quite so well. But if I have an exotic and my friend has an exotic, the stats may differ wildly. If I want to re-build my character to have greater survivability then I have to grind for that new rune etc. Hope that is clearer.

ps i’m tired today and had real trouble with the quote so had to rewrite this :s

You’re trying to evade the problem, that’s how i read your reasoning i’m sorry to say.

It does not matter if people can see/experience all the content in ‘circle one’ if they have to get new gear in order to progress to ‘circle two’ eventually. Not to mention that a new dungeon added in the future may simply require a minimum radiance ‘level’. But that would be guessing all right. Still, as many others have said, it is against ANet’s originally stated design principles.

As for the current exotics – it is your choice which stats you get on them. Your ‘build’ is your choice. You can have multiple sets of gear to boost certain builds if you desire so, all your choices. The gear is still the best available and there is no upgrade stat-wise, no matter how small. Adding anything on top breaks the current balance.

cesmode.4257:

Until I hear a better response to specific concerns, arenanet will not get another dime from me.

I want to hear them say “This is the first and only stat boost we have planned”
I want to hear them say “In expansions, we will not be increasing the leveling cap and thus not increasing stats on gear”
I want to hear them say "Legendaries are on par with the top level of gear again…

I don’t want my exotic gear to be obsolete – something i have grinded for =/

Flynch.6034:

Caran.3217:

Flynch.6034:

Lothair.8942:

Flynch.6034:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

impossible to argue with 99% of misinformed people… I guess this really bad communication on Anets side about this costs them quite a few customers.

Posters who are trying to explain the system just drown here. I admit, I didn’t get it first either. Bad communication. Anet, just respond to the people.

Pretty much 100% this.

Anet need to release some details that are concrete and this thread can be put to sleep. Currently there are thousands of players commenting on something that they think will happen.

And that’s fair enough, as the details are far from refined. It’s very easy to read the blogs and then see what you want to see. It’s too ambiguous and frankly Anet need to sort it out. The forums are not a nice place to be at the moment.

How much more can they spell it out? They showed us gear progression items, they talked about the future changes. They talked about PVE gating via Infusions. What am I missing here? I see a lot of informed people who care about their game discussing it and not liking the direction it is going in.

I can tell you one thing – the amount of outcry shows ANET just how passionate their community is about the game and how they want it to thrive. This is a big misstep on their part if it goes live – a lot of voices will be silenced and when anger turns to resentment to disinterest then ANET will have a lot to worry about.

Here is what we know, give or take:

New Agony system for a new dungeon.

New gear that is being released in bundles over time that has a slot designed for use in the dungeon (offensive, defensive and omni).

Current image showing a comparison with exotic, Ascended ring has more stats than Exotic with upgrade.

Legendary weapons will be boosted to remain BIS

New content will be released over time.

Ascended gear can be gained through a multitude of ways.

It will not affect sPvP as standard.

What we don’t know, give or take:

How Agony works – does it stand to stop players in their tracks after a certain point, or is it a diminishing mechanic that allows players to enjoy the dungeon and then get to a point where Agony resist is absolutely crucial. Is it gating or is it a soft-cap.

How much of a grind is the new armour to get.

Are there new recipes for upgrades that can be applied to Exotics to bring them up to the same stat-standard as the Ascended gear. Also helps crafting.

Will further dungeons use this Agony mechanic (keeping Ascended gear relative) or will they use a new mechanic that needs new gear.

I have probably forgotten some things but this is the gist of the situation in my opinion

Sorry but you really haven’t thought this through. What is the point of introducing agony if not preventing characters from progressing further if their agony boosted gear doesn’t meet the check-points aka gating?

It is a simple gear progression system.

And why add new recipes to boost exotics stat-wise? This is ALSO a gear treadmill. Simply add a new slot to all existing exotics for the new stuff – simple as that.

Please re-read what I said. Agony could be something that halts players dramatically to the point where Ascended gear is absolutely critical, or the Agony could be mild enough that the resists on the gear only need to be moderate. We’re only getting 2 pieces out of a whole set as it is – so i’m assuming that the Agony mechanic is not that strong to start off with. It will allow players a decent distance into the dungeon and will only affect players Hell-bent on getting into the lower areas with a perfectly formed group.

Adding new recipes is not a gear treadmill as currently we already have the disparity between upgrades on Exotic. Some have better ones than others, but noone is complaining about that.

If these are the only 2 points that jump out as ‘not thinking it through’ then I have to be honest, the whole thing is far more ambiguous than people realise.

You’re assuming agony is not that strong to start with etc.? So it must get stronger eventually? That is gating/gear-checks, i’m baffled why you’re arguing that way because you simply agree that it’s a gear grind aren’t you?

As for exotics, what disparity? There is none, all exotics have the same maximum ‘point’ pool that is distributed between whatever stats. What upgrade on exotics are you talking about?

Flynch.6034:

Lothair.8942:

Flynch.6034:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

impossible to argue with 99% of misinformed people… I guess this really bad communication on Anets side about this costs them quite a few customers.

Posters who are trying to explain the system just drown here. I admit, I didn’t get it first either. Bad communication. Anet, just respond to the people.

Pretty much 100% this.

Anet need to release some details that are concrete and this thread can be put to sleep. Currently there are thousands of players commenting on something that they think will happen.

And that’s fair enough, as the details are far from refined. It’s very easy to read the blogs and then see what you want to see. It’s too ambiguous and frankly Anet need to sort it out. The forums are not a nice place to be at the moment.

How much more can they spell it out? They showed us gear progression items, they talked about the future changes. They talked about PVE gating via Infusions. What am I missing here? I see a lot of informed people who care about their game discussing it and not liking the direction it is going in.

I can tell you one thing – the amount of outcry shows ANET just how passionate their community is about the game and how they want it to thrive. This is a big misstep on their part if it goes live – a lot of voices will be silenced and when anger turns to resentment to disinterest then ANET will have a lot to worry about.

Here is what we know, give or take:

New Agony system for a new dungeon.

New gear that is being released in bundles over time that has a slot designed for use in the dungeon (offensive, defensive and omni).

Current image showing a comparison with exotic, Ascended ring has more stats than Exotic with upgrade.

Legendary weapons will be boosted to remain BIS

New content will be released over time.

Ascended gear can be gained through a multitude of ways.

It will not affect sPvP as standard.

What we don’t know, give or take:

How Agony works – does it stand to stop players in their tracks after a certain point, or is it a diminishing mechanic that allows players to enjoy the dungeon and then get to a point where Agony resist is absolutely crucial. Is it gating or is it a soft-cap.

How much of a grind is the new armour to get.

Are there new recipes for upgrades that can be applied to Exotics to bring them up to the same stat-standard as the Ascended gear. Also helps crafting.

Will further dungeons use this Agony mechanic (keeping Ascended gear relative) or will they use a new mechanic that needs new gear.

I have probably forgotten some things but this is the gist of the situation in my opinion

Sorry but you really haven’t thought this through. What is the point of introducing agony if not preventing characters from progressing further if their agony boosted gear doesn’t meet the check-points aka gating?

It is a simple gear progression system.

And why add new recipes to boost exotics stat-wise? This is ALSO a gear treadmill. Simply add a new slot to all existing exotics for the new stuff – simple as that.

Baron Von Graymouse.7801:

Its funny that most people people where complaining and upset that Legendary weapons had the same stats that the exotics have and that the Legendary weapons are only a cosmetic change. Well, Anet listened and now they are finally making Legendary weapons the way they should have been in the first place. Legendary weapons are suppose to be the most powerful items in the game. Not some re-skinned exotic weapons. I applaud Anet for this! With the introduction to Ascended items it puts the Exotics lower on the totem pole where they belong. Underneath Ascended/Legendary items. All these guys that are saying they are going to stop playing will still be playing the game it may not be this month or the next but I bet my bottom gold piece if you track those that said they are going to be quitting they will still be around. So, stop your belly aching and enjoy the new content.

I think you’re very wrong. Like another poster funnily stated there are 522 MMOs that cater to people like yourself … this one GW2 was not supposed to be like that ;-)

Pants.8315:

Urxx.6840:

Banewrath.5107:

Cause I spent 100 gold on the cultural set and transmuted it onto my exotic set. I don`t have the heart to destroy it.

That’s exatcly why this whole ascended thing is wrong.

Then transmute it onto your ascended gear? :|

Yeah right so people spent a lot of time gearing up in exotics to be done with exactly this ‘gearing up’ to be able to jump into any existing and new content at their leisure, without the worry their character is held back by bad gear…. out of the window!

Exotics => trashcan. Grind new gear => transmute again if you want. Rinse and repeat =/

Conner.4702:

MrLee.6892:

CharrGirl.7896:

Personally what hurts the most is that people who actually support this wow-ification of GW2 probably have no idea what their initial anti-grind philosophy prior to launch was. This wouldn’t spark such debate, tons of hate posts here and hate comments on youtube and other sites if this is what we were expecting from the start.

If people knew that this game was going to introduce this right from the start, without any promise of eliminating grind and promising horizontal progression, then we wouldn’t be in this mess. They are for some reason going against their own promises and I see this as a concern myself. I put a lot of hopes in this game, personally. Never before a game of this genre came out with such promising set up. Manifesto trailer summed it pretty well, and hyped people for something NEW and fresh.

Now all you can see on the comments below the trailer are hate, hate and more hate. Is this really what we expected? No…

I must say I did put a lot of hopes in this game. I paid more then average player did for the CE, fully supporting them. I paid even more then the average CE customer because of all the taxes and shipping. I went with “wow, this game is promising. Anet cares about their players, and actually makes a game that will be like a holy grail for those who waited for a MMO without grind, player segregation and elitism community”.

Now it’s all shattered – they promised more of these gear treadmills in the future.

Why is this a problem? Because if they can introduce this in 1 dungeon, they can pretty much introduce it for more content, something more people will want to play. It wont be long before you log in, out-geared by hardcore players and get picked on because you “don’t have the best gear, go away noob”. Been there already. It’s frustrating and extremely anti-social.

I must say – if GW2 fails on this level, if it doesn’t deliver it’s promise then NO future MMO ever will. Especially because it was supposed to be the game that changes and innovates this genre.

Let me guess you have only played WoW and that is why you feel this way.

There are many other MMO’s who use gear progression and these “bad things” that you and others think that will happen, don’t actually do happen. You had this problem because WoW had a player base of 10million people. If you get that many people playing a game there are going to be A LOT of bad/rude people. But if you take a game like Rift or LotRO that have a tighter and stronger community, people don’t act like they do in WoW. Even WITH gear progression.

When LotRO announced it was going F2P all people would talk about is how it was going to bring in nothing but “WoW” people. And again people in LotRO would compare them all to WoW. Well F2P happened and LotRO’s community didn’t change. It was still a very good community and it still is today.
Rift and SWTOR known “WoW Clone’s” introduced a LFG system. Everyone was "Look what LFG system did to WoW, it destroyed the community!!!!
That also never happened.

You people sit there and spout off how much this will destroy Guild Wars 2 or how the community will act like elitist jerks. But you really don’t have a clue! Maybe try waiting and see what happens first for you start making accusations?
try learning some patience and just wait and see what happens!
I bet it won’t be anywhere near how bad you make it sound out to be!

You need a history lesson on Lotro and their radiance armor. Simply put it did not end well for turbine.

The writing is on the wall and it is written in blood. A lot of us are seeing that the train is heading for a wall and the breaks are broken. I guess you’d rather hit the wall than change tracks.

Haha, the guy does not want to understand, it’s plain obvious.

But i do like the ‘broken breaks’ train part, quite amusing.

Urxx.6840:

Loomii.6014:

Can people just stop complaining? Anet are busting their kitten giving us this great content and all you people do is moan, if you don’t like it play something else

Nobody is “moaning” as you say about the content. Everyobody is happy we get new content. I think it’s amazing that we get a patch per month.

Whats wrong is to cut out all existing lvl 80 exotic gear owners from new content involving agony unless they acquire new gear, after having said that exotics would be the most powerful items in the game and even legendaries had only a cosmetic advantage over them.

Now legendaries are upgraded to ascended level, and if you want to enjoy all the existing and future content you need to trash the gear you put time and money into to acquire ascended gear.

It’s plain wrong.

The clean way to do the same thing would be to add infusion slots to all existing lvl 80 exotics. That would be keeping your word AND adding new content which we all love and are grateful for.

It’s very sad there’s people that fail at understanding those simple game design mechanics. Good post.

Banewrath.5107:

Urxx.6840:

Banewrath.5107:

Cause I spent 100 gold on the cultural set and transmuted it onto my exotic set. I don`t have the heart to destroy it.

That’s exatcly why this whole ascended thing is wrong.

I don`t think it`s wrong or bad. I think the game needs a drastic change like this to keep people motivated and wanting to play. I haven`t played for over a month and am looking forward for a reason to login. What else was there to do? Save queensdale from centaurs for the millionth time? Or run AC again for tokens I don`t need for anything? I`ll still have my cultural skins that I can transmute over the new armor if I can find a tailored set for the stats I want. But I would rather grind for a new set I need to do special content then not play at all as I am now.

If you want to grind, go grind for multiple legendary weapons, which are a terrible ‘true asian style’ grind anyway the way they’re implemented right now. ‘Grind’ for new skins when they come out.

There is absolutely no reason they need to add that ‘stat-carrot’ to it.

Oma Overdose.2069:

I don’t like the idea of new item tiers.

I get that anet wantd to bridge the gap between exotic and legendary but that assumes I play gw2 because I want a legendary. What I do want is my character to be complete, in other words end game armor and weapons. Now the goal posts have shifted

At the same time I have plenty of gold so hopefully I can just buy the lame pink gear of the tp at some point. Hopefully anet can come up with more original ideas to keep people playing.

WHAT GAP?

Seriously, there is no GAP. The gap is going to be introduced yet!

Why is this so hard to understand? Why don’t you inform yourself – you caught on their spin and you start arguing with that spin.

MrLee.6892:

kistell.5684:

MrLee.6892:

NO BS, but I know of 10 people who quit GW2 because of being bored at 80 in the last 2-3 weeks. They have been watching info about The Lost Island patch and when they found out that there was going to be some kind of gear progression and a new dungeon, they will be coming back to check it out on the 15th.

So their wallets are going to open back up, just because of gear progression. And if they like it more will come.

That sounds awesome, so your friends who obviously raced through content got bored and decided they did not want to support the existing community or ANET any longer and jumped ship are coming back.

So how long will they stay this time a month or two then leave again.

Just the sort of community this game needs.

Hope ANET enjoys its new influx of temporary players as existing ones exit through the door.

Not a very viable business plan for Anet to attract fickle customers like that.

Raced thru the content? The game is almost 3 months old! 2 months is MORE than enough time to get to 80. Just because you are a casual player doesn’t mean everyone else is.
GW2 does not have a subscription so they can stop or play anytime they want, thats the point of a Buy2Play game.

The most major complaint about Guild Wars 2 is no endgame content. ArenaNet is adding something to help that. And again just because your are so casual and want nothing to do with it doesn’t give you the right to take it away from people who do!

You got to be new to MMORPGs or you’re a troll. Adding new content to enjoy does NOT equal introducing gating / a gear-treadmill.

MrLee.6892:

Swoo.5079:

MrLee.6892:

veritech.1048:

MrLee.6892:

Rhyaehar.9504:

MrLee.6892:

Conner.4702:

FACT: It’s a gear treadmill as it requires new gear with new upgrades
FACT: They stated they will add new infusions, which will require a new grind
FACT: Gear treadmill = Gear treadmill. Doesn’t matter if it is vertical or horizontal.
FACT: They said they would not put in a gear treadmill
FACT: They stated they wanted everyone to be able to do all content, which is impossible when you add gated content

FACT: If you don’t like it you can go play Guild Wars 1

How about..
FACT: If you don’t like games without vertical gear progression, you shouldn’t have bought game clearly advertised as not having one and yourself go play something else?
You’d have much more to choose from anyway, since every MMO out there has it.

Instead, everyone who dislikes gear treadmill now ends up in a game with one anyway.

To have a gear treadmill there must be several sets of gear every few months.. There is ONLY going to be ascended rank gear, not multiple sets.! If you would have read what Chris Whiteside said you woudn’t be over-reacting like you are now.

Just stop and learn the facts first before you start typing.

Also if you don’t want to play a game that never changes and always stays the same, then go back to Guild Wars 1.
And wither you like it or not, people have asked for this change. So there are quite a few people happy for it. It’s coming and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:
I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director

And tell me why should we believe them after they already lied to us?

And there is no way of spinning this to be anything than what it is, an outright lie to the playerbase.

You didn’t get lied too just stop it.

ArenaNet is a business, then made a decision that they think bests suits them for the game. company and the players.
Ya we get it, you don’t agree with their decision so your going to shout, yell, stomp your feet until you get “heard”.
Pretty much the same thing as my 10 year old daughter would do.

No, we also have wallets.
And them can remain closed.

And word of mouth can be negative instead of positive

NO BS, but I know of 10 people who quit GW2 because of being bored at 80 in the last 2-3 weeks. They have been watching info about The Lost Island patch and when they found out that there was going to be some kind of gear progression and a new dungeon, they will be coming back to check it out on the 15th.

So their wallets are going to open back up, just because of gear progression. And if they like it more will come.

And as those wallets of those ‘ever bored so quickly’ people which will open up temporarily will close again as quickly… after they have hyper-rushed-speedfarmed the new dungeon, and are gone again!

I would rather base my business plan on a more stable customer base like they had in GW1, just saying.

MrLee.6892:

Arsenica.2105:

ok,now this is freaking me out, ok, we make an update and we add new gear, im like..ok
but hey, lets add new conditions(agony) and im like….WTF??!!! that is a core problem you should have thought of that sooner.
and the thing is, i just finished farming my CM armor, which took me a lot of time neeedless to say, and now i realise it has been all for nothing because even if the stats are great and assuming ascended is not all that op over exotic, ima die to agony condition because normal exotic gear cannot mitigate it. kitten!!!!
anet, you have screwed it all

You really need to read the blog post on the front page…..
It’s not all dungeons it’s one dungeon that will have agony to start with.

And it’s posts like this why people over-react to something that isn’t 1/2 as bad as you make it sound. Sorry to pick on you here but there have been so many DOOM posts about this it’s just silly!

You need to read a lot of the good posts in this thread and try to understand why gating content is a bad idea.
I have the impression that those that are very upset DO understand very well how this is detrimental to the game.

Kangee.7890:

I’m not fan of this idea. Not because it’s bad, but because it is not necessary. They could have added ascended pieces with the imbution slot and same stats as old armor.

They could have added a new slot to existing gear to slot ascended gems into it, so you could upgrade your ‘ascended rating whatever’ in time as you progressed – simple as that.

They trashed a lot of time and effort their players spent into acquiring their current exotic gear.

Got to chime in as well because i’m really upset about this terrible idea:

ANet is introducing a gear grind – aka gating/flagging/keying – it doesn’t matter what you call it.

It is a fact: There is no other tier stat-wise above ‘exotics’ as the current ‘legendary’ weapons have exactly the same stats. The developer ‘clarification’ post/announcement in the news section makes no sense regarding this issue. Do we have to assume legendaries will get buffed, or a new tier of ‘legendary’ armour will be introduced. Where is that gap please tell us?

Some posters here have played other MMORPGs before and do precisely know how adversely this will affect the game. No spin by ANet can hide this.

The comparison has been drawn before, here and on other boards as well, so let me explain why i know this is a deal breaker:

Lord of the Rings Online introduced the same game mechanic years ago. It failed badly and drove a lot of people of:
With the introduction of ‘Radiance’ a new tier of gear was created (there was also a level cap increase). In order to fight the new bosses you had to have a certain amount of radiance, or you could not beat them – ever. The bosses had an aura that dealt massive damage over time and only radiance gear countered it.
With new content LotRO simply increased the amount of radiance required to fight the next new bosses (this time there was no level cap increase). You had to get the new gear in order to play the new content. The classical ‘gating’ of content – it didn’t matter if you had to backtrack and do old content to acquire the gear AND then upgrade it, or if there was a side-way progression like farming tokens to get the latest radiance gear.

Either way it was a gear grind and excluded everyone from enjoying new content that didn’t keep ‘up to date’ as in play the game all the time. This is exactly what drove people off because your friends that did not play for some time (for whatever reason) had to get ‘geared up’ before they could rejoin the fun, doing new content. Why this is so bad should be a no brainer!

ANet – I, as many others, fully understand what you’re doing with the ascended gear. I refuse to support this game in the future if this goes through as planed!