Guild Wars 2

stof.9341:

Ayrilana.1396:

So a jumping puzzle is supposed to be easy? It’s in a pvp zone so it’s going to be different from the others. Pvp is part of the jumping puzzle.

There really should be no issue getting through the dark room and the dome while cloaked. You don’t need a torch if you have the Halloween back piece. The only issue would be if people are spamming siege or laying traps but that’s on rare occasions.

No it’s not supposed to be easy. But I don’t like the kind of PvP you promote. All I see is skill less trap camping, spawn camping, using siege weapons against lone and small group players and the need to outzerg the campers to remove them. TBH, I don’t even care for finishing the JP in the first place! I go there to PvP and when I find I’m zerg camped, stuck with impassable traps between me and the other players or I see my team zerg camping itself, it just defeats the point of going there to have some fun.

Also, the dark room part shouldn’t be doable only for players that got the Halloween book or have the fire sword from HoM. Note that I have both and use them but it’s still something that feels broken and unfair for every new player that didn’t farm GW1. The ability to pass the dark room unmolested shouldn’t be dependent on one of those unattainable in normal gameplay equipment pieces.

I never use a torch or the backpiece. equip an aoe skill and have the green circle active to guide you through the dark area. It’s much easier than using a small torch.

Though if you have to use a fire item than grab a torch from just outside the dark area.

Actually this would just move the problem around. What actually needs to happen is to give people natural reasons to visit areas.

Rynarx.6124:

Back then Wow also got this many complains. The main difference is a few years back, there were alot less alternate MMOs/games than today. Wow could afford such problems as people don’t have as many choices to go to if they do not want Wow. GW2 no longer have that luxury.
As Diablo 3 and SWTOR have found out, once people quit a game they have so many other choices to go to that they may never ever need to return.

Arenanet no longer can afford to run the same way as it was a few years back.

This

But what also perplexes me is that every MMO developers seems to have the need to reinvent the wheel and subsequently have to make the same mistakes all others have made. Is it arrogance? Is it naivety? Why doesn’t any developer learn from the past?

Not to say much, but it’s highly unlikely many people are going to post they didn’t attend yet got a reward mail. It’s simple statistics. Only a small portion of the playerbase posts on the forums and even a smaller portion of that will have received a mail while not having attended the event at all.

It would be faster to check the accounts that got a mail to the login records of that day.

Attended/ No Loot / No mail

phabby.8945:

Wasn’t able to do the event due to the timing, so not really expecting to get one, but I know a few guys that also didn’t make the event for the same reason and they received one. One guildie now has had 3 chest- 2 from the event and 1 from today’s while other guildies who got dised haven’t received anything yet.Note I am in one of the major guilds , so we are all confused by what is going on

This is looking like a major stufff up all over again and not one comment from staff yet is very poor management for a world wide game that operates 24/7

I simply can’t fathom why they decide to run such a thing after they go home from their normal days work. Instead of when they start working so they can actually handle issues before going home. To me it seems they simply have no clue about managing a community.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We will hand out the rewards via In-game mail today – Quick FYI… it might take several hours to run the script, so do not panic if you do not immediately receive it.

I think it is safe to say several hours is either an understatement or the script was just fail. It’s been over 12 hours now with no mail.

Well I didn’t get anything. got stuck on a load screen during the event after ressing. Waited 10 minutes for it to actually load before I restarted the client and than got into a different overflow, which had already finished… So not A+

When you knowingly allow people to use the manifesto in a way that you know already not to be true = lying to me. They should have educated their intend from the start and they didn’t. Instead we got this debacle and I don’t think it will get any better judging from the AMA.
People like to throw around look they are listening. Well actions speak louder and I’ve yet to see any action on any of the concerns what so ever.

Stark.1350:

Conner.4702:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Chuo.4238:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

In the strictest of terms, the number of people who post on the forums is a minority of the game population as a whole. The forums do provide a modest, self-selected sampling of the player population, but so do fansite forums, twitter and facebook.

Thanks for the response. Out of curiosity, for what purpose, in ArenaNet’s view, are these forums? Since you can get similar samplings from the aforementioned fansites, twitter, etc., I’m thinking perhaps ArenaNet has something else in mind?

First off, we definitely value feedback from the forums. Just because the forums don’t make up the majority, or the only sampling, does not mean we do not value your feedback.

Snip

Just because the majority doesn’t post on the forums doesn’t mean they don’t share the same views as those that do. It just means they don’t post. I do think our opinions are way to easily brushed aside. Instead of being like praise us for the game we made. It should be praise you for playing our game.

It doesn’t mean they do agree with you either. And in no way does he say your opinions are “brushed aside” – please stop making things up.

You clearly missed the point I was making. You can not know what people who don’t post feel about something. As they have not made it clear. People have been using the argument that people that don’t come to the forums and just play are happy with the way things are and that is what I was countering.
Also of course he doesn’t say they are brushed aside, but when a controversial patch it pushed through in spite of a massive out cry, than yes they do brush it aside. Why don’t you stop telling others to “stop making things up” as an argument. It is a non argument and only weakens your sides case.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Chuo.4238:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

In the strictest of terms, the number of people who post on the forums is a minority of the game population as a whole. The forums do provide a modest, self-selected sampling of the player population, but so do fansite forums, twitter and facebook.

Thanks for the response. Out of curiosity, for what purpose, in ArenaNet’s view, are these forums? Since you can get similar samplings from the aforementioned fansites, twitter, etc., I’m thinking perhaps ArenaNet has something else in mind?

First off, we definitely value feedback from the forums. Just because the forums don’t make up the majority, or the only sampling, does not mean we do not value your feedback.

Snip

Just because the majority doesn’t post on the forums doesn’t mean they don’t share the same views as those that do. It just means they don’t post. I do think our opinions are way to easily brushed aside. Instead of being like praise us for the game we made. It should be praise you for playing our game.

fellyn.5083:

ikiturso.4026:

I join fractals of the mist or what ever its called hater band! Doing dungeons for monthly is ok. 5 of them is not too hard but now monthly has become complete PVE. Totally and utterly screwing pvp/ wvw players. Some people say 45k karma is not much?!? Go to wvw and tell me how fast u get 45k. Ill give u a hint: It will take forever. I like to do some dungeons but this fractal thing for my gaming experience is just lame. I dont like it, I dont play it, I dont want to be forced to play it! All other monthlys could have been done by pvp/wvw or pve players equally. (few paths of AC and 2 others for dungeon and done for pvp player) Please Anet change the monthly! this is far from equal footing of pvp and pve players.

Uh. I don’t know what server you are on but with my guild and my server I could probably get 45k karma in 2 or 3 days of wvw playing 2-3 hours a day, if not quicker than that.

The question is, do you play to win or to farm karma, because the latter isn’t really helping your server in the long run.

I finished both WvW and fractals for the monthly. I honestly do not like FotM. It’s horridly implemented and anyone with half a brain saw that from the start. For those on higher levels it’s easy to get a group even if you don’t care that much for it anymore. As the higher level you have access to. The more groups you will have access to as well. I spend 3 days trying to get 7 fractals done. This should have only taken a couple of hours max. WvW on the other hand took a day casual play.

The monthly should get people out in the world, not lock even more people up in dungeons.

tigirius.9014:

Chriswck.6490:

I propose that the majority of negativity is due to the “honeymoon” effect wearing off.

People now begin to see the faults and flaws of the game; and have to realize that the good things are still there but were just overweighted when the game first came out.

No trust me as a long long time player of mmos of all kinds, it’s definitely the gear treadmill dungeoneer crowd entering the game en masse. Gearscore, dps meters, demands on new players to be instantly level 80 are just the beginning of the downfall of the community.

I’ve seen it happen multiple times to other titles. the moment these people get in there and start breaking up the community and the company alienates the community they were originally hoping to keep, it’s really REALLY difficult to come back from that.

The majority of us who don’t care about dungeons, who play the game to see the world and play with our friends in open events where people aren’t worried about your level or gear to participate are patiently waiting for what they will do next in their upcoming patches.

It’s not just the gear treadmill that we were all complaining about when the Nov 16th patch was released, many of us knew this was coming.

I concur. The attitudes of a the players I’ve grouped with have only gotten worse after the release of the Fractal Dungeon. Thing is I said this before the patch and got brushed off. The GW2 community wasn’t like that they said. Sorry the GW2 community is not better than any other. So when you create something like the Fractal Dungeon elitism will run high and affect all other content as well that requires grouping.

tkalamba.2541:

Serelisk.6573:

This is troubling. I’m not sure how I missed this quote people keep referencing by Mike O’Brien from 2011, but I was certain they wouldn’t increase the level cap. It;s even more disturbing watching people fail horribly at trying to understand what fans of lateral progression want and why…

This probably also means that they’re abandoning a lot of their emphasis on aesthetic gear choices. Less of the game most likely will actually be about having fun. It’s an inherent part of catering to the VP reward crowd. You’re not designing the game around fun content, you’re designing it around carrots. And no matter how many carrots this crowd eats, they won’t see that they’ve been running in place for several years.

This makes my hopes for seeing things like the activities that were supposed to be in at launch much, much lower. After all, why should they provide fun content when there’s a new audience of people who are more content chasing artificial rewards in the form of numbers. It makes no sense to me, but you can’t teach people to have higher standards.

When Keg Brawl and WvW stop being fun for me, I’m through with this game. They’re no longer my favorite game development studio. :/

It is still entirely possible to have fun while still maintaining vertical progression.

If they award exp for everything then there’s no reason not to have fun leveling like they do now. Grind only kicks in when what you are doing isn’t enjoyable, at that point the only award is the carrot.

I haven’t done kegbrawl, so I do not know if it awards any exp or karma, but pretty much everything else does. The game doesn’t need strictly Horizontal progression or Strictly Vertical progression to be enjoyable, it can have degrees of both.

That’s what makes this game special over other MMO’s. I can level doing pretty much anything. This makes reaching level caps, or obtaining gear less of a chore. The only grind there is in this game is when you willingly fall into a pattern of farming for one specific purpose (ie. Legendary, dungeon armours, Ascended gear)

None of these were designed to be consumed within the first few months, but people feel the need to be the first to have them all.

The sheer fact that I can get full exotics from multiple sources, be it gold, karma, or badges of honor means I can do what I want, still get gear, still level, and still enjoy myself. The grind is self imposed. You don’t need to grind for anything, this game is 3 months old only.

In the end, there is no difference between chasing a statistical number, or chasing a skin. It’s still chasing something, and the both can have a grind associated with them. Skins are still a carrot, just like a small statistical increase. There is still plenty of fun content surrounding these carrots. This is what people seem to fail to realize. The fun is still there, people are just going for the newest content, and things will always be that way. Everytime something new comes, people will want to see how fun it is.

People find Fractals fun, and why shouldn’t they? It’s well designed. Other people find WvW fun, like myself and others find exploration fun. There are rewards for all. Just be patient, your activities are still coming, this game is still incredibly young.

I don’t think you get how different both progressions are. Horizontal progression is about gaining something you want and or becoming more versatile. Vertical progression is only about getting more powerful. These 2 are mutually exclusive. Either new content is designed for lesser gear. Making the content a borefest for those in the better gear. Or it forces those in lesser gear to obtain the highest tier or not be able to do said content. Either way one group is left out. Now you can say but they can adjust the difficulty for each armor tier. Well than the enter game population loses, because you will get exactly what is going on in LA now. A fragmented population.

Making money in this game is not the same across the board. Levelling just in the world doing events with out grinding the same one nets you very little gold compared to doing dungeons or running the same circle every 2 minutes. It’s a sad truth.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rukia.4802:

“ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.” -Mike O’brien, 11/27/12

http://www.reddit.com/user/Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet

What a fail reply by Mike O’brien. This just proves they don’t get it anymore. If they are wondering why GW died it’s because they completely abandoned all of us with no pvp balance or content to work on GW2 for YEARS. Anyone who actively played GW1 played it because IT HAD NO VP. Wow, is it seriously THAT HARD to get it through their heads? Jesus.

GW1 was NOT stagnant. I hate Mike O’brien with a passion now, I thought he was smarter than that. Just confirmation of the failure of GW2, it has no future with me.

My useless input?

Stagnant is a variable word and in a sense . . . yes. It was stagnant in one sense: the developers readily admitted they had no real idea what they could do further within the engine and design of the game. Hence they started GuildWars 2.

When the developers are unable to continue with a project it then is stagnant. They can add fun new little side things (and risk adding something which doesn’t work at all), they can try polishing what’s there (and risk of over-doing that) . . . but there’s no growth. It’s done expanding and reached the borders of what the developers can see.

No, GW1 was not a failure, it was a success. Wildly so, in fact. But there’s the classic problem of the question which follows a success:

“So what’s next?”

No the developers admitted that the engine could not support the ideas they had for Guild Wars Utopia. That’s why they started on GW2 and made EotN instead of Utopia.

That is a completely different issue from having horizontal progression and than kicking the community that likes this some more by calling it stagnant and not fun. Mike O’Brien is a fool for doing so. The only thing that statement accomplished was drive people away. Doesn’t matter if it was many or not.

Bluebird.1890:

Conner.4702:

Because you can’t appease both sides. One wants to go west the other east. Anet says let’s go north instead. the end result neither gets what they want. That’s what will happen if you try and keep both horizontal and vertical player groups. They will be left with the indifferent people that don’t care.

Except for the fact that there are players capable of understanding that the only realistic solution is to meet in the middle.

And we will keep playing. Thus, mine and my friends and my guilds continued presence in the game.

Sorry but no one ever has gotten better from compromise. You and your friends fall into the indifferent group or should I say apathic. Those on either side are actually capable of understanding how this can never work.

Because you can’t appease both sides. One wants to go west the other east. Anet says let’s go north instead. the end result neither gets what they want. That’s what will happen if you try and keep both horizontal and vertical player groups. They will be left with the indifferent people that don’t care.

Ditton.3149:

Conner.4702:

Sky.9347:

http://www.reddit.com/user/Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet

-Snip-

“Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.”
- Mike O’Brien, November 2012

I am very interested in how you can combine horizontal and vertical progression (progressing in two different directions?) for the same content… I believe it can not be done, and instead you can only create a very slow, very bloated vertical progression.

I’m out. I haven’t requested refunds, and so I will keep an eye on GW2 over the years just to see what happens. I can’t see me ever coming back to “catch up” with the treadmill.

Mister Mike O’Brien does not speak for me. I never felt GW1 was stagnant or not fun due to no vertical progression. On the contrary it was liberating to be able to do anything without the pressure of wondering if my gear was good enough.

I doubt I’m the only one that feels that way.

I never saw the difference between skill creep and power creep honestly.

One gives more versatility the other more power. More skills never gave more outright power. Sure some builds were overpowered for a month or 2 until nerfed into oblivion. Gear only ever gets nerfed when they introduce a new tier.

Sky.9347:

http://www.reddit.com/user/Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet

-Snip-

“Because ArenaNet (sort of) held a hard line against all VP with GW1 — no VP ever, year after year — and it wasn’t that fun. It was stagnant.”
- Mike O’Brien, November 2012

I am very interested in how you can combine horizontal and vertical progression (progressing in two different directions?) for the same content… I believe it can not be done, and instead you can only create a very slow, very bloated vertical progression.

I’m out. I haven’t requested refunds, and so I will keep an eye on GW2 over the years just to see what happens. I can’t see me ever coming back to “catch up” with the treadmill.

Mister Mike O’Brien does not speak for me. I never felt GW1 was stagnant or not fun due to no vertical progression. On the contrary it was liberating to be able to do anything without the pressure of wondering if my gear was good enough.

I doubt I’m the only one that feels that way.

Flynch.6034:

Conner.4702:

hydeaut.1758:

Flynch.6034:

That’s strange, because out of the many replies that I read on reddit, the major repeating statement made by Chris was that they felt the implementation was a mistake and that they are trying to rectify the situation.

That´s one of the points I don´t understand: he knows it´s an awfull grind and he must have known it before – but why did they make it such a grind then?

He also stated they MIGHT make it less of a grind, not that they certainly will if they find other ways around it. In my eyes there´s still a chance we´ll get only alternative ways of grinding.

This is the biggest problem I have with his answers. They say one thing yet do the opposite. Ascended gear was clearly a grind when implemented. You don’t need a lot of intelligence to see it is a grind. So how can he say they don’t want a grind in game when that is exactly what they put in.

Well to be fair, he did state that they balls’d it up and that they are looking at it again. People do make mistakes and this is their first foray into the true MMO market.

That’s the point this wasn’t a mistake this was intentional. They were told 1 cookie from the cookie jar. They tried to get more and someone slammed the lid on their fingers, hence the backlash you have seen the last 2 weeks.
Saying this is their first true MMO is apologetic behaviour at best.

hydeaut.1758:

Flynch.6034:

That’s strange, because out of the many replies that I read on reddit, the major repeating statement made by Chris was that they felt the implementation was a mistake and that they are trying to rectify the situation.

That´s one of the points I don´t understand: he knows it´s an awfull grind and he must have known it before – but why did they make it such a grind then?

He also stated they MIGHT make it less of a grind, not that they certainly will if they find other ways around it. In my eyes there´s still a chance we´ll get only alternative ways of grinding.

This is the biggest problem I have with his answers. They say one thing yet do the opposite. Ascended gear was clearly a grind when implemented. You don’t need a lot of intelligence to see it is a grind. So how can he say they don’t want a grind in game when that is exactly what they put in.

Ditton.3149:

Conner.4702:

Sadly the AMA was far from relieving concerns for me. Saying they never intended ascended items to be such a grind yet implemented such a steep cost increase over exotics say otherwise. You do not increase the cost by a magnitude of at least 10 if you don’t want it to be a grind. No one can convince me they didn’t realize this when they put it in, because if true they will need to look for people with more forsight to start calling some of the shots.
Also it seems they think progression only comes from gears, levels and other stat related things.
To me they are just trying to rewrite history. Sure they never said it wouldn’t have vertical progression, but on the flip side they never said it would. If they truly had planned this they would have been upfront about it and all of this could have been avoided. He was severely downplaying the effect ascended gear had on the community in my opinion.

Actually yeah no..read the whole thing. he said they wanted to add all kinds of progression, vertical and horizontal.

I did, I saw no progression mentioned that wasn’t level, gear or stat based. Note: gear means both vertical and horizontal.

Sadly the AMA was far from relieving concerns for me. Saying they never intended ascended items to be such a grind yet implemented such a steep cost increase over exotics say otherwise. You do not increase the cost by a magnitude of at least 10 if you don’t want it to be a grind. No one can convince me they didn’t realize this when they put it in, because if true they will need to look for people with more forsight to start calling some of the shots.
Also it seems they think progression only comes from gears, levels and other stat related things.
To me they are just trying to rewrite history. Sure they never said it wouldn’t have vertical progression, but on the flip side they never said it would. If they truly had planned this they would have been upfront about it and all of this could have been avoided. He was severely downplaying the effect ascended gear had on the community in my opinion.

ohaz.3479:

Valtameri.2075:

Are you hanging out in the US districts @ gw1? Since others have been dead way before gw2, everyone just kinda hanged out there, even the EU players. Last i saw couple weeks ago, there were decent amount of people hanging around and trading stuff.

Thanks for that Still, F2P wouldn’t be bad for GW1 anyways (neither for Anet nor for the player base!)

As for the game, i agree on most points, except variety, i found myself constantly fighting with different stuff, ghosts, spiders, other kind of animals, trolls etcetc.

Well, the thing I’ve noticed really really often is that I was pretty much unable to get my daily chest because of the missing “kill mobs of 15 different enemy types”. Because the only enemy type I encountered was Risen. I think that shows pretty well that mob variety in lategame IS a problem. At least in some parts.

Edit: By the way, another problem I’ve encountered. The only real downside of the GUI: In the trait window you are not able to see how MUCH the traits affect your spells / passive heal etc. Like when I play my Guardian and one trait says “bigger area for signets” I don’t know whether it’s worth it to pick this trait or not – because their are no numbers. We need numbers! Also traits like “improves your healing” – by how much? Why not tell us?

You being to lazy to get out of Orr is not the game’s fault. Any non Orr zone has enough variety for the daily.

Zelkovan.2630:

I don’t know why the hell people are complaining about zones being empty, i’ve played tons of other MMO’s and their lower level zones were empty as well (including you-know-what) and it seemed no one ever cared. But dear god, a patch that shows up that people overreact over and now apparently it’s broken the game and everything is going to hell.

As for my server, there are definitely people playing in zones. Just the other day i ran with a huge zerg of people in Kessex doing hearts and events. Orr in itself just isn’t very solo-able at all, plus the fact that they nerfed Orr makes it even worse.

It’s not good here and it’s not good in other MMOs either. You know why people didn’t seem to care, because the ones that did care left. That’s what will happen here as well if nothing is done.

This thread was brought to you by pro gear grinders.

That same group of people has made the world of Tyria seem more empty than ever after the new dungeon was released, but no the dungeon is a great success and the game is more lively than ever according to them. Get out of Lion’s Arch for once please.

The people that camp BG puzzle are the same type of people that like to gank lowbies. They know they have the advantage and that’s how they like to make themselves feel better. I’d rather do something useful than waiting for a poor sod to come along and knock them of a ledge for hours on end.

An honest brawl inside the puzzle is more than welcome though, but most people are to afraid of that.

Just because people are playing doesn’t mean they are happy with the changes. No metric will tell you the state of mind of a player. I find it rather foolish to even put forward as proof.

That abomination you call a questionnaire won’t tell you anything. Most of your questions don’t even relate to ascended gear. I for see this getting closed quite fast.

lordkrall.7241:

So, lets say that a person responsible for PvP balance answers a AMA.
Do you really think he will be able to answer what they are going to do to the rewards in the Dungeons?

Or if you ask the Dungeon designer, do you think he would know exactly what they would do with PvP the coming months?

Irrelevant, the AMA is with Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside, note the job title. If he doesn’t know the general direction of each aspect than he isn’t doing his job. Keep throwing out excuses though.

That’s the thing there is no point regardless. They will cherrie pick the questions and avoid topics they do not want to discuss.

He should be prepared for anything regardless of knowing in advance what will be asked. It’s ask me ANYTHING. The Anything simply won’t happen. The format used and it being online will ensure that.

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Alright, I am confused:

So the only way Arenanet will be able to give you honest answers is if you ask them questions they are unprepared for and put them on the spot?

I thought the entire point of this was to get answers. If this improves the quality and the number of answers we can get? This sounds like a great idea.

Again, any professional person being interviewed usually will not agree to an interview without knowing the questions beforehand to prepare. The same happening for the Arenanet employee helps a lot in giving us as much information as possible instead of hearing “I don’t know that answer personally.”

Yes the only way to get honest answers is if they can’t prepare and rehearse them in advance. If someone is given time they can sidestep sensitive topics, which actually defeats the purpose of something like this.

I do not see any answers coming from this AMA as pointed out it is just a PR stunt. So if anything sensitive truly is discussed in an honest fashion I will be surprised and give Anet some credit back to them.

The lightbringer skills and title were far from needed and more often than not did I forget to equip either. It didn’t hamper my ability one bit when I forgot them. All it was was a story gimmick.

As for /rank that was a pure elitist tool as it only shows time spend, not skill.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Conner.4702:

My thoughts exactly. I’m not going to wait for it to go wrong if I can do something to prevent it. As I see it you lose your right to speak about an issue if you remain on the sidelines.

Um, no, there are more than two sides to this. Besides, I could jump onto either side or switch sides rapidly depending on what new piece of information or quote comes up. I’d much rather offer my perspective here, rather than grab pitchforks and join the mob, or willingly stand against the wall to be executed as a “conspirator”.

Just because I’m not working myself into a frothing, foaming fit over this doesn’t mean I have no right to speak up.

How about you first stop talking negatively over those opposed to it by saying they are frothing and foaming and having a fit. To me you do lose your voice because by the time you finally made a decision it will be to late. Your own inaction is making you lose your voice.

Strang.8170:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Strang.8170:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

This is why I dislike pulling out simple analogies, everyone always wants to spread them like a pat of butter. Sometimes it’s just a slice of your average sandwich loaf toasted. Spreads easily, covers about the right amount.

Then there are some people needing it to cover a baguette. The butter just wears thin, you barely have it in some places and not at all in others, and yet you insisted it was enough for one piece of bread, this one shouldn’t be any different.

(Translation: This is a big matter, not a small one, and analogies / similes are a good start but they really don’t work for more complex matters.)

Ok, without analogy.

We´ve seen a start in a direction that we´ve been in before, we know where it leads. We have no reason to believe that they stop now that they´ve started going in that direction.
It may not be a inherently bad direction, but it just isn´t what this was all supposed to be about. We wanted something else and we were said the was going to be something else.

….frowning upon analogies with analogies…i´d make inception joke but it might lead to some very inappropriate sounding words…

I’ll make one for you.
If you disagree about using an inception joke, within an inception joke is that contraception?

. . . honestly I do grasp your point, but as I was trying to get across with my analogy; it’s not that I’m blind to the warning signs. It’s that I refuse to enter a panic over it, and I’d rather know for certain before . . . well, running full speed in the other direction.

Thing is that there´s not really that much going or waiting and seeing. If we wait and see and it turns okay, well that´s fine.

If we however voice our opinions we might avert the bad situation, so it´s either ending good anyway, or we might avert the bad situation.

Also at the end of the day if kitten hits the fan, we can say: “Hey, atleast we tried.”

My thoughts exactly. I’m not going to wait for it to go wrong if I can do something to prevent it. As I see it you lose your right to speak about an issue if you remain on the sidelines.

As it stands Anets silence is telling me everything. Their PR department is trying to find a way to spin this positively and failing. That’s why there hasn’t been any real statement with answers as of yet. They are avoiding the issue at every step.

Sorry but that was pure luck. I’ve not had anything drop for me above rare. So yes just pure luck on your groups side.

Yeah don’t bother with the survey. It’s only goal is to sidestep real issues.

Don’t know if it’s been mentioned before, but putting in ascended items also made the following page superfluousness; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mystic_Forge/Other_Items
Why craft an extremely expensive weapon when it will become obsolete in a few months.

Osprey.6587:

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Columba.9730:

It’s a treadmill. 90 hours to get the mandatory gear to compete is a treadmill. SOrry to burst your bubble.

That’s a grind, not a treadmill. A treadmill is something where you keep running, but never reach the max armor, because they implement a new tier shortly after the last one.

Introducing one new tier is not treadmilling yet. It’s a new grind, yes. But it’s only a treadmill if they keep coming up with new tiers. And only time will tell if this will remain a grind, or will evolve in a treadmill.

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.

How exactly can you read this and not come to the conclusion that there will be more and more of this crap to chase after. It’s a treadmill and Linsey Murdock said so much in those two paragraphs.

Because people are naive or simply blind. It specificly stated that they want to introduce more and more ascended items over time. This is known as a carrot on a stick for people to chase after AKA treadmill. The grind required makes this the worst kind of treadmill as well.
The other argument is it’s not that much of an increase. Guess what new content will be made with these new stats in mind. So if you have lesser gear you are at a disadvantage. You happen to find yourself 1 on 1 in WvW, disadvantage.
You don’t have ascended gear for new dungeons? sorry we don’t want you no matter how skilled you are we want the noob that grinded his gear but sucks as a player instead.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

Because developers blaming the players always ends up well. Grow a pair why don’t you.

They’ve locked threads that asked the same questions, this sadly will no doubt follow suit.

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Jairyn.6913:

I know I avoided TSW because of Funcom’s “reputation” and I never even looked at Age of Conan.

What’s still confusing me is that GW2 reportedly exceeded all expectations. Where did this gear nonsense come from?

This update was obviously in the works before the game even launched. It didn’t matter how well launch went, or how much money the cash shop made. Unless you think a few weeks is enough time to create “The Lost Shores”? These things are planned and developed months in advance.

No one is saying the lost shores and the dungeon were made in just a few weeks. The gear though has been. That’s why it’s only a few pieces as they have no idea on what stats they should have. It’s also not the content that has people worried as much. Though gated content like the dungeon is just bad design. If Ascended gear had been in the works for months we would have known about it much sooner.

The dungeon is actually proof that it had been designed before they thought up ascended armor when you look at the contents of it.

TommyProvolone.3715:

Well, it didn’t take these forums long to suffer from, “WoW syndrome”, where the game is ruined forever and that the end times have come, only for everyone to completely forget about the issue and move onto something else to complain about.

Or, I don’t know, it might not be the same people complaining about something new, but new people complaining about something new. At some point people that have issues with a certain feature will simply move on and let whatever company they have issues with to simply go down the drain until they are no more.

Eibl.8592:

Crater.1625:

All new content will be designed with the maximum player power in mind.

Old content will not actually nullify the higher stats that players gain from Ascended gear.

To continue playing the game, I am forced to run on the treadmill to get back to where I started, relative to the game in the case of new content, and relative to other players in the case of old content.

It’s a treadmill, definitionally.

You seem to misunderstand treadmills, see on a treadmill you don’t Acctually go anywhere like new dungeons or new content. It’s not that I disagree but I don’t think “vertical progression” and “gear treadmill” are synonymous.

No they are not synonymous, but they are almost always together as you rarely see vertical progression done in any other way. Also it really doesn’t matter if it is new or old content. Where you get it is irrelevant. So while they might not be synonymous they might as well be for all intend of purpose.

Also why this is a gear treadmill. All future content will be made with this gear in mind, so without it you are at a disadvantage. Similar as being in masterwork or rare gear in orr over exotic. People will need this gear to remain competitive in whatever form they compete in.

No worries they will get new people from the gear grinding they implemented just now. Don’t worry about all the others leaving due to it and making you seem even more alone.

The whole server setup is flawed, which is what leads some servers to feel empty. I know a solution on how to fix it, but I doubt anyone would listen to it. It would also require a lot of restructuring.

Corvindi.5734:

Conner.4702:

Corvindi.5734:

This Ascended gear treadmill follows from the gems to gold revenue stream.

I was in the vast minority when I posted my displeasure over the gems for gold announcement on Guru.

Other players tried to downplay the pay to win aspect by pointing out that the top tier level 80 gear was so easy to get it would never matter.

Other players said we were foolish and worried for no reason when we said they would find ways to get people to buy gold by making the game grindy for those who didn’t.

Other players said botters and gold farmers wouldn’t be an issue because of gems for gold.

Other players said a lot of not so nice things about us over this issue.

Now I have one thing to say to all of them:

We told you so.

Sorry but you are connecting 2 separate things. Sure some bought their way to the top, but most didn’t. The more hardcore players simply don’t have to pay their way to the top.
On the contrary if what you are saying is true they would have taken longer to do this as it is still very early in the games life and profits no doubt have been good from gems.

Explain to me how grinding 60-100 hours at 1 gold per hour for one back slot item versus buying the mats with gems exchanged for gold isn’t pay to win? That’s standard pay to win. Either unreasonable grind or open your wallet.

How about you try and explain how one is linked to the other from your first post. As that is what I’m refuting, which you would have seen if you weren’t to hung up on the P2W argument.

Corvindi.5734:

This Ascended gear treadmill follows from the gems to gold revenue stream.

I was in the vast minority when I posted my displeasure over the gems for gold announcement on Guru.

Other players tried to downplay the pay to win aspect by pointing out that the top tier level 80 gear was so easy to get it would never matter.

Other players said we were foolish and worried for no reason when we said they would find ways to get people to buy gold by making the game grindy for those who didn’t.

Other players said botters and gold farmers wouldn’t be an issue because of gems for gold.

Other players said a lot of not so nice things about us over this issue.

Now I have one thing to say to all of them:

We told you so.

Sorry but you are connecting 2 separate things. Sure some bought their way to the top, but most didn’t. The more hardcore players simply don’t have to pay their way to the top.
On the contrary if what you are saying is true they would have taken longer to do this as it is still very early in the games life and profits no doubt have been good from gems.

The only thing the Vocal minority is a minority in is being vocal opposed to being silent. There is no proof that the people complaining are actually the minority or majority at all, but ignoring such an outcry only shows a lack of leadership at the top.