Guild Wars 2

I had just started one part of Orr when Ascended was announced. I thought it was moronic that I needed a team to get decent loot because GW2 was supposed to be above that petty old silliness, but otherwise, it was fun.

Too bad for me. It’s over now. I never even got one character geared. But I guess that’s best, because I would have been really furious if I had gotten my ranger decked out in exotics before I found out there was no point.

I don’t care if I’m the only person in the whole game who hates dungeon grinds, it doesn’t mean a thing to me. What matters is how I feel about it. I despise these changes and not only has it made me determined to spend no more money on this game, it makes me determined to spend no more on any MMOs. They all turn out like this in the end. It’s all about gear cliques.

I’ve played many MMOs. From OPvP sandboxes to little niche indy games to World of Warcraft.

One thing I’ve always been is a mostly solo player. I pick my moments to be social. In GW2 it was WvW, in WoW it was dungeon finder and pug BGs. In older games it was open world grind team. But most of the time, I prefer to solo.

I loved GW2 until this change, now I hate it. I’ve finally realized that devs hate solo players. Even when they tell us it’s okay, we can play, they punish us every chance they get for going solo. And this game turned out to be no different.

I’m about done with MMOs, just wandering around solo on my alts in GW2 and probably will sample some free to plays, but no more getting all happy and excited about new releases and new expansions for me. I get it, guys. I finally understand that you hate us solo players. I don’t know why or what we did to you to make you hate us, but you do.

I hope you all go broke.

No way could they do this if they still hold on to the tattered shreds of a dream involving becoming an esport game. The balancing would be just about impossible.

Personally, I think they’d do better to let go of the esport dream entirely and give us more skills, but that ship has already sailed.

As I said in another thread, I think it’s not that they don’t realize lots of us hate running dungeons over and over again for stat gains at level cap. They know perfectly well, they sold us the game on the promise that we wouldn’t have to.

It’s simply that dungeons for gear shinies are cheap, easy content compared to other things they could create for us. Remember, this is first of all a for profit business. They want our money and they don’t want to have to spend much to get it, otherwise, what is the point.

No, let us all face the truth. Guild Wars 2 as advertised has failed. It’s a failed business model, as other posters have stated. They cannot make enough money in non-traditional ways to satisfy their investors while covering costs. The MMO industry is locked into this formula of dungeon running from now until that fails to make money, too (and may that day come soon).

Playing less and less most days, and when I do play, it’s just soloing alts. That’s okay, I really have other stuff I need to be doing and other things that I need to spend money on.

Wish they’d done things in a way that would have made me likely to come back for expansions, though.

I would love to see more skills, too. And also more open areas for groups and solo players, and a lot of other things (new races, new professions, and player housing). Sadly I think they’ve come to the realization that the easiest, cheapest thing to do is throw more dungeons at us.

It’s for sure easier than trying to deal with, for example, three way siege pvp.

I actually feel sorry for them. But not as sorry as I feel for us players.

And as for making money, if I had it my way, they’d have released a new profession and two races at $40 apiece. I would have happily bought them. Especially to play a Skritt or Centaur.

It’s very pay to win by my definition. I understand others will disagree.

I know they need to continue making money past the box fee and whatever we bought in the first month or so, but this is not the way to do it. It affects way more of the game than dungeons and PVE. My biggest objection to the Ascended gear grind is what it does to WvW for those of us who don’t even want to do dungeons, much less farm or buy so many mats.

I’m very upset about this change, I saw this coming when gems for gold was announced, and I would have preferred to be wrong.

Never understood it myself, all it ever did was add to queue times for people who wanted to be there.

1. Make WvW like sPvP, with equal gear and stats.

2. Remove the repair bill and cost of siege from WvW or drop the idiotic need to get a team to maximize loot bags.

3. Don’t care about PVE after that.

Apathetic. Won’t be getting any.

Pherenice.8124:

Disable gear stats in WvW and make it like sPvP before half the WvW population drops GW2.
Or bring on on par Gear with the new Dungeons bought with Karma / badges.

Not doing anything within the upcomming days will be devestating to the WvW community.
Think its safe to say that something needs to be done a s a p before stuff get out of hands, it already is if you look at the discussions.

This, x100. I certainly won’t bother with WvW anymore if I have to grind dungeons for a ridiculous number of hours just to get and keep my level 80 on par.

And whatever they’re going to do, they need to do it now or else shorten the grind for non-dungeon runners, otherwise, we’ll be stuck playing catchup for months on end, or maybe forever, and who wants that?

And to think I was foolish enough to play alt after alt and never worry about getting to 80 in a hurry even for WvW because I knew when I did get there it would be a simple matter to get my exotics and be on par with everyone.

Now I’ll never get to experience WvW as an on par player. I’m so sad. I should have power leveled my first character to 80 and geared her up in a hurry instead. So much for playing my way.

What we need ASAP is for several people with a full set of Exotics and all the new Ascended gear to go slap a training dummy around and post the results. Better yet, put it on Youtube.

Oh the sweet, sweet irony of people willing to devote hundreds of hours to the Ascended grind telling those of us who refuse to do it that we should get a life!

At least WoW has a dungeon finder and raid finder, cutting down on the grind time by cutting down on the time required to get a group to do the grind.

Thought: Your sig made me laugh.

Thoughts on your post: A lot of us are unhappy about this Ascended gear in large part because there is only one way to get it, and if you don’t like running dungeons you’re out of luck. I actually much prefer open world grinding with groups to dungeons and always have. I prefer grinding solo even more.

I also want my grind reasonably short or I’m simply not going to do it, and Ascended is in no way a short grind.

El Hefe.2814:

Godorn.2931:

“im sick of all this kitten on these forums. if you guys feel like your grinding or being forced to do something then don’t do it.”

Apparently, some ppl don’t know how to read. If you want to be able compete in WVW, you are going to have to get Ascend gear because of the increased stats.

If you don’t get it, you will always be at a disadvantage. Thats not a far and level playing ground. I’m not interested in that, but you go ahead and keep paying them for more gear grind that will eventually end up in WVW.

so fighting lvl 2’s at lvl 80 is a fair and level playing ground? wvw is imbalanced.

I believe you and I just had this conversation. Now you’re just repeating yourself without actually defending your stance.

Good lord. Well, you have to give them credit for one thing. People who did ask for some grindy vertical progression certainly have gotten what they asked for.

Xpiher.5209:

Raf.1078:

There are no “Raids” in GW2.

But we seem to be unable to leave that mindset behind.

Not yet

I’m betting there will be within the next year or so, especially if a certain MMO that seems to be copying a lot of the good GW2 innovations announces that it will have raids.

Also, why not? They’re forcing people into dungeons for gear. Only dungeon runners are going to be happy about that, and dungeon runners and raiders are closely related on the MMO family tree.

El Hefe.2814:

Corvindi.5734:

El Hefe.2814:

Corvindi.5734:

El Hefe.2814:

if you don’t find the fotm dungeon fun. don’t do it. the gear you get from it allows you to progress in it. it’s not required to have fun.

You don’t play WvW, do you? You don’t seriously PvP in any game, do you? If you did, you would know that even small differences in gear stats matter. And the difference between Ascended and Exotic isn’t small and will get larger with every new piece of Ascended that is released.

wvw is already unbalanced. lvl 2’s can fight lvl 80’s.

They can, but not well. Not 1v1. But there was a short end to that for anyone who wanted to reach max level and farm exotics in a matter of days (or less, many people had most of what they needed saved by the time they got to level 80). And no dungeons were required to reach that parity.

The Ascended armor has changed all of that.

so it’s more acceptable and fair that a lvl 80 can face a lvl 2 in WvW, then it is for a lvl 80 with +5 stats to fight another lvl 80? or what about the full exotic 80’s against fresh 80’s with rares on. because “even the small differences in gear stats matter”. but they didnt for the first 10weeks. it was acceptable. anet has also told you that this new gear will be available in wvw at some point. no dungeons required.

Actually, I said from the beginning that I wished it were like sPvP, with everyone equal from level 1. But it seemed a fair compromise that while leveling you were less effective but then at 80 you could get gear on par with anyone in a very short amount of time without ever having to do dungeons.

As it turned out, there were issues with badge gear, especially for anyone not regularly grouping in WvW because it is much slower to get your set that way than through dungeons. I always hated that. I also hated that the badge gear didn’t have stat variety. So no, it was never perfect, but it was tolerable. This is so much worse it’s not even funny.

First, you have to do dungeons. No way around it. If you don’t and they add new ways to get this gear later, it doesn’t matter, you’re still far behind anyone who runs dungeons even if you play far more often and skillfully doing what you think is fun while they grind.

Second, it takes far longer to get this gear and if you want to short cut it by spending gold you will almost certainly be buying gems and exchanging them for that gold because it’s far too costly to buy the mats off the TP for an average person just playing for fun.

Like I said, I’ve played for nothing but fun from day one, to my own detriment as far as WvW goes. Now they have added this new tier of gear that puts me forever behind in WvW unless I want to do things I don’t find fun for hundreds of hours, yet here this thread is telling me play for fun?

El Hefe.2814:

Corvindi.5734:

El Hefe.2814:

if you don’t find the fotm dungeon fun. don’t do it. the gear you get from it allows you to progress in it. it’s not required to have fun.

You don’t play WvW, do you? You don’t seriously PvP in any game, do you? If you did, you would know that even small differences in gear stats matter. And the difference between Ascended and Exotic isn’t small and will get larger with every new piece of Ascended that is released.

wvw is already unbalanced. lvl 2’s can fight lvl 80’s.

They can, but not well. Not 1v1. But there was a short end to that for anyone who wanted to reach max level and farm exotics in a matter of days (or less, many people had most of what they needed saved by the time they got to level 80). And no dungeons were required to reach that parity.

The Ascended armor has changed all of that.

El Hefe.2814:

if you don’t find the fotm dungeon fun. don’t do it. the gear you get from it allows you to progress in it. it’s not required to have fun.

You don’t play WvW, do you? You don’t seriously PvP in any game, do you? If you did, you would know that even small differences in gear stats matter. And the difference between Ascended and Exotic isn’t small and will get larger with every new piece of Ascended that is released.

El Hefe.2814:

And what if a part of the game you like is suddenly off limits to you because you don’t meet the gear requirement? [/quote]

i guess i’d figure out what the gear req. was and what i’d need to do to get it.

[/quote]

How would that be playing for fun? You’d end up doing hundreds of hours (if you didn’t cash shop short it) of unfun stuff by the time you were done getting a full set of gear that way. Hundreds of hours of unfun stuff? Why?

Jairyn.6913:

Perfect quote, Corvindi. I may steal it.

Go for it.

El Hefe.2814:

im sick of all this kitten on these forums. if you guys feel like your grinding or being forced to do something then don’t do it. the premise is really simple. Play the game for fun. have fun with the game. when you stop having fun take a break. you aren’t being forced to farm/grind or whatever else you want to call it. it’s not required to do anything in the game. so just remember it’s a game, have fun. if your not having fun, take a break. you already bought the game and it will be here when you’re ready to have fun again.

I do play the game for fun and I do not grind (except randomly out soloing if I feel like just slapping some mobs around).

However, it will not be fun to be forever undergeared in WvW, so I quit doing it. And that was my main joy in this game. But I was sick and tired of always being at a disadvantage because I wasn’t an 80 in exotics.

I finally got my alt-happy, just playing for fun self a level 80 ranger and was ready to start the exotic (short) grind, and then Ascended landed on my fun like a load of bird droppings from the sky. So yeah, I’ve been complaining on the forums and pretty much just playing to goof off, since the one thing that mattered to me at level 80 is dead to me.

Making sure I have no hope of ever having on par gear in a PvP situation is a real good way to kill my fun.

dalendria.3762:

Gibson.4036:

Agreed.

We need a really clear statement from ANet that Ascended gear will be available through crafting, WvW, open world content, in addition to dungeons, and that there won’t be a big stretch of time between its addition to the other spheres of gameplay.

They have indicated this might be the case, but not with the clarity necessary.

I don’t like the gear treadmill, but I will tolerate it if I can reasonably keep up without running dungeons.

Here is a question. Why was it rolled out without offering those other ways to obtain it? The exotic has all paths. This is a new tier afterall. So if you are trying to stay within your game framework, why only make it obtainable via a dungeon?

Oh wait, traditional MMOs do that. You can only obtain the top tier gear via dungeon runs. So if it was offered via the other methods now, would those that love this approach have really come back or played more?

And if not, will they really introduce the other methods anytime soon. Having it available via other means in the next 4-6 months is too late. By then, the people who spend a lot of time running dungeons will fully out gear everyone else and therefore, be more powerful based on gear alone. Oh wait again, I think I just answered my question.

And this is why I think raids are next (by whatever name they call them, and my guess is they will call them ‘guild events’). If they want the progression dungeon crowd, they’re going to have to go at least up to 10 mans to attract the largest possible number.

It’s simple. I don’t want to do any dungeons without a dungeon finder and even if there was one, I’d never want to do any dungeon enough times to get a full set of this new gear. So yeah, I’m angry. Because without that gear I will never, ever be on par while doing the things I want to do, like WvW.

You’re missing a 209 page thread you could have posted your question in. Surprised this didn’t get moved.

To answer you question: Some of us either don’t like dungeons or have a very limited tolerance for them yet desire the best gear in order to do things like WvW. We are not pleased with this new setup, nor should we be.

kKagari.6804:

Corvindi.5734:

Raziel.1853:

And why do you think they introduced this? Because before the forums explode because wasn’t enough stuff to do in PvE.
You don’t want that gear, then don’t go for it, its not like you need it. I understand your frustration, but its players that made Anet take this decision, if people didn’t want this Anet would not introduce it to the game.

Then I propose the following:

Those who want this grind, go for it. Those of us who don’t should get a five minute quest involving bopping bunny rabbits on the head with a giant mallet. At the end, we get all the gear you guys get for your months of repetitive grind and hundreds and hundreds of gold.

Sound good? I bet we got a deal, right? You happy, we happy, only the bunnies, they not happy, but who cares about bunnies?

There’s actually an achievement for killing them.

Oh well in that case they can just connect it to the achievement. Wouldn’t want the devs doing any extra work on our account. And then the dungeon grinders could just avoid killing too many bunnies.

Raziel.1853:

And why do you think they introduced this? Because before the forums explode because wasn’t enough stuff to do in PvE.
You don’t want that gear, then don’t go for it, its not like you need it. I understand your frustration, but its players that made Anet take this decision, if people didn’t want this Anet would not introduce it to the game.

Then I propose the following:

Those who want this grind, go for it. Those of us who don’t should get a five minute quest involving bopping bunny rabbits on the head with a giant mallet. At the end, we get all the gear you guys get for your months of repetitive grind and hundreds and hundreds of gold.

Sound good? I bet we got a deal, right? You happy, we happy, only the bunnies, they not happy, but who cares about bunnies?

Yes in general. But especially in any game where you can buy in game currency with real money and exchange it for some or all of the things needed to create the best gear in the game.

Pity it kills WvW for those who dislike dungeon grinds and also makes life harder for PVE players who don’t do dungeons.

Snapydubi.2307:

I have the feeling that infusion slots wont be active in WvW, making Ascended items equal to exotics and only increasing power in the new dungeons, it makes sense if you see the numbers of stats in this items and that the special slots are not the same as jewel or rune slots. This would make ppl who like grinding go and keep increasing power in PvE, and keep things more fair in WvW. I can bet this is the intention of this items but ppl rage and rush to state uninformed “opinions” about everything… my guess is as good as anybody else but im keeping a positive perspective until we got more info about this items.

Last I heard, infusions increased stats even more, however, even without them, there is a stat difference between Exotics and Ascended. A considerable one once all the gear is released.

Columba.9730:

how about a pay to grind service. while I am at work, some anet bot grinds fractals for me!

Hey, why not? They said gems for gold would kill gold selling, and obviously it did (hollow laugh), so why not kill leveling and grinding services by offering it in the store to busy players?

Actually, to be honest, in freemium games I have zero issue with offline xp. It’s much less offensive to me than being able to buy game currency with real money.

NastyPiggy.2046:

Urxx.6840:

NastyPiggy.2046:

I paid for a game that had a manifesto that said…

GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun

http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto

Also, I think thet whoever purchased the game because of that manifesto, deserves that ArenaNet has the guts to tell us in our face “Yes we have changed direction because the manifesto didn’t work.”

Do they believe they’ll make money in gems from the grinders? They’re the ones that don’t have to worry about in money game because they play enough to make it with selling items to vendors or the Trading Post.

I’d think the people who were going to buy gems with real money are the casual players who don’t want to grind, play at their own pace and if they can get what they want with 20 bucks, the do it. Right now they’ve alienated a good portion of that population. Sure hope they catered to the group of people they’ll make the most money off of.

My guess is they’re hoping for wannabe grinders. People with stat hamster mentalities but more money than time to actually pursue the grind.

Remember, you have to grind this gear to some extent, but you can drastically shorten that grind by pulling out your wallet and buying gems, then exchanging those gems for gold. So take your average ex-raider who grew up and got a job but never lost the desire to have the best gear in the game. What is that player likely to do? Grind what he/she can, and spend the money to make up the difference.

I’m completely against this and what I hope happens is that these guys get very fed up as more gear tiers get released in the future (assuming they do).

But even if they do get fed up, I’ll be surprised if they don’t spend money first.

More money than non-grinders who quit were going to spend on more character slots and bank space and fluff? Maybe. I hope not, but maybe.

I’m playing alts. I’m not going near that endgame grind. In fact, I don’t even care about getting exotics now.

francisling.2987:

This whole post and title seems like a threat to remind Anet about whose paying the bills. Really appreciated.

But do we know who pays the bills?

If we assume for argument’s sake that the goal is now to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible we have no idea whether it is best for their bottom line to trade their target market (those of us who want only horizontal progression after exotics) for new/returning/discontented players who want vertical progression.

Even if there are more of us target players than vertical progression players and always will be, what matters isn’t the number of players in the game or what is said on this forum, what matters is who is spending the most in the cash shop.

If the assumption about making as much money as quickly as possible is actually fact, we have the answer to who spends more based on recent events, or at least who they think will spend more.

Since we will never get access to numbers like that, all we can do is look at new changes and extrapolate from there. Of course we can’t know for sure the full motives of the decision makers (long term profit? Short term? How much?) or how accurate their assessments of our spending habits are, so we’re still playing this guessing game pretty much in the dark.

I will make one (uneducated) guess about whoever is currently in charge: They aren’t interested in relying on player good will purchases (purchases made by players more to support the game than for the actual items themselves). Either they know for sure this won’t keep them afloat, or they aren’t willing to risk relying on that, or they believe they will make far more money in different ways.

Sorry for the speculative ramble, I’m just really interested in this subject.

I will still wander around playing the way I want to play, but now I know doing so will never allow me an equal footing, so much of the game and all of the major incentives to socialize are closed to me.

This game wasn’t free to play.

But I’ll be fair and answer the question anyway, since with no sub they do need to continue to make money somehow:

We don’t know what makes them money. They don’t release those numbers to us. Such as what the average player spends in the shop, what the average player buys, what their research shows that players in other games buy and what game mechanics will make players spend more money.

We can make guesses and gather snippets of info from various places, but in the end, we are left in the dark.

Skellum.8210:

Corvindi.5734:

I was happy without vertical progression at level cap, and in fact I would not have minded if I had been handed level 80 gear with whatever stats I wanted on them for use in WvW and/or PVE. I would have liked that just fine.

However, other players may feel differently. If the vast majority of MMO players prefer vertical progression that is what they’re going to get from any devs/publishers intent on maximizing player base rather than carving out a niche.

Which doesn’t mean it’s smart to trade a niche market for a broader one. Sometimes that works, sometimes it fails horribly.

It also doesn’t mean those of us who are unhappy about Ascended gear are wrong, but we might be in the minority.

Which still leaves plenty of room to quibble about the method of this progression. Narrowing it to dungeons was, in my opinion, mistake #1. Tying gold to it, well, the less said about that the better. I was never in favor of gems for gold, so anything that is going to cost me in this game to progress makes me very, very unhappy.

I argue against this as you’re citing a relatively recent trend in MMO history. WoW is not the only game that has ever existed, I think the GW1 people would agree with me on that. I’m a person who’s played UO/EQ/AC/WoW/RO and a slew of others, tried GW1 but in WoW’s prime it just didn’t thrill me.

Carrots on sticks are nice, but they dont keep players. Throwing endless easy challenges that reward +2 awesome instead of +1 awesome do not keep players in a game. The key to the gear grind in MMOs was the appearance and exclusivity, what makes the hat of +2 awesome better then the hat of +1 awesome was that it showed off how good I was at the game and was something others didnt have. It’s why players will pay for a sparkling flying horse that adds no functionality but to an extent looks neat.

Gear progression is neat, but it doesnt really add to the game, nor does it keep players playing. There are countless more enjoyable and better carrots on sticks that will encourage more people to play then a gear progression system. I will say firmly that PvP should never, in anyway have a gear based progression system.

I really hope you’re right, but a lot of corporate psychologists have doubtless made their living giving advice on the Skinner Box method of keeping players around. Not just WoW, I’m sure, but WoW is the best known example.

However, a study did come out recently on how to keep gamers around. Here is part of their conclusions:

The study focused on two strategies of player retention. The first observed that player loyalty was increased when gamers were given more control and ownership of their in-game character. Sanders advises that one way to do this is to “provide equal opportunities for any character to win a battle.” The second strategy found that cooperation between fellow players through guilds helped to increase loyalty and social identity. Sanders urges developers to “build more selective or elaborate chat rooms and guild features to help players socialize.”

Source: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120693-Research-Paper-Investigates-Gamer-Loyalty-to-MMOs

I wanted to quote this yesterday, but it has some vagueness that bothers me. Such as: “provide equal opportunities for any character to win a battle.”

I can imagine this having different meanings based on the questions they asked gamers and the responses they got. Gamers might have said things like, “Nerf thieves, I’m sick of losing to them so I’m quitting!” But they could have as easily said, “I don’t raid, and I’m tired of losing in PvP to people who do!” Maybe they said both of these things.

Also, it confirms what I’ve suspected for awhile, that gamers who join guilds and socialize a lot are more likely to stick around. Ironically, this new gear makes me even less willing to be social because I don’t want to compete with other players’ gear or measure up to their gear standards for pvp and pve teams. That’s not fun for me. Also, WvW was the most social I’ve ever been in any MMO, but being forced to team for loot and badges plus this new gear disparity has put an end to that.

Oh well, at least this study doesn’t seem to point to vertical progression at level cap as a means to keep players around. But did they really look into that or just factor it in as the MMO norm?

Housing would have been a neat addition. WvW was a major portion of my playtime, too. I had been looking forward to finally getting my meandering ranger some exotic gear so I could experience gear parity for the first time ever.

Also, alts, alts, so many alts. I abandoned my level 40 something Sylvari Mesmer solely because I decided Tyria really needs more Charr Mesmers cluttering everything up with giant kitty clones.

Had they put a dungeon finder in, I would have run all the dungeons, not all at once, or day after day 10 hours a day for gear, just when I felt like it. Heck, if they put one in, I’ll still run them. But not if it means stopping whatever I’m doing to stand around spamming ‘lfg’ all day.

Rangers do fine in PVE as far as I can tell on mine. Botters like them for a reason. People complain about their 1vs1 issues in PvP, though.

I was happy without vertical progression at level cap, and in fact I would not have minded if I had been handed level 80 gear with whatever stats I wanted on them for use in WvW and/or PVE. I would have liked that just fine.

However, other players may feel differently. If the vast majority of MMO players prefer vertical progression that is what they’re going to get from any devs/publishers intent on maximizing player base rather than carving out a niche.

Which doesn’t mean it’s smart to trade a niche market for a broader one. Sometimes that works, sometimes it fails horribly.

It also doesn’t mean those of us who are unhappy about Ascended gear are wrong, but we might be in the minority.

Which still leaves plenty of room to quibble about the method of this progression. Narrowing it to dungeons was, in my opinion, mistake #1. Tying gold to it, well, the less said about that the better. I was never in favor of gems for gold, so anything that is going to cost me in this game to progress makes me very, very unhappy.

Mhyrria.4160:

Just started downloading updates for LoL and other PC games I missed out whilst playing GW2. I did not even know there was Dark Souls version for PC, gonna buy it later today. And all because of this kittening patch. I would have stayed for years, for as long as this game stuck to their core designs, but alas.. They wanted to have a slice of the WoW pie. It pissed me off days ago, but now it is nothing more than a sigh..

And I simply still cannot fathom why such a poor decision was implemented. If they needed money, they could have just asked for subscription. I very well know that most of us would gladly pay monthly for this game. Then that would entitle us to faster patches for fixes and content. We would have understood, and they would have the needed support. But this…. sigh just a mere sigh indeed.

I would definitely have quit over a sub tacked onto a game where players can buy game currency with real money, actually. I don’t know how many others would do the same, but I do think it’s way too late to go to a sub model.

I’m in the forum minority right now over being annoyed at having to team up to ensure decent drop rates in WvW and sometimes in PVE. It’s very obvious I’m in the minority on that and that most players couldn’t care less or even support forced teaming for loot efficiency.

The Ascended gear complaints in contrast are very obviously not a minority complaint.

Dware.4259:

More people play WvW than PvP…

Way more.

And I get the feeling they aren’t happy about that. First, because they want to make money on paid tournaments, second because WvW is far more of a headache, what with the server jumpers, the orb hackers, the botters, and the population imbalances.

The question I have is this: why do people care whether someone else in WvW has the same gear they do when that means the outcome will be decided by ability? Are they jealous of people who are better at PvP than they are? Are they just “haters”? Do these people really want dungeon running PVE players to have a stat advantage on gear so they don’t feel inadequate in WvW?

Sadly, ArenaNet doesn’t seem to consider WvW PvP. When they adjust skills and tag the adjustment as ‘only in PvP’ they mean only in sPvP.

Conner.4702:

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.

To get the new backpack you need 60-100 gold worth of mats depending on estimates of pricing another player made with the new droprate nerf. The minimum cost would be 60 gold buying from the TP. An hour to make 1 gold is, if anything, a generous rate.

So in order to make this backpack you need to either grind at minimum 60 hours for the mats or farm them yourself (which would probably take longer, actually) or just buy some gold with gems so you can buy the mats from the TP the minute you’ve gathered all the other required items.

That is very pay to win.

Or you could buy MF boosts from the gem store? chuckle