So no more gear grind but we can’t say there won’t be more gear grind just in case we change our mind
Also known as: Were looking at FoTM data and seeing how many people go for shinies – If it is enough we will slowly roll out the full set to delay the inevitable. Once players are full ascended we will look at drop rate – We will decided then if we need to add another Tier.
They probably will as well. People that quit on exotics I doubt will stay for Ascended….unless we get Ascended T2
So far I have read:
Ascended shouldn’t have rolled out like it was – they intended to put more ascended items into non-fractal areas of the game – Time: Unkown
They don’t think they have grind
They are not opposed to vertical progression: "[–]ArenaNetTeam[S] 31 points 51 minutes ago:
I would also like add that we have never said there would be no vertical progression. We do intent to focus on horizontal but we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve."
They plan on further development of the island nobody goes to (ok this one is kind of loaded on my part).
So in essence Vertical progression is here to stay – deal with it.
Your really using D3/WoW as a comparison?
Whats next? Anything that doesn’t sell as well as Call of Duty is now a flop too?
Nice job comparing GW1 which is how old has been on sale quite a bit, AND increased in sales due to HoM to GW2 btw.
(edited by Dead.7385)
1: Bugs
2: incomplete patches
3: No real hotfixes
@Nayru – not really. Not for MMO’s at least.
ofc stats will affect it, assuming a 20vs20zerg with ppl of equal skill and same amount of classes, but one zerg er purely exotic, the other is purely ascnded, geuss who will win…?
Yes. That wont happen in wvw though. If it did happen, luck would decide who won.
The ones with the better PC would win. Doesn’t matter much on that small amount of gear change if you can’t even move/dodge without the PC coughing up blood.
And don’t say “well what if you had 20 vs 20 with the Exact same PC setup, with the exact same connection” cause that would never happen.
Ugh, doing the harpy shaman when its laggy. Its an extra layer of difficulty haha.
Man she hurts.
High end Fractals aren’t meant for casuals. Or at least that is what it feels like. Its trying to be the “raid endgame” of other games without being a “raid”. If that makes sense.
Agony can be dodged, except jade maw. If he can I don’t know how. Agony is attached to skills, for example – Jellyfish eats you → agony. Don’t get eaten → no agony. Etc
And if they add this people will shout and attack those that do not skip it. Because they are “wasting time”.
Better to not be able to do it at all in my eyes.
That would hold true if ALL cutscenes weren’t skippable. But some are so your point isn’t valid now is it?
So you expect everything to be in place at a games release. The game isn’t even 6 months old yet. Honestly people have to learn to be patient. This will be an added feature. It’s not however high on the priority list. I rather see bugs and glitches fixed first before this is added in.
Man why are you mad that Arah is broke! This game is only 2 months old! Let them get around to fixing stuff!
C Wut I did there?
I wouldn’t waste time responding to “defenders”, it is a pain to get a group. I know, I pugged to 20.
Best bet is use the LFG site – yeah I know its 3rd party. But has ANet really done better? No, some random person did. He/she did a REALLY good job too. I can find groups for fractals in a max of 30 mins for lesser done ones, and 10ish for more popular ones (daily).
Trust me once you do it, you will wonder why ANet sits by and doesn’t just copy it in game.
*edit: Its rather funny how people quote the log off/in trick like it is something “every” mmo does. Don’t ya know? It is commonplace! – Also I bet ALL of those defenders wouldn’t invite the OP to help them through fractals. They would just say “You didn’t get a group LOL”
(edited by Dead.7385)
Did it make finding a dungeon group faster and easier? Yes for sure it did. Were these groups successful?
Thats a positive
Not really. The majority of the time it would be 1-2 people that carry the rest of the group or the group would just fall apart.
Do you know why that is? Let me tell you a little secret – the more players doing dungeons – the more likely you will end up in a bad group. Shocking I know….
The LFG system gave people the instant satisfaction that they wanted (Unless you were a dps where you had to wait 30mins for a spot anyway).
Ohh please. Come back when you played Everquest classic and had to do corpse recoveries in the deepest parts of dungeons with see invis mobs then you can talk about “instant satisfaction”. WoW vanilla was 10X more instant satisfaction than the games before it. Wanna know why Quests were so revolutionary in WoW? Because they took about 5-10 mins and you always were rewarded.
That stuff didn’t happen before. Quests took DAYS and DAYS to complete of camping multiple dungeon across the world. All at level 10 too.
But what was not expected was the negative impact LFG had on the communities in the realms. People stopped talking with each other, there was no need to communicate with others.
Wrong wrong wrong.
1. GW2 is a CROSS SERVER game. Aside from fractals which you can trick using overflow join in it is a purely cross server experience. WOW is not, it is NOT built in this way. The comparison is null. I grouped with people from all manner of servers because of its infrastructure – WoW that doesn’t happen.
People could now log on, queue up, tab out, accept the queue pop and collect their loots without ever speaking to anyone or moving out of town.
Really? Really? K, let me tell you my day:
Log on / Join my brother / Go to http://gw2lfg.com/lfgs and post LF3M fractal “X” / /map in lions arch LF3M fractal “X” / do fractals / sell in lions arch / exit.
Notice something? I never left lions arch. Big deal huh?
This is so bad for a community. World pvp became extinct b/c of this.
We don’t have World PvP so point is moot.
Btw flying mounts killed world PvP pre dungeon finder. But I guess that doesn’t help your point eh?
Eventually LFG led to LFR which did the same thing but made matter even worse. Yes I know I am talking about WoW and GW2 is very different from WoW.
Then stop comparing the two
But if the system had those negatives effects on the community in one game where the player base is practically the same in another I can not understand the reasoning for wanting that system in GW2.
The community is very different. Guilds server almost no purpose here for PvE while in WoW they are the cornerstone of its endgame.
So in essence your comparing two different games, then saying they are different. Then going right back to comparing them. Well done.
Its called a end game dungeon for something.
The dungeon was not made to be easy, thats why the rewards are good.
We dont have many hard things in this game, and now that we got one you guys want it to be 5 minutes runs and super easy.
I got to 17 with pug and helped others to get to 17.
If you think dredge mining suit is “hard” than its a pity for you. It isn’t “hard” it is kite till dead. All they want is condition damage to be ON PAR with regular damage. Or else why would you even want condition vs a warrior? You might as well stick them on lava duty….
I believe fixing FOTM making it resumable after disconnection like any other dungeon might be helpful.
You still haven’t even tried to understand why it’s harder to ‘fix’ than other dungeons, have you?
Who cares about repair? You realize you can already exploit WITHIN fractal dungeons?
You can’t tell me you never heard of the “easy” solution to the cliffside boss (which is by FAR worse than simply repairing on LD as you skip an entire BOSS)? Or “melee the troll” in Asura instance?
People are already exploiting fractals so the whole point of being scared of being able to repair/enter is moot.
It has always happened. Since launch and probably BWE.
They just never bothered fixing it and until now most people haven’t come across it.
1) No
2) Yes
3) No and yes.
4) Yes – You can’t just do just “one more” gear tier – it just doesn’t work that way. It is the reason wow keeps adding more stats. It would be quicker on them to just do one, but at this point you can’t stop. Same thing will happen to GW2, they are only delaying it with prolonging the release of full ascended sets.
5) Yes, especially the bugs part.
once again, you want the reward without the work
WoW provided loot in a much better manner…..
Ascended gear/agony is part of the lore.
Your point….? Lore is just backstory something which games don’t 100% adhere to in a strict sense because gameplay is a FIRST priority. As it should be.
Farming ectos and powerful blood isn’t that hard after being lvl80 for a while.
Yeah, its incredible boring and tedious – next.
Ohh if it was “so easy” why is the price so high? If it was the price should have tumbled at this point. But it rose and hit its peak.
GW2’s ending is all about farming mats to get new skins.
So much wrong with this:
Ascended is the new exotics.
Ascended at its current state*: You get a book/quiver or jewelry. Jewelry isn’t shown on your character so that cosmetic thing is tossed right out of the window.
hint: most are farming 10/20 FoTM for *Jewlery those things that DON’T render on your character.
So to me it sounds like you’ll still be grinding for mats as you were before Lost Shores, except that this time there is new gear that still fits in with the lore.
Relying on pure “lore” to backup your gameplay = bad move. It is just flavor, they could have called it “epics” and it would still be the exact same thing. Lore = flavor not gameplay.
Anet said they would release legendary armors and more legendary weapons eventualy. As long as legendary remains the top tier, there is no real reason to worry about anything.
I don’t care for legendaries since it isn’t an “epic” quest as much as “go grind X forever till you toss me in a forge and make me”. Never seemed at all fun to me so I really don’t care what they do with them. Though I do hear they are making more of them but NOT doing it the same way as the first set…..Thankfully.
Are you guys going to over-react as well when they release an expansion pack and the level cap is most likely increased ?
The community? Yeah. Me? I hope they increase it personally. I like some sort of “gated” progression to ease me into the expansion.
If you are a fan of GW2, farming mats shouldn’t be a problem for you. If you don’t understand why you should farm AKA grind mats, then chances are you aren’t even lvl80 yet and then why should your feedback matter on endgame issues since you don’t have a clue ?
Grinding mats = Not fun. Period. End of story. Thats why it is a grind. Now some grind can be fun in the form of Fractals to test yourself to see “how far can I go deal”, toss in a leaderboard and that section is set forever.
But killing easily killed mobs for days and days? Thats not fun nor engaging. Let me put it like this: A bot can “grind mats” better than ANY player for the fact they can do it 24/7. When that happens (bots with NO human control nor hacks) it becomes a snooze fest. No challenge. That isn’t fun at all. Especiall when you have DR hitting you making it so “you have to grind, but don’t grind too long or else we will hurt your grinding of mats which are so high you have to grind out for” – get it?
According to LA, it’s super easy to find a team! Just spam spam spam! You’ll find one, even though everyone is saying they don’t want my FotM level! Right.
Those are the same people who seem to think dungeon finders will be the utter destruction to the entire game and its “community” because “WOW IZ BAD LOLZ”.
I am allowed to give hints on this matter: Team Work, Down State, and Buffs.
So the next hint is going to be use those 10 buttons on your hotbar right?
Seriously, you might as well just said that.
2 decent paths:
1 = 25-30 mins – Meant for casual players
2 = 1hr – 1hr 1/2 – Meant for hardcore players
Each path would be drastically different, not the same repeat stuff we get with 1/2/3 sometimes.
and I am tired of people who can’t figure out how to get around the chat suppression mechanic.
So your saying that we have to “sploit” a way around the suppression mechanic to be able to easily find a group because their is no group finder? So the only way to do it triggers suppression? BRILLIANT design there. BTW mail suppression sucks too. In a group of 5 I can only mail 2 people then get locked. Really sucks when handing out potions to the entire team.
They need a better party find mechanic. If ANet didn’t think it helped WHY would they sticky a GROUP FINDING SITE on their web page?
Solo story mode only
That should be good enough.
This was very typical sight in WoW before they implemented LFDungeon matchmaking tool. Expect more of this since this is the direction GW2 is going.
Man I hope this happens soon. Been wanting one since day one.
You gonna melee the dredge boss in FotM? I’d kick you right away.
Well you could just do lava instead but meh.
Make them 2-3 man instances focus on lowish DE difficulty. Make mobs die fast and bosses similar to a DE veteran with low damage and mid hp (for 2-3 players). Remove tokens and add random rare once a day that your class can use.
Similar to DCUO’s solo/duo instances.
Finally got mine today – lvl 16 fractal
Yup I posted the same sort of style as #3 awhile back. It just makes sense that way. It also breaks more people into 1-9 style “brackets”. Pre Agony – Post Agony – Post Agony +1 etc.
Soooo:
Story or exp? – Guessing Story
Which dungeon? – AC or TA?
The entire zone needs a remake, all the mobs need nerfing to at least the level of mobs in ORR.
I think it says something when people are asking it to be brought down to Orr level.
Been there once, seemed desolate and boring. Got the WP’s and PoI’s and left.
They need more gear to be honest. You can’t have it both ways by adding “just one more” tier.
If your going the progression route at least do it well. Add some 10 man with Legendary armor and weapons with a bump in stats.
For me, I was fine pre-patch and fine post-patch. The only difference is instead of running explorable all day I run fractals, which at least I can continue to watch a number go up to see how far I can get instead of /shrugging and saying “well thats 60 tokens I will just use for forge or salvage, no good unique drops (because we ALL love pure random tables), but hey 26 silver on top of it!”
Edit: The only stat that baffles me is that they bumped a % based stat. It is one thing to have an extra +2 condition dmg, but an entirely different thing to have +2% critical damage
(edited by Dead.7385)
It is total RNG, my brother got his on level 5.
I have yet to see one…and I am on level 14 and repeated lower level fractals.
BIG thumbs up to the creator of this.
Found a group for fractal 11 in a matter of minutes after going LFG for over 30…THIRTY without it.
ANet needs to take this and make it built into the game. Soon most people will use this over LFG chat and new players will be even more lost.
Made by some other poster (in dungeon forum), best we have so far. Would love an in-game version of this at least though.
About the same as pre-patch.
Just swap explorables for fractals on my playtime. Lvl 14 and need to go further down. Its shockingly addicting.
Definitely agree.
1. Yeah I hate that dodge bug on my axe warrior to have a mechanic that is the entire pillar of you combat be bugged is rather bad. It would be like having healing in traditional MMO’s bug out at times, would drive raiders crazy.
2. I find it MADDENING when I get targeted by maw and I just hit my spin-to-win axe skill and can NOT pick up the crystal. Or when I run to one I have to make sure to stop or else I just keep going.
For newer dungeon runners it is a problem. I HIGHLY suggest ANet move Swamp/Dredge fractal to at least 5+ on level scale as it isn’t very newbie friendly.
There really is only one “swamp” style fractal, the next closest is Dredge for newbie pains.
The problem with this is that due to the way the kick system works, a player can form a group and get kicked from it by two trolls. All it takes is a vote-caller and a second. This would be easily addressed by switching the game’s teaming system to the more standard “party leader” model, but that’s unlikely.
But if you kick the leader who started the instance won’t it punt everyone? I heard something about that before. I might be wrong though. I mostly run with a static group so I don’t run into this issue and most pugs I have grouped with haven’t had this issue.
It happens randomly in AC, particularly that path. I can’t figure it out personally, but there isn’t much you can do about it just re-run it.
@Swiftpaw: Even when my NPC was alive the entire time it bugged out sometimes.
You are a dungeon master / ranked 20 in Spvp (I don’t know much about PvP though), and you don’t have a static group?
If your that good can’t you just make your own group? I am NOWHERE near as good as most dungeon masters (lupi Shadowbolt thingy gives me a hard time), and I can easily form groups on my own. Those players might have just been jerks. Your bound to run into them someday.
55+ runs never got one
in about 30 runs my brother got his
RNG is terrible.
Please ANet add BACKFLAGGING. It is like they looked at Planes of Power and said “how could we make this worse?”
1-4: No backflagging drop
5-9: Small chance to drop a Back flagging token which handed in promotes the player to level 5. At level 9 you have a 100% chance to get a token. Grants players level 10 FoTM. Tradeable/sellable.
10-14: Small chance to drop token
15-19: Small chance to drop that grants level 15/100% at level 19. Grants players level 20 FoTM. Tradeable/sellable.
And so on
That way players can help guildies/buy their way up. I played on a server in another MMO that used a similar mechanic (Each Final Raid T2+ boss had a 50/50 shot of dropping a backflagging token to that tier). It helped smaller guilds VERY much.
This would drop from end boss chests ONLY.
(edited by Dead.7385)
It is nice, I liked the feeling of actual “loot” that was missing from explorables (something that should have been addressed withing the first two weeks).
However it needs adjustments:
1-4: Insanely stupid easy fractals only with VERY weak mobs/bosses (casual 3 man stuff). This will ease players who are unfamiliar with dungeon mechanics into them. Base fights and base boss with maybe one AE that does 1/4 hp poll dmg. Not enough to insta shot, but enough to make new players dodge.
5-9: base 1-9 difficulty we have now. Add a chance of ascended rings to drop similar to 10+. People are hitting level 10+ and never getting their Agony resistance back due to RNG or gold reasons (82 power bloods here=/)
That would help ease people into ascended without having to grind 1-9 which is irritating.
A-Net didn’t introduce a gear grind.
Agony = resistance. Resistance on gear to delve deeper = continued progression. Continued progression = gear grind. It isn’t that hard. It is just like getting Fire Resistance on gear in other MMO’s.
To even mention that tells me you don’t do fractals.
They released unreleased content that didn’t ship with the game, that’s why you didn’t pay for it via expansion pack.
First of all, did you manage to know that how? Granted the Sea of Sorrows might have been in development before launch, but the fractals I highly doubt were. ANet had no mention of any sort of LDoN style dungeons and were pushing the idea of Story/explore.
Almost all of the content being released was preconceived. If you don’t like it stop posting about it on the forum your QQ threads won’t change it.
What does it matter if it was “thought” of before launch, things change during development. Most likely the original Fractal dungeons had no sort of “ascended” gear stat bump since ANet flat out told you they introduced it because of player feedback. Now Warlord how exactly would they have know about the players getting bored after exotic pre-launch? Unless they can read the future…
Here is a direct quote: “As we watch Guild Wars 2 mature in its Live environment, we have found that our most dedicated players were achieving their set of Exotic gear and hitting “the Legendary wall. We designed the process of getting Legendary gear to be a long term goal, but players were ready to start on that path much sooner than we expected and were becoming frustrated with a lack of personal progression.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
That clearly indicates this was a response post launch.
BTW the Ascended gear needs a bit of tweeks, but for me I love it since all I do is dungeon run.
(edited by Dead.7385)
How do you folks remove the defiant stacks? my warrior seem unable to remove any.
And if not, which classes/skills are effective at remove them
Each stun/lock type of ability “CC” removes a counter, when it vanishes the mob can then be stunned like normal. It will then gain back counters. It just prevents players from Perma-Stunning mobs to death (which w/o defiant would be easily done).
I highly doubt checkpoints would ever be removed due to rage on bugged dungeons.
Even now WITH checkpoints your group can get locked in instances like Cliffside with the bugged cage.
They need to remake the “gating” system:
It should work as you can pick any difficulty any player has, for example:
Player 1: 5
Player 2: 1
Player 3: 3
Player 4: 5
Player 5: 5
You can pick 1/3/5 to start on. All players will retain base score to start (even though you are fighting on level 5 you are at base still 1/3), but when a round is completed your individual score will be increased. That way someone at level 1 can play with players at level 5 and BOTH players can progress through the ranks (As long as it is higher than your base individual score). That would ease the difference between 1-9 grind players are feeling now and increase group size later on as people piggy back off others in the lower end “bracket”.
Still though, it is basically a ticking time bomb. Groups will slowly diminish as new player influx slows and it becomes “top heavy” on the fractal difficulty.
(edited by Dead.7385)
Please update the Fractals to allow cross server groups. Using the overflow we often get in groups with people out of our home server and if we like those players have NO way to regroup. Its very anti-community building as you have a rare chance to regroup with past players, and since Lions Arch will be flooded now with overflow it isn’t keeping you on your home server.
This will also fix various overflow vs non overflow group issues.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tome_of_the_Rubicon
One thing is not like the other. Its kinda funny how the cosmetic side of this update for dungeons was left out. Since ascended rings can’t be shown and there isn’t any difference between the books from what I am told.
IIRC:
If you have open inventory space and you pick up a mastercrafted it will not go into an exotic fractal box. If however you have no empty spaces in other boxes it will.
All it does is sort items when looted. Say you loot an exotic with an exotic box – It will default to that specific box instead of the first in your list.