Guild Wars 2

Irnhide.3428:

I honestly think if this game had a subscription either the dev’s would listen too us or the patches would be more thought out.

Games with subs’ that last going on almost 10 years… work for a reason I guess?

Regardless, they’ve gone and shot themselves in more than just the foot.
Look at what NCsoft’s stocks did.
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Oh? What did you have to do to get that refund? I’m seriously interested in this.

Derk.3189:

Slic.2406:

NeedsFoodBadly.2671:

LoneWolfie.1852:

I heard some rumors about 1000+ fractals to make an item, and the fractal drop is 5 per run?

Guild Wars 2 isn’t a game…it’s a 9-to-5 job. O_O

Obviously. How else will those CEOs at NCSoft, Anet and Nexon (yes, Nexon – 15%+ shares in NCSoft since June!) retain their 7-figure incomes?

Seriously, the feedback here falls on deaf ears, we should write to nexon and ncsoft instead. At least they are happy to turn the screws.

Nexon has a habit of telling customers to kitten a cactus.
When a friend told me that they were the largest shareholder of NCsoft, I was no longer surprised that GW2 took a turn like this. Not in the least.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

Naturally everyone conveniently ignores that the number of tokens rewarded scales up with the difficulty so the numbers being thrown around here are grossly over-exaggerated…

Yet, you need the infusions to resist agony to progress very much further.

Alberel Leonhart.9640:

If ascended gear had been in at release would you all still be complaining? I think most of the complaints are coming from people with full exotic that don’t like the fact they’re not top-tier any more. I understand the frustration there but I still think people need to look at this as a new rarity and not a new tier.

They explained it pretty well in the dev blog: the rarity levels had a gaping hole between exotic and legendary, they needed something to plug the gap. They’ve already said this stuff will be obtainable in WvW as well so the people whining about having to run the fractals for it have nothing to complain about.

People are complaining exactly because of that.
Why? Because we were told this would not happen.

We were promised one thing, yet sold another. We have a right to be upset. Not to mention this stuff can only be obtained through the fractals of the mists, so those who don’t wish to dungeon to get their armor are kittened.

nofo.8469:

Not sure if you guys are aware, but infusions will be giving stats.

It’s the new direction of the game, if you don’t like it, don’t show your support.

If you aren’t after progression style content this isn’t the game for you basically.

People have a right to be pissed, but take it for what it is, I’m sure you got your moneys worth from the game.

And this is why developers are now able to routinely get away with these sorts of things. The “Oh well, I got my money’s worth” mindset.

BurnedToast.3781:

I gave Anet a chance.

They used it to keep certain power classes on top, meanwhile ignoring the other half of the classes who are plagued with bugs, broken skills, poor traits, and general underpoweredness.

Then, instead of fixing that, they added a gear treadmill to the game despite claiming grinding gear for power was not something that was ever going to be in the game.

Why should I give them another chance?

This. They’re not getting another chance from me.

Good going guys. You get a medal for the fastest driving of a AAA title into the ground.

JonPeters.5630:

Hi Anders, I’m totally not here so skip this post and read on…

We made the improvements we had time to test. There are still more ranger improvements but when our time is limited we have to focus on things we know we can fix. Signets and shouts are still on the docket, and I suspect some of each of these will get some love in the next time around. As you can see a lot changed in this build for every profession and we have to test these changes as well.

I do still believe ranger is the profession in most need of improvement after this patch and we will continue to make those improvements. If we could fix everything at one time we would, but the reality is there are a limited # of hours to make changes.

I see a lot of talk about ranger weapons, but I don’t think that is the real problem. I think sword and longbow are both good weapons, which is why the changes take longer. The problems are deeper, in pets ability to hit moving targets, trait lines with not enough viable choices and skills that are often too specialized to really compliment the weapon builds. These aren’t things we can change overnight. The change to Greatsword block was in fact a very difficult change, but we made it because we knew it was the right thing to do.

There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this. Even then often we are bottle necked by other issues. I’m not going to say we are not working on these things, nor can I say there are things we could have changed but just ran out of time on, but this was a patch that contained ranger improvements and it will not be the last one that does so. Maybe you want more than honesty but that is what I currently have to offer.

Jon

Jon. If you have your dev team do ANYTHING to fix rangers, PLEASE speed up the projectile speed of the long bow by 50%.

Please. You can’t hit a god kitten thing if its moving at the range that the bow does its max damage.

Seems that ANet’s new mantra is to lie their kitten off to everyone.

I can say that I’ve had more fun in WvW tonight than I have in a LONG time.

CD took Woodhaven, then managed to get enough people to build up siege to defend it. After a couple of good attempts by TC, they gave up to go harass something else.

RIOT, you guys gave me some of the best laughs I’ve ever had, taking Godslore on the Crystal Desert map repeatedly, and letting me constantly catapult you from Woodshaven, then coming after our tower.

I’m not intending to be rude, I honestly have had an kitten load of fun defending against you guys. I rarely get to break out my trebs or catas and go to town on zergs with them, so I have to thank you for this opportunity.

I really am looking forward to fighting your tenacious kitten again soon, but for now I have to go get some work done.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Sirius.4510:

It would be great to have an RPG, much less MMORPG, that pulled this off to anyone’s satisfaction. We’re not there yet, but maybe one day we might be.

A very good point.

Single player RPGs are always ahead of the curve in graphics and mechanics compared to MMORPGs because they don’t have to worry about the complications of networking and servers and they don’t need to expend resources on such a wide array of content.

Yet have any single player games managed to accomplish what the OP is requesting? Has even Skyrim or Mass Effect managed to do it? Or are their heroes the same deadly killing machines we’ve seen before and which the OP seems to dislike so much?

I have not played enough single player games to answer but I that suspect no single player game has managed what the OP is suggesting. And that means the OP is getting way ahead of themselves.

We need to see if a single player game that can provide all the variety and choices they suggest before even consider seeing if they will work in an MMO.

It’s great to make a long post about all the things one wants in some perfect game, but considerations have to be made whether such a game is technologically and financially even possible.

I’ve seen suggestions like this from the MMO community and I can’t fathom how people actually think what is being proposed is even remotely possible.

We don’t have game systems so sophisticated that players can have infinite options that allow them to “set down roots, have a family, build a garden, or start a cult” as the OP suggests in addition to the typical choices of being fantasy hero if players so choose.

Someday we may have games that are that immersive and complex but it won’t happen today or any time soon. We’ll be lucky if it happens around the time we’re all playing with virtual reality helmets. Or more likely, by the time we’re all on holodecks.

I’m one of the ones that put the time into developing my Mass Effect character, and his story relations with the others in my squad.

Needless to say, I died a little inside when I had to have Mordin die in the third one. That’s never happened in any other game before.

Haette.2701:

It pains me to say, but Guild Wars never had any really interesting boss fights, and it hasn’t gotten all that much better here. The awesome combat system is just serving to highlight how dull the boss mechanics really are.

With stuff like the Lovers and the first stage of Giganticus, it’s obvious that the intent and ideas are there, they just need to pick up on those ideas and roll with them full-speed.

I would LOVE to see a dungeon full of bosses like Lupi. He’s seriously my favorite boss in the game.

I’ve never felt a connection to any character in a game, except for Mass Effect.

You already have it, if you want to go that way.
It actually makes dungeons stupid easy.

Lomax.2463:

good god you people cant read !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i am amazed there so so many that cant comprehend what Anet is doing

OK FOR THOSE THAT HAVE NO CLUE.

1. There is no stat increase !!!!!! they took away the upgrade slot and put the points that you would have gotten from the upgrade slot into the main stats of the item!
that is right Ascended armor is worse then exotic as it is not as customizable as normal armor!

2. Infusion slot is for negating a new condition call Agony that will only be in this dungeon! that is right it is worthless in WvW or any place outside this dungeon.

3. getting exotic gear is easy and is full customizable with upgrade slots, Ascended armor is hard to get is less useful as real exotic gear outside of this dungeon.

4. this is a cool great new dungeon , it is scalable for the progression players but none of it is any use outside of this one dungeon. it will allow player to brag about i hit 27th level of infusion !!! woot for me but as infusion does nothing outside of the dungeon why would a WvW player even care ?

this is like a PVE dungeon version of the PVP ranking , i think its great .

YOU are the one that cannot read.
The base stats of the item are higher, along with the stats from the upgrade.

Jestunhi.7429:

Shootsfoot.9276:

/facepalm

And while we are at it, lets have aliens come down and put square wheels on it, too!

Jeeze.

What a constructive & convincing response.

I’m shocked you can’t convince more people around to your way of thinking when you debate this well!

The analogy in the post I first quoted made no sense, this isn’t buying one thing and demanding an upgrade free when the next thing comes out – that would be GW1 players expecting GW2 to come free for them.

What this is is us buying one product and then having the very core of it replaced with its opposite.

And to top it off the post I have replied to this time makes no sense either. The whole point is that I want the product that I purchased, in no way am I asking for any request as ridiculous as aliens changing my wheels. All I’m asking is for my electric car to have an electric motor for it’s entire life. I bought the car from someone who claimed that would be the case, so I’m understandably annoyed when they say “Sorry, we were just kitten you” and doing the exact opposite of what they promised.

This.
This is exactly the point why most people are in an outrage. We purchased this game, looking at the history of Guild Wars 1 and seeing that ANet seemed to have a mindset of sticking to their guns, then not even 3 months into a release they go and change something that was a core principle.

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Leiloni.7951:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

This is really a ridiculous analogy, as was said before…cars don’t get changed once purchased. Not to mention you’re crying like a little baby about a car that you haven’t even SEEN yet.

You’ll have to try something different.

You got many, MANY hours out of this game so far for 60 bucks. You are getting free content added monthly. You are not paying a monthly fee. You have gotten more for 60 bucks than any game without a subscription that I can remember in a long, long time.

Okay since you seem to not understand anything I’ve said, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Hell, I’ll even use a video ANet produced.
Guild Wars 2 Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

They are changing a basic principle that they built the game upon, and they promised to deliver. What a lot of people, including myself, were expecting.

Why? Likely for money.
Is that evil? I would call it so. You may not, but I do.

Yes, imagine that. A software company wants to make money so they can produce more content.

Shocking, really.

Except the only reason they sold so many copies initially was because we all bought into the marketing hype. We bought that game, not this new game. What makes them think adding in gear progression will make them money, when the majority of their audience only bough the game because it had no gear progression?

Really? Stood around in Lions Arch lately? Seen many people? I’m on a high-population server and there’s a handful of people in there.

Orr is outright deserted, save for the 20 people doing that stupid zerg, the low-level areas have maybe 6 people in them at a time.

Where are all these people you’re saying bought the game for no gear progression?

I’m on a high-population server and I’m certainly not seeing them.

Although the population density on the server screen is probably the most invalid thing I’ve seen in a very, very long time, there’s plenty of people still playing this game. It was built upon the same model as GW1, people have expected it to stay with that same model.

When you don’t get what you were promised and expect, you’re always going to be a bit put off.

Answer my question….where are they?

Christ, you seem to be like a hell bent child on this. The players are spread out across everything. sPvP, WvWvW, dungeons, as well as servers.

If you’re on Henge of Denravi I can assure you that although its shown as a high pop server, its far from that. I have no issues finding a metric kittenton of people in LA on Crystal Desert during prime time.

Azjenco.9425:

aocypher.9172:

But I’m on board with ascended gear matching a fully upgraded exotic, while having an infusion slot that is dungeon specific.

I like what your saying,

Keep the upgrade stats on them, but let the infusion mechanic allow you to deal with certain threats inside dungeons.

I actually was hoping that this is the route that the gear would take, that way that if we wanted the best gear for that dungeon, we could have it; yet it wouldn’t carry over anywhere else. The fact that it does, however, is the main thing that irks me.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Leiloni.7951:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

This is really a ridiculous analogy, as was said before…cars don’t get changed once purchased. Not to mention you’re crying like a little baby about a car that you haven’t even SEEN yet.

You’ll have to try something different.

You got many, MANY hours out of this game so far for 60 bucks. You are getting free content added monthly. You are not paying a monthly fee. You have gotten more for 60 bucks than any game without a subscription that I can remember in a long, long time.

Okay since you seem to not understand anything I’ve said, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Hell, I’ll even use a video ANet produced.
Guild Wars 2 Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

They are changing a basic principle that they built the game upon, and they promised to deliver. What a lot of people, including myself, were expecting.

Why? Likely for money.
Is that evil? I would call it so. You may not, but I do.

Yes, imagine that. A software company wants to make money so they can produce more content.

Shocking, really.

Except the only reason they sold so many copies initially was because we all bought into the marketing hype. We bought that game, not this new game. What makes them think adding in gear progression will make them money, when the majority of their audience only bough the game because it had no gear progression?

Really? Stood around in Lions Arch lately? Seen many people? I’m on a high-population server and there’s a handful of people in there.

Orr is outright deserted, save for the 20 people doing that stupid zerg, the low-level areas have maybe 6 people in them at a time.

Where are all these people you’re saying bought the game for no gear progression?

I’m on a high-population server and I’m certainly not seeing them.

Although the population density on the server screen is probably the most invalid thing I’ve seen in a very, very long time, there’s plenty of people still playing this game. It was built upon the same model as GW1, people have expected it to stay with that same model.

Try looking in WvW, try in sPvP.

When you don’t get what you were promised and expect, you’re always going to be a bit put off.

Leiloni.7951:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

This is really a ridiculous analogy, as was said before…cars don’t get changed once purchased. Not to mention you’re crying like a little baby about a car that you haven’t even SEEN yet.

You’ll have to try something different.

You got many, MANY hours out of this game so far for 60 bucks. You are getting free content added monthly. You are not paying a monthly fee. You have gotten more for 60 bucks than any game without a subscription that I can remember in a long, long time.

Okay since you seem to not understand anything I’ve said, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Hell, I’ll even use a video ANet produced.
Guild Wars 2 Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

They are changing a basic principle that they built the game upon, and they promised to deliver. What a lot of people, including myself, were expecting.

Why? Likely for money.
Is that evil? I would call it so. You may not, but I do.

Yes, imagine that. A software company wants to make money so they can produce more content.

Shocking, really.

Except the only reason they sold so many copies initially was because we all bought into the marketing hype. We bought that game, not this new game. What makes them think adding in gear progression will make them money, when the majority of their audience only bough the game because it had no gear progression?

Exactly why people are in an outrage. This is not the game that they bought. It’s being turned into something completely different.

Thanks for entirely proving my point, by the way.

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

This is really a ridiculous analogy, as was said before…cars don’t get changed once purchased. Not to mention you’re crying like a little baby about a car that you haven’t even SEEN yet.

You’ll have to try something different.

You got many, MANY hours out of this game so far for 60 bucks. You are getting free content added monthly. You are not paying a monthly fee. You have gotten more for 60 bucks than any game without a subscription that I can remember in a long, long time.

Okay since you seem to not understand anything I’ve said, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Hell, I’ll even use a video ANet produced.
Guild Wars 2 Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

They are changing a basic principle that they built the game upon, and they promised to deliver. What a lot of people, including myself, were expecting.

Why? Likely for money.
Is that evil? I would call it so. You may not, but I do.

Yes, imagine that. A software company wants to make money so they can produce more content.

Shocking, really.

You seem to be stuck on the “content” and not the promise of what would be delivered. But hey, have fun playing a game that you can’t guarantee will be in a year what it is now if the developers won’t stand by what they say they will and won’t do.

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

This is really a ridiculous analogy, as was said before…cars don’t get changed once purchased. Not to mention you’re crying like a little baby about a car that you haven’t even SEEN yet.

You’ll have to try something different.

You got many, MANY hours out of this game so far for 60 bucks. You are getting free content added monthly. You are not paying a monthly fee. You have gotten more for 60 bucks than any game without a subscription that I can remember in a long, long time.

Okay since you seem to not understand anything I’ve said, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. Hell, I’ll even use a video ANet produced.
Guild Wars 2 Manifesto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

They are changing a basic principle that they built the game upon, and they promised to deliver. What a lot of people, including myself, were expecting.

Why? Likely for money.
Is that evil? I would call it so. You may not, but I do.

Shayde.2564:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Basically my belief is that they saw how many people their game attracted, pulled a Blizzard and got money hungry, and are now trying to keep them playing.

WoW = subscription model
GW2 = microtransaction model

Until they offer items and services that players actually want to pay for, they will not make money off of it. This gear change does nothing but piss off their core audience.

Yes, but with more armor sets, more items that have to be forged, etc. the more likely someone is to hit the cash shop for forge items, gold or transmutation stones.

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Rhyse.8176:

It takes months to develop new MMO content; there’s no way that this could have been done in response to a recent change in server traffic. It’s been planned for a long time.

If you check the gw2db website, the Yakkington items have already been in there.

No they’re not.

I actually saw Yakkington armor in there that wasn’t in game. So.

See screenshots. No Yakkington stuff in there.

Then I have no clue where I saw it, but I know for a fact I did beforehand.
Oh, I just found it on the wiki. That’s where it was when I was looking for skins.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Yakkington%27s_armor

That’s an Exotic armor set, not Ascended. It’s an existing set of gear named after a famous GW character. There are a number of such sets:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armor_set#Named_armor_sets

But its not in the game, yet the Ascended items share the same name. That’s what my assumption was.

Shootsfoot.9276:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Horrible analogy, but I will humor you. First off, I test drove the car myself, I researched the car myself. I then bought the car and then drove it for 50k miles.

Now I’m to expect the dealer to take it back because there’s a new model with better features and other people can get it?

…how is that even remotely similar to this?
Really.

We were lied to about where this game was going to be taken.
Let’s put it this way. You go to your car dealer, you test drive a car but want a different color, so you pay for it and order one. When your car comes in, its not what you ordered.
How would you react?

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Rhyse.8176:

It takes months to develop new MMO content; there’s no way that this could have been done in response to a recent change in server traffic. It’s been planned for a long time.

If you check the gw2db website, the Yakkington items have already been in there.

No they’re not.

I actually saw Yakkington armor in there that wasn’t in game. So.

See screenshots. No Yakkington stuff in there.

Then I have no clue where I saw it, but I know for a fact I did beforehand.
Oh, I just found it on the wiki. That’s where it was when I was looking for skins.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Yakkington%27s_armor

AcidicVision.5498:

Expired, it’s to the point now you aren’t just expressing an opinion, you are jumping to wild conclusions based on a quote that you are interpreting in a twisted way to validate your theories. No other person that read that article is interpreting it that way. Context. And reading comprehension. Keywords for the day.

Common sense dude, if they are introducing the first level of infusions (offensive BTW, the bit of that you are leaving out) and rings and back slots…whats the next level or “progression”? Let me help…that would be maybe boots, and gloves, and the offensive infusions. After that…perhaps chest armor, and pants, and omni infusions?

The section of the article is about the ascended armor and infusion upgrades. She is indicating the roll out of the rest of the set. She isn’t talking about the uber-armor coming 2 years down the road that has nothing at all to do with this update.

They’ve already said that up to “fine” level infusions will be available upon the release of the patch, with adding in masterwork and upwards later on. You will be required to grind for those infusions.

That. Is a treadmill.

Leiloni.7951:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Rhyse.8176:

It takes months to develop new MMO content; there’s no way that this could have been done in response to a recent change in server traffic. It’s been planned for a long time.

If you check the gw2db website, the Yakkington items have already been in there.

No they’re not.

I actually saw Yakkington armor in there that wasn’t in game. So.

Shootsfoot.9276:

Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?

So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?

Rhyse.8176:

It takes months to develop new MMO content; there’s no way that this could have been done in response to a recent change in server traffic. It’s been planned for a long time.

If you check the gw2db website, the Yakkington items have already been in there.

Auesis.7301:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

“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.”

I see no part of this quote that implies any tiers beyond Ascended. At all.

Really? So saying that they will “build upon the levels of item progression”, key word being levels, means nothing to you?

Let me clarify with a word you used. Look at definition 3
tier
1 ? ?[teer] Show IPA
noun
1.
one of a series of rows or ranks rising one behind or above another, as of seats in an amphitheater, boxes in a theater, guns in a man-of-war, or oars in an ancient galley.
2.
one of a number of galleries, as in a theater.
3.
a layer; level; stratum: The wedding cake had six tiers. All three tiers of the firm’s management now report to one director.

Loumy.7841:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Basically my belief is that they saw how many people their game attracted, pulled a Blizzard and got money hungry, and are now trying to keep them playing.

And the long term consequences will be that in the end, these dungeon loving players will move onto the next conventional MMO – and GW2 will be an unauthentic brand that sold out.

Which is pretty much what’s going to happen.

Basically my belief is that they saw how many people their game attracted, pulled a Blizzard and got money hungry, and are now trying to keep them playing.

AcidicVision.5498:

She is talking specifically about the rest of the infused set. Everyone has already come to that conclusion. If you haven’t noticed, most of us have been discussing full level armor bonuses vs. full infused gear for the last 15 or so posts.

You can safely delete your spamming double quote non-sense from my thread. Kplzthx.

Right, and I see nowhere in there that it talks about the “rest of the set”, but instead where it talks about building upon the levels of the set.
You seem to love trying to tell everyone to read, yet can’t do it yourself.

AcidicVision.5498:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

One of the major selling points they made with this game was in their manifesto, trying to not copy things from other games because they wanted to be different. Now they’re completely throwing that out the window in an attempt to keep a larger portion of the players busy.

You may be fine with developers trying something that they said they wouldn’t do, but I however, am not.

And that was the entire reason I made this post. In the last day I have heard people saying this content patch was rushed out to give people something to do.

But the SF patch also came out within months of launch. And as far as features go, they are nearly identical. New area that leads to new dungeon with new gear and new enemies that have their own mini story. The blue prints are the same!

This was not a reactionary move to dump out content, it’s the same kitten thing they did before.

Some people cannot see the correlation between adding a perfect unmodifiable item that could be easily obtained, and a higher base stat unmodifiable item that is difficult to obtain. But I promise it’s there. 10/10 software engineers, 50% of which play GW2, agree. If I just had a white board to draw some of you a picture…

Ascended now doesn’t mean another tier of Closer to the Stars is coming next. Just like greens didn’t usher in magenta super weapons. The Ascended junk will roll out slowly along side new stuff, probably an expansion that introduces the Mursaat if they don’t make an appearance before that, and that will likely be the last core gear change we see besides new weapons.

I’ll just keep spamming this quote everywhere, since it seems that people have overlooked it entirely.

""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.""

Suddenflame.2601:

Its not a gear trendmill guys really. The gear is fitting in right between Exotic and Legendary. The goal of this was due to the “Legendary wall” that people kept smashing their faces into. There was such a gap between Legendary and Exotic it was a hindsight by Anet. They didnt think people would hit the wall as fast as they did so they are adding the new tier to relieve some of the tension and make people believe that they are progressing. The armour (when it comes out) will be less useful then exotics in PVP and WvW due to the lack of status effects other then defending against agony which is a PVE only condition. So whats the problem with them fixing a design mistake they made when making the tiers. Whats the difference if they had added the tier before launch? And its not a gear trendmill for the people who have legendary already cause they already have the top gear. A gear trendmill suggests a even stronger tier then the top tier already. Which isnt true considering Legendary is still the top tier.

I’m sorry, but this alludes to 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.”

Its people that allow a developer to not stand by their promises that have made it the norm for a dev to completely change what their game was meant to be after its released.

Just use Fraps to take your screenshots.

xarallei.4279:

Yeah, because they are going to just stop at that. Sure. You have to be bloody delusional to think that. It’s not going to stop here. It’s only going to get worse. People are angry because they were sold a game without a gear treadmill. Anet said over and over again there wouldn’t be one. Now they are turning their backs on that philosophy.

Now I have to worry about how when I come back form an absence (usually work related) I have to play catch up. One of the main draws was that you don’t have to worry about that crap. End level gear is accessible to all. The leet rare gear is grindy, but totally optional because it has equivalent stats to the normal end gear. That’s how it should work. Now they are adding ascended armor and sticking it in dungeons of all places.

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success#more-8572

The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too. – Colin Johanson

---

“Those who don’t are JUST as powerful”. Only that’s not the case now. Now you need to grind to be just as powerful. Cause that’s what WvW people really want to do. Grind Dungeons. -_-

And now this, taken from the latest dev blog
“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.”

That alludes to the intention of a gear treadmill.

Cleopatra.4068:

Yup. I looked at em. There is a 3% difference to magic find, a 5 point difference to power, and a 5 point difference to precision, which, depending on your overall trait and equipment setup, could make anywhere from a completely undiscernable difference to a barely discernable difference. Or you could just get legendaries like you originally planned and ignore the new equipment, thus making it all irrelevant since legendaries are going to be adjusted to match…..thus making the whole argument irrelevant…..

I’ll post this for you again, since you seem to have overlooked it a second time

“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.”

That leaves the room for them to add more tiers of gear, and it also strongly implies that they’re considering it.

Serpenti.6753:

Don’t let these few whining posters ruin the plans for the future of GW2.

To the forum QQ’s – No one is forcing you to get this new ‘slightly’ better gear. You will still be able to do 100% of what everyone else is doing whether you choose to get complete this new content or not, so seriously just because you choose to not be on board with one update doesn’t justify a forum uproar, the patch is coming so start dealing with it. Wipe your eyes and move on. I bet you all are the same people that QQ on the forums about there being no end game, guess what here is Anet’s solution to giving you more end game, and what do you do, you freaking cry! No game is going to push out updates that you 100% agree with, so start adding your critiques in a supportive fashion. Not QQQQQQQQQQ.

People are in an outrage, not because its a change, but because its a change that was promised would never happen.

dimgl.4786:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

Latinkuro.9420:

I’m a casual player and even I have 4 crafted exotic sets, 1 dungeon armor set, full compliment of exotic weapons usable by my profession, world completion is at 56% only.

Ascended gear is welcomed with open arms, people complain about gear hamster wheel but they do not see that ascended gear is just in between exotic and legendary, now if they add something like godly armor as higher than legendary THAT right there would be a gear hamster wheel.

Most of the people complaining, I see them as the part of the player base that never even touched guild wars 1 and have no idea about infused armor, how it works and how it is NOT part of a gear hamster wheel.

“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.”

I would call that a treadmill.

Sounds like a treadmill, looks like a treadmill, feels like a treadmill. Probably is a treadmill.

And for this reason, I will very likely no longer be playing the game. There’s a couple of other games coming out soon that are much more unique than GW2 is, and I have lost all desire to stick with this game now.

AcidicVision.5498:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

What did hoping get us? We hoped that they would stay true to their word. 3 months later they do exactly what they said they wouldn’t.
At the rate things are going, I wouldn’t put it past them. This is the fastest I’ve ever seen a dev throw their ideals out the window to attempt to retain players.

Exactly the reason that I no longer have any desire to stick with this game.

Go back and read your golden rules. Particularly the bit about raking risks, trying to things, and seeing what will work and what won’t instead of just not trying anything at all.

This implementation might blur two principles. But that has to be expected when your design philosophy essentially has one bit that says “we will never do this” and another that says “we are willing to give anything a try”.

So they kept a promise and broke one at the same time. Worth being conflicted over? Yes. Worth tossing out the baby with the bathwater before you have even actually seen the baby? No.

There’s a difference in taking a risk and trying something and doing something you said you wouldn’t. One of the major selling points they made with this game was in their manifesto, trying to not copy things from other games because they wanted to be different. Now they’re completely throwing that out the window in an attempt to keep a larger portion of the players busy.

You may be fine with developers trying something that they said they wouldn’t do, but I however, am not.

Latinkuro.9420:

I’m a casual player and even I have 4 crafted exotic sets, 1 dungeon armor set, full compliment of exotic weapons usable by my profession, world completion is at 56% only.

Ascended gear is welcomed with open arms, people complain about gear hamster wheel but they do not see that ascended gear is just in between exotic and legendary, now if they add something like godly armor as higher than legendary THAT right there would be a gear hamster wheel.

Most of the people complaining, I see them as the part of the player base that never even touched guild wars 1 and have no idea about infused armor, how it works and how it is NOT part of a gear hamster wheel.

“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.”

I would call that a treadmill.

Cleopatra.4068:

“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. Our desire is to create a game that is more inclusive for hardcore and casual players alike, but we don’t want to overlook the basic need for players to feel like they are progressing and growing even after hitting max level. Adding item progression is a delicate process normally undertaken in an expansion, but we feel it’s important to strive to satisfy the basic needs of our players sooner rather than later.
We have always worked hard to create a sense of satisfying progression rather than gear grind and this new item progression initiative is no exception. By adding challenging new combat mechanics to end-game content and ways to mitigate those mechanics through gear progression for high-end players, we can add personal progression without making the game feel like an endless treadmill of gear that is just out of your reach.”

Yup, that is a direct copy and paste of the news story. I post it for 2 reasons:

1. Most of you DON’T SEEM TO HAVE ACTUALLY READ IT.

2. There WERE a LOT of people complaining on these forums about end game content. So….is the problem that people just were complaining because they like to complain, but didn’t actually want any changes made? Or are you just attempting to convince Arenanet that responding to your complaints will only cause those complaints to drastically escalate, thus making it more effective to ignore your complaints in the first place.

“Original Guild Wars fans may recognize that we took a familiar approach to our new progression. The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, which will be encountered in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and is mitigated by Infusions.
New Condition: Agony

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

Yup. That’s another direct copy and paste. I’m sure half of you didn’t read it upon being presented with it this time either. But if you could possibly try doing so, you might notice that the news post does seem to indicate that these additional gear items do seem to have a very limited scope. From MY reading of the preceding paragraph, I am understanding that the changes are going to add a new condition that only occurs in The Fractals of the Mist Dungeon, that adds a need for players to have equipment with an additional slot, and in order to compensate for this a new requirement, obtaining equipment which meets the requirement will provide a very small reward to the people who desire to go to the effort of obtaining it.

How does that create a treadmill? 1-2 numbers difference doesn’t REALLY make a difference to anyone except someone who is so uber-competitive about their stats that they are also the kind of person who will have managed to obtain the equipment within a day and a half of the release, and be back to complaining about there being no endgame content 5 minutes later.

Could you at least wait until the update drops to throw these high school prom queen broke a nail hystrionic personality disorder kittenfests?

Did you even look at those pictures comparing the two items?
The Ascended item is BETTER. You will be required to grind for it to get it. They even said they are “best in slot”.

Oh and by the way, that reading thing that you speak so highly of? Try it.
“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.”

AcidicVision.5498:

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

And how do you know that the infusions won’t give you those options that you have from runes?
Oh wait. You don’t.
Higher base stats with the potential to be customized through infusions is what we’re looking at now. Ascended items are better.

Ready for this…Im gonna do a magic trick…its this thing I have been telling everyone about in this thread for a while now. Its called reading…

“The stats and functionality normally added to gear through upgrade components are actually built into Ascended items. Instead of upgrade slots, Ascended gear has Infusion slots, and rarer versions of the items also come with additional Agony Resistance built into them.” – Linsey Murdock on November 13, 2012

Lest we forget, this is a gimmick added to deal with Agony. So, since everything in the first three pages of this thread is based on speculation anyways…it’s safer to speculate the infusions will give defensive/offensive bonuses to certain effects and the creatures that use them. Also, since the baked in stats are considered a replacement for “normal” upgrades, it would be unlikely that they would duplicate every existing rune.

So what is more believable? That Ascended armor is going to be a tier that is the equivalent of a piece of exotic armor that has a higher base + crest stats with a slot that provides rune + infused bonuses, or that its just another tier that falls between exotic and legendary and that higher baked in stats are the trade-off for not having rune bonuses or crest/jewel versatility?

If you are having trouble, just read that last bit out loud a few times and eliminate the option that sounds completely game-breaking a stupid! …Because that will probably be the one that’s wrong.

Or at least we all hope.

What did hoping get us? We hoped that they would stay true to their word. 3 months later they do exactly what they said they wouldn’t.
At the rate things are going, I wouldn’t put it past them. This is the fastest I’ve ever seen a dev throw their ideals out the window to attempt to retain players.

Exactly the reason that I no longer have any desire to stick with this game.

AcidicVision.5498:

Zefiris.8297:

That’s the thing: It doesn’t need to. The overall difference in power is bigger than 15% swiftness duration could ever hope to be. It’s not even close, in fact

And that’s an opinion. Which again comes back to the original post on how the game will change and how play styles will change. In dungeons in particular monster health pools are huge. And they either have an obscene toughness rating or encounters have mechanics that increase their toughness.

So what good does that extra power do you? How much of a difference is it actually making? It doesn’t matter. Because it still isn’t making as much of a difference as the person that is traited to stack conditions, and runed to increase their effectiveness and duration or augment them on crit.

Toughness. Is that toughness boost going to matter if you get caught multiple times by the Alpha’s AOE? Or how about the Lupicus projectiles? No. You know what would help you with those? 15% swiftness duration or invulnerability when hit below 25% health.

Their is an unhealthy fixation on numbers regarding this update that isn’t considering how the rest of the game works and that there is a point where trait points see diminishing returns on effectiveness, so slots are better used for complimentary effects.

And how do you know that the infusions won’t give you those options that you have from runes?
Oh wait. You don’t.
Higher base stats with the potential to be customized through infusions is what we’re looking at now. Ascended items are better.

Turtlemilk.1064:

fathamburger.8453:

ESO aka Elder Scrolls Online is coming next year… yes I’ll be in for future free updates but you might as well save your money since like most people.. I will not be buying your expansions just for a reason to grind more dungeons for more useless gear that will be replaced again and so forth.

http://ca.ign.com/videos/2012/11/08/the-elder-scrolls-online-gameplay-video

Yes, because that is exactly what ArenaNet said is going to happen.

Sigh.

ArenaNet stated they were going to release new infusions and types of ascended gear (all obviously the same tier). Honestly… why are you people acting so silly? The idiocracy burns so much I feel like you all must be trolling.

The idiocy that I see is in this post. Have you even looked at it? They compared an exotic level ring with an ascended level ring. Both magic find, ascended level had 5 stat points more to every stat, and 3% more magic find. If those numbers carry over to everything else, you’re going to be looking at roughly 100 more stat points for a full ascended set versus an exotic set. And that’s quite a difference.

The thing is, I’m entirely used to a developer not doing everything they promise.
But when a developer turns one of their LARGEST selling points to a game, then throws it out the window? kitten that.