Guild Wars 2

Poxheart.2845:

Keep in mind that these are previews and may not reflect the final patch.

I know, but if nobody voices and concerns then they might not take the time to reevaluate the changes they are proposing and just go ahead and implement them. Given their track record for nerfing professions into the ground, I am going to be very vocal about this. I don’t want the warrior to be the laughing stock of PvP/WvW(roaming) it once was.

I posted this in the official balance thread and the other balance thread but will add it here also.

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

This would pretty much render the hammer completely useless, especially if UF is moved to Master.

• Earthshaker already takes a damage reduction if you don’t have UF. I fear that nerfing it even more would make it very weak for an F1 skill (even less if burst mastery is also nerfed.)

• In order to get UF once it is moved to Master you need to sacrifice either Burst Mastery (extra damage), or Merciless Hammer (extrta control) or Cleansing Ire (extra survability).

• I can unerstand staggering blow being toned down a bit since it has become mobile and can actually hit something but -23% seems a little harsh.

I truly believe that all of this added together is overkill and will completely destroy the hammer warrior. Why not start with just the changes to UF and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed?

I posted this in the balance thread but will add it here also

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

This would pretty much render the hammer completely useless, especially if UF is moved to Master.

• Earthshaker already takes a damage reduction if you don’t have UF. I fear that nerfing it even more would make it very weak for an F1 skill (even less if burst mastery is also nerfed.)

• In order to get UF once it is moved to Master you need to sacrifice either Burst Mastery (extra damage), or Merciless Hammer (extrta control) or Cleansing Ire (extra survability).

• I can unerstand staggering blow being toned down a bit since it has become mobile and can actually hit something but -23% seems a little harsh.

I truly believe that all of this added together is overkill and will completely destroy the hammer warrior. Why not start with just the changes to UF and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed?

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

This would pretty much render the hammer completely useless, especially if UF is moved to Master.

• Earthshaker already takes a damage reduction if you don’t have UF. I fear that nerfing it even more would make it very weak for an F1 skill (even less if burst mastery is also nerfed.)

• In order to get UF once it is moved to Master you need to sacrifice either Burst Mastery (extra damage), or Merciless Hammer (extrta control) or Cleansing Ire (extra survability).

• I can unerstand staggering blow being toned down a bit since it has become mobile and can actually hit something but -23% seems a little harsh.

I truly believe that all of this added together is overkill and will completely destroy the hammer warrior. Why not start with just the changes to UF and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed.

be used to smash your face in.

I remember a troll fill up the keep with tons of balista on NSP once. We fought for 5 days without being able to use siege. This is why we can’t have nice things.

I don’t know if it they have been bad decisions or not. I might be part of a very small minority but the changes brought by the last couple of months have pretty much killed my motivation to play.

Caliban.3176:

Shonie.5297:

Caliban.3176:

Shonie.5297:

Caliban.3176:

The best suggestion I’ve seen here is to award less points for upgraded or long held structures. I know people in my guild have been advocating that for months and I still believe it would help a lot.

So you’re advocating playing absolutely no defense, inviting the enemy to come take your keep or tower, simply so you can flip it back right away to get back to scoring ‘the good points’?

No that would be a horrible strategy because you’d have to give the other team ‘the good points’ first. (never a good idea to help the enemy team) And even when you take it back your keep/tower is more vulnerable to be taken again.

I’m advocating that playing it safe shouldn’t be the most rewarding way to play. Hiding in a T3 keep and avoiding confrontations shouldn’t net you the most points.

Of course it should.
Either way, rewarding less points for holding structures does nothing to alleviate the population imbalance between servers, which is supposed to be the topic of this discussion.
ANet is reaching out and giving us an opportunity to discuss the population imbalance issue, not an open forum to discuss everything we’d like changed in WvW.
I’m not a moderator or anything, but it seems like people take any opportunity to put their 2 cents in, regardless of whether or not it pertains to the issue even being discussed.

On topic:
Separate WvW from PvE servers.
Create new worldwide WvW servers. No more NA and EU.
People would still have their PvE servers, but also belong to a WvW server.
So I would still be SBI for PvE, but I would also belong to a separate WvW server.
Create just enough servers that most worlds will be heavily populated at most hours. Adjust accordingly.
Won’t be perfectly balanced, but there will be far more parity than there is now, since it is impossible to perfectly balance WvW population. The best we can do is replicate what T1 NA is like for everyone. And that means not having like 5 or 6 out of 51 servers having decent coverage.

No it shouldn’t. High Risk, High Reward is pretty self balancing, Low Risk, High Reward obviously is not.

Also this is on topic. Because changes like this would indeed alleviate the effect of the population imbalance. So even if the imbalance is still there, it wouldn’t matter as much.

Also WvW is already pretty separated from WvW. Basically everyone has to choose a WvW server and that is set in stone unless you transfer but for PvE you can guest.

Devon has said that merging NA and EU is impossible.

I believe that in this context ’impossibl’e means “Very expensive and time consuming therefore we will not be doing that.” To bad cause it would fix the whole population problems. It would double the amount of servers so you could divide the leagues into segments that have lower population disparity. During the normal match ups you would have a bigger pool of adversaries to be matched against increasing the chance of balanced match ups. NA and EU guilds would be able to play in each others off time but still be able to PvE with there friends. You could have an intercontinental tournament where all Us servers play against EU servers in there respective tiers. There would be so many advantages to not having them separated but I disgress.

We were asked for our opinion and world population/coverage imbalance is the biggest issue on our list. It has nothing to do with the score. Many of us could not care less about it. It’s about not getting constantly steam rolled. You say morale has an effect of WvW participation and that is absolutely true, what is the point in even logging in when you are constantly getting crushed over and over and over all night long? What is the point in spending hours to build up fortifications and defenses when the blob comes and destroys it in 1 min? I played on servers that were outmanned every night for weeks and months at a time. Population imbalance is a big problem for anyone not playing in the top 3. There are many great suggestions of how to correct it or mitigate it’s effects in this thread. Since this is a discussion maybe you (by you I mean the Devs) can tell us what could work and what couldn’t and why? Cause at the moment we have been doing all the talking.

DevonCarver.5370:

ferra.9867:

I still think that 24h coverage is the main issue and the solution is to merge american and european servers, so we should have more 24h coverage servers and more fun matchups, at least the golden league servers must have all a 24h coverage.

While an interesting idea, merging EU and NA servers is a technical impossibility. They have to remain separated.

I never understood why you guys set up the servers in a manner that segregates the player base in such a way and limits development potential. Cause having them merged would go a long way to fix the WvW coverage and it would be one less problem for your to solve giving you time to fix other things that are broken.

beauty of wine.5879:

The world population. I believe that the PVE areas are fine.

The WvW areas struggle with the issue. The Solution lies in a Rotation. The League turned into a LADDER’s qualifying match, WHICH is what we already have.

If you want a true league, then there has to be complete rotation. A v B v C : D v E v F :G v H v I :Then A v D v G :B v E v H :C v F v I and so on until all Worlds have faced off.

Yes that will leave some pawnage. This is where ANET can apply the bonus points to the lower rated servers.

The T1 teams will earn normal to -8% bonus based on the tier of the opponents. The T8 Teams will receive normal to +8% bonus on xp, karma, gold, and drops.

One other solution is a making the home base penetrable. If the Home Area is attacked and captured, that Team is sacked as a Server for a set time. Their forces could not return to their home castle for a minimal buff period where the sacked home is (Rebuilt) restored. Nothing more than 15 minutes.

On a Side note, The ENTIRE ANET World Population says QUIT DROPPING DANDELIONS from harvested plants. No one likes it when their character starts sneezing from allergies!!!

There Can Be only ONE, and that one is WINE.

Having points buff and debuff depending on server strength is fine but people don’t go to WvW for points. At least, it isn’t the main driving force motivating them. They go to have some good fighting. There is no good fighting when you are getting pawned and there is no good fighting when you are doing the pawning. Trying to encourage PvErs to join the fight by dangling a carrot is not going to work. Those people are not interested in PvP. They need to find a way to spread out the WvW people across all worlds instead of having them stack in the top 3. There have been some really good suggestions on how to do that. Whether Anet will take those into consideration, well lets just say my faith is a little shaken from the recent updates.

Funny how warrior used to be a very difficult class to master despite the simple mechanics (PvP, WvW). We were a “lol look another free kill” for so long that those who stuck with it got real good in order to win. Now that we got buffed those that did stick with it are just crushing those who used to lolz stomp us. Now they flood the forums with “OMG OP PLZ NERF I WANT MY EZ KILLZ BACK” threads.

I will admit that the warrior has become strong but I don’t think it is OP. I still get my kitten handed to me by some good players. You just have to work a little harder for your kill.

Ricky.4706:

you could actually use spvp to test builds, the problem is they have different stats – and the strategy is completely different – but still can be used to tweak defense vs offense builds.

For example…as a mesmer, I’m backline – and spvp is very closed quarters – but all the same i can test different runes that would normally cost me 60 gold ( ie travelers ) to get a max balance of defense and offense – without leaving myself penniless to test a build. It’s still not the same as being on the top of a tower fighting at a distance though – but better than nothing.

It’s fine to test builds with sPvP or even easy to get exotics or rares. The problem lies in when you find a new perfect build you have to go out and grind a whole new set of Ascended if you want BiS. That is the deterrent, you spend all this time gearing up your main build, now you have to repeat the same annoying process all over again for Alts and Alt builds. When it was just exotics, you could test a build if you liked it you could have it BiS in a week or less with no grinding involved. Now, with ascended it could take months.

Being an avid WvWer with a PvP heart you run with nothing but BiS no matter how miniscule the difference is. 5-10% more damage is not negligible. Sure, the nature of WvW tends to be unbalanced but with 5-10% more damage you can flip a camp, or tower 5-10% faster. It can mean the difference between capping SM with the enemy zerg outside the wall or having them crashing your party in the lord room cause you were 5-10% less powerful. A stat advantage is an advantage no matter how many other imbalances there are and anyone convinced of the opposite needs to learn some basic math.

Does that justify it being removed? No but Anet should be implementing other ways of getting that gear.

Jgr.8765:

Thanks for doing this.

Looking at numbers, I think you need to separate a matchup in reset, weekend, day of week sections. Also, you have to take into account whether a server is losing / winning (or 2nd).

I like this idea and really thought this is what they would have implemented back when they rolled out WXP when they were talking about giving WVW players short term objectives.

As for population imbalance, there is no quick fix. The problem was created over months of neglect and will take some time to fix if it is at all possible. I would start by not fixing the queues. This will force people to migrate to lower tiers, I know many will hate me for saying this but that is the price you pay for stacking (sorry for those that have been there since the beginning, it really sucks to be you). I’m sure you have all the info on average WvW daily and weekly population. Make that available information to us and give free transfers to those with the lowest percentages.

The bloodlust buff might have been a great idea on paper to help lower servers make up points and turn the battle around but in practice has only made the stronger server with the biggest numbers have an even greater advantage over the weaker ones. When your server is getting zergged and you can’t even hold a tower in your borderlands, how are you supposed to use that buff to your advantage.

The outnumbered buff is utterly useless except for the free armor repair. Why not having it buff up your guards and lord and mercs (scale them to the size of the enemy blob) so that those NPCs can actually help instead of being free WXP. Do the same for siege.

Don’t know how much work it would be but remove the separation between EU and NA. That way people from both sides can migrate and everyone could have a decent around the clock coverage.

Make ascended weapons and armor available through laurels and badges.

When I find a player to be offensive I block them and report.

Talissa Chan.7208:

Champ train = $$, unless the DE match the $$ you can just ignore them and buy the mats anyway (planks and ingots aren’t acct bound, next mats will most likely be the same)

Given the direction they have taken with Ascended weapons I’m willing to bet that those new mats will be account bound and you will have no choice but go out there and play the part of the game that you have no interest in doing.

Andrew Clear.1750:

Julie Yann.5379:

Hopefully never

Aren’t you a downer.

I am loving season 1. Hope season 2 isn’t too far away.

I’ll admit that I am, the updates from Sept-Oct have pretty much killed the game for me. Now I spend my time on the forums voicing my discontent until the next graphically pleasing MMO with RvR comes out or until Anet fixes their screw up. Maybe I should have said “Hopefully not until they fix what is wrong with it.” (probably never)

BBMouse.6510:

risenlord.2035:

Julie Yann.5379:

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

^
this is a great idea. It would really free up a lot of space having multiple sets of gear for each of your alts plus whatever else is in your bank ends up being a huge pain. Not having to pick and choose what I need to throw away would be great.

Might not technically be possible since skins with heavy, mid, and light armors do not mix. If it’s indeed possible, it means a lot of previous art works for the skins will be laid to waste. Cross your finger

I don’t think you could mix between heavy, ,medium, light but you could at least share the same weapons and trinkets.

Solypsys.1876:

The new, queue-less map has already been announced. I don’t know why you’re still crying.

It’s not only for WvW. I remember waiting hours on OF to get on the main map for Teq. It would have been nice having an audio notification instead of just staring a the screen.

Yeah I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t implemented from launch and can’t believe that after a year it still isn’t t in the game. This isn’t the first thread I have seen asking for this.

Andrew Clear.1750:

Ricky.4706:

if wvw was expected and intended to be unbalanced, then why add a score ?
- from this perspective the best score represents the most dysfunctional and delusional groups that insist on placing value on the score.

Perhaps it was part of a psychological experiment ?

“Let’s play a game of “How Stupid are you ?” … this is a hammer, and that’s your hand….every time you bash your hand you will scream in agony and score a point…….50 points will get you a brand new shiny set of bandages….the first 3 people to get 50 points will also get a bonus prize of salt to place on your wounds!! …..Ready?? Go!!"

You add a score so that everyone can contribute, 24/7. Seriously, the game still exists when you are logged off. Do those players, the ones that are playing when you aren’t, not exist? Should they not have a say in the score, just like you do when they aren’t playing?

Again, the coverage is the issue that people complain about. You just need more of the people who play at that time, to play in WvW.

If they would’ve setup the servers like FFXI did, which had no regional servers, then the coverage issue wouldn’t be so bad. All servers would have a nice NA presence, EU presence, and SEA / Oceanic presence.

I always hated the fact that server were divided between NA and EU and the 2 can’t mix. I’m sure a lot of EU people would W3 on an NA server and vice versa if they had the ability to go back and play PvE with their EU friends on EU servers and vice versa. Everyone could have around the clock coverage.

Andrew Clear.1750:

Julie Yann.5379:

Samhayn.2385:

The “fairness” of wvw comes from the simple fact every server has access to the same thing.

you can’t balance a three way fight, be it servers, factions and guilds. Mainly because you can’t make people show up and fight. Well people like to blame others for stacking, really that’s a lame excuse. You can’t blame people who enjoy wvw and fighting in wvw for moving to servers where they will always have a fight.

Don’t blame the guys who moved, blame the ones that paid them to do it and the ones that designed it.

Don’t blame anyone. It was their decision to move. Whatever happened to freedom of choice?

I don’t blame them for moving. If someone was going to pay me to move I probably would too. Apparently there is no such thing as honor or server pride anymore. Were nothing more than meat for hire. Needless to say that all the recruiting that the top 3 have done has stripped many of the lower teirs of their WvW guilds (and individual players) further increasing the disparity in server coverage between worlds. The fact that Anet doesn’t seem to give a kitten is what really bothers a lot of people. We are not looking for a perfectly fair and balanced cause that is impossible give the nature of the game. Something other than ROFL Stomp or get ROFL Stomped is what the people complaining want. Amazing challenging battles against forces that aren’t ridiculously overpower or pathetically undermanned is what we are after but Anet can’t seem to deliver.

Samhayn.2385:

The “fairness” of wvw comes from the simple fact every server has access to the same thing.

you can’t balance a three way fight, be it servers, factions and guilds. Mainly because you can’t make people show up and fight. Well people like to blame others for stacking, really that’s a lame excuse. You can’t blame people who enjoy wvw and fighting in wvw for moving to servers where they will always have a fight.

Don’t blame the guys who moved, blame the ones that paid them to do it and the ones that designed it.

gvaughn.4163:

why would they care when they are making so much in gems?

when the next decent mmo with rvr comes out people are going to leave this game in the dust.

Many of us already have and are playing somehting else while waiting for the next decent MMO with RvR.

if you want some alt friendliness just get rid of the Soulbound on use and leave it to account bound. There are many pieces that could be shared with your alts instead of wasting time grinding out copies of the sames thing.

There was a time when Fractals were very rewarding but they nerfed it. Even though they won’t admit to doing it.

SpehssMehreen.5897:

Julie Yann.5379:

I’m from SoS and yeah, seasons suck kitten I hated the way matchup were since they added the randomness to it cause it made really unbalanced matches but with season 1 we are stuck at the bottom of Gold League with only Magunma that we can really compete with for the next 6 weeks. If ascended wasn’t enough to completely turn me away from the game, this bullkitten is.

Did you know your server just got is getting 2 large WvW oriented guilds? perhaps even more to come that you can just leech off?

I did not know that, thanks for letting me know and for your information I am not a leech. Over the past year I have spent hundreds and hundreds of gold on siege and upgrades. I pull my weight and more. I like fighting fair fights, by fair I mean close matchups which is something that Anet doesn’t seem to have a clue about how to do. I am glad that SoS is getting a couple of WvW guilds, hope they are NA cause that’s where they need it most, but it’s a little too late for me. I have lost all faith in Anet and will be taking a long break until I either start agreeing with the direction they are taking the game in or they start taking the game in a direction I agree with. It’s to bad, I really really enjoyed this game up until september when it became clear to me the vision Anet has for GW2 is not what I want to play.

I’m from SoS and yeah, seasons suck kitten I hated the way matchup were since they added the randomness to it cause it made really unbalanced matches but with season 1 we are stuck at the bottom of Gold League with only Magunma that we can really compete with for the next 6 weeks. If ascended wasn’t enough to completely turn me away from the game, this bullkitten is.

I would have like for ascended to not exist but it is here and it is here to stay. Just remove the time gating on the crafting. That alone will help alleviate the annoyance of it. Those that can’t play everyday can binge on weekends and make up for lost time.

The fact is that a stat advantage is still and advantage no matter what otther imbalances there are on the field or how noticable you think it is. It is still 5-10% more damage, that is not insignificant.

deathTouch.9706:

Rednik.3809:

a t s e.9614:

Shout build is terrible. You give up on nearly 50% damage to get a little 2k heal per shout.

Yet your role in organized raid require shout heals. This is really good sustain and condi clearing instrument. Damage is not your problem.

Support staff guard is better.

Shout heal build for war is basically for people who don’t want to level a guard or level and learn/have the skill to play an ele but still want to play the support role.

Sorry for the double post. I had a PVT soldier rune healing shout hammer build for commanding back when I used to had the time to do so. Sure guardian or ele is better at support is was still very effective at keeping my zerg alive and cleansed. as well as giving offensive boons. It worked rather well.

Flissy.4093:

Julie Yann.5379:

Agreed 0/10/30/0/30 is probably the best hammer trait set up. I got a 0/10/30/0/30 Hammer/Sw-SH build with a mix of kinghts pvt armor (melandru runes) with cavalier/zerker trinkets. Very tough, great in small groups or zergs, very strong burst damage, decent mobility. Not so great 1v1 against certain classes with certain builds. I swap shield for warhorn so that the lemmings can keep up (why can they trait their own movement speed?) but once I get close to the fight I switch back to shield.

Warhorn is pretty handy for removing the cripple/immob/chilled when you’re getting out of dodge. Call to arms helps with the might stacks when stacking too.

I know , but the shield suits my playstyle much better ( just seem too fair better when fighting with the shield vs warhorn.) My build already has a lot of condi removal, melandru helps with CC. Stability and shield block makes me pretty immune to everything. Also the shield gives my 1 extra stun to keep my opponent locked down while I crush him. I usually do try to get out of dodge, I like fighting to the bitter end even if I know it means death.

WvW used to be so good until Anet started trying to fix it. Now it is so kittened it isn’t even funny. I have lost all faith in their ability to make a great fun and interesting open world PvP environment. The idea of leagues was good, how they went about it is completely kittened and just creates a great server imbalance. Great job on screwing the pooch.

Galen Grey.4709:

Julie Yann.5379:

WvW ranks don’t give any advantge over other players in combat unless siege is involve.

Ironically siege are way more important then players. WvW is about capturing points and holding them. Siege are a much MUCH MUCH bigger factor in that then any one player’s survival. Yet we’re defending sieges but saying the small miniscule issue that barely has any bearing should go.

Seems to me people keep seeing WvW as some sort of player vs player combat system. It is not that, WvW is about capturing and holding points.

Edit: What I mean is the more stuff affects capturing and holding points the more it should be important when talking about issues with WvW. How can sieges be less important or something that can safely be dismissed when they’re orders of magnitute more important then players which is what ascended gear effects?

But siege doesn’t require ridiculous amounts of mats or a crafting level of 500 to make. They are very easily available to everyone.

eisberg.2379:

haviz.1340:

Dragonite ore and time gating are the sources of most complains.

which is kind of funny, One can get 339-445 Dragonite Ore from doing one 1 of each of the fights/activities that drop them, and the time gating is what 5 days total?

Cause watching a boss spawn timer and robotically going from one to the next is very interesting gameplay? I brought my weaponssmith up to level 500 and crafted 1 Ascended weapon, it was very tedious and mind numbing and took me over 2 weeks. In 1 or 2 hours or less per gaming session (which is what most can allow for play time) there is now way you can do a full round of all the boss. If all you can do is play is a couple hours serveral times a week, the way the boss timers are set up, you will fight the same 3 or 4 pretty much every time. I know, I have done it. Your play sessions are reduced to running 4 or 5 of the shortest fastest dungeon, catching whatever boos of temple is up in your window and crafting your daily, farming whatever other mats like metals and wood (some of which are quite expensive.) No, ascended gear is nothing but a monotonous grind especially if you have multiple builds and alts.

eisberg.2379:

Julie Yann.5379:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

Provide proof of them saying they were not going to introduce any new tiers after the start of the game.

I would, but I can’t, because they removed the content after the ascended gear fiasco to hide the fact that they broke their word.

But here’s the link for you, enjoy!

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

http://web.archive.org/web/20120709210637/http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

There you go, and now point to me where in that article they stated there would be no new tier of gear when the game starts? Cause I read it, and it does not say that at all, doesn’t even talk about gear at all.

Ok sure, they never explicitly stated “WE WILL NOT PUT IN NEW TIERS OF GEAR”. But they were constantly saying “there will be no gear grind!” That was deliberately misleading, and GW1 fans were obviously expected that to interpret that as “no new gear tiers”. They certainly made sure we can never trust them again about not putting things in the game we don’t want.

Enjoy this thread about what people initially thought about ascended gear. Lots of people felt betrayed. It’s clear they got their “no gear grind” message across. It’s equally clear it was a straight-up lie.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/first

I’ll put a few good examples here.

Less than three months in, and the power creep begins. WTK*, guys? I though the end game was suppose to be about having fun and chasing cosmetics, not grinding out gear upgrades.

*what the kitten

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

Yea I read that and was like “oh… no… no no no no for kitten’s sake no”.
I don’t know why would they do that but… I don’t know. It makes no sense, they basically driven all the people that wanted the gear treadmill away from GW2, and IMHO it’s a good thing. And now that? Seems kinda weird.
Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see… But I’m watching you aNet. Please, don’t go off and brake my heart.

(We all know how that turned out. Heart broken.)

Did they lie, or is it simply a difference of opinion of what a gear grind is? What a grind is absolutely going to be a matter of opinion. Yours and others opinion differ than Anets and others opinion.

Kill these same meta bosses over and over again to collect 500 of this. Run these same dungeons over and over again to collect 500 of that. Run the champ train for a while to collect 500 of those. Now you either farm gold to buy the wood and metals or go scour the countryside to farm nodes over and over again to get a bunch of everything else. Remember to craft some pieces everyday cause you can only craft 1 a day and in 5 (if you have no life) days you will get 1 ascended weapon. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. Nope, doesn’t sound like a grind at all.

Considering that at minimum you can get 339-445 Dragonite ores by doing each boss/activity that gives them as rewards 1 time each. That is not a grind at all. Getting the other 500 each of the others are easy to get as well, you’ll get the majority of them by just doing what gives them 1 time each.

Maybe not to you or hardcores but to me and many casuals it is. Just getting your crafting 500 is a huge grind.

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

Provide proof of them saying they were not going to introduce any new tiers after the start of the game.

I would, but I can’t, because they removed the content after the ascended gear fiasco to hide the fact that they broke their word.

But here’s the link for you, enjoy!

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

http://web.archive.org/web/20120709210637/http://www.arena.net/blog/the-golden-rules-of-guild-wars-2

There you go, and now point to me where in that article they stated there would be no new tier of gear when the game starts? Cause I read it, and it does not say that at all, doesn’t even talk about gear at all.

Ok sure, they never explicitly stated “WE WILL NOT PUT IN NEW TIERS OF GEAR”. But they were constantly saying “there will be no gear grind!” That was deliberately misleading, and GW1 fans were obviously expected that to interpret that as “no new gear tiers”. They certainly made sure we can never trust them again about not putting things in the game we don’t want.

Enjoy this thread about what people initially thought about ascended gear. Lots of people felt betrayed. It’s clear they got their “no gear grind” message across. It’s equally clear it was a straight-up lie.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/first

I’ll put a few good examples here.

Less than three months in, and the power creep begins. WTK*, guys? I though the end game was suppose to be about having fun and chasing cosmetics, not grinding out gear upgrades.

*what the kitten

And the gear grind starts… Time to find another game it seems

Yea I read that and was like “oh… no… no no no no for kitten’s sake no”.
I don’t know why would they do that but… I don’t know. It makes no sense, they basically driven all the people that wanted the gear treadmill away from GW2, and IMHO it’s a good thing. And now that? Seems kinda weird.
Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see… But I’m watching you aNet. Please, don’t go off and brake my heart.

(We all know how that turned out. Heart broken.)

Did they lie, or is it simply a difference of opinion of what a gear grind is? What a grind is absolutely going to be a matter of opinion. Yours and others opinion differ than Anets and others opinion.

Kill these same meta bosses over and over again to collect 500 of this. Run these same dungeons over and over again to collect 500 of that. Run the champ train for a while to collect 500 of those. Now you either farm gold to buy the wood and metals or go scour the countryside to farm nodes over and over again to get a bunch of everything else. Remember to craft some pieces everyday cause you can only craft 1 a day and in 5 (if you have no life) days you will get 1 ascended weapon. Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. Nope, doesn’t sound like a grind at all.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Julie Yann.5379:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DocHolliday.5921:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The point you’re missing is that there is no real advantage in WvW.

No, you’re ignoring the fact that there is. You have no point.

So back to the topic. Ascended gear has better stats than Exotic gear, but there’s no advantage to the player who wears Ascended gear. The only numbers that matter are the amount of opponents you face on the battlefield.

That has been factually proven false. Over. And over. And over. STOP LYING.

On paper, sure. What is actually happening in game, not even close.

You know what? I think I figured out where all these misunderstandings are coming from. When you’re in a lower ranked server, attributes might play more of a factor than skill or number, since WvW populations are lower on the bottom tiers. When you’re in high ranked battles (i.e. Tiers 1 or 2), player numbers play the biggest factor, since every day the Borderlands are queued.

So then it become a question of experience and opinion, rather than facts or maths.

That is exactly it. There are many more roamers and small parties on the lower tiers. The stat difference has a much greater effect in those cases. The ones complaining are not the ones running with the blob.

My argument all this time was based on the fact that when you have more players against you, all the stats in the world won’t save you from a stomping.

The problem would still be that the small difference in stats would apply only to 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 situations, like how you see in SPvP. WvW is meant to be more of a real battle, where you have groups vs groups. So in my opinion, you can’t base the “remove Ascended from WvW” argument on only specific situations (i.e. roaming fights). You need to look at WvW as a whole. If your only arguing for that part of WvW, the other people who fight in groups will counter that argument, and we’re at a perpetual stalemate.

I never said it should be removed, I’m just saying that it really does make a difference for a lot of people. There have been many times when my party pushed off a group twice our size (only 1 or 2 up levels) by the skin of our teeth because we were more organized and better players. If they had ascended gear and we didn’t we would not have succeeded. If you take a look at WvW as a whole, the majority of the worlds are underpopulated cause the top 3 stole all the WvW guilds. Ascended affects more people than you think.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DocHolliday.5921:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The point you’re missing is that there is no real advantage in WvW.

No, you’re ignoring the fact that there is. You have no point.

So back to the topic. Ascended gear has better stats than Exotic gear, but there’s no advantage to the player who wears Ascended gear. The only numbers that matter are the amount of opponents you face on the battlefield.

That has been factually proven false. Over. And over. And over. STOP LYING.

On paper, sure. What is actually happening in game, not even close.

You know what? I think I figured out where all these misunderstandings are coming from. When you’re in a lower ranked server, attributes might play more of a factor than skill or number, since WvW populations are lower on the bottom tiers. When you’re in high ranked battles (i.e. Tiers 1 or 2), player numbers play the biggest factor, since every day the Borderlands are queued.

So then it become a question of experience and opinion, rather than facts or maths.

That is exactly it. There are many more roamers and small parties on the lower tiers. The stat difference has a much greater effect in those cases. The ones complaining are not the ones running with the blob. Some nights on NSP the zerg has less than 15 people in it and I don’t see how running around with 50 other people spamming AoE and combo field requires any skill. Skirmishing is where you really learn to play you class.

Young Somalia.1706:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

^ yes, i am casual.

yes, i seldom change the traits.

you forgot that guild wars 2 is aimed at the casual group.

no, icons is easier to recognize. my argument is not trash.

If you seldom change traits then it is your own fault.

Would you prefer someone to upload knowledge because you can’t be bothered to learn? Do you accept welfare also?

And yes, your argument is trash, because I just reasonably demonstrated that certain individuals can process the numerals the exact same as an icon. And the purpose of my argument was to show you that just because you say icons are the best does not make it so. Otherwise I would logically be petitioning with you for trait icons instead of already having memorized numerals.

Like I mentioned, not everyone is wired the same. I know a lot of people who would prefer to have icons. The best would be to be able to select which one to display.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DocHolliday.5921:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The point you’re missing is that there is no real advantage in WvW.

No, you’re ignoring the fact that there is. You have no point.

You still seem to not understand WvW. If you played it, you’d understand where your argument fails. Basically, your argument is to make WvW like SPvP. The problem here is that SPvP already exists. And since it already exists, that nullifies your argument instantly.

So back to the topic. Ascended gear has better stats than Exotic gear, but there’s no advantage to the player who wears Ascended gear. The only numbers that matter are the amount of opponents you face on the battlefield.

Actually it does. Here is an example. I am solo roaming and come across 2 mediocre players (mediocre to me, just like I might be mediocre to someone else) and all of us are wearing exotics. I beat them with close to no HP left on my bar (it has happened many times). Now, I am roaming and come across those same 2 players but now they have ascended and I don’t. I lose cause even though I am clearly more skilled than they are the extra 10% damage from both of them put them at a greater advantage. Not everyone zergs, not everyone runs with a group. I have 9k kills in WvW close to 15% of those are 1v1, 1v2.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

^ so you are telling me it is fine if all the skills in the game are represented by roman numerals?

If they were organized by type like

Heals I, II, III
Stance I,II,III
Movement, I,II,III etc.

Yes, I would find it much easier to navigate. Not everyone’s brain is wired the same. I can understand how descriptive icons would work better for you. I just memorize what skill 1 does skill 2 does and so on. It’s the same on my weapon skills, I know the effects and names of skills 1-5 on all my weapons, but if you show me the picture I could not tell you which is which (maybe some but not all).

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Julie Yann.5379:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Julie Yann.5379:

Roman numerals are icons, they are just shaped in the form of letters. If strength IV doesn’t tell you anything how will strength “insert picture” tell you anything more?

refer to the image.

i see the “I” it only tells me “I” and nothing else.

i see the icon with a guy flying from above.
i know at once that icon is referring to “Death from Above” because the icon is unique, easily identifiable at first glance.

roman numerals just tells me a number, that’s it.

But all you have to do is mouse over it to get the description. Personally I find it easier to memorize numbers than pictures, maybe they could give you a option of what which to display. But you will find that anyone describing their builds will not be linking pictures.

imagine you need to swap utility skills, the utility skills pop up window shows a bunch of roman numerals. how would you feel?

the fact is, we must mouse over to get the name of the trait and description.

with icons, we can recognize the trait immediately and select it immediately.

the current system allows us to shift click to link the name skills in the chat box, this could be easily made with the traits menu as well, shift click on a trait to link the trait’s name in the chat box.

I would probably prefer that actually. Like I said, I find it easier to memorizes numbers than pictures. I would find it easier to switch from Shout 1 to Shout 3 instead of what picture “fear me” or FGJ is. When I am swapping my traits on the run I am not looking for “restorative strength” I am looking for strength III.

Xae Isareth.1364:

1) You missed out a very important sentence in that article which stated ‘we have no plans to introduce another tier if rarity like Ascended’.

2) it depends on how you use it. What happened here is that since there was no statistical progression for doing dungeons, JPs, or anything at all really after 80 since you would’ve got enough money to buy a set of exotics, people didn’t even bother doing them and just said tgere’s nothing to do.

It’s being used as an incentive in this case.

Did Ascended gear make dungeons obselete? I got enough emp stars to make 4 Ascended weapons and I’m still doing them, and I don’t think I’m alone. Having vertical progression doesn’t make content obsolete if you implemented it right.

3) see 1)

4) what worked for GW1 doesn’t nessecarily work for GW2. Like I pointed out, people were leaving after 80. Did they all get their Legendaries and 350-lode skins at 80? No.

Some left cause of ascended and many will leave cause they are just camping GW2 until another worthy graphically pleasing MMO is released, there are several on the horizon. ATM Anet is spitting on many of the loyal GW1 fans that fed them for the past 7 or 8 years and would have kept feeding them for another 7 or 8 years.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Julie Yann.5379:

Roman numerals are icons, they are just shaped in the form of letters. If strength IV doesn’t tell you anything how will strength “insert picture” tell you anything more?

refer to the image.

i see the “I” it only tells me “I” and nothing else.

i see the icon with a guy flying from above.
i know at once that icon is referring to “Death from Above” because the icon is unique, easily identifiable at first glance.

roman numerals just tells me a number, that’s it.

But all you have to do is mouse over it to get the description. Personally I find it easier to memorize numbers than pictures, maybe they could give you a option of what which to display. But you will find that anyone describing their builds will not be linking pictures.

eisberg.2379:

Julie Yann.5379:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

It will, once they introduce the next tier of gear.

You got absolutely nothing to base this prediction off of. They introduced a new tier, and yet the content is still balanced around fine (Blue) gear, they haven’t introduced any content that is gated by having higher stats than fine gear.

Then why introduce the gear if it isn’t needed?

Because many people like to get higher numbers, they find that enjoyable.

A lot of people find it annoying to grind out new gear especially when it is time gated. Many of us already have jobs with menial tasks to do to get rewarded. The last thing we want is a game that offers us menial tasks to do the get rewarded.

Roman numerals are icons, they are just shaped in the form of letters. If strength IV doesn’t tell you anything how will strength “insert picture” tell you anything more?

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

It will, once they introduce the next tier of gear.

You got absolutely nothing to base this prediction off of. They introduced a new tier, and yet the content is still balanced around fine (Blue) gear, they haven’t introduced any content that is gated by having higher stats than fine gear.

Then why introduce the gear if it isn’t needed?

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Julie Yann.5379:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

DocHolliday.5921:

Yes, after how many pages of people posting the same pointless irrelevant arguments I finally got aggressive. Sue me.

And yes, I personally would be perfectly fine with stripping out WvW ranks. Would other people be happy about it? Some would, some wouldn’t. I have no idea where the divide would be. I’m not arguing for it. But that’s also irrelevant to this discussion. The main reason WvW players have an issue with ascended gear in the game mode is because some of the pieces can only be obtained from specific PvE content. Your ranks question is a different issue altogether, best suited for another thread.

Since their issue is with certain pieces being in PvE, then the problem isn’t ascended but the players that don’t want to do PvE to get that stuff.

That is entirely your problem if you do not wish to do the content that has the stuff that you would like.

There is no reason to penalize me for doing the content to get the gear just because you people don’t want to do PvE.

The thing is that from the beginning Anet has been saying that you don’t need to do things that you don’t enjoy to get all the good stuff. Play the game how you want and you will be able to get the same things as everyone else. The way ascended is implemented at the moment contradicts all of that and it wasn’t needed to begin with. Now we are stuck with something we didn’t want and that n one needed.

If they want to add in ways to get ascended other than the PvE you don’t like, I don’t mind that. However, not liking to do some PvE for ascended gear is not a good reason to remove ascended from WvW.

I agree with you on that, everything in PvE can be used for WvW except for some cheesy cheating consumables. As I said before, Ascended should have never existed to begin with or never have had better stats than exotics and only have been a few infusion slots for those wanting to do high level Fractals.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Julie Yann.5379:

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

DocHolliday.5921:

Yes, after how many pages of people posting the same pointless irrelevant arguments I finally got aggressive. Sue me.

And yes, I personally would be perfectly fine with stripping out WvW ranks. Would other people be happy about it? Some would, some wouldn’t. I have no idea where the divide would be. I’m not arguing for it. But that’s also irrelevant to this discussion. The main reason WvW players have an issue with ascended gear in the game mode is because some of the pieces can only be obtained from specific PvE content. Your ranks question is a different issue altogether, best suited for another thread.

Since their issue is with certain pieces being in PvE, then the problem isn’t ascended but the players that don’t want to do PvE to get that stuff.

That is entirely your problem if you do not wish to do the content that has the stuff that you would like.

There is no reason to penalize me for doing the content to get the gear just because you people don’t want to do PvE.

The thing is that from the beginning Anet has been saying that you don’t need to do things that you don’t enjoy to get all the good stuff. Play the game how you want and you will be able to get the same things as everyone else. The way ascended is implemented at the moment contradicts all of that and it wasn’t needed to begin with. Now we are stuck with it.

Read my previous post.

At the rate at which Anet has been fixing things in the past, I won’t hold my breath. I’m sure it’s at the top of their priority list. (sarcasm)