Guild Wars 2

Zelyhn.8069:

Lurch.9517:

End of which game? The one we were playing before ascended gear or the one after because they are very different games

You mean like 5% different, right?

You mean 50h of grind for one ascended weapon different right?

Vayne.8563:

There’s been an awful lot of talk about how this game has changed…much of it negative. And I can see where people are coming from. A lot of the changes in the game has made it less fun and more grind. While the grind is optional…it’s only borderline optional. That is to say, there’s pressure to get achievements, pressure to get certain gear. If some of that pressure is self-inflicted by players, well, it’s still pressure.

But there have also been some changes for the better, too. A lot of people don’t like guild missions, but having done the guild puzzles now…I think that’s brilliant content.

So many advances to the game have been made… not just stuff like Fractals or the AC revamp, but also stuff like marketplace preview, the account wallet, the ability to target something even if you’re not in a group, the end of culling, zone wide invasions, the mini game rotation, the living story. Indeed, this game is hardly recognizable as the game that originally drew many of us here.

Whether you like the changes or not is an individual decision. Naturally if you don’t like them, you have a right to complain about them. But I’ve never played any MMO that hasn’t changed drastically and I’ve never played any MMO where people didn’t cry the sky was falling every time a change was made. This is normal for the MMO genre.

Games change and evolve all the time. You have a choice when they do to leave or stay, to complain or accept. Those are your choices.

This game has changed a whole lot since its release. Whether those changes have been a mistake or not is largely a matter of opinion.

The over-riding question is why has so much changed? What has caused these changes to occur. Some people say greed. Some people say that Anet is catering to a small but vocal minority. Others claim that Anet is trying to satisfy everyone. Others say Anet is trying to appease the content locusts, or the gear grinders.

Without knowing their reasons for change, I don’t see how we can judge the change. And, for the most part, Anet isn’t sharing their reasons.

I think it would be nice of patch notes would include not just changes, but notes behind the rational for changes.

I think this might help diffuse some of reactions people have to them.

This is actually another one of my issues apart from the introduced grind – the frequent moving of goalposts. Maybe as Vayne has mentioned this is symptomatic of the MMO genre where classes undergo massive changes 6 months after release that aren’t bug fixes and are still on-going. Thus, I do not believe I will participating in any MMO with the possible exception of The Secret World which I want to complete just for the story and Defiance for the Coop third person shooter.

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Nuka Cola.8520:

coronaas.4362:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Anet should learn to put ‘rare’ items in challenging content instead of ALWAYS being craftable inside mystic toilet or crafting stations. GW2 is becoming a Craft Simulation game and i don’t play an MMO to craft all my %$#& and then stand in a city asking myself why i spent so much time/money crafting an item when there’s no content to be experienced with it.

Want a legendary? buy one off the tp (or buy 90% of the mats and “grind” the skillpoints/karma needed) want minis? buy them off the tp. Want anything? buy it off the tp.

what in this game is even worth showing off to other people? What can I get for 2000 hours of playing your game that a fresh 80 cant get with a creditcard?

Exactly. Its D3 all over again-.-

I got 2 legendaries and do I mind the slightest that someone with a credit card owns 10? Not at all. Even if I somehow knew about how they acquired the legendaries and even now that they have upgraded stats.

boxtrot.8145:

And I thought the WoW community was bad when it came to crying about actually doing something in order to receive something.

Was I ever wrong. Seriously would never have believed this much QQ could be spewed out because of “grinding”. Don’t want to make it? Then don’t make it. Want to be the best? Then do something in order to deserve to be the best. Easy logics.

Don’t want it to be crafting? Well then, come with an example what else one could be doing instead of crafting. Farming badges? Farming WvWvW? Would still be people crying about “grinding”.

The only solution to all this whining would be not to add any gear at all, but wouldn’t that have been a bore. What the whiners don’t understand is that this is implemented for the ones who like it. I truly dislike people who think that just because something is there, they HAVE to have it, even if they don’t actually want it. Its not like this game got endgame raiding with gearscore clearing. You still get to see the entire game even if you don’t have this tier of gear on all your characters.

Best solution is not to play at all.

P.S Don’t see how this change improves GW2’s revenue stream at all. People QQ about RNG BL Chests etc. but surely this is worse as they aren’t just skins.

NiObiUm.3780:

Khal Drogo.9631:

In PvE I think its 1k more if you have 100% or slightly more crit damage. Scales even more with Banner of discipline.

I assume you’re referring to the full ascended setup with power infusions. The base attack of that setup is 433 for a rifle auto attack. A crit is 1.5x the base attack. That setup has an extra 82% crit damage which makes it 433*(1.5+0.82) per crit or 1005 per crit. So you dont need 100+% crit damage.

Not rifle but GS. And theres is a second slot for sigil to increase damage. If its at night you can add another 5% more damage. You have not factored in armor (or lack thereof) and skill coefficient into your calculations as well. And most zerk warriors have more than 100% crit damage.

In zerg vs zerg it would matter if everyone in Zerg A had ascended AOE weapons esp 2h with extra sigil and everyone in Zerg B had only exos.

NiObiUm.3780:

Why is everyone so worked up over getting ascended weapons? I understand that it’s BIS, but has anyone actually looked at the work/reward ratio here? Here’s the setup i used to create my values: Warrior—Berserker Rifle—Accuracy Sigil—Berserker Armor—Ruby Orbs—Berserker Accessories—30/20/20/0/0—Rifle Auto Attack for Base Damage

When comparing a setup where the difference is only an ascended weapon vs an exotic weapon you can see that the avg. attack difference is 39 damage per attack. Even after 100 basic attacks the ascended weapon only produces 3900 more damage. Was all that work really worth it? In fact, if you look at the table you’ll notice that a setup which chooses ascended accessories over an ascended weapon is slightly better. Its possible to have 6 ascended accessories in 4 weeks considering you earn them all at the same time. This would allow you to have 45 AR without even having 1 crafting profession.

The only major advantage i see here is the additional AR. So unless your running super high lvl fractals on all 8+ characters you own its probably a good idea to stop and take quick breather. Stop QQing about how you’re going to “HAVE TO” craft like 40+ ascended weapons.

In PvE I think its 1k more if you have 100% or slightly more crit damage. Scales even more with Banner of discipline.

tolunart.2095:

OP, you don’t understand the concept of reverse psychology very well, do you. Telling angry people not to complain as the subject of a discussion is like hanging out a sign saying “come here to complain.” That’s why a lot of “complaints about complaining” threads get closed, it’s an invitation to a group kitten session, not a true discussion about an issue.

Angry? No – I would get kitten ed my class was nerfed for pvp reasons.

This additional heavy grind does not allow me the time to “play what I want”. Rationally I would have to seriously consider quitting the game as I cannot keep up rather than returning to this game once in a while apart from doing dailies.

In any case, unless something is done to nerf the ascended weapon requirements or buff the ascended mats drop, I will not buy any more gems from Anet, hence $0.

Yargesh.4965:

Khal Drogo.9631:

I am being think the globs of dark matter are also absurd if you dont want to spend lots of money on exos to salvage. Cheapest would be to salvage exo dungeon armor and wvw exos if you do lots of wvw.

Cheapest is to salvage the exotics to created to get from 400 to 500

Err no you could have sold those to the TP which I did. You can salvage the one exo you are replacing though if u have a replacement skin for a chance.

I am thinking that the globs of dark matter are also absurd if you dont want to spend lots of money on exos to salvage. Cheapest would be to salvage exo dungeon armor and wvw exos if you do lots of wvw.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

For me, the Empyreal Fragments are what I’ll finish much faster than any of the other materials (not bloodstone dust). Different methods of acquisition will appeal to different people. I hate open world bosses, I love dungeons. This won’t be the same for everyone. If you want the weapon(s), suck it up and do the required content.

For 50+ times at least if you have one character of each profession.

azurrei.5691:

I’ve been spending 2-3 hours a day running around looting chests in the open world / doing a single JP for the last 4 daily CD’s and have over 1400 fragments – so that is probably about 10ish hours of work for almost 3 weapons worth.

Care to give the exact breakdown? 2-3hrs a day ONLY opening chests + 1 JP sounds about right as for 1400 I would like to see how even with alts.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

Sorry but you’re wrong. Just because I used a word, doesn’t mean I actually farm. What I do mean by this is that when I’m running an event with lots of people, I get lots of drops.

Now you can say that’s farming if you want…such as running the zone wide events that pop up, but I’m not actually running those events TO farm. I’m running those events because I find them fun.

Some people understand this sort of thing and some don’t.

My comment was that someone said you have to be on X character to farm. I get plenty of drops and kill plenty of stuff on my necro.

Why do I play my necro. Because it’s fun. Why do I do zone events, because I like them. They remind me of the only thing I liked about Rift.

It’s farming, without actually attempting to accumulate materials. I just do what I want, when I want.

You enjoy farming, but don’t want to call it that because of the negative connotation attached to that word.
Events with lots of people, hmm. I, too, have been on champ farming trains to get lots of loot.

Yes I do that if I want G occasionally for an hr, but if you spend time on that, you are not spending the time to get ascended mats. Which is the point I was trying to make which is not a competition like Vayne said.

No longer a casual friendly game. As I mentioned before in another thread, I did my fair share of grinding before for a few grindy exos and 1 legendary while using AP and karma money to fund my second legendary. But they number less than 10 and this extra grind requires 50+ not including ascended armor which is to follow.

Sutcliffe.5491:

If its that important to you, u will only be playing warrior as your only character because other classes cant perform as well as warriors in most situation in terms of dps. The only other class that is on par might be thievies. Warrior can self buff might and fury which makes them exceptionally good in solo dps situation. If u play guardian, u will definitely kill slower than a warrior solo , then u are gimping yourself by killing much slower according to your own logic that time spent on killing is that important to you. Then u shouldnt be playing alts at all.

Everytime u play on an alt other than warrior or thief , u are stacking up time on killing substantially because of the inherent solo dps difference of the classses.

What I want is not what grindbots want. I don’t want to play classes based on DPS alone. But this patch requires more efficient farming given a finite amount of time which leads to playing warrior. Dungeons don’t reward on a character basis any longer. In essence I have repeated my previous post, just like this cycle of vertical progression.

Btw – Thief have less dps than warrior on a sustained basis now that there are ascended GS and warriors don’t go down as quickly in a sea of particle effects.

Sutcliffe.5491:

The temple boss chest gives 30 dragonite ore each which is why i recommend u to do that if the only ascended material u are lacking is dragonnite ore.
World event boss gives 5~25 according to wiki but i have gotten 4 (fire elemental) before and the most i got was like 20 from jormag. Maybe higher lvl events awards more dragonite ore? That im not too sure.

U maybe right in saying that ur 1 temple and 2 events net more ascended material than a zerg temple train since i never really calculated how much time is needed…. and i only suggested that zerg temple train is a viable way to get dragonite ores.

As for playing each alt equally, it might take longer (seconds or minutes) to kill on alts without ascended weapons, but if u really enjoy it, dun let it stop u from playing with them. Its not like taking a few seconds or minutes to kill something matters unless u are going for a speed clear record.

The reason why time spent on killing is important because it stacks up very substantially. Grind Warriors 2 FTW. And most definitely not seconds difference on world bosses esp in the less populated servers.

Sutcliffe.5491:

Ascended weapons are actually not that expensive to make. The only expensive part is lvling ur craft to 500. The rest are relatively cheap. If u do what u like (dungeons/fractals etc), u will have no issue amassing empyreal shards and bloodstone dust. Dungeons give min 1g each so u can amass G at the same time.The only issue might be dragonite ore which can only be gotten from world boss chest and wvw. But u can just do these world bosses if u are free or join one of those zerg trains in orr to complete temples.
eg : http://www.stormbluffisle.com/index.php/forum/non-wvw/1485-pve-event-temple-invasions-epsilon-and-sigma
U can join them even if u are not from stormbuff isle.
It might take weeks to craft one ascended weapon but at least u enjoy it. As for alt issues, i believe that u dun play every alt equally, so just use the ascended stuff for your main first.

Another thing I like to do – I would like to play every alt almost equally. The game no longer rewards me on a character basis. And warrior is not my main and now by default he is.

Read my inital log post of 3 hrs. You think zerg trains will net you more ascended mats than what I described of 1 temple and 2 events which I joined at nearly the end which is about 15 min on average for each of these. The only reason you get on to zerg trains is for the G.

As for champion loot bags, they are not in short supply – COF P1 will give you two, Ulgoth and his 3 dogs (if you can time it) will give 4 and Frozen Maw will drop 1. Temple of Melandru – Priest and 2 or 3 champion spiders will drop 3 or 4. I believe SE will drop a few as well.

Unkindly put, this patch is meant for the super hardcore no-lifers out there.

Sutcliffe.5491:

Ascended weapons are not even necessary for gameplay except fractals. The problem is you being so intent on getting these ascended weapon asap that is causing u all these frustration.

Read edited post above. If I wanted ascended weapons ASAP + do dailies + all the stuff I wanted + farm the G needed to fund this, I would spend my entire day of at least 6-8hr everyday. And to get ONE ascended weapon for my 8 alts and post on the forums that I made the first ascended weapon.

If its going to take YEARS to get ascended, which sane person will want to stick with a game like that? You don’t need BiS gear to win, you can do any dungeon in greens etc. Problem is EVERY enemy you face is going to take that much longer to kill, whether be it in seconds or minutes.

Sutcliffe.5491:

I dun get it….if its not fun for you, u can dont do it. Nobody is forcing u to go COF p1. quartz mining and all the other stuff u mentioned.. Anet is trying to reward people for doing stuff they like. But u are looking at it the wrong way, U are doing these events for the rewards, thats why u dun enjoy it. Go do something u enjoy ingame, if u dun have anything u enjoy in game, then maybe u shouldnt play this game at all.

Complete and utter kitten.

If I only do what I enjoy in game ie run a few dungeons and occasional fractal + guild missions and one or two events daily, it would literally take years to craft ascended weapons. If Anet didnt introduce this amount of grind into the game, I would have been happy playing this game.

The only time Anet “rewarded” players is with the AP rewards – this is the complete opposite by introducing a G, mats and time sink for ascended.

One thing you got right though – I don’t think I will be playing this game much longer.

Tiger.7506:

Apparently, for a lot of people anything besides sitting in LA and posting in map chat is considered a grind.

The people are just being dramatic.
many exaggerations .

Gw2 is not L T W ( Log in TO win ).

Yeah troll I could record a log of 3 hrs and post it on Youtube but I dont have so much hard disk space.

• I might actually do this within the next few weekends.

Sutcliffe.5491:

I think one of the reason for Anet to allow crafting for ascended weapons is to balance the needs of everyone. If they were to lock the ascended weapon acquisition behind some hard/challenging content, then those whom dislike it will complain that they are forced to do it to acquire it.

Since crafting is avaliable to everyone and only require small amount of time per day except for the first leveling to 450 process, I think it’s a decent method to acquire it. Everyone have to spend around the same time to craft their ascended weapon. They also added a random low chance for people to get a ascended weapon from doing most activities in gw2.

The materials to craft ascended weapon are locked inside some content and most of them can be gotten from different avenues. Eg bloodstone dust from champion bags (champion bags are avaliable in pve and wvw) , empeyrial fragment from jp/dungeons etc. dragonite ore is the only material which I feel that there should be more avenues to acquire from. Now it’s only avaliable in world boss chest and a few keeps in wvw which I do not like that much. But I can do some world bosses whenever I feel like doing it as I’m not in a rush to get ascended weapon.

I spent THREE hrs just before the reset and this is what I did (you can calculate the amount of mats needed for ascended and calculate the rate)

1) COF P1
2) Kill Ulgoth
3) Frozen Maw
4) Temple of Melandru
4) Lvl a warrior from lvl 2 to lvl 10 in terms of Personal Story lvl recommendations for BL key (20-25 min)
5) PVP Daily
6) Daily Activity
7) Gather Ori and Ancient Wood for 8 alts in Frostgorge (2 ori nodes 2 ancient wood on 2 seperate servers but are close together)
8) A bit of crafting
9) Charged Quartz and Quartz Mining
10) Joined in Claw of Jormag last stage with 30% health

Doesnt sound like a lot right? I didn’t take my time and rushed through all the above-mentioned. The time adds up. Fun? Not in the slightest. Grind? Yes a lot of it and I am crawling slowly towards the First Ascended weapon.

Really is a 2nd job now. Glad I never ever played WoW in all my years of playing video games.

Vayne.8563:

DeWolfe.2174:

I can make the argument pretty simple. The economy has become the 800 pound Gorilla in the game. Because it appears the economy is affecting the developers judgement.

Obviously the “No grind” sales pitch was misleading. To say Ascended Gear was created because we obtained Exotics too quickly, means they always intended for us to be chasing a level of gear. Not spending the majority of our time experiencing content and story.

I don’t see how you can draw this conclusion. Making one thing too easy doesn’t mean that anything requires the majority of our time. In fact, Ascended gear, in and of itself, doesn’t require all that much time…it’s an encouragement to play different parts of the game.

Now that has negative and positive drawbacks, but it has very little to do with time. For example, after I get my crafting to 450, which doesn’t take much time itself, I can only craft for a few minutes a day.

Obviously to get some of the stuff I need, I do have to play the game. Dungeons, mini dungeons, jumping puzzles, world events…yes, these are things we’re encouraged to do. But I tend to do them casually. I’d basically do all of them at one point or another. The more you want that gear NOW, the faster you have to do that stuff, but make no mistake. Most people will end up eventually getting the mats just by playing.

You’re not spending more time getting this gear. You’re spending more time playing the game.

Some people, no doubt, don’t enjoy being forced to play the game to get the gear…but that’s a far cry from saying they want us to spend more time getting the gear than playing the game. Because the only way to get the gear is to play the game.

Not if you want to do your dailies, pvp or even wvw because they mostly dont overlap with getting mats for ascended weapons. For example WvW how many times will you be able to capture a tower in an hour in order to get the dragonite?

PvP HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Well at least my least favorite part of the game get royally screwed as well. No G, no karma, no ascended mats, nada. All the PvPers can live in the self contained Mists and not venture out into Tyria at all.

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

Hrithmus.2583:

353 replies and 7373 Views on this post and not one Dev Reply yet. Man they must be scared?

Because they know its pointless. Whatever they would say themselves has been said many times over by regular players. Did any of that chance a single opinion of either side?

A post by the devs would be counter productive. All it would do is cause more rage in the end.

Yes, everyone knows that they dont have anything to say that would calm it down, and they certainly cant say the truth so they just ignore it and hope it goes away

They have said the truth. The truth is that exotics didn’t take long enough to get. Do you know how many people hit level cap in this game and left because there was nothing for them to do? The forums were full of such posts.

It’s not like 3 guys in a room made all of them.

You think farming and grind will convince people to stay or entice these people back? They may not have wanted vertical progression but more content instead.

TheDaiBish.9735:

darkace.8925:

Red Falcon.8257:

Seriously guys they’ve been saying there would be a gear treadmill since October 2012.
If you wanted to quit over gear treamills policy you shouldn’t be here to begin with.

They said, explicitly, the only grinding in this game would be for cosmetic items.

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

- Mike O’Brien, President of Arenanet

Does the addition of ascended weapons fall in line with what was said by Mike O’Brien?

You can quote that all you like, but they said that Ascended gear would be introduced more recently than that quote:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/

Since we knew these were going to be coming out, why stick around if you didn’t agree with it?

Its the amount and type of grind required. Should have left 4 days ago if you had read Dulfy’s preview

Paulytnz.7619:

hellokittyonline.7532:

With all of these winning, raging and kittening in the forums about the recent patch.

Why Anet you no reply?!

I agree with most of the raging, but at the same time I do advocate patients. Anet is probably busy figure out how they screwed up.

But I have to say they should reduce the overal time to get materials. Champion Bags were well done, other mats, not really, especial to the casual folks. I feel a buff the drop # should be looked into, such as emprical frag or w.e is called. I did a jumping puzzles today and got 7, I need 500 to craft a weapon.
Which implies it is gonna take me 71 days to gather enough materials.

Just so you know you can get these it seems from almost ANY chest. I have been getting them from all 7 chests that are located in Queensdale for example. My concern is that they are TOO EASY to get and that I will have 500 before I have any use for them.

Just so you know the 7 chests in Queensdale are:

1 – The harpy chest West side of the map.
2 – The wolf den in the middle of the map near the Repair guy settlement.
3 – The Mini Dungeon bandit cavern North of the lake North part of the map.
4 – Centaur hut in a centaur village near the Jump Puzzle.
5, 6 and 7 are all in the Jumping Puzzle itself.

That is 7 chests right there where you can and will get that crafting mat from every day. I have the last 2 days in a row.

Now to address your other comments:

With all of these winning, raging and kittening in the forums about the recent patch.

Surely you mean whining right?

I agree with most of the raging, but at the same time I do advocate patients. Anet is probably busy figure out how they screwed up.

What screw up, please do tell? Oh and I think you mean patience.

I am pretty sure each chest doesnt give 7 fragments and the Queensdale JP is harder than Umaug’s Secret which gave me 2.

I done the math – it is much faster to do COF P1 20 times to get the required empyreal but in order to maximize your gains of tokens and G you have to do it daily.

As for dragonite, if you have a window of time playing everyday you may not be able to guest into a Temple of Orr or an event and even then you are hoping you dont get there late and get into an overflow.

colesy.8490:

I’m getting 25 fragments from each dungeon I run. Spend about 10 minutes running SE p1 and CoF p1 for ten days and you’ll have your fragments. If you want to get even more done, run more dungeon paths, it’s just the rest aren’t as ridiculously short as those two.

Its 10 min for most parties for COF P1 and 15 min for SE P1 in a regular party.

If you dont have a regular party and use the LFG website, pray u dont get some nub or noob.

IndigoSundown.5419:

…

• Advertising — get them in the door; once they’re in, then worry about keeping them there. Look at many comedy movies, where the only really funny scenes are the ones chosen for the trailer.
  …

But this has to be the main problem for Anet. As for the PR guys, they were doing an effective job knocking Hearthstone (at least to me) until I watched Totalbiscuit actually playing it. It is a game I would enjoy as I played a small amount of trading card games in my youth and its not too complicated.

Banquetto.9521:

eisberg.2379:

Collect the stuff yourself and it is significantly less than 200G

If you collect 200G worth of stuff yourself and use it, then the opportunity cost of leveling crafting was indeed exactly 200G.

There is 15% TP fees.

Cactus.2710:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time to get ascended gear as long as the experience was any fun and exciting.

It’s not the end that matters, but the journey

Anet put a new gear race upon old and exploitable content. They should have created or improved content to be more exciting first, and then add better rewards/ ascended farming alongside it. I wouldn’t mind farming for ascended, if the journey was a great experience. As it happens, though, auto-attacking swarms are not a great experience. They’re relaxing every once in a while, but when they dominate the entire game, it degenerates it into the worst kind of “kill x rats” generic mmo design.

This … exactly. Grinds and “progression” are what devs who lack cleverness resort to. If we really had exciting and enjoyable content … in WvW or sPvP or PvE … we wouldn’t need all this other crap. A truly fun game will get played even without rewards at all. Nobody plays sandlot sports expecting to come home with better clothes, yet hundreds of thousands do it.

Even the Living Story isn’t so much a story as it is simply a repeating mechanism for putting carrots in front of donkeys. GW2 promised so much initially, but I doubt half of us would have switched to it from whatever we were previously playing if we had known it was going to be headed in this direction now.

Surely there is a limit to “a lot of time” though.

Gehenna.3625:

Infernia.9847:

Food for thought. When asked about Legendary armor being introduced Colin came into the thread and gave an answer.
“Not anytime soon”
Source:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-legendary-armor-coming-out/first

Take from it what you will. At least the legendary armor has been in the database since release. I would be relieved if they implemented it. Grind once then done and if you change your build/traits all you do is click to change your stats.

Of course they won’t come soon. They first need people to grind for ascended weapons, then ascended armour and then a level cap raise….start all over with ascended gear for level 90 and then maybe legendary armour.

It would be more tolerable if the grind for Ascended gear is the same as that for Ascended Rings ie 10 Pristine Fract Relics – about 15hrs with your regular party.

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

The stat increase overall is supposedly something around 13%, but for weapons alone I believe it’s around 5%

You are forgetting about weapon strength.

Deamhan.9538:

Well I don’t know about other people but my idea of what ‘grind’ is, is having to perform a small tedious task dozens or even hundreds of times to reach a goal instead of doing just one big task.

In other words…

Doing something that take 10 minutes to do, 12 times would be a grind vs doing something once that takes 120 minutes.

Crafting is a whole different issue with me. Looking at the size of your typical steel ingot, you could fashion a sword from just one. Yet in games it requires a dozen or more.

I’d rather see more realistic quantities, with the more rare materials gated behind game content that takes time to do (see one 120 minute task and not 12 ten minute tasks), and instead of the player crafting the item instantly for simply having the materials, the creation of the item should go into a crafting queue for which the player can go do other things while they wait. So not only is getting the materials not a grind, it’s actually more realistic and can still be something that takes the same amount of time to get in the end.

10 12 min tasks will be much longer than that because of “travel” time and loading etc.

MokahTGS.7850:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Thats for one off hand weapon. 2H weapons get a second sigil as well.

still a pretty small bump for all the fuss.

If its 10% its very significant. And it scales with crit damage.

Thats for one off hand weapon. 2H weapons get a second sigil as well.

eisberg.2379:

MikaHR.1978:

eisberg.2379:

MikaHR.1978:

Yeni.3507:

MikaHR.1978:

eisberg.2379:

Nasher.6874:

Yea, one of the selling points and attractions to GW2 was that it was NOT a grindfest. But they seem to be going back on that, so what’s the point in playing GW2 over others MMOs?

And it still isn’t, no grinding required to play all the content of this game, unlike other MMOs.

Wrong…again.

Actually eisberg.2379 is correct, there isn’t a game content that require Ascended Weapon or heavy grind to do, and every update living world event is open to anyone and everyone, every grindy content (i.e.Legendary, Ascended gear) they are all optional.

The only content that I can think of which require gear check is “high” level fractals, which is totally optional, and low level fractal is still open to anyone.

And its the same in other MMOs therefore he is wrong. But he has been explained that same thing at least 10 times by now soooo….

Up until someone told me that Blizzard made it so that you can see all the raids without having the gear from the previous raid, I didn’t know they did that. But before they did that recently, you had to grind out the current Raid over and over and over again till you can get the gear so you can get to the next fun part, and this has been true for every other MMO I have ever played. Guild Wars 2 is literally the first MMO I have played since 1999, that did not need any kind of grinding in order to get to the fun parts.

Arenanet set out to make a non grindy game, and they did it fantastically. Legendary are not needed for anything, ascended weapons are not needed for anything, ascended gear is only needed for Fractals, and you can get those by just completing the levels and you are not stuck on the same level of fractal till you get gear to get to the next fun part.

So no, it is not the same as every other MMO, which makes you wrong.

And as i said, you lack experience and thus make wrong claims.

Noone cares about 1999 or 5 years ago.

I was thinking the same about you, you must have been playing MMOs for less than 5 years. I have been playing MMOs since 1999, yet some how I am the one that lacks experience? =D. I have been playing MMOs for so long, that I know what a grindy game is, and Guild Wars 2 is not one. Just because there is optional grind, doesn’t mean it is a grindy game. GW2 is an optional grind, and not needed to participate and complete all content.

Dont play MMOs guys thats the message. Even one without a subscription fee.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Diago, what you’ve said is good enough to be published on a gaming site lol no kidding. …

Diogo should consider writing for a living as it was an extremely well written forum post. With the possible exception of the first paragraph, it conveys every thought I have had about GW2 and the recent implementation of Ascended weapons.

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

To be fair, I have Volcanus, Vision of the Mists, The Anomaly, Bolt and Howler, a few Corrupted and Titan’s Vengeance, Ascended Fractal backpiece. Even I am complaining about the upcoming grind for ascended if I choose to embark on it.

And a lot of it has to do with needing to upgrade 80% of the above mentioned into ascended.

Are you kidding me? what exactly do you find grindy out of the ascended weapon requirements after crafting volcanus and 2 legendaries?

Thats 3 weapons. Volcanus I have to upgrade to ascending. My 2nd legendary was made by G given during the AP rewards along with accumulated stuff in my bank. I bought the precursor cheaply for both. Its not just 10 weapons I have to upgrade to ascended. Probably at least 50 weapons in total.

Do u know math?

I am not exactly sure how that answers my question of what requirements specifically on an ascended weapon you find grindy to get more so then that admittedly extremely impressive arsenal you have that… no truely I am really impressed and cant pick my jaw from the floor yet.

I am more impressed that you can’t divide 500/20.

Like I said vulcanous includes 10 dungeons runs.

Since we’re comparing the grind between vulcanous and an ascended weapons I deducted common elements from both.

Funny how you noticed 15 dungeons runs instead of 25 dungeon runs but had no issue that while intially i said raw material for vulcanous was 470g but then when comparing the grind I listed it as 370g you had no issue with though

Invasions are still on going just they are spaced further apart. If thats not your thing, I am sure theres Frostgorge / Orr train. 370G was your quote and does not take into account all the mats you would accumulate, TP flipping and lucky exo drops.

There is no need to offset each other’s requirements as Volcanus’s COF P1 runs would net you gold, molten cores or even lodestones if you are very lucky whereas dungeons runs made for ascended is only for G and the empyreal. And 500 tokens not equal to 10 Dungeon Runs, even at 500/60 when its 500/69 barring any mishaps.

I made Volcanus some time back (before COF P1 nerf) so historically it would be cheaper than now after patch. At worst currently it would be slightly more grindy than ONE ascended if you are unlucky.

I forgot to include the Exos is at least 1.2G for the glob of Dark Matter. It can range between 20G onwards as the drop is definitely worse than 1/2 and there is no chance for more than one glob.

I am pretty sure basic math is the foundation for logic.

P.S And excess skill points can be converted to G via selling lodestones after combining ores. I also made a ton of G from Orrian Boxes. So G is much easier to come by for the past few weeks whereas the account bound stuff MUST be completed as a time sink.

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

To be fair, I have Volcanus, Vision of the Mists, The Anomaly, Bolt and Howler, a few Corrupted and Titan’s Vengeance, Ascended Fractal backpiece. Even I am complaining about the upcoming grind for ascended if I choose to embark on it.

And a lot of it has to do with needing to upgrade 80% of the above mentioned into ascended.

Are you kidding me? what exactly do you find grindy out of the ascended weapon requirements after crafting volcanus and 2 legendaries?

Thats 3 weapons. Volcanus I have to upgrade to ascending. My 2nd legendary was made by G given during the AP rewards along with accumulated stuff in my bank. I bought the precursor cheaply for both. Its not just 10 weapons I have to upgrade to ascended. Probably at least 50 weapons in total.

Do u know math?

I am not exactly sure how that answers my question of what requirements specifically on an ascended weapon you find grindy to get more so then that admittedly extremely impressive arsenal you have that… no truely I am really impressed and cant pick my jaw from the floor yet.

I am more impressed that you can’t divide 500/20. I am not sure Empyreal drop is daily or not so for the most time efficent method may be gated and thus 25 days for the empyreal drops alone.

byjiang.1260:

Galen Grey.4709:

byjiang.1260:

Galen Grey.4709:

byjiang.1260:

Cloud.7613:

Kaizer.7135:

Nobody asked for a new tier of gear and we CERTAINLY didn’t ask for such ridiculous requirements to create them.

Actually, this is wrong. Some people did, a lot of people did actually so your argument is null and void.

Apparently so many that ANet is willing to throw their manifesto out the window.
And kitten off the ‘minority’ that was drawn to buy the game because of that very document.

OR OR …. they figured you know people who say they dont want better gear actually mean they dont want better gear… so lets see some people want better gear other people dont want better gear. Ohh I know lets make said gear entirely optional so the people who want it can have it, those who dont want it can ignore it.

Or I just like to do challenging contents with the best gear available. Like I said before, there are challenging stuff before now (e.g. gauntlet) and coming up (e.g. Tequatl).

did you fail the guantlet without an ascended weapon?

Watching the video of the new tequalt seems to me the key to winning that encounter isnt doing more damage at all.

I did Liadri with rares. That said, with ascended I’d have saved like 50 tickets or even used different strategies.

You can probably do all contents with greens. It’s just like 50 times harder.

And damage is not the only stat. There are defensive ones as well.

I would agree if ascended weapons was available during the Liandri fight.

byjiang.1260:

Galen Grey.4709:

@LanfearShadowflame

You’re absolutely right. Sometimes I ask myself why I even bother but there is always that hope that presented with logical arguments perhaps a few people will realise things arent all bad like they imagine.

I dont expect people who hate time-gating to love them just cause they’re keeping far away that next tier of gear they hate more. But I would hope some might come to see it as a necessary evil that isnt all bad… nothing else. We’ll see. Hope is last to die after all.

Or you just find the forums more fun than the game itself. Like me. You know, assume moral and logical high ground and go against the ignorant forum whiners. Good practice for developing language and deduction skills.

Or maybe not.

Or you could be a condescending know it all who in reality doesnt know anything at all.

Galen Grey.4709:

Ergo going with worst case scenario the question becomes
what is the most grindy
370g + 30 skill points
or
63 karma, 15 dungeons, 17 champions and 17 temples?

Yep pretty sure vulcanus is much much grindier

And so would be
Vision of the mists, the corrupted weapons, The crossing, The moon and many other named exotic weapons.

You are forgetting molten lodestones etc drop during farming / champion boxes so you may not need to buy as many molten lodestones from TP.

370g/10G per hour farming (from what I hear on average) =37 hrs of farming if you dont flip TP at all or get any exotics during farming.

Skill points u can get from boxes etc and leveling so it is very negligible if you are farming for that objective

“15 dungeons, 17 champions and 17 temples.”

Its 25 dungeons for empyreal, Einstein.

17 champions = 1 hr worth of invasion
25 COF P1 daily = 15 min (if there is no associated time with opening COF with usual LFG) x 25 = 6.25hr
17 temples = I am guessing half an hour for the fastest temple = 8.5
Total 20hr provided all the drops for all the mats are on average.

I see your calculations dont include the mats for the weapon components as well. They aren’t exactly cheap either. I am estimating 50G at least but at least the above mentioned provide G.

Or the time and money needed to get level 500 in crafting in the first place. + 3G for the recipe.

And heres the kicker: if you want Volcanus with ascended stats, you have to grind for both and there is not much overlap.

Galen Grey.4709:

Khal Drogo.9631:

To be fair, I have Volcanus, Vision of the Mists, The Anomaly, Bolt and Howler, a few Corrupted and Titan’s Vengeance, Ascended Fractal backpiece. Even I am complaining about the upcoming grind for ascended if I choose to embark on it.

And a lot of it has to do with needing to upgrade 80% of the above mentioned into ascended.

Are you kidding me? what exactly do you find grindy out of the ascended weapon requirements after crafting volcanus and 2 legendaries?

Thats 3 weapons. Volcanus I have to upgrade to ascending. My 2nd legendary was made by G given during the AP rewards along with accumulated stuff in my bank. I bought the precursor cheaply for both. Its not just 10 weapons I have to upgrade to ascended. Probably at least 50 weapons in total.

Do u know math?

byjiang.1260:

Vayne.8563:

byjiang.1260:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

xephire.8324:

Gear wars 2 ,Farm wars 2 , Grindwars 2.All of those is what gw2 has become instead of actually having guild wars.A tittle that doesn’t even relate to their game in anyway….

I like Grind Wars 2 the best. Its most fitting

That’s a very fitting name, as long as you preface it with the words “there really isn’t any reason to…”

Stop this nonsense please. Would you do Liadri in all greens? Any time they release anything remotely challenging you’ll want the best gear available.

Are you claiming that no one beat Liadri in rares?

I personally done Liadri in rares.

I’m saying when you know nothing about the fight, you want the best gear.

Liadri’s not the best example coz of the 1HKlols, but there are challenging stuff to come, e.g. Tequatl.

I would love to know your strategy. Especially if you can beat Liandri every time you played against her or at least a high win ratio.

Meanwhile I went in COF P1 today with 3 warriors and I was the lone mesmer standing as they couldn’t kill the effigy before dying themselves.

To be fair, I have Volcanus, Vision of the Mists, The Anomaly, Bolt and Howler, a few Corrupted and Titan’s Vengeance, Ascended Fractal backpiece. Even I am complaining about the upcoming grind for ascended if I choose to embark on it.

And a lot of it has to do with needing to upgrade 80% of the above mentioned into ascended.

byjiang.1260:

Peets.8529:

byjiang.1260:

Khal Drogo.9631:

MikaHR.1978:

xephire.8324:

Gear wars 2 ,Farm wars 2 , Grindwars 2.All of those is what gw2 has become instead of actually having guild wars.A tittle that doesn’t even relate to their game in anyway….

I like Grind Wars 2 the best. Its most fitting

Even the grindosaurs are complaining about time gating and not about collection of the mats.

Make a new character and play from 1 to 80. Can you make ascended gear when you turn 80? No.

How far are you from full exotics? Not far.

How far are you from full ascended? Months. Not even counting the armors to come.

Now tell me this game isn’t about grinding for gear.

Months? Have you actually look up how to get stuff or did you just read a bunch of wrong posts in this thread? I am a casual player (10 hours a week max) and I can manage it in a month.
The only grind there is in GW 2 is legendary. But hey, there has to be some grinding.

Sure you can earn 180 laurels in a month. Coz that’s how many you need for the trinkets. Not to mention loads of gold to craft the backpiece.

At least the stats aren’t that far off. I dont have full ascended on every character. And rings are pretty easy to come by for fracts. + Guild commendations should be ok.

byjiang.1260:

Peets.8529:

Wait a few weeks and you can buy all the stuff you need at a good prize on the TP. If nobody buys the materials now the prize will drop. That’s how economy works. So if you try to get smarter you will realize that there is no grind needed. You can also buy the lower cheap tiers and upgrade them with the Mystic Forge. I bought my exotic armor with the loads of karma I have. Also you can buy those nice looking chests in ORR with karma and get some high end materials. I could go on and on and on and… how to easily get stuff. But hey, it’s not my duty to think for you, go try it yourself.

Multiply that by how many weapons are needed for a character.

Then multiply that by how many pieces of armor you’ll need soon.

Then multiply that by how many sets of armors of different stats you’ll want.

Then multiply that by how many alts you want to gear.

Go try it yourself.

Multiply by the number of lvl 80s you have especially if you have one for each profession.

Theres another thread in which people say there is about a 33% damage increase for ascended weapons (taking into account weapon strength) and for 2H weapons another sigil slot. I would say that is a very big incentive to upgrade all your weapons.

Anet has crossed the rubicon, so to speak. The only way I think they can reverse this decision would be to nerf Ascended weapons or reduce the mats requirements. Option one would incur a lot of player wrath and option two would be backtracking on their well deliberated strategy and Anet doesn’t do that.

MikaHR.1978:

Cloud.7613:

Kaizer.7135:

Nobody asked for a new tier of gear and we CERTAINLY didn’t ask for such ridiculous requirements to create them.

Actually, this is wrong. Some people did, a lot of people did actually so your argument is null and void.

I bet chinese farmers are quite happy.

Yes and no. A lot of mats are account bound so you have to farm them yourself.

Tom Gore.4035:

Khal Drogo.9631:

BS. With the possible exception of Infinite Light, all other exotics are cheaper and much faster to craft – even Volcanus. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that 90% of mats can be bought with gold ie you can trade what you don’t want for something that you want.

Mjölnir says hi.

There is actually many MF recipes that are far more expensive than crafting Ascended WILL be, once the price of the mats goes down a bit.

Moreover, practically all components of an Ascended weapon are easily farmable. Good luck farming Lodestones and T6 mats, which the most expensive MF recipes require in hundreds.

First off all the components for ascended are easily farmable – but they require more time than farming gold or other mats to sell to buy the lodestones for expensive exos and lodestones now drop from champion bags etc so are now even cheaper. Charged used to be more than 3G and now are 2G.

Most importantly, you forget one very important thing – if you want the exotic skin of Mjolnir but the stats of ascended warhammer, you need to craft BOTH.

Thats the kicker.

MikaHR.1978:

xephire.8324:

Gear wars 2 ,Farm wars 2 , Grindwars 2.All of those is what gw2 has become instead of actually having guild wars.A tittle that doesn’t even relate to their game in anyway….

I like Grind Wars 2 the best. Its most fitting

Even the grindosaurs are complaining about time gating and not about collection of the mats.

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

Galen Grey.4709:

MikaHR.1978:

There are some compromises that cannot be made.

And Anet is moving 180 degrees away from what they promoted for 5 years and what actually made them “fastest selling MMO ever”

You know this is very dangerous that you’re saying now because while you’re right some compromises are dangerous because they can end up alienating the two or more groups you’re trying to please, not compromising means you have to cut one group out.

If then you’re seeing the game move in a direction different then you would like (assuming its not a one time thing) chances are its because the other group is bigger. So forcing them to stop compromising might not have the desired result.

I said it a lot of times and I will do it again.
be careful what you wish for.

I think compromises are in everyone’s best interest personally.

Many company went against their current customers in order to “get moar” customers and came crumbling because in the end they made compromises noone wanted.

And yes, i would for once want them to say what exactly they want out of their game (well they did that before launch but then made 180 turn, so yah, lumps of salt and all that)

But, to put it into perspective – failed games took ANets current approach.

I am sorry and I dont mean to be disrespectful but you’re being a bit self centered here in my opinion.

You’re assuming the current customers = people who hate vertical progression. Current customers = those who bought the game and there were so many people in that group that wanted vertical progression that it was introduced in the very 2nd patch.

And 180 degree turn how? we knew this was coming from that very 2nd month. People say this is grindy but there are exotic weapons that are much worst to craft then any of these ascended weapons. None of the ascended gear locks up any content like they promised it never would. You can get Ascended weapons in different ways. Whats this 180 degree turn you speak about exactly?

BS. With the possible exception of Infinite Light, all other exotics are cheaper and much faster to craft – even Volcanus. And a lot of this has to do with the fact that 90% of mats can be bought with gold ie you can trade what you don’t want for something that you want.

xephire.8324:

Gear wars 2 ,Farm wars 2 , Grindwars 2.All of those is what gw2 has become instead of actually having guild wars.A tittle that doesn’t even relate to their game in anyway….

You forgot Super Mario / Battletoads Wars.

Profano.9514:

Galen Grey.4709:

No as in its not the only way. They drop from World bosses, Champions, Jumping puzzles, WvW objectives and other stuff. Of course I am not going to pretend its ideal, in fact it might be borderline unfeasible but its too early to say for sure. Also no in that you can buy everything related to the crafting and do that by playing whatever you choose..

Let me explain better Galen, and sorry for my poor english.
Actually we don’t know the drop rate from World Bosses, Champions etc., but we are sure ascended weapons are more rares than exotics no? Plus, you can’t choose what type of stat would have the ascended drop, and if you are not interested, you can’t sell.

So i must farm for ascended weapons and they are not only aesthetics.
This is not, theorically, what was GW2; this is not the game we bought during the closed beta, imho.

All the other things are amazing for me.
Anet done a fantastic job in 1 year;i bought gems sometime just for say “thanks guys, go forward!”, but this, come on, this is not the GW spirit, this is Blizzard style.

+1. Fantastic maybe not – ok overall. I had wanted to do Oola’s lab etc guess now is the time to go do it.

MikaHR.1978:

Draven.7210:

Can’t believe people are STILL kittening about grind in GW2. Since November this topic has been run into the ground and beat hundreds of times to death and here we are….September of the next year and you STILL keep complaining.

If ANet really felt they were wrong the way you insist they are, they wouldn’t continue with what they’re doing, including Ascended gear. Seriously. Get over it.

So no company ever did some very stupid decisions? Really?

ROFL

I never complained about grind until this patch. And its hitched to SAB which I already don’t like.

I think everyone was fine with ascended rings, amulets and accessories despite being time gated. The grind for weapons increased grind exponentially and forget it if you want multiple sets of ascended weapons.