Easy question to answer – that would be NO, in this case!
Hi, might be a stupid question, but are there any other way to get Ascended Gear than doing the dungeons?
I would really like if you could craft it or buy it somehow with gold or gems.
Anything than doing these dungeons really.
Thanks.
Also an idea would be for developers to have an Question and Answers post maybe every month or something . Where they address popular questions by the community.
Also it gives a sense of authenticity to see the people behind the game a bit more.
“Communicate unto the other person that which you would want him to communicate unto you if your positions were reversed.”
— Aaron GoldmanThis is a strong quote that rings sound within the Guild Wars 2 player base. Not the forums, not the PvPers, not the PvEers, not the hard-cores, not the casuals, but all. Communication between developers and players is needed in any game that takes dedication, time, and effort; in other words we need to know what is going on so we do not feel like we are in the dark whilst spending hundreds of hours in game. The secrecy and SURPRISE! feel that patches give are not examples of good communication.
- I feel most of us would prefer to know the specifics before the patch goes live.
- I feel most of us would probably like stats and technical information on patches.
- I defiantly feel most of us wouldn’t mind spoiling a bit of content by having test servers to ensure content is not buggy.
- I know ArenaNet wants to develop the best mmorpg of all time. I’m sure all of us wouldn’t mind if that happened.
- I feel the ascended gear update is an example of miscommunication, combined with fear of retracting on their promises of no gear treadmills.
- I feel most of us would like content to be enriched rather than expanded.
I really like these points above.
Timely information on patches, with technical details (patch notes).
I also wish devs would show us in more detail their thoughts on future content. Like a developer diary or manifesto (here on the forums) – which players can discuss and give feedback to.
So we don’t get another “surprise” situation with a lot pf players feeling confused.
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I feel they’re handling this uproar quite clumsy. Instead of being honest and transparent, all critique is moved to a “trash can” sorry merged thread, and official statements are very vague without any details or thoughts of the consequences for game play.
<shrugs>
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Odd my post got deleted for “derailing” the discussion.
Well what do you know…
Maybe I should just say I agree to disagree, without further discussion.
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This is such a great post, I agree.
I can live with that. +1
[EDIT]:
If the price isn’t to expensive – in my mind it would be somewhat similar to paying a subscription fee.
If I find it to expensive I can imagine getting some of the gear from the dungeon and buying the rest in the gem store.
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Most people won’t even bother to go here and complain – they’ll just silently quit.
The one pink ring to ruin them all .. Cheezus.
It has already successfully ruined the community. Never before have I witnessed so many belittling and downright vicious posts. You can’t possibly oppose the gear grind without being a filthy casual crybaby.
Face it, we’re WoW now and it’s only going to get worse from here on out unless ArenaNet stems the tide.
I agree, it’s amazing so many hostile posts there are towards people constructively criticizing this new patch. I’ve seen so many good threads where OP spend a great deal of time to make a constructive and well written post – just being thrown into the “trash can” sorry merged thread.
You have no idea how many copies I’ve purchased for friends and family. $60 isn’t even close. Nowhere near.
You obviously didn’t read the post. It’s not about thoughts on ascended gear. That’s what you get for replying before reading though.
Ah, you are right it’s slightly different. But regardless, it’s an incomplete game imho. They laid out the tiers
exotic —-—> legendary
exotic —-—> ascended —-——-> legendaryTier list hasn’t grown, it just has more depth. Updates are completing this game. If they were finished, they’d have an expansion out already. You paid $60 (per game) which is like any other game, I hope you at least got your money’s worth along with whoever else you bought the game for. Maybe in the future, when they complete the game and know how it’s all laid out, you’ll be less disappointed.
There was no difference between Exotics and Legendaries up until this patch. So no, they’re not adding depth, they’re adding a gap.
This thread is gonna be a flame war, might as well lock it already. o_O
Now, if it’s out of your hands (meaning this is something that NCSoft has forced down your throats) then we need to know that, too. This goes back to just being honest and upfront about what’s going on internally. And while I get the fact that we all obviously don’t work for ANet, we want very much to work with ANet, and to be a part of this product, and to see its continued success.
If they weren’t directly overselling/lying, being honest can only help them right now. Otherwise people tend to conclude they were just full of BS during development.
Why isn’t this thread closed already? It’s basically just trolling.
Would be awesome if they would limit the gear to be usable in the dungeon – having no effect on WvW.
The topic gets a bit more sticky with WvW, but I won’t get into that except to say that people already do it with all ranges of gear. Basically, the point is that the new gear is meant for the higher difficulty settings of the new dungeon, a place where “hardcore” players can enjoy themselves.
Well if this is the case then the new ascended armor with better stats should just be unusable in WvW. I know you’re saying it’s complicated when you include WvW into the discussion, but how can you not?
Quote from locked topic. (Why do you lock topics that are constructive and well thought?)
“The community interfacing is very dull and always the same. As an MMO the community interface needs to be strong to ensure the community is kept up to date. Letting people know about the details of this patch 1 week before release is not keeping people up to date. A solution to this would be to ask the community on polls and login polls about what they think of an idea is before they implement it. By doing this they would know immediately before they started to spend time to implement something that is was not good and would cause chaos if they do implement it.”
I couldn’t agree more. The game developers of Path of Exile are actually doing this. (Small indie game)
It’s called co-creation and alot of companies are starting to open their eyes to this.
I would almost say, that simply throwing a product/design feature out there without knowing how it will be received is just plain stupidity.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill.
thats why we decided to create a gear treadmill.
Haha, that’s so funny – never thought of it as explicitly as that – but it makes sense!
In their response to peoples outcry, they say they wanted Ascended gear to be something in between Exotics and Legendaries, but I guess that can be interpreted in more ways.
Quote:
“Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. "
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451
I want to play PvP in an open world, like WvWvW. And to those of you who say go play structured PvP, I can say the same to you – go play another game were you can farm gear all day everyday.
Have you actually done WvW before?
Seriously nothing in that place is related to skill.
Whoever has the bigger zerg, better siege or finer organization/coverage pretty much win. I’ve killed tons of people wearing nothing but lvl 30 blue (and no jewel), and i didn’t even have master traits.
Gear is the last thing that mattered in wvw, and it only matters if you’re a free roamer that happens to run into one or two people when you’re doing your vistas.
Actually some of us enjoy roaming in the edge or just outside of the zerg, getting smaller more exciting fights.
Problem is that devs want to add progressive gear progression, in future there will be more powerful items. This is why I think we are in crossroads and need to seperate all PVE from PvP. Let PVe players have their goodies and also let PvP players have our little sandbox.
I agree
Funny how some people think that Legendaries have better stats than exotics… O_o
Unless they decide to change current tiers, and make better stats on Legendary armor, leaving Exotics as 3rd best. With the new Ascended gear we just don’t know what’s gonna happen :-(
Maybe it’ll be like
3rd best = Exotics
2nd best = Ascended
best = Legendary
Guesswork from me :-|
I’m thinking this Ascended gear shouldn’t be usable in WvW. But I’m pretty sure the dungeon grinders would just be sad pandas if they weren’t rewarded for their grinding efforts.
Quote:
Our Studio Design Director Chris Whiteside just posted this:
“I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores."
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director
/End of Quote
What do you think after reading this?
I think they’re not touching the subject of the increased stats at all and also how it will effect WvWvW.
It would have been nice to hear their thoughts on this. But it’s probably a clever move to stay silent – if they haven’t given it much thought at all “hey, our players need a carrot to chase”.
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Link is here btw: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451
When i read their response to the issue, I was thinking, that they completely avoided to comment on the improved stats. How can anyone take a response like this serious? They’re not touching the subject at all.
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The merged thread is basically a trash can. It’s about damage control and not about discussion.
Yeah, it’s not very imaginative.
This is a discussion on GW2 in general.
During development of GW2 and up until now, GW2 was something a bit different than conventional MMOs. Developers stated that new content added in the game would be different than the usual hunt for more powerful gear.
The design manifesto:
”So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you shouldreally check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee.”
(link: http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto)
It looked promising. Up until now I didn’t doubt the fact that GW2 would be something different than the usual MMOs out there.
Some of us might be frustrated on the fact that they’re now breaking a brand promise, but the thing that will really have a consequence for GW2 in the future is the lack of original thinking and a unique brand position.
Let’s think ahead one year. A new high budget MMO is released – it has better graphics, a new fantastic world to explore, new items and new dungeons with new boss-fights. Now GW2 will struggle, having no unique position in the market or loyal target market. The graphics and the world is a bit outdated – people have been there done that. GW2 players are now leaving for the new MMO. Now some of you might be thinking, but that’s just how things work in the world of MMOs. It doesn’t have to be like that.
This new dungeon, Fractals of the Mist, and the Ascended armor seem to be anything but imaginative and original. What happened to the game that would defy conventions and think out of the box?
If GW2 try to stay different, then there’ll be a place for them in this future.
If they build a strong unique brand, then people will be standing in line to play their next MMO.
Sure a company can optimize everything, while delivering a threshold level of competitiveness, but if they don’t deliver a meaningful and DISTINCTIVE experience to a target market, then they’ll soon be surpassed.
It’s not about doing things right, but about doing the right things.
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Like zergs you mean? :-D
Yeah, they’re like the Skaven from Warhammer books. Funny as hell.
Short-term money that is. Goodbye to long-term profit.
I’m pretty sure that the people in A-net have different and strong opinions about this, but devs got nothing to say when the finance guys from up top come down and start getting “great ideas”!
Yeah, how evil is it for a company to make money, anyway?
So you like for your car dealer to lie to your face about what the car has, just to get more money out of you?
Horrible analogy.
Actually it’s a good analogy. Would you think positively of that car dealer and buy your next car from him?
Basically my belief is that they saw how many people their game attracted, pulled a Blizzard and got money hungry, and are now trying to keep them playing.
And the long term consequences will be that in the end, these dungeon loving players will move onto the next conventional MMO – and GW2 will be an unauthentic brand that sold out – [EDIT—>] not making any money, cause players moved on.
(edited by Loumy.7841)
That’s what I am guessing as well Tokugawa. That this might be result of financial metrics. It sure doesn’t make sense in regards to successful branding.
I’m personally hoping that there will be an alternative to grinding new gear all the time – maybe something like buying it with real money. I want that option – if I feel to cheap to pay, I can grind a some of the stuff and buy the rest.
Oh, and could we use another term than “hardcore”. They’re not hardcore as in skilled and cool, they just spend A LOT of time grinding stuff. End of story.
I hope they will give us non-grinding gamers an alternative way of getting this silly gear.
I don’t mind paying real money for a few items, and maybe grind the few that I have time to.
I think OP has a very good point:
“Yes, you just obsoleted all your old dungeon content because it won’t give the highest gear – we’ve all seen how this happened in other MMO’s. Plus you kill your pipeline for new players who cannot possibly catch up eventually to the current gear level and fall further and further behind.”
I agree with this!
A-net have planned to implement item progression into the game. This has uncovered two different player segments of GW2 – in a conflict here on the forum.
Now I’m sure there’s a reason they’re choosing this new design. Maybe their original business model isn’t performing as good as they thought it would, i.e. statistics on “number of players” or revenue.
So what we have are these three needs:
- Gamers that need content of item progression.
- Gamers that don’t want to grind for gear.
- A-net’s need for better numbers in finance.
My suggestion is that to satisfy all sides:
- Continue implementing item progression into the game (Ascended Gear), but
- Give players the option to buy the new items in the shop. Players who don’t want to spend to much money in the shop (supporting their favorite game) can choose to get most of the gear for free from the dungeons.
- The cash flow improves, and numbers look better for A-net.
I agree with OP, A-net should at least try to implement this new gear in a way to still make core segments happy – maybe by giving us several options as how to get this gear (gems, real money shop, karma etc).
There’s an excellent thread here on the business consequences for A-net:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Market-Positioning-and-Ascended-Gear/first#post712693
I hope Linsey Murdock is reading this and if not someone should print this out and put this on her desk.
Good idea!
I agree. It is not possible to serve all types of consumers, trade-offs have to be made.
Brand success is achieved by sticking to your heritage and delivering what your target market expects and wants (your brand promise).
MMOs come and go, but strong brands go on and on.
Your brand is the only asset your competitors cannot replicate. Innovations in a game are easily copied.
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Bottom line, ArenaNet needs to keep people playing.
Do you honestly think this move, which is clearly pissing off masses of players, is going to keep people playing let alone putting money in to the game…?
I tend to find business practices that are completely the opposite of what your own company president promised are not the most reliable ways of making money.
I’d challenge you to find a quick fix to stop the bleeding that I assert is going on with the player base besides gear.
What “bleed”? Where are you even getting these notions from…?
Experience.
When something that’s a core philosophy changes so very quickly there’s typically something behind the scenes that is forcing that change.
Typically it has to do with money. Sure, it’s a guess, but an educated and experienced one. Things don’t just “change” because things are working. Something in their model clearly isn’t working, and they’ve decided on this course of action to right whatever is wrong.
I agree, and I actually wouldn’t mind paying some real money as an alternative to grind dungeons.
In long term, having a strong brand is what matters. Not delivering on your brand promise —> worse brand image.
Conventional business men tend to be short sighted…
In a couple of months when all the “hardcore” grinders have their Ascended gear, A-net will reveal some even more powerful gear, which we’ll also have to get to compete in WvWvW. And in 6 months some even more powerful gear etc etc etc
I agree with OP, would be nice with an honest response from a real developer.
Just give me the option to buy it with real money, and let the dungeon-grind-lovers do their dungeons. It’s understandable that A-net is afraid of losing the dungeon loving customer segment.