Guild Wars 2

GADefence.5634:

“If they do that, they would be outright accused of Pay to Win methods, something all self respecting developers would want to avoid.”

Ok, I can see how you took that that way – I meant the skins, not the stats. Offering all backpack items and new armour for money as skins would probably have gotten them somewhere.

Same with finally letting us use tonics and costumes in combat, that would have boosted that sell.

But nope, instead the alienate their playerbase and a portion of them took refunds. Hope that 60$ * player base you shooed off amount of money as a negative to your year end was really worth it ANet.

Ok, I see what you mean now.

I agree. A meaningful cash shop would mean more revenues. The cash shop as it stands is pretty dire. There are people out there with money burning a hole in their pockets for the right items. The shop currently does not have the right items.

GADefence.5634:

If ANet really wanted to make cash they would have just added all the new back items to the gemstore. Instant money.

I think the real reason for this Ascended armour is that ANet made a deal with a form of aspirin company. Hearing all the english as a second language people arguing in favor of gear tiers with the barest understanding of the words they use is really giving me a headache.

If they do that, they would be outright accused of Pay to Win methods, something all self respecting developers would want to avoid.

XxTAFxX.6741:

Tbh they could easily add more stuff in the cash shop to make money,for instance more costumes,custom skins ect ect.
They would def make more money that way.

The new gear will prob be to prepare us for the new expansion.
i just hope there are other means to get it besides dungeons.

Exactly.

The point I am trying to make is that this game was meant to be the Buy to Play model. But what has actually happened is that we had to play for the game and Arenanet are looking to reap the rewards as if they were Free to Play game.

Free to Play games do not charge for the game. We have all paid money for the game and were meant to get a full game for our money. The game was meant to be funded by the box sales with some additional sales from the cash shop, as Guild Wars was.

The reason for the stat increase is because nobody would use real cash to acquire these new items otherwise. They would likely just stick with the exotics they already had.

I’ll be as brief as possible…

Each mystic forge recipe requires 250 crafted ingredients, plus a ton of ectoplasm. There are two main ways to acquire these items, you either farm for them, or you buy them. Whilst farming for them, because of the sheer quantity required, you are going to hit the DR wall. You are also going to run into a lot of other people trying to farm. This means that it’s going to take a LONG time to get all the mats you need.

Currently, Potent Blood cost around 2s each and Ectoplasm cost around 25s each. This is no small amount of gold when you tot it all up. Only those with a lot of time to spare are either going to have the gold, or the time to farm the mats, and farm the dungeons. This means that those who don’t have the time have a choice, they either miss out on the items, or they look at spending real cash on gems in the cash shop to convert the gems to gold.

My theory is that Arenanet are adding this tier of gear specifically to fund future development of the game.

The reason they are releasing items only a few at a time is because if they release them too quickly, people will not have the funds to keep up. By releasing them slowly, people can spend the money over a longer period which means people are more likely to keep paying real cash for these items.

It’s not quite pay to win of course, because everything is available in-game, but it is almost a cleverly disguised version of it.

It’s because of this train of thought that I am 100% certain that we will see more tiers of gear introduced in the future. That is if all goes how Arenanet expects in terms of gem sales.

I could be wrong, but it does seem to make sense to me.

Galen Grey.4709:

Ganzo.5079:

Galen Grey.4709:

Assassinin.4963:

But is there an OFFICIAL CLARIFICATION on this issue thus far? I afraid not. But no worry, the complaints will die down sooner than later (which I believe its the delay tactics Anet is using to tide them over this ‘crisis’) because those who complains but still cannot find closure to the issue would have left the game. I believe many of these players are having a fun time playing PlanetSide 2 now. Its a sad day for GW2.

The problem with an official clarification in my opinion is this issue has been so overblown and every single thing said has been jumped on analysed in detail and twisted to mean something negativite never intended that you’re not going to get an official reply before it has been vetted by a ton of people! No one is going to risk posting something that might be misinterpretted!

Really no.

if i ask you:
there will be a new tier after the ascended one?

if you reply:
no im not going to release a new tier every 3 months
you let the road open to misinformation

but if you reply
no, this is the last tier we release
or
yes this is only the beginning
How this can be misinterpreted?

Bet not even the CEO can take such a definitive position much less someone posting a clarrification that hasnt been vetted by god knows how many suits.

Things might also change in the future you cant really exclude anything! That to me is a no but at the same time reserving the right to change direction if needed. And yes I know what you’re going to say thats exactly what you dont want to hear but you have to understand its the best any business can do!

And dont get me wrong I dont want to see a new tier just as much as you if not more! But I understand there is a limit of how much any business can promise.

Of course you are right. In any business it’s foolish to never say never. But, unfortunately Arenanet’s statement has sowed the seed of doubt, and unless they give some kind of assurances, this uncertainty is going to continue.

If they even said ‘look, we would never say ’never’, but we have no plans right now, or in the future to add further tiers’ a lot of people would accept that.

Any intelligent person would understand that companies want to do the best by their business and to rule something out completely could be a very silly move.

Enzomiles.6197:

From my perspective, the style of World of Warcraft is kind of like the minor leagues of gaming. There is a lot of competition and everyone is competing to be the best. The pinnacle is to get to the big leagues which is raiding. It’s content that not everyone will see or be a part of and only the best of the best get there and the best rewards goes to those who get there. I played wow for years and was burned out and treated poorly by other players because I didn’t have what it takes to get there. This style fits for some people, and I understand the appeal, it’s just not for me.

Actually, you don’t have to be the ‘best of the best’ to reach the pinnacle of WoW, you just have to have a fair amount of spare time.

The style of Guild Wars is more like the movie Sandlot. You play hard but no one is keeping score and stats don’t matter much. Everyone gets their time at bat and you play not to reach some goal but just because it’s fun. Guild wars had this niche and a lot of people got this game because it wasn’t like wow and it felt like home to me.

I agree.

But things are changing to try to cater to a bigger audience but it’s a huge mistake because it’s not possible to make both styles happy. GW2 is moving towards wow light and GW2 is going to be second rate because wow does this style better. There is going to be those that want the wow style of always progressing and reaching for the next best thing so that they can be the best and be a step above everyone else. Once they reach the top it will not be enough because sooner or later it will not be exclusive enough. Those that don’t play the rat race will be left behind sitting the bench. You already split the community and whatever you decide to do now…it will not end well.

But here’s the thing. That bigger audience is an illusion. There hasn’t been a single MMO released since WoW that can command those big subscription numbers. WoW is an anomoly, a one-off. Arenanet are chasing this market for a chance of what might be.

I don’t actually think they are likely to attract many more players than they already have. If they continue to go down this current path they are likely to lose more than they will gain.

LadenSwallow.1468:

No need to go all the way for False Advertising (unless you really want to), you can hurt them on their bottom line by requesting a refund:

https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/9053/kw/refund

I would, but unfortunately I purchased through a third party because I wanted a physical box and therefore cannot get a refund.

I took the survey but unfortunately there are some very big questions missing. Like what people think of the shift in philosophy for one.

Maybe they should have done this type of survey before implementing this new system.

I blame whoever is at fault., but I’m not going to resort to conspiracy theories and speculation to determine who that is. At this point in time, I’m laying the blame firmly at Arenanet’s door until there is any hard evidence to the contrary.

Ok, just in case anybody else has this issue or gets this issue in future. I received a response from ArenaNet on this issue and they told me to get someone to kick me from the guild then re-invite. It worked and everything is back to normal again.

Sabo.1485:

Mandrax.7342:

Mungrul.9358:

Columba.9730:

flood all online buying sites with complaints and bad reviews. if they can’t sell anything over the holidays, someone will get fired and things will change.

Done; one-star review submitted to Amazon.co.uk, and I’ve up-voted a few other one-star reviews too.
Let’s hit them where it hurts.

Metacritic is a good place to vent too. User reviews do mean a lot to developers and currently they have done pretty well in this respect. If their rating starts to drop due to unrest it could have a negative impact on further players buying and joining the game.

I’m not really sure what you hope to accomplish. Attacking Arenanet isn’t going to achieve anything except convince people not to buy GW2, which will lower their income, which will cause them to have to lay people off and ultimately shutter the game. Are you wanting them to FIX the game? Or are you so hostile because of this patch you’re just wanting to destroy it?

Attacking them? It’s not an attack.

Of course I want them to fix the game. But clearly talking to them through proper channels (i.e the official forums) is not working. They shut down the thread with all the feedback and just referred us to a previous blog post that does not have the answers people are looking for.

Spreading the word that ArenaNet have been dishonest and that the philosophy of the game has changed already, might actually help to force them come out with a proper statement. One that doesn’t insult the intelligence of their player base.

At the very least it might at least prevent some people from wasting their money on trying this game out which purported to be something it isn’t.

The fact that they closed the massive thread with all the feedback on the ascended gear shows that they aren’t interested in conversing with us.

The worst part about this is not the amount required (though I do think it’s a ridiculous amount) but the fact that you will constantly be hit with DR whilst trying to farm these items. Even if you did try to farm all the mats you need, it’s going to take you a hell of a lot longer than it should do. Clearly this is done on purpose to stimulate sales of gems to convert to coins.

Mungrul.9358:

Columba.9730:

flood all online buying sites with complaints and bad reviews. if they can’t sell anything over the holidays, someone will get fired and things will change.

Done; one-star review submitted to Amazon.co.uk, and I’ve up-voted a few other one-star reviews too.
Let’s hit them where it hurts.

Metacritic is a good place to vent too. User reviews do mean a lot to developers and currently they have done pretty well in this respect. If their rating starts to drop due to unrest it could have a negative impact on further players buying and joining the game.

Bovive.8946:

I had this problem last night, but it resolved itself after I restarted the game a couple times.

Tried that, restarted over and over, have stood down, tried logging to other characters the only thing I haven’t done is tried to leave the guild because I’m worried some bug might stop be being able to get an invite again for a while.

I’ve put in a support ticket so I guess I wait for them to service it.

I’ve been saying the same thing for a while too. Currently once I’ve bought my character slots and bank and inventory space, there is nothing in that shop that I want to buy.

I mean, I might buy a pet but I will not be put in the hands of RNG and buy packs of pets and hope to get one I like. I might buy some dye, but same goes, I’m not prepared to gamble with RNG in the hope I’ll get something I need. I’m not prepared to gamble with chests so I will not buy keys or consortium chests. I’m not going to buy 2012 products like a beanie hat and sunglasses for a fantasy game, it breaks all immersion.

Add some proper items so that I can get them without playing the RNG game. The problem is with the current setup is that they rely on people having a gambling addiction in order to keep selling items.

Deadcell.9052:

Its amazing how a small stat increase on the few items released made all previous dungeon content obsolete, very rare do i see anyone spamming for other dungeons now. Not sure if this was intentional on ANets part.

This is what happens when new tiers of gear are released. All other tiers and content that offers those tiers becomes redundant. It’s happened in WoW for years and years.

Surely ArenaNet MUST have realised that it would happen? If they did then it was obviously a conscious decision. If they didn’t, well, we should be very worried about the future of the game.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

This is something that existed prior to ascended gear, and was something that we saw happen all the time in GW1, even without any sort of gear progression. Some players, typically people who play the game a lot, tend to only want to play with other players that play like them. They require some sort of proof to get into their party, whether it be displaying your Lightbringer Title, equipping or linking some type of gear, or using some other method of showing that you have already done and are experienced with the content. While ascended gear might be the new excuse, this behavior happens regardless.

While this is not really something that we want to encourage, players do have the choice to play the game in the way they want. We can’t force those players to be all-inclusive in who they invite to the parties they create, and to be honest, doing so would probably make people even more unhappy than they are now, and lead to a lot of undesirable behavior.

But you have actively made this situation worse. I thought one of the big ideas behind this game was to take a big step forward in player co-operation. The way loot works, the way everybody can gather from the same node, the way everybody gets some experience if they help kill the same monster.

This latest patch goes completely against that ethos. Instead of having co-operation you have competition between the player base. These features encourage players to help each other, it’s the complete opposite of what’s happening now since your latest patch. You have succeeded in splitting the player base.

There are people trying to get dungeon groups for fractals at all different levels. This was never the easiest game to find a dungeon group in anyway, but now you have made it even harder.

If someone does manage to find a group then they are subjected to gear inspections and such. This is only going to get worse the more ascended gear that becomes available. Players who haven’t had as much time to farm for items will become alienated and unable to complete some parts of the content.

It appears to me that not only have Arenanet done a u-turn on their gear philosophy, but they have also done one on their player co-operation philosophy by adding features that create barriers.

This all-inclusive game is becoming just another copy/paste gear-based MMO. Something it was never supposed to be according to Mike O’Brien and Colin Johanson. What is going on at Arenanet and why are you ruining your own game??

Michael.6849:

Thanks for the refund.
“The spawn of some demon type cat” you for murdering your own manifesto, and all of its wonderful promises, wish you could have stuck to them.

If I had not have bought a physical copy I would be looking for a refund too. Unfortunately I don’t like digital versions as I’m an old git who likes to have the boxes!

Tomcat.8375:

Honestly guys, this thread should have invoked some response, but it hasn’t.
But what can we do? IMO go to amazon and tell the other naive consumers what you really think about this game. You want to make a legal impact? Bad reviews at places who sell this game. A flood of bad reviews right before the holidays? That’s one way to be heard.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TOQ8X4/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

Forget Amazon just go do it on Metacritic. Whilst many people do see metacritic as a dumb site, the gaming industry does take it fairly seriously. Currently GW2 got an 8.1 as a user score. That can easily plummet if enough people write a review. The good thing about Metacritic is that even if you’ve already reviewed the game, you can change it, which means if Anet change again in future, you can update your review again.

Bump.

Need some help here, can’t access the guild on any character.

So, I’m in a guild and am representing, yet I cannot see or talk in guild chat. When I type /g and then type something, I get the message ‘you are not in a guild’ despite the fact that when I press G I can see everyone and can see all the guild rewards and such.

Anybody else had this before?

Stormcycle.4208:

Norax.2405:

This is not the game that I paid for.

Thats why I am complaining

What is the game you paid for? I would go return it if you bought the wrong game. Most places don’t accept returns on software that has been opened though.

Would do you better if you paid attention and made sure you bought the right title next time.

NEWSFLASH: Arenanet just pulled a bait and switch. This is NOT the game they said it would be. Haven’t you seen the MASSIVE thread in this very part of the forums?

I paid attention, I knew the game I thought I was buying, unfortunately I wasn’t prepared for Arenanet to do a complete U-turn on their manifesto less than three months from going live.

Save it for next year.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Paying (about) $55 for a game does not buy ownership of the game company, and does not entitle one to make game design or business decisions. Least of all, it does not entitle one to take away somebody’s livelihood.

One forum post is not negative publicity.
Opinion is not fact.
Not even mine.

Perhaps you’re unware of the 10,000 + post thread here? This is not “one post in a forum”.

BTW, purchasing the game and buying $120 worth of gems based on their stated commitment to uphold a fundamental design philosophy gives me the right to state my displeasure and offer up a means of correcting what I see as a huge mistake.

I am aware of the uproar, but that does not make you, or anyone else, its spokeperson, nor does it entitle anyone to issue petty and vindictive ultimatums. You weren’t even trying to be constructive, and although your choice of words may be civil, your demand for the public humiliation of an entire company is anything but.

“You made a terrible decision” is an opinion.
“I want an apology” is not an opinion, but a demand that may or may not be reasonable.
“Fire that guy now!” is not an opinion, but an unreasonable demand.

Neither $55, nor $120 buys you the right to fire people.

---

Mandrax.7342:

In terms of how Anet can make good. I personally think that if they agree to keep ascended as the top stat gear and make it available widely through WvW, crafting and such, it will be a step in the right direction.

I believe they have already announced something like this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

(The bottom paragraph)

Firstly they haven’t said it would be available through crafting, nor have they said that the ascended gear will be the top gear always. The only thing they did confirm is that it would be available via WvW but they put the words ‘over time’ in there. I would love to know what that actually means.

Does it mean that when it becomes available for dungeons that WvW will have it’s very own progression path, or does it mean it will be available after it ceases to become useful for PvE because a new set has come out?

This is the problem. So far their only response to the outrage has asked more questions than it answered.

Gombar.7324:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/A-message-from-our-Studio-Design-Director-Chris-Whiteside/first#post721451

Don’t know what to say……

That was 5 days ago. Since then the silence from them has been deafening.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Paying (about) $55 for a game does not buy ownership of the game company, and does not entitle one to make game design or business decisions. Least of all, it does not entitle one to take away somebody’s livelihood.

One forum post is not negative publicity.
Opinion is not fact.
Not even mine.

You are correct, one forum post is not negative publicity. But, thousands of posts in a short period of time has been enough for many of the gaming news sites to report on what is happening. That IS negative publicity.

In terms of how Anet can make good. I personally think that if they agree to keep ascended as the top stat gear and make it available widely through WvW, crafting and such, it will be a step in the right direction.

Well I have pretty much no motivation to play the game. I’ve barely logged in since the announcement of ascended.

Take more care of your account in future is the moral of the story

I invited one friend who just laughed at how bad the lag was during events and also couldn’t believe how broken the events were. He is a former GW vet who will not be purchasing. A shame, the trials were meant to attract more but due to how badly the game ran during the events, many just will not bother to spend money on the game.

Gonna try Planetside 2 but I’m not too hopeful that its going to fit my needs. The original idea of GW2 did. I think I might be about done with MMOs. If Archeage ever makes it as a Western product I might be tempted to give that a shot.

Arenanet are playing a very dangerous game right now. They are gambling that those that want and like a gear treadmill in their MMOs are now going to flock to this game. This thread proves that they have successfully alienated a massive group of fans and players.

Some important questions that Arenanet need to ask themselves.

Are they going to do the gear treadmill/progression thing better than the competition?

How are they going to tear people away from those other games bearing in mind that many of those people are heavily invested in those games either socially or through attachments to their characters.

What happens if the people STILL don’t come? Will that mean we might see more unique features turned into other copy/paste MMO features?

My feeling is that they are not going to attract too many more players to this game, and those that already left because there was ‘nothing to do’ or ‘no progression’ aren’t likely to come back because usually once you’ve left a new MMO, you don’t return.

This could leave them in a real mess as they are obviously going to lose players over this debacle and they have no idea whether they can not only make up the shortfall, but actually build on the populations by adapting this new philosophy.

If this method fails, then the game could be in serious trouble as they would be hard pushed to get back all the players that left due to the introduction of the gear treadmill/progression. People don’t like being lied to. Especially when they have put a huge amount of faith and trust in someone.

It’s going to be an interesting few months.

The biggest problem here is that Anet have completely split the playerbase. We now have people looking for groups for multiple levels of this new dungeon which makes it harder and harder to find people on the same level as you. This is not an intelligent move on Anets part in my opinion. I’m all for new content but gating it in this way is only going to succeed in annoying all those that were left behind for various reasons.

I’ve had relatives staying this weekend so I only actually managed to get on Friday for the opening event. How much of a problem is it going to be finding a group for level 1? Reading these forums it looks like it could be a total PITA, which would be very very disappointing.

NaughtyProwler.8653:

Tempest.1254:

Downstairs Eddie.8125:

Mil.3562:

Urrid.4593:

Thoughts on Ascended Gear? [Merged threads] – 10,053 replies 114,938 views.

And no response of real value to date. (Nov 17th.)

Now Arenanet ONLY reply to threads and posts relating to Fractual Dungeon and Ascended Gear.

They are not interested in our feedbacks and concerns. It’s either you continue to play and support them or you quit. That simple.

That’s being unfair. I’m sure they are listening very intently right now. Maybe their silence means they’ve been surprised by the fierce backlash and are currently discussing what to do about it. I hope they make the right decision.

Honestly, I’d love to give them the benefit of the doubt, but compare how they used to communicate with the customers and the community with how it’s been recently.

They used to be very transparent. We know exactly what they intended to do with the game. They used to do AMAs on Reddit and Q&As elsewhere.

Now their posts are full of rhetoric and doublespeak. I don’t think they can say anything.

I have to say I think they have a boss who is demanding more revenue from gem purchases or was just with them in angry phone calls or something. Why else would such a stupid change be made just 3 months after release?

I can’t imagine any of the developers, programmers, QA staff or support staff were thinking to themselves “lets alienate a huge chunk of our existing playerbase for fun!” You don’t spend years making a game and try to do something this absurd in one patch unless someone is forcing you to do it.

If that is the case and they are not making enough money through gem purchase then they should concentrate on adding more desirable things to the cash shop.

Currently the items in the shop are just not interesting enough for people to pay money for. Add more variety and more cool stuff and people will spend more.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

xtorma.1283:

No

but what can you do.

Contact a lawyer and see if you can file a false advertising complaint.

And if you can, what does that solve?

Just to add the SWG issue. Read the following blog from a SWG dev, it has some relevance.

http://rubenfield.com/?p=86

Some things cannot be undone. I just hope Arenanet REALLY know their what they are doing, because if not, this could well be the next SWG NGE situation.

Edit: You have to put the ?p=86 in your browser manually it seems to go direct to the blog in question.

There is a new patch today. I should be excited, I should be desperate to get on and see what it’s about. But I’m not. I have become very apathetic about the game to the point where I’ll probably miss most of this event as I have little motivation to even log in right now. To say I’m gutted is an understatement.

I saw something on Kotaku where Isaiah Cartwright was doing a live Q&A. Someone asked a direct question about vertical progression which he neatly avoided answering properly.

Q: how important for you is vertical progression in GW2?

A: All progression is important to us, we want to make sure our rewards and progression systems hit a spectrum of players and makes everyone feel excited to play the game.

Was hoping to see more on the session but actually it was a pretty lame affair.

Link here: http://kotaku.com/5960951/the-lead-designer-of-guild-wars-2-is-answering-your-questions-right-now?tag=kotaku-q%26a

Zynthetic.2954:

xiv.7136:

Just leave for a while and play something else.

You’ll be back soon enough

Yep. When Arenanet realise ascended gear was the dumbest idea ever, and admit they kittened up and apologise.

Then people will come back.

Don’t hold your breath.

None. Nobody wanted to play. I asked everybody I know that plays MMOs but isn’t playing this game (which is around 20 people).

Eurosdown.6072:

That is an insane amount of time to grind FotM for tokens. Not happening for me. But hey I heard that Star Wars mmo just went f2p…

EA think ‘Free to Play’ means being bashed over the head constantly until you either spend a ton of money in their cash shop OR buy a subscription. It’s the worst F2P model I have ever seen. Despite what I think of these changes, it will not force me over to SWTOR.

I just want some more clarity on the situation here. Are there going to be more tiers after ascended or not? If no, I can live with it, I yes, then I will probably look at some other game.

Namu.5712:

Xpiher.5209:

Namu.5712:

Jairyn.6913:

tkalamba.2541:

Sennar.2309:

Can we have an official answhere?I think that at this points guys, the game don’t come back to their phylosophy.Why you are here only to delete post like mine before and don’t give us a real answhere?

Read this http://www.guildwars2hub.com/guides/basics/complete-guide-fractals-mists#.UKT2QkeP4Po.reddit

Full breakdown in new mechanics

So, grinding.

But for some reason you think its required lol.

I think people need to stop the panic and quoting of AN’s statements about gear. And actually GO READ THE NEW MECHANICS AND HOW THE GEAR ACTUALLY FUNCTIONS. And then understand what the content you read says. It states specifically that you don’t need the gear, like straight up. The gear is there to fill the gap for gear grinders. You are not forced to grind for the gear, you are not forced to get the gear to run the new dungeon.

The only problem is WvW, sound like a broken record. But scaling needs to be in place for ascended/legendary’s for WvW…. unless of course as they stated before no rules in WvW, in which case if you are a serious WvW’er you need to get new gear….. but ascended isn’t the gear you should be getting you should be getting legendary gear. Because of the sigil. Which makes exotic still the number one choice in WvW over ascended gear because of the sigil’s. The minor stat boost on ascended does not out weigh the sigil stats on exotic gear.

You simply don’t understand people’s complaint. Its that ANET hasn’t been clear if new content will require will offer better gear than ascended gear and require ascended gear to obtain or not.

The new content sounds great IF IT WASN’T FOR THE LACK OF CLARITY I WOULD BE ECSTATIC.

Well a good majority of the complaints here are largely based on a misinformation and lack of actually reading about the new stuff.

They said they would build on infusions, they didn’t say they would build on gear. So I am thinking that new dungeons will also be progressive and at a certain point you will require a special infusion based on that dungeon….something along those lines. Thats pure speculation though….. just like everything else here regarding gear treadmills and gating.

I think the point is, they also didn’t say they wouldn’t build on gear. With this change, which many players feel has gone directly against their manifesto, we are left wondering whether we will now start to see further tiered sets released with future content updates.

Arenanet has since released a statement trying to calm the furore, but it hasn’t worked. Due to their lack of clarity, there are still unanswered questions about their philosophy on gear updates going forward. Most people just want to see a ’don’t worry folks, this is a one off deal and we have no intention of adding more and more sets as we go forward’. Instead we get ’don’t worry folks, we don’t intend on adding more sets every three months’.

See the difference?

Danikat.8537:

I would recommend Desolation because it seems to be pretty active across all the maps and people are generally friendly and helpful, but I think it’s full now so it’s probably not much use as a suggestion.

I second Desolation. I’ve been here since the start and have never had any cause to move. As Danikat says it’s a very friendly server. If you can get on it, do it

szar.9054:

Mandrax.7342:

szar.9054:

Mandrax.7342:

Tito.3270:

200 hours to reach level 80, are you kittening kidding me?
I bought the game, didn’t rush anything, did all dungeons, did all the jumping puzzles i could find, explored a lot, tried out spvp and WvW and was 80 on my 4th day of playing, the GW2 leveling process is realy realy fast.

The hardcore players did it in 2 days after release. I would say that ~40-50 hours is a normal amount to reach 80.

I have a level 38 alt that has 56 hours of play time on it. I wouldn’t say that 40-50 hours is normal. Normal if you are going fast and missing things. But for those of us that like to take in the scenery, craft, gather materials for crafting etc, then 40-50 hours is very fast.

42.3 hours,you play slow. dont include all the time your not actually leveling.

I’m giving you my /age time. Note that I never stay logged in whilst not actually playing, I log out if I’m going to be idle. I would include exploring, gathering and crafting in my figures however because that does actually count as levelling since it reward experience.

my age was 42.3 hours when i hit 80 and i only did exp activities `80% of the time. you aren’t efficient in you activities.

I was efficient actually.

I did nothing but kill, do hearts, events, craft, gather and explore. I was 400 crafting by the time I hit 80 without actually spending much at all on the TP. I obtained 100% completion on every map that I leveled through and experienced 90% of all the events in each area, including finding and doing all the hidden dungeons, instanced dungeons AND jumping puzzles. I also took time to look at the world, enjoy the interaction between NPCs and understand the stories and characters in each zone.

My goal was not to reach 80 as quickly as possible, my goal was to experience as much of the game as possible whilst actively progressing to 80. I would say that I was very efficient in reaching the goal that I set.

If it is your goal to reach 80 as fast as is possible, then of course you measure efficiency differently, however, that was not my aim.

Anyway, this thread is about whether someone could reach 80 before an expansion is released. I think even leveling my way, the answer is yes.

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

Urxx.6840:

TheIronFistOfDeath.3016:

I see no problem with ascended gear so long as it doesn’t become a requirement to play content.

It will become more and more of a requirement to play an increasing amount of content

Unless it doesn’t.

Don’t you love circular rhetoric?

They already said it will. Without infusions you can only get so far in the new content. The only way to get infusions is with ascended gear. They also said that in future they will add new infusions with new content which means if you want to enjoy said new content, you will need ascended gear.

tkalamba.2541:

Mandrax.7342:

Krone.4605:

can someone explain me, why should i even try crafting exotic armor if i would have to grind for ascended one?

There is no point. Unless of course the playerbase start making it a requirement to join groups for the new dungeon, which is a real possibility.

This is entirely an issue of the playerbase then, and not really the updated tier. With this many people complaining that they don’t want it to happen, do you really think people will actually force groups to be all ascended and the like? Did you not see that the way the system is designed, it sets difficulty based on the highest common level reached in this dungeon. What this means is, in a group of 5, if 4 are at level 10 of the dungeon, and 1 is at level 2, the difficulty will be set to level 2 as that is the highest common level with the entire group. Now… what will this do? There will be a point where people will hit a wall and will not be able to progress. Newer players, and those who haven’t run the dungeon who aren’t wearing Ascended gear will be in great demand, especially for people looking to farm the dungeon.

I know all that. I was merely responding to the question of ‘what is the point of crafting exotics now that ascended is coming’.

Urxx.6840:

For technical reasons, even if they listen to feedback I don’t expect them to pull the patch.

In order to restore my faith in them, for me it would be enough to get an official statement saying they underestimated the negative impact a new tier of gear would have on the community and they would either publish the patch without ascended gear or immediately start working of pulling ascended gear from the game and giving infusion slots to exotics.

Giving some way to exchange exotics for ascended equivalents would also prove their good faith and the fact the introduction of ascended items will be a one-time event and won’t waste previous investments from the players.

If the weight of this discontent is enough to force them into some kind of action, then I would expect them to still go ahead with ascended gear but just not add any new tiers in future.

I’m sure most players will not mind having to grind out one more tier if they know 100% that there would be no more in future.

Krone.4605:

can someone explain me, why should i even try crafting exotic armor if i would have to grind for ascended one?

There is no point. Unless of course the playerbase start making it a requirement to join groups for the new dungeon, which is a real possibility.

Kana.6793:

Levelling on this game is very fast. But we can’t really answer this question since we don’t know exactly how fast you level and no expansion has been announced yet

I think this is an important point. Everybody plays differently.